When it come down to it, us Orthodox Jews have some pretty strange devices and items to help us ease the pain that comes with adhering to some stuff that the rest of the Jewish population may look with wonder at. I thought of this post while thinking about framing a chalitzah shoe and hanging it up on my wall, along with a signed an autographed copy of the Lipa concert ban and the cease and desist letter I received for posting a picture of a hot chani in Monsey who claimed I ruined her life. So while lulavim and menorahs may seem strange, they are quite normal because all Jews know what they are – the following list is really for items that many Jewish folks and people will never get a chance to see unless they go to their local seforim store (regular old Judaica stores in conservative shuls probably don’t sell the following items.
Bedika cloth: I wonder when some frum company is going to come out with halachically certified bedika cloths. For the unintitiated, women, besides for staying in the kitchen and producing ben Torah’s from their wombs, must insert a bedika clothinside themselves to make sure that there’s no blood or stains which may be blood before they go to the mikvah. If it’s questionable they ask their rabbi – which leads to just about the best reason to have yoetzet halacha’s (modern orthodoxy’s answer to women rabbis)
Lulav Cases: The big long green ones look like bazookas and the black ones can be mistaken for rifle cases, I have been told that many people do use actual rifle cases to hold their lulav.
Sandik Pillow: Your child is about to have his genitals mutilated before Foreskin man can get to the rescue, so why not place him on a special pillow to ease the pain.
Chalitzah Shoe: Lets say a woman’s married sister dies before she produces any children, she is supposed to marry her brother in law to continue the family name, if she doesn’t want to – she goes to court and spits in a shoe, I just learned that there is an entire thing to do with how much she spits and what shoe to use.
Portable shtenders: In frummy camps they make these things instead of lanyard and popsicle stick houses.
Blechs: Even the name is strange and I have non-frum friends who love saying it over and over again, whikle they pretend to be throwing up, but you do have to keep that kugel warm somehow and many frummies don’t have the skills to throw it in the cholent.
Shabbos light switch covers: tape just won’t cut it much of the time and the only way to let your guests know that you intent to utilize the lights on Saturday morning to read the Yated on the toilet is to literally cover them up. I wonder if anyone unhooks them and is a shabbos environmental activist about the whole thing.
Wine fountains: No one besides religious Jews would ever have a purpose for these things, mostly because no one has 8 kids and no one serves 8 kids grape juice in little cups. Wine fountains are a must have for any frum Jewish home and they even started making ones for poor folks that aren’t made from gold or silver.
Shabbos Lamps: Sure, it’s a waste of electricity and I always feel that one will catch on fire and burn my hosts house down, but that doesn’t stop me from enjoying the warm light from this genus shabbos invention.
Shabbos Tooth Brushes: A scam if you ask me, they don’t work and they are strange.
Silver Esrog Boxes: Can you imagine someone seeing another guy pull out a lemon from a silver case and cradling it like it were his child? Yes I think the same thing…
Havdalah candle extinguishers: Candles should be dipped in the havdalah wine, but some more modernishe folks have decided that to be too archaic.
Car Mezuzah’s: Someone gave me one of these once and I was at a loss about what to do with it, first off, which door was I supposed to put it and once I opened that pandoras box did I have to put a mezuzah on the trunk too? Was my car counted as a dwelling? What if it was leased, so I decided not to put it on and put it in the glove compartment as a good luck charm.
Light Boxes: I’m willing to bet that if some unknowing individual walked in on someone checking their leafy greens for bugs, they would mistake them for trying to find gold…light boixes are the shiznit, but they are still strange.
Shabbos Toilet Paper: First it was tissues, then it was toilet paper ripped in between the dotted lines, then pre-ripped toilet paper and finally for the truly moronic – shabbos toilet paper with its own dispenser and everything. I would love to see the commercial for that one, a bunch of rebbes sitting around and lying in the fluffy toilet paper, klind of like the michelin bears.
I don’t get these new posts in my Google Reader feed, until like a week later when I get them all in one go. Could you do something about that please?
I’ll spoke to my friends at Google about this. They are working on it for you. You should get an email from them soon. Wait for it. Hit refresh on your email every few minutes.
yeah, me too. I think because he’s on word press the competitor. Google and blogger sleep together…
I also noticed this on my iGoogle page. I am glad to know I am not alone.
Bedika cloths are the core reason I stopped going to the mikvah. It’s humiliating, and pointless.
But I have to say… I never thought of the car-trunk issue with the mezzuzah. One more thing for me to sit and question. 🙂
Four doors and the trunk. Does the hood also need a mezzuzah? How about a convertible top if you sometimes put it down and hop in without opening the doors? Six mezzuzot on a car seems a little …. ridiculous.
