a secular Chanuka

Do people totally miss the point of Chanuka?

Am I mistaken or does it make absolutely no sense for a secular Jew to celebrate Chanuka?

Chanuka, correct me if I am wrong, is a holiday created to memorialize the battle of the Chashmonaim against the Greek Hellenists and against the misyavnim – the assimilationists who were Jews but followed and adopted Greek culture. The story of finding the flask of oil is nice, but is really only a minor part of the history of the holiday.

Secular Jews who celebrate Chanuka are living the lives of the misyavnim (generally though not all of them) yet they celebrate a holiday that memorializes the battle and victory against themselves.

Is it their complete ignorance of what Chanuka really represents? Is it the pintele yid within them? Is it ignorance mixed with the desire for a holiday to compete with Christmas?

lack of time awareness

I hate getting jerked around by people with no sense of responsibility or timing.

 I work for a living. Unfortunately to support my family I had to leave kollel and get a job. I try to learn when I can including daf yomi and other times set aside specifically for learning, plus now and then when some time is available.

My time is very valuable and very limited and pretty much always scheduled and accounted for (except for some late night internet surfing which is wasting time).

I hate it when I have to deal with people arranging things who have no sense of time or its value. This is true generally – there are people like this no matter where you go or what kind of person you are dealing with, but it is most rampant among yeshiva bachurim and kollel guys.

Right now I am trying to make arrangements to deal with something. The day that it works out for all involved is a day I will have to take off of work. For me to take a day off of work is not really a big deal, but it needs to be scheduled and arranged and coordinated with other people in my department.

The other two people I have to deal with to have this item scheduled are two kollel guys. These guys have no commitments. They go to kollel and learn. If they need to do something they just go and do it. No arrangements, no rescheduling, no reorganizing a day, no coordinating schedules. And they do not understand that I do need to have things coordinated. No matter how many times I tell them. They wait until the last minute to finalize their own responsibilities and I am left hanging in limbo not knowing if it will work out or not and if I should schedule a vacation day from work or not.

No matter how many times I tell them, it is always the same story. Why are people like that? Yeshiva guys are more commonly like that than non-yeshiva guys, but it does affect all types of people.

It makes me crazy!

Muscle flexing

The gedolim, or at least some of them, have issued a warning not to fly El Al. El Al landed a plane on shabbos this past week due to a scheduling problem as a result of the strike in Israel. The gedolim have said that El Al flying on shabbos is a public desecration and therefore the public, specifically the haredi public, should prefer other airlines and not fly El Al. Some gedolim have even spoken about flying on El Al becoming a safek of pikuah nefesh – meaning because they fly on shabbos, Hashem will likely strike them down (with a bolt of lightning perhaps), and you do not want to be on El Al when that happens…

Is this another one of those issurim created for ulterior motives?

Some issurim (such as the issur on sheitels and cellphones for example) are strongly suspected to have been psuhed in order for someone to profit off it (an askan wwho knew someone with a beeper business, or a soecific contact in a cellphone company willing to accomodate, or an askan who wanted new business in certifying wigs, for example) – is this one of those? I doubt it. Who would profit from this? The haredi public is not that large. Many fly, but how many of them will actually stop flying El Al because of this? Probably many, or at least some. But enough to make a dent? I doubt it.

So, if not profit, then what? Is it an issur created for political and/or commercial muscle flexing? More likely.

What are the alternatives to fly? Israir? They desecrate shabbos all the time, I am told. They regularly have flights on shabbos, while El AL did it just this once, probably as a mistake. Continental, or another non-jewish owned airline? Maybe but they fly on shabbos too and while it is not a problem for them to fly on shabbos because they are owned by non-Jews, their is peripheral chillul shabbos taking place. The grounds crew (in Israel), airport staff, luggage handlers, etc.. all that chillul shabbos happens regularly because of the other airlines, so switching to them gains nothing as far as shabbos is concerned.

So with no other airline on the horizon as an alternative that does not smack of hypocricy, it seems the issur on El Al can’t be serious. It has to be some sort of muscle flexing.

Now the question is what are they trying to gain from this?

