Public place

Yesterday I mentioned to someone while passing a beautiful building downtown (a pseudo-palace of some sort) that in Russia, even public bathrooms look nicer. The someone probably thought I was joking, so here is a proof that I was not:

“Public Bathroom with Administrative Space”
(Общественный туалет с административными помещениями¹)
Razumovsky st., Stream № 4 Region
Ordered by: Caucasus Courort
Built by: Eurostroi
Beginning of work: 1st quarter of 2009
End of work: 4th quarter of 2009

So there. The said structure is allegedly being erected in the famous resort of Yessentuki.

[Via Alex Exler]

_____
¹ Look up the translation if you don’t believe me.

Use paragraphs

Just an advice to fellow bloggers (and I don’t mean anyone in particular): use paragraphs.

Otherwise, your posts look (and inspire desire to read them) just like this.

Of course, having short paragraphs with only one or two sentences in each also looks stupid.

Selling things outside of Beis HaMikdosh

I heard yesterday from someone that he had a problem with some guy standing outside of the mikveh of Arizal and selling towels. He said it reminded him of 770 today, supposedly one of the holiest places of the golus, outside of which people are standing and selling stuff. Also, people standing inside, talking, etc. Thank G-d not smoking anymore for the most part (after than ensued a conversation about how everyone used to smoke inside all the time, and how Reb Yoel Kan smoked during his shiurim so much that you had to open a window to breathe).

I commented that it was the same in the time of the Beis HaMikdosh, wasn’t it? People were selling livestock, food and other things right outside of Beis HaMikdosh. At which point someone commented that there is even a story with Yoshka about that (whether or not it’s true and whether it was an appropriate comment is another point), and the original speaker said: “Yes, the feeling of kedusha lost”.

Now, my question is not about the fact that the feeling of kedusha was lost, both in the times of the Beis HaMikdosh and around 770 today. I am wondering, however: is it so wrong to sell towels for the mikveh outside of mikveh or sell cattle for karbonos right outside Beis HaMikdosh? Isn’t that what creating dira b’tachtoinim all about — participating in the world? The guy selling towels is selling something you need for a mikveh; when you buy a towel from him, you allow him to earn livelihood (as opposed to schnor, which I suppose is a more stereotypical activity for a frum Jew nowadays), and since all of that is used for a holy purpose (going to a mikveh), what’s the problem?

I am also wondering whether there is a conflict of oiros vs. etzem in here. Experience vs. the essence. Which is interesting, because the same person told me that it is more chassidish to daven in a minyan, where you’re bottul to the fact that you need other nine men, vs. davening b’avoida, where it’s all about your own experience.

Obama in Hogwarts poll

Please participate in my first ever poll (on the right): Obama in Hogwarts.


(Picture just for illustration purposes. Please don’t be swayed by a particular House’s colors on this model.)

A new breed

Question of the day

Did the Avois and the Imois eat only Lubavitch shchita?

Make-believe

This is how what we, religious Jews, do looks to the secular Jews. And vice versa.

How Christianity was born

… literally. (Warning: somewhat R-rated.)

“Teen [alegedly] pregnant after swimming in a pool.”

I guess the whole “Holy Spirit did it” excuse has been so overused nobody would believe it anymore.

Regarding statistics

Introduction into the world of Go

Part I:



Part II:



Part III (after you’ve tried a game):

Surrounding children with holiness vs. accepting the truth wherever it comes from

I’ve been meaning to post this (and other things) for a while, but could not really find the time to do it. Something my rabbi said two Shabbosim ago.

We learn in Pirkei Avos: “Yehudah ben Tema said: Be bold as a leopard, light as an eagle, swift as a deer, and strong as a lion, to carry out the will of your Father in Heaven” (5:23). This is also quoted in Shulchan Aruch (both the regular one and Alter Rebbe’s) and explained and expounded upon in detail in many places. That’s not what I am going to write about.

At the same time, we know that the Rebbe started a “campaign” against little Jewish children having non-kosher animals in the images around them (on their cribs, their clothes, in their books) or as their toys. I am also not going to discuss this, where it is coming from, halachic and spiritual aspects of, etc., etc. There are those much more knowledgeable than me who have done this, and there are better places online and offline where this was discussed.

What I am interested in considering is something my rabbi said. One the one hand, the Rebbe was against spiritually unclean animals surrounding a young child. On the other, Shulchan Aruch and Pirkei Avos tell us to learn from non-kosher animals. What’s going on?

