Thread by @JoshuaCypess

87.01/ Week eighty-seven, March 12-18, 2022, thread begins here.

Week 86 below.

Thank God #UkraineStillStands

87.02/ #MotzeiShabbatMovieNight suspended tonight because - with the mask mandate lifted and no community spread - I'm back to having social functions that I must attend. #SlawCup

87.03/

Me: "How can I get everything done? There are only 24 hours in a day!"

Daylight Saving Time: "LOL, no"

87.04/ He had a three cornered hat to hide his three-cornered ears, of course.

87.05/ Them: "Yeshivos don't need to teach art because the student's aren't going to get anything out of it for their avodas Hashem!"

Me: [Pointing to 70% of my received mishloach-manot having elaborate themes] "You were saying?" #Purim

87.06/ The gemara tells us that certain problematic parts of Tanakh are read aloud but not translated into the vernacular because the literal understanding is misleading (e.g. Reuven & Bilhah). Do the Daas-Torah-niks include Lev. 4:13 on that list?
chabad.org/library/bible_…

87.07/ That person is now my hero (as #DaylightSavingTime proves, time is illusion anyway)

87.08/ It's just different stages of their Pokémon-style evolution.

87.09/ I can't say on Twitter what I think of when I think of Poland (except that my grandparents, Aleihem HaShalom, forbade their descendants from ever setting foot on that country ever again. It's why I didn't go on March of the Living, e.g.)

87.10/ Apropos of nothing, remember when that Tzaduki Cohen Gadol was pelted with etrogim? Just pointing that out.

87.11/ @TheRealHoarse point is razor sharp here. Yes, TFG thinks the solution to every problem is an infantile hoax based on no object permanence


See also:

87.12/ The casual misogyny of the patriarchy in a nutshell

87.13/ This is brilliant

[Alt-text: The reason Batman doesn't cover his whole face is because he needs the police to know he's white.]

87.14/ 100%.

And it's the load-bearing myth of the TERF worldview.

87.15/ Wow, not to know I actually have something in common with Beinart.

87.16/ Publish or perish they say

87.17/ Solid cishet Lord of the Rings fan here & I've been saying for years that it was a huge mistake to clean up Aragon - ceremony bedamned. 98% of the saga he was a steely-eyed regulator, why ruin it?

Yes, it was exactly this.

87.18/ I thought this was the only option

87.19/ Two years ago, March 13, 2020, someone in my household woke up with a fever and other worrisome symptoms, the first sign all of us were infected with COVID19. We're fine now, thank God.

In 2020, thank God I canceled our plans to join another family for #Purim seudah.

87.20/ Yup.

87.21/ Driverless cars is a good shorthand for "murderous dystopia". IMO, the driverless advocates should should start with trains: they're on rails, have a set schedule, shouldn't go above a certain speed etc. They don't care about trains, of course.

87.22/ Bourgeois resentment, the petty vengeful appetites of the failsons & the jockeying of the also-rans, explain so much of our era. They're led by Ivy educated Republicans, products of a culture of humiliation, foisting their fragile egos on all of us.

87.23/ This is a good hypothesis and lucky I'm trained enough in social history that I could see a way of testing it

87.24/ This has got to be #PurimTorah, right?

87.25/ Yes, very well said.

87.26/ Happy Pi Day! #PiDay
talmudology.com/jeremybrownmdg…

87.27/ My advice, call all dumplings - from Wontons to ravioli - "kreplach"

Hey, it's a great word and who doesn't love slipping it into conversation.

87.28/ Is this a mitzvah that needed kavannah, because I've been makpid on this for many years in many devices

87.29/ Of course, this is true.


See:

87.30/ I do enjoy a bit of "America is pretty huge and also pretty weird" trivia #BlameItOnDaylightSavings

87.31/ This is the heart of the bad-faith claims of "cancel culture": bullies who are panicking at losing the ability to victimize at will. (And, because they are cruel & solipsistic, they assume everyone will treat them as badly as they've treated others)

87.32/ This is a very useful term! A "missing stair" is "a person w/in a social group who many people know is untrustworthy or otherwise has to be 'managed'..."
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missing_s…
h.t.

87.33/ I should write more about this, but the way people are tacitly forgiven for youthful bad ideology is by clearly being motivated by compassion & justice. Kindness is consistent and always redeemable.

87.34/ It's #Einstein's birthday, Pi Day (which as a kid I thought was a made up coincidence). This is the first time I've seen this picture of him wearing a kippah!

more

&
jstor.org/stable/3526854

87.35/ OMG, this fakakta boat captain is maritime Phil Luckett!


en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phil_Luck…

(If you're in the center of the Venn diagram that groks this tweet, I'm very glad to meet you)

87.36/ If I understand this thread correctly, the DC Q-Trucker Konvoy was basically a successful reboot of the Charlottesville 2018 klan rally. That's very troubling.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unite_the…

87.37/ Not subtweeting, really, but just sayin'... a very useful phrase from TB Kiddushin 70, quoting from Steinsaltz' commentary: “Kol haposel, be-mumo posel – someone who makes accusations about others will invariably project his own problem on others.”
steinsaltz.org/daf/kiddushin7…

87.38/ Higher education & academic training should teach many skills (like writing and statistics) but above all "critical thinking." It is the heart of "science." A big part? Be wary of information that confirms your priors. We online folk can fall into that trap very easily.

