Blog/May 2009/May 8th
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May 8th (See this week's devar torah)
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Hi again!
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It was a productive week -- I released my company's first shipping product (and now feel much less stress, thank you). We went for a "teacher conference" night at Sarah's school, and she is doing well academically. We gave our plants a little water and they started taking over the house. And this shabbat we will have, b"h, guests staying with us (seminary girls).
Unfortunately, Sarah was sick at the beginning of the week, and missed school because of it. Then she got better -- but yesterday developed a fever. So today we went to the doctor and found out she has strep-throat! Not a great way to start off shabbat, but at least she's got antibiotics now and should be better, God willing, by Monday or so.
One of my weekly study-partners is also an occasional blog-writer. His last installment was particularly interesting to me, and I concur with much of what he says. But I would like to elaborate a bit on the Ptolemy vs. Copernicus issue. It is not precisely true that Copernicus was right (that the Earth orbits the Sun) and Ptolemy was wrong (that the Sun orbits the Earth). Neither is really correct, as they orbit the combined center-of-gravity of the solar system (and the solar system itself orbits the center-of-gravity of the Milky Way galaxy, and so on ...). But from a practical standpoint (as Einstein's theory of relativity makes clear), it makes no difference whether one chooses the Sun as the stationary frame of reference, or chooses the Earth as instead. For day-to-day needs, it is just as useful to follow Ptolemy as Copernicus.
More Israeli goodness... Sarah says, "confidence is good" -- but there is indeed such a thing as too much confidence. The Israeli equivalent of "The Amazing Race" (called here "The Race for a Million") has Israelis traveling the world and performing feats just like the American version. Encouragingly, one of the (non-religious) media stars here refused to show a clip from it because it shows Israelis eating things forbidden by halacha.
You Americans who are about to make aliyah, take note. We came from the land of latex gloves and Purel, to the Land where random people off the street put their hands into the salad-bar. From a land where people Lysol their toilets, to a Land where some think the street is the toilet. From a land where people politely ask "how are you doing" (though they don't care), to the Land where people tell you what you should be doing (because they do care).
I pass the Talithakumi landmark in downtown Jerusalem almost every day, and I never knew what "Talithakumi" was supposed to mean. Now I know, and I wish we would ship it to the remaining school (and expel them from our country) so we don't have it in the middle of downtown Jerusalem. I wonder how many of the pedestrians there have any idea they have words from the Xtian bible right over their heads? Or that the organization whose portal that was, doesn't recognize Israel?
Until next week,
Shabbat shalom!
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