Friday, May 16, 2008

Birds of a feather

Our gallant leader, fresh off conquering the summit of indifference posed by his charges, Farbrenged last night about a variety of topics. One of them was Shiluach Haken, the biblical command to send a mother bird away from her nest. This Mitzva is a big Segulah, a gigantic merit, for having kids and meriting long life, which would seem to be mutually exclusive, but there you go. The Zohar says that when this Mitzva is performed, and the mother is sent away from her chicks, she goes up to heaven and starts crying to G-d that her children have been taken from her. The entire heavenly court comes to her aid, and they begin to plead to G-d, asking why this terrible thing had to happen. G-d responds, "This mother's children were taken from her ten minutes ago, and all the celestial beings have come to protest. My children were taken from me 2000 years ago, and no one says a thing." The Zohar continues on to say that the Mitzva is most effective on Shabbos and Yom Tov, when you can't do it anyway, so what that's about I'm not quite sure.
Moving right along, I am quite happy to see that Jesse Ventura is considering a run a senate. He's a really entertaining guy, and I'd certainly prefer him to the alternative, Al Franken, a snotty little liberal if there ever was one. As for the Presidential race? I recently read both of Barack Obama's books, and I quite enjoyed them. Then I found out that he's cosponsoring a bill to make the US join a bunch of foreign treaties, and I decided that once a liberal, always a liberal, and my vote he isn't getting. John Mccain is little better. Hilary would be a lot of fun, but unfortunately it doesn't look like she'll be in the Oval Office anytime soon.
See, back in the day, I was really into politics. I lived and died with the 2000 election, and when Bush won I was ecstatic. I was a student in Torah Academy, in S. Louis Park, at the time, and Mrs. Norris was an avowed Democrat, so it was really great when Al Gore lost. Since then though, I've lost faith in the system, and now look to it merely for entertainment purposes. Of course I'll always support the GOP and fight the Democrats, but that's merely an old habit. At this point, I don't think any one person, or even any one party, is capable of either fixing or messing up this country. The verse states that, "The heart of King's is in Hashem's hands", so I try not to let these things worry me.
And that, folks, is all the words I got.

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