One dead Palestinian=one vote for Livni

Right now I'm in a pretty serious mood, and my blogging will certainly be affected. Either it will also be serious, or it will be extra silly. I'm not sure. So we're at a bit of a crossroads. The advantage of a serious post is that I'll get lots of comments; the disadvantages is that I'll probably come out looking pretty dumb. If I write a silly post it probably won't garner too many comments but at least I won't look like a fool.

All right, I've made my decision-I'll blog about Gaza. Many people have asked me why I don't blog about that exciting strip of land, and I've answered them by saying that I'm not particularly interested in what is going on over there. I mean sure, I'm following the news and everything, but it doesn't thrill me enough to blog about. Until today. The reason I chose to break radio silence and inform my readers is not, as they might suspect, because of the efforts of the Morristown Zionists, but rather because a friend of mine called me up from Israel and asked me to blog about it. That friend, Yoni Chanowitz of Flatbush who was with me in Minnesota on Shlichus, is currently visiting the holy land. I assume that he's on birthright, and is currently being pumped full of Zionist propaganda. I can't think of any other reason that would make him call out of the country and leave a lengthy message asking me to tell the Zionist side of the story. Since I'm A. A nice guy, and B. Have nothing else to write I'll be doing just that. Or something approximating it anyway.

Israel. Land of our fathers. Land of really good chalav yisrael ice cream. Land of deranged politicians who will say anything for a vote. A bunch of mamzerim. So now they go attack Gaza. Why? Not because they want to protect their citizens. Because Tzipi Livni and Ehud Barak think it a pretty slick election maneuver. Meanwhile Ehud Olmert tries to salvage his legacy, and Bibi Netanyahu looks like a fool, because there's nothing he can do about his slipping poll numbers. Ha!

Some will argue that the end justifies the means. That as long as Israel is busy massacring women and children it's ok. And don't get me started on human shields. I'm bored of human shields. And it's not like I'm criticizing Israel either. Let them kill. Just they shouldn't feel so self-righteous about it. So what was I saying? Oh yeah, the ends and the means. The problem is that if the ends matched the means here then Israel would have done something about this a lot time ago. But they didn't. Because the means aren't particularly good ones. And when the means aren't too good then the ends aren't either. Because believe you me, as soon as there's elections everything will go back to the way it was. And the way it wasn't too great.

Why am I so cynical? Why don't I believe Tzipi Livni when she says that everything has changed now, or Ehud Barak when he says anything? Because I've heard these people say anything and everything for a long time, and they've proven time and time again that their words are worth nothing.
So what's my solution to this? I don't have a solution. I don't know what to do. I don't think that wiping out all the infidels in the West Bank and Gaza is the right thing to do, but I also don't think that letting the status remain quo will be particularly efficacious. Maybe the Messiah should just come. Yeah, that would be convenient. And I wouldn't have to take my smicha test. Woohoo!

Enough serious stupidity. Now it's time for a light-hearted look at life.
Today a bochur from zal, a real know-it-all, approached our medicine man (the incomparable Rabbi Chaim Schapiro) and told him that his smicha pogrom was filled with morons, because they didn't know something or other, which even he, a lowly tomchei bochur, knew. First our Rabbi turned to this boy and showed that he knew not what he was asking of the smicha bochurim to know. This boy, trying to save face, then said that maybe he didn't have a clue, but the smicha bochurim should, because it's part of smicha. Our lord and protector asked him which section of smicha this concept came from. The answer was that it came from taaruvos. "And what are bochurim of the machon smicha learning now?" We're learning bassar b'challav. All right, very good.
But wait, there's more! The Rabbi then asked the bochur a question from the daf he's learning in kesubos. The answer was unsatisfactory in the extreme. Why? Because he hadn't learned it so well. So why was he coming to Rabbi Schapiro to complain about what other people are not yet supposed to know when he didn't know when he didn't know what he was supposed to know himself? Thank you very much. That's what Rabbis are for. To knock the shtuffing out of precocious brats. Oh yes, and to help us learn smicha. But the former was by far the more entertaining of the two.