Today is the 7th of Kislev. That means it is time for the monthly ascent to Har Habayit. It is difficult to arrange going every month, but today I was able to wing it.

We had a small group of 4 from Bet Shemesh. A couple of our regulars went yesterday instead of today because of a scheduling conflict. The situation was quiet and calm. The police did not check every inch of our bodies for threatening prayer paraphanelia, as they have at times in the past. They did a cursory check and asked if we have any siddurim in our pockets or wallets and left it at that.

We went up. The guy who led us, did a phenomenal job connecting us with the upcoming holiday of Hannukah and it's relevance with various aspects of the mikdash and the menorah. It was a very inspiring visit. And we had the opportunity to daven (silently of course), and there are plenty of things to daven for right now (as always I guess); quiet and safety in Sderot, quiet up north, peace in Israel the return of Eldad Regev, Udi Goldwasser and Gilad Shalit, the return of the older MIA's - Zachary Baumel, Yehuda Katz, Zvi Feldman, Guy Hever, Ron Arad, the freedom of Jonathan Pollard, the personal issues such as friends and relatives who are sick, parnassa, hatzlacha, happiness and success, etc.

If any of my pictures came out decent, I will try to add a coulpe of them later on...

Some interesting ideas:
1. While we were waiting for them to open the gate to go up to the Mount, we noticed on a post at the entrance to the Kotel a flyer telling people to keep their eyes open for Benny Sela (the escaped rapist) with his picture. I figure they put the notice up there because he might show up at the kotel in order to daven for his continued success in evading the police, so someone might spot him.

2. On the note of Benny Sela, someone on the Mount mentioned his name (I do not remember in reference to what). At the time I criticized him and said his name should not be mentioned up here. The Rav leading us pointed out that there is good to everything. he said, benny Sela has succeeded in unifying the whole nation in an issue of sexual sins, something which has seriously been lacking here recently. He compared it to Mr. ben Drusai.
Who was Mr. ben Drusai? In hilchot shabbat we find the concept of how cooked a food must be to be considered cooked and the minimum level is called the amount of the food of ben Drusai. ben Drusai was a thief who had to eat on the run often and did not have time to let his food cook completely. This thief is famous for having a halacha named for him. Something good came out of ben Drusai - there was a measurable amount of cooking to quantify the halacha.
the Rav suggested something similar in regards to Benny Sela - he succeeded in bringing the whole nation back together on the issue of sexual indecency. Some good might have come out of the whole Benny Sela affair.

3. There is always a debate as to whether it is preferable to walk on the Mount barefoot or if non-leather shoes are just as good as barefoot. it is clear non-leather shoes are acceptable, the question is if barefoot is better. Personally, I prefer barefoot. The problem is that in the winter, the stone floor of Har Habayit is like a block of ice and after walking barefoot in the early morning on the cold floor of Har Habayit, it feels like you might lose a toe to frostbite, along with all sorts of other pains from the pebbles and the general pain of a frozen foot. My compromise is to wear socks (only when it is really cold) - while they do not do much, they take off just enough of the bite to make it bearable. In addition to reminding me of the holiness of the place, it reminds me of the fact that the Kohanim had to be barefoot on the cold floor of the mikdash and one goal was that it kept them awake and fresh. In the mikdash itself, (non-leather) shoes would not be allowed.
Someone else there took off his non-leather shoes (after having asked me why I was barefoot) to walk barefoot. After a few minutes, he could not take the cold and put his shoes back on. He later commented how cold it was and that he could not take it and asked how I was able to stand it.
My answer to him was based on a Tosafot I learned recently in daf yomi. There is a discussion whether a woman whose mikva night falls out on Tisha B'Av should dip on Tisha B'Av or delay to the next day. This discussion is not relevant nwadays because women nowadays do not dip on the correct time and therefore would not dip on Tisha B'Av regardless. This is only relevant to the days past when dips were very strictly done on the correct day, with no extra chumros or takkanos pushing off tevila, which we do as standard nowadays.
Tosafot, in support of the opinion that holds the dipping should be pushed off to the next day uses to following argument. He says that the bet Hamikdash is worth giving up one mikva night a year. Meaning, to commemorate the destruction of the Bet Hamikdash and respect its holiness, one day a year to not dip on time for that sake alone is worth it.
Based on that I said, the holiness of the Bet Hamikdash is worth my suffering on the cold floor for 45 minutes. If we can give up the mitzva of dipping on time for the sake of the Bet Hamikdash, I can walk 45 minutes barefoot for the honor of the Bet Hamikdash.

