I went to Ramat Beit Shemesh for Shabbos.

Place was nice, without question. The neighborhoods are setup nicely, and the streets are hilly, but pretty. Unfortunately, the place is “k’shmo kein hu“; i.e, very, very hot. I think it felt hotter than Yerushalayim mostly because there aren’t any tall buildings around to provide shade. So walking in the street is a killer, and definitely not recommended.

But since we’re about the good, not the bad, find below, in no specific order, are some of the more notably enjoyable things about my Shabbos in RBS:

• The minyan I davened at (Aish Kodesh). Neat, varm, BT/Ballabatish/Yeshivish/Heimish cholent mix of a place. Quite enjoyable. The JB/YU books in the back also provided ample reading material for Bein Gavra l’Gavra .
• Friday morning basketball (9AM-11AM). That was some serious olam that played there. Older crowd (I was likely the only >25 yr old there), but quite competitive. I won’t be announcing my stat sheet for the morning, so forget it. Some of the local Twitter chevra also play in the game.
• I chapped a velt of hana’ah from the mix. MO/Yeshivish live close by each other. That isn’t to say that there aren’t politics, but, nu, politics are the spice of life, right?
• The hostess made the most awesome pecan pie. Seriously, I would take the bus there and back just for the pie. Forget about the cookies. I have serious tz’dadim they serve that stuff in Gan Eiden. Hmmm. Would that be pie-in-the-sky?
• I walked away with a free sefer (from my host). #EmeseMaaseh
• They have a real life Yiddle League (that’s Yiddishe Little League, for those of you not from Brooklyn) there. Baseball! Can you imagine?
• Some of the streets there have real houses. Not apartments. And, of course, the corollary; central A/C!
• I met the most amazing 6 year old yingeleh Friday morning. He didn’t stop speaking, and the entire time, I couldn’t stop laughing. I’m shtark choshed I’m gonna have to switch to MO if they consistently produce such kinderlach, although the Abba claims he’s one in a million.
• I heard a great vort from a YU R”Y…my host was a YU talmid, and I pressured him for some YU Torah. He delivered. Sweet.
• Seudah Shlishis at the Goldmeier’s. They have a great English Jewish library, and the chocolate mousse was impressive. Had fun.
• Did I mention that pecan pie?

Shtark -This is a classic wannabe yeshivish error. Yeshivishe chevra never, ever, use the word shtark in reference to a bochur’s frumkeit. In other words, true shtarker yeshivish guys never use the word shtark in this connotation.
(What should be used: Top Guy, Masmid, Greaser)

Frummie - Same as above. I’ve never heard a frummie say frummie.
(What should be used: Yeshivish, Frum, Greased, Chanyuk).

Pashut Pshat – Another frequent loshon often misused by wannabe yeshivaleit. Even in the course of learning, this one rarely crops up. Stay away from it.
(What should be used: Pashtus)

Rav - (with a long “A”) – This is only used in reference to one person, and almost always only derogatorily. It is not used to refer to a Rebbe, Rov, or respected yungerman.
(What should be used: Rebbe, Rov)

Maidel – While the topic is generally avoided b’chlall, if push comes to shove, other euphemisms are employed. Not maidel. I blame the Blogovelt for this one.
(What should be used: Osoh Davar, It, Them, etc. SG’s, of course, are entitled to far more caustic adjectives. V’hamayvin Yavin).

Follow these hard and fast rules, and you’ll find yourself on the road to stardom faster than you can say pashut pshat, shtarker guy.

Ad astra per aspera. Good luck.

The more I write the less successful I know I’ll be in getting my point across. But try I must.

Yes, this is a rant against making Pom Pesachs. No, I have nothing against Pomegranate per se. Yes, if you go to a hotel for Pesach you aren’t even on the map as far as making Pesach is concerned. No, I am a RW’er who is talking out of his boich; it’s almost impossible to celebrate a koshere Pesach in a hotel. OK. Disclaimers aside, let’s get cracking.

Info Notice: For those of you who haven’t heard of Pomegranate (yes, they take email orders, according to their site), it is a gourmet supermarket located in Midwood (that’s in Brooklyn, NY) on Coney Island Avenue. They’ve got anything and everything a kosher pays merveilleux should have. Dedicated fine cheeses created exclusively  by them and for them, a high-end deli with hot pastrami that will make your eyes roll, a bakery, coffee section, valet parking and more make it a one-of-a-kind shopping experience for the kosher consumer.

To paraphrase Elan Kornblum’s tagline on TFusion Steakhouse (also located in Brooklyn):

“It is not like Manhattan; it is Manhattan”.

Pomegranate isn’t a shopping  experience, it’s an adventure.

A massive, wildly pervasive (and successful) ad campaign coupled with innovative marketing (think a Lipa concert on its one year anniversary) only fueled its meteoric rise to the top of every Flatbush housewife’s grocery grocery list.

To begin with, I’m a massive Pom chossid. I shop there, spend time there, and browse the spacious mahogany floors with wide eyed wonder like some out-of-towner who landed in NYC for a day (or a Bein Hazmanim). Slowly wheeling my heavy, exotic fruits and food laden cart through the rows of gastronomic, gluttonous gashmiyos, I freely admit to being hypnotized by the endless array of kosher food on display. Admittedly, I am only there a few times a year, and I am not certain if I would shop there on a regular basis. Then, too, there is the fact that I am not the primary shopper for my household; that responsibility lies with my Angel Mother. Personally, I am not sure I could justify spending the money on the slightly inflated prices just for the extra geshmak that shopping there brings, but who knows. Maybe I would. But I digress; the financial fressing isn’t what bothers me. Not at all.

