Please see my new article in The Times of Israel called, “Don’t Lose Your Head.”
Woman are notorious in the Bible for taking men’s heads—and I mean taking them!
The great news is that women are awesome fighters, the bad news is that your head is a very valuable thing to lose.
(Credit Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
I visited with Rabbi Levy yesterday to get my tefillin checked.
I learned that if there are questions about the legibility of the holy scrolls, they are given to a child to read to see in their innocence whether the tefillin are kosher or not.
Something felt very good and important about performing this mitzvah.
In the meantime, while mine are being checked, I have a loaner pair of teffilin to use and daven with.
Yet to be seen whether it is time for a new pair or not–like a bar mitzvah all over again. 😉
(Credit Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
While sometimes children behave like “know-it-alls”…
Often an attempt to showcase what they’ve learned or to build their self-confidence. Sometimes, it’s also to bully others.
More unusual though is to find an adult that thinks and actually says they know it all.
But sure enough, I ran into someone who told me (about technology):
“I know everything!”
And they said it with a straight face.
Literally, they told me how they came up through the ranks and knew EVERYTHING with emphasis!
Moreover, they told me that if I didn’t know something, I should go ahead and ask them because they would most definitely know it.
So I respect all people and certainly admire those who are knowledgable and talented in their fields.
But something felt very wrong about an adult who feels that they have to go around bragging about the depth of their knowledge–and that their knowledge is apparently infinite (at least that’s what they espoused).
I wondered to myself–is the person arrogant and a big mouth or the opposite–lacking in self confidence and therefore needing to boast and show off to compensate for their inadequacies?
When they were talking, it seemed like their head was getting so big and full of themself that it would just explode!
Most adults with emotional intelligence realize how little they know, and the older they get the more they realize that they don’t know in life.
Especially, people of faith recognize that G-d is all-knowing and all-powerful, and we are but mere “flesh and blood” and truly just a speck of dust in the universe.
So truly smart people are humble and they look to learn from others, rather than preach and teach in a monologue of hubris.
Like many people that get too big for the britches, G-d usually brings them back down to Earth and their head to size. 😉
(Credit Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
This woman had the longest hair I have ever seen.
No, not to the shoulders, not to the mid-back, not even to the tush.
This went almost all the way to the floor.
It reminded me more of a maim on a horse than of the typical hairdo of a person.
Anyway, this must be nasty to take care and keep clean.
Also, can’t imagine having that much hair pulling on my head all the time.
In Judaism, we say that hair is the crown of a person and it is something that especially women keep modestly when married.
So while hair is nice and beautiful, you can definitely have too much of even a good thing. 😉
(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
This is the most amazing sculpture that I have ever seen.
Let me explain why?
It looks like a bust of a woman with a fine fabric lace veil over hear head and face.
But believe it or not, the veil is part of the sculpture.
And her eyes are just shadows of it.
In other words, there is no veil or eyes.
The museum tour guide pulled out a flashlight and pointed it and her eyes and they were gone.
How any artist can have such a divine gift to make something like this is really beyond me.
All I can do is stare in complete marvel at this sculpture of a veil covering this woman’s face. 😉
(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
So you always hear about the techniques used when people are being tortured…one of them being have their nails ripped off.
Ouch!
So this week when I had a ingrown toenail removed, I said jokingly to the podiatrist:
“Do you do waterboarding also?”
Ok, funny, not-funny. Still got a chuckle!
But in removing the nail, the technique is really so amazing.
They inject the toe with a local anesthetic, but hey even the injections into a sensitive toe could be pretty uncomfortable.
So before the injection, they spray you toe with a freezing spray, so you don’t even feel the injections.
When he actually removed the nail and chemically destroyed the nailbed so it wouldn’t come back, I didn’t feel a thing.
I mean, I literally didn’t feel a thing!
It was a wonderful feeling–whatever he did, however much it would’ve hurt–it didn’t.
I thought to myself in a wave of anesthetic and freeze-numbed delight, this is absolutely wonderful.
No pain, not even a pinch.
I could sense everything going on around me, take it in, think about it, even mull it over again and again, and just smile.
In a way, I thought how wonderful life would be to have the ability to think in the head and feel from the heart, but have no pain or suffering in the body.
Yes, there are plenty of damning and painful thoughts, memories, and heartaches, but for the body to be numb (even momentarily) to all the bad stuff that actually felt pretty good.
How would it feel if the mind and heart also felt no pain and only bliss–I smiled even more. 😉
(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
I thought I’d end the year with this photo that I took yesterday at the Hair Cuttery.
There is this mannequin’s head just laying on top of the washing machine.
Is that what happens to customers’ heads who don’t cooperate with their haircuts or perhaps if they don’t tip enough?
More seriously though…
Maybe this is a good picture to summarize 2015–heads are down and the hair is all messed up, but it won’t stop us from trying to wash the darn clothes going out there. 😉
(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
Rebecca was so brave and such a great sport with this parrot doing this crazy dance on her head by the beach.
(Narrated and videoed by Andy Blumenthal)
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