I literally just thought of this post as I watching this hilarious video of Wanda Sykes talking about gay marriage, it got me thinking about how many videos I watch on a daily basis which are halachically questionable, I’m not even talking about pornography, I’m talking about hot girls ranting about twitter or the Wanda Sykes video mentioned above which contains lots of nivel peh and some sexual scenes as well. My friends always tell me that the difference between frum and modern orthodox (for the record, frummies would rather die than be called modern) is that frummies admit what they are doing is wrong, I wonder how many things I could come up with. Of course the skeptic in me wonder if God actually cares about most of this stuff.
99 things I do wrong but do anyway:
- Use nIvel Peh on a daily basis
- Forget to say brachos
- Rarely remember to bench during the week
- Rarely bother washing for bread
- Miss z’man krias shema if I don’t have to be at work early
- Daven without kavannah
- Don’t wash negel vassar except for in the morning when I wake up
- Not wearing tzitzis all the time (I need a new pair, so I haven’t been wearing them at all except for on Shabbos)
- Not dressing in nice clothing for Shabbos and holidays
- Talking in shul
- Reading random seforim during laining and davening
- Never showing up to shul on time
- Wasting copious amounts of seed
- Not being koveah ittim (on a regular basis is a bit redundant isn’t it)
- Loshon Horah
- Not always keeping negiah
- Looking at untznius women
- Looking at tznius women
- Looking at women
- Looking over the mechitza
- Talking about women
- Talking about sex
- Missing mincha (I missed it tonight)
- Missing z’man tefillah in the morning and then forgetting to say two shemona esrei’s for mincha
- Falling asleep with my tefillin on
- Lusting after treife food
- Coveting my neighbors salary
- Coveting my neighbors bike
- Coveting my neighbors car
- Coveting 3 day weekends without Shabbos
- Coveting in general
- Making fun of people holier than I
- Not respecting my elders
- Not standing up when a rav enters the room
- Doing half assed bows for modiim or baruch hu
- Eating outside of the sukkah
- Not being grateful for all the good constantly
- Not fully believing in religion or Judaism (technically most of this list could be thrown out the window if I wasn’t a full believer, but I believe more than I don’t believe so…)
- Bringing up the past lives of BT’s and converts
- Talking about wedding night sex at the wedding (a big no-no in frum culture and halacha as well)
- Being a kofer
- Being an apikorus
- Being bittul torah
- Bittul z’man (like I should be learning right now, but instead I’m writing)
- Talking back to rabbis
- Making fun of our holy torah and great sages
- Only knowing the gemara’s that have to do with sex
- Davening in my underwear or without a shirt
- Walking four amos without a yarmulke (very rare , only when I’m staying somewhere and I need the bathroom at night)
- Shaving the corners of my face (I like the scruffy look, but after a while it begins to itch)
- Drinking non-mevushal wine in front of heathens
- Using the internet
- Watching movies (I last went to the theater over 2 years ago)
- Watching Hulu (I can never find anything to watch, but I covet it)
- Reading books that would have been treife by my rabbis in yeshiva
- Reading heretical material like Heschel, Zornberg and Kaplan
- Shaking women’s hands for more than just business meetings
- Gazing upon the uncovered hair of a married woman (Rav Moshe ruled that we are so frei in this country that you can daven in the same room, but in the alter heim it was assur)
- Being friends with sinners
- Willing to eat from a single loaf rather than wait eons for lechem mishna
- Dropping my tefillin
- Eating pas akum during the aseres yimei teshuva
- Eating cholov stam
- Eating non-chassidishe schitah meat
- Not having long peyos (I’ve debating growing them for fun)
- Not wiping my butt with the proper hand (this is an actual thing – though I actually do tie my shoes the right way)
- Not cutting my nails according to halacha
- Biting my nails on Shabbos
- Not using kosher for Shabbos toilet paper
