I peregrinate on Yom Kippur

September 25, 2012 • 2:47 pm

Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement, begins this evening and lasts one day.  It’s characterized by two things: many “secular Jews” go to synagogue for their yearly visit, and it’s a day of fasting whose end is marked by the traditional blowing of the shofar—a ram’s horn.  Here are videos showing both features.

First, a clever parody of secular Judaism:

And here’s a shofar video; the YouTube notes say this:

Come and watch what happen to a friendly dog when it hears the shofar sound In Ellul Month from the rabbi Binyamin Zipel from Haba’d In Salt Lake City In Utah.

I will atone for working too hard by leaving tomorrow for a longish trip across the pond. I’ll be visiting Portugal, where I’ll give two talks, one of which helps launch the new Portuguese edition of WEIT (see announcement and book cover here), and also sample the vintage ports of the Douro. Then I fly to Vienna where I’ll give one talk and spend some time with Messrs. Klimt, Schiele, and Dürer.

I’ll be back on October 17, and have given the site into the hands of Drs. Mayer and Cobb. I’ll be posting occasionally, and have also prepared some posts in advance.  But Greg is in charge of the weekly Caturday felid (not one missed in 3.5 years), so complain to him if it doesn’t appear.

For those of you who are expecting autographed and illustrated copies of WEIT for donating to Doctors Without Borders, hang on a bit. As I said, I’ve run out of books, but have ordered more from Penguin. You’ll all get your books after I returned.

Tchau und bis bald!

h/t: Hempenstein, Ivan

37 thoughts on “I peregrinate on Yom Kippur”

      1. In fairness, not only is it a pretty obvious joke unto itself, the short above is a full-length skit while it was just a toss-off in the TV show. Even if the TV joke inspired the short, there’s an awful lot more going on in the short than the show.

        If the short is intellectually dishonest, then so is every “variations on a theme by ____” ever written.

        b&

  2. `Bad Karma’ is great, and even funnier if you know what they’re poking fun at.

    Now if I had a dog like that I’d go out and make a shofar. For some reason I imagined that the ram’s horn might sound more like a bull’s horn rather than a party horn. I’d be tempted to extend the horn to get a nice lowing sound.

    1. The larger shofars can produce lower notes and it’s easier to get a decent sound out of them. The bore is uneven, so the harmonics of one shofar may not be the same as another.

    1. I don’t know if Jerry would be fasting. Then again, if you are going to fast, it might as well be during a period where your only choice is airplane food. 🙂

      Have a good trip Jerry. I hope it is a fun one.

      1. I’m sure you’re right, but it’s something that in my experience many Jews say to one another at this time of year without really stopping to wonder whether the other person is actually going to fast. I view it more as a seasonal greeting.

        1. In Hebrew, people say “tzom kal”, which means “easy fast” – which I always though was kind of defeating the purpose – fasting isn’t suppose to easy, after all.
          Since almost everyone I know is secular (and a lot are atheists) we sometimes say it to each other as a joke.

      2. I like to cycle through the alternative diets on planes because you get served earlier. The time I asked for kosher, the attendant was particularly attentive, asking if I drank tea, and my seatmate treated me like some interesting new species. Coming back, Pesach (Passover) had started. Unleavened bread, like big burnt waterbiscuit (US: cracker), you can keep it.

          1. The matzohs you get commercially are generally indistinguishable from the cardboard packaging they’re sold in.

            But it’s easy to make your own matzohs — they’re just flour and water — and those can be quite tasty. Especially if you grind the wheat right before you make the matzohs.

            Of course, they won’t have been blessed by some dude with sideburns dressed in black, but they’ll be much better eats — and a lot more authentic, as well. And they actually make a really good waybread — pack some matzohs with a good dried kielbasa or a hard cheese and you’ll be able to put many miles on the trail.

            Cheers,

            b&

    3. He’s changed the header, but the cdesign proponentist evidence is still there in the URL for this page.

      Père gin ate. Sounds like he is going to eat with the Pope after enjoying some gin and tonic with him.

    4. Peregrination is of course not just any travelling or wandering, but making a pilgrimage. As Chaucer knew, the time for doing that is Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote The droghte of Marche hath perced to the roote (at least in the Northern Hemisphere).

      I’m thinking a Portuguese version of WEIT will be good for the Brazilian market. When’s the Arabic coming out?

  6. Have a blast out there! Your post kind-of reminded me of an Onion article from way back… when it was only available on paper.

    Sept 11, 1996
    JERUSALEM—Jews the world over are preparing to celebrate Rosh Hashanukah or something this weekend, the traditional Jewish holiday marking some sort of rebirth and new beginning, or maybe the Jews’ liberation from some foreign ruler 55,000 years ago. “Rash Kishansha is a very holy time for the Jewish people,” said Paul Castellano, a guy from Houston whose gastroenterologist is Jewish. “I think Dr. Futterman said it’s the holiday where they light that chandelier and blow that horn.” Lasting 12 days, Ran Hosea is followed by Yor Kiplach, the Festival of Sand, during which no buttered bread may be eaten in remembrance of the flooding of the ancient Temple of Hosea.

  8. If possible, a few pics of Durer’s work would be much appreciated. He’s a favourite of mine

  9. Re the shofar: I prefer my Tibetan conch shell temple horn (nicer sound). And consider this: ram’s horns probably can just be picked up off the ground in Israel, but procuring a conch shell in Tibet takes some commitment.

  10. I teach a course on the History of AntiSemitism and I showed the shofar video in class last week with the caption: “Are Witnessing an Act of Anti-Semitism”? The students watched with great intent: Some of them thought the rabbi was actually just some guy mocking Judaism and others seemed to be waiting for rocks to be thrown. Then dog started howling…

  12. Religious or not, if you’re in Israel, you’re going to notice Yom Kipur. There is no TV, no Radio, and in most places, no cars in the streets. I actually kinda like it, and miss it now I’m in the US. We would go for walks in the middle of the road, and kids ride bicycles everywhere.
    For most secular people, it became an opportunity to hang out together. Friends gather in groups and spend the days watching movies together (DVD stores would always have their best days of the year just before Yom-Kipur). It was usually the one day of the year when I saw more TV than on any other day… and probably also ate more than on any other day. As a courtesy to neighbors who might actually be fasting, we did close the windows when we fried the bacon for breakfast.

  18. “[…]and also sample the vintage ports of the Douro.”

    Hopefully not only Ports. There are so many other fascinating wines there and so many wonderful autochthonous grape varieties that are on the verge of extinction: try some wines from Colares (Ramisco is the rare grape there) or some of the Baga grape and you will have utterly unique dry reds, often of outstanding quality.

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