Friday, September 21, 2007

Yom Kippur - Gmar Tov

I want to wish everyone a meaningful Yom Kippur. May we all be judged with through mercy (רחמים). I apologize to anyone who I have offended in anyway, and I hope that you forgive me. I of course forgive everyone for anything that they have done to me. Tefillat Zaka is something that is written in the Machzor for Yom Kippur to say before the Holiday/Fast starts. One of the most important parts of it I will write below, so that everyone can say it. It is something you can say anytime, but it is especially appropriate now:

"I extend complete forgiveness to everyone who has sinned against me, whether physically or monetarily, or spoke lashon hara(negative speech) about me or even false reports. And (I also forgive them) for any damages, whether on my body or my property, and for all sins between a man and his fellow except for money which I can claim in a court of law and except for someone who sins against me saying, "I will sin against him and he will forgive me". Except for these I grant complete forgiveness and no person should be punished on my account. [And just as I forgive everyone so should You grant me favor in the eyes of all men that they should completely forgive me]."

"והנני מוחל במחילה גמורה לכל מי שחטא נגדי, בין בגופי ובין בממוני או שדיבר עלי לשון הרע, ואפילו הוצאת שם רע, וכן לכל מי שהזיק לי בגופי או בממוני, ולכל חטאות האדם אשר בין אדם לחבירו, חוץ מממון אשר אוכל להוציא על פי דין, וחוץ ממי שחטא כנגדי ואמר אחטא לו והוא ימחל לי, חוץ מאלו, אני מוחל במחילה גמורה ולא יענש שום אדם בסיבתי.[וכשם שאני מוחל לכל אדם כן תתן את חיני בעיני כל אדם שימחלו לי במחילה גמורה]".

May we all have a meaningful fast and remember Tshuva is something we can do all year round and to keep up the heightened awareness we have in treating others so that next Yom Kippur we need to ask for less forgiveness.

If I have done anything specific to you that I can change for the future please tell me. Whether it is not answering the phone enough, not emailing you back, talking to you to little, talking to you to much, stealing a million dollars from you, taking your pen without permission or anything of that sort or any other sort please tell me so that I can try to not do it in the future

Gmar Tov
Seraphya

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

Overheard: Israel wins?

Overheard in the falafel shop near Yeshivat Hesder Petach Tikva

Customer: How much did Israel lose by?

Falafel Shop Owner: when?

Customer: tonight

Falafel Shop Owner: they didn't play tonight, last night they lost by...

Customer: I mean against Spain

Falafel Shop Owner: thats tomorrow night

A few seconds go by

Falafel Shop Owner: hey, why did you say they lost, they didn't even play yet, they might win

Customer: If only (Halevai)

Wednesday, September 5, 2007

A new way to "sell" Israel

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told olim who arrived in Israel from North America that Israel "is not an easy country to live in as it has security problems in addition to bureaucratic problems."

Well its not anything that I didn't know before. I am sure most olim also know it already. If they don't know it, then they must be living in some dream world. In fact in the video the Jewish Agency shows you to prepare you for aliyah they show a clip about a guy trying to go to the Interior Ministry (Misrad Hapnim) and the office just happening to have decided to close with the narrator saying that this is a common occurrence which will most likely happen to you.

Its nice to hear an Israeli politician being honest. But I wouldn't try this as hasbara to anyone except Olim.

At least Olmert said he was proud and happy that the olim wanted to settle in Israel. Becuase after all where else besides Israel would Olim settle?

(Hat Tip: Israellycool )
(Source: Ynet )

Things I have stumbledupon

So I recently downloaded StumbleUpon (which Ebay bought for $75,000,000) and I have found a few interesting things with it

Such useful things like how to build your own yurt

Or some really interesting things like what money really is and how it works

Turning yourself into a lie detector

you also get this useless and fun wastes of time

or other randomness


Then I found this, which reminded me to post
http://www.xinureturns.com/
which lets you freely check tons of stats about your page. So I checked HAeD and then I checked this blog...

and I looked at where people had linked to me through technorati while I was away and not blogging
http://bogieworks.blogs.com/treppenwitz/2007/04/the_time_of_our.html
http://www.balashon.com/2007/04/begilufin.html
http://ninjamess.livejournal.com/17783.html
http://daledamos.blogspot.com/
http://curiousjew.blogspot.com/