New Square Wedding

Sunday night I went to a Square wedding, it was a really interesting experience. To start off with, the wedding was of relatives of mine, where the chosson and Kallah were both related to us and each other. So the whole wedding was one big family wedding.

Here’s a little diagram to understand how everyone was related.

When we got there for the wedding it was late already, past 10:00. We missed the Chupah but they had just finished eating the main course. So when we got there relatives came over to say hello and surprisingly they did all speak English. Then one of my father’s cousins prepared me and my mother a seat and a main dish, and she told us to sit and eat. At this time they started dancing.

By them they do things very different. They don’t have 2 dances, but rather they eat first and then have one long dance for the rest of the night. So as we were sitting eating it was right next to them dancing so it was some cool entertainment, to sit facing them dancing.

The next different thing is that the hall is very different, it has 3 floors. The men get the first floor and they have a huge room. Then the woman are on the third floor and they have a medium sized room. I found this very strange, I have never seen a wedding before where the men’s section and woman section are on completely separate floors. It made it feel less like a wedding and more like a woman’s party.

Although, on the second floor, when you go to hang up your coat, that room is filled with windows and if you look down then you can see the men dancing, but there’s such a height difference between the two, that you can barely see faces.

Another thing I noticed was the clothing, besides for the obvious chassidish garb, I noticed that the girls all looked like they were wearing uniforms. The teenage girls I mean, they had white blouses, with jumpers. Not fancy jumpers that can look nice, but uniform looking jumpers. All the girls looked like they were wearing the same clothes, making it look more like a uniform.

The little girls had gowns and their hair was done fancy, but yet they didn’t seem to be dancing much, they were laying down on the stage part where the Kallah’s table was. I figured it’s probably because they go to a wedding every night, that this just isn’t new to them anymore. I mean this was the only dance, so it’s not liked they got danced out before. But then when the ices came they all ran over to get some.

Overall, it was a really cool wedding, I’ve been to a Square wedding once before when I was younger, but there he married a Sephardi girl, so that was different in a different way.

We were talking to some relatives that we never met before and it was actually funny how these chassidish woman who have 12 kids on average think it’s amazing how my mother was able to raise a bunch of twins. Not to take away from my mother’s greatness or anything.

Jewish Song Sundays --- #8

Destiny 4: King of Tony’s

I recently posted about my encounters with OTD people and Ricki’s Mom’s comment reminded me of a song that fit perfectly with what she had said. It shows how a mother truly loves her son even though he went off and she waits for him each day and hope’s he’ll come back, and she never gives up hope. It’s such a beautiful song, the words and tune fit perfectly. Unfortunately, this song on the CD got scratched so I can’t share it with you, but I can share an excerpt of the song. This music preview has the part I like about the song.

Lyrics:

In the dimly lit pool hall clouds of smoke hung low
As the smell of leather jackets mixed with cheap cologne
Leaning on a table a young man in his teens sharp eyes, skilled hands, pool cue
And designer jeans.

But there’s another table, decked out in satin white
With an empty place by father’s side on this Friday night
And mother’s waiting hopefully by the window sill
For Dovie boy who shootin pool in Tony’s Bar and Grill

Where have you gone? Gone so far? We still love you even though you may be far,
far away…

Super cool and accurate he’d win and never lose
Everyone at Tony’s knows him as the King of the cues
As mother’s praying silently, who will save his soul?
Dovie shoots a backspin to a tune of Billy Joel.

Sometimes late at night a he sits back inside the haze
Thinking of the times gone by, those old yeshiva days
He remembers them quite clearly, it was the time he turned 15
Those sharp, warm embracing eyes of his rebbe, Rabbi Green.

Dovie..He could hear him say. You’ll be a Talmud Chochum, one day…one day…

Where have you gone?……..

A stranger entered Tony’s, late one Sunday night
Rack em up he said, I’m gonna beat the king tonight
Wearing cowboy boots a cowboy hat and talking really mean
But in the dim smoky lite his face could not be seen

Shot after shot, this guy was no fake
Dovie started sweatin his reputation was at stake
The stranger had one easy shot left to win the game
Dovie knew he’d lose and things would never be the same

An amazing thing then happened, the stranger missed the shot
The crowd thought it was an accident Dovie knew that it was not
This guy had given him the game but why he wished he knew
Dovie pulled away from the cheering crowd and said:
Hey thanks man, but who are you?