You only need a mezuzah on the trunk if you plan on putting people in there. If you do, I don’t want to know about it.
It seems ridiculous because it is. No frummy ever put a mezuza on his car.
I doubt that you stopped going becuz of a cloth. You probably hated the idea from the start, and the cloth was just the icing on the cake. I don’t get it. You girls stick your fingers, tampons, dildos, coke bottles, someone’s fist, even veggies in there, but a little white cloth is a problem? I’m so sure.
Aha! So *thats* what Bodek vegetables are!
LOL
That is so damn funny!
Imagine you’ve been taught all your life to be tzniusdik in the extreme. Beyond a certain age you don’t even talk to males, let alone discuss intimate subjects. Then a couple of weeks before your wedding you get a crash course in what you’ll be expected to do, where and when you’re expected to do it, and exactly how to use those little white cloths… and told that if you have a shailah, you have to show it TO A MAN. Do I think having women qualified to answer such questions is a good idea? HELL, yeah!!!
Yeah… what DO the FFB women think of this? Hesh, you should take this comment and make a post out of it. I think it’s a great topic and it would be interesting to hear FFBs talk about this experience. Here they can do it anonymously.
The woman rarely if ever shows it to the rabbi, her husband will.
For many woman it is no more (if anything it is less) uncomfortable than exposing themselves to a gynecologist. The rabbi is a professional and it is done with discretion and professionalism,
Yes, all women loved to be raped by coke bottles and someone’s fist. Veggies are an all-time favorite, you know. I hate the following book, but please read at least the bottom half of the page I’m linking to. dq=full+frontal+feminism&hl=en&src=bmrr&ei=bdI5TsXdJ4-dgQe3zLHOBg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CC0Q6AEwAA#v=snippet&q=snapple&f=false
Raped? Who said anything about rape? I’m talking about women who do this to THEMSELVES for self pleasuring purposes! Not men doing it!
I’m going to be charitable and assume you don’t have a lot of experience with women.
Are you kidding? Look at what he wrote. It’s obvious he downloads women from the filesharing sites like all the time!
Knowing women has nothing to do with it. The point is who cares about a little 4 inch square cloth when they are sticking God knows what in their Susies all the time anyway. Just do what halacha requires and get over yourselves. Jeezus.
Says the man with no knowledge, no experience and a lifetime of religiously avoiding both. Dude, just quit before you dig yourself any deeper.
Idiot. I have plenty of knowledge, 15 years of yeshiva, 20 years of marriage, 4 kids, and a BA. Not that it matters anyway, because what I said is common knowledge for anyone who has ever seen porn or known a woman intimately. In your world, women don’t put anything in there except their husband’s dick. Your wife is home right now with a cucumber as her only friend.
Frankly, I think you’re lying. First, yeshiva doesn’t teach you anything about women or how they think. Second, your comments about women are incredibly ignorant, offensive dimwitted and just plain garbage. If you’ve really been married for fifteen years your wife must be a saint, a completely beaten down emotionally dead drudge or getting her emotional intimacy and understanding somewhere else.
Shlomo,
I would go so far as to say that most women don’t want bottles in them, hence the association with non- consensual sex, rape, even though I hear that is not what you were referring to. I hear that you have an idea that they do, but this is NOT, as you say, “common knowledge”. The only reference I have ever heard to vagina-around-coke-bottle has been in either assault or porn. I can understand the confusion as it sounds like you are getting at least some of your impressions from porn, which by and large is made by men catering to other men’s fantasies. Here is a link to a (Not safe for work) TED talk on some of the ways porn can distort understanding: http://blog.ted.com/2009/12/02/cindy_gallop_ma/
You can doubt all you like; I certainly can’t change your mind from any preconceived ideas you have, but you are wrong. Maybe the fact that you’re hanging out with girls who stick coke bottles and fists and veggies in interesting places is what’s causing you to have very little understanding of what other women feel. Try a classier crowd of chicks.
I think what Shlomo is suffering from is “projection”
Something so obvious to me has never been discussed at large: What on earth is tznius about showing one’s bloody underwear to a rabbi? What on earth is holy about a mikva lady knowing the sexual schedules of the women in her community? What on earth is modest about engaging in behavior that advertises the status of one’s sex life?
Can someone please explain to me just what on earth is tznius about rabbis inspecting their congregants’ bloody underclothes and mikva ladies knowing the personal “schedules” of the women in their communities?
Absolutely nothing.
Next question 🙂
I can!
