If you've ever tried leaving a comment on my blog, you've undoubtedly come across an interesting feature: you are asked to read a series of weird-shaped random letters, such as "irbmnteug", and manually retype them in the provided box before your comment can be posted. In fact, some people have been prevented from leaving comments at all due to this feature (presumably because these people cannot read, so goodness knows what they're doing on my blog in the first place). I've been asked why this feature is necessary, and so I've decided to post an explanation.
First off, I should note right off the bat that I think it is a very useful vocabulary building feature. Without it, many people would never learn such wonderful words like "vrlnmkd", "cyrklmpt" and "zrcxopft", which will undoubtedly be very useful to know if, say, you should ever visit Czechoslovakia, where those are actual words in the local language. Without the benefit of my blog's comment security feature, you would be totally unfamiliar with such words, and you would have to resort to doing what most tourists (and many of the residents) do, which is to make them up. ("Waiter! I'll have the ckljrto soup with a side dish of prkzltch!")
But there's another reason for this "feature" - the real reason why good ole' Uncle Google implemented the feature in the first place. But to explain it, I may have to get a little technical. Therefore, please note the following warning:
WARNING: THE U.S. SURGEON GENERAL HAS DETERMINED, WHILE TAKING A SHORT BREAK FROM MESSING AROUND WITH THE WORDING OF CIGARETTE AND LIQUOR LABEL WARNINGS, THAT THE U.S. SURGEON GENERAL IS NOT LIKELY TO GET A RAISE UNLESS THE U.S. SURGEON GENERAL BRANCHES OUT AND STARTS DOING WARNINGS FOR OTHER PRODUCTS AS WELL. THEREFORE, THE U.S. SURGEON GENERAL HAS DECIDED TO EXAMINE THE FOLLOWING EXPLANATION, AND HAS DETERMINED THAT IT MAY CONTAIN SOME COMPLICATED TECHNOLOGICAL TERMS, AND SHOULD NOT BE READ BY UNTRAINED PERSONNEL WHILE OPERATING HEAVY MACHINERY UNLESS THEY ARE WEARING A FULL-BODY BIOHAZARD SUIT. THANK YOU.
Still with me? Good. Sorry, I just had to shake off those losers who get scared of big, scary, technical terms like "garden hose". Now, let's get down to business. The reason for the security measure is to prevent "comment spam". You may recognize the term "spam", which generally refers to the wonderful email messages you often get from kind-hearted strangers who are genuinely concerned with your well-being, and who generously offer to refinance your home for just %0.7, or give you the opportunity to earn $650,000 a year by working from home for only 17 minutes a week. (See, who said strangers aren't kind people?) However, in recent years, these people have decided that they're not doing enough for the good of humanity, and they need to branch out and expand their kind humanitarian work to other venues as well.
So some brilliant "philanthropist" hit upon the idea of using blog comments as a new medium for propagating their "services". Posting a blog comment is a form of communication that anyone can engage in without any qualifications whatsoever - even being human is not required. A computer program - called a "script" - can be written, which can post dozens, if not hundreds, of comments to someone's blog, all of them promoting "useful" services such as online casinos where your odds of winning are about as good as those of a duck in an industrial trash compactor, or other such services which the world would be a truly grim place without. Hence the term "comment spam" - it's like ordinary email spam, except it targets the comments sections of blogs instead of electronic mailboxes.
However, there's one teensy weensy flaw in the spammers' line of reasoning: the general population is simply not quite interested in hearing about these "services" on a constant basis, even less than they are in dealing with telemarketers. Specifically, the average member of the general population would not be opposed to legalizing the shooting of spammers with incendiary rocket-propelled grenades for sport. However, some pesky little outfit calling itself the "Government" does not allow people to engage in such fulfilling pursuits, and thus people have to engage in a more pacifistic approach: Self-defense - attempting to block spam from reaching them in the first place.
So that's where the "retype these weird letters" business comes into the picture: it's an anti-spam security measure. See, for a human being or similar creature (such as a tort lawyer) who is posting a legitimate comment, it's not such a big deal to copy the letters over. However, an automated script attempting to mass-post tons of spam will be prevented in doing so, since most scripts have not graduated the first grade, and thus cannot read.
Since some of my readers have indicated that they feel such security measures are a major pain in the neck, I'm thinking of disabling it. But if I do, keep the following in mind: if you see any advertisements or the like down there in the comments section, DO NOT follow the links they provide - I do not endorse them, and never will. Anybody I endorse - such as Paskesz Candy, which makes the greatest kosher candy in the world - will be mentioned up here, in MY part of the blog. Do NOT follow any links that spammers may post downstairs, in the public part of the blog. (Did I mention that I wholeheartedly endorse Paskesz Candy?)
I hope to disable the feature as soon as I gain access to an ordinary computer. Believe it or not, every single one of my posts since "Touchdown!" has been composed entirely on my phone, using its little three-and-a-half inch slide-out keyboard, and posted through Cellcom's GPRS network. But there is only so much a little phone can do: I cannot change most blog settings from my phone, and thus need to do so from a full-size computer. But once I do, I hope more people will be encouraged to comment on my writing - I really appreciate the feedback very much.
But if and when spam starts appearing on my blog, I will have to re-enable the security feature. I'm sorry, but it's the only easy - yet effective - method of preventing spam. Well, at least until the script writers learn to speak Czechoslovakian.
EDIT: The word verification feature has been disabled. Have fun!
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Monday, November 26, 2007
The Holiest Place at the Holiest Time
This past Shabbos, I merited to participate in another unique Israeli experience: Friday night at the Kosel.
I had heard plenty about what it would be like from various friends and family members, both from a spiritual standpoint, as well as the more mundane aspect of seeing so many different people from so many different walks of life all in one place. But nothing could have prepared me for the awesome experience it turned out to be.
I heard from a friend of mine that unfortunately, there are bochurim who have been learning in Israel for ages, and yet they have never gone to the Kosel - not just Friday night, but even during the week as well. "Yeah, I'll make sure to go before I go back to America," they say. These poor souls have no idea what they're missing. Going to the Kosel is always a special experience for me - even if not for the spiritual aspect of it, then at least for the "sightseeing" aspect. Some day, these poor souls are gonna to the Kosel, and then they're gonna kick themselves - hard - for all the missed opportunities they could have had to go, but instead gave it up for total narishkeiten.