- Inhaling bugs, because I refuse to be machmir and wear a surgical mask outside
- Not drinking kosher water
- Not getting drunk on purim
- Not kissing the siddur
- Not rushing to kiss the torah
- Forgetting to say asher yatzar (this is rare because asher yatzar is one of my favorite brachos)
- Looking at graven images (if I was an artist I would make them too)
- Looking at women’s elbows
- Forgetting rosh chodesh
- Forgetting minor fast days
- Listening to music during the 3 weeks
- Making promises to God I know I won’t keep
- Not having proper kivud av
- Not wanting to live in Israel
- Not kissing the mezuzah
- Talking during shofar blowing (especially after I found out that techinically one only need to hear 30 blows to be yotze)
- Listening to women sing
- Davening in shuls with questionable mechitza’s
- Believing in science
- Violating the ban and looking at Making of a Gadol
- Not preparing properly for Shabbos
- Not giving enough tzedaka
- Not giving proper amounts of maiser
- Not keeping a washing basin by my bed
- Not wearing my tzitzis to sleep
- Not saying the bedtime shema
- Not saying karbanos
- Not going to shul in the morning even though I set my alarm every day and then snooze for 55 minutes
- Going on vacation to places with no minyan
- Believing that the rebbe is moshiach
Check out 4torah.com and search on a kosher search engine to prevent from doing things wrong
Much of this list goes for me, except for 99.
100. Thinking that blog-post confessionals work. What are you now, Catholic? You’re supposed to keep the guilt inside, built up all year long, and then let some of it leak during Elul, and the rest blurt out on Yom Kippur.
Except I don’t feel any guilt
Good grief Hesh… You and everyone who isn’t holier than thou when it comes to this list…. and even a lot of the penguins and their wives/daughters these things are true for but they just don’t admit it. Especially, I’ve seen:
2, 3, 4, 8 (if you asked, they are tucked in), 35, 39, 40 is bad taste anyway, 79, 80 (don’t forget showering in the 9 days outside erev Shabbos)
Glad you mentioned that about 40. I was going to say the same thing!
wtf you are ging to hell. Especially for that Purim stunt you pulled.
Loving that No13 is the age of barmitzvah where from No13 is possible – coincidence?
PS – made my own list and am up to 276 for starters, will let you know when I get to 613 – appropriate place to stop 🙂
LOL at the 613 stopping point. Actually, I’ve seen little boys in the corner doing 13. You don’t have to be 13 to do that.
“Falling asleep with my tefillin on”
This made me laugh… how on earth does that happen?
When you daven in the morning and are half asleep – kind of like dozing in the car when you’re too tired to drive.
You better be careful when driving. I was dozing once on a bridge. I was very lucky nothing happened but when I woke up it freaked me out.
Heshy- I would love to have the zchus of you wearing tzizis- how can I get you a pair?
Dropping your tefillin by accident won’t send you to hell, and I’m sure you didn’t drop them on purpose 🙂
And not wanting to live in Israel is understood — according to the Ramban, mitvzot only count in Israel and are done outside of Israel for “practice”. Therefore, you have nothing to worry about – your list won’t send you to hell, and the Rebbe loves you anyway.
…and “i am a douchebag”
#99??? Didn’t have you pegged as one of those yellow underwear dudes…
Good for you. We can rule out Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. Says a lot about your mental health. Keep up the good work.
#99
good for you, its not kfira, and as a matter of fact the Rebbe wasnt on the wall of gadol pictures in your gadoltry post
I was just screwing around – I was at the funeral
2 different things hesh, thinking he alive and walking around in a physical body is crazy, thinking he is moshiach is not
No. . .thinking a dead person is Moshiach isn’t crazy at all. Over a billion people do. They’re called Christians. Judaism teaches that when Moshiach comes, death ends. So, yeah, you can believe a dead person is Moshiach without being crazy; you just can’t believe it and still be Jewish.
i would re-name this list to “99 Reasons to Trust Heshy Fried.”
