Showing posts with label Yom Kippur. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Yom Kippur. Show all posts

Thursday, September 16, 2021

Atone This

Yom Kippur. The Jewish Day of Atonement. I shouldn't even have made coffee this morning much less opened this computer and begun a post. We are cynical and jaded. As a former British Army officer and Palmach soldier friend of our grandfather's once said at the beginning of a Passover Seder, 'Does anyone believe this crap? let's eat.' Also, I love bacon. I'm a bad Jew. 

Here's a great article from the Times of Israel on the Israeli government reaction to the imminent Arab attack in 1973. The Arabs took the IDF completely by surprise, so much so it is rumored the Israelis pulled their A-bombs out of the bunkers. For Israel the opening day of the Yom Kippur War is 9/11 and Pearl Harbor rolled into one. 

Which has always struck us as odd. Or maybe not. The Jews are, after all, a Mediterranean people. Reader(s) know how excitable they are. All that jibber-jabber and effluent hand-gesturing. The Italian, the Arab and the Jew.....Anyway even with the Israelis being totally 100% surprised, the war ended with Ariel Sharon whipping it out and taking a piss in Suez. 

Our next and one of our last remaining magazine articles to come out, will be about the battle in the Sinai, specifically the Battle of the Chinese Farm. It was a heck of an armored engagement. On a side note, Decision Games is still sitting on articles we sent in 5, 10, 15 years ago and still publishes them despite our not having returned the latest writer's contract. We've no idea how many remain or even the subject matter. We shake our head more in disappointment than anger. 

This incompetence is one of the reasons we don't write history magazine articles anymore. Why bother when we can crank out 800 words for our KGB handler and see it published 12 hours after we send it in. Also, Maxim has never published our work under someone else's byline and stiffed us. When the KGB pays better than you, that's a problem. Decision Games, don't ever change. 

Tuesday, October 8, 2019

Atonement

Sundown tonight marks the beginning of Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement.

[Son of a bitch!-Ed]

I know, right?

We're no Ben Shapiro so we won't be fasting, but we will be going to services tomorrow. Mrs. Stroock will be attending tonight as well. Someone has to operate the dance taxi and we're someone.

Overall the ceremony is sort of like one big, year long confession packed into one service which seems like it takes all year. Tomorrow's service is something like four and a half hours. It's a real slog. 

But you're not really absolved. The Rabbi doesn't tell you to say four Hail Mary's, five Rosaries and go in peace or anything like that.

[I bloody well hope not-Ed].

You're merely putting everything for which you need to atone out on the table. As if Hashem does not already know. He's Hashem, afterall.  They say it's supposed to make you feel better. Whatever, man.

Great, we already feel our Yom Kippuer headache coming on.

Baruch Atah Adonai
Elehenu Melech H'alom