Wednesday, November 20, 2024

A Beacon Of Freedom

Two friends of mine were talking to a refugee from Communist Cuba. He had escaped from Castro, and as he told the story of his horrible experiences, one of my friends turned to the other and said, ``We don't know how lucky we are.'' And the Cuban stopped and said, ``How lucky you are? I had someplace to escape to.''

Well, no, America's freedom does not belong to just one nation. We're custodians of freedom for the world. In Philadelphia, two centuries ago, James Allen wrote in his diary that ``If we fail, liberty no longer continues an inhabitant of this globe.'' Well, we didn't fail. And still, we must not fail. For freedom is not the property of one generation; it's the obligation of this and every generation. It's our duty to protect it and expand it and pass it undiminished to those still unborn.


Now, tomorrow is a special day for me. I'm going to receive my gold watch. And since this is the last speech that I will give as President, I think it's fitting to leave one final thought, an observation about a country which I love. It was stated best in a letter I received not long ago. A man wrote me and said: ``You can go to live in France, but you cannot become a Frenchman. You can go to live in Germany or Turkey or Japan, but you cannot become a German, a Turk, or a Japanese. But anyone, from any corner of the Earth, can come to live in America and become an American.''


Yes, the torch of Lady Liberty symbolizes our freedom and represents our heritage, the compact with our parents, our grandparents, and our ancestors. For it's the great life force of each generation of new Americans that guarantees that America's triumph shall continue unsurpassed into the next century and beyond. Other countries may seek to compete with us; but in one vital area, as a beacon of freedom and opportunity that draws the people of the world, no country on Earth comes close.

This, I believe, is one of the most important sources of America's greatness. We lead the world because, unique among nations, we draw our people -- our strength -- from every country and every corner of the world. And by doing so we continuously renew and enrich our nation. While other countries cling to the stale past, here in America we breathe life into dreams. We create the future, and the world follows us into tomorrow. Thanks to each wave of new arrivals to this land of opportunity, we're a nation forever young, forever bursting with energy and new ideas, and always on the cutting edge, always leading the world to the next frontier. This quality is vital to our future as a nation.

A number of years ago, an American student traveling in Europe took an East German ship across the Baltic Sea. One of the ship's crewmembers from East Germany, a man in his sixties, struck up a conversation with the American student. After a while the student asked the man how he had learned such good English. And the man explained that he had once lived in America. He said that for over a year he had worked as a farmer in Oklahoma and California, that he had planted tomatoes and picked ripe melons. It was, the man said, the happiest time of his life. Well, the student, who had seen the awful conditions behind the Iron Curtain, blurted out the question, ``Well, why did you ever leave?'' ``I had to,'' he said, ``the war ended.'' The man had been in America as a German prisoner of war.


Now, I don't tell this story to make the case for former POW's. Instead, I tell this story just to remind you of the magical, intoxicating power of America. We may sometimes forget it, but others do not. Even a man from a country at war with the United States, while held here as a prisoner, could fall in love with us. Those who become American citizens love this country even more. And that's why the Statue of Liberty lifts her lamp to welcome them to the golden door.


It is bold men and women, yearning for freedom and opportunity, who leave their homelands and come to a new country to start their lives over. They believe in the American dream. And over and over, they make it come true for themselves, for their children, and for others. They give more than they receive. They labor and succeed. And often they are entrepreneurs. But their greatest contribution is more than economic, because they understand in a special way how glorious it is to be an American. They renew our pride and gratitude in the United States of America, the greatest, freest nation in the world -- the last, best hope of man on Earth.


Ronald Reagan

כלים ביד כלינו - הרב אורי כהן

Trump Dance Conquers The World

WASHINGTON, D.C. — It's everywhere — Donald Trump's trademark fist-pumping dance has officially gone viral. From Political rallies and social media to NFL stadiums and chasunas [Kallah's are INSISTING that the chosson do the dance in front of them], there's no escaping pop culture's latest trend.

Even in the White House...

Anonymous sources within the White House confirmed reports of rising tension between President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris after Harris allegedly asked Biden to stop doing the Trump dance during cabinet meetings.