The answer is: “everything that Hashem created, He created for His glory.” And “just because fools worship, sun, moon and the stars, should Hashem destroy His Universe?” We can learn from anyone and from anything and utilize anything for the purpose of holiness. The Rebbe himself was incredibly emphatic on this point, and in my opinion no stream of thought inside or outside of Judaism emphasizes this idea better and clearer (very strongly but without shtus — unlike some other streams of thought) than Chabad. But — there is time and place for everything. Just because we need to be able to learn from unkosher animals and in general impure phenomena in the Universe does not mean they should surround little children.

Little children need to be surrounded by purity, holiness and Torah in its cleanest and most direct form. When they are older, and Torah has penetrated to (or rather revealed) their essence, they can learn from other things.

So, this is what my rabbi said. My question is: should the same philosophy, perhaps, be applied to chochmas chitzoinius (secular studies)? Specifically regarding children.

The world at peace and in balance

Click here to see a larger image. Trust me, in this case you want to.
Click here to buy a 22"+ screen.

A few things that jumped to my attention:

1. Soviet Union ate most of Europe (including East Germany) and Iran.
2. Despite United Europe, Ireland, UK and the Vikings (the countries which even today are reluctant to participate in European Socialism Project) are separate entities. As is Turkey, which even today does not fit with either Arabs or Europeans.
3. “Hebrew land”.
4. Screw Canada and Mexico. They should only be so happy to be part of the United States of America. Along with Greenland (which apparently no longer belongs to Denmark) and Iceland (which apparently is no longer part of Europe).
5. Albania and Greece are their own thing. What is it with liberal college professors (from Woody the Wilson on) trying to put the South European countries (Yugoslavia etc.) together? Get the hint already: there are about 200 nationalities in that little region, and the hate each other. Even people from the same village hate each other, let along from different ethnicities.
6. United Republics of China. Ha-ha.
7. I like the three major international unions. USSR — united by political ideology. USA — united by common economic interests. British Commonwealth — united by a desire to play cricket together.
8. Madagascar is part of the British Commonwealth, not African whachamacallit. “Arrr. There be pirrrrates there. We want them with us.”

Anything I am missing? Leave a comment.

Nabokov on the difference between Russian and English

I couldn’t find a translation, so I made an attempt at it myself. Which is somewhat ironic, given the content.

Scientific scrupulousness moved me to save in the Russian text the last paragraph of the above-mentioned American afterword, despite the fact that it can only throw into confusion a Russian reader, not remembering and not understanding and never having read the books of “V. Sirin” published abroad in the 20s and 30s. To my American reader I so strongly insist on the superiority of my Russian word over the English one that some Slavist may indeed think that my translation of Lolita is one hundred times better than the original. I, however, am at another time nauseous from the off-tuned braying of my rusty Russian strings. The history of this translation is one of disappointment. Alas, that “wondrous Russian language”, which, it seemed to me, was still waiting for me somewhere, flourishing as a sure spring behind strongly shut gates, to which I for so many years had had a key, turned out nonexistent, and behind the gates lay nothing but charred tree stumps and autumn hopeless horizon, while the key resembled more a lock pick.

I find consolation in thinking that awkwardness of the present translation is the fault not only of a translator grown foreign to his native tongue, but also of the spirit of the language into which the translation is made. During the half a year of working on Russian Lolita, not only did I discover losing many personal trinkets, unreconstructible language movements and treasures, but also came to certain general conclusions about mutual translatability of the two wondrous languages.

Body language, poses, landscapes, slumber of trees, smells, rains, melting and shapeshifting hues of the nature, all that is gentle and human (surprisingly!), and everything masculine, rough, juicily vulgar turns out in Russian just as good, if not even better than in English. But so common to English things subtle and unspoken, poetry of thought, immediate exchange between the most abstract ideas, scampering of one-syllable qualifiers — all this, as well as everything relating to technology, fashions, sports, natural sciences and unnatural urges — becomes in Russian shackled, multi-syllabled, and often disgusting in the sense of style and rhythm. This misstep reveals the difference in historical aspect between the green Russian literary tongue and over-ripe as a fig ready to burst at seams, English language: between an ingenious but still somewhat uneducated, and often having bad taste youth and a venerable genius, uniting in himself stocks of shiny knowledge with full liberty of spirit. Liberty of spirit! All breath of humanity is in these words.

