On How To be Lazy II

Laziness is the key to success. Here are the rules of being lazy:

1. Never do anything. If you wait around long enough, someone else will do it.

2. Don't move. Moving is overrated.

3. Never run. Running is the worst thing you can do. I had to run once.. big mistake.

4. If something is not in your reach, you don't need it. Before you get up to get something across the room next time, think. Do you really want to get up and walk all the way there and all the way back to get it? Yeah, I know. I felt stupid for moving all those times.

5. Don't have an opinion. Opinions are thoughts, and thoughts are work.

6. Don't work. Working is for suckers. Be a Mashgiach if you can, they never do anything.

7. If you have to move, fuss about it. Make it well known that you're pissed off because you have to move. Sigh a lot. Drag your feet and arch your back at 60 degrees (bad posture helps you to conform to the shapes of couches when you sit down, and it makes you look tired).

8. Sleep as much as you can. Contrary to common sense and popular belief, sleeping is very productive.

9. Don't talk. Talking requires the movement of your jaw.. way too much work.

10. If you have to work, do a half-assed job at it. Example: If you have to rake leaves, push them out into the road or into your neighbor's yard. If you have a riding lawn mower, run over them a few times until the pieces are small enough to hide in between blades of grass.

I have more rules, but this is taking more effort than I thought. I'll update this later.. if I'm not too tired.

A Really Big שמש

We call it Kelzenzihen, means 'candle pulling' literally. Its been practiced many years here in Switzerland. Making your own candle, starting with a string of wick, is one of the things i missed when in yeshivah. I have no time whatsoever to elaborate since i light the first light in a few minutes, but here are some stats: Beeswax, 37cm long, took 4 days to make. I wish you all a really enjoyable Chanukah, filled with light, doughnuts, latkes, entertainment and most importantly: sleep.

Ps: I have seen the errors in my way and repented.

It's Nice To Meet You

As with everything, being a card-carrying member of the clique called Chabad, has both good and evil in it. Anticipating much rebuke i will stay out of the evil and

focus only on the good. No, i don't mean our surprising ability to proces large amounts of ethanol, or getting away with wearing a hat that looks like it survived the war. I'm talking about the join-Chabad-see-the-world policy. While many consider that to be bad PR for Chabad, i think it's splendiferous! Travel broadens, and sharpens the mind, opening it up to different people's habits and customs, languages and religion which, i think, is important.

One of my least favorite parts of traveling, however, is the plane ride. Not only because i suffer from extreme acrophobia but also because there is always one more Jew on board. Whenever the plane is roaring down the runway i remember the "hachlotos toivois" i made on the last plane-ride, if the higher power could please let me live, and my ability to forget them as soon as i pick up my luggage at arrivals. It's a sweaty, uneasy time for me, filled with stomach cramps and epiphanies on how to improve my spiritual life.

You would think that, at such a time, evil forces would let me be, squirming in my too-small seat, with sweaty palms and nervous glances out the window, but no such luck. Sensing my wish to expire, the one other Jew feels compelled to grant me that wish by coming over (if he is not already sitting next to me because he can't sit next to the 90 year old lady) and opens his mouth,which, to me, symbolizes the opening of Pandora's box. What follows is an interrogation that would make an experienced KGB agent blush. It is at that time that my seat changes to a medieval torture chair.

Without mercy or regard for my wish to be left to suffer by myself he asks me my name, how it's spelled, where i was born, where i live, my mother's maiden name, father's job, in-laws (if any), educational history, level of Jew, where i'm going to stay once we land and if he please could have my bite-sized frozen excuse for bread, wrapped six times in my kosher meal.

And it always comes down to if i know his wife's cousine in Israel, or his assurance that he knows my Rosh Yeshivah, by first name. When he is done with, what in 1933 Germany was called "questioning", he returns to his seat or holy book and is quiet. The only information that i have on this gent is that he apparently never brushed his teeth and has no respect for the english language.

Sadly, this sort of encounter is not specific to plane-rides. It happened to me in Germany, Venice, New York, England and even Switzerland. It is how Jews behave when meeting another member of the Tribe (generalizing, not all Jews... yadah yadah). Usually it is the older one that is the interrogator, but does not have to be.

I am a little uncomfortable with this method of introduction, for i was taught that when meeting someone for the first time you shake his hand (real handshake, no wet-dead-handshake) make eye contact, greet him, and tell him your name, you then listen to his name, commit it to memory, and find a common topic to talk about. Unless it's a lady, then avoid eye contact at all costs and pretend she does not exist.

