The Irviner Chasid

Midrash Dictionary

2006-09-26T14:25:00.000-07:00

Over Rosh Hashana I was reading Chagiga Perek Bet, Bava Basra amud 79, and Brachot perek 9...

I was discussing the aggadatahs with my friends, explainting to them things I have picked up over the years. One of my friends asked me simply... Why don't they make a dictionary for these things? And I replied... good question!

So A. Does anyone know of a such a book that gives a dictionary for these things?

2. Would anyone like to help me make one?

Here off the top of my head, is my incomplete dictionary. (in no particular order- you may notice quite a few repeats)

1. Wave = Yetzer Harah, the evil inclination.
2. White = Chesed (good things)
3. Red = Din, strict justice, (often associate with chet- sins)
4. Water = Torah (the type of torah that flows from high to low)
5. Fish = Torah Scholar, or a person emersed in Torah more so than the average chacham
6. Fire = Halacha, Torah, the words of Torah Sh'bictav
7. Cedar tree = Leader of the generation, like A Rosh Yeshiva, or the Prince of a tribe
8. Mountain = Spiritual giant like Avraham, Yitzcahk, Moshe, Rabbi Akiva
9. String = A weak connection, counter intuitive, Truth but hard to proove.
10. Pillars = Key ideas, Like the world stands on three pillars: Chesed, Avodah, Justice
11. Heavens = the unkown
12. Earth = What we can sense
13. A ship = Something of importance in this world, but is transient and not so impotant ultimately
14. A Staff = The rulings of Torah
15. Crown = A stature, a good name, Malchut, Kingship.
16. Blue = Binah, wisdom
17. Mother = Binah, wisdom
18. Father = strictness, source
19. Yoke, around the neck = Acceptace of Torah
20. Locusts/ants = Prayers of the Jewish people.
21. Green = Tipheret, could also be yellow...
22. Silver = desire, teivah
23. River = Torah as understood by the current generation.
24. Chariot = Gd's control over the mundane in this world
25. Chaot(angels) = messengers
26. Cherbuim = guardians connected with relationships
27. Orphanim = More subtle messengers related to less concrete things
28. Chashmal = quickly moving idea, a brief insight, like lightning.
29. Leviathon = The righteous of all generations
30. Behamah = The animalistic side of man
31. Giant bird eggs = 10 commandments??

Help add to the list!

"Terrorists"

2006-09-26T11:15:00.000-07:00

I heard on a brief snippet on NPR today, that Somalia (remember black hawk down?) is under attack by the "Islamists" Now, all reports say that these guys "have no connection to Al Qaeda" and are therefore, "not terrorists"... This by the way, is very similar to this report about Iraq increasing terrorism-- (right.. because no terrorists existed before 9/11)

Anyway.. I would not be surprised, and I would even wager that these "Islamists" in Somalia, have ZERO ties to Al Qaeda, they don't even have the same barber. But for anyone to say that these guys are not the same ball of wax, are not also our new definition of the term "terrorists" is just so backwards and ostrich like that it scares the hell out of me. I don't know if the Arab league is working on world domination, or if Gd is planting seeds in people's heads that now is a good time for another attempt to take over the world by force of religion, but for people to not see the connections between Hostile take overs in Africa, and the intra muslim fighting of the middle east, and the Coup of Thailand...

I hope every prays, and takes upon themselves more mitzvot to warrant Jews around the world the merit of saving us from another world war.

Rabbi's Sermon in Irvine

2006-09-25T19:24:00.000-07:00

The rabbi gave an interesting sermon this rosh hashana that I was not expecting.

He informed the congregation that as a child his religion was not Judaism.

It turns out, that his religion was baseball.

He then continued to tell us baseball stats and figures for about 5 minutes, all the while mentioning the brachas he made, and the holidays he celebrated.

He said the famous line, Judaism is my "way of life", Baseball was his religion, but Judaism was his way of life, was his constant refrain.

Interesting things to think about. Other religions he gave examples of were Arts, theater, Electronics, Television, he should have mentioned blogging but didn't.

Can't prove a negetive

2006-09-21T15:02:00.000-07:00

Michael medvend had the man who wrote "A letter to a christian Nation" on his program today. First time I heard his program in who knows how long... its been a while since I drove up to L.A. at this time of day. (Yay crazy shopping trips!) anyways, Medved was getting up set at the comparison between 16% of Americans beleiving that government executed 9/11 and 22% of Americans beleiving that Jesus will come back in the next 50 years.

Jesus comming back, and Torah M'sinai, can't be proved false.

However, the idea that 9/11 was commited by Arab extermeists can be proved false.

There is a difference between not being able to prove a negetive in general, and not being able to prove specific negetives. Something to think about.

Lastly, somehow, the debate on the radio reminded of a speach I once heard by a visiting rabbi. When people say that G'd creating a false age of the earth is deceptive, he argued that it is not.

When you imagine a person saying "Abra cadabra, I will make a Giant Elm Tree out of nothing... and *POOF* there is a tree. If you cut down that tree, how many rings do you expect to find? 0? 1? 30? 2,000? 15.3 billion?

Granted nobody expects to find 15.3 billion, but what about the sudden creation of a rock? What does your mind's (I)eye show you? Granted again, that this thought experiment does not answer all the many thousands of questions that is asked about the age of the universe, however it was a reminder to me, that if we think about our "fancifull delusions" of a magician creating a tree out of nothing, our mind normally envisions a Full Tree that is atleast 30 years old, and not a seed with the age of 0.

UN Speaches

2006-09-20T08:30:00.000-07:00

So I heard the speaches at the UN yesterday.

I have a strong suspicion that all the questionable things the Iranian president said are going to be completely ignored. Like talking about how he was peace and justice for all, and that Israel should be destroyed. And how he is going to bring about the mesiah. And how the U.S. has to be removed from the security council, and how he wants to take over the U.N. because he says its a failed institution and he will make it better.

Lets see if anyone talks about those things. I doubt it. Its too scary and people don't like scary things apparently.

Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan

2006-09-19T14:19:00.000-07:00

R. Kaplan's books have by no short order been the most influential on me I have ever read.

In this day and age of mocking and deriding people I respect, I would like to ask people to help me find someone who finds R. Aryeh Kaplan's writings to be bunk, not "real Judaism" or anything else that might discredit his influence.

Midnight Party: Slichot!

2006-09-17T01:09:00.000-07:00

Apparently they put out a pre-slichot video this year to inspire people. Not sure if it was all that inspiring, but R. Frand made some interesting points. I am going to take his points out of context and apply them to the blog world which I've witnessed shortly.

1. Vilna goan apparently said that the generation before Moshiach will not only be doing evil for superficial reasons, but will be doing good for superficial reasons also. Since we know that every generation has the potential of being the generation before the Moshiach this is a timeless "fault". I think this is also the "source" of the internet skeptic blogger. Too much "superficiality" as a sign of fakeness, instead of it being a sign of "taking things for granted" and "nature"

2. This one will go over most people's heads, but thats fine. Nature does everything by rote. As the speaker was prone to say often "Day in, day out, day in , day out" (sounds a lot like Dayan die out .. but anyway) We think the world is on automatic, but we learn from our sources that NO!, Rabono shel Olam rebuilds the world every second. Everything is new, even though everything is old.

3. There is no point three. Does that mean there is no point?

4. For the first time I decided to daven Slichot 90% in English and 10% in Hebrew... Best Slichot ever. ironically, my fiance did the same thing, and she also had her best slichot ever. Both of us thought we didn't have enough pages or something. Very bizzare.

Cafferty agrees with Daganev.... sorta

2006-09-15T13:31:00.000-07:00

On T.V. a few minutes ago I heard a question asked on CNN. Normally I don't watch CNN but in the morning they are better than any other news station. (apparently they are the only ones who do news in the morning period these days.)

Anyway here is the question.

Cafferty File

Jack Cafferty sounds off on the stories crossing his radar. Write in to answer Jack's hourly questions, and watch to see if he reads your response.

4 p.m.: Would you support a third national political party headed by Colin Powell and Barack Obama?

Now, I dont know why he chose those two people, does anyone have a record of what they hold by? However, he is trying to start a third party bandwagon. Looks like my 2010 prediction isn't all that far off.

Random thoughts of today.

2006-09-13T14:54:00.000-07:00

I heard on NPR today that 43% of Californians are registered as either Republican or Democrat, and the number of "decline to states" is still on the rise. Looks like my prediction of a new party by 2010 isn't all that far off.

Apparently, puting the words "islam" and "facism" next to eachother is now "inappropriate" but its perfectly fine when they say Nazi-zionists on college campuses across the country.

I read that someone keeps saying that Rush Limbau supports path to 9/11 but pushed to get the CBS Reagan movie pulled off the air. According to reality though, Rush Limbau was off the air when the controversy was alive in 2003. (because he was in rehab) Everything that Rush ever said about the CBS Reagan movie was said after CBS moved the movie over to Showtime. I would just like to make a small point here however. The CBS movie was ABOUT Reagan, the ABC movie was NOT about Clinton. It was about the American Govenment and the failures of the beuocracy at higher levels. Nobody seems to care about that point. I would have thought that Democrats would have ceased on this Movie to show that nothing has changed since then, and the Democrats would bring a new order to things. Oh well.

Bring on the party of 2010 (someone come up with a good name please)

How to Study Kabbalah: An amaeture's Primer

2006-09-11T13:14:00.000-07:00

I have no credentials, but I am going to take a shot at this.

