Ran Out of Adderall, so Here's the Most Random Post Ever

1. I’m participating in a panel on ‘the compatibility of religion and humor’ later this week, with a Priest and a Minister (it even sounds like the beginning of a joke). I’ve got some ideas, but am on the lookout for more. There’s so much there. I want to start w/ the idea that God has a sense of humor (‘yosheiv shamayim yischak, HASHEM yil’ag lamo’) and move forward from there, but any ideas would be great. When I agreed to participate in this panel in November, none of us had any idea how timely the topic would be.
2. In preparation for the date that my 5-year-old daughter and I have to see ‘Curious George’ this Sunday, we viewed some trailers on my laptop. [I should mention that our mutual fascination with George started 2 years ago, when she and I went as George and the Man in the Yellow Hat for Purim. We were awesome!] Anyhow, she asked me why George was on my computer. I explained to her that he isn’t. Really, George is on a computer somewhere far away, probably California. I sent a signal telling that computer to send George to my screen. My computer talks to the computer where George is by flying through the air from my computer to the neighbor’s computer, and from there through wires all the way to George’s computer. And the whole thing takes just a few seconds. I’m in awe of the fact that this is the kind of thing that she’ll grow up taking for granted.
3. Krum recommends that the Arab world “give Denmark the French treatment. Re-name the Danish the Pastry of Muhammed (sic)”. ROTFLMAO!
4. It was nice to see another blogger posting about Levinas for a change!
5. The officials robbed the Seahawks of a Super Bowl victory.
6. Parshat Bo reminds me of one of my favorite teaching stories. I was teaching a pre-Pesach series on the development and structure of the Hagaddah (it wasn’t nearly as boring as that sounded) entitled “From Moses to Maxwell House” to a group of adults at a Conservative Synagogue. We started by learning the relevant parts of the Chumash. Reading the latter portion of Parshat Bo inside. We were trying to make sense of it – what parts are God to Moses, what parts are Moses to the Israelites, what’s about ‘Chag Ha-Matzot’, what’s about ‘Chag Ha-Pesach’, what’s one-time instruction, and what’s for posterity? One of the women in the group, trying to figure all of this out, looks up from her Etz Hayim Chumash and says “This is really complicated stuff”. She was in her fifties, and had finally graduated third grade!