May We All Be 'Friended' in Lifebook This Year!

Jaws of Life

This holiday be the first on your block to experience the Jaws of Life. An expert crafted, unique design, tailored to allow you to rip away the klipah, outer-coating, that distorted mangled materialistic worldly garment you wear day-in and day-out, to finally rescue and expose your inner divine soul.

You don't need police, firefighters or Tzivos Hashem to show up in your time of need. This prayerbook-sized, hand-held, mind-meld, can-opener for the soul is available to you for a nominal fee. So, you devil you, turn in your horns or shofars and get cranking!

This year, may we all be incised in the Jaws of Life!

Forgiveness Settlement Agency

We will settle your spats, arguments, wrongdoings this holiday for half the tension you normally would experience when you, yourself, directly ask for forgiveness from the offended party. We offer also a discounted 3/4 off any anticipated righteous indignation, and GET THIS, 1/3 the unwanted attitude and 1/4 off the stonewalling or whining. You may find this service especially useful when dealing with ex-spouses or significant others. Imagine no guilt-trips, tears, yelling, withholding basic marital obligations, and the all important passive-aggressive behaviors that usually accompany the smoothing over process. And let's face it, who wants to make all that small talk anyway? Do you really even care about being friends as much as relieving your guilt over an uncomfortable situation?

As for those sins between you and God, we have a service where we will fax the graves of famous arbitrators (whose spirit will surely work on your behalf), as well as, well-know non-Easterly facing walls, with notes detailing your position and why His forgiveness is the only logical choice. For an extra fee it can be voice messaging as well.

Tired of sitting hours in prayers? Well we have pre-recorded prayers that can be placed on you designated chair in your local temple. (James Earl Jones voice-over add 15%). Let's face it, you have no idea what you're saying and God has heard it all before.

Is fasting not your 'thing'? Our stunt doubles are there for you. Trained in self denial (usually previously married men), they will suffer for your sins. (Where have I heard that one before?)

Remember this year, forgiveness can not only be an easy one but it can also be FAST.
Open up your FSA account, today!

Back To School Night-mare

I'm sure I'll be getting notes home as to why my child doesn't have his work done, is unprepared for the test, is so disorganized, is daydreaming in class etc. Mea culpa, lay it on. But first there are a few things I need to bring to the techer's attention (most of whom had the summer off, or in the very least had that option). I would expect that there would be a comprehensive list of school supplies, required for your class, posted well before school started. Instead, I am given a generic list, I somehow find time in my busy schedule to shop (and frankly as a man I resent every second of that experience) only to find out that some items aren't needed. Then comes day two of school and there are more things to buy, different notebooks or folders and you want them by tomorrow. Well it ain't gonna happen so fast. I work til 8pm and cant wait to come home and try to finish all the excess homework that the kids forgot. Shop? No way! I need more advance notice. I have no spouse to run errands while I work (I guess that's really why men marry). So it will have to wait. And why did it have to go down like this in the first place?

I wonder how come I have to go to back to school night (taking off work and losing money that pays for tuition) to find out how the class is run, what color folders gets which course designation, homework policy etc. Shouldn't there be a clearly defined mission statement sent out to the parent at the start of school or earlier? My son was given a 21 question sheet on a book he read that night. OMG. He worked himself silly. Well at back to school night, the teacher said he only has to answer ONE question a week. WELL, HELLO....Do ya think you can write that at the top of the page?!? How can you expect a third grader to get all the particulars straight and even if he does, it isn't clear to me. Tension ensues.

Parenthetically, there is always one helicopter/overachiever parent in the bunch. One woman's God-honest comment: "Do you give extra credit for more homework done?....Frankly I love homework...at least they aren't wasting time...Am I the only parent who likes homework?" Holy Crap on a Popsicle, Batman. I said directly and firmly "Indeed you are." What I wanted to say was, "Shut the hell up, you and people like you are ruining it for the rest of us regular folk who want our children to experience childhood, to run and play and not have ever-looming pressure to do work, to succeed, or to make the parent/teacher happy." Read my post, "Homework, Homewreck" and the book, "The Case Against Homework, and you'll learn some of the real pitfalls of homework and how it destroys the family.

Back to our regularly scheduled rant on back to school night 2010.
On a more positive note, one of the rebbes was asked about homework grading, to which he replied that he uses it as a guide to see where the child is holding and its main purpose is review. He said that he wants the children to develop a love for learning rather than resentment and frustration. I nearly fainted. If he was a missionary, I would've got down on my knees right then and there and converted to whatever he was pushing. Now folks, THAT"S A REAL TEACHER! He gets it, he recognizes that training kids with the skills to succeed must be done through positive means. If a child loves something, he will seek it out and further his knowledge and education but if he resents it, he will shut his mind. It isn't the volume of information that must be absorbed that matters, rather it is the basics, the skills, and the desire that make success attainable.

So cut the homework insanity because frankly I don't want to have to repeat elementary school.
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The Soul-ution

Questions, we will always have. Answers, few and far between. Imagine my surprise when a troubling Mishna in Pirkei Avot was finally explained to me. Pirkei Avot 3:7:'' Rabbi Yaakov would say: One who walks along a road and studies, and interrupts his studying to say, "How beautiful is this tree!", "How beautiful is this ploughed field!"---the Torah considers it as if he had forfeited his life" (forfeits his soul is perhaps more accurate). This statement has bothered me for years, required even more time in therapy than expected. Here is an individual who is admiring the beauty of God's creation, recognizing the handiwork of the Lord and is forfeiting his soul. Aren't there brachot for awesome or beautiful things in nature and isn't it a mitzvah to make a blessing on them? As for the planted field, the man is admiring the works of human's but within the context of the great ability the creator has endowed within humans. So why forfeit his soul? That bothered me. It bothered me more that holier-than-thou's would use this as a basis for not stopping their learning to tend to a crying child, nod to a neighbor hello, or to shy away from any social grace.

Along comes R. Pearl with his penetrating pearls of wisdom and thousands in therapy are saved. What is really happening here in the Mishna? What is it REALLY trying to teach use? Certainly nothing to do with administering a death penalty. A person can see the handiwork of God within nature, he can also find it through recognizing the source of human ingenuity and accomplishment. The problem arises when he chooses to find God through those means INSTEAD of through Torah. Coincident with Torah, is fine, go ahead, admire God's handiwork everywhere. But this man STOPPED learning Torah, chose to find an alternate path to God (it didn't say he resumed learning a minute later). There are many religions, many philosophies, many paths to recognize God but in Judaism, the way to understand God is through learning His Torah. That is our method. To remain a Jewish soul, we must cling to Torah. Sure admire Him elsewhere but remember that giving up the Torah is inevitably forfeiting the Jewish soul.