Happy Thanksgiving

Except that here it's "Happy Regular Thursday!"

I have a lot to be thankful for: challenging classes, cool friends, awesome roommates, acceptance into the Israeli culture, beautiful environs, and being in Israel for a year. I'm also thankful for my Thanksgiving feast tonight: neon-yellow potatoes, cottage cheese, carrots, olives, hard-boiled eggs, and, of course, cucumbers. Festive enough, right?

Today was a lot of fun, learning about rodef, the Jewish concept of a person chasing another to kill him. The conclusion was that the Torah does not have laws about a rodef; rather, it enumerates the laws about saving the nirdaf, the person being chased, saying that one must save the nirdaf at all costs (first by trying to cut off a limb, then ultimately killing him). So basically, after two months at yeshiva, we have learned about ben sorer u'morehl, the wayward and rebellious son who the gmara says never existed and never will exist; and different kinds of the rodef, who we learned also doesn't really exist. So two months, two units of gmara of non-existant scenarios. Fun. I also got my fourth b'kiyut chevruta, a boger named Rotam. We are learning tractate Megillah, so stay tuned on how that turns out.

Gotta go to sleep soon, but I though I'd share this from today's Torah & Science class. The topic was how to understand truth from words, first needing to make sure the words and sentences are understandable and meaningful. Then, only then, can one look for truth:
1. The potter made the urn.
2. potter urn The made the. (confusion about syntax)
3. The carpenter made the urn. (unable to match correct subject with object)
4. Anger made the urn. (confusion about subject)
5. 1024 made the urn. (subject in wrong language)
6. The derivative from 1 to 2 of x dx = 1.5. (language understood, but in numbers, non-helpful)
7. [non-English letters] (unreadable letters)

I hope you understood that. I understood that, at least, I think I understood it in class. Whatever.

Happy Thanksgiving.