According to administration insiders, Biden had been practicing Trump's trademark fist-pumping shuffle at every opportunity for the last two weeks, leading to his vice president's patience wearing thin.

"He's been doing it all the time lately," said one staffer who asked to remain unnamed. "But after he started doing it for the third time during the same meeting, she was visibly upset. She's been pretty on edge since the election loss, and seeing Biden do the Trump dance just pushed her over the edge."

According to the reports, Harris reportedly yelled, "Joe, will you cut it out? I'm tired of it. We're all tired of it. I see that dance in my nightmares every night. I don't need to see it at work every day."

Biden reportedly pushed back against the criticism. "Aw, come on, man," Joe reportedly complained. "I'm still president for the next... however long. I want to do the... the thing."

At publishing time, Kamala had reportedly asked Biden to refrain from wearing his "TRUMP 2024" baseball cap around the White House.

Reflecting On Technology

Over the past 15 years, I've studied technologies of mobile communication and I've interviewed hundreds and hundreds of people, young and old, about their plugged in lives. And what I've found is that our little devices, those little devices in our pockets, are so psychologically powerful that they don't only change what we do, they change who we are. Some of the things we do now with our devices are things that, only a few years ago, we would have found odd or disturbing, but they've quickly come to seem familiar, just how we do things.

So just to take some quick examples: People text or do email during corporate board meetings. They text and shop and go on Facebook during classes, during presentations, actually during all meetings. People talk to me about the important new skill of making eye contact while you're texting. People explain to me that it's hard, but that it can be done. Parents text and do email at breakfast and at dinner while their children complain about not having their parents' full attention. But then these same children deny each other their full attention. This is a recent shot of my daughter and her friends being together while not being together. And we even text at funerals. I study this. We remove ourselves from our grief or from our revery and we go into our phones.

Why does this matter? It matters to me because I think we're setting ourselves up for trouble -- trouble certainly in how we relate to each other, but also trouble in how we relate to ourselves and our capacity for self-reflection. We're getting used to a new way of being alone together. People want to be with each other, but also elsewhere -- connected to all the different places they want to be. People want to customize their lives. They want to go in and out of all the places they are because the thing that matters most to them is control over where they put their attention. So you want to go to that board meeting, but you only want to pay attention to the bits that interest you. And some people think that's a good thing. But you can end up hiding from each other, even as we're all constantly connected to each other.

A 50-year-old business man lamented to me that he feels he doesn't have colleagues anymore at work. When he goes to work, he doesn't stop by to talk to anybody, he doesn't call. And he says he doesn't want to interrupt his colleagues because, he says, "They're too busy on their email." But then he stops himself and he says, "You know, I'm not telling you the truth. I'm the one who doesn't want to be interrupted. I think I should want to, but actually I'd rather just do things on my Blackberry."

Across the generations, I see that people can't get enough of each other, if and only if they can have each other at a distance, in amounts they can control. I call it the Goldilocks effect: not too close, not too far, just right. But what might feel just right for that middle-aged executive can be a problem for an adolescent who needs to develop face-to-face relationships. An 18-year-old boy who uses texting for almost everything says to me wistfully, "Someday, someday, but certainly not now, I'd like to learn how to have a conversation."

When I ask people "What's wrong with having a conversation?" People say, "I'll tell you what's wrong with having a conversation. It takes place in real time and you can't control what you're going to say." So that's the bottom line. Texting, email, posting, all of these things let us present the self as we want to be. We get to edit, and that means we get to delete, and that means we get to retouch, the face, the voice, the flesh, the body -- not too little, not too much, just right.

Human relationships are rich and they're messy and they're demanding. And we clean them up with technology. And when we do, one of the things that can happen is that we sacrifice conversation for mere connection. We short-change ourselves. And over time, we seem to forget this, or we seem to stop caring.