But enough about them - let's get back to my story. I started out Friday afternoon, pretty close to Shabbos, looking for a cab to the Kosel. Not knowing which of the main streets in the neighborhood would be the best place to flag down a cab at that time, I asked a more experienced friend: "Where's the best place to get a cab now?"
"New York City," was his reply. It turned out he wasn't kidding. If you wait too close to Shabbos, you'll find very few cabs - possibly only Arabs, which is not exactly the most reassuring form of transportation. Armed with 30 Shekels, I headed toward Shmuel Hanavi. With Hashem's help, I found a Jewish (albeit non-frum) cab driver who was willing to take me for 25 shekels, but only as far as Sha'ar Yaffo. It was better than nothing, so I took the offer, figuring I would deposit the remaining 5 shekels in the pushka at the Kosel before shkia.
The driver dropped me off just up the hill from Sha'ar Yaffo, barely waiting for me to exit the cab before racing off again. Not wanting to walk through potentially hostile territory alone (not to mention that I did not know the way at all), I asked two Israeli bochurim who were heading there anyway if I could walk with them. I needn't have worried, though, since we ended up being part of a group of roughly 50 people, all walking to the Kosel.
My "guides" elected to take the shorter route, cutting directly through the Arab shuk. I would have been quite apprehensive of doing so alone, but I guess there is something to be said for the power in numbers - the Arabs were not about to start up with a group of 50 people. I was kind of glad we went through the shuk: I have to admit, it was a fascinating trek. The shuk is basically an alley just a few feet wide - so narrow, in fact, that the awnings over the shops on either side were often overlapping each other, creating the illusion that we were walking through a tunnel. Dozens of shops line the alley on either side, selling all kinds of merchandise: hot food, clothing, hand-carved wooden chess sets, silver-plated shofars, fresh and dried fruits, nuts, baseball caps, scarves - you name it, all in a bright cornucopia of colors, shapes, sizes, and smells. I only wish I would have come at some time other than mere minutes before the onset of Shabbos, when I would have been able to slow down and look around a bit.
After proceeding through the shuk for a while, turning the occasional corner, we finally reached the Kosel security checkpoint. I thanked my "guides" as we patiently waited in line among the throngs of people waiting to pass through the metal detector. I finally got through security, and headed out of the security booth to the top of the staircase leading down to the Kosel plaza.
Have you ever felt like you wanted to laugh and cry at the same time? That's a bit of what I felt like at the sight that greeted my eyes: there was my beloved Kosel, but somehow, it was not the same as I had seen it before. There was something different about it, something special. The arrival of the holiest day of the week to the holiest place in the world, filled with people of the holiest nation was perhaps the formula that comprised the special feeling that seemed to permeate the very air.
I proceeded down the stairs, put my remaining 5 shekels in the pushka, and headed across the plaza to the Kosel, joining the crowds of people at the Wall. There were literally thousands of people there, from all walks of life - chasidish and litvish, ashkenazim and sefardim, frum and non-frum. There were young teenagers with ponytails or Mohawks and backpacks the size of telephone booths, older tourists wearing cardboard yarmulkes with expensive cameras around their necks - an assortment of humanity that a cross-culture integrator could only dream of.
As I got closer to the Wall, the composition of the crowd shifted more toward the serious kind: aside from the occasional ponytailed spirituality-seeker clinging to the Wall, the people were mostly religious people going about the sacred ritual of welcoming the Shabbos. That's not to say the crowd became stereotyped at this point: on the contrary, there were many different minyanim, davening according to different nuscha'os, from chasidish to mizrachi. Perhaps the largest was the Vizhnitz minyan, occupying the leftmost twenty percent or so of the Kosel. Although I actually davened in the minyan next to them, I nevertheless immensely enjoyed overhearing their davening. Actually, it would have been kind of hard not too - especially their rendition of Lecha Dodi, sung by everyone in the minyan together with a sweetness that could probably not be matched by any earthly sound.
After I finished davening, I joined up with my host and his sons, and we headed back toward Arzei Habira, taking the route through Sha'ar Shechem. If anything this route was even more dangerous, but like I said before, there's something to be said for the power in numbers, and we were far from alone.
After the seudah, as I walked back to my dira, my mind inevitably began to wander. I thought of everything I had seen that night, of how Jews from all walks of life - from the most devout chasid to the simplest non-frum tourist - had all joined together for one single purpose: to visit the House of Hashem. Even those who only came to the Kosel merely as a tourist destination surely felt something, the feeling of the pintele yid longing to return to its source. That's what a saw: a melting pot, a potpourri of elementally pure souls, all yearning to somehow, in some way, do the right thing. All yearning to come home.
May we be zoche to see the fulfillment of that yearning speedily in our days.
I had heard plenty about what it would be like from various friends and family members, both from a spiritual standpoint, as well as the more mundane aspect of seeing so many different people from so many different walks of life all in one place. But nothing could have prepared me for the awesome experience it turned out to be.
I heard from a friend of mine that unfortunately, there are bochurim who have been learning in Israel for ages, and yet they have never gone to the Kosel - not just Friday night, but even during the week as well. "Yeah, I'll make sure to go before I go back to America," they say. These poor souls have no idea what they're missing. Going to the Kosel is always a special experience for me - even if not for the spiritual aspect of it, then at least for the "sightseeing" aspect. Some day, these poor souls are gonna to the Kosel, and then they're gonna kick themselves - hard - for all the missed opportunities they could have had to go, but instead gave it up for total narishkeiten.
But enough about them - let's get back to my story. I started out Friday afternoon, pretty close to Shabbos, looking for a cab to the Kosel. Not knowing which of the main streets in the neighborhood would be the best place to flag down a cab at that time, I asked a more experienced friend: "Where's the best place to get a cab now?"
"New York City," was his reply. It turned out he wasn't kidding. If you wait too close to Shabbos, you'll find very few cabs - possibly only Arabs, which is not exactly the most reassuring form of transportation. Armed with 30 Shekels, I headed toward Shmuel Hanavi. With Hashem's help, I found a Jewish (albeit non-frum) cab driver who was willing to take me for 25 shekels, but only as far as Sha'ar Yaffo. It was better than nothing, so I took the offer, figuring I would deposit the remaining 5 shekels in the pushka at the Kosel before shkia.
