Thursday, May 10, 2012
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Luke Ford, Rabbi Rabbs On Torah Portion IV
This week we have two Torah portions — Nitzavim (Deuteronomy 29:9–30:20) and Vayelech (Deuteronomy 31:1–30).
Luke Ford, Rabbi Rabbs On Torah Portion V
This week we have two Torah portions — Nitzavim (Deuteronomy 29:9–30:20) and Vayelech (Deuteronomy 31:1–30).
Luke Ford, Rabbi Rabbs On Torah Portion III
This week we have two Torah portions — Nitzavim (Deuteronomy 29:9–30:20) and Vayelech (Deuteronomy 31:1–30).
Luke Ford, Rabbi Rabbs On Torah Portion
This week we have two Torah portions — Nitzavim (Deuteronomy 29:9–30:20) and Vayelech (Deuteronomy 31:1–30).
guest16: Man, a girl shows up one time and now they just letch at her over and over again
guest43: The highest status person ever to appear before Luke’s cam was that Levinas woman,
guest43: Also a convert
guest43: Tall, BRILLIANT woman
guest43: And great looking, too
guest16: she is very smart, so was suissa, he’s had smart people before
guest43: Monica O
guest43: The total package
Bernadette: Every single week you bring her up!
guest43: Elegant, brilliant, tall, lovely, accomplished.
Bernadette: Honestly, why not ask the Levinas woman out?
guest43: I am transfixed by her
guest43: We live thousands of miles apart
Bernadette: Fischel/Tzaddik, love knows no bounds…distance shouldn’t make a difference.
Luke Ford, Rabbi Rabbs On Torah Portion II
This week we have two Torah portions — Nitzavim (Deuteronomy 29:9–30:20) and Vayelech (Deuteronomy 31:1–30).
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Fat Frumies Hung Up With Modesty
I was walking to shul on Pico Blvd this morning near two modestly dressed fat women in their thirties complaining about friends.
One said: "Even if a garment is loose and covers everything, it is not tznious (modest) if it is a certain color."
Other woman: "I agree."
First woman: "Some colors for painting your nails are not tznious."
Other woman: "I agree."
I wonder how much of the venom these chubbies directed towards their friends was coming from religious fervor and how much was from a desire that every other woman look as shlumpy as they do?
I Love People Who Love Their Parents
I’ve found that people who hate their parents are usually trouble. People who love their parents tend to be better-adjusted to life. They tend to play more nicely with others. They’re happier. They have bonds.
I know one pick-up artist who refuses to date women from a broken home. He says that divorce has taught them bad ways of relating to the opposite sex. I think this is extreme, but I find it comforting when people are bonded to their families.
It’s like Pico-Robertson. Some Jews hate this community. They say it is boring. Conformist. Blah, blah.
If Rav Schachter Says March, They March
I was fascinated by the Meir Kin case. Not the messy details of the divorce, but the side issue of three Modern Orthodox shuls in Pico-Robertson repeatedly sending their members to picket outside the home of Meir Kin’s parents.
I love Bnai David-Judea, Beth Jacob and Young Israel of Century City. I hold them close to my heart and I know they love me in return. I’ve sung praises to God in these holy places. I’ve studied sacred text. I’ve picked up girls.
So I was taken aback to see these shuls sending off their troops to picket outside a Jew’s home over a messy divorce case.
What if I met a girl at a Torah study, and we then retired to a coffee shop to study these lofty issues in greater depth, and then I walked her home, and then at the doorstep, I leaned in for a kiss to seal our studies and she said, "Get away from me you filthy old pervert"?
What then?
How Dennis Prager Sees Himself
I thought there was a particularly revealing moment on the second hour of Dennis Prager’s radio show. He often says this very thing.
From PragerTopia: "Dennis has a second conversation with Ian Plimer, Professor in the School of Earth and Environmental Sciences as The University of Adelaide. His new book is Heaven and Earth."
Plimer talked about how his critics attacked him instead of attacking his arguments.
Prager responded: "Well, welcome to those of us who are somewhat inured to this. By and large, the social and scientific and political left tend to use ad hominem arguments rather than arguments to the subject. I have witnesses this. If you put my name in Google with any curse word you can think of, you will come up with thousands of hits."
Dennis Prager has been making this claim since at least 1997 though he used to say "search engine" instead of "Google."