It is the chisaron of the traditional Pesach experience that the Pom crowd is lacking. I am determined not to launch into the “our ancestors prepared for Pesach through months of hard work yada yada” speech, so suffice it to say that this is not our way…

Prepackaged seder keoros? Not our mehalech.

Buying Shulchan Aruch seudos from start to finish? Not our mehalech.

Endless plastic containers of 100% pesach’dik candy? Not our mehalech.

And the final, unspeakable horror?

The endless assortment of cakes and cookies from multiple bakeries.

Rabbosai, permit me to wax poetic here for a moment. (Or don’t- I’m going to anyway). Pesach is, and always has been, a time of going back to the basics. Of fundamentals, if not fundamentalists. Ever hear of m’mish nisht? No?

That’s the worst symptom of a society gone increasingly goyish in an insane attempt to keep up with the Goyimses. Don’t you see? We’ve got it… all. Our Pesach tradition of returning to the nuts and bolts of gastronomy, and in a more metaphorical vein, of life, was not created as a response to any need or desire on the part of G-d. It is an endgame unto itself.

People, just roll with the basics for a couple of years. Try it, and you’ll see the (candle)light.

Less is more.

(Photo Credit to Eating in Translation)

His eyes focus unsteadily, slowly, on me. Brighten. He greets me with a slurred, slow “A Guten“. He’s a nice guy, this yungerman. A little on the slow side, but nice. Typical yeshivish kuk for a forty year old; his black eyebrows are a bit whitened from the flecks of dandruff that spot it, and his ruddy complexion has been reddened prematurely by one too many l’chaims. I schmooze with him for a few minutes. We don’t have too much to talk about; after all, twenty plus years, in addition to somewhat different upbringings, separate us. Not someone I’d term as being particularly intellectual either, the schmooze mainly revolves around my Bein Hazmanim plans. He wants to know when I’m going back, what I’m doing, chasunas, trips, etc. I tell him, not making any effort to embellish or even dramatize the details. There isn’t all that much to tell in the first place, to be honest. His listless expression tells me all I need to know- he has the same level of interest in being mamshich (continuing) the schmooze as I do. I finish off a little abruptly with a cursory “Hatzlacha“, and turn away.

Walking back to my seat and chavrusa, I pause, then resume walking, slightly slower. I’m trying to figure out exactly why it is I continue this little friendship/schmoozing partnership with a fellow I don’t have anything in common with, and truthfully, don’t particularly like. Well, don’t like might be harsh. But it’s apparent to me that he doesn’t enjoy what he does. He takes no pride in what should be and is the most amazing, joyous job in the world. True, “Al tachazik atzmecha, etc.”, but that shouldn’t suck all the joie de vivre out of his visage, right? He seems as if he’s laboring to fulfill a task that he isn’t required to perform. He’s done his fair share, certainly… “Lo alecha hamlacha ligmor“, and all that. Is it out of some perverted sense of noblesse oblige? (Yeah, I know, this one is heavy on the Avos and the French ma’amorim. Tough noogies, I’m in the mood).
I don’t know. Whatever it is, though, he’s gotta do something about it…I’m starting to get tired of his mournful face. But getting back to our question…

Do I speak with him out of pity? I think not. It’s more than I don’t consider myself to be such a major ba’al chessed; I know that I don’t suffer people that I don’t relate to at all very well. So what is it?

I reach my seat and chavrusa, and slide onto the hard oak seat. Leaning back, I leaf to the relevant section where the acharon is discussing the sugya we’ve been learning. And then, just as I’m about to dive back into the yam shel Torah, I figure it out.

It isn’t that I pity him. Halevai I should be so magnamious to spend time schmoozing with uninteresting people. Nope…the pshat is pashut.

I pity me.

I’m worried that I’ll wind up one day like this guy; an uninteresting fellow in a dead-end yeshiva who’s lost the chiyus he used to have for life and learning. Who knows no other way than the mehalech hachayim he’s used to and is too lazy or helpless to find another. I pity the me that might become him. So I spend time speaking with him now, as a sort of subconsious insurance policy against being that guy.

Amatuer psychoanalyzation over, I return to the yellow pages in front of me. At least for now, for me, I can find chiyus in them. Baruch Hashem. And Baruch Hashem I can take pride in that, and in the work I do, the most important work in the world. At least for now.

Apparently.

“There’s a hafganah tonight!”

One of my diramates is gushing (do bochurim gush? Or only women?) on and on about the huge, massive demonstration taking place near Kikar Paris to protest the building freeze set into place by the formerly hawkish government.

“So, nu, Yeshiva Guy, are you going? I hear there is some serious action going down”. I, as it happens, have already been there, but I can’t tell him that. “Do you know what it’s about,?” I question evasively. “Yeah, something about the buildings in the settlements…anyway, who cares! I hear there is some action…let’s go!”

“Nah, I’m going to sit this one out”, I tell him. His face falls. Oh well, he’ll find someone else to go with him, I think. Meanwhile, I retire to my room to do my equivalent of smoking a cigarette to think this one through. For some reason, I’m a little disturbed by this exchange. My puzzlement at this point, however, is due to the fact that I wouldn’t typically me disturbed by such a comment.

I think back to the rally/hafganah. It was amazing sight, really. Tons and tons of Jews, many of them apparently bussed in from the settlements, had gathered in the streets. The ruche was, to borrow a cliched term I never tire of hating to see, palpable. An interesting point that I noted was the age demographic- mostly younger. Which was odd, since I’d though that Zionism, or at least this type of idealistic firebrand Zionism, was a dying breed. Color me surprised.

And thinking about it made me realize; it is no wonder that I’m disturbed that my friend is going just to see the action or rioting—he doesn’t identify this kind of hafganah with anything serious.

And I realize, belatedly, that neither did I…until tonight. Hmm…food for thought.