Baruch Dayan Emet

Tonight my father (HSLABW) passed forward a gig idea. We hung up and I took another call and then a fuse blew. Besides the very back rooms (bed and bath) everything else went out. I hung up on my dear friend and headed out to buy fuses. G-d had me bump into a neighbor who owns a hand me down bag of fuses. I unscrewed one little orange bulb and turned a new one clockwise in the same spot. In a second the fridge was whirring and the lights were back. Yeshuat Hashem KeHeref Ayin.

In the in between time my father called me back with a new and urgent message. Rabbi Baruch Borchardt, our cousin, the long time executive director of Aggudat Yisrael has passed away. Baruch Dayan HaEmet. The funeral is tomorrow morning in Brooklyn.

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Shabbat was filled with much needed rest and breath. Great company, conversation, food, Torah, Tefillah, reading, sleep.

Is a Nazir good or bad? Could it depend based on his situation. The question was raised - why can't a woman be a Nazir. I was pleased that I had THE answer to that question. What does it mean that someone who sees a Sotah should become a Nazir? Could it be that the Nazir debate is a debate about Judaism? About life? Is it more holy to separate from the world or to embrace it. When you see tragedies like tat of Sotah, should you look away or take it in? Is escape ever acceptable? Why were the keilim covered when they travelled? Along with the very occasional "could you pass the kugel these were the kinds of questions, the kind of people I was dealing with at my meals.

Someone at the table saw My Father My Lord and hated it - felt it was warped and nasty in taking issues that could appear in any family and blaming the problems on a family's being frum. A couple just finished watching The Savages and felt that it picked up in the second half. Someone else is in the middle of Like Water For Chocolate, which everyone agreed is a good movie of the magical realism variety. Someone else just saw Beaufort and it really stayed with her, more like a science fiction film than a war one - in a good way.

I have a rash where I wear my watch. I switched arms. Now I have a matching rash on each wrist. There is much to say about this, metaphors and facts abound.

If I don't post beforehand I wish you now a great Kaballat HaTorah.

G-d Bless,
Neil