Yogi Bhajan's 80th Birthday Party
Tuesday. 9:30 pm. My yoga teacher reminds us of the next morning’s celebration of Yogi Bhajan’s 80th birthday. It begins at 2:40 with Japji.
I’m not the kind of guy who likes to miss Japji.
I am so excited by this prospect of an invigorating start to my day — and by the after-fumes of my brilliant Dennis Prager post late Tuesday night — that I can not sleep.
At 2 am, I hear sounds on the roof and grad my gun and wait for the man to come through my door.
It never happens.
I finally rise at 2:22 am and take a cold shower. Then I trim my bangs (it’s important not to go to sadhana with long bangs and I want to save the $16 of a new haircut).
Torah Study In Pico-Robertson
I’m talking about people who study it every day in the original.
And I am not talking about rabbis or anybody who gets paid to study Torah.
There are three at Bnai David-Judea (about 430 member families) — Shep Rosenman, Jordan Lurie, and….
There are about ten at YICC (about 300 member families, I’m not talking the daf yomi crowd, even I did daf yomi, that’s just listening, I’m talking about Torah study in Hebrew and Aramaic).
I don’t know if there are any at Aish HaTorah (about 300 member families). They’re almost all baalei teshuva (returnees to Judaism who rarely develop text skills).
Beth Jacob (about 950 member families) has about 30, maybe 50.
Anshe Emet (100 member families) is mainly baalei teshuva. I suspect maybe half a dozen study Torah daily.
Surrender: Appeasing Islam, Sacrificing Freedom
I’m reading this new book by Bruce Bawer and I feel like a dilettante. Much of Europe is surrendering to Islam and what am I doing?
Bawer makes the point that the Ayatollah’s fatwa (death sentence) against novelist Salmon Rushdie for his book The Satanic Verses should’ve served as a wake-up call to all those who value free speech that their cherished freedom were under assault from a growing threat called Islam. Instead most intellectuals have urged us to be sensitive to Muslim sensibilities rather than urging Muslims to be sensitive to our freedoms when they want to live amongst us.
The greatest moral struggle of our time is against Islam and what am I doing? Ong namo guru dev namo? Wahe guru indeed.
Instead of westerners getting mandatory education in Islam, perhaps Muslims need mandatory lessons in freedom of expression?
Rabbinical Council of California RCC
It’s the killer combination of Rabbi Gershon Bess — the savviest politician among the traditional Orthodox rabbinate in Los Angeles — and Rabbi Avrohom Union, who administers the RCC.
In my mind, being skilled at politics and being skilled at street fighting are not bad things. They are dangerous weapons to use for good and for evil. The RCC does good and ill. I’m not sure if it does more of one than the other.
Discuss these lofty issues on my live cam where all the gedolim rejoice.
As an ex put it to me: "You are unbelievably crude, so rude to so many people, you don’t care about how you look, and worst of all, you’re religious."
Is Kundalini Yoga Sex Yoga?
It is very trying for the Moral Leader to keep dealing with dirty minds.
"Kundalini" has nothing to do with sex. It is about balancing the body, mind and spirit. It is about attaching yourself to God. It’s about stretching and groovy tunes and hot babes. It’s not about sex. It has nothing to do with sex. I sit in the back at yoga and I never think about sex, not even when most of the women are wearing spandex and doing provocative poses and heavy breathing.
Since I’ve been practicing celibate pose, I’ve been celibate. This stuff really works, baruch HaShem.
PS. I asked my yoga teacher about this. He said it’s because of two reasons. One, the word "kundalini" sounds sexual even though it refers to the spine. Two, Kundalini Yoga teaches white tantra. That involves no sex but when most people hear the word "tantra" they immediately think of sex.
Orthodox Rabbis On Health Reform
Believe it or not, the Torah does not have much to say about the public option.
Why is it that the rabbis who push for "speaking out" usually have the least to say?
Here’s Orthodox rabbi Barry Gelman: "At the very least Orthodox groups should be making statements in favor of Universal Health care."
America already has universal health care. Anyone can walk into an emergency room and get treatment regardless of one’s ability to pay. America does not have universal health insurance but it does have universal health care. Perhaps other Orthodox rabbis stay silent because they have nothing to add to this complicated debate. Perhaps Rabbi Gelman should’ve stayed silent until he had something to add.
What’s the old saying? Better to stay silent and be thought a fool than to open one’s mouth and remove all doubt?