Chullin 91: Jacob and the Angel Who Sings Praises to G-d as he Meets His Purpose

In Chullin 90, we learned about the laws forbidding eating the sciatic nerve in relation to the story (Bereishit 32:33) of Jacob's wrestling match with the angel who damages Jacob's thigh.  Today's Gemara expands on that story.

When the angel said, "Let me go, for the dawn has risen", Jacob responded by saying "Are you a thief or a gambler who is afraid of the dawn?"  The angel replied, "I am an angel and from the day that I was created my time to recite a song before G-d had not arrived until now".  The Gemara asks why at this point in battle the angel chooses to praise G-d.

The rabbis teach us that all of creation, including angels, can sing praises to G-d but only when it serves its purpose of being created.  When this is expanded to the Jewish People as a whole,   We reached our highest level when we crossed the Red Sea after the exodus from Egypt.  We sang Az Yashir (Shemot, ch.15) at that very moment.  

The rabbis suggest that the angel is the spiritual representation of Esau, Jacob's older brother who wrongly lost his birthright after their mother was told of her sons that "the elder shall serve the younger" (Bereishit 25:23).  The rabbis teach us that in the exact moment that the angel lost his battle to Jacob, he reached his purpose in creation - to help with Jacob's spiritual development.  They reaffirm that only in a moment of defeat can we sing praises to G-d.

Rise and Shine it's Matzah Ball Time

On March 18th, one week before his 7th birthday, my son Dov decided that he wanted to write a song as a surprise for his mother. He started with the title - "Rise and Shine it's Matzah Ball Time." He then paced around the room thinking up lyrics and had me write them down.

Once he had written three verses and a chorus, he picked up a guitar and started playing the few chords that he knows. He was struggling with the glorified toy we bought him when he was younger. It was supposed to be a step up from a toy, but it is hardly tuneable. When that was difficult, he tried it on Marcia's beautiful Martin guitar. While that one has great sound, it is way too big for Dov. It was a little painful to watch, knowing that we had just bought Dov a proper 3/4 sized guitar for his upcoming birthday, but I could not give it to him without Marcia.

Notwithstanding the impediments, the song was done within 5 minutes. He played it for Marcia that night. He played it a few times over the past week, but got very excited when we talked about putting it on the internet. So we put the Kodak Easyshare camera on the tripod (the video camera is broken) and.... well, here are the results:



Hope you liked it.

Mischa

Video - An excellent response to a homophobic basketball player

Do you need a good laugh?

Try not to laugh while watching this. I dare you.

The newsletter

EDIT: The original full size newsletter took a very long time to download. I have replaced it with a much smaller version that takes up about 5% of the space the original did. It's still somewhat slow, but it is certainly better than before. ML
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I know you're just dying to find out about the newsletter I've been working on. How could you not be? It's such a fascinating subject. Well, wonder no more. Here is the current draft of the project that has been taking up so much of my computer time.

If, for some reason, you want to see the full size pdf's, you can click on the image.

That's it for today. I promised my son Dov that I would play Monopoly with him and he's been waiting very patiently.

ML

www.pursuingsuccess.com

IT EXISTS!

It's registered. It's online. It's begun to take shape.

Check it out at the link above. I'm still learning how to use it, but it appears that you can sign in, publish your own posts (I think the program calls them stories) and leave comments.

The newsletter is coming along nicely too. As of today (February 8, 2007) the first 3 draft pages are up on the other site. Feel free to check them out. The rest should be done fairly soon.

ML

Creating a newsletter

You might think that I'm posting less because I am spending less time on the computer. I assure you that is not the case. I am spending at least as much time at the computer as before, but instead of my usual surfing, reading and game playing, I'm putting together a newsletter.

I agreed to do it as a small job to earn a little money. I figured I have lots of experience with word-processing and photo-editing programs, and I'm good with computers, so it shouldn't be too difficult to learn how to put together a newsletter.

Boy was I wrong. Apparently there is a whole type (genre?) of software called desktop publishing, and it bears somewhat less resemblance to word-processing and photo-editing software than I would have guessed. I thought that I'd have to spend an hour or two getting up to speed, but it's taken a whole lot longer, substantially lowering the amount of money I am earning per hour. Luckily, I have a fair bit of free time these days.

I have found some excellent free (yay!) resources that have been extremely helpful. The first was Scribus open source desktop publishing software. I can't compare it to the big commercial programs that cost $600 - $700, but it seems to me to be extremely powerful software. The second resource is about.com's guide to desktop publishing. It is quite extensive, with tons of tips, guides, how-to's, tutorials, suggestions and links. I know that the newsletter I create will be significantly better as a direct result of the time I spent reviewing their information.

So there you have it. Yet again, I am learning a great deal. Plus it's fun.

And so the journey continues........

ML