Merry Chanuka!!

Lately I've been accused of, in the words of SZB, "pandering to your groupie-esque following, thereby effectively banishing the slightest vestige of intellectuality remaining in your empty ramblings." I was, like any self-respecting blogger would be, quite put out. I may not be the greatest human to ever trod upon G-d's green earth, but I do like to think that I'm not merely writing to get hits. If I was, then things would look a lot different on this here blog. How gratified I was then to receive an email from the sometimes-good people at Google Alerts which informed me of a very nice post over on someone else's blog. Not that I mean to toot my horn too hard, but it really makes it all seem worth it. Look, I affected someone. Someone has increased their Judaism because of me. Because of this blog. I don't feel like a fool now calling myself The Real Shliach. Yeah, go me.

All right, enough stupidity for the night. In other news, I finally met the South African who visits this site about once a day. Or maybe that's twice a day? The question remains, is Cape Town and Claremont the same person, visiting from two different locations, or two different people? Regardless, it seems that once again I've fallen into a discussion about me. That was not the plan. Sorry. I'll try to do better in the next paragraph.

Well here we are in the next paragraph, and I think it's finally time to talk about Chanuka. The festival of lights. Oh yes, it's also x-mas. The festival of commercialization. Seriously, what is up with these people? And why aren't they buying me presents?

I'm sorry that this post has turned into more of a stream-of-consciousness/e-loving-hyphen-party than it was meant to be. After all, we're dealing with a pretty cool day in Jewish history. First of all, I finished learning Bassar B'Challav. Once again, go me. Sure, I still have some major chazarah to do, and the test is in less than a month, but I'm pretty impressed that I managed to get through it without killing either myself or my chavrusa. Speaking of my chavrusa, his mother said, after reading this post, that I'm a lovely boy. My chavrusa thinks that she didn't actually read it, because, he thinks, how could she possibly come to that conclusion?
The reason I rushed to finish, instead of doing it over our mini-break, is because I know me, and me doesn't learn in Crown Heights. I'm not saying this is a good thing, but it is a true thing. Chitas yes, Shulchan Oruch no. Heck, our esteemed leader and possible candidate for man of the millennium Rabbi Chaim Schapiro, may his name continue to be a blessing for us, cursed out one of my friends today on this very subject. Basically, and I don't want to get into too many details because that wouldn't be nice, the great Rabbi had two simple points:
A. Chassidishe bochurim don't get upset with hanhala because of the rules. Every job has rules. Every school has rules. Any bochur who gets mad because of the dress code or because he can't have a cell phone or whatever is simply an immature brat. And there's no way he's chassidish either. Hopefully he'll mature in Yeshiva, because if he doesn't then he'll never be able to hold onto a job, a marriage, or a life. I once, in ninth grade, had a problem with the Yeshiva dress code. I got over it. If your ego is too massive to get over it in Yeshiva, then you have no chance in the real world.
B. No one, unless they are a tzaddik and a gaon, can leave yeshiva, go home, and learn. 99% can't even stay frum. It simply doesn't happen nowadays.

After this diatribe, and believe you me the Rabbi really got into it, a true pleasure to behold it was, I went to him and said that we should put up a sign in front of his desk that says "Truth". He didn't think much of the idea, but he loved it when I said that he should be a talk-radio host. Dr. Laura or Dr. Phil or whomever it is polluting our airwaves nowadays would have nothing on him. I can see it now, some stupid woman calling up and complaining about her kids or something, and the Rabbi lashes into her like a cat o'nine into a sailor's back. American's love this kind of thing. He'd make millions. I'd be his producer. I'd make even more money. It would be great. And the best part is, unlike all the other people who do this who eventually get caught having affairs or running ponzi schemes or other shtuff like that, our righteous leader is exactly that. At the very least, he's too smart to get caught. By the way, what is up with Madoff? (Plug to Chef for this) Jews are supposed to rip off goyim, not their fellow Jews. Sickness.

The second piece of excellent news, which I think can connect to the third, is that today Rabbi Schapiro gave out Chanuka gelt. If I wasn't so lazy I'd photograph the inscription, ala King of Crown Heights, that I put on mine. He liked that too.

The third piece is, Mrs. Chaim Schapiro, behind every great man is an even greater woman, made the five smicha bochurim who were still in Yeshiva this afternoon fresh doughnuts. Like, we ate them hot. They were really good. She used the recipe in the Spice and Spirit cookbook, which I also used once, though her's came out much better than mine. If I recall correctly, the oil wasn't hot enough, so they didn't cook properly. Nu nu, I got over it. Still, I really appreciated it Mrs. Chaim Schapiro.