The stranger said perhaps, it would be best to step outside so they made their way
out through the crowd to the street and to the light and Dovie saw him stare at him
with eyes he once had seen the sharp embracing stare, the eyes of Rabbi Green

The two of them stood silently looking into each other’s eyes
Dovie was the first one to break the ice
Hey Rebbe, that was the meanest game of pool I ever did see
But what made you come here on this night to play…a bum like me

Dovie the Rebbe said, you’re no bum, ‘cause I know you and were you’re coming from
It’s never too late to change, don’t you see…The King of Tony’s was once me..

There’s a yeshiva out of town, now a source of pride and fame
The Rosh Yeshiva’s a talmid chocham, Reb Dov is his name
And during recess there’s a pool table where the students like to play
But no one’s beat the Rosh Yeshiva till this very day.

Parshas Vayishlach

First off, this weeks Parsha was my older brothers Bar Mitzvah parsha so I remember him practicing leining it and I got to learn the story that way. The main part I remember is Yaakov Greeting Eisav. There’s a song that pops into my head when I think of this weeks parsha. It’s a song I learned as a kid, and I see now the children are still learning the same song. A song from 613 Torah Avenue. Although I only had remembered 4 of the lines of the chorus, and hadn’t recognized the rest of the song.

Something To Say:

I have sojourned with Laban (32:5)

When Jacob sent messengers to his brother Esau, he told them to relay the above message to his brother. Rashi comments that the word Garti in this verse has the numerical value of 613, which is also the number of mitzvos in the Torah. By using this word, Jacob was alluding to Esau, “I dwelt with Laban and kept the Mitzvos; I did not learn from his bad deeds.” The simple meaning of this statement is that even someone on the high spiritual level of Jacob could have been influenced negatively in the environment of a Laban; it was a substantial accomplishment that he withstood the test of living with the evil and dishonest laban.

I learned 2 great lessons from this. One the lesson of “don’t believe in yourself till the day you die”. That even Yaakov on such a high level had to worry about not getting influenced from Lavan. That no matter how strong you think you are, you can fall into the trap, so you have to be careful. Second is that it was considered a great accomplishment for him to have still kept the 613 mitzvos with lavan. Shows that no matter how great the person you still have to acknowledge when they did a great thing. That it wasn’t taken for granted that Yaakov will for sure keep the 613 mitzvos.

Another great lesson learned, is that even if you are right in what you are doing, you still have to do it in a nice way, otherwise it may come back and haunt you. Like where Timna was rejected in a not nice way, and then Amelak came from her and was an enemy to the Jews.

My Encounters with OTD people

This is going to be a long post…but don’t let that turn you off! I actually wrote this a long time ago and just hadn’t posted it yet. I wrote it on 10/8/08.

My first experience with an off the derech person was with a girl. She had been my classmate till second grade, at that time she was a sweet nice girl. I don’t remember much of her since I was very young. Fast forward 10 years and I see her profile on myspace. I knew she had left my school but I never knew what came out of her till then. I saw she had been switched to public school and was attending the same college as me. I communicated a bit with her online, she had remembered me and asked what’s doing with everyone else from the class. I caught her up with whose engaged and married. I never figured I would see her again in real life.

Then one day as I was walking to the city bus stop by college, I recognized her eating in a treif store. I wasn’t going to go in the store to say hello to her. Then a couple of days later I actually meet her, I recognize her again, so I stop her and ask her if she is “so and so”, she says yes, then she realizes who I must be, and we did some talking. She is now majoring in either music or acting, one of the entertainment kind of majors. I realize she is totally off the derech, but yet since I barely remember her when she was younger I am able to accept the new her. She is still nice and everything, just with a different life style. I don’t feel close enough with her to invade in her privacy and ask her why she went off. Although my thinking is that she was never really on. She is Russian, so perhaps her family hadn’t been so religious and they just chose my school in the beginning because they felt they owed her some type of Jewish education.

