Chazzanus and heavy metal--my iPod

As a friend of mine put it, I have the world's weirdest iPod.
My music collection runs the gamut of musical history.  I have classical (Bach, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Mozart, Mendelssohn, Chopin, Vivaldi and some others), jazz (Miles Davis, Chet Baker, Count Basie, Ella Fitzgerald, Gershwin, and some others), quite a bit of Sinatra (le sigh), a ton of Billy Joel, show tunes from Phantom of the Opera, Gypsy, West Side Story and Rent, and even some Led Zeppelin.  I also have quite a few Jewish artists, ranging from the great cantors Yossele Rosenblatt and Moshe Koussevitsky, to modern-day Matisyahu (who I never looked at the same way after he played a concert on Shiva Assar B'Tammuz).  It's a little of everything--kind of like me.

The definition of insanity, or the need to learn from tragedy

Purim will be upon us in another month.  The costumes, the hamantashen, the mishloach manot, and the one part of the holiday that chills my blood.
Picture, if you will, the following scenario.  My intercom sounds, and the light indicates that someone is at my front door.  "Yes?"
A little voice answers: "Tzedakah!"
I come to the door, dollar bill in hand.  A child is on the other side, sometimes more than one.  They're either carrying cans or holding books of raffle tickets emblazoned with the name of their yeshiva.  The children are usually between the ages of 5 and 10.   And, without exception, there is no parent in sight.
You would think after last summer, we wouldn't have this situation.  We would know that little children need to be protected from strangers.  That a mezuzah is no indication that the house is safe.  Yes, in ninety-nine percent of cases, the person gives the kids a dollar each and send them on their merry way.  However, there is always that one percent.  The one person who looks normal, but isn't.  The hidden psycho who would abduct a child and murder him. 
I realize how busy parents are today.  For overwhelmed parents, it's easier to send the kid off alone on a collecting spree with strict instructions to stay on the block, only knock on doors with mezuzahs, or don't go inside anyone's house.  But how many young children will remember that when confronted with a nice grown-up (maybe even a friend's parent), who says, "Come in, sweetheart, and have some cookies."  And then, every parent's worst  nightmare begins.

Of modesty and Margaret Mitchell

One of my favorite scenes in Gone With the Wind ( I LOVE GWTW) is the scene where Scarlett is getting dressed for the Wilkes' barbecue.  Hoping to seduce Ashley Wilkes into marriage, she rejects all her morning dresses, and chooses an afternoon dress that shows off both her arms and decolletage.  Mammy, concerned about propriety, chides Scarlett on her immodest choice (You can't show your bosom before three o'clock!)  The irony, of course, is that the dress, while revealing her cleavage, completely obscures her legs and hips under a bell-shaped crinoline.  Later in the novel, when the crinoline is abandoned in favor of the bustle, Scarlett (who had no problem showing cleavage) felt embarrassed to reveal the shape of her abdomen.
Throughout history, the definition of modesty has been pretty malleable.  Covered heads and legs have been the norm, in some form or another, for at least the past millennium.  However, it has also been considered the norm for women to wear dresses that reveal their busts, especially during evening hours.  During the 19th century, it was considered immodest to wear makeup at all, but in the 1930s, it was considered immodest not to.  It was only during the 1920s that hemlines were raised, and even then, they were raised kicking and screaming.  During the 1960s, pants were unacceptable attire for women in business and social settings, but miniskirts that barely covered a woman's rear were the norm.  In her 1940 edition of Etiquette, Emily Post writes that a business woman's hair must always be held back, not hanging loose like a little girl. 
In the Orthodox world, ankle-length skirts are considered unacceptable for street wear, but stockings are required.  Heads are covered, but with well-made wigs that are indistinguishable from the wearer's natural hair.  The bust must be covered, but few limits are placed on the amount of makeup and jewelry worn.  So, what, pray tell, does it even mean to be "modest"?

