Friday, December 27, 2019

Channuka on the Run....





idsThe purpose of this blog is to make your Shabbat table [more][less] (choose one) Greek... Please share...

The other day in the JCC locker room, there were the usual cast of characters.

One fellow, let's call him Shlomo, always enjoys trading jocular comments.

So in the spirit of Channuka, I said, "Getting in touch with your inner Greek? Or is it your outer Greek?"

He said, "I don't know if you should say that exercise is so bad?

"What do you mean bad? You think that calling something 'Greek' means saying it's bad?"

"Isn't that what Channuka is all about? Up with the Torah, down with the Greeks?"

Question for your table - Who's right?

Here's a hint - it says in the Talmud - yes, the Talmud! - that for a Torah scroll to be kosher it must be written in either Hebrew or ... Greek!

How could that be?

I'll leave it for you as a Channukah puzzler.

Happy Channukah and 


Shabbat Shalom


PS - Yes, if you really are "on the run", you might try clicking on that image above.

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Friday, December 20, 2019

Ha-New-Ka?

The purpose of this blog is to increase enlightenment at the Shabbat table... Please share...

(We're almost there... here's the countdown.)



Ha-New-Ka?

one-candleLast week was a real challenge for some people. How did you do?

Since we're just a few days away from Channuka, here's a challenge for your table tonight:

How can we make Channuka fresh and new this year, and not just "same-old-same-old"?

After everyone answers, here's a challenge question:

How many lights are we supposed to light each night?

I'm guessing that most people, if not everyone, will say one the first night, two the second night etc.

And then some smart alec will correct everyone and say two the first night, three the second night etc., to include the Shamash.

In fact, according to every source that I've seen, the "basic mitzvah" of Channuka is one light the first night, one the second night and so on.

Yes, that is correct. One light each night. That's it.

Question for your table: If so, what's the point of adding these other lights?

I'm not going to answer, but I'll give you a hint: it may have something to do with out-Greeking the Greeks.


Shabbat Shalom

and

Happy Channuka!


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Friday, December 13, 2019

Because I don't want to...

The purpose of this blog is to raise the intensity at your Shabbat table... Please share...


Are you counting down to you-know-what??



dontwannaLast week was about asking Life's Greatest Question. This week is about answering it.

Great doctors try to educate their patients on self-care.

Evidently, it's often an uphill climb over a mountain of ignorance.

On Wednesday night one such doctor told a group of us, "My patients think that there are three things that might possibly prevent them from ending up in a nursing home:

1. Genetics
2. Luck/Providence
3. Because I don't want to.


They got two of the three right.

First question for your table: What's the correct 3rd thing?

The answer, as any geriatric doctor (or probably any doctor) will tell you, is exercise.


He told us this as the intro to a class on how to do meaningful exercise at home without special equipment.

1. Do 5-10 1-minute HIIT intervals. We're talking about 5-10 minutes.

2. Work the 4 main movements:

a. Squatting
b. Pushing
c. Pulling
d. Sitting up

(Also only a few minutes each.)

Total workout, with stretching, can be as little as 20 minutes when you're short on time.

There you have it - your reason for not exercising every day just went from "because I don't have time" to "because I don't want to".

At least you're being honest. We'll give you credit for that.

2nd Question for your table - What does it take to turn "I don't want to" into "I want to", when it comes to doing something hard?



Shabbat Shalom

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Friday, December 06, 2019

Life's Greatest Question?

The purpose of this email is to raise the QQ (question quotient) at your Shabbat table... Please share...
In memory of my maternal grandfather, Chaim ben Avraham, whose yahrzeit was observed yesterday, who died very young many years ago but has never been forgotten. (To dedicate a future Table Talk, send an email.)


Why-whatIn the spirit of last week's post, thank you to the anonymous soul who designed this inspiring image which appeared in my inbox yesterday.

It was timely — over the past couple weeks we've learned of several people, both friends and friends of friends, currently battling cancer and other life-threatening conditions.