I was caught off guard when Stephen Colbert asked me a profound question, a profound question. He said, "Don't all those little tweets, don't all those little sips of online communication, add up to one big gulp of real conversation?" My answer was no, they don't add up. Connecting in sips may work for gathering discrete bits of information, they may work for saying, "I'm thinking about you," or even for saying, "I love you," -- I mean, look at how I felt when I got that text from my daughter -- but they don't really work for learning about each other, for really coming to know and understand each other. And we use conversations with each other to learn how to have conversations with ourselves. So a flight from conversation can really matter because it can compromise our capacity for self-reflection. For kids growing up, that skill is the bedrock of development.

Over and over I hear, "I would rather text than talk." And what I'm seeing is that people get so used to being short-changed out of real conversation, so used to getting by with less, that they've become almost willing to dispense with people altogether. So for example, many people share with me this wish, that some day a more advanced version of Siri, the digital assistant on Apple's iPhone, will be more like a best friend, someone who will listen when others won't. I believe this wish reflects a painful truth that I've learned in the past 15 years. That feeling that no one is listening to me is very important in our relationships with technology. That's why it's so appealing to have a Facebook page or a Twitter feed -- so many automatic listeners. And the feeling that no one is listening to me make us want to spend time with machines that seem to care about us.

We're developing robots, they call them sociable robots, that are specifically designed to be companions -- to the elderly, to our children, to us. Have we so lost confidence that we will be there for each other? During my research I worked in nursing homes, and I brought in these sociable robots that were designed to give the elderly the feeling that they were understood. And one day I came in and a woman who had lost a child was talking to a robot in the shape of a baby seal. It seemed to be looking in her eyes. It seemed to be following the conversation. It comforted her. And many people found this amazing.

But that woman was trying to make sense of her life with a machine that had no experience of the arc of a human life. That robot put on a great show. And we're vulnerable. People experience pretend empathy as though it were the real thing. So during that moment when that woman was experiencing that pretend empathy, I was thinking, "That robot can't empathize. It doesn't face death. It doesn't know life."

And as that woman took comfort in her robot companion, I didn't find it amazing; I found it one of the most wrenching, complicated moments in my 15 years of work. But when I stepped back, I felt myself at the cold, hard center of a perfect storm. We expect more from technology and less from each other. And I ask myself, "Why have things come to this?"

And I believe it's because technology appeals to us most where we are most vulnerable. And we are vulnerable. We're lonely, but we're afraid of intimacy. And so from social networks to sociable robots, we're designing technologies that will give us the illusion of companionship without the demands of friendship. We turn to technology to help us feel connected in ways we can comfortably control. But we're not so comfortable. We are not so much in control.

These days, those phones in our pockets are changing our minds and hearts because they offer us three gratifying fantasies. One, that we can put our attention wherever we want it to be; two, that we will always be heard; and three, that we will never have to be alone. And that third idea, that we will never have to be alone, is central to changing our psyches. Because the moment that people are alone, even for a few seconds, they become anxious, they panic, they fidget, they reach for a device. Just think of people at a checkout line or at a red light. Being alone feels like a problem that needs to be solved. And so people try to solve it by connecting. But here, connection is more like a symptom than a cure. It expresses, but it doesn't solve, an underlying problem. But more than a symptom, constant connection is changing the way people think of themselves. It's shaping a new way of being.

The best way to describe it is, I share therefore I am. We use technology to define ourselves by sharing our thoughts and feelings even as we're having them. So before it was: I have a feeling, I want to make a call. Now it's: I want to have a feeling, I need to send a text. The problem with this new regime of "I share therefore I am" is that, if we don't have connection, we don't feel like ourselves. We almost don't feel ourselves. So what do we do? We connect more and more. But in the process, we set ourselves up to be isolated.

How do you get from connection to isolation? You end up isolated if you don't cultivate the capacity for solitude, the ability to be separate, to gather yourself. Solitude is where you find yourself so that you can reach out to other people and form real attachments. When we don't have the capacity for solitude, we turn to other people in order to feel less anxious or in order to feel alive. When this happens, we're not able to appreciate who they are. It's as though we're using them as spare parts to support our fragile sense of self. We slip into thinking that always being connected is going to make us feel less alone. But we're at risk, because actually it's the opposite that's true. If we're not able to be alone, we're going to be more lonely. And if we don't teach our children to be alone, they're only going to know how to be lonely.