My next encounter with an off the derech person was with a boy. Here it was very different. Here he was a neighbor and a couple of years younger than me. He was a good friend of my brothers for a while. They both had blond hair and were of the same height so everyone would comment how they look so much alike. The boy’s family was a bit mixed, again a Russian family, his parents were never so religious but they did keep Shabbos and Kosher. His parents got divorced and his step father is much more religious, so he would bring the boy to shul and made sure he davened. But yet the mother didn’t cover her hair so mixed messages were being sent. But overall he was a good boy. I can picture him as a cute 13 year old boy.

Then one day I don’t know what happened but all of a sudden I see him grow his hair and dye it black. He also started smoking and listening to heavy metal. It made me look at him in a new way, he became different, scary and creepy to me. At first I thought perhaps he is still the same person. When I would see him, I would wave and say hello, but I would get no response, it’s as if he doesn’t know who I am. One day as I was walking on my block, I turned a corner which is near some bushes then all of a sudden he jumps out from behind the bush and tries to scare me. I still thought of him as his old self, so I laughed and said “very funny”. But he didn’t respond back, he made no acknowledgement that he knew who I was, with his hood hiding his face. I had joined facebook and while searching for people I might know, I found him. I added him as a friend and messaged him asking what’s up with that trick/scare he did on me, but he never replied back.

So I admitted that he must of changed and became different, so I then regarded him as a creepy person who is unfriendly. Then recently I saw he uploaded pictures on facebook and I saw a picture of him hugging and kissing a girl. I couldn’t understand how someone could actually let him touch them. Then I saw his status said that he loves the girl who was tagged in the picture with him. This shocked me further, that he is actually capable of love.

So you see with this second person my attitude was totally different. I saw it as so sad that he changed from that cute boy I pictured to the scary looking teen he is now. He had a change of personality in addition to his going off the derech. My next two encounters were similar with the second one, just a bit different.

The next two boys are brothers, their father had died a couple of years back and I guess they didn’t get much guidance and they had grief in them. I’m not one to judge. These two didn’t go off the derech completely, they still keep mitzvos I think, but they changed their personality. Both grew their hair long which made me question if this is a sign of rebellion and anger, and a sign that they are going off the derech.

What made me think about this all is that on Rosh Hashonah as my family was walking to Tashlich, I noticed that the younger of the two brothers I just mentioned before, had grown his hair long and was wearing a black t-shirt and a magen david necklace. His face didn’t look right, it gave me that creepy feeling that something must be bothering him. It got me sad to picture him turning out like that other boy. I felt bad for the pain he must be going through. He had just been seen at shul a few days prior to Rosh Hashonah so it was a big shock to see him that way. He had been with some other boys from shul who are frum good boys so at least he was still hanging out with good friends. But when asked if he went to Tashlich he pointed to the Tehillim my brother was holding and said  “I would throw that into the water” so there was something troubling him about being Jewish. Then on Yom Kippur I saw him with the other boy and they were both purposefully eating food in front of everyone.

Jewish Song Sunday --- #7

The Jewish Version: Shalom

There are many Jewish artists that are known for copying the tunes of non Jews and making it into a Jewish Song. Gershon Veroba would do this a lot and copy green day songs. The Jewish version would also. It’s actually interesting cause most of these songs I heard the Jewish one first before the Non Jewish one. Actually there’s one song “I’m a Believer” where I got so used to the Jewish one, that when I heard the non Jewish one it just sounded so wrong. Anyways, I was listening to Jr’s old favorite song, and I realized that I knew the Jewish one, and again I had heard the Jewish one first, and I liked the Jewish one better, so here it is.

O, and I have a question. If an artist e-mailed me one of their songs that they said will be on a CD in the future, and it’s at least a year or two later, and I’m not sure if it appeared on a CD yet. Am I allowed to post the song up?

Some Technical Information:
For those that want to download the video into avi or mpeg then you can download Save 2 Pc.
If you want to download just the music from the video then you can do that at Vid 2 MP3.

