Maybe be the camel

After being rescued from a petting zoo, a special camel had trouble fitting in with the other animals on the rescue farm. It wanted nothing more than to be friends with all the horses and alpacas, but they had never seen a camel before. After a while, they realized that it was just a funny version of them, so they began to warm up to it, and now it has become part of the herd 


https://x.com/i/status/2037152600051617848

cooler heads

Some rabbis are so out of touch with the concerns of people that it is appalling. I once attended a talk given to a Carlebach minyan where a visiting rabbi told a room of music lovers that listening to music has been forbidden since the destruction of the Temple, except for zmiros at Shabbos tables and some music at weddings. Rabbi Shlomo Carelbach was a talented songwriter and performer who built an entire kiruv track based largely on music. People who follow his derech connect to Judaism largely through music. I do not know what this rabbi was trying to accomplish with his presentation, but he certainly risked pushing people away from Torah observance. I know this rabbi to be a gentleman, but he was trained to impose Judaism like a straight jacket. Incredibly, he is Modern Orthodox and is associated with Yeshiva University, but many rabbis in the Modern Orthodox world have taken on sensibilities of other groups even though they are paid by Modern Orthodox people. 

But cooler heads can prevail. One BT who was an aficionado of opera was most upset to hear that halacha prohibited him from attending operas because he'd hear women singing. The rabbi who gave him this news eventually took him to a prominent posek  who told him if I recall correctly that attending operas would be permitted to him if his interest was in the entire spectacle, not just the women singing. After the young man left the room, the posek took the rabbi aside and chastised him, saying that he should know better than to pass on such restrictions without checking for a leniency. 

The fraudulence of Western Society

 The government forces you to go to public school where you are brainwashed on the alleged sanctity of college. The colleges charge more money than the price of a house but claim to give "financial aid" to 80% of students. Turns out the 80% of that aid is loans upon which one cannot default. They work like this;

One of the reasons tuition has gone up at twice the rate of inflation is because of the student loan program. 

And then in college, there's hardly a major that leads to earning income. It's mostly musical theater, literature, philosophy, biology, etc. 

Now, one reason her interest is so high is because she probably pays less than the full amount each month. But that could be in part because she couldn't find a job. 

no chasing

 

when you're done with the yeshiva world

 A bear, forced to live in appalling conditions in a tiny cage at a honey farm for years, is rescued, and while playing in a pool at the sanctuary, it realizes that it is truly free...

https://x.com/i/status/2033443327740416471

Don't be so quick to judge

A man shared this with me:

I used to go once a year to baseball games. I had several reasons for sitting in the upper deck of baseball games that I would attend once a year in New York. Firstly, it put some distance between me and the gentiles who attended games. Often they drank or sat with their shirts off. They cursed. In the upper deck I could sit 100 feet away and be spared most of that. I worked this out with a rabbi, that this was a middle ground between never attending, which was a bit problematic since I grew up on baseball, and mingling more than was necessary. Secondly, I enjoyed the view of the grass. It felt like sitting in the mountains, which I never had occasion to do in the city. Thirdly, there's a breeze up there, and I usually attended in July when it's hot and humid in New York. Fourthly, I could watch the whole field and observe the full dimension of the game. Lastly, you don't have to worry about batted balls up there. People do get hit by balls. A Jewish women was killed by a ball in Los Angeles a few years back and a little girl suffered permanent brain damage at a different game recently. I study Torah for more than half the game, and in the upper deck I'm not distracted by concern of batted balls. This last reason wasn't the main reason. It was one of the reasons. Rav Avigdor Miller, who is one of my influences, emphasized that a person should exercise caution in matters of physical safety. He talked about this often. I was honoring his teaching. not only that but upper deck seats are $25 and mezzanine seats are $125. To me spending $125 for a baseball game is not justifiable. I could buy a sefer. I could give tzedukah. I could keep it in the bank. The players don't need to make $10,000,000 a year and if fans would refuse to pay ridiculously high prices, the inflated salaries would come down. All kinds of reasons go into the decision.

So I have my reasons. But when my son told a rabbi therapist that I sat in the upper deck to avoid batted balls the therapist criticized me to my son saying that my concern wasn't reasonable. 

A therapist shouldn't be passing judgement in general, but all the more so without knowing the facts. A rabbi shouldn't be criticizing a father. So what is this man? He is neither. And so it goes with nearly all rabbi-therapists, as most are just in it for the money and like most yeshiva guys can't seem to shut their mouths. 

woman killed at Dodgers game

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"Richie Ashburn hit a foul ball that struck a fan, Alice Roth, squarely in the face, breaking her nose. The game was then paused as medics came in to tend to Mrs. Roth. As they were carrying her away on a stretcher, play was resumed and Ashburn fouled off the first pitch thrown to him. This foul subsequently struck Mrs. Roth as she was being carried off by the medics. Roth was the wife of the sports editor for "The Philadelphia Bulletin", who was there with her two grandsons. The second foul ball broke a bone in her knee. There was blood everywhere."

Richie Ashburn later said about the event:

"I didn’t mean to do it. When I saw what happened, I felt terrible."

The Phillies showered Alice Roth and her grandsons with gifts.

They gave her grandson's, Preston and Tom a baseball signed by all of the players on the team, along with free tickets to future games.

In addition, the team gave the young boys a tour of their clubhouse and spent the afternoon talking baseball with them. Preston and Tom visited Alice in the hospital after the Phillies gave them the “star treatment.” One of the boys innocently asked:"Grandma, do you think you could go to an Eagles game and get hit in the face with a football?"

Komodo dragons are just so ruthless

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