The driver dropped me off just up the hill from Sha'ar Yaffo, barely waiting for me to exit the cab before racing off again. Not wanting to walk through potentially hostile territory alone (not to mention that I did not know the way at all), I asked two Israeli bochurim who were heading there anyway if I could walk with them. I needn't have worried, though, since we ended up being part of a group of roughly 50 people, all walking to the Kosel.
My "guides" elected to take the shorter route, cutting directly through the Arab shuk. I would have been quite apprehensive of doing so alone, but I guess there is something to be said for the power in numbers - the Arabs were not about to start up with a group of 50 people. I was kind of glad we went through the shuk: I have to admit, it was a fascinating trek. The shuk is basically an alley just a few feet wide - so narrow, in fact, that the awnings over the shops on either side were often overlapping each other, creating the illusion that we were walking through a tunnel. Dozens of shops line the alley on either side, selling all kinds of merchandise: hot food, clothing, hand-carved wooden chess sets, silver-plated shofars, fresh and dried fruits, nuts, baseball caps, scarves - you name it, all in a bright cornucopia of colors, shapes, sizes, and smells. I only wish I would have come at some time other than mere minutes before the onset of Shabbos, when I would have been able to slow down and look around a bit.
After proceeding through the shuk for a while, turning the occasional corner, we finally reached the Kosel security checkpoint. I thanked my "guides" as we patiently waited in line among the throngs of people waiting to pass through the metal detector. I finally got through security, and headed out of the security booth to the top of the staircase leading down to the Kosel plaza.
Have you ever felt like you wanted to laugh and cry at the same time? That's a bit of what I felt like at the sight that greeted my eyes: there was my beloved Kosel, but somehow, it was not the same as I had seen it before. There was something different about it, something special. The arrival of the holiest day of the week to the holiest place in the world, filled with people of the holiest nation was perhaps the formula that comprised the special feeling that seemed to permeate the very air.
I proceeded down the stairs, put my remaining 5 shekels in the pushka, and headed across the plaza to the Kosel, joining the crowds of people at the Wall. There were literally thousands of people there, from all walks of life - chasidish and litvish, ashkenazim and sefardim, frum and non-frum. There were young teenagers with ponytails or Mohawks and backpacks the size of telephone booths, older tourists wearing cardboard yarmulkes with expensive cameras around their necks - an assortment of humanity that a cross-culture integrator could only dream of.
As I got closer to the Wall, the composition of the crowd shifted more toward the serious kind: aside from the occasional ponytailed spirituality-seeker clinging to the Wall, the people were mostly religious people going about the sacred ritual of welcoming the Shabbos. That's not to say the crowd became stereotyped at this point: on the contrary, there were many different minyanim, davening according to different nuscha'os, from chasidish to mizrachi. Perhaps the largest was the Vizhnitz minyan, occupying the leftmost twenty percent or so of the Kosel. Although I actually davened in the minyan next to them, I nevertheless immensely enjoyed overhearing their davening. Actually, it would have been kind of hard not too - especially their rendition of Lecha Dodi, sung by everyone in the minyan together with a sweetness that could probably not be matched by any earthly sound.
After I finished davening, I joined up with my host and his sons, and we headed back toward Arzei Habira, taking the route through Sha'ar Shechem. If anything this route was even more dangerous, but like I said before, there's something to be said for the power in numbers, and we were far from alone.
After the seudah, as I walked back to my dira, my mind inevitably began to wander. I thought of everything I had seen that night, of how Jews from all walks of life - from the most devout chasid to the simplest non-frum tourist - had all joined together for one single purpose: to visit the House of Hashem. Even those who only came to the Kosel merely as a tourist destination surely felt something, the feeling of the pintele yid longing to return to its source. That's what a saw: a melting pot, a potpourri of elementally pure souls, all yearning to somehow, in some way, do the right thing. All yearning to come home.
May we be zoche to see the fulfillment of that yearning speedily in our days.
Friday, November 23, 2007
Give Thanks to Hashem
Today is part of Thanksgiving weekend, which is a holiday that commemorates something or other involving the pilgrims who arrived on the Mayflower. Apparently they were thankful to have made it all the way to the New World with most of their internal organs pretty much intact, which was quite a feat when you consider the fact that motion-sickness pills had not been invented yet.
Thanksgiving is not, technically speaking, a Jewish holiday, although that doesn't stop too many of us from eating turkey anyway. However, for those of us living in Yerushalayim - particularly in the Bais Yisroel neighborhood, this year is different: we have our own reason to be thankful this Thanksgiving weekend, to celebrate and thank Hashem for the wonderful miracle which occurred last night.
Last night, at 2:22 AM, there was a tremendous explosion on the fourth floor of 24 Rechov Zonnenfeld (which happens to be just two short blocks away from my dira). The huge fireball pretty much destroyed the entire fourth floor, hurling debris in every direction. The shockwaves of the explosion shattered dozens of windows of both cars and buildings in the area, including one in my dira. The sound of the explosion was heard as far as Sorotzkin and Ramat Eshkol.
No one knew what caused the explosion - whether it was an accident, or chas veshalom a terrorist attack. Initial reports speculated that several people were killed, and dozens more were wounded.
Within minutes, the sounds of sirens could be heard, as dozens of emergency vehicles came rushing to the scene. Police, firefighters, ambulances, Zaka motorcycles, army vehicles - everyone feared for the worst. Magen David Adom even called for an MCI - a Mass Casualty Incident - expecting an untold number of victims. Hundreds of curious spectators filled the streets - quite a few in their pajamas - trying to find out what happened. The police cordoned off the area around 24 Zonnenfeld while they investigated.
As time went on, the picture became clear: somehow, a propane tank (or perhaps several) in the fourth floor of the building had exploded. So Baruch Hashem, it was not a terrorist attack. Even more amazing was the casualty count: zero. That's right: not a single person was killed or even seriously injured by the blast. A few people were lightly injured - some cuts and bruises, but nothing major. As one Hatzalah member told me, "we didn't have to take anyone to the hospital".
