Guard Thy Tongue

One of the many reasons I LOVE being Jewish is the emphasis our Torah places on the importance of guarding one's speech. As a recovering youthful sports addict, I refer to five "foot-the-mouth-stories" from the world of Greek conquest...

1] The late Howard Cosell, famed Monday Night Football commentator, attracted a firestorm of criticism for calling a Washington Redskins wide receiver a "little monkey" during a 1983 telecast. Cosell left the MNF booth at the end of that season.

2] Aging Los Angeles Dodgers executive Al Campanis, who came up under general manager Branch Rickey, the man who integrated baseball with Jackie Robinson in 1947, saw his long career come to an immediate end in 1987 when he appeared on ABC's "Nightline" and confusedly compared black players' inability to acquire baseball managerial jobs with an inability to swim.

3] A clearly inebriated Jimmy "the Greek" Snyder saw his 12-year run on the hugely popular CBS football pregame show "The NFL Today" disintegrate when he gave an interview to a local Washington, D.C., television station in 1988 in which he said black athletes were dominating pro sports because of superior athletic genes developed from decades of breeding by white slave owners.

4] Atlanta Braves pitcher John Rocker was haunted for the rest of his career by an interview he gave to Sports Illustrated in 1999 in which he was quoted as criticizing foreigners, homosexuals, and New York City.

5] And just last season, Philadelphia Eagles wide receiver Riley Cooper was nationally lambasted for using the "N-word" ["Narishkeit"? "Neveileh"?] during a drunken tirade at a Kenny Chesney concert that was caught on film. For weeks there was speculation that Cooper's NFL career was over.

[Though he apologized repeatedly, many players and sports commentators felt Cooper could no longer go on playing in the league. However, he went on to have his most successful year as a pro and signed a new five-year deal with the Eagles in February.]

As King Solomon said it best - שומר פיו ולשונו, שומר מצרות נפשו.

תינוק בן יטא עליזה

Tinok ben Yita Aliza - please daven!

The Right Wrong Person

A good quote:

“We’re all seeking that special person who is right for us. But if you’ve been through enough relationships, you begin to suspect there’s no right person, just different flavors of wrong. Why is this? Because you yourself are wrong in some way, and you seek out partners who are wrong in some complementary way. But it takes a lot of living to grow fully into your own wrongness. And it isn’t until you finally run up against your deepest demons, your unsolvable problems—the ones that make you truly who you are—that we’re ready to find a lifelong mate. Only then do you finally know what you’re looking for. You’re looking for the wrong person. But not just any wrong person: the right wrong person—someone you lovingly gaze upon and think, 'This is the problem I want to have.'

I will find that special person who is wrong for me in just the right way.

Let our scars fall in love.”

The Mitzvos Of Kofrim

Recently we posted about people who keep mitzvos but don't really believe in them. Does such a person even get credit if he does a mitzva sans belief??

How do you pronounce "sans"? Did I use it correctly??

Anyway, the heilige Reb Elchonon ztz"l in his Kovetz Shiurim [vol. 2 simman 47/14] discusses this matter and says "No way!" How can one be considered doing a mitzva if he doesn't believe in the metzave [i.e. G-d]? The action is in the category of מתעסק - a completely unintentional action. He doesn't MEAN to do a mitzva so it is like a mistake. Rav Hutner ztz"l in the Pachad on Pesach [maamar 10] echoes this thought. R' Naftali Bar-Ilan treats this issue at length in the Ohr Hamizrach journal [37 page 224 and on]. עיין שם!

Rav Shlomo Zalman ztz"l [in Halichos Shlomo] had a different approach. He posited that when a person does a mitzva, even if he is a kofer, he ALSO has a "tzad" [sneaking suspicion] that there IS a G-d and that what he is doing has transcendental meaning. Thus, it WOULD count as a mitzva.

This is a topic that requires more discussion.....:-)

A gut choidesh!

Vat Vould YOU Say?

Shmuel had a bad car accident involving a large truck.


Weeks later, in court, the trucking company's high priced lawyer was questioning Shmuel. "Didn't you say, at the scene of the accident, 'I'm fine,'?" asked the lawyer.


Shmuel responded, "Vell, I'll tell you vat happened. I just put my dog Moishele, into the..."
"I didn't ask for any details," the lawyer interrupted. Just answer the question. "Did you not say, at the scene of the accident, 'I'm fine'?"


Shmuel said, "Vell, I just got Moishele into the car and vas driving down..."


The lawyer interrupted again and said, "Judge, I am trying to establish the fact that, at the scene of the accident, this man told the Highway Patrolman on the scene that he was just fine. Now several weeks after the accident he is trying to sue my client. I believe he is a fraud. Please, your honor, tell this man to simply answer the question."


The judge said, "I'd like to hear what he has to say about his dog Moishele."


Shmuel thanked the judge and proceeded. "Vell, like I vas saying, I just loaded Moishele, my lovely dog, into the car and vas driving him down the highway when this huge semi-truck and trailer ran the stop sign and smacked my truck right in the side. I vas thrown into one ditch and Moishele vas thrown into the other. I vas hurting, real bad and didn't want to move. But then I heard Moishele moaning and groaning. I knew he vas in terrible shape just by his groans.


"Den a Highway Patrolman came along. He could hear Moishele moaning and groaning so he vent over to him. After he looked at him, and saw vat terrible condition Moishele was in, he took out his gun and shoots him between the eyes. Den the Patrolman comes across the road, gun still in hand, looks at me and says, 'How you feeling?'


"Nu, Judge, vat vould you say?"

Practice Without Belief

I have long argued that for many, Orthodoxy is essentially Judaism without G-d. It is just a convenient social context for members of the tribe. Here is an article where a practitioner admits it.

What bothers me more than the fact that he and so many others are living a lie [i.e. they practice but they don't believe in what they are doing] but that it doesn't even seem to bother them. If someone has doubts we have a vast corpus of literature dealing with matters of faith that guide, enlighten and remove the fog created by our physically dominated existence. But all too often people aren't willing to expend the effort to learn. People spend far more time researching a vacation spot they are considering than the purpose of their existence.

They are missing out on so much.

SAD.

Waxing Ancient

A new kallah, graduate of a good American Beis Yaakov, eager to buy chicken for Shabbos, walks into a makolet in Ramat Eshkol, and says to the man behind the counter כמה ממון עולה השכוי?