Thursday, October 16, 2008

TRS-The Simchas Beis Hashoeva Edition

Here in beautiful TRSville , where the stock markets never crash and the cows never cease to give milk, Simchas Beis Hashoevah (hereafter forever known as SBH) is quite the joyous occasion. All the notables of the town get together in the Sukkah of one or another, make a blessing on the food, the drink, and the tabernacle, and then rapse gloriously on the joys of religious servitude. After they've done that for, oh, thirteen seconds, they begin to talk about slightly more interesting things. One member of our little congregation enlightened us most tremendously on fifteen uses for superglue that are not explicitly mentioned on the tube, while another told us about his new book, "Chalomos fun Tatten". Of course, in these troubled times, when every American fears for all that is right and good, there are two topics, inextricably intertwined, that all SBHs eventually come to: the election/the economy.

But, as you may have figured out by now, I'm bored sick of both of these. Instead I'll deal with a topic that came up in Adath Israel Synagogue's annual Pizza in the Hut celebration and convocation, emphasis on the latter. I was talking with our local holy man, and he mentioned his disgust with the present situation; the present situation, in this case, is the shocking lack of Tznius that he sees in our fair city. I commended his holiness, but also represented to him that if our fair city was indeed in the throes of a most shocking decline in spiritual valuation, then we probably weren't doing too badly. He asked me if this was what we had come to, that we were satisfied with, "Oh, it's not too bad-it's much worse in other places." I didn't really have a response to that. What am I supposed to say?

After thinking about this for a good two minutes I realized a couple of things. A. It's a topic that deserves a lot of attention. B. It's something I can blog about. Woohoo!
There's an old Peanuts where Linus is happy with a C+, and Charlie Brown is berating him, "Is this the way we can succeed? What would the world look like if people settled for a C+?" Linus answers, "What does the world look like?"
Anyway, it's far too late in the night to answer these questions, and anyway, I'm not in a philosophical turn tonight. Besides, is there an answer? Should we simply strive for the greatest heights and console ourselves with mediocre accomplishments? Anyway, I will relate an amusing anecdote and with that bid you my fond farewells.
Tonight I chatted with a couple of friends on Gmail. In one chat I defended John Mccain and Sarah Palin, saying that they are G-d's own messengers, sent to save our planet from a doom worse than the most infernal hell Dante could have imagined. In the other chat I defended Barack Obama and Joe Biden, saying that they are G-d's own messengers, sent to save our planet from a doom worse than the most infernal hell Dante could have imagined. Does this mean that there is something right with me?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Tell me more about the book.

That guy is probably an under-appreciated, unsung genius [in addition to being a gentleman of tremendous character and deed].

Just like a guy said...

Truth be told, you might be more able to shed some light on this new tome.
And whatever the guy is, he's certainly not unsung anymore.