Here is my primer on how to study Kabbalah. I will demostrate by example rather than give instructions. Following, is a simple game the instructions will teach you how to play the game.

The game of TTT.

To start the game of TTT you must fist cnt the gmb.

Step 1:

cnt a lne x 3

Step 2:

cnt a lne x 3 sideways.

After you have Cnt the gmb you may play:

The first pyr will cnt an X in a sre defined by the gmb.

The second pyr will cnt an O in a sre defined by the gmb in which there is no X or O

The first pyr to get X x 3 or O x 3 in a lne wins the game.

Those who understand TTT will understand, and those who do not, will require more study.

Now I will tell you that TTT stands for Tick-tack-toe. Go over and read the instructions, does it make sense? Can you spot something wrong in the instuctions?

Welcome back. Now, I will tell you that "lne" means a line. Do the instructions make more sense?

Now, "cnt" = construct. However it also means "draw" - Can you now find two ways to play this game, do you get two different images of how this game works? (perhaps in one game you use a pen and paper, another version you use blocks or wood?)

Maybe we are still missing information? What is gmb? As some of you have probabbly guessed allready, "gmb" means Gameboard.

A "pyr" means Player. Notice how in one case the "first pyr" is a specific person, however later in the text we discover that "first pyr" is also, anyone who completes the task first.

The last undefined term is "sre" which means Square. Now that you know what "sre" means you can better know how to "cnt the gmb" so that it creates squares.

A semi hidden term, that may be understanble to most, but some people might miss it, in that they have to learn these new symbols is that lowecase x 3 means.. Do it 3 times.

This is how you study Kabbalah. First you read it, and you ignore that which does not make sense, but you keep it in your mind. Then later on you learn new terms, and things begin to make sense that you read previously. However, sometimes these terms have more than one meaning, and you go back and read the multiple meanings in the text.

For example in my simple game, it says draw a line 3 times, it means up and down, but later when it tells you how to win, a line can also be diaongal.

Now if somebody did not know -anything- about tic-tac-toe, odds are they would play this game incorrectly, because the instructions are sparse and not complete. You need the background of the game and culture, and in Kabbalah's case, Judaism and Halacha.. to make sense of it all.

Hope that helps.

My mandatory post about 9/11

2006-09-11T12:02:00.000-07:00

So here is the story of what I was doing when 9/11 happened.

I was up all night playing computer games. Infact, I was playing Counter Strike. that ever popular mod from Halflife, where you are either a terrorist or a counter terrorist.

I had the news running 24/7 on my T.V back then, (back when they actually had news on 24/7 instead of just reruns of the news) And I saw the news of the planes hit.

My first thought was... wow, how Ironic. Because just then my computer blared "Terrorists win"

Then my second thought was, Finally! Now America will know what Israel is going through, and what Terrorism really means, and how its a global issue not just an Israel vs Arabs issue.

5 years later, I am wondering why even some Jews still don't get that, let alone America :(

At some point down the line, I also felt bad about the large loss of life. But not really, numbers are numbers, and its the history and larger picture I'm interested in. But then again, I have never been one to get emotional over death. I get much more emotional when I think about the personal projects all those people had that was left unfinished. But thats just my personal issues of detachment from emotions.

Realism vs Reality - reposted

2006-09-11T11:46:00.000-07:00

I just have to fully repost this post I just read.

Hopefully the reader of the article will be with me and think about this when it comes to ones search for truth in the world.

they say that truth is stranger than fiction- but we humans won't really accept that save in small isolated debates. We don't really live our life that way.

anyway, here is the post. I will also ask that you ignore the racist remarks, and other details that might make you think "this guy is a wackjob".

Also, think about this article in the terms of the philosophy of Objectism and realism.

Realism vs Reality
By Andrew Klavan (bio)

On the anniversary of Islamo-fascism’s most savage unprovoked attack on western civilization, though all the news is about ABC’s 9/11 miniseries, I find my own mind going back to a moment in another film, United 93. It’s the scene in which the heroic American rebel Todd Beamer, played by David Alan Basche, utters the words that were to become the battlecry of our society’s ongoing fight for survival: “Let’s roll.”

The film, you’ll remember, is a self-consciously “realistic” documentary-style telling of the 9/11 attacks. The uprising on the doomed plane is shown as frantic and chaotic. The now-famous words are buried, almost inaudible under plane noise and a steady stream of frightened weeping and chatter. As the other brave American rebels try to gather their nerve for the assault against the Islamist hijackers, Beamer can just barely be heard muttering a nervous, “C’mon, let’s go, let’s go, let’s roll.”

Several people have mentioned this moment to me, always with praise for its “realism.” I always knew exactly what they meant. In fact, at first, I shared their feelings. By de-emphasizing the inspiring phrase, the filmmakers underplayed the drama and heroics of the moment. Rather than give us something that seemed to be part of the overblown, melodramatic world of the movies, they gave us instead something that seemed more like the confusion, smallness and helter-skelter of real life.

There’s only one problem with this: the moment in the movie isn’t real at all. In real life, the moment was as big, as overblown and melodramatic as any movie you’ll ever see. Beamer had managed to reach a phone company manager on his cell phone. A Christian family man, Beamer said the Lord’s Prayer with her. Then, setting the phone aside but leaving the line open, he said, “Are you guys ready? Let’s roll.” Heartbreakingly, it was a phrase his wife recognized from family outings.

In other words, the makers of United 93 achieved a sense of realism by reworking reality itself.

There was no other way – because what we’ve come to think of as realism in movies and literature is nothing more than a style, a particular way of showing and describing things. When we are confronted with this style, we understand that what we’re being shown is “realistic” whether it has anything to do with reality or not. Like all styles, the style called “realism” has certain recognizable components. For instance, in realistic dramas, people don’t speak eloquently. They hem and haw, talk over each other and leave sentences unfinished. In realism, low motives are always in the foreground and higher ideals are always undercut with irony. Mean streets are realistic, so are unhappy endings. Comfortable homes, loving families, heroism and uplifting faith are not.

This is bizarre when you come to think of it. It means that realism is mute when it comes to describing the best of what we can be, of what life can be. And this partially crippled form of communication is the prevailing style of serious cinema. You could almost say that we know a film is serious by how “realistic” it is. Conversely, when we see true faith and true heroism in movies, we feel we’re in the presence of rank sentimentalism, of powderpuff family entertainment. We feel that it’s somehow “unreal.”

A perfect example of this is the other major 9/11 movie: World Trade Center. This weirdly old-fashioned creation from director Oliver Stone jerks the occasional tear or two but it’s never really convincing and it leaves the viewer – it left this viewer anyway – strangely empty. On reflection, I thought the reason was obvious: Stone simply no longer has the cinematic language with which to describe the movie’s most fascinating and resonant character. The leads are two men trapped and helpless underground. They are heroic men because of what they were trying to do when they were trapped, but they are not the heroes of the film because, in the course of the story, they do nothing but wait and survive.

The real hero of the film is Marine Staff Sergeant David Karnes. Everyone I’ve spoken to about the movie senses this. Karnes feels called by God to leave his comfortable civilian life, to go in search of the two lost men and then, having found them, to re-enlist to help avenge the attack on the country he loves. Of course he’s the hero! In any film made before 1968, it wouldn’t have occurred to anyone that he was not the hero. Stone, however, came of age when the language necessary to describe this man’s feelings and inner self was becoming as dead as Greek and Latin. Instead, he films the marine wreathed in eerie light, with actor Michael Shannon delivering his lines in the other-worldly tones of a mad prophet. As a human figure, he’s “unreal.” Perhaps he’s the spirit of America, half-remembered and now half-insane. Just as likely, he’s Stone’s tortured memory of the man he was when he enlisted to serve in Viet Nam. But having lost that man, having lost those ideals, having become a “realist,” he can no longer bring him to life.

Listen, no one denies the corruption of the world – not me anyway. No one denies that higher ideals are often mingled with mean motives or that even the most selfless moment can be tinged with selfishness. And yet, there is nothing unreal about a man turning to God and finding courage and guidance; about a man deciding to fight, and even to die, for a greater good; about a man assuming a natural mantle of leadership and speaking words of encouragement to lead his fellows on. These things happen all the time. They happened on United Flight 93. They happened at the World Trade Center.

Why have modern films - why have we - lost the power to speak of them?

Judaism and Kabbalah

2006-09-10T18:56:00.000-07:00

A repost of a comment of mine over at RespondingtoJblogs.

"From the kaballah I have learned, it seems to be nothing but gibberish. Of course you should only study such things until your "ready" for them.

Does anyone actually understand the sefirot and klepah and such?

I am not claiming to be an expert, and I am far from a wise and learned person, but I believe, I understand the sefirot and klepah and such.

What I have found in studying kabbalah is 3 key points.

1. First, you have to learn breadth of knoweldge, and not question anything you read. Just take it on face value, and pretend its describing a fantasy world. Once you get breadth of knoweledge, then you can go back and start reading everything in a way where you try to fit how this reflects reality. The reason for this, is that kabbalah is written in imagery for the mind that is not ment to reflect reality, but rather give you a starting point to see that which can not be seen within your own thinking. I am a very visual person, I remember things by the picture I see in my head. At this point in my studies of Kabbalah, I can't see pictures, I have to remember the "hints of thought" that I get when I read, because the images are not complete enough for me.

2. The system of Kabbalah is inherrently irrational. Torah and Gemorah is rational, Kabbalah is the counter balance which allows a person understand the irrational aspects of the other wise rational system. This is because human beings are irrational, and sometimes Halacha, Gemorah, Torah, is appealing to our human side, not our Computer robot rational side.

