Mike T. (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} miketab) wrote,@ 2005-07-20 23:25:00 |
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| Current mood: |  pfff |
Mashiach Rant
I feel a panic attack coming on…
You know when you see those guys in the street yelling “the end is near, and
the Devil, thou hast worshipped will come and cut your radishes” or something
like that?
Well consider yourself warned.
Our year is
5765 right? RIGHT? Well, what if it ISN’T?
Lemme explain:
A) Based on Ancient Greek historical texts and Persian
archeology:
The 1st Beit Hamikdash was destroyed in 586 B.C.
The 2nd
The 2nd
The 1st
There is a 165 year discrepancy, so if we follow secular
history, we’re actually in the year 5930.
Now, according to a certain opinion (the Rambam?),
Mashiach’s time to come is in 6,000.
Ideally before then, but if we haven’t brought him in by then, that’s
his time limit. According to another
source (Rav Creedmore?) if Mashiach doesn’t come before 6,000, it would’ve been
better for this world not to have been created.
Or something like that.
70 years!!!! What the hell are we waiting for?!?!?
----------------------------------------
Well, after thinking about it for a while, and probing some
h.com-ers, I came to some conclusions.
I - What if Mashiach wears a Sruggie?
a - What will the Black Hats have
to say about it?
b – What if he
wears a Black Hat?
What will the Kippah’s and Shtreimels say?
c – What if he
wears […]? What will
[…] say?
z – What if he
wears a Cowboy hat?
Perhaps much more importantly, what if he’s a Chassid (so as
not to say Chabad, Satmar or whatnot)? I
can just see them gloating, saying “see, I told you so! We were right,
you were wrong”. And Misnageds or MO’s
or Reform or whatever would be saying the same exact thing if Mashiach was one
of them.
I like telling myself that we’re really not that
childish. But then people remind me
otherwise. Well nanny nanny poo-poo. If
I was Mashiach, and Hashem told me to get down here, I’d say “for what, so they
can fight even more?”
People, it’s time to stop
this righteous b*llsh*t and SinatHinam!!!!
"Told you so!"
II – What about maser?
When I was
doing Shabbat in the dorms, for the first year or two, my friends would ask me
why I couldn’t turn on the lights, or use the microwave, or come out and party,
etc… After explaining it all, some friends were bewildered that there were so
many laws.
“You learnt all that from your
parents?”
“If I was
Jewish, there’s no way I would be able to remember
all of those!!!”
“How do you not forget sometimes
that you can’t carry
outdoors?!? I mean, you carry every day!!!”
I’ve been thinking. I
was brought up with this my whole life, and still when I look at a list
of fish, I sometimes wonder if it’s kosher.
Now that I’m learning Gemarra Shabbat, I sometimes even see things in
it, and go “huh? I can’t? Since when?”.
Newsflash: seems to be, that someone with a bad leg can carry a cane on
Shabbat. I still don’t use a blech or a
crock-pot; I’m too scared; god only knows what odd rules come bundled with
those things!!!
And I’ve been brought up with it since I was three...
What I’d like to know, is how long it takes a Baal Tshuvah
to learn these things. I would ask a
convert, but it’s not the same; most converts learn it before they convert, so
they don’t even need to completely worry about it till C
day. Baal Tshuva’s have to live with the
fact that they may be mechalel shabbos for the first few they try to keep.
Now, what does this have to do with maser? Well, it’s like this. I have no idea what Maaser Rishon is. Or Maaser Sheni (or Shlishi?). Or Peah. Or any of the other
taxes/tzedakahs. And not because I’ve
never owned a field either, but because, in our day and age, who really worries
about that? No one goes to the corner of
a field to eat what’s leftover; no one comes to my door and asks me for all my
firstborn cows.
And that’s the Easy stuff.
The real hard stuff is Tumah! I won’t even go into it more than just to say
that there are 4, 5 or 6 different levels of it. Sure, some people know about it, but do you
know many people who actually take precautions to not get tumah?
The reason mainly is that we need a sacrifice to be really
pure, so Tumah nowadays doesn’t mean much.
Everyone is Tumah-dic on some level, so why fight it? Just avoid corpses, Av Tumah’s; you’ll be fine.
Yeah, I guess Tumah was a piece of cake, lemme tell
you. Of course, according to some opinions,
I’m not the one with the problem, I’m not the one preparing the animal
for sacrifice, and certainly won’t be the one setting it on fire. That’s the Cohen guyses jobs. A Cohen? Yeah, sure, I know a few. I have family who are Cohanim. In fact, last time I called my cousin, he had
to call me back cause he was all bloody, as a result of being in the middle of
preparing a goat to be set on the altar. :rolls eyes:
But I guess the Rabbanim at Gush Etzion will teach him how
to make a proper sacrifice.
So when Mashiach comes, after we’re done bickering about who
was right and who was wrong, we’ll all have to give korbanot (chatas for the
most part probably).
So my question is:
Who’s gonna teach us??? Techiat
Hameitim isn’t for another 40 years!!!
“So not only
do you want me to be another reason for their
bickering, but you also want me to teach
millions of
people how to do
sacrifices? When do I get to sleep?!? No thanks, not interested…”
Conclusion #2: We need to
start teaching our kids how to slaughter goats (as a manner of speech)
Though I think when Mashiach does comes around asking
everyone for half a shekel, and gets a bunch of N.I.S., he’s gonna be real
puzzled…
End Rant