I once said, "Those who make the most of their lives on the screen come to it in a spirit of self-reflection." And that's what I'm calling for here, now: reflection and, more than that, a conversation about where our current use of technology may be taking us, what it might be costing us. We're smitten with technology. But it's time to talk. We grew up with digital technology and so we see it as all grown up. But it's not, it's early days. There's plenty of time for us to reconsider how we use it, how we build it. I'm not suggesting that we turn away from our devices, just that we develop a more self-aware relationship with them, with each other and with ourselves.

I see some first steps. Start thinking of solitude as a good thing. Make room for it. Find ways to demonstrate this as a value to your children. Create sacred spaces at home -- the kitchen, the dining room -- and reclaim them for conversation. Do the same thing at work. At work, we're so busy communicating that we often don't have time to think, we don't have time to talk, about the things that really matter. Change that. Most important, we all really need to listen to each other, including to the boring bits. Because it's when we stumble or hesitate or lose our words that we reveal ourselves to each other.

Technology is making a bid to redefine human connection -- how we care for each other, how we care for ourselves -- but it's also giving us the opportunity to affirm our values and our direction. I'm optimistic. We have everything we need to start. We have each other. And we have the greatest chance of success if we recognize our vulnerability. That we listen when technology says it will take something complicated and promises something simpler.

So in my work, I hear that life is hard, relationships are filled with risk. And then there's technology -- simpler, hopeful, optimistic, ever-young. It's like calling in the cavalry. An ad campaign promises that online and with avatars, you can "Finally, love your friends love your body, love your life, online and with avatars." We're drawn to virtual romance, to computer games that seem like worlds, to the idea that robots, robots, will someday be our true companions. We spend an evening on the social network instead of going out with friends.

But our fantasies of substitution have cost us. Now we all need to focus on the many, many ways technology can lead us back to our real lives, our own bodies, our own communities, our own politics, our own planet. They need us. Let's talk about how we can use digital technology, the technology of our dreams, to make this life the life we can love.

דור המסכים

 ביום הראשון של הכנס התקיים פאנל שכותרתו "לגדול בדור המסכים – מה עובר עלינו בעידן הסמרטפון והמחשב?". הייתה לי תחושה שזה פאנל חשוב יותר מכל האחרים. בניגוד לנושאים ביטחוניים וכלכליים כבדי משקל שנידונו שם - לנושא הזה יש נגיעה ישירה, אישית ויומיומית לכולנו. היחס שלנו לסלולרי שלנו הוא שיקבע איזו חברה תצמח כאן בעתיד, ועל כך יש לכל אחד ואחת מאיתנו השפעה יותר מאשר על הגרעין האיראני או תקציב המדינה. אז נשארתי באולם. אלחנן גלט, מנכ"ל מרכז ישיבות ואולפנות בני עקיבא, השמיע בדברי הפתיחה שלו בקשה כנה ונכונה: "תפסיקו לדבר על ילדינו, תדברו עלינו! אל תדברו על ההתמודדות שלהם עם המכשירים האלה, אלא על ההתמודדות שלנו. תדרשו מעצמכם שליטה והגנה בתחום הזה, ורק אז מהם".


אבל אז החל פאנל מוזר: אנשי החינוך שישבו שם היו מלאי אופטימיות, ואנשי המקצוע – מלאי פסימיות. הרב ד"ר אברהם ליפשיץ, שעומד כידוע בראש החינוך הממלכתי-דתי, אמר שהמהפכה הטכנולוגית היא חלק מעידן הגאולה. "הרב קוק כבר הסביר מה זה 'בכל דרכיך דעהו'. בכל הדרכים. הקדוש ברוך הוא מעמיד אותנו באתגרים ובמהפכות כדי לקרב אותנו לגאולה, אין ספק בכך". רעות גיאת, סגנית המנהל החינוכי של מוסדות בני עקיבא, סיפרה כמה מקל עליה לקבל מהבן שלה מסרים בווטסאפ בכל פעם שהוא עלה או ירד מטרמפ.