Let me try to explain how Kabbalah is irrational. In kabbalah, we say there are 10 sephirot. But really, we have 11, but really only 9 are "accessible" but really, 10 are accessible (if you include the 11th), but really, all of them are accessible because none of them are Gd, but there are only 10. This may seem like nonsense, but really it makes sense in a human mind, non rational way.

To me, Kabbalah is giving intelect to your emotions, its a means of awakening a means to trust your emotions on a level that allows you to work as a full human being, and removes the dichotomy of emotional/rational.. or heart/mind etc etc. It basically allows a person to be a single unit instead of a duality.

As for comments about being "ready"-- its true, in a way. The only thing you have to be ready for, is how to compartamentalize. You need to follow halacha(Or some clear cut system that tells you Yes/No) to protect yourself from the dangers of Kabbalah, which opens a person up into seeing everything as Yes AND No.
Daganev | Homepage | 09.10.06 - 2:38 pm | #"

Two more points to make.

1. Everyone who is part of these discussions about things nobody can ever know, be sure to read Chagigah Perke Bet Mishna 1

2. I am utterly convinced now of my dualistic theory.

1. If you do not believe in Kabbalah you working on a system that is irrational and supersticious.

2. If you believe in the Kabbalah you are working on a system that is rational and realistic.

Daf Yomi Sium: Thoughts

2006-09-03T10:35:00.000-07:00

About 25 men between the ages of 13 and 99 showed up to the daf Yomi sium. Some 85 days ago Irvine started its Daf Yomi program, and now we have our first complete sium. Its the first time anyone in Orange County ever hosted a Daf Yomi sium. And how appropriate that we should be finishing up the tractate of Yom Kippur.

It was a great time for all.

For those who don't know what the last page of Yom kippur talks about, here is a brief summary.

1. What is Vidu? Which prayers should we say?

2. What is Neila? Do we have to say the full Shemona esrei or not?

3. Who can go to the mikva on Yom Kippur, and all questions related to that.

But here is what I found interesting. The Gemorah talks about Erev Yom Kippur as "Oar Yomkippur" or The light of Yom Kippur. Now its not uncommon for the Gemorah to play opposite day, and say "The master of sight" when talking about a blind man. But one wonders, what is so wrong about saying Erev, or night, or darkness? That's natural. However, here the Gemorah feels that it needs to use a euphemism, and call the night, light.

I think there are many things we can learn from this, but one thing relevant to the blogosphere, is that we should be careful about how we talk negatively about others. Even something as benign as "evening" needs to be talked about in euphemism.

Just something to think about.

New links, new blogs

2006-09-02T23:30:00.000-07:00

I added some links on the left to new blogs that I have been introduced to.

Just a comment about Bare Dove. I hope they are able to repair the nature of lashon harah that sometimes gets passsed around the blogs. However, I also really hope they do not fall into the trap of giving out Lashon Harah in the name of combating it.

I hope most people on the net who spend thier time blogging can know how to not cross the line, and where the line is crossed.

Also, G_d willing I will be posting tommorow about Irvine's and Orange County's first Daf Yomi Sium.

I need to let go

2006-08-31T22:34:00.000-07:00

>Your question is valid and will ALWAYS remain unanswered.- that is exactly my point. Why can't u let it go?
anonme | 09.01.06 - 12:56 am | #

Allright, this is a good point. I'm not going to convince anybody of anything, and I doubt I will ever be able to get someone to read a book on Torah Sod.

So if someone sees me posting on a thread more than 2 or 3 times, please remind me about this post I made here.

Validation on the proper way to destroy evil.

2006-08-27T20:33:00.000-07:00

This CNN article would have gone right past me, if I was not so bored right now.

The article is twisted and backwards, however we can expect that from CNN and from Hesbulah spokespeople.

However, in my mind it further shows the need of countries to have disproptionate responces to terrorism. If 1 person dies from terrorism, large amounts of force needs to be used against anyone even associated with the terrorist group. I can hear the outrage, but this will just create more terrorists!

Well, if anything can be learned from this article, the opposite is true. I hate to sound heartless but when it comes Terrorism I don't think the bodycounts and numbers matter. What matters is frequency and how it affects the standard of living of the country being hit. 100 people dieing in 1 terrorist attack every 100 days, is better than 10 people dieing in 10 terrorist attacks, every 10 days.

Irvine's Cast of Charachters: Rolecall

2006-08-24T11:46:00.000-07:00

Ok, just thought I would list down here all the "types" of Jews we have at the Orthodox community in Irvine. Many people belong to both Chabad and the MO shul Beth Jacob (it was named Beth Jacob to create a link between the Beth Jacob in San Diego, and the Beth Jacob in Los Angeles. Although our first Torahs were given to us by Beth Jacob of Los Angeles, the connection between the shuls stops at the name)

In this list of types, I'm going to include some people who do not go to Beth Jacob or Chabad, however they live on one of the three "Jew streats" so are part of our community even if they don't go to shul. Such people will be marked with an *. In no particular order....

1. Rabbi of local Reform shul who sends his children to the Chabad school *
2. French Tunisian
3. Mother comes from blackhat family, father is BT
4. Mother and Father are both Converts
5. Obsesive compulsive BT
6. Chabadnics from Birth
7. Black hat FFB
8. RW Israelis who became BT after leaving Israel.
9. LW Israelis who became BT while in Israel.
10. Israelis who moved to Irvine because an Israeli company told them to.
11. Old persian guy who doesn't speak any english
12. Iranian Jews
13. Iraqi Jew- He insists on not being grouped with the persians
14. Left wing Israeli peace nut, who I just found out his son is working for the ministry of health in Rwanada *
15. Classic RW conservative from NY who finds MO the closest thing on the west coast.
16. YU graduates
17. People who think YU is the devil (too much jewishness)
18. South African Bagels and Kugels (30% of the shul)
19. South Africans who tried to get away from the Kugels (21% of the shul)
20. BT Chasids (Chabad, Breslav, guys who like Kabbalah)
21. Guy who claims to be direct decendant of Rav Salevechik - calls Chabad a bunch of christians and has a brother who plays basketball in Israel profesionally.
22. People who were brought up Reform, and walked into our shul on accident one Rosh Hashana, because the parking lot at the Reform shul was full.
23. We have always had one homeless guy living in our shul. Since I can remember, we have had 3 overall, but none of them were ever at the same time. (recently saw one of them at 613 mitzvah store in L.A., he has a job and house and everything now)
24. BBYO and AZA teanagers who seem to think loving Israel means smoking a Hukah* (they have a giant Israeli flag in thier garage)
25. Israelis who I only ever see at social events*
26. Rabbis - We have had at the most 6 living in Irvine at any one time. I miss those days.

26 is a good number of "divisions" to have. Specially since one of my goals is to have people be more open about who they include in their "community"

Irvine's Cast of Charachters: episode Breslav

2006-08-24T11:27:00.000-07:00

Over on Dovbear's blog someone asked me in the comments about Irvine's Breslavers.

The local community of Breslav in Irvine is a very small group. Currently, the population is 1. As far as I know.

This guy, is an amazing person and I'm always feeling lucky to have him in our community. He and his wife often have the single people from UCI over for shabbos meals so many of my younger friends probably know him better than I do, but on with the story.

The story is that like most youts interested in spirituality pre 1990, he traveled to India and learned all things Indian. One day, while his peers were mediating and having images of 4 headed dragons, and other beasts, he medidtated and had images of Gefilte Fish. This sent him back to the U.S and into Judaism. Somehow he became breslav, and still goes to Ukraine ever Rosh Hashana/Yom Kippur.

The best part about his story, is that his step-son is a real litvak. Walking to shul you see the man in the long black coat and long white beard with giant payis, standing side by side with this sharp suit, black hat clean shaven guy. His step-son ended up getting married to the daughter of Irvine's ex Rabbi just months after the Rabbi and his family moved back to Israel.

That story right there is probabbly the story of most people who move to Irvine. They either leave for some abscure job (Irvine is way to expensive to live in) Or people move to Baltimore(so far everyone who has moved to balitomore has done so for thier child's education) (some reason people would rather move to balitmore than do what my parents did, and send them to L.A.- thats how evil L.A. is) , or they move to Israel.

Book Meme: What bloggers think about old media

2006-08-22T11:11:00.000-07:00

I hate memes, so I'm going to instead call this post

What bloggers think about old media:

I was tagged by Baal Habos

1. One book that changed your life?

No book has ever changed my life. People have changed my life, and I have changed my life, but no book has changed my life. Books I read either fit or don't fit with my world view. Many books have informed my world view, but none have actually changed them. What has changed my world view, from a book, is converstaions with other people about the ideas. That being said, the one book that most likely has recently impact my life was "The fountainhead" by Ayn Rand.

I read the book because it was about an architect, and I use to want to be an architect. I was reading the book on a plane, and this nice girl my age next to me, saw it and told me I should really read Atlas Shrugged if I liked this book. So I read it, and brought it to UCSD with me, then during my First year, I told to compare a piece of literature from the 1920s-50s with a movie. Being that I recently read Atlas Shrugged, I said, can I use this book. To which my TA said: "Sure, if you can have it fit one of the assigned movies, however, don't let the other teachers see that book, Ayn Rand is a four letter word around here, better to pick a better book"

I did not really care about Rand, untill my TA said that. Then I read it with more analysis, and got a good idea about the reality of "Academic instutions"

2. One book you have read more than once? I don't know if I have read a book more than once. atleast not fiction. I have read parts of books more than once, but never read the whole thing more than once. .... wait, my memory is being jogged.. I read "Goodnight Moon" more than once. Just read it to my niece the past few nights.

