somehow i started to get emails from "InTORAHnet,"* I have to admit to not reading most of them. For whatever reason I recently opened the "dvar torah" on parashat shlach. The idea was somehow to connect the balfour declaration/early zionism, the spies, and the talit. It concludes:

When we wrap ourselves in a Talit - may we remember the eternal connection between G-d and the Jewish people; and when we look upon the flag of Israel may we too remember that its intential [sic] colors and purposeful design are reminders that a people of destiny has a land of destiny. In the words of the Zohar, "G-d, Torah and Israel are one."

Ahhhhh! Am I right that he is implying that "Israel" refers to the land thereof in the famed quote? The fact that the quote is supposed to support something about the "land of destiny" suggests yes. The obvious wrong-ness of such a reading, and the fact that he also refers to the Jewish people, suggests no. Or is he playing on a supposed ambiguity (which is also an obviously wrong reading)? Anyone?

* "a resource project of Yeshiva University Center for the Jewish Future -South Florida Initiative, where Rabbi X serves as Senior Community Scholar and Executive Director."

** incidentally, I tried bar ilan and couldn't find the precise phrase (or anything like it - ppl seem to be confused as to the order anyway) anywhere, including the passage ppl cite for the phrase (zohar acharei). It is about the idea, though, but am I missing something?

just wondering, perhaps un pc-ly: do native-hebre-speaking-and-gay people really call it "gaavah" or is it just stupid americans with dictionaries and no context?

in another random internet moment, someone has been trying to sell this coffee table for $40 for months. (Actually, it started at $50 and they came down to $40 about a month or two ago.) All caps with exclamation points just doesn't make it more attractive, though... I will give hir credit for persistence, though. I guess s/he lives in the rare Manhattan apartment where one can afford to leave a large piece of furniture that one doesn't want to own sitting around just in case...

i don't know if it will for you, but when i viewed this webpage instead of photos it had captions describing what photos should be there, presumably for internal use. The captions are "Hispanic Mom/Daughter/Baby Photo" "Asian Mom/Baby Photo" and "Native American Family Photo." For some reason I found this funny. I mean, we all know a trying-too-hard multicultural ad campaign when we see it, but it's somehow amusing to have the emphasis on ethnicity confirmed by accident...
In other news Baby is very cute.

I'm pretty sure I remember the bald guy in this picture from the days I used to wait, always feeling sketchy but relying on my white-female privelege not to look like a terrorist/stalker, outside Lehman for Oren. Or maybe it was someone else equally imposing. Alas.

In totally unrelated news, I was recently at an engagement party. Mother-of-bride-to-be gave a little speech about looking forward to sharing more happy occassions, combining our families, etc. Some older woman yells out, "Lots of babies!" Calling a fish a fish, i suppose.

In other other news the prospect of getting a job does not amuse me. And in general I have a lot to do and am tired. Blah.

a fashion interlude

i sink to a new low with the following poll:

as between the following two shoes, which is more "professional" (in the most conservative sense of the word)? how much more? (B comes in my size, A comes in a size i can wear but that's not my size... B would be black, not the other colors shown)
A or B

i asked oren but, well, he's not exactly an expert on women's shoes.

on the topic of shoe shopping:

ladybug, ladybug

Some weeks ago (I'm guessing late June) I noticed one ladybug hanging out in our bathroom, usually right where the wall hits the ceiling. Cute.
A few weeks later there was a second. I had visions of exponentially growing ladybug populations. Memories of the ladybug invasion of Chicago my second year of college. I mean, ladybugs are cute, but not when they're everywhere (alive and dead).
Maybe my ladybugs were both the same sex, or otherwise incompatible, but after a few weeks the population had grown to just three. Today I noticed a fourth.
It looks like the rate of growth is linear, and slow. And they may fly away home come winter, though perhaps the opposite, who knows.
When they crawl on my stuff I try depositing them out the window, but they seem to come back. I'm really just concerned that they are going to establish a large, permanent settlement. I guess it's wait and see.

(In case you can't tell, I am on vacation between work and school and find boring things amusing, and blog-worthy).

In honor of ladybugs:


(perhaps to much levity, or at least music, for the nine days, :) but watch it at some point.)

My favorite line:
"They talked about the high price of furniture and rugs/
And fire insurance for lady bugs."

put down the duckie, star studded cast

youtube is great for old sesame street. and ernie songs are the catchiest. perhaps i will make this a series.