היא תיארה גם איך הכלי הזה מביא אלפי אנשים בבת אחת לחתונות של זוגות בודדים או לבר מצוות נידחות ונטושות. גם שאול דה מלאך, מזכ"ל תנועת עזרא, דיבר במתינות. הוא אמנם סיפק אבחנה מעניינת ("פעם בטיולים של תנועות הנוער העיקר היה המסלול, החוויה, והיום התמונה שיוצאת להם חשובה יותר מהטיול"), אבל הקפיד לומר שלא צריך להפחיד ולתקוף ולדבר נגד, אלא ללמוד להכיל. המילה "מורכבות" חזרה שם שוב ושוב. הם נשמעו לי מלאי כוונות טובות וערכים כמובן, אבל הרושם שהתקבל הוא כאילו מדובר בשילוב בין תורה לצבא, בין תורה לעבודה, בין תורה למדע, ולא בין תורה לפצצה מתקתקת. כן, ברור שהם דיברו גם על גבולות ועל סינון ועל הצורך לאזן, אבל הם לא נשמעו לחוצים אלא מלאי תקווה.


מי שנשמע לחוץ מאוד היו אנשי המקצוע שישבו שם. בזה אחר זה הם טענו שדור ההורים והמחנכים של היום תמים מדי. שהעין הטובה הזאת – היא רעה מאוד. הרב איתן אקשטיין, ראש מוסד הגמילה הדתי 'רטורנו', סיפר איך לפני עשור הוא טיפל בעיקר במכורים לסמים ולאלכוהול, ואיך היום המכורים לסלולרי ולתכנים הבעייתיים שבו תופסים פתאום מקום משמעותי. אחר כך דיברה ד"ר תמר אלמוג, חוקרת מאוניברסיטת חיפה, שהסבירה – כאדם לא דתי – כמה חשובה השבת, וכמה חשובה ההתנתקות (אולי צריך לומר "העקירה"?). "אני רוצה לדבר בזכות השבת ובזכות השעמום", היא הפתיעה את הקהל.



"אדם שאין לו שעת שעמום ביום – אני לא מקנאה בו. לאחרונה שמתי לב שגם בבריכות שחייה, אנשים שמגיעים לשחות באים עם אוזניות. אני לא מבינה, יש לכם כבר שעה של שקט עם עצמכם - גם כאן אתם צריכים תקשורת חיצונית? קחו לכם זמן לחשוב. האדם חייב להתנתק קצת. בנהיגה, בבישול, או סתם בכמה רגעי שעמום ולא-כלום. אסור לוותר על הזכות לא לעשות שום דבר".


ד"ר תמר אלמוג ובעלה, פרופ' עוז אלמוג, פרסמו החודש ספר חדש שעוסק כולו בדור הדיגיטלי הנוכחי, המכונה דור ה‑Y. חלק מהמחנכים על הבמה ניסו לתאר את הדור הזה על פי "מאמר הדור" (כלומר: כולו זכאי וכולו חייב, כולו גולש לתהומות של אבדון בפייסבוק, אבל כולו גם מארגן יריד חסד דרך הווטסאפ). ד"ר אלמוג הייתה נוקבת הרבה יותר: "גדל פה דור שכבר לא יודע איפה מכבים את המכשיר.


הם לא כמונו, הם לא חוו שנים שלמות בלעדיו, בילדות. איפה אנחנו? בואו נודה: כולנו די סמרטוטים. לא יודעים לתפוס מנהיגות. חינוך זה לא מספיק, צריך רגולציה בתחום המשפט והטכנולוגיה. צריך חקיקה. על כל קופסת סיגריות כתוב שזה מסוכן לעשן, אבל זה לא מספיק. רק ברגע שבו הגדירו בחוק שבמקום ציבורי לא מעשנים – הורידו את רמת השימוש. כן, זו כפייה, אבל זה מה שנדרש".