However, I did buy All the Kings Men on CD to listen to, and I had read it before. But the two experiences were so different I'm not sure it counts.

3. One book you would want on a desert island? I would say Robert Jordan's Wheel of time series, because he seems to want to never end it .... however, for a single book, I would have to choose ... nope can't choose. too many choices. I have a bookshelf and not a book-pocket for a reason. But maybe I would bring something short, so I can read it over and over again.

4. One book that made you laugh? Dilbert

5. One book that made you cry? Real bloggers don't cry.

6. One book you wish had been written? How to learn everything about everything in 30 days.

7. One book you wish had never been written? How to learn Java in 30 days. (bunch of liars!)

8. One book you are currently reading? Zohar

9) One book you have been meaning to read? How to learn Java in 30 days. Ok, so I never really needed to read the Java book, so umm... I have been meaning to read that famous fiction book that I forget the name of. Hence why I keep not reading it.

Responce to Godol about Faith

2006-08-20T14:30:00.000-07:00

Click on the title to see the post.

Here are my personal views on the subject of "Faith" and the current conflict in the middleast.

First point. The term "Faith" is really quite meaningless in this context.

People will argue that the Terrorists have "Faith" and thus they are an example of how religion is something we should avoid.

Ok, firstly to that claim. The Tamil Tigers were the first group of "terrorists" to use suicide bombers and children fighters. The Tamil Tigers were a marxist based group, rought on wanting ethnic self rule. You can read about them in the link. It was a war between Hindus and Buddhists, however, neither the Hindus, nor the Buddhists identified themselves that way, rather they identified themselves by thier ethnicity alone. It therefore appears to me, that for all we know, Iran and Hezbulah and Hamas and Bin Laden, all use "Faith" as a tool, to reach thier socio-political aims of leadership and whatever else they want to do. Different totalitarian governments used different reasons to explain why they should rule, and religion and "Faith" are normaly not the reason, but the method. Incidently, I just saw a show on T.V. last night explaining how every "homosapien" fosil they have found, has been surrounded by a burial site. And that one distinguishing featureo f homosapiens is that they believe in an afterlife. So it should come as no surprise that most humans in history have had a faith of some kind.

Second. If it is infact the case that we are fighting a "religious war" than it appears to me, from a completely Functional utilitarian view, that "Faith" is winning. The group with the larger faith in thier system of opperations, are the ones who are prevailing. Iran is defying the UN, Hezbualah is using the world to achieve their goals of propganda. Those who have complete faith in thier methods, and who continue on without self doubt, are the ones who succeed. This is true in all levels of life. Those who have faith in ther ideals prevail and those who have doubts eventually follow the ones with complete faith. Truth does not matter anymore it seems. I am not going to say that Truth does not exist, but in our society, where faith is being attacked by people who have faith in thier lack of faith, Truth does not matter, it become irrelevant. Does it matter if Israel broke the UN treaty, or if they were justified? Not really. All that matters is if the surrounding people think that Israel broke the treaty or not. Does it matter if the U.S and the Red Cross open up hospitals in Lebanon? Not really, all that matters is that Hezbulah has put up thier flags on those hospitals and the people of Lebanon think that Hezbulah is helping them, and not the red cross, or the U.S.

So what is this sollution to this?

Have more Faith in your cause, and know what your cause is.

Do you want to see an end to terrorist groups? Do you want to see an end to International appeasment of terrorist groups? Do you want the rule of law to trump reality? Do you just have this vague idea of "there should be peace"? Whatever your goal, make sure you go about it with full faith and don't half ass it.

Shabbat will heal the Jews... I hope.

2006-08-14T18:40:00.000-07:00

>Invite them over for shabbos and ask them were thier hatred stems from.

Ah yes, Nich'nas Cholent Yatza Sod..........

Get real, Daganev. You really believe that the secular and religious camps can settle and make peace over a Shabbos meal????
lakewood yid | 08.14.06 - 8:43 pm | #

>Get real, Daganev. You really believe that the secular and religious camps can settle and make peace over a Shabbos meal????

Yes, I have seen it happen. That is why I love Irvine so much. We had a chabad rabbi who stole and embezzled funds, in about 1989. It wasn't untill 1997 when the non religious in the community were willing to accept the MO shul into the community and make changes to the JCC (such as keeping the kitchen closed on Shabbat) A few years later, they were willing to higher Orthodox rabbis as teachers into the community day school. All because my parents, and other people in the community invited them over for Shabbos meals despite of and sometiems because of the political differences. I know this, because that is what the people said made the difference.

However, my family never makes Chulent, so maybe that is why it worked :P
Daganev | Homepage | 08.14.06 - 9:14 pm | #

LY- Maybe they can make peace (or at least meet halfway) over acts of chesed and tzedaka instead? It is commitment to principles such as this that unite the real ideological parties on the right and left- both Agudah, for example, and Meretz-Yachad care about Israelis going hungry.
Friar Yid | Homepage | 08.14.06 - 9:20 pm | #

>Yes, I have seen it happen. That is why I love Irvine so much.

Yoy, we are talking about "die-hard" Israelies, not about the mild mannered of Irvine.
lakewood yid | Homepage | 08.14.06 - 9:25 pm | #

>Yes, I have seen it happen. That is why I love Irvine so much.

Yoy, we are talking about "die-hard" Israelies, not about the mild mannered of Irvine.

So, the man who lives next door to my fiance lost a brother in the 67 war. He currently has a sign outside his window that reads. Support our troops, end all wars. I was good friends with his daughter growing up, who is now a berkley nut (her words not mine):P

Across the streat from me, are the parents of one of my best friends, who currently lives in Israel, and talks about how Kadima is a bunch of leftwing fanatics. The family is from Israel, they are about as politically right in Israel as you can get. Thier daughter just married a charedi guy in Bnei'Brak.

They get along just fine when they are forced together. Although, they have probably only talked about three times that I know of.

I have israeli die hards on both sides living within 500 yards of me.

I bet you, if the religious legistlators invited the non religious over for shabbos, and refused to "talk shop" there would be a lot less problems.
Daganev | Homepage | 08.14.06 - 9:35 pm | #

>I bet you, if the religious legistlators invited the non religious over for shabbos, and refused to "talk shop" there would be a lot less problems.

I'm on.

Now how are we going to know who will win the bet?
lakewood yid | Homepage | 08.14.06 - 9:38 pm | #

>LY- Maybe they can make peace (or at least meet halfway) over acts of chesed and tzedaka instead?

Absolutely. No more cutting the funds of the Bnei Torah. (has it ever been restored? How about restoring it??)

I am curious about the facts here, because in California. The teacher's unions accused Arnold of cutting education funds, when in reality he didn't. He denied them an extension of funds. Also have to look at what the funds went to instead.

In the past two weaks I have read blogs by Jews saying that Israel is trying to remove Judaism, and I have read blogs that say Israel is becomming a theocracy.

I have a funny suspicion the truth is in the middle somewhere.
Daganev | Homepage | 08.14.06 - 9:38 pm | #

>I'm on.

Now how are we going to know who will win the bet?

Start by using your blog to push Rabbis to invite politicans over for shabbos and see what happens?
Daganev | Homepage | 08.14.06 - 9:39 pm | #

The preceding was a comment discussion I hade with Lakewood Yid, over at DovBear's blog.

I am Daganev. Lets see what happens. Perhaps Shabbos will indeed save the Jews, just as the Jews save Shabbos.

2006-08-10T17:19:00.000-07:00

Haloscan commenting and trackback have been added to this blog.

Bernard Haisch

2006-08-09T18:39:00.000-07:00

Discovered this interesting charachter today in the book store.

Astrophyscist, a good scientist,(based on what I read on wiki) has a theory about G-d. Found the book in the section where I was looking up stuff on darwin. Odd, I think, I read a bit, this guy is a christian, and he quotes Kabbalah for giving him inspiration for his view of mixing science and Religion.

Go Figure!

I was suprrised, or was I?

Would Gd Trick Us?

2006-08-06T01:28:00.000-07:00

Me: ... No, the world just "looks" 15 billion years old.

Him: Nonsense, why would Gd try to pull the wool over our eyes, Gd isn't in the business of tricking people?

Me: Are you so sure about that? Gd tricks us in numerous ways 1 . The Yetzer Harah 2. Yaakov with Gd's help used trickery to fuffill what was needed. 3. Paroah was "tricked" vis a vis his heardening of his heart. 4. Gd creates Good and Creates Evil, why is trickery outside his bounds if he achieves a Just goal? 5. Hester Panim (The hiding of Gd's "face") Gd is known as a hidden Gd. hiding is often associated with decieving. 6 . False Prophets, Baalam, Miracles in general. 7 . Jewish humour is often known for thier wisdom and being able to outwit, i.e. trick, others. 8. Abraham "lied/tricked" Egypt about his wife Sarah. 9 . No two prophets ever had the same story word for word, if they were real. this tends to lead to confusion rather than being straight forward. 10. We have stories of tricking our enemies, and we have stories of rabbis "tricking" people into observing more mitzvot.

*pant* Got my mandetory 10 examples out there, sorry if any of them overlap, I wanted to make my list look big. Perhaps to trick you into thinking I had more than one valid argument :)

Slifkin: Why the hype/controvasy?

