Psychology of a Mouse

"Hmm, there's a yummy piece of cheese sitting on the countertop. Let me nibble at it."

"Hmm, there's another piece of cheese on top of a black thing on the countertop. Why don't I make some squeaky noises so the human will think I'm caught, but I'll stay away from that cheese."

If only us humans were able to see the consequences of our actions as well as that mouse can....

What comes down, must come down

I am not generally a big fan of camera phones. Whenever something amazing is going on, people are always ruining the moment by taking a picture. As if there aren't millions of pictures of whatever it is that are already online.

But this shabbos, on the one day that I didn't have my phone with me, I saw something that truly deserved to be captured by a camera phone. (Too bad it was shabbos...) I saw this pidgeon walking along the sidewalk, a brown pidgeon (as pidgeons are wont to be), but with a big white splotch on its head and some dribbles along its back. Apparently, it's not only cars that get subjected to bird poop, it's birds as well.

I had about zero sympathy for the pidgeon - I'm sure it got what it deserved.

Late Nights

• Whew, I went to bed really late last night, I'm tired. I'll go to sleep early tonight.

or

• Oh man, I went to bed really late last night. Now my sleep schedule is all messed up, and therefore I'll start feeling tired even later tonight.

What determines which approach I take? Is it just an issue of choosing, i.e. free will? Or is there something more to it?

Addicted to Exercise

Note: My earlier promise to only post things that are new, true, and interesting is getting in the way of my posting as often as I'd like to. I hereby revoke that promise. This blog post, for example, is not spectacular or particularly noteworthy, though I think it does have real content.

For a long time, I have been planning on getting into an exercise routine. Lately, I think I might have gotten it. My plan is to have one big bike ride on Sundays (last week I did close to 30 miles up the Schuylkill River), and a few smaller rides during the week. Last week, between biking to and from work and short bike rides after work, I put in about 50 miles total.

Today, I was forced to give up my planned weekly big ride because I have a meeting with a professor tomorrow, before which I am expected to have done a whole lot of work, most of which I have procrastinated until now. When I left the computer lab after sitting there for way too many hours on end, I started biking home, but after a few blocks, realized that I am addicted to biking, and turned around to go for a ride. As this is West Philly, I had to turn around to head east, away from The Dark and Gloomy Forbidden Forest known as West Philly, and towards the New and Improved Fantastic Miraculous University City, home of lecture halls and science labs. As this was nighttime, and all the professors and grad students had gone home, the lecture halls and science labs surprisingly seemed less scary than the Forbidden Forest. I headed down Baltimore, down University Ave. (which has a MUCH steeper hill than I ever realized - I hit a maximum speed of 27.2 MPH going down there, without even pedaling hard), saw Troy (one of the kitchen workers at Hillel), chatted with him for a minute, headed back up University Ave. (it's as steep going up as it is going down), and then went home, panting hard. All in all, not a long ride, but a good ride.

Addiction.

It's not generally a good thing.

But I think that here it's OK.

The problem with addictions in general is that the addicted person is so attached to his drug, or whatever practice he's addicted to, that when he misses out he experiences withdrawal symptoms. When it comes to exercise, I think we're all addicted, whether we realize it or not. When we don't exercise, we all experience the withdrawal symptoms - the lethargy, the dead feeling, the lack of spark. The thing is, only some people are attuned enough to that feeling to recognize it. So rather than worrying about am I getting addicted, I should be proud that I recognize the symptoms of lack of exercise and that I have a natural desire to fight against that.

A new name for an old blog

It's not uncommon that when you eat a shabbos meal at someone's house, you're asked to give a dvar Torah. My Rebbe Rav Blachman does not suffice with asking for just any dvar Torah. He says, "Tell me something new, true, and interesting." It's always a bit of a challenge - with someone like Rav Blachman, you can't get away with just telling over a Ramban as he knows right away that's not new. Many of the vortlech floating around while cute, simply can not stand up to any kind of scrutiny, if you try to figure out what they're actually trying to say. (Not that I'm against vortlech in general, I'm just against the ones with no substance behind them.) And as for interesting - who knows what someone else will find interesting?