Parshas Vayeitzei

For some reason this Parsha always troubled me, and I had a question on it. Here is where Leah was supposed to marry Eysav, and Rachel was willing trade places with her. So to me it always seemed like Rachel was doing the wrong thing, because she was going to marry the bad guy. When I was younger it always seemed like the “bad” stuff is what we want. So I had always thought that Rachel must have wanted to marry Eisav because he was “dangerous and evil”. I had thought that you weren’t supposed to put yourself in a bad place, even if it was to “help” another.

But yes, I do realize that Rachel did a great thing by giving over the signs not to embarrass Leah. Rachel got a tremendous Zechus for this, and we always daven by her Kaver, and only she was able to save the Jews at one point.

Something to Say:

[Leah] declared, “This time let me gratefully praise Hashem”; therefore she called his name Judah (29:35).

Rashi explains Leah’s reaction to the birth of her fourth son as follows: “because I have received more than my expected share, from now on I should praise God.”
The Chiddushei HaRim comments that this was why she called her son Judah,, for the root of the name Judah means thanksgiving. This is why a Jew is called Yehudi, derived from Judah (Yehudah). Thus, the name that identifies a Jew is based upon the concept of thanksgiving, because every Jew must realize that all he or she has been given on this earth is a Divine gift. Even our name expresses the realization that everything we have is graciously bestowed upon us by God.

Now I found this very interesting, cause I had always wondered why Jews were called Yehudim. Now I realize it is because we are always thankful to Hashem for everything He has given us, because without Hashem giving, we wouldn’t be in existence.

Does Halacha Change?

I saw this post at Wolfish Musings which reminded me of something I had once learned. At first I commented on the woman learning Gemara part, and I have to say it is a really amazing feeling to see something from the Gemara and actually know what it’s talking about and where it came from. Ex: Lakewood Falling Down’s Post. But now I’m going to comment on a different part of the Wolf’s post.

The Wolf asks:

“The question at hand was whether it's possible that rabbinical statements could be influenced by the environments in which the people who uttered them lived in, or are they delivered in a vacuum (so to speak) and are always valid at all times and under all circumstances.”

My Answer (As typed up from my seminary notes from R’ S.):

There are many things in Halacha that seem to be contradicting and you start to wonder if maybe Halacha changes as time goes on or if the Rabbi's were wrong.

Here are some Examples:

1. If a cat attacks and animal, that animal becomes treif from the venom poisoning it.
   Q: But there's no Venom in a cat.
   A: Cats that go into the garbage get infections, so Halacha doesn't have to change, there's just a different reason.
   
2. On shabbos you could kill lice, you can't kill stuff that reproduce, lice comes from dirt.
   Q: But its impossible that something comes from nothing.
   
   A: 1679 - Pachad Yitzchak said chachamim made mistake about not being able to kill lice.
   All Torah was given to Moshe, how to apply it was given to the Chachamim, Moshe said you could kill lice, we find reasons based on knowledge and apply it, the reason could be wrong, but Halacha is not wrong.
   
   Chachamim knew reasons aren't good, but people would only listen if there is a reason to believe to accept the Halacha. It’s a reason that people believed in at that time.
   
   There are Many reasons for halacha, not just 1 reason, but it doesn't say all the reasons.
   
3. Bird grows from tree and needs shchita
   Q: But its not possible that a bird comes from a tree.
   A: A bird coming from a tree is just a metaphor.

• A) Chachamim had superior knowledge -- Ruach Elokim, even if scientist say that its not true.
• B) Overtime nature has changed, we can't use their refuahs cause we changed, were not the same, certain halachos could change.
• C) It could be we misunderstood the chachamim, so we can't say they’re making mistakes.
• D) They spoke in metaphor's, not everything is meant to be taken seriously.
• E) Chachamim got knowledge from scientist, then they made Halachos, now Halacha changes.

Examples:

1. Snake stays pregnant for 7 years. Now it takes only a few years, scientist did research and found garter snake is pregnant for 7 years. So it could be that in the time of the chachamim there was a snake that was pregnant for 7 years.
   
2. Salamander oil if you smear it on your body it will become fireproof and won't burn, if there's a continuous fire for 7 years then a salamander will come from it. There are different types of salamanders.