Ever wonder who started Jewish Geography? How it began?

I think I found the first instance of Jewish Geography. In Parshat Va'Yetzei (this weeks portion of Torah reading) we find Yaakov running away from his home to avoid Esau's wrath, and to find for himself a wife. Yaakov finds his way to a well outside of Haran and sees a bunch of sheperds. In 29:3 he asks them where they are from. They respond that they come from Haran. Yaakov says, "Hey! I have an uncle in Haran!! You guys knows Lavan my uncle??!!" They said yes.

There you have it. The first documented case of Jewish Geography that started a great tradition to be kept in all Jewish gatherings for all future generations.

The shul I learn daf yomi in has decided to honor my daf yomi shiur in their upcoming annual dinner. My shiur has been meeting every day for the past 7 years in this shul and we are almost going to finish shas together. This shiur is one of the longest lasting shiurim in all of Ramat Bet Shemesh, and very possibly the longest. In addition, most daf yomi shiurim consist of 2-3 regular members while we have the largest daf yomi shiur weighing in at 10 regulars (and up to 18 people if all the sort of regulars show up on the same night).

If any shiur deserves to be honored, it is this one and its members who come every single night after work, and even more so the wives who send their husbands to learn or at least let their husbands go learn and forgo that time at night that could be spent doing things together, or otherwise.

The thing I find funny about it is why do I deserve to be honored just because I learn one hour a day. I should be learning much more than that and while the commitment of coming every day and learning for an hour or so is something to be proud of, I am not so sure it is something to be honored for.

Hopefully it will be an impetus for other people to commit more time to learning and have a positive effect on people.

The owner of the company I work for gets a mazel tov. His daughter got engaged a few days ago. Last night they had the engagement party. Today he brought in the leftover cakes that had not been eaten at the party. They were a wide variety of very fancy cheesecakes.

What I want to know is if these were the cakes the guests did not eat, what were the cakes they did eat!?!

This is a video clip shown on CNN explaining the history of the Middle East

I have used this platform a number of times to criticize the yeshiva community for their actions, methods, style, etc. Sometimes I did not do so intentionally but what I wrote led to comments containing such criticisms (often by my older brother Shaya, but not always).

That being the case, it is time to do something different. It is time to heap some praise on them.

Last night I was in Yerushalayim for a shiur on shechita/treifos. Our group met in a small beis medrash in the vicinity of the great Mir Yeshiva in Mea Shearim/Beis Yisroel.

We met at about 7:15 pm until almost 9:00 pm. These hours are not standard hours for a yeshiva to be in session. It is dinner time. Kollel men generally go home then for the night (maybe they learnin a night kollel maybe not). The yeshiva bachurim will have some time off for rest and dinner and come back to learn night seder later.

There was a great kol torah, sounds of torah, coming out from the windows of the Mir Yeshiva. there was no let up. While many boys left for their break, many stayed to learn a little longer giving up some of their break. Many ate dinner quickly and went right back to learn.

In the small beis medrash we met in, there were young men and kollel guys learning (during their break) with no let up, totally devoted and dedicated to the cause.

Kol hakavod!

My shechita learning restarted tonight after a long break due to a number of reasons. We finally got our group back together to begin finishing the material.

One of the topics we learned about tonight was injuries to the animals spinal cord. Considering my learning session was taking place at the exact same time my brother was having surgery on his spinal cord in Chicago due to an injury in a traffic accident, I find it difficult to consider this a coincidence.

My brother is an atheist, or at least he says he is. When I spoke to him right before his surgery I did not ask him if he would want me to daven for him. He probably would have said "no but if it will make you feel better go ahead." In his blog he has written about what he considers the false belief that prayers really help sick people. He has quoted studies that show there is no correlation between the health and recovery of a sick person and the amount of prayers or lack thereof offered on the sick persons behalf.

So I do not really know if he would have wanted me to bother praying for him. Or maybe the old adage, "There are no atheists in a foxhole" applied and he would have. I do not know. When he comes out of recovery (which he is in right now from what I hear) maybe I will ask him.

But we davened for him and we learned in his merit. All my kids told their classes about it and their classes took a break to say tehillim for his successful surgery. We learned our daf yomi in his merit tonight. And I learned Torah about spinal cord injuries while his spinal cord was under the knife.

Refuah Shleimah. I hope it helped, even a bit.