Well, this is the task I'd like to challenge myself with on this blog. I need to make sure I don't get intimidated by the name, and hesitate to post things because I'm not sure if they're new, true, or interesting enough, but I hope that this name change will do something to frame (in my mind, at least) what this blog is supposed to be.

Shma Koleinu

In the bracha of sh'ma koleinu, we start out with 3 requests:

• שמע קולינו
• חוס ורחם עלינו
• קבל ברחמים וברצון את תפילתנו

We often think that sh'ma koleinu is about HKBH hearing our tefillos, but I think there's more to it than that. Even aside from our articulated תפילות, we each have our own קולות, be they voices of happiness or sadness, accomplishment or despair, exhiliration or frustration. Even when we don't succeed at transforming those inner voices into articulated prayer, the שומע תפילות still hears them, ומלפניו ריקם לא ישיבנו.

Jerusalem: A Lightbulb Factory?

This is the article that I had published a few weeks ago, a revision of an earlier blog post from here. Enjoy.

At a wedding I went to a few weeks ago, one song that they song caught my attention. The song was was Yershalayim Oro shel Olam: “Jerusalem is the light of the world, and Who is the light of Jerusalem? The Holy One Blessed be He.”

What does this song mean?

The land of Israel has a very significant location. Israel is nestled between the three Old World continents of Asia, Europe, and Africa – Asia to the east, Europe to the northwest, and Africa to the southwest. Trade routes often went through Israel, and because of this, ancient Israel was a prime spot to be conquered by any new power who wished to control those trade routes. On many medieval maps, the three continents of Asia, Europe, and Africa were drawn as three petals of a flower with its center in Israel. Israel was seen as the middle of the world, and Jerusalem, in its center, as the exact center. We know today that the world has seven continents and not three, and that you can’t really define any point on a sphere as the center of the world. But this idea has a deeper message that is no less relevant today as it was in the days of spice caravans and the silk route.

Jerusalem, as the center of the Jewish people, is supposed to be the city from which Torah, including moral ethics, shines to the world. “Ki Mitzion Teitzei Torah, uDvar Hashem miYerushalyim - For from Zion will come forth Torah, and the word of God from Jerusalem.” Jerusalem today is the home of many hundreds of yeshivas, but academic study alone is insufficient to spread the word of God to the rest of the world. We must serve as a positive example as well. People look to the Jews, especially those in their “home turf”, as a model of moral behavior. When we do the right thing, or the wrong thing, people look to us as an example. Oftentimes, especially in the Diaspora, we only have the chance to be an example as individuals; when we exist in Jerusalem, in a country with Jerusalem as its capital, we are a national example.

This month, Israel, and by extension the entire Jewish people, is under the spotlight for its actions in Gaza. When people see what Israel does, they see it as reflecting the Jewish people, the Am Hashem. When Israel acts in a moral and ethical way, that creates a kiddush Hashem, a spreading of God’s light from Jerusalem. If they act otherwise, it creates a chilul Hashem, a darkening of that light.

I will leave it to others more knowledgeable to comment on whether all of Israel’s actions in Gaza were appropriate, but it’s important to remember that appearances are important too. Ethical behavior alone will not create a Kiddush Hashem if it’s not accompanied by impeccable appearances. This just creates the obligation for us, even if we are not generally political people, to do what we can in the area of hasbara, explaining to people how Israel’s actions are not just morally justified but morally positive so this light can continue to go forth.

My prayer as I sang the song, and as I write this article, is that we should continue to do the right thing, and that we should succeed in spreading the light of Judaism and the light of moral ethics to the world. It’s our job to take the light that God graciously shines on Jerusalem, and spread that light to the world. Let Jerusalem be seen rightfully as the source of light to the world, and may God be seen as the true source of light and ethics to the Jewish people and the entire world. Amen.