Is going to the gynecologist untznius? I imagine you would say it isnt and would mock a woman who said she doesnt go to the gyn’s office becaue it is untznius. Trust me any exam done by the gyneclogist is a lot more invasive than any exam done by a mikva lady or Rabbi. You would probably say that the gyn’s office isnt aa lack of tznius because he is professional he is doing his job (halachicly “shagur bemlachto”) If you felt the Gyn got any $exual enjoyment from doing a pap smear I am certain youd find a new one right away (and youd be right too) I assure you The rabbi doesnt get $exual enjoyment from examining period stained underwear (often he doesnt even know whos it is) If someone thinks thta he does they could and should get a new Rabbi! ditto for the mikva lady.
Hope that helps
Women have 3 main Mitzvos they have to keep, and one of these 3 is going to Mikva.
If you are not doing Bedikos and going to Mikva, it’s almost like not keeping shabbos or kosher.
You forgot to add “and you’ll die and burn for it too”
Oh, and “little boys get murdered because of women like you who decide to abandon this mitzvah”
And yes, make sure to defend the “3 mitzvah” myth even if someone who knows something tries to tell you otherwise.
gevalt.
And men are chased around for all eternity by the souls of the Jewish children they didn’t have because they had wet dreams, too. Let’s not forget that one.
That’s kind of sad. Do they, like, make you provide the bedikah cloths before they let you in or something? I don’t actually do bedikah with cloths. I mean, I make sure that I’m not bleeding and stuff, but I’m pretty sure my rabbi would raise an eyebrow if I brought a stained cloth with me, and she’s a woman. Of course, I’m Conservative, so I’m probably going to hell anyways.
And Shlomo, there’s a difference between using a tampon and bringing a used one to an authority figure, particularly if he’s male.
Grow up. What do u think the Rabbi is gonna do with it? Jack off to it? Yeah cuz thats what he’s living for is to see your bloody cloth. Do you react the same way when the doctor asks for a urine and stool sample? Grow up already, it’s part of life and the rabbi has no interest whatsoever. Most of them allow you to put in an plastic baggie, in an envelope, and leave it at their door in a specially designated place, with a note with ur phone # on it. He doesn’t have to see you or even know your name. That’s how it works where I live anyway.
There’s nothing so ridiculous that someone won’t buy it
I’ve heard that in Europe, kugel always went in the cholent
you can brush your teeth with a regular toothbrush, it’s smearing the toothpaste that’s the problem
if the heater goes out, you can always plug in the shabbos lamp. Is it possible to get burns with those things?
In the soup, too.
Potato kugel in chicken soup is the best thing EVER, if you haven’t tried.
Well, the classic is the hole in the sheet.
As the story goes, a woman attended an Aish/Discovery session where the Rabbi spoke about how wonderful and sensitive frum people are, especially when it comes to treatment of women.
The woman raised her hand and asked about the “hole in the sheet” — how sensitive is that to make married people use a sheet to reduce the their intimate contact?
The Rabbi responded that this is an old myth, and that no one uses a sheet with a hole in it.
The woman protested — but I have seen these sheets hanging on the laundry lines in religious communities. They are white sheets, rectangles — with a large hole in the middle!
The Rabbi paused for a moment, then burst out laughing — and asked — did they have strings attached at the corners?
OMG, I WILL NEVER BE ABLE TO WEAR MY TZTZIT AGAIN WITHOUT THINKING ABOUT SEX!
That is really funny.
classic- just told my wife the joke
You wrote:
“Chalitzah Shoe: Lets say a woman’s married sister dies before she produces any children”
To clarify: If a man’s brother dies without children, the Mitzva of Yibum is to marry the brother’s wife, but instead we do Chalitzah.
I actually dated a guy who had only one brother, and this brother died without children, and he did Chalitzah for his brother’s wife.
The sad part is the guy I dated in his 50’s and also does not have children. People had told him to do Yibum instead and marry his brother’s widow, but he didn’t.
Ah, but is it permissable for a man to marry his widow’s sister?
That would take talent, for if he had a widow, he’d be dead himself. 😉
You meant marry his dead wife’s sister? Yes, it is permitted.
So about the Shabbat lamp thing, I have a question for all the talmidei chacham here. Let’s assume it is over bal tashchit to leave unused appliances running for no reason. So is Shabbat docheh bal tashchit?
You could be a commercial for the shabbos timer industry.
BTW, I can prove that the talmedie chachamim yeshivish guys are not makpid on bal tashchis — just look at all the slightly dampened kleenex tissues they go through and shove under their mattress, without inventing some sort of soft bal-keri cloth that you can just wash and reuse.
(ew, that made me feel gross just writing this.)
A) lets not assume its bal tashchit, without the silly assumption you dont have a “question”
B) Its not left running for no reason, it is left running so we can enjoy the light for parts of shabbat
C) Yes Shabbat is doche bal tashcit
Hope that helps
A and B are silly, but C interests me. Do you have a source?