2006-08-06T01:16:00.000-07:00

I read "Mythical Creatures" by slifkin a while back in Shul while I was looking up names to call my new pet in an RPG I played. Besides leaving nothing really answered, I thought it was a nice book, a bit "non commital" but nothing to really praise or fight against.

This shobbos I read "Science and Torah" and again, didn't find anything particularly enlightening. The book itself, makes a few claims here and there that some might find his ideas offensive, but I didn't find anything that made me go. Yeah! Thats it! Can't wait to show this chapter to my agnostic friend! (I have had that feeling when reading Kaplan and Kellerman books though)

So I am curious, whats all the hubbub about?

Is it just that people are so anti censorship that they have to rally behind anything thats been "banned for bad reasons" or is there honestly groups of people who read Slifkin and go "wow!"

One thing that I was reminded of however, which really struck me as interesting, is how many different sciences there are to determine the age of the universe. We have Treerings, Ice cores, Geology, Chemistry half lives, Biology, Astronomy and Archeology. However, when it comes to things like Gravity, or "How light works" or Health, or computers, very few different fields of science will all come to the same conclusions and work off eachother.

I think this is something worth pondering and discovering how true it is. The sciences we use in our everyday lives, appear to only come from "one source" but the science that is used to make people question beliefs come from all directions. Why is that? I ask this questions from two directons. 1. Why would G-d do that? 2. why does "every day science" Not come from all directions?

Observation made this past week

2006-08-03T11:28:00.000-07:00

"Just as in the secular world, as the generations go on, our mastery over the written word decreases, while the number of people who can read increases, In Judaism, as the generations go on, our mastery of the knowledge of Judaism decreases, as the number of Jews who can learn increases. "

This is my claim.

Normaly people just say, the further away you are from an event the more jumbled up it gets, but I could never wrap my mind around that one in Judaism. Because in Judaism we tend to be very picky about giving sources for what we teach others, and we are very picky about the way the Torah is written. No other book has so few discrepancies for being so old pre printing press.

I made this discovery while listening to my CD, All the Kings Men. The language is very poetic, and it took me a few days to be able to wrap my head around the language. In some ways its like listening to an opera where the words are distorted, however in this case, it just more "refined" english. I realized this fact even more, when in the book, they start quoting a fictional diary from the 1850s. That language was even more refined, and as ATKM put it, " it was not the way they spoke, but a more proper, a schoolgirl proper way of writing, as if trying to impress her teachers"

I compare Chaucer to Orwel, and its two different levels. Even on NPR I once heard someone lament that its rare to find well written book these days.

Since I believe that language is the uniquly Human thing about us, especially written lanuage, and I believe its the method for the Infinite Divine to interact with the world (maybe I'll explain how Language is infinite, despite the finite number of words we have, another time) It only makes perfect sense to me, that as we get further away from our divine soures, our language decays as well.

Perhaps in the next few years we will see a revival in "good writing." I am sure that if this happens, it will be atributed as a backlash to the decay of writing on the Internet, with words such as IC and U, and BRB, but I have a feeling it will also coincide with more signs of the "Messianic age"

Now the one chink in my theory, and its due to ignorance of fact, so I don't see it as discreting my thoery, is that it seems, there was a certain point where langauge was very crude and not so refined, before the emergence of Shakespear and Chaucer. But perhaps I am wrong on this, I don't know of any english works from before that time off the top of my head.

All the Kings Men

2006-08-01T11:26:00.000-07:00

I am listening to a Book on CD. Its the first time I've ever done it, but talk radio and thier commericals are really starting to hurt my soul.

Anyway, a few comments I would like to say about this CD/Book.

1. Its amazing how it takes 16 CDs to read outloud a 672 page book (roughtly 16 hours) and they plan on turning this into a 2 hour movie.

2. This book was written in the 40's its full of flowery language, and as more asides and long winded sentances than one is use to. Yet in the montonous poetry of the readin, it still somehow grips me. And sometimes I can't get out of the car untill the 3 minute track is over, or untill the next plot point happens, which might be 4 minutes later. This book could put you to sleep if your not listening to every word, yet grabs you if you are... amazing I think.

P.S. Notice there is no "house" next to the title of this post, and its black not blue, that means there is no link.

What did NOT happen in Irvine

2006-07-30T16:50:00.000-07:00

AT 4pm california time, there was a shooting at the Jewish center in Seattle.

It was right before Shabbos, so many jews missed what happened.

I'm not seeing any posts on this in the blog world, so where there is a lacking, I am providing something.

Anyway, I wish there was more to know from this story, but it has to speak for itself.

Some Irvine Updates.

2006-07-30T16:44:00.000-07:00

Now the reason for my previous post, is so that I can post this post.

Beth Jacob of Irvine, the only Orthodox, non-chabad Shul in all of orange county is now opening up a Shatnez program, where you can check your clothing for Shatnez.

This comes on the wonderfull news that the Mikvah will hopefully be finished before the next rainy season.

Who would have thunk that just days after hearing people complain that nobody was donating, the rumor is now that there is enough, we just need to wait for Irvine Company approval.

Goyish Info about Irvine

2006-07-30T16:14:00.000-07:00

I figure if I'm going to put Irvine on the Jewish map, I need to first explain how the rest of the world views Irvine.

First, here is what Wikipedia says about Irvine. It all seems pretty accurate, and I had NO idea so many "famous" people were from here. My favorite story about Irvine, is this one.

This, is a map of Irvine. You can tell you are not looking at Irvine, if what you see is a grid of streets. Irvine was very well designed so that the sun is never in your eyes when your on the road, save if your going on university drive at 4:45pm during the Winter, or 6:45pm during the Summer, and even then, its only for about 2 blocks.

Now, I went to school at UCSD and in La Jolla, I live across the street from a new branch of the Irvine Company. I predict that in 20 years, all of california, south of Long Beach, that is a nice place to live in, will be owned by the Irvine company. If crime rates go up, or property values go down, the Irvine Company will quickly sell that part of the city to keep this statement true.

My friends from Los Angeles have dubbed Irvine, A park with some houses stuck in it.

A quick search on the internet for Irvine will produce mostly links such as this one.

However, I moved here when I was 6 months old, I moved out during highschool, With a wonderfull year in Israel, (where I found Ilan Shvut to be the closest thing I could find to Irvine, )and moved back after College. My sister, who left Irvine after Highschool and promised to never step foot in this godforsaken place again, is now living 10 houses down from my parents. Most mockery is out of jealousy and love, because once you go Irviner, you can't go backer.

In my 45 second search, this was the best picture of Irvine I could find of the place I live near.

Image taken from here

A cool discovery for my family

2006-07-30T12:25:00.000-07:00

Sorry, no links for this page.

I just found out yesterday the story of how my Grandfather survived the Holocaust. My grandfather died before I was born, and I knew the story of my Grandmother but not of my grandfather.

The story goes like this. My grandfather went to a rabbi to ask for a blessing, (at this point whomever is telling the story always says, "he had his mishugas like this") the rabbi took his tzizit, and cut 6 strings. He then gave 6 people each one string, and said "I pray only that I come out as well as you." All 6 people survived, the rabbi who gave the pieces of tzizit, did not. None of the 6 people survived together, they all went thier own way.

After further questions, it was revealed that my grandather was engaged to my grandmother's sister before the war. Due to rising anti-semitism, he fled to Israel in the 30's however, my Grandmother's father would not let him take his fiance with him. so my grandfather went to Israel alone, but he came back to poland a few months before the war started to go to a wedding, and got stuck there.

Now the last piece of the story, my grandfather got a book called "Sefer Raziel Hamelach" which was kept in the family to protect against fire, and was passed on to my mother during childbirth to have under her pillow. With this book, is a second book that also contains "sefer Raziel Hamelach" but the outside says "Torah Emet"

I know nothing about these books, but it explains to me a bit about my strong desire to learn Kabbalah. I had always thought it just came from my Father who was into Zen. But apparently it was in my mother's father (whom I happen to be named after) as well.

Anyway, I tell this story not only because I think its cool, but also because I'm curious about these books and don't know where to start finding out about them.

Any comments are welcome.

There is a local Breslov chasid in Irvine whom I would normally go to to ask all questions chasidic, but he is in Israel right now.

The 10 dimensions of String Theory

2006-07-27T16:48:00.000-07:00

Here is a link someone just sent me about string theory.

While listening to this presentation, imagine that dimension 10 is keter, 9 is chochma and 8 is Bina. 7 is Gevurah, 6 chesed, 5 tipheret, 4 netzach, 3, hod, 2 yesod and 1 malchut.

Then remember the argument of the difference between Chochma/Bina and Daa'at, and then the concept of the connection between Malchut and Keter.

Just crazy!

If none of this makes sense to you, then just enjoy the fun flash video and the description of Flatlanders.

6 million zionists?

2006-07-27T16:19:00.000-07:00

coincidence?

A google search for zionism has about 6,000,000 hits...

I only noticed this because of a wiki discussion about Communitarians.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communitarianism

My Shul

2006-07-26T14:15:00.000-07:00

I figure if I want to put Irvine on the map, I should start by actually posting some links about Irvine.

Here is the website for our Shul, its very utilitarian... thats a nice word for ugly right?

Humble Fish?

2006-07-25T14:38:00.000-07:00

Someone asked me what the name Daganev is from.

Its a name I have used on the internet for ages. If you do a search on Google for Daganev, all the hits you will get will be something I was involved in.

The name comes from Da Ganev.. As in, "The thief"

But someone pointed out it could also be Dag anev, or Fish humble.

