I’m curious. Do you really believe that these are the actual burial sites of these people? Setting aside most of the ones that are mentioned, I want to focus on Mordechai and Esther.

First of all, there’s a competing tradition that the tomb of Mordechai and Esther is in Israel, near Tzfat. Someone has to be wrong.

Second, our own tanach (Ezra 2:2 and Nechemia 7:7) indicates that Mordechai returned to Israel with Zerubavel. But even if we assume that Mordechai remained in Shushan for his entire life, and is not the Mordecahi mentioned in Ezra/Nechemia (or he is, and he returned), the possibility that Mordechai and Esther are buried together in a place that’s well known seems like a very far stretch to me.

Esther is a Queen of Persia. Would the royalty of Persia have allowed the queen to be buried anywhere other than in a royal mauseleum, next to (or associated with) the King? And even if so, would she be allowed to be buried next to another man? And why would she be buried with her cousin, in the manner of a husband and wife? (Don’t get me started on the medrash that says they were married. It causes more problems in the story than it solves, and has no textual support.)

I think it’s nice that there’s a shrine to Mordechai and Esther in Persia, sure. But I can’t really believe that this is the actual spot where they’re buried.

I actually am curious what people think about this. My blasphemy meter is pinging pretty low on this, but it’s always hard to self-judge on those things.

So, what says my blog audience (if there’s any left to speak of)?  Let’s start an interesting and illuminating discussion in the comments.

Seriously, though, among some of the insaner things this guy is saying, is that letting THE GIRLS get married a year earlier (just so the guys can have sex, apparently) will reduce the amount of Rape in the country.  That’s right, Chareidi Israeli boys are must be wound-up, pent-up balls of sexual frustration, because it seems “they rapin’ errybody out here.”  I know what you’re thinking (because you didn’t click the link and read the article): “really?  no, he didn’t say that.”  But he did:

[Crazy wacko] said that lawyers are currently examining the legislative aspect of the bill, “We will curtail rape cases and violation of the law by allowing marriage a year earlier.

 ”This one year is significant. Nowadays boys and girls cannot have relations, and we will allow this by letting them marry, while encouraging and guiding them,” he said.

See?!

Then, of course, there’s the misogyny that’s already been pointed out, like this gem (paraphrased: “women stay home”):

The purpose of changing the marriage age, according to a haredi source, is “to change the haredi view that has been prevailing in recent years, according to which girls must acquire an occupation before getting married. This approach is mainly held by interested persons such as directors of seminaries and different school who want as many girls to join their institution.

 ”The haredi press is also guilty,” the source added, “Because it promotes an agenda that says women must be educated. This is very unfortunate and is promoted not by rabbis, but by businessmen that control the education apparatus.” (Emphasis added)

But wait, it gets better.  Then this guy goes all Larry Summers (except without the science to back him up, or the positive intentions):

“The woman is not the reason, she is the emotions. A woman isn’t reasonable; she is emotional and the man possesses the reason.”

I guess that is something I can sort of agree with: Bitches be crazy!

Been a while since I could break out the “Rants” tag and the “Stupidity” tag, but I think this definitely fits the bill.

HT @DovBear via Twitter

One thing I always found curious is the little bit of foreshadowing at the end of the story of the mon (Shmot 16:35):

וּבְנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל, אָכְלוּ אֶת-הַמָּן אַרְבָּעִים שָׁנָה–עַד-בֹּאָם, אֶל-אֶרֶץ נוֹשָׁבֶת:  אֶת-הַמָּן, אָכְלוּ–עַד-בֹּאָם, אֶל-קְצֵה אֶרֶץ כְּנָעַן.

And the children of Israel did eat the manna forty years, until they came to a land inhabited; they did eat the manna, until they came unto the borders of the land of Canaan.

At this point in the story, the reader (the uninformed reader, first time through) has no inclination that the Jews will wander in the desert for 40 years.  The reader must read this and say “why is it going to take 40 years to reach the edge of Canaan?”

I don’t know if there’s a deep spiritual or even textual answer other than “the torah was written after the story of the meraglim, and the writer knew what would happen, and dropped it in.”  But I wonder what purpose it serves.

The second curious thing to me is, when Hashem says he’s providing the mon in order to test the Israelites, what exactly is the test?

From Hashem’s anger (starting in pasuk 28) it seems the main concern is Shabbat.  Hashem says “I will give them double on Friday,” people went out on shabbos anyway to collect and Hashem gets mad.

Interestingly, Moshe gets mad at the Israelites for a completely different reason: he tells them not to leave any overnight, and they do anyway, and it spoils and starts getting “wormy.”

I think the two are linked: leaving over is bad each day.  It’s not only not bad, but positively commanded, however, to leave over on Friday night.  Both failures evidence a lack of trust that God will continue to provide.

(As an aside, I find it interesting that God doesn’t say he’s going to test their trust in his ability to provide.  He says he’s going to test their adherence to his rules.  A little disconnect, that again, I’m not sure what, if anything, is the significance, I’m just pointing it out.)