3



אם רבנית בכיסוי-ראש הייתה מדברת ככה, ומולה הייתה ניצבת חוקרת חילונית שהייתה מבקשת לראות גם את הברכה שיש בטכנולוגיה – הייתי הרבה פחות מופתע. אבל פה, כאמור, זה היה די להיפך. וכאן השתלב בדיון תמיר ליאון, חוקר מפורסם של "דור המסכים": "הרגזתם אותי", הוא אמר, "די כבר לדבר על מה טוב בכלי הזה. לאחרונה הוגש בג"ץ מוצדק נגד משרד החינוך, נגד הטאבלטים. לא צריך לדחוף לתלמידים עוד מסכים". וכאן גם הוא נדרש להשוואה לתחום העישון: "מתי תבינו שמסכים זה כמו סיגריות? פעם הרי חשבו שלעשן זה בריא. לקח שנים לפוצץ את זה.


רבותיי, המסכים מחרפנים לכם את הילדים! זה פוגע בהם מבחינה הורמונלית, זה גורם לחרדות, להפרעות אישיות, יש עלייה אדירה בכל המדדים הרעים האלה. די כבר לאשליה של הקידמה בחינוך, כאילו לדחוף מסך לילד זה יותר טוב מלדבר איתו. המחקר האחרון של ה‑OECD הראה יחס הפוך: יותר טכנולוגיה מביאה להישגים יותר חלשים. הילדים נהיים עוד יותר עצלנים. אל תגידו לי 'ילד יכול להגיע היום לידע תוך כמה דקות', כי הכי חשוב שילד יהיה כמה דקות עם עצמו. אתם יודעים כמה שעות אני הייתי עם עצמי כילד? הילדים היום לא יודעים להיות עם עצמם, הם תמיד מחפשים משהו חיצוני.



צריך להחליט, צריך להנהיג. אנחנו נחמדים מדי. אם אתם אוהבים אותם – תפסיקו להיות נחמדים. אתם לוקחים לילדים שלכם את יכולת הבחירה. אני מתחנן למנכ"לית משרד החינוך לאסור סמרטפונים בבתי הספר, והיא אומרת לי: זו גזירה שאין הציבור יכול לעמוד בה. רבותיי, תנהיגו. אתם יודעים כמה רמת האמפתיה של ילדים אחר כלפי השני ירדה? ילד שפוגע כבר לא מבין שהוא פוגע, הוא לא מרגיש שפגע, הרגשות שלו קהים".


ופתאום חשבתי לעצמי: למה הוא מתחנן ככה, תמיר ליאון? למה חוקר גלוי ראש עומד מול מאות אורחים דתיים של כנס 'בשבע', ביניהם רבנים וחברי כנסת ואישי ציבור וחינוך, וממש מפציר בהם להתעורר? אולי כי גם כאן, בתחום הזה, המגזר הזה צריך להוביל? אולי ליאון מזהה מולו ציבור עם אידיאלים, שיודע למסור את נפשו על דברים עצומים ונפלאים אבל בסוף נכשל מול איזה מכשיר סלולרי קטן? ואולי גם הוא מבין, שאם הציבור הזה – שכל הזמן מדבר על חיבור נכון בין קודש לחול – יתפוס פיקוד בתחום הכי חשוב, הוא יוכל להדביק את כל החברה הישראלית?


גם יריב פאר, מנכ"ל אינטרנט רימון, ניסה לנער את הנוכחים משלוותם: "הבעיה הכי קשה היא לא האינטרנט הפתוח, אלא ההכחשה", אמר מי שהמוצר שלו אמור להיות הסטנדרט הבסיסי בכל בית. "יש פה אי הבנה מוחלטת עד כמה המציאות השתנתה. אתם יודעים איפה בתורה מוזכר אינטרנט רימון?", הוא שואל, ומישהו בקהל צועק: "וסיננתם לבניך"... פאר לא מחייך. הוא מאוד רציני כשהוא ממשיך:


"אינטרנט רימון מופיע לראשונה בבית פוטיפר. יוסף הצדיק עומד בניסיון שם בגלל דמות דיוקנו של אביו שנראית לו בחלון. כלומר, הקול ההורי הוא ההגנה הכי חשובה. ההורים שאומרים מה מותר ומה אסור, שמתווים דרך, הם העיקר, ואז, גם כשהילד יוצא מהבית ומתרחק – יש קול שמלווה אותו. תפסיקו להתכחש למציאות. איך ייתכן שרוב הציבור הדתי לא מסנן מינימלית את המחשבים שלו?".