My brother is about to go under the knife for surgery on his spinal cord. Pretty heavy duty surgery.
If you can have him in your prayers/thoughts/etc... it would be appreciated by us all..

Daniel Uri ben Etel Sarah

This is an absolutely amazing update and brings renewed hope and optimism about Zachary Baumel as well as about the status of ther other MIA's...

Rav Druckman, a leading Rav of the National Religious, has caused a stir. He is quoted as having said that Ashkenazim should request to be buried in Sefardic cemetaries. He says that the immigration from Russia has brought a high percentage of non-Jews to Israel and if one gets buried in an ashkenazic cemetary, he is at reasonable risk of being buried next to a non-Jew, which is considered no good in Jewish tradition.

It is ironic, because the sefardim have bene complaining for years that ashkenazim do not allow sefardic kids into ashkenazic schools and at best they let a few in with a quota. After all these years of Ashkenazi racism against Sefardim, suddenly they want to be buried next to Sefardim because their "Jewishness" is more pure and untainted.

Why would sefardim let ashkenazim in though? They might be at risk of letting non-Jews be buried amongst them!

What an irony? Ashkenazim won't let living sefardim into their schools but will clamor to be buried with them. Sefardim clamor to get into their schools but will not allow them to be buried with them!
I love it.

I saw this on an Israeli forum board. Somebody anonymously wrote this piece. I have translated it to English for you.

If Arik (Sharon) would wake up today....

It is a rainy night and we are at Tel Hashomer Hospital. Only one assistant is around, named Shmiel. He is on night duty tonight in the room of "sleeping" former PM Sharon.

Everybody, but Sharon himself, knows he is no longer the Prime Minister of Israel. Shmiel is sitting peeling an apple and G the Shaba"k agent is nodding off.

Suddenly, all the machines start to beep. The PM is waking up!

Sharon says, "I haven't slept like that for a long time! Get me [Reuven] Adler, I have some ideas for a new direction."

Shmiel says, "Good morning, sir. How do you feel?"

Sharon answers, "I am dying of hunger. Where am I?"

The shabak agent continues to sleep while Shmiel explains to Sharon what had happened to him.

Sharon does not take him seriously and says, "So tonight you fooled with the PM, eh Shmiel?"

Shmiel says, "Sorry sir but you are really no longer the PM."

After a few minutes Sharon asks, "So who replaced me?"

Shmiel answers, "Ehud Olmert."

Sharon reacts, "Olmert? That Jerusalemite putz? What will happen if war breaks out, he does not know how to run the army! At least Shaul [Mofaz] is still there!"

Shmiel answers, "Mofaz is the Minister of Transportation."

"So who is the Defence Minister?"

Shmiel says, "Peretz."

"That old man is still alive?!" asks Sharon in wonderment.

Shmiel whispers trembling, "not Peres, Peretz. Amir Peretz."

"What? Are you crazy? I close my eyes for a minute and you guys let a labor leader take over the defence of the country?! Not all the factories in Dimona are the same. Does he know that? Listen, get Omri here right away. He will fix everything."

"Sorry sir, Omri is on his way to jail."

"Jail?? for that shtus? I do not believe it. So get me my lawyer quickly. Get Klagsbald."

Shmiel responds, Klagsbald is on his way to jail."

Sharon calms down and says, "I knew I could count on Klagsbald. he will get Omri out of it."

Shmiel corrects him and says, "No, sir. Klagsbald is also on his way to jail. He was driving and not paying attention and caused an accident unintentionally running over and killing a young woman and her son."

Sharon said, "So bring me [Avigdor] Yitzchaki. He always knows how to fix these situations."

"Sorry, sir. Yitzchaki is under his own investigation for tax fraud. He fixed things too much this time."

"Can't be. I know Yitzchaki. They must be framing him. So get me the Head of Police."

"Sorry, sir, but Karadi is in investigation."

"Of course he is. He is the head of police. I am sure he is in the middle of a number of investigations!"

"No, sir. Thi sis an investigation against him!"

Sharon takes a deep breath. It can't be. The whole justice system has been ruined! We must get them out of this. Get me the minister of Internal Security, Tzachi [Hanegbi]."

"Sir, Hanegbi has been indicted for fraud, bribery and job fixing.He is not a minister anymore."

"So get me the Justice Minister. Who did Olmert appoint?"

"Haim Ramon"

"So get him here!"

"Sorry sir. I can't. He has been indicted and is on trial for misconduct."