Dinners

So, I like to think we have a policy against going to dinners. Of the fundraising variety, that is.
This policy has two prompts:
1 - they are often boring, and the only way to avoid them without insulting people is to have a blanket policy.
2 - they cost too much. I would rather give $X to an organization that spend $X to go to a dinner where 100+ of it is not tax deductible. When do we ever spend 200+ for diner out together
I've made exceptions in the past when I was invited to dinners for free. I am also in principle open to dinners that don't cost that much (eg our shul, which has lunch on shabbat in the social hall...) They raise money by the infernal adbooks, but at least the overhead there is low...
So...now I was invited to a dinner for half price (Still a lot). The organization is one i am fond of, and their dinner is unusual in that it has Torah-classes beforehand (so one could in theory make an exception without jeopardizing future dinner refusals). They want me to come because I have learned and taught there, so I can help give donors fuzzy positive feelings about the place.
I'd probably rather donate the cost of attending (though I can't say I will actually add to what I normally give them) than attend, but it seems they think otherwise. So, what to do? And is there any hope of escaping dinner attendance as a grown-up?

Lieberman and Darchei Shalom

Someone I know, I think male, told me a story:
A non-jewish person asked R.D. Shaul Lieberman if he was troubled that certain laws are only "because of darkei* shalom." Lieberman answered yes, he was troubled. Later, he told his studnets, "I only said that because of darkei shalom."
Has anyone heard of this story? (It doesn't have to be Lieberman, btw...) A popos of a paer i am writing, does anyone have a source?

*On the topic (sort of, except to the extent the new topic is really grammar...), is it darKei shalom ir darKHei shalom? Mishlei 3:17 (darchei noam) is without a dagesh, by analogy i would imagine D.Shalom would be too. But a quick google survey indicates that people i trust to actually know grammar** are morelikely to use "darkei." thoughts from someone who actually knows something?

**irony intentional

yay, neighbors.

last night, due to some extenuating circumstances, i had to move some heavy things around late at night. my downstairs neighbors banged on their ceiling and i tried to be quite, but i'm sure it was still annoying. I half expected a note, and if I had remembered I might have written a preemptory apology this morning. (of course, i forgot...) today, i got the following typed letter:

Hello:

We, your neighbors, were yet again awakened by excessive noise from your apartment at aproximately 1:00 in the morning. This happens a few times every week.

It sounds as if you are frequently pushing and moving heavy furniture about in the middle of the night, making it very difficult for all of us to sleep.

We understand that we live in a building of tenants with different schedules, but we'd very much appreciate if you could curtail making loud noises in the evenings, especially during the over-night.

Thank you for your consideration and assistance in resolving this issue immediately.

Your neighbors at [adress-, 4th, 5th, and 6th Floors.

So yeah, i felt bad and wanted to apologize anyway, but this letter got me annoyed instead of contrite. Immature, but true. So i turn to the internet to vent my frustrations, since it seems a better target than the neighbors themselves (if i can even identify them - see second point) and oren is away.
First, the only furniture we regularly/ever move late at night is dining room chairs. so i'm not sure what the "frequently" bit is about. It seems they're not either, since it was only the actual loud noise that prompted them to write a letter rather than any of the alleged previous occurrences. I have the feeling they are sensitive to, but realize they shouldn't complain at, normal noises, but took this opportunity to complain anyway. It just annoyed me because they took a real grievence and made it into stop-being-awake-late-at-night, which is not really ok to ask.
Second, they made it essentially impossible to apologize. "Your neighbors on the 4th, 5th, and 6th floors" (rather than. eg, "4B") are a bit hard to identify. I suspect that my immediate downstairs neighbors wrote it, and _maybe_ spoke to someone else about it, but I have a hard time believing anyone upstairs heard it (or cared, since our upstairs neighbors seem to be awake and about, including moving stuff, closer to 3 am than 1...). That said, I don't _know_ who it was, making it hard to know whom to respond So, the self-aggrandizing just makes it logistically harder for me to deal with this in a neighborly way, and also makes me less inclined to do so since i'm now annoyed instead of apologetic.
ps - oren just called, so i delivered this rant in person, but it's already written, so i'm going, stupidly, to post it anyway...