Another amazing fact is that no one was hurt by the flying debris. I saw chunks of stone and cement the size of a sack of potatoes - but obviously way heavier - that had been hurled more than two hundred feet. It is an absolute miracle that they didn't hit anyone while airborne, since I doubt a person would've survived the impact. Okay, granted, it was after two o'clock in the morning and most people belong in bed, but it was Thursday night, and thus there were still people in the street even at that hour. Besides, the fact that the explosion did not occur in middle of the day when the streets are crowded is a miracle in itself.
Indeed, the whole story consists of one miracle on top of another, cleverly woven by the Guardian of Israel, the Master of Miracles. Hinei lo yanum v'lo yishan shomer yisrael!
Thanksgiving is not, technically speaking, a Jewish holiday, although that doesn't stop too many of us from eating turkey anyway. However, for those of us living in Yerushalayim - particularly in the Bais Yisroel neighborhood, this year is different: we have our own reason to be thankful this Thanksgiving weekend, to celebrate and thank Hashem for the wonderful miracle which occurred last night.
Last night, at 2:22 AM, there was a tremendous explosion on the fourth floor of 24 Rechov Zonnenfeld (which happens to be just two short blocks away from my dira). The huge fireball pretty much destroyed the entire fourth floor, hurling debris in every direction. The shockwaves of the explosion shattered dozens of windows of both cars and buildings in the area, including one in my dira. The sound of the explosion was heard as far as Sorotzkin and Ramat Eshkol.
No one knew what caused the explosion - whether it was an accident, or chas veshalom a terrorist attack. Initial reports speculated that several people were killed, and dozens more were wounded.
Within minutes, the sounds of sirens could be heard, as dozens of emergency vehicles came rushing to the scene. Police, firefighters, ambulances, Zaka motorcycles, army vehicles - everyone feared for the worst. Magen David Adom even called for an MCI - a Mass Casualty Incident - expecting an untold number of victims. Hundreds of curious spectators filled the streets - quite a few in their pajamas - trying to find out what happened. The police cordoned off the area around 24 Zonnenfeld while they investigated.
As time went on, the picture became clear: somehow, a propane tank (or perhaps several) in the fourth floor of the building had exploded. So Baruch Hashem, it was not a terrorist attack. Even more amazing was the casualty count: zero. That's right: not a single person was killed or even seriously injured by the blast. A few people were lightly injured - some cuts and bruises, but nothing major. As one Hatzalah member told me, "we didn't have to take anyone to the hospital".
Another amazing fact is that no one was hurt by the flying debris. I saw chunks of stone and cement the size of a sack of potatoes - but obviously way heavier - that had been hurled more than two hundred feet. It is an absolute miracle that they didn't hit anyone while airborne, since I doubt a person would've survived the impact. Okay, granted, it was after two o'clock in the morning and most people belong in bed, but it was Thursday night, and thus there were still people in the street even at that hour. Besides, the fact that the explosion did not occur in middle of the day when the streets are crowded is a miracle in itself.
Indeed, the whole story consists of one miracle on top of another, cleverly woven by the Guardian of Israel, the Master of Miracles. Hinei lo yanum v'lo yishan shomer yisrael!
Monday, November 19, 2007
On Top of the Mountain
First of all, I would like to start out by thanking all of the people who took the time out of their busy schedules to call, email, or otherwise contact me to inform me that something I wrote ended up in the paper.
For those of you who have just arrived from some distant, newspaper-free galaxy, I should point out that I am referring to the fact that someone apparently sent in one of my blog posts (specifically, the serious one about my first trip to the Kosel) to the "Reader's Forum" section of this past week's Hamodia. It was in the "Community News" section, page 39.
I actually did not send it in on my own; I don't have the guts to send anything to a newspaper that lots of people actually read (as opposed to my blog, which for all I know probably has just a small handful of really bored people reading it). Although I was glad to hear that someone else did send it in - I figured getting published in the Hamodia would be a great first step in becoming a famous syndicated journalist, and I would become so fabulously wealthy that I would regularly leave luxurious mansions with 4-car garages as tips. Or perhaps I would end up living under a highway overpass in a refrigerator carton. Whatever. It can go either way.
Now that I've gotten that out of the way, we can move on to more important topics, such as my trip to Har Nof, where I spent this past Shabbos. My brother-in-law told me that years ago, people used to refer to it as "Har Nof, USA" because it is a rather American-intensive area. Although in recent years, things have changed, and the American influence is more visible in other areas as well - even Meah Shearim is starting to strongly resemble 13th Ave. in Boro Park, minus the double-parked cars (here we have triple-parked mopeds instead).
So there I was, at 3:00 PM on Friday afternoon, walking to the bus stop in Geulah, hoping to catch the number 15 bus to Har Nof. Someone warned me that he heard the last bus was at 2:30 PM, and that I would have to take a taxi, but I figured I would try my luck anyway.
If you're one of the people who has absolutely nothing better to do with your life than to waste your valuable time reading my blog, you may recall that a little while ago, I posted a rather negative rant about the bus service here, claiming that the buses are unreliable. However, I'm afraid I must retract that statement: to my utter surprise, a number 15 bus to Har Nof rolled up to the stop where I was waiting at promptly 3:10 PM, just five minutes after I got there. So now I don't know what to believe. Are the buses reliable or not? Perhaps we should demand that the US Congress stop fooling around with silly things like tax reform and illegal immigration and convene a special blue-ribbon investigative panel to focus on the more important issue of Israeli bus punctuality.
I know what you're going to ask me: "But why on earth would the United States Congress care about the buses in some other country?" My answer is quite simple: be quiet, and stop asking me silly questions that I don't have good answers for. Besides, I don't really care whether there's a good reason or not; I feel that if Congress can waste billions of dollars on stupid programs like "National Eggplant Ripeness Week" or "National Tractor Mechanic Appreciation Month", then they can afford to spend another few bucks to help a desperate American tourist figure out what on earth is going on with the Israeli bus schedule.