I believe that the key to this mantra ("What is this teaching me?") is to apply it to my own challenges, not yours.

To your challenges, I respond with empathy and any help I can give.

To my challenges, I try to train myself to ask this question.


Question for your table: How many times a week could you ask yourself that question? (How many times a day?)


Shabbat Shalom


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Thursday, November 28, 2019

Hodu You Do?

The purpose of this blog is to serve some hodu at your table and beyond... Please share.

Hodu You Do?

Eat pizzaThank you for all the 
validation for our posture of incredulity in last week's Genuflection Reflection.

This week - it's that special week in November when we pull out, dust off, revamp and update our annual Hodu message.


Here are a few questions to stump everyone at the table.

Try this one first: 
Why turkey?

Serious question: Why do Americans eat turkey on Thanksgiving?

(I.e., like it's their religious duty, like matzah on Pesach.)


If anyone says, "They ate turkey so we have to eat turkey," you can politely let them know they are wrong on 2 accounts.

First of all, would it really be so bad to have a Thanksgiving pizza? Or Thanksgiving hamburgers? Or a red beans and rice Thanksgiving? How about a Chinese Thanksgiving? Curry Thanksgiving, anyone?

Second, they probably didn't eat much turkey.

At that original Thanksgiving in 1621, they apparently ate mostly venison.

I know, shocking, right?

Let's go back in time.

Imagine you are on the boat with Columbus.

(Maybe you're even a Jewish refugee
 from the Spanish Inquisition.)

Of course, you and all your geographically-challenged buddies think you're in Asia.

It's a strange world! Strange people, fauna and flora.

And you see this funky chicken.

The Wampanoag Indians call it neyhom.


What do you, O Spanish sailor, call it?

Remember, it looks vaguely like a chicken and you think you're in India, so naturally you call it "Indian chicken."

Are you with me so far?

French explorers agree that it looks like a chicken and they call poulet d'Inde (Indian chicken), later shortened to dinde (pronounced "dand").

English settlers think it looks more like a Turkey pheasant than a chicken, so they call the bird turkey.

Jewish explorers side with the French and call it tarnegol hodu — "Hindu chicken" — later shortened to hodu.

What's interesting for us is that the Hebrew word HODU also just happens to mean "give thanks" (in the imperative mood for all the grammarphiles out there).

So back to our main question for your table: What food should you eat on Hodu Day?

(Hodu, of course.)

Now try asking somebody Jewish at the table this stumper:

You're Jewish, right? Can you explain what "Jewish" means?

Forget the religious or cultural meaning; we want to know the etymology of "Jewish".

It means something like, "a state of being thankful".

Ergo, if you're living up to the name "Jewish" then you are....

....living in a state of being thankful.

Let that sink in before asking the next question: How often?

(Once a year? Once a month? Once a week? Once a day?)

That could be a lot of hodu to stuff yourself with.

Final question for the table: Hodu do you do it?



Happy Hodu-Day and

Shabbat Shalom

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Friday, November 22, 2019

Genuflection Reflection

The purpose of this blog is to add some spring to your step at the Shabbat table... Please print and share.
Happy birthday shoutout to my dear wife - wishing you another amazing year!


YoungernextyearThis morning I was sitting in a local shul library working on my daily page of Talmud when an acquaintance walked in, using a cane.

Our "hello" led to his cane, which led to his new shoes which lead to Amazon Corp....

....which lead to the observation that they seem to have become the efficient middleman between Chinese suppliers and consumers, expanding to every market.

My friend said, "I got a tour of their downtown facility - it's incredible. Little robots running around, you have to see it to believe it."

And then he showed me his new $30 Amazon shoes. They are supposedly cushioned in a way to relieve his long-term knee pain.

But he's a skeptic. So he also went to a local shoe store and bought a $130 pair of customized shoes, and is now alternating between them to see if he can tell the difference.