I once heard a line about why we have to eat for Siduat shlishit, and he said "You can refute a dv'ar torah, but you can't refute a fish"

I've been called stubborn and many other nasty things that would very well relate to saying "You can't refute a fish", and most people just use Dag instead of Daganev. So thank you, RebelJew.

Time for a personal story... I use to be one of those people who thought it was "OK" to steal from large cooperations because they rip you off anyways, and they overcharged and did sweatshop stuff. Then I heard a story about Moshe Rabanu, which basically said, that Moshe's nature was to be arrogant and haughty and cruel. But he is called the Most humble man there ever was, because he was able to work on himself. This story helped me see the evils of theft. (one reason the story struck me was because it was about an artist, and I do art) So in many ways, "Da ganev(the thief) becoming Dag anev(humble fish) is really VERY fitting.

Torah vs Mikvah...

2006-07-24T16:23:00.000-07:00

Why are people willing to donate new Torah scrolls, but are not willing to donate to a Mikvah?

Why in a world where even the news uses sexually explicit language, are people still embarrassed to talk openly about the laws and customs of Taharat Ha'Mishpacha?

Friends of the Sanhedrin

2006-07-21T10:04:00.000-07:00

Sanhedrin of Tiberias

I am curious what people think about the PSAK of this group.

I do not care if you think this is hype and should be ignored, you can keep such lashon Harah to yourself.

I do not care what you think about any particular rabbi who's name is made public, unless you are talking about his Torah.

What I am curious about is what people think about the opinions and Psak they have been "ruling" on.

Those things are listed here..

Sanhedrin Legal rulings

Hopefully we can have a serious discussion about this, or maybe one of the more popular bloggers, can pick this up.

Blogs, the new Sepharim?

2006-07-21T07:43:00.000-07:00

Are blogs the new "books" of our time? One of the great joys of learning has always been to be able to open up a Sepher by one rabbi, and read what he wrote as a sort of argument with another rabbi of another sepher.

It was a bit annoying to have so many books open infront of you at once, but it was also part of the Joy.

I'm new to blogging, and I moved here from Online Forums, where all the comments and disccusion is in nice easy to navigate sections. But in the Blog world, sometimes you will find a discussion between blogs, and sometimes you won't. Its almost like the learning in Yeshiva again. (L'HAVDIL!!!!)

This comparison, says nothing about the Content, but rather the process of Jewish communication through the ages, and through books.

A strange thing I read in Brachot

2006-07-20T13:21:00.000-07:00

I appologize for my lack of good quoting skills, but sometimes I learn things on Shabbos and can't get the sources.

There is a line in Brachot, that says,. "People, will sometimes be forced to sell something, and even though they get money for it, they are still sad, but look how great G-d is, that he gives us the Torah, and is not sad"

My question: Why compare a sale to a Gift? Even people give away gifts and do not get sad, so Why compare a sale ot a gift, and if its comparing a sale to a sale, what exactly does G-d get from giving the Jews Torah? Isn't G-d infinite and lacks nothing, thus is unable to gain anything?

Stem Cell Debate

2006-07-20T09:05:00.000-07:00

I'm going to make this brief.

Why is everyone ignoring the bill that the democrats stopped from being voted on. This bill would have given funding to stem-cell research from non-embryo sources.

Why doesn't anyone talk about the likelyhood, that this was about Bush not wanting his executive order overwritten, and little about the actual legality of stem-cell research. (that makes this whole veto issue, in my mind make more sense)

Why do people keep saying that the scientific fact that embryos are the start of life, is a "religious" issue?

What are the leftists thinking?

2006-07-19T12:31:00.000-07:00

I have gotten a radio that now work on more than just a few radio stations. Because of this, decided that I should do an experiment and see, if listening to Left wing radio, will make me more of a leftist.

Apparently, the claim is that people are only right wing because they keep hearing only right wing radio... anyway..

There is this one radio host, who keeps on bagging on the Replublicans, and shows how they are messing everything up in the U.S. There were two issues which they said is the reason why things are going so wrong.

1. Woman in the Navy, and in Iraq are afraid of being gropped by unruley males.

2. Carl Rove is messed up because Carl doesn't know who his Father is, since he was abandonded as a child.

Wasn't it the Leftists who said you have to alllow women into the Army and on the battlefield? And wasn't it the conservatives who said, taht would put women at risk?

Isn't it the Leftists who keep saying that you don't need a father to have a good family?

Can some Democrat or Leftist out there, please explain who Air America is suppose to be talking to, and what logic are they using??

Democrats do someting right for once.

2006-07-18T07:59:00.000-07:00

A post by DovBear:

I propose a deal.

Write a post on your blog praising Hillary Clinton for her stalwart support of Israel during this time of trouble, and I'll reprint the press release where Bush warned Israel not to destabilize the Lebanese govt.

Deal? I'll even throw in free links to the post where you say nice things about Hillary.

I LOVE free links.

Back in 2001, I became a republican. Why? Not because of 9/11, not because I was afraid that some terrorist would recognize the existance of Irvine, before the rest of the Jewish world. No,
I became a Republican because I saw that the Democrats did not recognize that the Terrorism that was happening is Israel, was the same that was happening in the rest of the world, and that all Terrorism, no matter where, needed to be stopped.

Today, after 5 years, the Democrats finally said something right. Hillary, and a few other people, not known for thier understanding of world affairs, came out more strongly in Israel's right, and need to destroy Hezbulah than anyone in the Israeli left.

Kudos to you.

Do I get a free link now?

Faith vs Rationality or Emunah vs Daat?

2006-07-14T13:43:00.000-07:00

I have decided that we as Jews don't know what Faith means. I realized that people were using the word Faith differently than I was, so I decided to look up online what the meaning of Emunah is. What the root word is, and what we can learn from its "essence".

Here is what I found..

"Emunah" - (f., pl. "Emunot"); Two meanings: 1. A belief; a basic assumption that lies at the root of a religious doctrine, as in "Emunot V'Deot," "Beliefs and Ideas," by Rav Saadiah Gaon; 2. Faithful; without fail; as in "VaYehi Yadav emunah ad bo HaShemesh," "And his (Moshe's) hands remained (aloft) without fail, until sunset (Shemot 17:12) from .. http://www.ou.org/about/judaism/di.htm

When translating this section of the Sefer HaMitzvot, Ibn Tibon uses the Hebrew word “emunah” to describe Maimonides’ position regarding the way in which one should accept God’s existence. Most people translate the word “emunah” as faith. However, as many examples indicate, the Torah uses this word to express a conviction, not an unsubstantiated faith. The following examples illustrate this idea.

In Genesis, when Joseph’s brothers came to

Egypt

to purchase food, Joseph, an officer to the Pharaoh, accuses his brothers of spying. Joseph produces a test to determine the truth. Through the test, “VaYa’aminuh”, the brothers’ identity will be established (Genesis 42:20). “VaYa’aminuh” has the same root as “emunah”. Rashi, on this verse, defines the word “VaYa’aminuh” as ‘established’. from ... http://dolphin.upenn.edu/~dbh/parshas/haazinu/02/

This unique aleph of emunah represents a synthesis of the worlds of tohu (chaos) and tikun (recitification), and is a complete shin - shinan tam. With 4 heads, 3 tails and 6 extremities, it integrates the coming world (olam haba) with this world (olam hazeh) to draw the future to come (of Imma Ila'ah¹) into revelation, expression and actualization sublimated within the unity of echad. This acts to raise reality back into the realm of the holy. from ... http://liorah-chanah.livejournal.com/2006/02/19/

Emunah, on the other hand, comes from the Hebrew root “le’amen” – steady, verifiable .. from http://www.shearim.com/Shearim_Online/Emunah%20Part%201.html

The Hebrew word for faith is 'emunah', which shares a root with the root, 'emun', which means to train... from ... http://www.aish.com/family/rebbitzen/A_Scratch_in_the_Diamond.asp

"emunah." The root of the word "emunah" is "umanut," which means craft. That is because in Jewish thought belief in God is like a craft -- a skill or set of techniques that are studied and perfected over time. ... from ...http://www.aish.com/literacy/concepts/Perseverance_The_Gateway_to_Holiness.asp

So here is what I have learned from this, Emunah means.. Belief, Faith, Craft, Train, Verifiable, Constant, Truth (thats from the Kabbalah stuff there). Rambam says you have Know Gd, and then he says you have to Believe in Gd.

And Here I beleive lies the problem. We have no frikin clue, what Emuna really means. Possible roots of the words are "Amanut, Amet, Amen".. odd how those are all spelled with A but Emuna is with an E, anways.

I think the problem here is that people try to look for Emunah vs Daat, but really, the sources seem to say its all the same thing. However, Emunah comes from an outside source(Hashem, our loved ones, our teachers) and Daat comes from our own brains.(Our experiences, our sythasized readings)

Mystical Judaism

2006-07-14T11:42:00.000-07:00

In his blog, which he says he is leaving, GodolHador wrote..

Considering that Judaism, as well as many other faiths, appeal in a large part to our mystical side, does that mean that INTPs have a harder time being frum (assuming they start to think about it) ? It seems so. Is this unfair? Well, I guess life is unfair. The other alternative is to try and formulate a very rational approach to Judaism, for example modeled on the Rambam, as David G is attempting to do. It's not for everybody, but if it works for you, kol hacavod. The most important thing is to be a good person.

I find this statement AMAZING.

I began my learning into Jewish mysticism from reading books written in the 60's and 70's which clearly state, that most Jews know nothing about mystical experiences. That Judaism should not really be called a religion because it deals so little with metaphysics.

Is this a new age of Judaism where people are leaving the religion because its "too mystical" instead of "not mystical enough"?