Well a silly question deserves silly answers. And b is the actually the best answer.
As to a source, I don’t have it of hand but the principle is whenever there is a choice between two sins the lesser one is violated . The severity is determined by the punishment meted for its transgression, thus shabat (stoning) is kept at the expense of baal tashcit (no punishment, maybe lashes though I don’t think so when its not the literal case)
I honestly don’t mean it as a silly question. Someone (who like me is shomer Shabbat and relatively informed about things) mentioned it to me recently and I thought it was an interesting comment. Your suggestion of how a choice can be made when two mitzvot are irreconcileably in conflict is as good as any and I suspect does have textual support. I’ve been feeling conscious of it of late–leaving some lights on, running the hot plate, sometimes leaving the oven on, not adjusting the a/c when I’m gonna be out for most of the day, etc. You may laugh it off as silly but I actually do think bal tashchit is important. Actually, on the list I just mentioned I think there is a mingling of categories. The hot plate and oven I actually don’t care about. No way bal tashchit even gives those a run for their money. Can’t touch ’em. I think the only place where I see any “issue” at all is with electricity. I am not convinced we got electricity right in the first place and as a result I am not at as certain as you seem to be that things like not using electric lights or perhaps even adjusting the a/c should supercede bal tashchit.
Shabbos is a clear cut Mitzvah that one has to keep. Ba’al Tashchis is a much more oblique idea. It doesn’t say in the Torah “don’t waste” we kinda learn it out from Yaakov who went back for some small jars.
It’s best if you make Shabbos and Ba’al Tashchis work together. Use timers, set the lights to go off when you won’t be using them… The Shabbos Lamp is for when you don’t know beforehand what you’re going to want to do. Maybe I want to sleep, maybe I want to read. A person’s comfort—namely, the ability to choose if they have light—in that situation allows it and keeps it from being considered wasteful.
Similarly: you mention air conditioning. Why should a person be allowed to use air conditioning? Ever. A person doesn’t need it, for thousands of years people survived without it. The answer is that human comfort is a legitimate use of energy and not considered Ba’al Tashchis.
This article http://www.youngisrael.org/content/PDFs/Halacha_Central/Halochoscope/hs13-43a.pdf has more including this: “Serving man’s needs, is, by definition, productive. (…) It simply does not apply when there is a human need. Furthermore, the ethical logic for bal tashchis is canceled by the ethical priority to provide human needs.”
So, assuming that “we got electricity right” the human need of keeping Shabbos overrides Ba’al Tashchis. (I would recommend learning more about why we don’t use them if you’re not sure. It’s better than feeing guilty. 🙂 )
I would also like to point out that you are correct in saying that Ba’al Tashchis is important. If a person knows before Shabbos that they won’t be needing the light (from a Shabbos Lamp) at a certain time, they should connect a timer to turn it off, not just say “it’s dark anyway so I don’t care.” That would also give it a chance to cool down making it less likely to catch fire. 🙂
I have never seen those wine fountains. Isn’t the real frum way to pass the cup around and share the germs?
I have neighbors with this. Instead of the backbreakig labor of pouring wine into every cup, you pour it into a big hole with tunnels that open over the openings of the other cups. It’s very frum if the laziness factor wins over the germ spreading 🙂
rich people have them. I’ve seen them in Manhattan. You can also look in the bookstore next time you’re there. They sell them.
Weird, they’re in chinuch…must’ve been a present
Wow! Laugh out loud funny!
I have to say that if I had one of those wine poury things, I wouldn’t go to work or eat or sleep for like a week. They are so much fun.
To be nitpicky, the Light Box is a standard item used in an unstandard way. They’re used primarily in old-school (film) photography, for looking at negatives and available from places like B&H.
I don’t know exactly what you have in mind with “Havdalah candle extinguisher” but I have a “candle snuffer.” It didn’t come from a Jewish store and you’re actually using a product for its standard intended use; that’s not so strange. On the other hand, dipping a candle in wine…
You forgot one: The foreskin jar. Mohel carries one around, just imagine he loses it on the subway between bris’s.
Even worse if it has an “Osem” label.
A guy sitting next to me in a bar this week related:
I knew a nurse in a hospital that performed circumcisions, and she was fired for using the foreskins as fish bait. (“She used to catch the biggest damn catfish”)
Aaron,
LOL. Just happened to me a couple week ago. Check:
http://www.bountyfishing.com/members/f29c21d4897f78948b91f03172341b7b/photo/559cb990c9dffd8675f6bc2186971dc2/640×480/heat-wave-channel-cat.jpg
That’s just…ew. Just no.