A modern-day Titanic, or SUVs are WMDs

Last week, off the coast of Italy, a cruise liner overturned.  Ironic that this should happen in 2012, the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the R. M. S. Titanic.  We all know that story--the unsinkable ship sank on its maiden voyage.  With only enough lifeboats for half the passengers, about 1500 people died.  That ship sinking led to mandates that included enough lifeboats for everyone on board, as well as lifeboat drills for all passengers.  However, in the modern Costa Concordia disaster, the crew tried to downplay the whole incident until it was almost too late.  Additionally, the captain abandoned ship rather than going down with it.
Now Builder, who has never been on a cruise, insists that they are unsafe.  he says that because regulations are stricter for airplane and car manufacture, that both means of transport are far safer than cruise ships.  However, I say that any vessel, whether ship, plane, car, train, trolley or bus, is only as safe as the person piloting it.  If the driver is drunk, tired, distracted, or inexperienced, those means of transportation can become very deadly weapons very easily--more so because they are so common that everyone assumes that they are safe.  (A lesson I had to learn the hard way last summer, when I was hit by a car while crossing the street.)

Never thought I'd join the "silent majority."

While I don't think online petitions actually work, here's one I'd not only support, but even signed.  Yaakov Horowitz posted an online petition asking people to sign it, stating that their silence is not a tacit condoning of the violence in places like Beit Shemesh.  Well, I may not be silent, but I hope that others will join me in signing the petition.

Useful bans

Instead of banning such things as the Internet and concerts, here are some I could stand behind:

• Cigarettes.  The effects of both smoking and secondhand smoke are well-known.  Besides, doesn't the Torah command us to respect our bodies?
• Driving.  Distracted driving can kill.
• Drinking alcohol away from home on Purim.  You are likely to get into your car and kill someone.
• Spitting on people.  That's just wrong and uncivilized.
• Sheitels.  We're the only group that covers our hair and doesn't make it look covered.  Besides, they can run to thousands of dollars and look better than what G-d gave you--hardly something that could be considered "modest."
• Crying "anti-Semitism" every time one gets caught flouting the law.  Ever hear of the boy who cried wolf?
• Pictures of rabbis.  It gets a little close to avodah zarah.
• Shtreimels.  Talk about bal taschis.  (It's not like you're going to eat the animal that gave its fur)

Any others?

What is "mesorah?"

For about the past year, I've been tossing about the idea of the "mesorah": things that we do as Orthodox Jews that have no basis in halacha.  Some of them remind me of an old story: A man once watched his wife prepare a roast.  Before she put it into the roasting pan, she cut off the ends.  Her husband was fascinated.  "Why are you cutting off the ends?"  he asked.
The wife shrugged.  "We always prepared a roast that way."  The husband called his mother-in-law and asked him about it.  She told him the same answer--we always did it that way.  That night, the mother-in-law called HER mother and related the story.  The bride's grandmother was silent for a moment.  "Do you still do that?" she asked.  "Of course," the mother-in-law answered.  "Didn't we always prepare roasts that way?"
The bride's grandmother shook her head.  "Honey," she told her daughter, "I only did that because all my pans were too small to hold a whole one!"
So it seems with mesorah.  A lot of traditions that seem to be passed down "from Sinai" are actually responses to conditions that no longer exist.  Some of them are less than a century old--pretty meaningless in a religion that spans over three millennia.  Here are some examples:

• falshe fish on Pesach--originally there were concerns about the materials that fish were wrapped in.  Since we use plastic, I doubt it's an issue anymore.
• The Yiddish language--it's a medieval German dialect
• fedoras--not only are they less than a century old, they were originally women's hats!
• Extensive silver collections--who could afford them in the shtetl?
• Bais Yaakov schools--the first one opened in 1917
• Black clothing--probably a leftover from an Eastern European sumptuary law
• About 90% of the laws of tzinut--most were codified by 20th century rabbis.
• Cholent on Shabbos--it shows the world that we're not Karaites.
• Two kitchens in one--again who could afford it in the shtetl?
• A culture of full-time yeshiva bochurim--even Rashi had a day job.

Can anyone think of any others?