What is up with this?

Why I had no coments

2006-07-14T10:44:00.000-07:00

Well, I'm an idiot. Turns out I had comment moderation on, which ment I had to manually approve each comment.

Thanks to Lipman, that is now fixed.

Why Rational thought isn't enough, and how you can know whats good rational thought and whats bad...

2006-07-13T18:33:00.000-07:00

Lets see if I can do this.. I'm going to take Godol Hador's post, and try to respond to it, and see what happens...

I used to think that people who tried to prove that their religion was the one true religion were ridiculous, and that it was far better to just admit you have faith, and that’s that. Now I’m thinking that the people who claim their faith is reliable are in fact even more wrong. I had an interesting debate with Chaim B today on his blog. He wrote:

Why the false Dichatomy? I believe you need both Rationalism to come to your conclusions, and Faith in your sources. You don't need Faith in G-d, you need Faith in your sources. I bet this is the real problem. Wheather your arguing politics or physics or psychology or metaphysics, its your sources that you have Faith in. Having Faith in G-d doesn't mean much, other than having Faith that G-d will do the right thing. Anyways, lets not rant about that...

If rationalism cannot lead one to G-d, that should not be accepted as a critique of belief, but as a critique of rationalism….Judaism is an existential reality, not a mathematical formula reducible to a logical set of equations. To search for truth using rational tools alone or to make rational discovery a precondition to belief is to limit the religious experience to constraints which by definition it does not conform to.

Jeffrey Smith chimed in with this statement:

G-d is bigger than our minds, and that means G-d is bigger than reason, and that means reason/rationality does not do the job when it comes to religion.

Good points. Why? Because religion is about understanding the laws of the universe. Not the laws like in the legal system, but the laws in, If I do X, what will happen to me?

Quatum mechanics says that if you drop a ball, there is a 99.99~% chance that the ball will move towards the largest mass. Thats a law. However in Religion, the laws arn't so certain. In fact, its very hard to know the probabbilities of any action leading to a specific result because of the number of variables involved.

However, we are given some certainties in Chumash. If we give Tzedakah, we have a 99.99~% chance, that we will not be short the money we gave at the end of the year. Giving 10% Tzedakah will not make us broke.

I have heard similar statements before. All these approaches have the same goal,
they recognize that reason cannot demonstrate the existence of God, or the truth of religion, and therefore they resort to ‘extra-rational’ arguments, usually appealing to some inner feeling, intuition, spiritual sense or something similarly vague and undefined. Chaim B even suggests we take Kierkegaards 'leap of faith'.

NO! That is a very bad assumption to make. Here is what I think. Reason, can not solve many problems. Many times, we are not given enough information to reach a rational conclusion. At this point, we use what some call, Fuzzy Logic. Its basically the same thing that allows you to win at Mindtrap before you use up 5 guesses.

On the face of it, this all seems quite reasonable. Who says we can figure out everything? After all, we only have small brains, and the Universe is a very big place. Maybe sometimes we do have to make a leap of faith, or use something else besides reason. We often make leaps of faith or guesses in other areas, why not here?

Unfortunately, this approach is very flawed, for a number of reasons.

Firstly, let’s talk about the limits of reason. It’s very true that reason is limited. We can’t figure everything out, sometimes a concept is just impossible for the human brain to comprehend, other times we simply don’t have enough data. So what do we do in those circumstances? Do we:

a) Make things up and guess
b) Say “I don’t know”

There is a third option. We ask somebody else. We look to others who might have a source for the answer.

There is a fourth option. We make an educated guess based on our past experiences. It is not "making things up" but it is also not an exact knowledge. In the science world, they call this a Hypothosis.

Well, it depends on the situation. In a situation where you have to make a choice, for example you’re driving in a strange city and come to a fork in the road, then you simply make the best guess. In a situation where it makes no difference, or guessing could have negative consequences, for example someone asks you the phone number of someone you don’t know, you don’t guess, as that would be stupid. You say ‘I don’t know’.

So let’s talk about God, and also religion. If it’s true that reason alone can’t prove God or any particular religion, what’s the most appropriate thing to do? Should we guess, or should we say ‘I don’t know’. It’s not like we are forced to make a choice. I guess we may feel an obligation to act morally, but that can be done either way.

Some people say, well this is so important, and God is such a noble concept, that how can you not accept it. But the same could be said about Jesus or Allah too. In fact I could make up a fake god, and believe that if I pray to him, world hunger will (eventually) be solved. That’s a great and noble cause, so why not? And all this made up god of mine wants is for me to follow the Atkins diet, to show my solidarity with the starving people. You say that’s not reasonable, well, my god is beyond reason! Clearly this is ludicrous.

This is making a false dichotomy. What is the difference between calling G-d god, and calling G-d, Zoomafoo? Zoomafoo doesn't matter unless it has a defintion. The Problem is not with Allah or Jesus, the problem is with what comes along with that. what the logic is behind it. Religion does not really deal with G-d, it deals with the ramifications of G-d.

This same argument works for Jesus, Allah, fairies, Zoboomafoo; in fact everything and anything. In other words it’s not an argument which has any value, because since it ‘proves’ everything, it in fact proves nothing.

Is this really the case? What exactly are you trying to prove, that G-d affected something or made something, or what the ramifications of your actions are?

Secondly, and even more importantly, it may truly be that sometimes one should follow their gut, or their intuition. For example, my wife has good intuition, and she’s usually right about most things, so I usually listen to her. Of course, if 99.9% of the time her intuition was proved false, then I would be pretty stupid to continue listening to her, except for sholom bayis reasons.

So, if we are going to accept that reason can’t prove God, or religion, but that we should use our intuition, or our inner spiritual sense, we have to make an assessment, just how reliable is that? Is there any way we can tell?

Fortunately, we have quite a lot of data on this subject.

NO we don't.. Faith is not intuition. Which you religion you follow is not based on intuition, It is based on environement, upbringign, and your charachter.

About 4 billion people in the world believe in various different religions. All these religions have very different conceptions of God, and of course of religion itself. None of these religions have any good proofs, and all rely on inner intuition or spiritual feeling. At any given moment, the majority of these people are quite wrong.

In fact, if you are Orthodox, you by definition hold that 99.99% of all these people are extremely wrong. Therefore, you clearly hold that religious intuition / spiritual feeling is wrong, at least 99.9% of the time. How can this then be considered a reliable source of truth? Of course the religious person is no doubt thinking, ‘Well, they’re all wrong, but I know I’m right!’ But how can you tell? You have admitted that reason doesn’t work, and we know that faith / intuition / inner conviction is extremely unreliable.

Really? I don't think most people say they are wrong about the feelings they have, they say they are wrong in the way the feelings and experiences are interpreted. BIG difference there. And this is where selective memory comes into play.

The only reason you believe you are right is because you believe you are right. There are no facts or figures you can point to, no evidence. And unfortunately feelings are only evidence of feelings, not of anything else.

Sometimes people believe they are right, because thier hypthosis ends up being verified and comes true.

Think of it this way: Would you take a drug where 99.9% of the drug tests ended in failure? I don’t think so. Yet 99.9% of all religious convictions are false. What does that tell you? The conclusions are obvious: religious intuition and feeling are not reliable indicators of anything, except maybe that the holder of those beliefs was indoctrinated at some point.

I don't believe this argument. You would have to define a religious conviction.

As it happens I do believe in God, and I do have my reasons. Am I biased or brainwashed? Very possibly. But I believe and I'm happy that way. Can I claim that I'm right? Of course not. But the evidence for God is roughly equal with the evidence against God, or perhaps there's no evidence either way. In cases like that, it may be okay to have a belief.

But when it comes to religion, there's plenty of evidence on the table. We can debate the evidence, but if your faith compels you to ignore the evidence against your religion, and you are not allowed to even comtemplate the possibility that it's wrong, then clearly your belief is meaningless, since you refuse to consider the evidence against it. Or, if you insist your religion is true, and then use that as the basis to ignore all evidence to the contrary, that's also clearly a dishonest approach.

Here you have another question, are you a person living in this world, or are you an asecetic who wishes to become nothing but spirits? What are you really trying to get here?

I suppose you can always have faith that your faith is in fact correct, and that your religion is the one true religion. Or better yet, you could attempt to prove your beliefs and your religion through various means, and openly and honestly assess all evidence, both pro and con. If after an honest analysis of all the available evidence, you still feel that your leap of faith is justified, then by all means go and leap. But don’t make grandiose statements about being beyond rational thought.

There is only one thing truly beyond rational thought, and that’s called insanity.

This is an odd thing to say. If you make a logical leap, and all your hypthosis based on that leap ends up showing itself to be true, then you are rational in thinking its true. However, your whole premise is irrational to begin with. How does that work?

Irvine is NOT Anaheim

2006-07-13T13:41:00.000-07:00

So, Holy Hyrax said to me..

" Daganev

So the main point of your blog is to put Irvine on the map??? Well isen't Irvine close enough to Anaheim, famouse for the Angels and Disneyland?

I love Anaheim.
Holy Hyrax | 07.13.06 - 4:36 pm | #"

So I shall say, NO.

Irvine, is a well designed city, run basically by a small Mafia called "The Irvine Company."
Anaheim is a not well designed city, run basically by a small Mafia called "The Disney Company."

Irvine is home of top notch Universiteis such as Concordia, and UCI.
Anaheim is home of lame universities such as ITT, and Westwood.