My modus operandi has startled many a Bochur at the Yeshivahs i attended, their confused faces were always a source of happiness for me. But what is it with, what Hershy calls "Jewish Geography"? Are Jews genetically rude? Can it be traced to their lack of victorian upbringing and education or does it go deeper?

We Hebrews did not exactly have an easy history, and we can't even blame it on the Torah, for we have been enslaved hundreds of years before Mt. Sinai.

German Philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716) is famous not only for his ridiculous hair-style but also his phrase: "This is the best of all possible worlds". Like most philosophical ideas, it was misunderstood and ridiculed. Leonard Bernstein's 1956 musical, Candide had it's own version of scoffing. The show's best-known song, "the Best of All Possible Worlds" has Pangloss and the cast sing Richard Wilibur's lyrics praising war as a blessing in disguise, because it unites us all-as victims.

We have always had a very strong sense of unity in face of oppressions, alienations and killings, a feeling that we are one big sicilian family. This co-depended and unified behavior is a natural reaction to subjugation, even healthy. So when meeting another Jew, he feels it important to establish himself as a part of that group, desperately proving that his bloodline can be traced to our dear father Avraham. It is done in the traditional way of a member of a surviving people: Fast and rude. As unhappy as i am with how they do it, i am thrilled at why they do it. I feel comforted by this I-belong-to-the-tribe craze, for it tells me of the pride the other one feels for being Jewish.

Maybe it's because of that little Jane Austin part of me but i will carry on my M.O and continue to interrupt the interrogator after his first question and turn the gun on him.

Join me on the dark side my son.

Forecast on Morality

Baruch Benedict Spinoza-you thought i was done with him did you not? Think again-was a jewish philosopher in 17th century Amsterdam. He is now famous for his magnum opus "Ethica" which was published after his untimely demise. Now instead of turning this post into a discussion on mind-body dualism and the existence of G-d, i will extract the part where he writes about the definition of good and bad: "So everyone, by the highest right of Nature, judges what is good and what is evil, considers his own advantage according to his own temperament... ."

This means that the difference is merely one of personal inclination. Socrates argued that which we call evil is merely ignorance and that good is that which everyone desires. It seems that what people call "bad" and "good" is relative (TRS and e: Don't, please) so to say, for example, "he is a good person" is a meaningless sentence unless you, and the person saying it, have the same idea of "good" and "bad". When it comes to morals, i of course subscribe to Moral Absolutism and try to look at Torah when i need to know what is good and bad, but here i am talking about talking.

Bad and good can also refer to quality e.g bad news or good food, which, of course is also relative to the person saying it. Therefore, saying that the weather is "bad" is, again, meaningless unless you and the listener both agree what "bad" weather is.

So lets get started (yes, that was only the introduction):

I LOVE rain, dark clouds, strong winds, hail, snow, fog, darkness and cold temperature, preferably all at the same time. When it's hot and sunny out i feel like im in a small room where the celling is so low i can't fully stand in it and the walls to close to lie in, no windows and no sounds (a.k.a yeshivah dorms). The sun is my enemy and the moon my friend, clouds and rain make me feel alive and vigilant, i feel like running outside and dance and run around town (it has happened). Most people i share this with have a similar reaction as when i tell them i don't eat meat "You're joking!". I don't understand why they are cheerful during the summer and they can't comprehend why i would wanna make "khulles" in puddles at 4 degrees.

Today (and by the time you are reading this, yesterday-unless you are reading this some other day- monday november 30th) was first snow fall in Zürich. I immediately jumped on my bike and rode around for two hours,taking it all in. Thick, white, cold, drops of magic gently make their way towards me, dancing almost. To me it is like someone talking, communicating in a pure and noble way, through nature, inviting me to join in on the celebration. The 1812 overture plays in full volume and the snow dances to it's rhythm. I could stay out here forever.

The morning after is almost as majestic as the night. Trees, rooftops, cars, roads and fields are all lovingly and gently tucked in with a white flawless blanket, and now radiate a calm and uncontaminated air that effects the whole city. It absorbes the usual noise and negativity, common to such a big metropolis and covers the evil past in a graceful manner.

When in the USA i was always disgusted at the fervor with which the city cleared its roads 10 seconds after snowfall began. The tons of ice salt that are dumped on both street and sidewalk made it all look sickening. It also always ruined my shoes and boots. Here, somehow, it looks like they did not want to disturb snow's peaceful slumber, even if it means loosing five minutes. (I'll do some research on the difference in snow removal between USA and Switzerland and get back to you.)