לקראת סיום, הרב אקשטיין שאל שאלה מהדהדת: איך נדע האם משהו הוא טוב או לא? בואו נבדוק האם היינו רוצים שהוא יגיע לעולמנו מוקדם יותר. הוא ביקש מכל אחד מהנוכחים לחשוב האם הוא היה רוצה שהסמרטפון היה קיים כבר בילדותו. ניסיתי לדמיין את עצמי כילד קטן עם סלולרי, ואז כנער עם אייפון, כשמסביבי גם ההורים שלי דבוקים למכשיר הזה, ודי נבהלתי.


ממש התמלאתי תחושת תודה על כך שגדלתי בשנים פשוטות יותר, שנים שהיו חממה של ממש. על כך שבנעוריי לא התמודדתי עם הפיתוי הזה, ועל כך שהפיתויים היו רחוקים יותר ובלתי מושגים יותר. אין לי ספק שאם היה לי סלולרי מאז שנולדתי, לא הייתי כותב עכשיו את הטור הזה. כלומר, אולי הייתי מנסה לכתוב, אבל לא נראה לי שהייתם מסכימים לקרוא משהו בסגנון "פחחח גמני מתרגש!!!! ענקקקק".


בסוף הפאנל הזה, כשהאורות נדלקו, ניגשתי לכמה חבר'ה צעירים שהיו באולם. נראה לי שהם באו לשם בכלל כדי לצלם את נפתלי בנט להכתרה שלהם. אמרתי לבני הנוער האלה שלא אגלה מאיזו ישיבה תיכונית הם מגיעים, אבל שיגידו לי מי צודק לדעתם – המחנכים או המומחים. אתם יכולים לנחש לבד מה הייתה התשובה. והיא נאמרה בחיוך מריר ובעיניים כבויות.

Costco Introduces Even Larger ‘Mormon Family' Size

SALT LAKE CITY, UT — Costco announced this week that it would be rolling out new "Mormon Family Size" items for even larger families of a particular religious persuasion.

The move came in response to demand in the area of enormous families that needed larger quantities than Costco's traditional portions to feed entire squadrons of children.

"We've noticed our usual product sizes don't meet the needs of families of ten or more kids," Costco spokesperson Natalie Carson told reporters at a press conference in Salt Lake City this week. "We believe this new sizing option will greatly benefit Members of the Church Of J---s C---t Of Latter-day Saints, or MOTCOJCOLDS, as they prefer to be called."

The new size options will include a 9-foot-tall box of Cheez-It crackers, milk that comes in 50-gallon drums instead of gallon jugs, eggs that come in a gross rather than dozen, and bananas sold by the tree instead of by the bunch.

"I love this idea!" Mormon mom Tiffany Thueson said. "Now I only have to buy 10 grosses of eggs instead of 150 dozen every week. It makes shopping so much simpler."

Costco announced the product offerings will appear on shelves just in time for the holiday season, which for Mormons begins on Joseph Smith's birthday on December 23.

At publishing time, Costco had also rolled out "Catholic Size" options for families of 15 kids or more or one childless gay couple, whichever Pope Francis decided to promote this week. 

Agudath Yisrael Of America lauded the move. "This is a great boon to the typical Haredi family", said Rabbi Moshe Piryonovitch. "I think of a Jewish grandmother buying presents for her countless children and grandchildren. So convenient! Barukh Hashem". 

Why Can't Yitzchak Go To The Land Of His Kallah?? #1

 HERE!!!


Mishnas R' Yitzchak Yonah Zavim 1-4: Shiurim Of Ziva


And many more new shiurim!!:-)