What do I personally think? I think Nabokov is full of crap.

Fresh news

As a new study whose results are published by BBC reports, vegetarians are half as likely to develop cancer and one fifth as likely to catch the Mad Cow disease, but are four times as likely to commit suicide and develop chronic depression, in comparison to the normal people.

Mary Creedfort, an eighty-year-old lady from Brighton, says that in her long life the worst illness she’s ever had was chronic arthritis which has plagued her from her early 30s. “Not a single tumor, though. Well, not a malignant — that’s Latin for ‘bad’ — one. There was this growth I had on my neck which they had to remove — see, there is still a scar.” Looking back at her life, however, Mary says she does not have too many happy memories. Of course, this could be a result of memory loss associated with chronic stress, another problem strongly connected with long-term vegetarianism according to the new study.

In other news, Europeans are now allowed to sell ugly vegetables and fruit. Amongst the nations most welcoming the change were Ireland and Poland. French found the more relaxed standards disgusting — not only because their aesthetic feelings were insulted, but because a ban and a regulation (doesn’t really matter of what) has been lifted. “Tuh mahch fheedohm iz bed!” said Gustav, an Eiffel Tower elevator operator.

The Chinese are coming!

Everyone knows that Chinese are trying to take over the planet. And they are starting by striking into the heart of the Western Civilization — eggs. This web-site shows the steps of Chinese egg counterfeiting, now happening throughout the free French-toast– and omelet-eating world.

Metamorphoses

Buy it.

More of the same.

Yes, Russians are nuts. Sometimes it pays off.

Shabbos stream of consciousness: Shabbos Parshas Koirach, day

Continuation of the previous post. If there is something you don’t get, it’s because 1) it’s an inside joke, 2) you have no sense of humor, 3) you don’t get Russian situational humor. Just a reminder that the same initials do not mean the same people every time.

"Yiddishe gashmius iz ruchnius. Goyishe ruchnius iz gashmius. "

Lunch

S: shrug.
A: shrug, getting a cup.
S: "Wait, you haven't washed yet? I thought you did, and that's why you were being quiet."
A: "No, I just didn't want to talk to you. Come to think of it, that's a great way to avoid talking to someone: just pretend you just washed. Even in a random situation. Like in a car, with a wife: 'Honey, I am sorry, I can't talk anymore, I am about to wash.'"

Acid is not really super necessary for digestion. Just for creating pepsin, which is not even the main protease (an enzyme breaking down proteins); the main one is in the intestines. Also, acid is for protection against bacteria (that's how kids can eat all kinds of crap and not get sick) and beginning of breaking down.

Av: I don't think it's necessarily because of the peppers. Because Am. and S. were not in pain.
Sh.: Am. is just very big.
Av.: It has nothing to do with body size, it's just your stomach being irritated.
Sh.: If you poured a giant a small shot of mashkeh, he would not get drunk.
Al: If you poured S. a small shot of mashkeh, she would get drunk, and you wouldn't.
Sh.: Yeah, but that's because she is a girl.

Rabbi P.: "Last night I mentioned how with all due respect to the rabbi from Mayanot at the farbrengen, I did not feel love when in a yechidus with the Rebbe. I felt awe. When [the rebbetzin] and I got married — that's when I felt love. The chupah was after Minchah, and then we went into yichud, so I asked to knock on the door when it would be time for Ma'ariv. And so, then we were [standing] outside the Rebbe's door, waiting for him to come out. And when he came out, he said ['Mazal tov'] to me and ['Mazal tov'] to [the rebbetzin]. And that's where I saw the love: of a parent for children." [Changes in Italic made after an angry reprimand from the Rabbi about retelling a story about the Rebbe exactly as one had heard it.]

A.: "You look very British."
The guy: "British? Nobody has ever told me that."
A.: "Maybe it's because I am from Israel. In Israel, there are two types of people, Israelis and not Israelis."
The guy: "But then, I could also look Italian."
A.: "Yes, I guess one could also say you look a little Italian."
Me: "Did you think I looked Russian the first time we met?"
A.: "No!.."
Me: "Really?"
A.: "I think the first words I ever said to you were: 'Kak dela?' ['How are things?']"

Before Mincha:

S.: "Where were all the quippy remarks the whole Shabbos?"
A.: "I am learning how to keep my mouth shut."
S.: "Why? Nobody except the Rabbi likes that."

