Gilad Shalit Biblical Reference..

There is a nice biblical quote that seems especially relevant this morning:

יז  וַיַּעֲשׂוּ כָל-הַקָּהָל הַשָּׁבִים מִן-הַשְּׁבִי סֻכּוֹת, וַיֵּשְׁבוּ בַסֻּכּוֹת--כִּי לֹא-עָשׂוּ מִימֵי יֵשׁוּעַ בִּן-נוּן כֵּן בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל, עַד הַיּוֹם הַהוּא; וַתְּהִי שִׂמְחָה, גְּדוֹלָה מְאֹד.

17 And all the congregation of them that were come back out of the captivity made booths, and dwelt in the booths; for since the days of Joshua the son of Nun unto that day had not the children of Israel done so. And there was very great gladness. (Nechamia chap 8:17)

"The Captivity" mentioned is the Babylonian exile.


I think most people would agree that there should at this moment be a great gladness - even if like myself you doubt that were you the Prime Minister you would have agreed to this deal. At this point in time let us be happy for Gilad and his family, who's long ordeal will finally come to a close. 


I take my hat off to Netanyahu for having the courage to make such a harsh decision. 


P.S
I did originally write quite a long piece about the Sukkot described in Nechamia, but then some googling showed me that "Parshablog" had already written about it - and wrote it better than I did. I recommend you read his posts.

Rav Kook In Montreal

Just saw that the blog עם הספר has found some terrific pictures of Rav Kook's 1924 trip to America and Canada. This picture caught my eye, mostly because of having lived in Montreal. I think I recognize the building but I'm slightly suspicious of 10+ year memories, so I'll let some of my Canadian readers name the location.

This next picture of Rav Kook meeting the Mayor of New York is also surprising in both its clarity and by how out of place Rav Kook seems:

The Exploding Leviathan

One of the more enigmatic blessings we hear on Sukkot is "May G-d merit us to sit in a Sukkah made from the skin of the Leviathan."

Many people let modern Hebrew get the better of them and mistake Leviathan for "Whale". Happily fans of Greenpeace need not worry. Leviathan in biblical Hebrew would appear to be some kind of sea monster (see the whole of chapter 41 in Job).

Surfing the internet I did find this lovely picture of a Leviathan themed Sukkah on SukkahCity:

And for those of you still thinking of a Whale skin Sukka I was also reminded of this infamous video of the exploding whale:

A Sukkah From An Elephant?

Festival Of The Bike

Last year I had quite a sad conversation with a non religious friend of mine. He was really quite upset, over the fact that his 3 year girl had come home from Kindergarten with a picture to colour in. The picture had the title of "Yom Kippur" and a picture of a girl on a bicycle.

In Israel for the "serious" non religious Yom Kippur is the festival of the bicycle. It is the one day of the year when kids can bike around the city without worrying about traffic. This has become very widespread - so much so that even in the 99% religious neighborhood I live in Jerusalem, I saw many many kids on Bicycles this week.

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Debunking: The Real Life Jonah

Over Yom Kippur my wife and I were discussing the story of Jonah. Trying to refute the "It is impossible to live in the belly of a whale" argument, I told my wife that I remembered there being a real life Jonah of which I read about only a few years ago.

After Yom Kippur I did a little Googling. It was easy to track down the story I remembered reading - and to track down its debunking. The story as I remembered reading in one of its earlier versions:

The whaling ship Star of the East, was in the vicinity of the Falkland Islands, searching for whales, which were very scarce. One morning the lookout sighted a whale about three miles away on the starboard quarter. Two boats were manned. In a short time one of the boats was near enough to enable the harpooner to send a spear into the whale, which proved to be an exceedingly large one. With the shaft in his side, the animal sounded and then sped away, dragging the boat after him with terrible speed. He swam

Canada - Jewish Burqa Cult and Haredim In Israel

The Globe And Mail is reporting on a the deportation of two young Israeli women, who seem to be members of the Burqa cult. I'm not 100% convinced this is the infamous Beit Shemesh "Burqa Cult" Aka as the Jewish Taliban - mostly because to the best of my knowledge the Beit Shemesh cult does not have a rabbinic leader as this article suggests, nor have I previously heard the name "Lev Tahor". My own guess is that this is a separate though similar cult:

It is an enclave of ultra-Orthodoxy in the midst of the Laurentian mountains of Quebec, and its family practices have sparked an international tug-of-war with Israel.

Lev Tahor, a community of religious Jews on the edge of the forest north of Montreal, has carried on largely away from the glare of public scrutiny for years. Women and even little girls dress head to toe in chador-like veils and marry as young as the age of 16. Residents have limited contact with outsiders.

Nobel Peace Prize Awarded To A President Who Actually Did Something..

Wall Street Journal reports that:

"The 2011 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded Friday to Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Liberian peace activist Leymah Gbowee and Tawakkul Karman of Yemen for their work on women's rights."
"Ms. Johnson Sirleaf, 72, is a Harvard-trained economist who became Africa's first democratically elected female president in 2005."

I for one find it an interesting idea to give the Nobel Peace Prize to a president AFTER she/he has actually accomplished something worthy of the prize and not before. 

An unexplained Acronym

The Notrikon blog is asking for help to try and guess what the acronym on this kiddush cup might be. I've been staring at it for the last ten minutes and can't even guess any part of it. Anyone want to help?