Honey Dipped Days

Honey is often pronounced with the emphasis on the second syllable....right?

For the New Year my blessing to those of you,
who love protein that used to moo,
may all your beef burgers be bun-free
and may all your days be dipped in honey

If you're the sort who is intrepid,
eschewing all that's weak and tepid.
may all your moves be gutsy,
and may all your days be dipped in honey,

To the passionate pursuers of the truth,
iconoclasts from their youngest youth,
may this year see the end of baloney,
and may all your days be dipped in honey,

Some folks are nervous and high-strung,
they wear their feelings on their lungs,
even if you like to scream like a banshee,
may all your days be dipped in honey,

Career students delay getting married,
with their majors away they get carried,
May this be the year that you earn your degree,
and may all your days be dipped in honey,

Connoisseurs of the fruit of the vine,
introduced the rest of us to the joys of dry wine,
be it Cabs, Merlots or light Chablis,
so may all your days be dipped in (dry) honey,

caffeine addicts need their buzz,
whatever they do... they overdoes,
your double-shot espressos fuel the economy,
so may all your days be dipped in honey,

TKs keep the world upright,
Scoffing the scoffers and fighting the Good Fight,
May you flower like the Date-Palm tree,
and may all your days be dipped in honey,

Progressives fiddle with the siddur,
My posts can't get them to reconsider,
Still, your hearts are where they're supposed to be,
so may all your days be dipped in honey,

But for those who are stubbornly Havdala Oblivious,
Though it may not make you indecently lascivious,
To G-d and His People unconscious and fickle,
skip the honey-dipped apple and chew on a sour pickel,

You'll never taste the difference.

Call Hatzalah...

...my blog is dying. Wednesday is now 14 hours old and I've gotten a total of 8 unique visitors.

Bottoms Up, Heads Down

after watching this I think that this Leil Rosh HaShanah I will invert my Fish Head in headstand fashion before ingesting it. Maybe even spin it like a draidel...

For Those of You Who Find P'tcha Gross...

...make your שלא עשני גוי more fervently.

Some Goyim eat something called headcheese. It is a primordial spam that can't decide if it's jello, halva or a roast. It is neither Milchig nor particularly brainy:


Questions:

1. Is it more or less ikhy than Gahleh ritteh ?
2. Is it an example of Gentile Poverty Cuisine? (I recently discovered that in the 18th century Lobster, now considered a great delicacy with a price per lb to match, was considered poor mans food and that the clawed crustaceans were so copious that one could wade ankle deep off the rocky coasts of Maine and Nova Scotia bend over and khop one up out of the water with ones bare hands!)
3. Were it kosher (it probably could be replicated using kosher ingredients) would it be an acceptable substitute for a Rams head as a symbolic food on the evening of Rosh HaShanah? Some might opine that it actually has a lower grossness quotient than boiled Carp or Whitefish heads (especially with hanging fahrglihverteh fish yoikh) and/or roast Lambs jaws with the gingivitis afflicted teeth still visible. I wouldn't. But then, there's no accounting for taste.

Some Vegetarian Alternatives

For the Head Siman the night of Rosh HaShanah













































לכאורה all of these must be as acceptable as the Poskims allowance for
ע"כ אם אין לו ראש כבש יאכל ראש (של דבר) אחר

as this:

Bizarre!!!

I got and email yesterday that had this: No Membership Required as the senders name/ address and this: Have You Ever Eaten Sheep Brain on Rosh Hashanah?

Needless to say I did NOT open this email as I suspect it carries a virus. Did any of you receive it? Did you open it? What's it all about? If it's not spam or a gag the subject line is incredibly poor taste. Bizarre!!!

In answer to the subject box's query: No, I have not. Nor have I even tasted lamb cheek then or at any other time of the year.

Not having protektzia with the local butcher I've had to settle with Whitefish or Carp heads as my symbolic food for the evening of Rosh HaShanah.

Question: In terms of the inyanim of the siman of שנהיה לראש ולא לזנב is it preferable to ingest a morsel from a whole fish head or from a fragmented lambs jaw where, although the teeth may be partially intact, there is nothing else indicative of it belonging to a head?

Whom, Genoi, Did the Voters Repudiate?

Well political history was made yesterday. In the bluest of Congressional districts in the most heaven-hued of states Bob Turner, a Catholic Republican defeated David Weprin an , ahem, Orthodox Jewish Democrat to fill the seat in Congress vacated by the scandalized assimilationist Anthony Weiner.

I'd like to think that this unlikely outcome is the result of the fruma yidden in this gerrymandered district punishing Weprin for voting in favor of NY States Marriage Equality Bill. The paranoid Village Voice seems to think so and I imagine that, in next weeks editions, Charedi Periodicals, who've made triumphalism a bad habit, will take credit for Weprins loss (not for Turners victory, a potato could've been running against Weprin and would still have drawn the frum vote).

But realistically speaking it's unlikely that the fruma were either monolithically united against Weprin or that they have the numerical clout in this particular district to turn the tide of an election. A much more likely scenario is that the voters were turning against the President and repudiating his failed "Change We Can Believe In" policies. As Andrea Tantaros opines in todays Daily News:

"But it's more than New York Democrats who are saying oy vey. The surprising loss of the Weiner seat is an indication of what's to come on the national stage, and why it's looking more likely that Republicans will retain control of the House, with the possibility of the Senate switching back to GOP hands also within reach ...

Obama has given his party little to campaign on with his largely unpopular record, specifically when it comes to jobs. ... Democrats who run for office in 2012 will have no choice but to run away from the toxic President, even in what they may once have considered safely Democratic districts. They will exhaust their coffers either painting themselves as "independent" or ignoring Obama's agenda altogether, with incumbents doing everything they can to highlight key differences between their record and Obama's."

My four readers here know how deeply opposed to the Marriage Equality Bill I was and how I viewed it as a sign of the coming Apocalypse. That said, I was ambivalent about the movement to punish Weprin for voting in its favor. I really see the point of the oifgekerter J-Bloggers who claim that it's smarter for Jewish interests not to mix our religious values with matters of state and political calculations. We have prospered in this country and built beautiful centers for Torah and Chasidus davka because of the "live-and-let-live" atmosphere in the USA engendered by the very solid wall separating Church and State.

Last week a Kol Koreh circulated in my neighborhood prior to the election calling for Weprins defeat. However I noticed some conspicuously absent signatories among the most senior Rabbonim and Roshei Yeshiva. While Rav Avigdor Miller z"l would almost certainly have disagreed perhaps they, too, opine that high profile political slug-fests versus the LGBT community is not the smartest realpolitik tactic for the frum community to pursue.

And while it's true that back on July 12th I posted this: "Such legislation puts all residents of the societal entity that passes such legislation at risk. Not at risk of becoming a homosexual but at risk of becoming a corpse. Maybe the Gedolim did not go far enough when they said that passage of the bill will make it impossible for a Jew to live in New York State. Perhaps it will make it untenable for anyone to live in this state. While I deny that I am homophobic I will concede that I am homo-legislation-phobic ". That was then, when the Bill itself had a chance of defeat. This is now, בדיעבד and there seems to be no chance of repealing the legislation now that it has become the law of the state. Perhaps the whole fruma anti-Weprin backlash is a day late and a dollar short.