Irvine, is part of Orange County, however it is located within the Irvine Bubble.
Anaeheim is what most people think of when they think of Orange County (well not anymore since the show OC) and is located outside of the Disney Bubble.

Seee! No comparison whatsoever!

Somebody comment

2006-07-13T10:31:00.000-07:00

Someone Comment, I hate talking to myself.

I've gotten 3 unique hits, so I know someone is out there!!!

Calling people fools

2006-07-12T16:30:00.000-07:00

Here is something that seems to be going around the various blogs... I'm going to have to comment on these line by line... but unfortuneatly I don't have the time right now.

In a bit I will come back and edit them.

Ok first of all. Although I don't beilieve that it is helpfull to label anybody or to dismiss ideas because we don't understand exactly where they are comming from, I am still a firm believer that "fools" do exist. Fools, in my mind are people who are certain about thier ideas, not because they have some basis for them, but because "they feel right." To me, this mindset says, I am right, because my brain tells me I am right. If someone disagrees with thier brain, that person must be wrong.

However, everyone feels that way, and we can't all be right, so it is my opinion that you can only know that you are right if you get confirmation from outside yourself.

So thats what I call a fool. Now to begin the disection of these "rules."

I am aware that they are written as jokes, however we learn that "jokes" are the best tool to argue without actually making any rational arguments, since they stick in people's minds.

Rule of thumb:

1. If you believe all the aggadatos are literally true you are an apikores AND a fool.

I find this line to be important because it says ALL. However, I fear that most people translate ALL as ANY, and this I think is equally foolish.

2. If you believe all the ma'aselach about the Ba'al Shem Tov and the Ari-Zal you are a complete fool.

Again, same as above. The only difference between 1 and 2, is time. We know less about the time period of number 1, so its easier for us to believe things that we would not believe today.

3. If you don't believe all the stories about miracles performed by Ba'al Shem and the Ari Zal, but you believe that they were capable of performing such miracles you are still a complete fool.

This I find offense with. Here again, we have the word ALL being replaced by the word ANY.

My second issue with it, is that we don't know what happens. We hear stories of peopel during the holocaust having dreams about addresses in America, or seeing visions of thier dead relatives who help them and save them. We don't know if it really happened or not. Sure, it could be explained as hallucination, but it was the right hallucination at the right time. I myself have had "wierd things" happen to me that I can explain away, and yet can not explain away. To dismiss everything is just as foolish as to believe everything.

4. If you don't believe all of the aggadatos are literally true, but you clarify that you believe HaShem is capable of such miracles, then you are just really annoying and and are not furthering our understanding of these difficult passages.

Cute. Here I will say why I think that the word ALL is important, instead of the word ANY. Each story that we are taught can be real on many levels. To say that you don't beleive it happened, means to say that you don't believe there is any fact behind the message of the story which would confirm that the lesson matches the laws of the universe. You have to know, from context, and study and from how it fits with the rest of our knowledge if this particularlly story is ment to illustrate a fact about the universe, or if its ment to illustrate how great someone is.

As someone once said after hearing an unbeleivable story about soemone famous. "Well, they don't say those types of stories about me."

List of 13 ikkarei hashkafa for the 21st century. Anyone who does not master this list should have no chelek in Cyberspace.

1. It is important to know the difference between a posuk and a medrash. -Agreed, some students don't stay in school long enough to know which is which. Everyone should read the Tanach so they know what is "in the book" and what is Oral Tradition. The Talmud was very peticular about that for a reason.

2. It is important to know the difference between a ma'amar halakha and ma'amar aggadata.

I would think this would be less of an issue, because minhag becomes halakha nomatter its source. Like eating peanuts on Pesach.

3. It is important to know the difference between aniquated scientific and medical beliefs reported in the gemara which originate from ancient goyishe philosophers, and spiritual truths which are reported in the gemara which originate in a mesorah from har sinai.

I would add here that "originate in mesorah from har sinai" is a really very vague concept. Suffice it to say, I think its important that when you hear things the "rabbis said" that you look to see if they are reflecting what the non-jews say, or if they are saying it from thier own learning.

4. It is important to know the difference between pesukim which are metaphors and pesukim which are literal.

I find this rule to be in error. Every pasuk is literal and every pasuk is a metaphor. Each line of the Torah is said to have 4 levels of meaning, plus 70 ways to look at it. Each section of the Tanach will meld with our minds in a way that is appropiate for us. It does not mean that just because we don't like the way "it fits" means that its not true. I learned this the hardway in Highschool, where I use to mock Rashi, and now I find great depth, because I finally understand what to me "Rashi is "really saying""

5. It is important to know the difference between halakha and chumra.
6. It is important to know the difference between halakha and minhag.

5 and 6. Only when dealing with other people. I think this is more an issue of Lashon Harah than it is of discerning which is which.

7. It is important to know the difference between the private hanhagos of the Gr"a and his piskei halakha.
8. It is important to know the difference between "gedolim" who can say a good vort or who can give good shiur on the sugya, and real posekim who have a sophisticated understanding of politics, sociology, psychology, medicine, and science.
9. It is important to know the difference between a true machlokess le-shem shamayim and the machinations of a group of despicable, small minded, hateful, vengeful, power-hungry rashayim.
10. It is important to know the difference between examining your ma'asim and examining your mezuzos.
11. It is important to know the difference between ga'ava and yir'as shomayim.
12. It is important to know the difference between chochma and "da'as Torah".
13. It is important to know the difference between situations that call for pesak halakha, and those which call for etizah.

I agree with all of these, and it is these last few that I suspect is the reason for the popularity of this list.

Gadol Hador's bizarre look at modern Issue.

2006-07-12T16:16:00.000-07:00

Godol Hador posted the following... http://godolhador.blogspot.com/2006/07/torah-says-we-must-kill-gay-people

This post, got 300 responses so far.

Most of the posts in the topic seem to be saying the following:

A. Look how immoral Torah is by our standards.

B. The rabbis changed it.

C. Oh, so its not really the word of G-d that the rabbis can change things?

D. Why do you hate gay people?

E. G-d doesn't really hate gay people, just gay acts.

And in all that discussion, people are calling each other names back and forth as well.

I thought the post was just a way to get people all mad and angry so Godol could have more posts to read, but then someone mentioned Polygamy and this is something I have to rant on.

I have always argued that if gay marriage is allowed, Polygamy and getting married to you pet should be allowed also. Then I get told I'm just being silly. But I'm serious, and in some twisted way, I wonder if the current -world wide- push for gays to get married, is not some plot to have Polygamy again.

Perhaps, it is the times of the Mashiach like some say, and perhaps we are ment to be getting closer to observing the Torah in a more "complete" fashion. And perhaps, in 20 years, we will be debating in the Jewish community, if the Takanah against Polygamy still holds.

By "complete" I mean, that more paths and options to observance are held. And the notion of 12 tribes having different halachas will be more visible, and perhaps this is what is meant by saying that the 10 tribes will come back.

Tisha B'Av

2006-07-12T15:57:00.000-07:00

After moderate research and some debate at Dov Bear's blog, and reading Gadol Hador's blog, even though I'm banned there for some strange reason I have come to the conclusion that if people care about whets going on in Israel, and not hearing about more deaths during the next 3 weeks, that people work very hard on not speaking badly against other Jews and their ideologies.

We should refrain from calling people to our left, Liberal brainless zombies, and we should avoid calling people to our right, Fanatics that endanger our very society.

Do your best to find excuses for those you disagree with, and then disagree with the ideas, not with them.

Am I a Chasid?

2006-07-12T12:23:00.000-07:00

So I grew up with an education in basic Chabad schools, and decided it didn't fit with me. I use to be known for being slanderous towards Chabad whenever the topic came up. Besides Chabad, the only Chasids I know are a few Breslovs and I went to New Square once, and one time I went to this Chasidish place in Israel, where I was told by an 8 year old, that his older brother said that Abraham Avinu spoke Yiddish, and I was asked how close California is to BoroPark.

Therefore, I do not believe that I am a Chasid.

Then why did I choose this name?

I believe one aspect of Chasidus that isn't much talked about, is the fact that each town now has its own branch. The name Irviner Chasid, is more to focus on the name Irviner than it is to focus on the word Chasid.

I was thinking of calling the blog, The Irviner Litvish Chasid but that seemed too confusing.

However, I will say the following about myself and my views.

I have read the Tanya, and find it to be extreme yet True. (with a capital T) I read the Halchik Man, and the Halachik Mind, and find them to be True, and in perfect step with Tanya.

I read a book on the Kutzker (sp?) Rebbe, and found that his path be Emet.

When I was in school, I mocked Rashi and loved Tosephot. Now I find them both to be True.

I am also a big fan of Rambam and Ramban.

I am also a big fan of Areyeh Kaplan, and a not so big fan of Artscroll, yet without Artscroll, I would have nothing. If Artscroll had better competition I think I would enjoy them more. I guess they are just a bit too much like Microsoft to me.

Those are the Rabbis I follow, and whenever I read something new, I ask myself how it fits with those whom I mentioned. So what does that make me? I call it being an Irviner Chasid, any other labels you think are better?

Hello, My name is...

2006-07-12T11:32:00.000-07:00

Hello,

Thank you for welcoming me into the world of Blogs.

I hope I can be a helpful member of the Community and can achieve my goals.

My first few posts will be about me, so you can know who I am, where I am coming from, and where I am going.

Hopefully, you will all comment, and soon my blog can focus on you.

I plan to alternate between posting about Irvine, posting about the Orthodox Jewish Blogosphere, and posting about what I hear about in the Media.

Who knows where this journey will take us.