+1
definitely
Is 99 serious or a joke? And isn’t all water kosher?
there was a whole thing a while back about having to filter your tap water in brooklyn, bc of miniscule crustaceans supposedly passing into the drinking supply.
Oh. Ick. We filter our tap water in Ohio just because it tastes better. Minuscule crustaceans. Yuck even if I weren’t kosher! When I’m drinking water, I want to be drinking water.
The backstory (as I understand it) is even better. The issue was a legal one that went something like this (others will correct me on details, I’m sure):
A caterer was sued by a client because the client discovered bugs in the vegetables served at his simcha. The caterer claimed that the vegetables were from a vendor who certified that they were bug-free, so he sued the vegetable vendor.
The smart lawyer for the vegetable vendor won the case by simply demonstrating two facts: 1. the caterer washed the vegetables before serving it (of course) and 2. water has microscopic bugs in it. Therefore it is reasonable to suggest that the caterer introduced the bugs into the vegetables, and thus the vendor is not at fault.
This was then picked up by the frum press “Water has bugs in it”. Well of course when you go to the microscopic level, everything does. But the crisis that ensued was hilarious, since microscopic bugs are not treif.
Telz Angel,
I think the problem was that people saw tiny particles in the water with their naked eye. At that point, some people hold that you are liable to check to see what the particle is, even if you need to magnify it.
Same story with fruits and vegetables. Hence, the 3 hechshers to confirm that those tiny black spots are dirt and not bugs.
You’re right that microscopic bugs are not treif. The problem was that the bugs, while tiny, were not microscopic. They can’t be seen in NYC tap water because they live in the lake upstate that serves as the city’s reservoir. By the time they’ve been tumbled through 200 miles of pipe the bugs are pulverized into microscopic bits. Still, I personally witnessed people fill a glass of water from the tap, look in it, and claim to see the bugs. Never mind that they hadn’t noticed any bugs ever before, those little black specs in the water couldn’t possibly be dirt!
Anyway, if NYC tap water is treif, then everything is trief. There are more insects on Earth than mammals by weight. All ffood has microscopic bits of things in it.
This is one of those bits of information that I know on an intellectual level, but choose not to think about consciously. Thanks for the reminder. Oh, and I hate you.
The Children of Israel ate aphid pee in the wilderness.
Even if you sift your flour you’ve probably eaten several pounds of insects in your baked goods.
And your cholent.
The Vilna Gaon and Hillel’s wives did not use magnifying glasses and light boxes to check produce.
Rambam didn’t care about tiny crustaceans in his drinking water.
A.
Stop with the facts, it’s cramping my frum!
like
Well, I started filtering my water because I’ve see people change their filter then again an hour later and those white filters get so nasty so quick. I don’t want whatever that is, in me!!!!!!!
They LOOOOOOOOOVE the halachic filters in Frummy Queens (Kew Gardens Hills)
dont we say this on yom kippur?
Great idea!!!!!
Heshy, make up an alternate list of al chets. Next post dude!
“My friends always tell me that the difference between frum and modern orthodox (for the record, frummies would rather die than be called modern) is that frummies admit what they are doing is wrong”.
So when will frummies admit that cheating on their taxes and molesting little boys are wrong?
Your friend got it all backwards. The difference between being frum and being modern orthodox is that frummies are overall self righteous and like to see the worse in everyone else who is not “frum”.
Why so much angst? Were you molested by a dishonest chareidi accountant?
It’s not angst. It’s just natural disgust at pious frauds.
lolol
Nah, he wasn’t an accountant. They didn’t have BT Charedis back then.
Actually MO folks like to see the worse in everyone else who is a frummy. I mean, have you ever read this blog?
i didn’t know that all this is consider aveires i call my self a good chusid and still could say most of the list is same by me
Well chassidim don’t hold of z’manim so half the list goes out the window
“My friends always tell me that the difference between frum and modern orthodox (for the record, frummies would rather die than be called modern) is that frummies admit what they are doing is wrong”.