But getting back to my trip to Har Nof - which, as you may recall (although I highly doubt it) is supposed to be the topic of this post - I boarded the number 15 bus, and settled down for the 15 to 20 minute journey. I got off on Katzenellenbogen street (perennial winner of the prestigious Most Unnecessarily Long Street Name With Approximately Two Million Syllables In One Single Word award), and proceeded to number 76, where I would be staying for Shabbos.
Har Nof is designed in a very interesting fashion. Because it is built directly into the side of a mountain, and not on flat ground, many of the buildings have two entrances: on one side of the building the entrance is on the first floor, while on the other side of the building, the entrance is on the fifth floor or so. Really. I am not making this up. The buildings also have 2 addresses because of this; for instance, the building where I was staying was 76 Rechov Katzenellenbogen only from the fifth floor entrance - from the first floor address, it is known as 43 Rechov Agasi. Likewise, the buildings on the other side of Rechov Agasi have their second entrances even lower down the mountain, on some street whose name escapes me at the moment (not that I really care, and therefore neither should you).
Shabbos in Har Nof was very nice: not too Israeli, but not too American either. It was a nice blend of the cultures (at least as far as an uncultured individual like me could tell). On Shabbos afternoon, I went for a walk with my hosts to the very top of the mountain. The view from there was magnificent - we could see as far as Hadassah hospital.
As we marveled at the view of the spectacular mountains surrounding us, my host told me a vort that he personally heard from Rav Hutner z"l: the pasuk says "Yerushalayim harim saviv lah, v'Hashem saviv l'amo" - just as Yerushalayim is surrounded by protective mountains, so too Hashem surrounds and protects His nation from their enemies. Imagine, says Rav Hutner, just like the mountains surround and protect Yerushalayim - they are the "taful" (secondary) and Yerushalayim is the "ikar" (primary) - so too Hashem, out of His great love for His people, makes Himself "taful" - secondary (as it were) - to His people to protect them from their enemies.
It was with these words of inspiration in mind that I left Har Nof on Motzei Shabbos, after thanking my hosts for their warm hospitality. As I walked across the street to the bus stop, I thought to myself: we are indeed surrounded by evil enemies on all sides - whether the Arabs who would think nothing of taking our lives, or Chiloni instigators who would think nothing of taking our souls. But who can possibly harm us when Hashem is personally protecting us?
For those of you who have just arrived from some distant, newspaper-free galaxy, I should point out that I am referring to the fact that someone apparently sent in one of my blog posts (specifically, the serious one about my first trip to the Kosel) to the "Reader's Forum" section of this past week's Hamodia. It was in the "Community News" section, page 39.
I actually did not send it in on my own; I don't have the guts to send anything to a newspaper that lots of people actually read (as opposed to my blog, which for all I know probably has just a small handful of really bored people reading it). Although I was glad to hear that someone else did send it in - I figured getting published in the Hamodia would be a great first step in becoming a famous syndicated journalist, and I would become so fabulously wealthy that I would regularly leave luxurious mansions with 4-car garages as tips. Or perhaps I would end up living under a highway overpass in a refrigerator carton. Whatever. It can go either way.
Now that I've gotten that out of the way, we can move on to more important topics, such as my trip to Har Nof, where I spent this past Shabbos. My brother-in-law told me that years ago, people used to refer to it as "Har Nof, USA" because it is a rather American-intensive area. Although in recent years, things have changed, and the American influence is more visible in other areas as well - even Meah Shearim is starting to strongly resemble 13th Ave. in Boro Park, minus the double-parked cars (here we have triple-parked mopeds instead).
So there I was, at 3:00 PM on Friday afternoon, walking to the bus stop in Geulah, hoping to catch the number 15 bus to Har Nof. Someone warned me that he heard the last bus was at 2:30 PM, and that I would have to take a taxi, but I figured I would try my luck anyway.
If you're one of the people who has absolutely nothing better to do with your life than to waste your valuable time reading my blog, you may recall that a little while ago, I posted a rather negative rant about the bus service here, claiming that the buses are unreliable. However, I'm afraid I must retract that statement: to my utter surprise, a number 15 bus to Har Nof rolled up to the stop where I was waiting at promptly 3:10 PM, just five minutes after I got there. So now I don't know what to believe. Are the buses reliable or not? Perhaps we should demand that the US Congress stop fooling around with silly things like tax reform and illegal immigration and convene a special blue-ribbon investigative panel to focus on the more important issue of Israeli bus punctuality.
I know what you're going to ask me: "But why on earth would the United States Congress care about the buses in some other country?" My answer is quite simple: be quiet, and stop asking me silly questions that I don't have good answers for. Besides, I don't really care whether there's a good reason or not; I feel that if Congress can waste billions of dollars on stupid programs like "National Eggplant Ripeness Week" or "National Tractor Mechanic Appreciation Month", then they can afford to spend another few bucks to help a desperate American tourist figure out what on earth is going on with the Israeli bus schedule.
But getting back to my trip to Har Nof - which, as you may recall (although I highly doubt it) is supposed to be the topic of this post - I boarded the number 15 bus, and settled down for the 15 to 20 minute journey. I got off on Katzenellenbogen street (perennial winner of the prestigious Most Unnecessarily Long Street Name With Approximately Two Million Syllables In One Single Word award), and proceeded to number 76, where I would be staying for Shabbos.
Har Nof is designed in a very interesting fashion. Because it is built directly into the side of a mountain, and not on flat ground, many of the buildings have two entrances: on one side of the building the entrance is on the first floor, while on the other side of the building, the entrance is on the fifth floor or so. Really. I am not making this up. The buildings also have 2 addresses because of this; for instance, the building where I was staying was 76 Rechov Katzenellenbogen only from the fifth floor entrance - from the first floor address, it is known as 43 Rechov Agasi. Likewise, the buildings on the other side of Rechov Agasi have their second entrances even lower down the mountain, on some street whose name escapes me at the moment (not that I really care, and therefore neither should you).
Shabbos in Har Nof was very nice: not too Israeli, but not too American either. It was a nice blend of the cultures (at least as far as an uncultured individual like me could tell). On Shabbos afternoon, I went for a walk with my hosts to the very top of the mountain. The view from there was magnificent - we could see as far as Hadassah hospital.