"What? So get me the president. That is still Katzav, right?"

"sorry sir, but Katzav is under investigation as well, formisconduct and wiretapping."

"So get me the Chief of Staff, Boogie [Moshe Ayalon]. Sorry I mean Halutz, right?"

" Sir, he got into some trouble in the Lebanon War. Nothing criminal. he sold some stocks. He will soon be giving testimony to an investigative committee."

"Halutz?? he was a young Piper pilot during the Lebanon War!"

"Sir, that would be the second Lebanon War, while you were sleeping. We... how should I say? lost the war but the PM said we should be patient, victory is coming."

Sharon looked around his room. "What is your name and what is your position?"

"Shmiel, sir. I am a hospital attendant."

"Ok, Shmiel. Do not tell anyone about this conversation."

"You can count on me, sir."

"I am going back to sleep."

Arkadi Gaydamak is an Israeli billionaire. he made his money in Russia and lives between Russia and Israel, most of the time I think in Israel.

Gaydamak has been a "player" for a number of years, since he came on the scene in Israel. He became very popular when he saved the Jerusalem basketball team from bankrupcy and bought them and the popular Beitar Yerushalayim soccer (football) team.

He has also been in and out of various investigations for taxes and whatever other stuff they are trying to catch him for.

During Lebanon War part 2 he was one of the main people/organizations who stepped up to the plate and saved the residents of northern Israel. He paid out of his own pockets millions of dollars to relocate hundreds of people to a tent city he built for them to get out of the war zone for a bit to calm their nerves.

He came under criticism after the war by the government. It looked bad that Olmert and Peretz did nothing to assist the residents in the war zone and were content with letting a million residents live in bomb shelters for a month. It looked worse when Gaydamak came along and filled their void and paid generously to give the residents some respite.

Gaydamak is under fire again. He responded to requests from residents of Sderot to give them some respite. As we all know, the residents of Sderot have been under fire from Kassams for 6 years now, but the past year has been extremely difficult for them as the amount of Kassams has increased tremendously.

The residents of Sderot felt abandoned by the government (similar to Lebanon II) and petitioned Gaydamak to relocate them temporarily, as they just could not deal with it anymore. The government refuses to put in a special protective measures (like fortifying the school building, for example), and has had no success in eradicating the actual problem or even minimizing it, so they turned to Gaydamak.

Gaydamak responded positively and paid for buses to take many residents to Eilat for the weekend. He paid for hundreds of rooms on hotels so the residents of Sderot could enjoy some respite from the pressures they have been living through. He has now agreed to do it again for more residents of Sderot and is paying for another 300 rooms for a few days.

The government (i,e, Olmert and Peretz) have been very critical of Gaydamak's latest philanthropic moves. They say that it looks bad to relocate the residents of Sderot and it looks like we are giving in, etc. They have a point.

However, I see nothing wrong with giving these people a well-deserved vacation for a couple of days after all they have bene through. I find it to be a bigger problem that the government is not living up to its responsibility and eradicating the problem, so they will not need to take advantage of such generosity.

It is supposed that the real issue is that Olmert and Peretz are worried that Gaydamak is planning to get into politics. Nobody knows if it is true or not but there are such rumors. They are worried he is becoming very popular because of his generosity and is, in effect, buying his way into power and will replace them. They feel him breathing down their necks.

I think they should say thank you to Gaydamak and get their own offices in order.

My question is: how the heck did Gaydamak get 300 rooms booked at the drop of the hat. Were all these hotel rooms empty until he picked up the phone?

I just cracked my tooth. Eating a Mentos. What a waste of a tooth. What a waste of a Mentos (I did not even put it into a bottle of Diet Coke!).

This is a direct quote from a post to our local neighborhood email list.

"My husband mistakenly purchase adult diaper instead of baby diapers. I opened the package and pulled one out before realizing. They are free for the taking."

I am curious where her husband was shopping that he could purchase adult diapers by mistake when looking for baby diapers. I did not realize they sell them in the local supermarket. Or maybe that is what the size "super jumbo" really meant... (no offense intended to anybody who requires the use of adult diapers)

Watch Netanyahu's drasha at the 2006 General Assembly in Los Angeles from the other day..

I have had a very light blogging week. I apologize to all you readers who have gotten accustomed to more frequent posts and better material.
I have had a very busy week at work and very tired week of evenings at home, leaving not much time and ability for blogging well. Hpefully next week I will get back to a normal schedule..