G-d Bless America
by Yeshiva Guy
For so many things. Some of the specific things I have in mind at the moment are:
Starbucks – even the Coffee Bean on Yaffo doesn’t come close to the homey, heimishe mahogany svivah that Starbucks shtells. Not to mention the terrific coffee.
Aviator Rink – a local ice rink. For $8 I can skate out my heart, and feet, in an Olympic size rink. wOOt! In E”Y, btw, it’s closer to $10—per hour!!
Juice Drinks – Naked or Odwalla. These things are not shayich. They k’seder keep me going for an entire skating session. Placebo effect matzav? Perhaps. Still works.
Pomegranate – I’ve been told this is similar to a Whole Foods, minus the organic-only component. Regardless, it’s mamish a mechayah to shop here. Not to mention the cheeses. Oh the cheeses!
Cars – Massive, gargantuan, comfortable vehicles. At last, I can transport myself. In style. As opposed to cramping myself up in a minuscule Skoda.
Clothing – I need a new wardrobe. From socks and shoes to yarmulke and hat. Here, I can get one without A) breaking the bank, and B) emerging from the haberdashery dressed like some metamorphosed caterpillar cocooned in pink silk that threatens to pop off of me with the slightest motion.
English – My native tongue. What can I say, I prefer a country not running on a Zionist’s purposeful changeup of our Holy Language.
Donuts – Even Brooklyn Bakery doesn’t do it, like, say, the Donut Man.
Sushi – Yes, it exists there, but at 1AM? I think not.
Road Trips – Come on, what kind of a trip can you take in a country that only stretches 8 hours from tip to tip. you gotta get lost, man!
all of the wonderful benefits of not praying –
- you can sleep in all morning! No pesky zmanim to worry about.
- you don’t have to decide which minyan to go to, or what time to go.
- you don’t have to interrupt your day to go daven minchah.
- you can get rid of that guilt that you may sometimes feel from praying. After all, if you don’t pray, it’s much easier to feel that you run everything in your own life! All of that talking to Hashem can really ruin a guy’s ego.
- no problems of having kavannah. People who pray are constantly concerned that they don’t have proper intention, and the constant struggle for improvement can just be such a drain.
Now, have you ever seen a yeshiva guy make a list like that? Why not?
Tefilah is only a mitzvah d’rabbanan
Living in Eretz Yisrael is a mitzvah d’oraita!
Nicely put. Of course, you know where I stand on that, but the moshel was cute and the point well made.
“English – My native tongue. ” — coulda fooled me!!
I’ll have you know that in fact, my native tongue is English. It tooks years of studying before I became so proficient in Yeshivish.
English – My native tongue.
I don’t know what you speak, but the language you write in isn’t English.
See the above comment.
Very different tone in this post than in the last bein hazmanim one (I tried finding it but you don’t have links to all your posts on the side!…The one I’m thinking of might be “Goodbye, but not for Long” ). Care to explain that? Or are you just appreciating whatever locale you happen to be in?
p.s. Welcome back to your blog. I know twitter’s been keeping you very busy…what happened to the Mommy Vekker post? Also, I’m still waiting to hear what my dilemma was in “Doublethought.”
That’s what the “Search” field on the upper right is for.
Search on “goodbye” pulls up two posts…was this the one?:
http://yeshivaguy.com/goodbye-but-not-for-long/2009/09/24/
And the explanation would be as you say, appreciating where I am…
Mommy Vekker post still a WIP; asked and answered.
And I was hoping on converting you into secular Zionism someday too. I guess we need to work on our coffee and sushi first, huh?