Doos

I ended up having a lovely fight with an African guy a night ago. Side point: please do remember that any South African is an African, regardless of the color. We went through several rounds of “here is my version of what took place” versus “I don’t care about your version, I got my one of my own.” End result, I was royally pissed off (but as a wise friend of mine always said to me “Better be pissed off than pissed on”), and ain’t that the truth? Funnily enough one of the few last things that the guy threw at me was “Piss off.” Hmmm…..

Neighbors

I live in a predominately young crowd area, but my upstairs neighbor, who lives right above me, is an older gentleman with a bit of a hearing problem. A few nights ago my neighbor decided to play a certain movie that can be very excitable, if you know what I am talking about? If you don’t, then let me spell it out to you: the grandfather from upstarts was watching a Russian porno flick.

I happen to speak a pretty fluent Russian language. So, as I am chilling out on my couch in front of my laptop (I have a very “special” relationship with my laptop), doing what I always do, mainly bullshit with my online friends (mainly Russians), I hear things that at first I cannot believe I am hearing. I jumped out on the balcony, listened in, and almost died from laughing. The granddaddy was watching a Russian orgy, which became quickly apparent after half a minute of listening in.

And there I was, laughing my ass off, quite literally too, over the sounds coming from my neighbour’s window “А ну давай, давай, дай ей по жопе,” “А ну e*и её, ей ето нравится.”

Yes, indeed, дорогой сосед, давай, давай!

On Kindness

I feel that a sincere attempt to understand one’s feelings is an act of kindness. When I find myself on receiving end of someone’s indifference towards my feeling, and clear lack of even attempting to understand, let alone to consider my feeling as valid, I feel as if a stunning blow landed on my face: I am left all alone, dazed, lost, on a verge of crying.

Sometimes the situation is made even worse when I take steps to verbalize my feelings in a hope that I will get a sincere apology, or at the very least an effort of considering my feelings in a future; instead the situation is flipped, and I am accused of being ridiculous, and denied that what I feel is legitimate.

Has it become too much to ask that our feelings are heard in our generation? Have we become so cold that we cannot take the feelings of others as real, and worthy of taking into account?

Elie Wiesel wrote that “The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it’s indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it’s indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it’s indifference.” He wrote that as a response to the Holocaust. What a sad world we live in when it feels that a response to the Holocaust has become the reality for the world at large.

Body Arts and Hallacha

I have been thinking, dreaming, wanting, and talking about getting a tattoo for quite sometime. At times I find myself thinking that I should have gotten several tattoos prior to my gerus, which wouldn’t create any problems with hallacha at that time. Over the years I have presented this question to a number of people who are knowledgeable on hallachic matters; some of the answers I have gotten left deep impression on me, and I deemed them worthy of being posted on my blog.

Half Jews

Sat through a lecture on tzedacha given by what I classified a typical New York frum rabbi.  He was short, balding, quite chubby (tsk tsk tsk, all that good cholent calories landing right on the belly and staying there for good), constantly swaying back and forth, talking in deep nasal voice, with real New York accent (you know, the real deal, Noo yawk tawk), and laughing loud and booming laugh.  Smart fellow, made a number of good points and drew some very interesting conclusions on the laws of charging the interests on loans. 

For the most part I enjoyed the lecture; that is until Noo Yawk rabbi made sarcastic remarks about people who join www.halfjew.com site to prove his point that there is no such thing as a half Jew.  I am as aware of hallacha as the rabbi, but is he aware of an individual pain of not feeling whole at the core of one’s identity, and always feel divided?  With today’s high rate of intermarriages, I don’t think Jewish speakers should be cracking up such jokes, it might hit a bit too close to home for a great deal of people.

Searching For Myself

Most of the days I find myself lost in my own head; sometimes it is drowning in a deep ocean while putting a fight against the waves; other times it is swimming along with waves, and often it is sinking inside my own head.

I have dissected and cut myself in so many different ways; analyzed and re-analyzed my “I” to a point of no longer remembering who I was at the starting point of this mad chase of trying to understand who I am.