The latest in WTF – Facebook clubs comes from the Germaphobes of Facebook in the form of anti “sharing the wine cup” on shabbos group which has been joined by 3 people including myself (I only joined so I could write this post)
Just like the yearly “clean your netilas yedayim” cup event that I find rather hilarious, the “communal cup sharing in shabbat is gross” club is a half assed attempt at making frum Judaism cleaner, which shall never happen especially when we have the following disgusting but necessary items at religious institutions everywhere.
The endless towel:
The endless towel, which should definitely be banned, is located in yeshivas worldwide. The endless towel is typically blue, and typically runs into a kink somewhere between shachris and first seder at which point it drags on the floor soaking up urine and post washing cup filth, until the janitor can be called to fix it.
Wine cup sharing:
Wine cup sharing can be a pretty gruesome event if you happen to be stuck at a table with a long bearded fellow that likes to blow his nose into his beard than your up a creek without a paddle. I don’t think a facebook club is going to change things, and our immunity to diseases such as the inexplicable low death rate during the Black Plague may be attributed to the fact that frum Jews do some pretty dirty rituals. Cup sharing is helping our immune systems.
There aint no soap:
In many frum institutions washing cups are favored instead of soap, empty soap dispensers are used as wall grips so that they can chain their washing cups to the wall so they don’t get stolen, on a similar note whats the deal with those annoying coat room hangers, what yeshiva guy is going to steal a hangar, seriously, hangars in yeshivas are the one thing they have too much of – from all the dry cleaning.
Where is the cholent spoon?
It doesn’t only happen to the cholent spoon, but the cholent spoon sliding into the serving bowl at kiddush is so problematic because cholent is the most sought after commodity at kiddush and people tend to use their little forks (sometimes already used) to fish out meat while some good Samaritan tries to fish the actual serving spoon out which becomes wrapped in really crappy kiddush napkins drenched in cholent, its really a terrible and disgusting affair.
Wait, all we have are toothpicks:
Countless times I have seen people take that toothpick that had just shoved a piece of shmaltz herring in their mouths and stick it into the cream herring for double dips, first of all – the mixing of flavors is too much – I personally don’t care much, I’ll eat it anyway, but for you germies, oy, its a shonda.
When my friends went to The Mir in Israel, they went to say goodbye to our Rebbe (Rabbi Moshe Brown in Far Rockaway).
His parting words?
Don’t use the communal towels at the sinks.
Chamira Sakanta M’Isura. We are supposed to be more stringent with danger than with halacha.
mad funny hesh, this is the first time i laughed out loud while reading your blog.
Ezra that sounds like an insult, but its possible you never read my blog.
E-Fink – interesting
The hangers are attached becuase it would be bittul torah to pick one up if it fell on the floor and since on one would want to say they have spent enough time learning to actually pick some hangers up off the floor, the yeshiva doesn’t want to have all the hangers just strewn about
What about sharing / blowing the communal shofar?
Does anyone know if they remodled the shower stalls in the Telz Cleveland dorm. I remember when I was there if your didn’t wear slippers you in the shower, you were sure to cut your feet on some residual rust or tiles that fell down from the ceiling or dividers.THIS IS NOT LOSHAN HORAH IT DAGEROUS AND ITS A WARNING
This post kind of reminds me of the “segulah wine” passed around at Sheva Brochos.
It’s been related to me that:
a) the only thing it’s a segulah for is Hepatitis
and
b) there’s so much saliva in there that the last person to drink from the cup makes a Shehakol.
Ok, now G6’s commen t about Shehakol made me laugh out loud. (Though it isn’t the first time).
I make a mental note of who drinks from the Kidush cup for before passing it around. When I’m eating with them, I insist on saying it myself.
You should do a post on judging people by what kind of washing cup they have.
You forgot about those tiny squares of toilet paper…
Dude in 770 the chulent has the potential to be good thats if u get there before all of the tzfatim and little kids attack if your late u might want to look inside of the pot before eating its usually filled with bowls spoons and challah plus rummer has it that piss some how made it into the pot a few times
What about sharing / blowing the communal shofar?
We usually just tip him fifty bucks.
anyone lubavitch here?
what about men’s mikvah?!
that deserves an article of its own. but it might need a rating.
great piece heshy!