Now, exactly how shoes, which are downhill in terms of gravity, can significantly relieve knee pain is not so clear. It seems to me that a better fix might be to lighten the uphill load on those knees.

So I said to my friend, "Please forgive me for asking, but would it possibly help your knees to lose thirty pounds?"

As if on cue, as he was replying, "Yes, it surely would," 
a third person arrived, bearing packages of cookies and cupcakes to share with everyone.

So I took the cue and said with a smile, "Well that stuff's not going to help you!"

First question for your table: What would you guess he replied?

 + + + +

Answer:

He said, "You're right, but I'm going to eat it anyway."

Which leads to today's 2nd question for your table — Why?

For the record: If a person makes consistently healthy 
food and exercise choices, they are likely to live longer, stronger and healthier. There is compelling evidence for this (and here and here [original study is here]), and the biology of aging is no longer a complete mystery.

Therefore I repeat the question: Why?


Shabbat Shalom



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Friday, November 15, 2019

No Your Limits

The purpose of this email is to negotiate some deeper thinking at the Shabbat table... Please print and share.

No with a smileNo, that's not a typo.

One reason this email is so late is because this morning I spent about two hours working on the wedding plans for our daughter.

(Yes, that's the breaking news - our oldest daughter Goldy is engaged. It's a great guy from a great family and we're humbled.)

Anyway, the caterer said to me this morning, "I've been in this business for thirty years and the most important lesson I've learned is to know when to say no. Everyone has strengths and weaknesses. Know your weaknesses and don't agree to take on things you can't do."

First question for your table - Is that true? If so, is it always true, or are there exceptions?

I told him that I'd like to add a corollary: Know how to say no.

To which I'll add a 2nd question for your table - What are the best and worst ways to say no?



Shabbat Shalom

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Friday, November 08, 2019

Bingo There, Done That.

The purpose of this blog is to create some random excitement at the Shabbat table... Please print and share.

Bingo holdupMy wife and I did something new and eye-opening this week.

We attended a Bingo.

It was 
a fundraiser for our son's camp, and we went as volunteers, not participants.

But it was a real Bingo, in a large synagogue social hall which has been running this program for decades.

The people there ranged in age from a couple in their 90s (married over 70 years) to a young single mother (there with her two children).

Most of them brought a kit with two main items:

1. A tote bag of paint-pens that they use to mark the numbers on the bingo sheets
2. Scotch tape to keep the sheets firm while they played (they played up to 27 bingo cards simultaneously), 

Many of them set up a row of 
various lucky charms and idols.

In between rounds, we were asked to offer them instant-win lottery tickets.

I get Bingo - there is some (I stress some) skill involved - one has to concentrate and move quickly.

But the lottery tickets are different. First of all, there were many sets of tickets with different names like "Pot of Gold" or "Money from Heaven", but they all had the same prizes ($1, $2, $5, $20, $200) and odds. So why did some people buy some tickets and not others?

One lady asked me, "Are they paying one or two jackpots?" - meaning, will the $200 go to one winner or be split among two winners?

I went to find out, and the answer was the latter. When I came back with the answer, I asked her, "Was that the answer you wanted?"

"No."

he was only interested in playing for the $200 jackpot, not the $100 - even though it had better odds (let's say 1 in 50 as opposed to 1 in 100).

Question for your table - For a $1 bet, would you rather play for a 50% chance of winning $100 or a 5% chance of winning $1,000?

What if the bet cost $5?

What if it cost $50?

It's obvious that most gamblers think with their gut, not their brain.

And that gut is so stimulated by the temptation of the Jackpot that they are willing to go out night after night and spend their few extra dollars for that tiny chance.

What's less obvious (but 
has been proven) is that we all do this kind of thinking every day.

In the book I just linked to above, Dr. Kahaneman shows many examples of how people make choices based on their irrational gut and not on their head.

Would you rather have 5 minutes of excrutiating pain or 5 years of low-level pain?