I have yet to hear from the frummies that cheating on your taxes and molesting little boys is wrong.
Your friend got it all backwards. The difference between being frum and being modern othrthodox is that frummies tend to get more self-righteous and see the worse in those who are not like them.
Everyone is hating on you for saying this, but it’s so true and Emes V’Emunah and Daas Torah are two more blogs which bring this up. Man on boy molestation is really common in the Jewish community. It seems like almost every guy I’ve dated was molested as a boy. The others probably didn’t get around to telling me.
Michaltastik,
If almost every guy you dated was molested as a boy, I suggest you find a new shadchan.
Frumlicious,
You a failed messiah fan by any chance?
+1
Perhaps Shmarya reads frumsatire under the guise of frumlicious!
Frozen,
I wouldn’t be surprised. It seems that most of his readers form a really bad stereotypical view of frum people, especially if they don’t live in an area where they’d have a chance to interact with frummies and see that most are actually good people.
Reminds me of the time I walked into a liquor store in Mississippi wearing a Kippah. Woman behind the counter had never seen one in her life. When I explained her that I’m Jewish, she asked if I wore it to cover my horns. She actually seemed kind of surprised when I showed her I didn’t. Even more surprising that they sold Manishewitz.
Yoreh,
You’re my hero! Horns! Hilarious! Manishewitz in Mississippi!
Good ‘ol Yoreh coming to the rescue of Frummies. Be still my heart.
At a gas station in Georgia, a curious man noticed my kippa and asked “Are you one of them Jewish people?” I said “Yes I am. Are you?” And his response: “Um, no.”
I’m never sure what to respond when that happens.
Many years ago someone approached me in a crowd and asked “Why are you Jews so god-damned smart?” and I responded out of instinct “‘Cuz you guys killed all the dumb ones. We’re all that’s left.” It shut him up.
Telz,
You should have sold the second guy the proverbial “fish”.
The goy once asked the Jew what made him so smart. Jew refused to tell his “secret”. After much pressure, he agreed and told him about a small fish all Jews ate to make them smart. The goy begged him to try some, Jew finally agreed to sell it to him for $100,000.
A few days later, goy meets the Jew and is ready to kill him. “You bastard! You sold me a sardine worth 10 cents!” Jew replies, “I see it worked!”.
Plenty of people talk about sex, watch TV shows and movies. These things aren’t unheard of even in places in Lakewood even though there it’s done under the radar.
# 66 – The Ben Ish Chai took this VERY SERIOUSLY. I still find it hard to wipe with my left hand without spending an unusually longer time washing my hands afterwards 🙁
# 88 – Actually made me laugh out loud!
Yuk. Why would you wipe with your hand??? Most people nowadays use toilet paper!
1. How do you know when you need new tzitzit anyhow? (I wear them most of the time but I have a sneaking suspicion that I need new ones).
2. Some of these must be a joke, since they are things that are permitted by halacha outside Williamsburg and other Chumrastans (52, 59, 63, 65 88, 89, 98). On the other hand, some strike me as possibly not a joke- one thing that fascinates me about this blog is that I can’t always tell when Heshy’s kidding and when he’s not.
That’s not one of the things that fascinates me about this blog, it’s one of the things that frustrates the heck out of me about this blog!
good…you are preparing for Elul…now pick one and do it and then you will be going up the ladder to get closer to H-shem. There is a famous Rav in the gemora who before he became frum he did all the averos imaginable and some that aren’t and he became a famous Rav- I am sure it didn’t happen overnight … and the fact that you notice what you need to work on is the first step. kol ha kavod! May you be inscribed for a good and sweet new year,
The snob in me wishes that you quoted that gemara accurately. You might be referring to Reish Lakish, who was highway bandit before he became infatuated with Rabbi Yochannan’s beautiful hair and eyelashes, married his sister, and became a great Tannah. Or to the case of the person who was Koneh et Olamo Besha’a Achat before committing suicide (forgot the daf off hand), or the guy in Menachos 44 who’s tzitzis got in the way of his encounter with a call girl.