Earlier:

S.: "When did you get the braces?"
A.: "I've always had them. Just hid behind the mustache."
S.: "That is such b.s.!"

A little later: "Are they bothering you?"
A.: "No, just getting used to them."
S.: "You will get used to them eventually."
A.: "Hopefully in less time than it took me to get used to my prosthetic eleventh toe."

Sholosh seudos:

An Israeli girl (b'Ivrit): "When is the Shabbos over?"
[An exchange back and forth between her and Rabbi P.]
Rabbi P.: "Now you're just being a pushy Israeli woman. Be nice, like N."

A.: "My parents are French."
Me: "Does this mean you are French too?"
A.: "Well, I was born in Paris."
Me: "So, for sure you are French."
A.: "Yes, I am French."
Someone: "She is Jewish."
Rabbi P.: "I was waiting for someone to say that. Who said she was French? [Sees that it was me.] Vos hackstu chainik?"

Rabbi P. about Pirkey Avos: "What does 'ma'sim toivim' mean? Torah and mitzvos. So why are they called by such name? Because they are similar to even tov — a brilliant. A mitzva is precious by itself, but it must also shine. A diamond covered with dirt is precious, but it does not shine. It does not let light into the world. So, people can learn Torah and do mitzvos [which are valuable by themselves] but not change and become more and more arrogant. So, that is the advantage of going to a Chabad yeshiva: it will prevent that from happening."

Me: "You know, my rabbi from New Orleans is going to be there. I will give you his name."
A.: "I will call you from there."
Me: "There is no cell phone reception."
A.: "Oh, no!"
Me: "But there is a nice pool."
A.: "Oh, nice!"
Y.: "It's all slimy!"
Me: "Who cares? It has water."
A.: "Yeah, who cares?"

An Israeli girl (b'Ivrit): "I am craving nicotine." [That's why she was asking when Shabbos is over.]
A.: "When I am wrapping tefillin, I forget about cigarettes."

S.: "What will you do if someone offers you an apple?"
A.: "I will cut it in peaces, along the longitudes."
S.: "What if someone offers you a carrot?"
A.: "I will cut it in circles."
S.: "What if you are drinking a Coke with ice cubes inside?"
A.: "I never eat the ice cubes anyway."
S.: "You know which one is the worst? Corn on the cob. That's the worst."

Me: "No wake-up service today?"
Rabbi P.: "You did not ask."
Me: "A Jew needs to ask?"

A.: "What are you looking at?"
E.: "Three girls trying to parallel-park a car."
A.: "They look fine [as far as where the car is]."
E.: "They were fine half an hour ago."

Shabbos stream of consciousness: Shabbos Parshas Koirach, evening

All resemblance to real people may or may not be accidental. All initials may or may not correspond to real first, second, or third names (or hereditary titles); besides, they do not correspond to the same people every time. Thoughts (mine and those of others’), conversations, divrei Torah.

After Mincha: We do need a Moshe Rabbeinu. Just because we stood in front of Har Sinai together doesn't mean we can communicate with G-d ourselves as successfully. ("Yes, it reminds one of you-know-what. 'Everything was created in opposites.' Deal with it.")

After Ma'ariv: "I don't know half of you half as well as I should like, and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve."

Dinner:

Rabbi P. [I am paraphrasing]: As he'd said in his e-mail, he was by a farbrengen in CH, where a rabbi who had never seen the Rebbe in his life was telling people about the greatness of the Rebbe. An amazing feeling. He also talked about the love felt during the yechidus. "I was not going to speak, but then he asked me to speak, so I said: you know, I've been to a yechidus with the Rebbe. When I was fourteen. And I did not feel love. I felt awe. I felt an overwhelming sense of awe. When you meet a person, you see him, his personality, character, history. When I saw the Rebbe, there was the sense of great Nothing. Just a source of pulsing power, of very direct purpose. He was there for a reason, and his whole life, his whole essence, his interaction with other Jews was geared towards that reason, that goal. And one was being overwhelmed by this [singular feeling] when standing in front of him."

A: "It's very strange to read the Rebbe talk about Moshe Rabbeinu and Korach. Because the Rebbe was the Moshe Rabbeinu of this generation, and he had his own personal Korach."

[The one for the day is long, so it will go in a separate post, next.]