When you remember that vacation 10 years ago, when that disaster happened, how much does that disaster loom in your mind versus the pleasant parts of the vacation?

When you planned your wedding, how much time and money went into each detail? And which of those details do you actually remember today?

The final word on this - and question for your table - is what matters more, the experience I'm having right now, or the memory it will create?



Shabbat Shalom

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Friday, November 01, 2019

Babble On...

The purpose of this blog is to create a bubble amid the babble at the Shabbat table.... Please print and share.

GALAPAGOS
Have you ever tried to communicate in a foreign language with someone who didn't speak English?

How about with a baby?

What did it sound like?

"Ba-ba-ba-ba-ba..."?

Open a dictionary of the English language and you may find a puzzling entry.

Go to the first page of the "B" section:


babble. 1. To utter a meaningless confusion of words or sounds....etc. [Origin unknown.]

babel. 1. A confusion of sounds, voices, or languages. 2. A scene of noise and confusion. [From Babel.]


Babel. A city (now thought to be Babylon) in Shinar where, according to the Book of Genesis, the construction of a heaven-reaching tower was interrupted by the confusion of tongues. [Hebrew Babhel, from Akkadian Bab-ilu, "gate of God".]

They've got it completely backwards.

"Babble" is onomatopoea. It means "baby talk", or any incomprehensible speech. "Babel" got its name from the babble that began there. "Babel" is a more metaphorical way of writing "babble".

Even though there were have been some languages that became widespread (Greek for a period, Latin for an interval, French had its season, and now English has had its run), there has never been a fully universal 
lingua franca. Yet now technologies like Google Translate are taking us closer and closer to the true end of babble envisioned by Kurt Vonnegut.

Question for your table: Do you think humanity ever have a single universal language? Would it be a good thing or a bad thing?



Shabbat Shalom

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Friday, October 25, 2019

Begin Again ... When?

The purpose of this blog is to turn the Shabbat table into a renewal... Please print and share.
In memory of Jeremy Dossetter - Yermiahu Matan - whose second yahrzeit is observed tomorrow night and Sunday.
Happy Birthday shout-outs to Jeff and Steve in NY, Susan and Tricia in San Fran - wishing you health and wisdom til 120.

Pliskin - Begin Again NowWe're now out of the annual man-cave and ready for something new
.

But there's still a big gap until the Festival of Eights (quick: guess how many days?)


Speaking of eights, when I was about eight years old an adult in my life told me that she wasn't as friendly with a certain friend because the friend had become "born again".

At that moment, the phrase "born again" became embedded in my subconscious as meaning "unfriendly".

Ironically, we have a "born again" idea in Jewish tradition. In a nutshell, the Talmud says that sleep gives us the taste of death, and waking in the morning is a quasi-rebirth.

This is the concept behind that wonderful prayer for that waking moment, called "Modeh Ani".

Click it for the full text. In a nutshell: "Thank you for giving me my soul back!"

Here's a musical version.
Here's another.

Question for your table: Can a person ever really begin again, or are you always saddled by the past?



Shabbat Shalom

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Friday, October 18, 2019

Ultimate Man-Cave?

The purpose of this blog is to turn the Shabbat table into a retreat... Please print and share.


Sukkah-man-caveThank you for the ++ feedback on last week's Does the Song Remain the Same? (apologies to those 
for whom it was too technical).

Yesterday we took the kids on a drive through agricultural "heartland", picked some apples and fall vegetables, saw how a dairy farm works, sought out an apiary, and so on.

The undulating hills were beautiful, and usually capped with a farmhouse of one sort or another. But every once in awhile you encounter a farmhouse which is such an enormous stately mansion that it seems to belong

Which leads to this week's lead question:

Would you rather live 
care-free in a shack, or full of worry and anxiety in a palace?

I'm guessing most people would choose the former...?

But then why do people spend so much time and energy pursuing the palace but almost no time learning how to conquer worry and anxiety?