Snow, you will always be my friend, no matter what. Here is what it all looked like from my window.

Venn's Social Network Diagram

To Giving The Finger

Five slender jointed parts attached to either hand. That's ten fingers per person. They have always (I've had them for as long as i can remember) played a very important role in my life. Most of the mistakes in my life-although orchestrated by my oversized head-were played out by my fingers. With them i also always know where i am up to in learning (gemara pages are huge) and put on tefillin every day. Could you imagine what it would be like without them? What, gor example, would nose picking be like? To nonverbally insult someone without that important finger would be challenging. Or picture what my blog would look like if i did not have fingers (although it would explain a lot).

Be you a surgeon or painter, pianist or chef, garbage collector or flag-pole assistant, you depend on your fingers. Mainly your thumb and forefin

ger, but don't worry, i will not talk about evolution... yet.

Fingers tell you a lot about a person. Sometimes they tell you want kind of work he does, if she is married or in which jar i had my hands in 10 minutes ago. Science has long ago rejected palm reading as accurate or sane for that matter. Now science has it's own version of palm reading, and far more accurate than it. Studies now show that everything from sporting prowess to academic ability, and sexual orientation to susceptibility to disease can be assessed by your finger length.

Here's a hand-on experiment you can try right now. Hold your hand in front of your face and try to keep your fingers absolutely straight. Now notice the difference in length, if any, between your index and your ring finger. The ratio between the two has been shown to be linked to exposure of the male hormone testosterone in the womb.

On average men tend to have longer ring fingers than women, who have longer index fingers. The longer the ring finger the more masculine any baby with this ratio will be, regardless of whether it's male or female. The ring finger has a greater amount of testosterone receptors than the other fingers, and the index finger has more estrogen receptors. A high level of testosterone is what drives people into certain professions, is responsible for sexual orientation and "libido". Now we know why people with longer ring fingers tend to excel in sports.

Since the length of the index finger is tied in with estrogen it explains why women with longer index fingers are more fertile than women who don't. It also indicates (in both male and females with that finger ratio) better verbal skills, and a bigger aptitude for maths and physics than those of opposite finger ratio. Another study has shown that males with longer ring fingers earn 11 times more than the ones with shorter ring fingers.

Having said that, i can say with confidence that my ring finger is longer than it's index brother.

How about you?

13 Steps to "Frying" Out

In Yeshivah i wasn't exactly a star pupil. I did not belong to the group that somehow managed to learn, farbreng and d

o mifzayim day and night, and many of the new, promising students were warned to stay away from me. I don't think i was that bad, but i

did have a library of manuals and complete idiot's guides on various scientific subjects, also known as "chochmas chitzonius".

Many well-meaning fellahs would try to save me from-what they saw as-a slippery slope downhill.

Warnings of "sliding down a slippery slope" are the rage for politicians, rabbis, and parents. It's the classic one-thing-leads-to-another-and-before-you-know-it-you're-in-deep-doo-doo argument. The beauty part of this type of argument is that you can lay down just about any outcome at the bottom of the slope as long as you stipulate quasi-believable steps along the way. It contends that event A will trigger a chain reaction of events leading, eventually to an undesirable event. The thing is that most SSAs are fallacious, and illogical, and therefore invalid.

I was warned many times that having a medical manual or watching a movie (don't try this at home kids) would lead me down the slope to being "fry". There were many rules, unspoken and spoken, that would prevent you from that horrible end. I have taken some of those rules, categorised them in terms of severity and compiled a Slippery slope that will lead you to frying out.

This post is comedic in nature and is in no way an encouragement to follow those steps, leave the holy tribe, or brake rules in any way (you know you want to, all the cool kids are doing it).

1) Learn Gemarah without Rashi

2) Come late to seder regularly

3) Interrupt seder for bathroom, drink, sleep etc. as much as possible

4) leave farbrengens early, drunk if possible

5) Go to the Pizza store at least once a week

6) Eat the pizza at the store

7) Get a cell phone

8) Go outside without your hat and jacket

9) Don't show up to farbrengens

10) Get a mp3 player, (bonus if it has radio)

11) Smoke cigarets

12) Wear a smaller yarmulka

13) Go to chicago to study architecture

Did i forget anything?

Have a great shabbos dear bloggers.