Reish Lakish was a bit of a homophile. So the story goes. He married Rabbi Yochanan’s sister just to be close to Rabbi Yochanan.
Arumy,
Nice way to twist the story.
Resh Lakish mistook him for a women. R. Yochanan had a hot sister, he used her beauty for outreach, making the shidduch. Resh Lakish became a scholar.
And R’ Yochannan was apparently very attractive — so much so that he’d hang out by the Mikva so that the women would “see his face and have children as attractive as him.” Funny how that works. When the Gemara asks if it was OK for him to hang out there, it explains that he also have very long eyelashes, and therefore he could not see the women.
Similarly, Rav Gidel would hang out by the women’s mikva and would also dance with girls.
Ah, my gemara heroes.
Another case of hot women being used for kiruv!
Wow, so many I do too, I will only comment on when I don’t or when there’s something else to say:
2. Depending on which ones, I don’t say them deliberately. Don’t usually forget when I mean to say them, though.
8. Well, not all the time, but nearly all the time
10. No
11. They’re not random to me
12. When I do go to shul, I’m on time about half the time
13. Working on that (I mean on not doing that)
16. I shake hands in business situations
23. No
25. No
27. I don’t know my neighbors’ salaries
28-29. N/A for health reasons
40. No
47. No, but I should change that. Any pointers?
51. No
58. No
61. Only when they’re in the bag
72. I’m excused for medical reasons
79. Not for awhile
81. Sorry, no
85. Nope
95. I say it now. Sort of.
99. Really? I’m having strangely dichotomous feelings about this. One minute it’s “I won’t daven in a shul where they say yechi” next minute is “well, isn’t it at least possible?” (p.s. I’m not Lubavich, but live in a Lubavich community)
it was a joke
What about “not loving when you were supposed to?
Lets see now…..
It says: “Love thy neighbor…” ve’gomer
It says: “Love the stranger…” ve’gomer
It says: “Love thy Go-d…….” ve’gomer
Lets face it: we have to love a little more: Check this out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iq-EbjJJZ-A
Sorry Hesh, I am just to ADD to read 99 things.
But I did this great hike in the Northern Cascades; Enchantment Lakes.
Heshy’s extended list:
100. busting out ghetto heters
101. wearing only underwear around the house
102. hiking during the 9 days
103. still not being married
104. generally being a krum bastard
You can’t hike during the 9 days? why?
it leads to mixed dancing.
There is only one aveira I covet – wearing shatnez. Yes, imagine wearing authentic shatnez. How great that would be!
Lemaaseh wiping with the left hand is only (according to Normative Hlacah) if you actually wipe with your hand .
I presume you use toilet paper so there goes number 66.
“with a shinui” — For the Win.
Showering on Shabbos. Aaaah.
ok in cold water (brr)
Thanks for reminding me to bentch. u did a Mitzva!
“Wasting copious amounts of seed”. I want details!! As in drinking a copious amount of beer?
He means chicken choking. Did you really not get that? Maybe you need help with what I mean by chicken choking, too?
Zach, buddy — never turn down an offer for help.
ROFL!
Nivul Peh, talking in shul, failing to wash for bread, failing to recite berachot, not saying the bedtime shema, not saying the bedtime shema – these things are NOT FUNNY!
I am a Lubavitcher, and I talk in shul. BFD, it’s not explicitly mentioned as a sin, unless it’s during Amidah, the parsha reading, or Aleinu.
I am Satmar and I talk in shul. For the reasons stated by Mordechai the Lubavitcher.
no 26. of lusting after forbidden foods is not a sin. In fact the RamBam from Chazal in torat kohanim, kodshim, parasha 10, 11. Says that one should desire to eat treife food but cant because Hashem says so.