I've been following the Sarah Palin bus tour "story" with the same cynicism and disdain as Jon Stewart. But the thought occurred to me that perhaps I had seen this sort of thing before somewhere. And after rummaging through the vault of irrelevant data that is my brain, I uncovered what can only be described as a revelation.
Loyal readers, I submit that Sarah Palin is the modern day Lex Luger.
continue reading...
Following the precedent set last year, my sermon for the Shabbat before Purim was delivered in rhyming couplets. I'm also pleased to report this one was equally well received
It's Purim again and you know what that means.
It's time to revisit our Purim routines.
Gifts to the poor and baskets of fruit
Reading megillah as we holler and hoot
And the meal of course which should make you rethink
Just how much of whiskey and wine you should drink
But when we celebrate this particular season
We often ignore or forget its main reason
For unlike hagim when we reenact miracles
On Purim we mostly promote the satirical
We're laugh, we sing, and we put on a spiel
One day to have fun - so what's the big deal?
God saved us again, this time through means hidden
And where does it say letting loose is forbidden?
Now I don't mean to stop anyone from enjoying
And I'm sorry in advance if I'm being annoying
But I'd like to remind everyone in this shul
We have deeper meanings as a general rule
There's of course nothing wrong with our celebration
I'd just like to include a small contemplation
Yes we were saved from a terrible danger
From a drunk king and Haman - the whole plot's arranger
We all know by now how the story begins
But consider the question - just when did we win?
With all of our parties we hardly give thought
To the end of the story and the war that was fought
Haman's great plan was to have the Jews killed
And so he affected how the king willed
Ahashverosh decreed that throughout all his lands
The Jews could be killed just by his command
Esther and Mordechai worked out their own plot
To ensure Haman's plan would come out for naught
It involved Achashverosh getting drunk one more time
Which it seems is as easy for this Rabbi to rhyme.
It is a long story and so I'll condense
This "great help" from the king just allowed self-defense
The whole of the empire - still free to attack
The only change now is that Jews could fight back
Now as miracles go and what God can do
This seems kind of lame - to me if not you
At least by Hannukah we fought with poor odds
That we can say that we won with assistance from God
In the story of Purim there is nary a mention
Of even a hint of divine intervention
The groups of the Jews seemed to fight on their own
And any assistance was at best unknown
For Achashverosh too did not intervene
And the outcome of battle could not be forseen
And yet they took arms to fight for their lives
And because of their courage, our people survives
But there's an important description our Megillah makes clear
That our deadly opponents were overtaken by fear
At the climax of Haman's elaborate scheme
נָפַל פַּחְדָּם עַל כָּל הָעַמִּים
So why were they frightened - what need to be scared
Of a people for whom the king barely cared?
An answer I'd offer lies within all mankind
That it is towards freedom that we are all inclined
And when banded together to fight for what's right
Few forces can stop us, no matter their might
The greatest response to a powerful bully
Is to stand up as one and oppose him quite fully
As we've seen recently, sitting here quite complacent
Middle East revolutions - some only still nascent
The price that it takes to create a free nation
Cannot be adjusted to any inflation
But people will tell you that despite lives that were lost
That sometimes the battles are worth every cost
To be perfectly clear and avoid all confusion
I am not advocating for armed revolution
But to remind everyone that in times of distress
We cannot remain silent while being oppressed
There are all sorts of reasons and tired excuses
For ignoring one's pain and recurring abuses.
It's too big, too hard, our opponents too massive
There's no need to act, I'll just sit and be passive
On Purim at least - for one day, or two
We put those aside for what we had to do
When we join together, united as one
There is no evil we cannot overcome
Unique to Purim, for all lessons learned
Is that sometimes our comfort and cheer must be earned
Having faith in God is all well and good
As long as our own role is as well understood
For the Jews in the Megillah, Purim meant to them
קִיְּמוּ וקבל וְקִבְּלוּ הַיְּהוּדִים עֲלֵיהֶם
They reaccepted the Torah with total free choice
And only after committing, were they free to rejoice
So recall as we dine on meal that's most hearty
That sometimes we must fight for our own right to party
Dear Loyal Readers,
On Mar 7 2011 11:50:49 pm, my humble abode on the web notched it's 500,000th visit!1 The lucky visitor from Hobart, Tasmania searched Australia's Google for "free chords jewish music" and stopped by the The Jewish Guitar Chords Archive.