As we marveled at the view of the spectacular mountains surrounding us, my host told me a vort that he personally heard from Rav Hutner z"l: the pasuk says "Yerushalayim harim saviv lah, v'Hashem saviv l'amo" - just as Yerushalayim is surrounded by protective mountains, so too Hashem surrounds and protects His nation from their enemies. Imagine, says Rav Hutner, just like the mountains surround and protect Yerushalayim - they are the "taful" (secondary) and Yerushalayim is the "ikar" (primary) - so too Hashem, out of His great love for His people, makes Himself "taful" - secondary (as it were) - to His people to protect them from their enemies.
It was with these words of inspiration in mind that I left Har Nof on Motzei Shabbos, after thanking my hosts for their warm hospitality. As I walked across the street to the bus stop, I thought to myself: we are indeed surrounded by evil enemies on all sides - whether the Arabs who would think nothing of taking our lives, or Chiloni instigators who would think nothing of taking our souls. But who can possibly harm us when Hashem is personally protecting us?
Monday, November 12, 2007
Of Feathers and Fridges
As you are doubtlessly aware, the value of the US dollar keeps on falling lower and lower each day. Just turn on the radio and tune in to any station, and you'll hear numbers like 3.88, 3.90, and 3.91. Don't get your hopes up; that's just the price for a gallon of gasoline. The actual exchange rate for shekels is way lower.
While digesting these important facts, one thing immediately became clear: there is no way in the world I am going to write a blog post about economics. I cannot do my readers the disservice of providing them with possibly useful information; in fact, before each and every entry gets posted on my blog, it undergoes a thorough fact check by a crack squad of proofreaders equipped with pruning shears. If they encounter any bit of information that looks even remotely like an important or useful fact, they rip it out immediately, with great force.
So instead of economics, we'll do something far more interesting (well, at least to some of you) today: an update on life in my dira.
First of all, we have a new roommate. We finally got a bird: a gray cockatiel (which looks like a large parakeet, except that it has a hairstyle strongly reminiscent of Tintin). My roommate, who bought the bird, claims it's a female. (I don't know how he knows this. Perhaps the bird is always talking on the phone. Or perhaps it's always asking him "do these feathers make me look fat?")
The bird has so far been named "Tutzy" (pronounced "TOOH-tzi"), and for a very good reason: a sensible, smart person like me was not consulted first - my roommate decided to give it that name on his own, although I wonder what kind of narcotics he was under the influence of at the time. I personally cannot think of any logical reason to give the poor thing such a weird name, but that's none of my business, is it?
At least the turtle has a semi-normal name: Norman. We chose that name because it acts like an old geezer, spending most of its time sleeping or bonking slowly but deliberately into the walls of its tank, and we decided that Norman sounds like a real geezer-ish, Harry-esque name.
Norman and Tutzy are good neighbors: Tutzy's cage is perched (har!) on top of Norman's tank, and except for the time Tutzy pooped straight into Norman's tank, scoring a direct hit into his water bowl, they each seem to mind their own business. I doubt each one even knows the other one exists.
In other animal-related news, the highly annoying neighborhood rooster has been very quiet lately. Perhaps the rooster read my blog, and realized what he would be in for if he didn't shut his noisy little beak. Or perhaps he thinks Tutzy and Norman are gonna gang up on him. Although if that's the case, he really doesn't have much to worry about: poor Norman doesn't even seem capable of ganging up on his food bowl.
At least his food doesn't need to be refrigerated, thank goodness, since the dira fridge has still been neither fixed, nor replaced. At this point, the mold colony growing in the fridge has grown so advanced that they're registering to vote in the upcoming elections. Rumor has it that we may be soon getting a replacement, second-hand fridge, but I'll only believe it when I see it. Call me a pessimist, but as far as I'm concerned, the chances of actually getting the fridge issue resolved once and for all is so low you gotta dig to find them.
Personally, I already gave up on the communal fridge, and so I bought my own fridge. It's a cute little blue portable mini-fridge with a carry handle on top. And I do not use the term "mini" lightly: the interior of my fridge is roughly the size of an ice pack, only less likely to keep things cold. But hey, I was getting desperate already. I needed someplace to keep my... ummmm... my... what did I need a fridge so badly for, anyway?
Seriously, though, I usually keep a couple of small items in the fridge: a small jar of mayonnaise, a small bag of milk in a small pitcher, a small package of cold cuts, and a small container of chumus (did I mention that everything is small?) I don't know if it was worth the 320 shekel (around 80 bucks) I paid for it, but at least now I can eat my cans of tuna fish. In my humble opinion, they taste much better with mayonnaise (the tuna fish, that is, not the cans), but your preferences my vary - perhaps you like to eat tuna fish with chicken soup; although in that case, I assure you that you are completely insane.
So that's my approach for coping with the lack of a communal fridge. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for coping without a decent phone line. In a previous post, I speculated that Bezeq had perhaps excised our phone line using a commercial-grade blowtorch. Little did I know that I wasn't so far from the truth: upon opening a phone jack in the wall near my room, I discovered that the actual phone wires had been ripped from the wall completely. So any thoughts of getting it reconnected have been scrapped.
There is another jack downstairs in our erstwhile "kitchen", but while that one still has its wires intact, it nevertheless does not work. But at least maybe there's hope for getting Bezeq to hook it up to the network someday, and eventually, maybe I can even run a wire upstairs to my room and install my own phone jack.
Although if we do that, it's probably gonna be impossible to get Tutzy off the phone.
While digesting these important facts, one thing immediately became clear: there is no way in the world I am going to write a blog post about economics. I cannot do my readers the disservice of providing them with possibly useful information; in fact, before each and every entry gets posted on my blog, it undergoes a thorough fact check by a crack squad of proofreaders equipped with pruning shears. If they encounter any bit of information that looks even remotely like an important or useful fact, they rip it out immediately, with great force.
So instead of economics, we'll do something far more interesting (well, at least to some of you) today: an update on life in my dira.
First of all, we have a new roommate. We finally got a bird: a gray cockatiel (which looks like a large parakeet, except that it has a hairstyle strongly reminiscent of Tintin). My roommate, who bought the bird, claims it's a female. (I don't know how he knows this. Perhaps the bird is always talking on the phone. Or perhaps it's always asking him "do these feathers make me look fat?")
