A renaissance man in our very own MoTown

This morning it was suggested to our lord and sovereign Rabbi, the real Chaim Schapiro, that he farbreng tomorrow night in honor of the upcoming holy day Yud Shevat. He pointed at yours truly and said to the the bochur making the suggestion, "As long as you are willing to take responsibility for everything he records." I was shocked and awed by this statement, and asked the leader of our humble smicha pogrom here in Morristown if he was really scared of me, an idea to which he vigorously assented. "Its not only what you write that I'm scared of," he said, "but also what you don't write."
Funnily enough, I think today will go down in the book of chronicles of the kings of TRS as the day which featured the apex of Schapiro inspired genius. I hope I'm wrong, and today is merely the beginning of a beautiful friendship, as Rick would have said to Louis, but if the fates have it otherwise, we'll always have Paris. I mean, I'll always have this 2 Shevat to look on with joy. Not only did it feature an abundance of Schapiro inspired goodness, but I got most of what I was learning. Turns out we don't have as many problems trusting Jews as you might have thought. But more on that later.

Anyway. A bochur approached the Rabbi and asked him a question regarding the biblical prohibition of Baal yiraeh and baal yimatze. I feel a great longing for those glorious days of long-gone bochurhood when I too could decide in the beginning of Shevat to go through all of hilchos Pesach, the scheduled Gemara be damned. I used to do it too. But now I'm stuck learning all about pieces of meat and drops of milk. Oh well. I suppose I wouldn't have it any other way.
I didn't catch the whole conversation, but I did hear the Rabbi compare chametz to cocaine. If you find it in your house, what is the law? How about if you inherited it? You think the Torah is strict when it comes to chametz? Try out the US government when it comes to drugs.

Next on the agenda was a discussion about toothpaste. I mentioned that I used Tom's of Maine, and the Rabbi said that he thought it was disgusting, tasted like pure fluoride. I said that I liked it, but we were already discussing the efficacy of that important mineral. The rabbi confided that when he was a mere child he got fluoride treatments when he went to the dentist, and was shocked when I too told the assembled multitudes that I too underwent the same procedure as a young pup. The question then arose as to the kashrus of commercial fluoride treatments and that of floss. The Rabbi said that if you're careful to only use kosher toothpaste then you should only use kosher floss as well.

In the Pri Megadim it mentions an edition of the Rashba that was publishes in "Crimnean", or something like that, and the Rabbi speculated that this was our modern day Crimea. We then had an hour long discussion regarding; the Yalta conference of Uncle Joe, the great Winston, and FDR that mamzer, the Russo-Japanese war of 1902 and the Rebbe Rashab's efforts therein to provide matza for the Jewish soldiers, the annihilation (did I just murder that spelling?) of the Russian navy in 1904, the Crimean War and the Charge of the Light Brigade and their annihilation at the hands of the Russians (was that better?), his great uncle's fighting in the bloodbath that was Stalingrad, the Berlin Wall, the Berlin Airlift, and several other topics that I don't remember offhand. A lot of fun.

To cap off this great day I asked him to explain the Taz's comparison of food to a woman who intentionally adulters but thinks it's all right. He explained that it's talking about a woman who's a "swinger" (I am not making this up) who thinks that there's no problem with going to parties and going home with men other than her husband. So what's the problem here? Since she didn't know she's not allowed to do this she should be permitted to her husband, just like if you think you can intentionally be mevatel an issue in a heter someone else is allowed to benefit from it. Ahh, the Taz explains, there's a special passuk here, teaching that although she may be okay with G-d she's not all square with her not so dear hubbie. So she must leave him. But in our case of the food, where no one gets hurt, there wouldn't be a problem.

As you can see, today's time in zal rocked. And tomorrow's farbie promises to be even better. All right, so the bochur who's arranging it threatened to get me drunk beforehand so that I wouldn't be able to record the contents, but don't worry. If I have to I'll manage both with the aplomb for which TRS is justly infamous.