I suspect that soon they will enter negotiations with El Al to resolve this crisis. They will scream and threaten to take away all the haredi business. El Al as usual will panic and be very forthcoming in order to retain the haredi chunk of the flying pie. The haredi askanim will insist on new standards in the airline, such as no movies, or a sectioned off area for davening or a section of separate seating, or something else of the like. El Al will say yes in order to appear as apologetic and responsive to the haredi community.

The winner will be the haredi askanim who will have flexed muscle and achieved more “mehadrin” airtime.

 That is my analysis of the crisis.

My question therefore is, how is this different than all the other services that operate on shabbos in Israel?

Why is El Al different than the electric company? The electric company works on shabbos, yet there is no haredi ban on them. True, in many haredi enclaves it has become popular to insist on having a generator on shabbos, butthat only stops you from using the electricity on shabbos. According to a ban equal to that imposed on El Al, one would not be allowed to use the electricity during the week, just llike one should not fly El Al during the week. Yet we see no such ban.

Egged and Dan bus lines should be banned. They operate on shabbos in many non-religious cities, Haifa being the most famous example. Do we ban them during the weke because of their  chillul shabbos? Not that I know of.

Bezeq, the phone company. nada.

Various tourist attractions. There have been some attempts to put in place a drive to push people to support attractions that respect the sanctity of shabbos and not go to places that are mechalel shabbos. These attempts have largely failed. And there has been no straight out decree or issur declared.

Taxis commonly work on shabbos. I have not heard about any ban on taxis.

These are just some examples of services in Israel that are regularly mechalel shabbos yet retain the customership of the haredi public with no outcry.

What is the difference?

I would suggest the difference is, again, muscle flexing. None of these other services have ever kowtowed to the haredi public and tried to appease them with compromises. Some of them possibly because there was no need to as they are monopolies, but nonetheless they did not.

El Al has often, at the slightest hint of a threat of haredi displeasure, given in to haredi demands. They have made flights with no movies, or with sections that have no movies. They have made special flights or sections witin flights for only men. Etc. The haredi askanim know that they can threaten El Al and come out with something in their pocket. The others they cannot threaten because they will come out with nothing.

So they threaten El Al. The question is what do they want? 

I suspect that in about 10 days to 2 weeks we will find out. We will hear about an agreement between El Al and the haredi rabbonim saying the haredim now support El Al again because El Al has shown the specific incident was a mistake and will not happen again and they intend to prove their sensitivity to the haredi public. Shortly after that we will hear about a new program El Al will put in place for haredim.

Just my guess.

Muscle flexing at its best. Or Worst.

selective frumkeit

What really irks me is coming across “selective frumkeit”.

What is “selective frumkeit”? 

When someone very openly shows off how frum he/she is and is so makpid and machmir and things below his standard are not acceptable to him, even to the point of denouncing any behavior not meeting this person’s “standards”. Then you see that person doing something completely against what those same Rabbonim said, or lowering his own standards when it is not convenient.

For example, somebody who keeps strictly to the badatz hechsher to the point that anything less than that is not considered kosher and unacceptable. Yet then you see this person buying a non-badatz item in the store because he enjoys that yogurt or drink or whatever.

Another example, people who talk about only listening to the rabbonim’s decrees and not allowing you to have internet access because the rabbonim banned it. If you do not swear and sign that you do not have internet access, they will not accept your child into the school system. Yet then you find out these same people have internet access (or computers or non-kosher cellphones or any other example).

I just came across a discussion on a hareidi bbs discussing how to describe something that was seen on the internet, in light of the “issur” to not have internet access. What would you say if you wanted to quote something but you saw it on the internet. If you say, “I saw it on the internet” that means you have internet access, so you cannot say that.

That is “selective frumkeit”. That is what irks me.

avreichim and lottery

Oftentimes one will see a beggar/homeless person smoking a cigarette. You will feel a bit of revulsion when he comes over to beg for money. You will then give him only a small amount, if anything at all.

We tell ourselves, if he is so poor that he has to go begging for food money, he should stop smoking and use all that money for food and clothes. I will not give him money if he wastes it on smoking.

If one would go through a religious neighborhood, one would see avreichim buying lottery tickets just like evrybody else.