I know what you're thinking, 500,000 is nothing by today's standards - even for Jewish blogs - and especially since I've been doing this since May 15th, 2003. However, consider the following:
Finally, the 500,000th visit is not the same as a "hit" - as the chart below indicates most visitors to YUTOPIA stick around for a while, either taking time to read what I've written or downloading some of the chords from the archive.
| VISITS | ||||
| Total | 500,000 | |||
| Average Per Day | 266 | |||
| Average Visit Length | 4:27 | |||
| Last Hour | 26 | |||
| Today | 272 | |||
| This Week | 1,862 | |||
| PAGE VIEWS | ||||
| Total | 1,382,800 | |||
| Average Per Day | 749 | |||
| Average Per Visit | 2.8 | |||
| Last Hour | 76 | |||
| Today | 767 | |||
| This Week | 5,243
|
|||
At any rate, I hope to continue keeping up the quality you've all come to expect both in the posts and now the podcasts which I am proud to say have already amassed approximately 5,000 downloads in total.
I thank you for your support and sticking with this site, even sometimes more than I have, and for putting up with my typos and grammar. I don't have the time for a complete retrospective right now, though I suspect one should be due at some point. In the meantime, thanks again for helping this site achieve a Big Round Number and I look forward to reaching even more with you in the future.
Josh
1. At least since I started counting with Sitemeter - with all the changes I've made in the past, odds are I hit the mark a while ago.
Happy to say that after a minor hiccup the move to a new host went swimmingly. We now return to our regularly scheduled blogging.
YUTOPIA is moving hosts, so please excuse the forthcoming hiccups in the process. If this works, we'll be good for the next 4 years.
Say what you will, no one can argue "legal fiction" for this one:
Reposted from last year with better redaction on the image.
I'm also proud to say this was the first sermon I gave which elicited applause. Most of my sermons typically evoke a standing ovation, though that's probably due to kaddish.
Anyone who has heard my sermons knows that I like spicing up my talks with various non-religious references from popular and obscure culture. Perhaps my best/worst line was the following analogy: "The Jewish community is like Soylent Green - it's made of people."
I didn't say they were always funny, but they do make sense in context.
Sometimes people get the references, other times they don't, but I've taken the attitude that I'm just going to drop what I can and let people pick up what they may.
So I'd like to try something new as a challenge. This week I'll actually take requests - you tell me what references to make (the general the better), and I'll try working it into a coherent sermon.
In other words, hit me with your best shot, and I'll hit you with my best peshat:
On my way to Israel I joked Twitter that I hoped I wasn't overweight in terms of luggage. The truth is I could probably stand to lose a few pounds, or at least get better about exercising. Being in Israel certainly helps; when I was in Gush I dropped two suit sizes largely due to walking everywhere and eating less thanks to yeshiva food.
But in New York and working it's perpetually difficult to find time/space to work out. As a Rabbi my schedule is erratic and I can't afford the gyms. In Washington Heights I was better about jogging thanks to Ft. Tryon Park and I'm too scared to bike on the Lower East Side - try a bike land and you'll see what I mean. Still, all these excuses don't mean anything in the long term when faced with family medical histories.
My sister on the other hand is amazing, juggling a household with 4 kids, a job, active in the community, and still forces herself to do something be it jogging, learning to jump rope, or basic exercises with dumbbells.
Dumbbells! So simple, you can do plenty of stuff at home, a perfect solution! In fact there was a time I had some dumbbells. Years ago my great uncle Ben Yuter once randomly sent me two three pound dumbbells in the mail which should have made for a great conversation in the post office: "let's see how much that weighs..." "Trust me, it's 6 pounds."
Before I try new stuff I typically search online to get a sense of how much things cost and what would make the best deal.1 Some sets looked intrusting, but I found something even more fascinating in the Body Solid Tools line. Sure looks like an ordinary a 7 pound dumbbell with purple coating, but the real bonus is further down the page. In the "Product Details" section I found this gem:
Shipping Weight: 6.4 pounds
Read that carefully: the shipping weight for a 7 pound dumbbell is 6.4 pounds.
Let one think this is an anomaly, the shipping weight for a 6 pound dumbbell is 5.6 pounds and the 8 pound ships at 7.6.
This is nothing short of revolutionary; Amazon has created a shipping system so advanced they can alter the weight of an object. I'm now thinking why bother with working out when I can just keep shipping myself via Amazon and lose .4-.6 pounds at a clip!
The best part is that after $25, I can even ship for free. Can't get a better deal than that.
1. The "typical Jew" economics are really important when you're paid like a rabbi.
Now that I've moved to a more mature web space, I've decided to formalize some official commenting policies. Thankfully I've never had much of an issue in the past, but it's probably useful to have something on the books.
I'd consider it a work in progress so any feedback or comments would be appreciated.
Within the new guidelines, that is.