(I think the answer is obvious, but I'm wondering what the folks at your table would say.)

And a related question: Are men and women different on this matter?



Shabbat Shalom

...and 
happy Sukkot.


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Friday, October 11, 2019

Does the Song Remain the Same?

The purpose of this blog is to add some music to the Shabbat table... Please print and share.
Happy birthday to my dear Mom. Welcome to the age of GEVRUAH!


3d-music-visualization-by-color-the-sound-sculptures-by-dentsu-1-1315932167Last week's Tale of Two Kippers was about color; this week we turn our attention to sound.

Here's a provocative question for your table 
that links them together:

What do color and sound have in common?

After you let everyone ponder that for a minute, you might want to share the following follow-up questions:

What if we lived in a world without color - only black and white - what would life be like? Would we manage?

What if we humans were only able to speak in monotone, like a pre-Star Wars robot? Would we manage?


If the answer to the above question is, yes, we would manage, then what is the advantage to seeing colors and multi-tonality?


By the way, there is a little-known subtle way in which color and sound seem to be connected.

If you start with the notes of a major scale - say "C" - can you name the notes? [C, D, E, F, G, A, B]

If you measure the frequencies of these notes (starting with middle-C on the piano, or C4), they go like this:

262, 294, 330, 349, 392, 440, 494 (approximately)

So what?

Well now let's look at color.

Can you name them from shortest to longest wavelengths? [violet, indigo, blue, green, yellow, orange, red]

Their wavelengths are (approximately):

400, 450, 500, 540, 600, 640, 720

So what?

So the ratio of C to D to E etc. is almost exactly the same as the ration of violet to indigo to blue etc.

Why should that be? Who ordered that?

Why are the seven colors of the rainbow related to each other’s wavelength with the same ratios as the seven notes of a major scale to each other’s frequencies?
But since that answer may stump some people, here's one for everyone:

If you had to choose between seeing in color or hearing polytonally for the rest of your life, which would you choose?


Shabbat Shalom

...and 
happy Sukkot.


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Friday, October 04, 2019

Tail of Two Kippers

The purpose of this blog is to add change the colors of your Shabbat table... Please print and share.
Happy birthday to Keith in Seattle!


sockeye-ocean-spawningCongratulations... you made it into another year.

Hopefully you didn't rush.

When I was a teenager, I loved the speed you could get on a bike whizzing down steep hills.

At some point my grandfather realized I was old enough to ride my bike safely around town and would occasionally send me to the fish store to buy him a bag of kippered salmon.

Now, if you're Jewish, it's probably a good bet that you eat salmon (in one form or another).
Question for your table: What color is sockeye salmon?

I'm going to guess that everyone said red?

Look at the above photo: a sockeye salmon lives most of its life as blue as the ocean it swims in. It turns red (among other changes) when it returns to the river to spawn, in what the NYT's best science writer calls "
one of the most miraculous costume changes of the animal kingdom."

Some say it looks copper colored.

Now "copper" in Old English is "cypera". This word became "kipper".

Therefore, when you split open a fish of any sort - let's say herring - and salt it and smoke it, giving it a reddish color, you are kippering it.

So you can imagine my confusion when my grandfather asked me to pick him up some kippered salmon. That's like asking for salmoned salmon. But he assured me that if I asked the fishmonger for kippered salmon, he'd know what I meant.

He was right.

Now that I'm older and wiser, I'm no longer confused. That's what etymologies can do for you.

But we never ate the fish head. This made a great deal of sense to me at the time, but today it confuses me.

Because one of the traditional foods for the Rosh Hashana table (along with apples and honey) is a fish head.

Dip the apple in the honey and say, "May we have a sweet and healthy year!"

Take a bite of the fish head and say, "May we be heads and not tails!"

Cute.

But what of all those discarded fish tails? (Not to mention the discarded fish tales?)