I remember a great shiur by R’ Yitzcak Etshalomon this, and beautiful understanding of the actual test, where he quotes R. Yaakov Medan, who

points out that the command for each person to restrict himself to a daily portion for each member of the household represented not only a good deal of faith in God – but also tremendous self-restraint and concern for one’s fellow. This is how he explains the “test” of the Mahn (16:4) – that we were tested to see how much concern each of us could demonstrate for our fellow, knowing that if we took more than our portion, someone else would go hungry. Indeed, the B’nei Yisra’el passed this test with flying colors! (v. 18) For a slave people, wandering in a desert to exercise this much self-restraint was a demonstration of their readiness to stand as a unified nation and to enter into a covenant which includes mutual responsibility.

(Read the rest of the shiur for the context of the test within the greater theme of preparation for Sinai.)

I really like the idea of two tests: a bein adam l’chavero and a bein adam lamakom within the same episode.  And I find it really intersting and ironic (i.e. the opposite of what would be expected) that they passed the bein adam l’chavero and failed the bein adam lamakom.

War Games is one of my favorite movies to watch and to quote.  People who know me know that I’ll throw in a “Goddammit, I’d piss on a spark plug if I thought it’d do any good” whenever I get frustrated (which is often).

That said, General Blie pointed out quite a few “plot holes” during his twitter-age.

So I says to myself, I says (when he says he has more that don’t fit into 140 character) this would make for a great blog series/tag: Nitpicking Good Movies.  Whole posts devoted to inane and nitpicky “plot holes” in movies that we otherwise love.  Hopefully, the first will be the guest post I solicited from General Blie about the rest of his War Games Plot Holes.

I’ve done stuff like this before: http://noyam.wordpress.com/2007/12/14/plot-holes/ but never thought to make a series out of it.  Let’s hope this takes off.

Starting January 1, 2011, in order to use FSA dollars to purchase over the counter medicine, you will need a prescription.

Think of the look your doctor will give you the first time you ask for a prescription for Tylenol.

This is completely ridiculous.  (Just to be clear, I am not blaming my firm, this is not their decision.  It’s either statutory or imposed by the benefits adminsitrating company).

How is this going to be administered?  Will the teenage idiot behind the counter have to ask everyone that buys Tylenol if they have a ‘scrip in order to use FSA dollars?  Will the purchaser have to send a copy of the scrip into the company to verify each purchase?  Does the perscription have to specify an amount?  Can I keep reusing the same perscription?

Who came up with this utter stupidity, and what functional purpose could it possibly serve?!

Now that I’m older and have kids, the very real flaw in that “logic” comes through: who the hell sleeps until a set time, especially on a Sunday?  Not my kids, that’s for sure.

So on a regular day, my kids wake up sometime between 6:30 and 7am.  Roll the clock back, and that won’t change.  Except now it’ll be between 5:30 and 6:00.  Ugh, I DO NOT WANT to wake up at 5:30 on any day.

Not to mention my body being extremely used to, uh, evacuating certain waste materials, at a specific time, then that’s just going to make my Sunday very, very loooooooooong.

Factor in now, that my kids will start getting tired and cranky and ready for bed an hour (on the clock) ahead of schedule, then keeping them up until “bedtime” will be annoying as well.

This is like imposed jet lag.

Can we just do away with changing the clocks at all anymore?  I’m not a farmer, I don’t need to shift an hour of daylight from the morning to afternoon and vice versa anymore.  Just pick one time and stick there.

Changing the clock sucks.

Is it Synergy or page-view whoring?  Why not both?!

I gotta tell you: that is one tasty looking sammich.

What really bugs me is that I scrolled to the bottom of the page to unsubscribe, and I had to register for an account in order to set my email preferences to get no emails!  What the F*ck?!?! That is NOT COOL.

That kind of bullshit should be illegal.  I have half a mind to call this stupid dealership and threaten to report them to some consumer protection something if they don’t take me off their email and snail mail lists (yeah, I get snail mail from them also).

God, they are SO ANNOYING!

I’m not totally gung ho about blogging again, and the “no posting about work” rules will still totally apply.  And I’ll still be posting on Twitter (see the new sidebar….niiiiice).

But maybe I’ll post some here, too.  For a bunch of reasons.

To get Adam to stop whining about how we used to meet here for conversations and don’t anymore (Mazel Tov, btw, he’s engaged!).

Because sometimes I feel a little constrained by the 140 character limits.

Because I deleted my Facebook account (I’ll join again for the next reunion, I guess).

To get the “I let my blog die” monkey off my back.

Because I think enough time has passed that my audience (which had grown larger than I ever expected or wanted) has petered out, and I don’t have to be as conscious about who I offend.  (Seriously, people were coming up to me at random affairs to mention that they were readers…it was weird).

So, I guess I’m back.  I already have a post percolating in my head.  Spoiler alert, it’ll get the “anger” and “rants” tags.  Classic Noy G?  Let’s hope so.