87.39/ Time to play every middle-aged person's favorite game: "Why am I suddenly in pain?" aka "What previously perfectly fine, activity and/or food has now declared war on my body?"

E.g. this is how I discovered they willy-nilly changed the formula for Diet Sprite.

87.40/ He's right.

IME: halakhah requires the ger live a full* halakhic life before mikvah b/c (a) once converted they're 100% Jewish & thus liable for aveirot & (b) conversion w/o full knowledge of what's being accepted is unfair & poss. invalid

*IYKYK

87.40b/ I'm seeing future Jews, many of Color, be harassed on twitter (as called out below) - a combo of anti-convert bigotry & common racism - and it needs to stop.

Ironically, wanton cruelty calls a Jew's own kashrut into question
chabad.org/library/articl…

87.41/ The Talmud can be subtle with it's lessons, such is the case with #drinking on Purim. Rabba, drunk on #Purim, nearly kills Rebbe Zeira! That means: be safe & holy above everything else. Concentrate on the other mitzvot.
See: etzion.org.il/en/halakha/ora…
sefaria.org/Megillah.7b.8?…

87.42/ I admire her trenchant sense of humor so much:

87.43/ Just putting these two pieces of information out there (Katz is the "guy" @EladNehorai is glad to have stepped away from).
rationalistjudaism.com/2022/03/the-ma…
&

87.44/ Today is the first anniversary of my first COVID19-#vaccine shot! It was a miracle cure then, it's a miracle cure now. Thank God I live in a time when medical marvels feel routine & that I live in a country that gave me access, free and easy.

87.45/ Reposting my discussion of issues relating to some invisible disabilities and Purim/Megillah
#DisabilityShulchanArukh #DisabilityHalakha
#Megillah #ADHD
Original:

Threader: threadreaderapp.com/thread/1365335…

87.46/ I still hold by this:
#TaanitEsther #IHateFastDays

87.47/ Going through my previous Purim posts and came across this 2-post thread with a poll about best #PurimShpiel movie (the monkey picture is option 4)

87.48/ Linked below is an ongoing thread for collecting my #Purim comments, to keep it off this main feed (and for future reference)

87.49/ This take has been running around and it's as likely a reason as any

87.50/ In honor of #StPatricksDay & #Purim on the same day, here's some reading about the Jewish origins of corned beef and cabbage:
smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/i…
See also:
&
myjewishlearning.com/the-nosher/the…
&
marker.medium.com/how-jewish-imm…

87.50b/ Based on the Smithsonian piece above (and the links/sources within) I'd suggest that the American Irish custom of corned beef has similar immigrant-metropolitan origin to the American Jewish custom of Chinese food on Xmas
vox.com/the-goods/2018… &
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish-Am…

87.51/ #NachasAlert Last year my son learned the entire #Megillah so he could run around town and help people during the pandemic. One year later, many of the same issues, but now he also read at the 9am minyan.
Last year:

This year:

87.52/ Barukh Dayan Ha-Emet! To many, Rav Kanievsky z'l was the Gadol Ha-Dor, and I need to acknowledge that even though I hold him responsible for the vast failures of the Haredi community in this pandemic.
jewishpress.com/news/health-an…

87.52b/ Some disturbed person argued with me about my comment above and in so doing disparaged my gedolim. This is a red flag; Torah isn't a game.

Here are my responses to the now blocked troll:

87.53/ #ChochmatNashim & JOFA for #Tzav
5782 Greenaway blogs.timesofisrael.com/what-we-miss-w…
5782 Koren blogs.timesofisrael.com/what-can-sacri…
5782 Jaffe blogs.timesofisrael.com/vayikra-the-st…

#Purim
5775 Sharansky Danziger blogs.timesofisrael.com/queen-esther-w…
5781 Raskas blogs.timesofisrael.com/for-goodness-s… #

87.53b/ #ChochmatNashim #Tzav continued
Hamizrachi
drive.google.com/file/d/1HAV1wE…
pages 5, 7, 8-9, 16, 21, 24

And, why not, I'll add some friends
5779 Sarah Bronson blogs.timesofisrael.com/good-enough-fo…
5782 Yael Unterman blogs.timesofisrael.com/esther-steps-o…

87.54/ TIL, the difference between "theorist" and "theoretician":
"[a] theoretician is someone who is expert in the theory of a particular science or art while theorist is someone who constructs theories, especially in the arts or sciences."
wikidiff.com/theoretician/t…

87.55/ Real #PurimTorah: Last night I taught that the midrash considers Vashti evil b/c of theodicy (why bad things happen). My wife & daughter thought I said "The Odyssey" (It was clarified when my wife said "the Greeks said bad things happen because the gods were grumpy!")

87.56/ Shabbas is in an hour, whoa. #ShushanPurim Sameach everybody! Stay Safe, and have a wonderful #ShabbatShalom

@threadreaderapp please unroll