Blog/October 2007/October 26th

October 26th (See this week's devar torah)

Shalom, y'all -

One of our friends and neighbors also has a blog called A Little Bit East of Yerushalayim. This week he commented about the desert: There would be no one admiring the sand, because no one does, there being nothing soothing or exhilarating about what seems to be only a vast nothingness. I disagree, as I find the desert beautiful in its starkness. To me, it suggests on the one hand man's insignificance, as King David states; "What is man, that Thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that Thou thinkest of him?"  (Psalms 8:5). It also brings to mind King David's praise of God: "my soul thirsteth for Thee, my flesh longeth for Thee, in a dry and weary land, where no water is"  (Psalms 63:2).

While waiting for a final answer on the job front this week, I was able to get out another release of Reva, my dialect of Forth. Also managed to do a bit more organizing of the house. But now, thank God, I'll have little time to do these sorts of things, as I start work at ClassifEye this coming Sunday. (For those of you who don't know, Sunday here is a regular workday, which is something that takes a bit of adjusting to). I'm excited about this position, since I think it will not only be interesting, but challenging as well as potentially monetarily enriching at some point.

Holy vegetables, Batman! This week we managed to buy the most hechshered vegetables we've ever seen: seven different agencies certified them! In the case of vegetables, particularly in a shemittah year, that's not too unreasonable. But the water bottle with a hechsher saying it's only certified during the rest of the year, e.g. not during Pesach - that's a bit too much, in my opinion.

Speaking of religious matters - there are people with far too much time on their hands. It seems that for some, the wearing (or not) of socks by women is a crucial matter upon which one's attachment to God rests. There was a woman "hanging out" at the mikvah accosting the women leaving the mikvah and basically implying that having feet bare of stockings is tantamount to heresy. She further suggested that wearing socks may be a segulah for having male children.

In a vignette which highlights just how different it is to live in Israel, Esther and I were riding the bus to Jerusalem the other day. A dark fellow with a backpack came on the bus and sat in the seat opposite us. He didn't look comfortable, and he didn't look Jewish. So independently, she and I were both examining his actions out of the corners of our eyes to see, "is he a terrorist or not?". Finally, he spoke on his phone in an Indian accent, in English - and we could relax a bit.

• relative risks