The bird has so far been named "Tutzy" (pronounced "TOOH-tzi"), and for a very good reason: a sensible, smart person like me was not consulted first - my roommate decided to give it that name on his own, although I wonder what kind of narcotics he was under the influence of at the time. I personally cannot think of any logical reason to give the poor thing such a weird name, but that's none of my business, is it?
At least the turtle has a semi-normal name: Norman. We chose that name because it acts like an old geezer, spending most of its time sleeping or bonking slowly but deliberately into the walls of its tank, and we decided that Norman sounds like a real geezer-ish, Harry-esque name.
Norman and Tutzy are good neighbors: Tutzy's cage is perched (har!) on top of Norman's tank, and except for the time Tutzy pooped straight into Norman's tank, scoring a direct hit into his water bowl, they each seem to mind their own business. I doubt each one even knows the other one exists.
In other animal-related news, the highly annoying neighborhood rooster has been very quiet lately. Perhaps the rooster read my blog, and realized what he would be in for if he didn't shut his noisy little beak. Or perhaps he thinks Tutzy and Norman are gonna gang up on him. Although if that's the case, he really doesn't have much to worry about: poor Norman doesn't even seem capable of ganging up on his food bowl.
At least his food doesn't need to be refrigerated, thank goodness, since the dira fridge has still been neither fixed, nor replaced. At this point, the mold colony growing in the fridge has grown so advanced that they're registering to vote in the upcoming elections. Rumor has it that we may be soon getting a replacement, second-hand fridge, but I'll only believe it when I see it. Call me a pessimist, but as far as I'm concerned, the chances of actually getting the fridge issue resolved once and for all is so low you gotta dig to find them.
Personally, I already gave up on the communal fridge, and so I bought my own fridge. It's a cute little blue portable mini-fridge with a carry handle on top. And I do not use the term "mini" lightly: the interior of my fridge is roughly the size of an ice pack, only less likely to keep things cold. But hey, I was getting desperate already. I needed someplace to keep my... ummmm... my... what did I need a fridge so badly for, anyway?
Seriously, though, I usually keep a couple of small items in the fridge: a small jar of mayonnaise, a small bag of milk in a small pitcher, a small package of cold cuts, and a small container of chumus (did I mention that everything is small?) I don't know if it was worth the 320 shekel (around 80 bucks) I paid for it, but at least now I can eat my cans of tuna fish. In my humble opinion, they taste much better with mayonnaise (the tuna fish, that is, not the cans), but your preferences my vary - perhaps you like to eat tuna fish with chicken soup; although in that case, I assure you that you are completely insane.
So that's my approach for coping with the lack of a communal fridge. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for coping without a decent phone line. In a previous post, I speculated that Bezeq had perhaps excised our phone line using a commercial-grade blowtorch. Little did I know that I wasn't so far from the truth: upon opening a phone jack in the wall near my room, I discovered that the actual phone wires had been ripped from the wall completely. So any thoughts of getting it reconnected have been scrapped.
There is another jack downstairs in our erstwhile "kitchen", but while that one still has its wires intact, it nevertheless does not work. But at least maybe there's hope for getting Bezeq to hook it up to the network someday, and eventually, maybe I can even run a wire upstairs to my room and install my own phone jack.
Although if we do that, it's probably gonna be impossible to get Tutzy off the phone.
Thursday, November 1, 2007
The Wheels on the Bus Go Round, Round, Round...
Today's topic is: how do you get from place to place in Israel? (Short answer: you don't. Trust me, you're much better off staying put.)
For those of you unfamiliar with Israeli society, I should point out that the primary method of getting from place to place is by walking, and not necessarily on the sidewalk, either. Israeli pedestrians have been sighted in middle of the street, sprawled across the hoods of taxis, anywhere - they have even been sighted walking on the surface of Mars. Walking is a fine idea if you plan on only going to local destinations. If you're going more than just a few blocks, though, you have several options:
OPTION #1: You can take a taxi. This option is the best method for learning how to curse fluently in Hebrew, Arabic, and a number of other languages. It also provides the immense benefit of leaving you at the mercy of the taxi driver, who - if he thinks you're a newcomer - may attempt to charge you 500 shekel per oxygen molecule you breathe (which is actually quite a bargain, considering how little oxygen some of the cabs contain). So you have to try not to get ripped off. I've already learned that the average trip can be made for 20 shekel (about $5) or less. Some people consider taxis to be a relatively expensive option, but I prefer a more positive outlook: where else can you be driven somewhere in a chauffeured Mercedes for less than five bucks? Definitely not in New York, I can tell you that. New York cabbies expect five bucks just for the privilege of not spitting on you.
OPTION #2: You can get a "tus-tus", which is the local name for a moped. Don't ask me how on earth "tus-tus" translates to "moped" - I'm a journalist, not a linguist, for crying out loud. (Personally, I wonder why they have to call it a "tus-tus" - shouldn't one "tus" be enough?) A moped is a great, economical way of getting around, with the added bonus that you get to wear a helmet that makes you look like an invading space alien from planet Zork. The only drawback of driving a moped is that the busses are WAY bigger than you are and travel at roughly the speed of a New York taxicab (which is 175 miles per hour on the sidewalk), so if you inadvertently get in the way of a bus, you will involuntarily help manufacture a new speed bump at that spot. Which brings us to our next option:
OPTION #3: You can take a bus. This seems to be the most popular option among most people, presumably because it's such a great opportunity to shove yourself, cattle-car style, into a group of random strangers, some of whom you would never have anything to do with voluntarily. You see all kinds of passengers on busses: Chareidim, Chilonim, tourists, Arabs, the occasional head of cattle, etc. A bus fare is 5-and-a-half shekel (roughly $1.38), for which you get a little receipt which you are required by law to keep until your dying day. I was told that if I don't, I run the risk that the Bus Police will burst into my dira in the middle of the night with vicious dogs, guns drawn, and take our pet turtle hostage.
Now, any one of these three options will get you where you want to go. The question is, which one is right for you? Well, we can rule the moped out right off the bat. Most people look silly on mopeds (although that probably wouldn't stop me from riding one if I had the opportunity - it sure doesn't stop anyone else), not to mention that insurance costs a fortune these days. So that leaves the cab or bus.