Put aside for now the argument that lottery is a tax on the poor and they should not be playing. Forget the debate whether the lottery is worthwhile or not.

I want to know why avreichim play the lottery. We hear all the time complaints how poor and underpaid avreichim are (and they are). Occassionally there is the independantly wealthy avreich or one fully supported by parents, but most are not like that. Most are dependant on the government subsidies and scrape around for extras, such as learning in Friday morning kollels, night kollels, motzei shabbos kollels, etc and need every penny they can get.

If it is true that avreichim are not paid enough to live on (and it is true, but that is the choice of lifestyle they have made), what right do they have to play the lottery?

They all will tell over the story of the Chafetz Chaim and the lottery ticket. It goes something like this: Someone came to the Chafetz Chaim with a lottery ticket and asked for a bracha to win. The Chafetz Chaim told him that if he has complete bitachon that he will win, he will. When the fellow came back a bit before the lottery, the Chafetz Chaim offered to buy the ticket for a modest amount of money. When the fellow agreed, the Chafetz Chaim said this means you do not really have bitachon. Why? Because if you had bitachon this ticket would bring you 5000 rubles in a week (let’s say 5 million dollars in todays terms for arguments sake), why would you sell it today for 200 rubles?

They will say they are providing Hashem with an opportunity to give them parnassa b’derech hateva, in a natural non-miraculous way, just by buying the minimum ticket.

But isn’t it just like the homeless guy smoking? You will not give him money because he wastes it on cigarettes. Yet avreichim go fundraising (or others go on their behalf actually), yet some of that money is thrown out regularly on lottery tickets!

avreichim and parnassa

This is always a sore topic.

Everyone is always looking for “segulas” for parnassa. As soon as they hear of one, no matter how ridiculous it might be, they pursue it.

Avreichim (guys learning in kollel) also chase after such segulas. I am not sure why. I thought that the choice made by an avreich to learn in kollel was also a choice to not pursue parnassa opportunities but to dedicate one’s life to a more basic level of sustenance and dedication to Torah learning at the direct expense of parnassa.

So why are they chasing every segula for paranassa? If they are so concerned about paranassa, should they not go get a job?

And anyways, does a segula for parnassa (let’s say it is a legitimate segula) work if one does not do his basic hishtadlus? Meaning, I would think that to get parnassa one needs to work for a living and then one can ask Hashem for extra assistance via segula or whatever other  method there might be. But if one is not doing his own basic hishtadlus of getting a job, why would a segula be anything other than a meaningless exercise?

hechsherim

I keep forgetting to ask the guy.

 There is a restaurant right near my office. It is a mehadrin restaurant, which  are rare in this area. There are only a few of these to choose from, for someone who limits himself to mehadrin hechsherim.

 I do not go there too often, maybe once evry two weeks or so, sometimes even less. I generally get a shwarma, which they make pretty decent (I have had better but I have also had worse). Today I got a shnitzel (in pita) and was not impressed. Kind of bland, other than the harif (hot pepper sauce) I had them lace it with.

This place has a teudat hechsher (kashrut certificate) that expired on Rosh Hashana. It is still hanging up and they have not replaced it with a new one.

 I keep meaning to ask them why they have not replaced it but have forgotten until now.

I spoke to the mashgiach of the place about a month ago and he assured me I can eat there despite the expiry of the teuda. I think he said they had ordered a new one, yet this is a month later now and they still have not hung it up so I do not know what the status is.

I probably should ask, even if just for curiosity’s  sake.

What would you do? Am I wrong for eating there with such a situation?

Does the mehadrin hechsher really mean anything? I am not really convinced of that but I pretty much stick to mehadrin (with the only occassional exception)..

 More on hechsherim to come in future posts.

What you will be seeing here

I am not much of an intellectual, so you will not see great theses and debates of Jewish philosophy and thought here.

Basically it will be my thoughts, questions, comments, rants and vents in the best way I can express them.

Bear with me

Shalom everybody (nobody yet actually but maybe that will change over time).

Bear with me while I sort through questions I have on the frum world, family relations, yeshiva life and all that jazz. Basically all the stuff I could not post under my real name with my family and friends reading..

Maybe you readers can help clear things up for me or maybe just venting will help.

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