Life of Yeshiva Guy

Do you know how to play? It really is a great game. All FFB’s know how to play from birth. And the BTs that I know fall in love with the game as soon as they find out about it.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with it, Jewish Geography is the Yiddishe version of the Six Degrees (a.k.a. Human Web) concept put into play. Urban Web defines it as:

“When two or more Jews get together and discuss who knows who’s Jewish friends and relatives from where.”

Instead of simply subscribing to the idea, we actually use it to discover mutual acquaintances. Of course, the deeper meaning behind it is that we are all Am Echad, so each question that we ask in attempt to discover mutual shaiychusin is really a kiyum of achdus. Gevalt.

Anyway, here are two real world examples of Jewish Geography:

FG 4 Plays a Practical Joke on Fellow College Students

Just Stam Discovers Jewish Geography- The Blessed Version

A recent Twitter conversation reminded of the excerpt I’ve pasted below. It comes from the sefer “Letters to a Buddhist Jew” by Akiva Tatz. It is a fascinating book that deals with a rather unusual subject- the similarities and discrepancies between Judaism and Buddhism- but covers a lot of the basics of Jewish faith on the way.

In this particular exchange, Tatz is dealing with an issue that us frum yidden encounter only all too often- the countering of an intellectual argument by Judaism with an emotional one by those arguing against it. That is, Tatz had previously made his case for the Sinai event, but was countered here not by an intellectual argument, but an emotional one. And when intellect isn’t repudiated by intellect, but by the heart, one must speak back to the heart. Tatz does so here powerfully, and it is worth the short read it is.

Below, David Gottlieb is addressing Tatz with his question re the Sinai event:

“Akiva:

Concerning the Sinai experience: we are a skeptical, stiff-necked people. All I can say, with all due respect, and wishing it were otherwise, is something many American Jews would say, using the ugly vernacular: I just can’t buy it.

David,

It is not for sale. It is yours already. And as for the price, that has already been paid. Your grandparents paid for it when they were dispossessed in Berlin and exiled from Barcelona; your great-grandparents paid when they were cut down in York and Cracow; their parents paid when they were hounded in Bavarian forests and Polish streets, watched their scrolls burned in Paris and their homes in Madrid.

Your grandmother paid more than enough when she sold the family stove in a Russian winter to have enough to give her children a Torah education. And she overpaid with her pain when she watched her American grandchildren walk away from that Mountain in whose shadow she had lived with the graceful strength of a conviction that came naturally. Walk away without looking back, mind you, unwittingly exchanging the indescribable richness of Torah for the self-help literature of a neurotic society that has forgotten what is real, or the literature and practice of exotic philosophies that cannot offer more than what they are supplanting.”

Click image for full size.

This is the first of what will, iy”H, be many stunning shots from Jerusalem Shutter.

Yeshiva Guy is incredibly proud to announce an ongoing link shutfus (partnership) with the talented Mordechai Hanover of JerusalemShutter.com.

For those of you that have had ear plugs firmly stuck in their ears for the last year or so, JerusalemShutter is quickly becoming a quality source of  Israel/Jerusalem related photo material.

With a focus on emotive pieces that do a unique job of conveying the feelings of the residents of Yerushalayim and Eretz Yisroel, I am, to excuse the yeshivish expression, “majorly pumped”. Starting over the next week or so, YeshivaGuy.com will be featuring (temporarily) exclusive photos from JS on a bi-weekly basis.

Please note that the photos we will be featuring will be watermarked; this is to prevent image copying. Should you be interested in obtaining watermark-free photos in their full size and format, contact Mordechai Hanover at jerusalemshutter {at} gmail.com .”

You can also find additional Jerusalem Shutter photos at their FaceBook fan page here.

What in the world is this blog turning into? Poems? Oy vey.

A Will ‘o the wisp; a light, 
luminescent forever, shining bright. 
It beckons, it calls, speeding forward. 
And I, watching, toward.

Dipping and gliding
shimmering and sliding
through valleys and hills 
It goes where it wills.

And I, watching, attracted.

But what about it?
Does it know my desires?
Does it care if we’re fit?

Should I catch it one day,
My fears to allay
Is what it’ll do- or so they say,
When one catches it; one day.

All will be perfect.
Problems; no effect.
A globe that is green
World peace, our planet; clean.

All this and more
When you catch this glowing orb
That dances and skips
Holding it tight, with a firm grip.

It’ll ask you, what is your wish?
Only an instant, now to fish
For your heart’s desire,
For what you aspire

Now, months later, on a journey so cold,
Demanding days of courage and bold,
You at last capture, on ice filled plains,
The light it shimmers, waxes and wanes.

And in a magical moment, In a mind blowing instant,
You finally know, what it is that you want,
And the orb, it glows, with soft subtle taunt.

For your yearning was not, for expensive clothes, store bought;
Nor to be a boxer, uncontested battles, hard fought.
Or even an astronaut, space walking in orbit
Or a chess master, executing brilliant gambit,

No, you didn’t want to be, a star of Olympiad,
Nor CEO of Microsoft, every inch Versace clad.

What you now know you craved for… Can’t be obtained in any store.

Or even something that could possibly be supplied,
By the all-powerful orb, even should it have tried.

You see, your innermost craving, Your secret wish unfulfilled,
The thing you’d work ages for, slaving.

You have finally realized… Is to know what you want, to be clear
About your ambition, and to straightly steer
Without ambiguity, as a vision to appear,
To simply know. That is the thing, so dear.

So now that you’ve reached that, the ultimate knowledge,
It somehow isn’t something, like life on the edge,
Or ’til-now hidden wisdom, or something you fear,
Attainable only, by catching that sphere.

Like flaring flame, and sudden epiphany,
You perceive the work of years so many-

That will be required to gain, admittance to your wish.
But its no problem, ‘cuz its the scratch of the itch…
That is the gateway to pleasure,
Without which you cannot attain the treasure.

So you don’t mind the eons of toil, ahead of you now.
The years of labor, sweat of the brow.

The only question still lingering
As that spherule you’re fingering
Is why the need to catch,
And hold on and to latch,

That teasing object, which in the end nothing did,
You suddenly comprehend, is vs. your ego your id.
And in fact was a, complete waste of time.

All this you could have perceived yourself- without rhyme.
So next time simply stay in your armchair,
And figure it out- in comfort of lair.

What it is that you want
What it is that you wish
For desire, as is known, is a dish-
Best served warm, in comfort of home.

(Photo credit to hannahcolligan)