Busses are the cheaper option, but are ideal only if you have a LOT of time to kill, waiting at the bus stop. That's one lesson Egged seems to have learned from the MTA: promise busses every 10-20 minutes, but have them only come once every hour or two, especially if it's a bus that a lot of people really need. In fact, the more popular a bus is, the less likely it is to come.
Many Israelis tell me the bus system is usually punctual. I guess perhaps it's just my bad luck, then. I personally waited at a bus stop last week for the popular number 2 bus for over an hour. During that time, I watched more than 70 busses go by, and not a single one of them was a number 2 (I eventually gave up and took a cab). That got me thinking: you know how the Israeli security people claim that they actually thwart over %80 of terror attacks? Well, I'm betting that most of the time, they accomplish that by having busses never come, causing the terrorists to get so angry and frustrated that they go attempt to blow up useless targets instead, such as law firms.
Getting a cab is much easier. Taxis are about as plentiful in Israel as skunks are in the Catskill Mountains, except they often smell worse. The procedure for hailing a cab is quite simple: when you see a white car with a little yellow taxi sign on the roof drive by, you raise your hand, then immediately bring it down sharply with tremendous force on the head of anyone who tries to get into the cab ahead of you. Depending on your destination, the driver will either offer you a flat rate, or he will turn on the meter. Or if he's really cunning, he'll try both - like I said before, the trick is not to let yourself get ripped off.
At least that's what everyone tells me: I, on the other hand, have the bargaining skills of a slab of Formica, and usually just pay whatever I'm told to. But if the trip was beyond walking distance, then it's a small price to pay for the convenience of getting where I wanted to go in one piece. After all, I don't really want to end up walking on the surface of Mars, do I?
For those of you unfamiliar with Israeli society, I should point out that the primary method of getting from place to place is by walking, and not necessarily on the sidewalk, either. Israeli pedestrians have been sighted in middle of the street, sprawled across the hoods of taxis, anywhere - they have even been sighted walking on the surface of Mars. Walking is a fine idea if you plan on only going to local destinations. If you're going more than just a few blocks, though, you have several options:
OPTION #1: You can take a taxi. This option is the best method for learning how to curse fluently in Hebrew, Arabic, and a number of other languages. It also provides the immense benefit of leaving you at the mercy of the taxi driver, who - if he thinks you're a newcomer - may attempt to charge you 500 shekel per oxygen molecule you breathe (which is actually quite a bargain, considering how little oxygen some of the cabs contain). So you have to try not to get ripped off. I've already learned that the average trip can be made for 20 shekel (about $5) or less. Some people consider taxis to be a relatively expensive option, but I prefer a more positive outlook: where else can you be driven somewhere in a chauffeured Mercedes for less than five bucks? Definitely not in New York, I can tell you that. New York cabbies expect five bucks just for the privilege of not spitting on you.
OPTION #2: You can get a "tus-tus", which is the local name for a moped. Don't ask me how on earth "tus-tus" translates to "moped" - I'm a journalist, not a linguist, for crying out loud. (Personally, I wonder why they have to call it a "tus-tus" - shouldn't one "tus" be enough?) A moped is a great, economical way of getting around, with the added bonus that you get to wear a helmet that makes you look like an invading space alien from planet Zork. The only drawback of driving a moped is that the busses are WAY bigger than you are and travel at roughly the speed of a New York taxicab (which is 175 miles per hour on the sidewalk), so if you inadvertently get in the way of a bus, you will involuntarily help manufacture a new speed bump at that spot. Which brings us to our next option:
OPTION #3: You can take a bus. This seems to be the most popular option among most people, presumably because it's such a great opportunity to shove yourself, cattle-car style, into a group of random strangers, some of whom you would never have anything to do with voluntarily. You see all kinds of passengers on busses: Chareidim, Chilonim, tourists, Arabs, the occasional head of cattle, etc. A bus fare is 5-and-a-half shekel (roughly $1.38), for which you get a little receipt which you are required by law to keep until your dying day. I was told that if I don't, I run the risk that the Bus Police will burst into my dira in the middle of the night with vicious dogs, guns drawn, and take our pet turtle hostage.
Now, any one of these three options will get you where you want to go. The question is, which one is right for you? Well, we can rule the moped out right off the bat. Most people look silly on mopeds (although that probably wouldn't stop me from riding one if I had the opportunity - it sure doesn't stop anyone else), not to mention that insurance costs a fortune these days. So that leaves the cab or bus.
Busses are the cheaper option, but are ideal only if you have a LOT of time to kill, waiting at the bus stop. That's one lesson Egged seems to have learned from the MTA: promise busses every 10-20 minutes, but have them only come once every hour or two, especially if it's a bus that a lot of people really need. In fact, the more popular a bus is, the less likely it is to come.
Many Israelis tell me the bus system is usually punctual. I guess perhaps it's just my bad luck, then. I personally waited at a bus stop last week for the popular number 2 bus for over an hour. During that time, I watched more than 70 busses go by, and not a single one of them was a number 2 (I eventually gave up and took a cab). That got me thinking: you know how the Israeli security people claim that they actually thwart over %80 of terror attacks? Well, I'm betting that most of the time, they accomplish that by having busses never come, causing the terrorists to get so angry and frustrated that they go attempt to blow up useless targets instead, such as law firms.
Getting a cab is much easier. Taxis are about as plentiful in Israel as skunks are in the Catskill Mountains, except they often smell worse. The procedure for hailing a cab is quite simple: when you see a white car with a little yellow taxi sign on the roof drive by, you raise your hand, then immediately bring it down sharply with tremendous force on the head of anyone who tries to get into the cab ahead of you. Depending on your destination, the driver will either offer you a flat rate, or he will turn on the meter. Or if he's really cunning, he'll try both - like I said before, the trick is not to let yourself get ripped off.
At least that's what everyone tells me: I, on the other hand, have the bargaining skills of a slab of Formica, and usually just pay whatever I'm told to. But if the trip was beyond walking distance, then it's a small price to pay for the convenience of getting where I wanted to go in one piece. After all, I don't really want to end up walking on the surface of Mars, do I?
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