Just like tashlich and the scapegoat, we toss them away (or feed them to the cat?), a symbol of the old self we're trying to shed, like ol' Dr. Konigswasser stepping out of his skin.

Now, here's the clincher question for your table: the salmon somehow knows exactly what it wants to transform itself into. But we - how are we supposed to know?


Wishing you and yours a happy and holy Yom Kippur 
(when is it again?).
Shabbat Shalom
May you be sealed in the Book of Life.

PS - If you didn't get my Questions to Think About From Rosh Hashana to Yom Kippur, reply to this email to request.
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Friday, September 27, 2019

The No-Rush Hushana


The purpose of this blog is to add some sweetness to the Shabbat table... Please print and share.
Happy anniversary shout-out to Kyle and Shelli - We should all learn from and be inspired by your shalom bayit.


RH survival kitSo here it is, just days away.

Have you procured your apples and honey?

What's the rush? You still have Sunday.

The first question for your table:

Why again do we dip apples in honey? Do we really think that dipping apples in honey is going to give us a sweet year? And what does "a sweet year" mean, especially to those of us trying to kick our sugar habit? Is this another example of magical religious thinking?

Since it is the season, once again I would like to offer you:

1. Our Rosh Hashana "Simanim" sheet - traditional foods and blessings for the Rosh Hashana table.
2. Our "25 Questions to Think About from Rosh Hashana to Yom Kippur" sheet.

For either of these, just click reply and ask!

3. The High Holidays is a time when the most charitable people on Earth increase our tzedaka. If you are a regular or even occasional reader of this email, this is an excellent time to become a partner or renew your partnership. Your partnership supports not only the real costs of this weekly email but also innovative, far-reaching programs like this, this, and this (yes, I know the third one is buggy, that's why we need your help!). Oh, and let's not forget about this groundbreaking new project. Step up to the plate with a tax-deductible donation to JSLI.

Speaking of High Holidays and innovation, this morning the following question came in on the rabbis' email list:

 
Does anyone have a good way to request congregants not to have their phones on during services? Obviously, we send a request before Yom Tov but there is always that inevitable ring during davening. One year we wrote "please make sure all cell phones are off" (this way we are not asking them to turn it off), but I still feel a bit uncomfortable about it.

Question for your table: What would you advise this rabbi?

I would like to take this opportunity to wish you and your family a healthy and happy new year and a meaningful Rosh Hashana.

Shabbat Shalom

and

L'Shana Tova - May you be inscribed and sealed in the Book of Life!



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Friday, September 20, 2019

The e-Ride of your e-Life?

The purpose of this email is to provide a little assist to the Shabbat table... Please print and share.
ebike displayThis week while in San Francisco, a rare opportunity came my way.... I experienced something truly new (to me).

If you think about it, most of what we do is repetitive. How often do you experience something you've never experienced before?

That's actually OK, I think — practice makes perfect.

Some people are constantly seeking new foods, new flavors, but having a steady, boring diet may be a key to great health.

First question for your table: Can you remember trying something very new that changed your view of the world, or changed your life?

This week, that new thing for me was riding what they are calling an "e-bike" (to see the variety of kinds, click or tap the above image).

Now, this is not "e" as in the model that follows a, b, c and d.

Nor is this "E-Type" (although some of the prices may make you think so).

For the uninitiated, we're talking about an electric bike. Not a moped. What makes these new and special is that the electric motor doesn't kick in if you are not pedaling. It's there to assist you.

So if you're hitting a steep hill, you tap the assist button and suddenly riding up that hill feels like riding on level. It reminds me of the rewalk.

Here's the catch: after about an hour, I started feeling a bit guilty on those inclines, that I wasn't working hard enough. That I was somehow cheating, even though I wasn't in any competition.

Afteralll, unlike the Rewalk and similar products, I didn't need the e-bike. I could have ridden the same route (albeit much slower) with a regular bike.

Question for your table - Is getting an assist when you don't need it "cheating"?


How about giving one?


Shabbat Shalom



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