Bennistar's Secondary Blog

And he responded "Deus Vult" and blocked me.

I went to bais Yaakov my entire life and I have a literal degree in Judaic studies.

But the ones I got wrong were on US percentage of Jews (I guessed too low).

Kosher salt; not living in the US, I had no idea it was a thing in America.

As someone whose religious group celebrates literally multiple holidays surrounding deliverance from antisemitic Russian government actions before the 1940s

Ok so here’s just a couple pieces from Wikipedia (it’s not even like this info is hard to come by!) about those golden decades in “the best country for jewish life in modern history”

The Frierdiker Rebbe:

The Rebbe’s father:

And then there's this one time that someone else I knew (he passed away a few years ago) visited the origin places of his chassidus... for the first time after leaving the Soviet Union (he used to live in Moscow with a tremendous mesirus nefesh). His fellow travelers were all the time looking out of the windows, and asking him what certain places were. But this elderly Yid refused to look outside and kept his eyes either on a sefer... or even stam on the back of the seat in front of him.

After trying a lot of times, someone told him, "why are you not looking? Please look for a second"... whereupon the man spinned around with a red face. "WHAT IS THERE TO SEE?!" he exploded. "You want to know what there is? Yiddish blood! That is what there is to see. Every piece of land is soaked with Jewish blood". From that moment on the whole bus was quiet.

One time in seminary I was in the Old City talking to a friend and these Xian tourists came up to us and exclaimed, “Oh bless you, bless you! We are so thankful to be in this land! Bless you!” and pressed like 14 shekels and an American quarter into my hand. Pretty sure they chose us because we looked Obviously Jewish but weren’t as scary as the exotic chasidish-looking people or, you know, the actual poor people actively asking for tzedakah.

And then a few days later our whole area received flyers in Ivrit talking about “the messiah” and the so-called prophecies (without mentioning Yoshke’s name other than in the url to their website).

Orthodox dating (”ultra-Orthodox,” just by the way, is a pretty meaningless term - it is an othering mechanism normally used to make those being described seem crazy/backwards) is less arranged than facilitated. Our parents do not choose who we’re going to marry. They are often involved in looking into potential matches, but ultimately it’s up to the individual whether they want to marry a given person. 

Orthodox dating (”ultra-Orthodox,” just by the way, is a pretty meaningless term - it is an othering mechanism normally used to make those being described seem crazy/backwards) is less arranged than facilitated. Our parents do not choose who we’re going to marry. They are often involved in looking into potential matches, but ultimately it’s up to the individual whether they want to marry a given person. 

This Pirim was without a doubt the craziest one I ever had in my whole life. I had my own gabbe (without whom I don’t know what would’ve happened), danced with a Ruach Shtus Shel Kedusha like the Lubavitcher Rebbe would say and gave amazing brochos to people. That’s what literally a dozen of people told me. I was mekayim all the mitzvos of Pirim according to basically all shittos.

Though my gabbe was hardly able to bring me back home, lol, apparently my body didn’t really cooperate and I constantly almost pulled him down with me. As we almost left the shul I remembered I left my recorder upstairs and ran back before he was able to stop me (since it was already so hard for him to get me down safely). He also told me that while crossing the street seven Egged busses stopped and all of the drivers were looking at us and laughing.

But, at least all the brochos I gave to people were all in Yiddish, not like last year when I somehow started talking English to some Chalmer (Yerushalmer) who only knew Yiddish and Ivrit; this year I actually bentched him properly… kinda.. well, at least in the proper language.

Almost right after we returned home I passed out and vaguely remember laying on the floor in the door opening of my brother’s room, then I woke up in my bed about half an hour before Minche, had a very quick Seuda (which I hardly ate) and had my gabbe bring me to the mikveh. Only problem was just as we left the house I was spotted by some friends of mine. “Bennistariiii!!” we heard and suddenly all of them -including some kids- came over running to us while singing and pulling me in the street to dance; which more or less continued all the way till the mikveh.

And then it was Shabbos! Oy Heiliger Shabbos. I never ate so less and never was as “dead” at a Shabbos meal like last Friday night. Even though I did make a very nice kiddush. But eating was just impossible. The only thing I finished was my soup. I hardly even touched my fish! (and they made my favorite Salmon). But B”H I was able to get up in time Shabbos by day and already miraculously felt a lot better… and hungry. Lol oy I was hungry today, but it seemed like almost everyone was hungrier than normal. But all in all I felt better than all the other years- which is kind of strange as I never was this shiker- the only things I still feel now are my feet, but other then that I’m B”H okay.

But, at least all the brochos I gave to people were all in Yiddish, not like last year when I somehow started talking English to some Chalmer (Yerushalmer) who only knew Yiddish and Ivrit; this year I actually bentched him properly… kinda.. well, at least in the proper language.