Thursday's Parsha Tidbits - Parshas Ki Sissa

The following is a brief summary of thoughts said over by R' Frand on the parsha this evening. I have attempted to reproduce these vorts to the best of my ability. Any perceived inconsistency is the result of my efforts to transcribe the shiur and should not be attributed to R' Frand.

In Shemos 33:18-23, there is an exchange between Hashem and Moshe where Moshe asks Hashem to show him Hashem's greatness and Hashem responds that he can only see from behind. The Gemara in Berachos states that Hashem showed Moshe the knot of the Tefillin which is worn on the back of the neck. Rashi in other places states that Moshe did not understand the knot of the Tefillin of the head because Moshe did not understand it. 

R' Frand asked - why is it that Moshe only had a problem with the knot of the Tefillin of the head? What about the way the boxes looked? What about the knot on the hand? Did Moshe understand these elements?

R' Frand answered by quoting R' Ferrer (sp?) who notes that Hashem complained to Moshe three times in the parsha that the Jews are "am k'shei oref" - a stiff necked people - at Shemos 32:9, 33:3 and 33:5. 

The Jews were rebellious and argumentative and contentious. Moshe did not understand this and Hashem had to show him that although the Jews are argumentative, there are times that this middah is positive so as to allow the Jews to withstand pressure brought by their enemies. 

R' Frand explained that Moshe wanted to know where to tie the Tefillin of the head because he wanted to know when it was appropriate to be an am k'shei oref. Hashem responded, when they act in a way that rejects and argues with religion that is a negative use of this middah. But when the Jews use it to stubbornly for perseverance and adherence to the the religion it is positive. 

R' Frand then noted that Hashem had complained to Moshe three times that the Jews were an am k'shei oref. But later in the parsha at Shemos 34:9, Moshe says to Hashem - stay with the Jews because they are an am k'shei oref. He then follows with the statement - forgive your nation! After all the complaining that Hashem had articulated to Moshe, why did Moshe turn around and use the same language to influence Hashem not to destroy the Jews? This is counter intuitive!

R' Frand answered that Moshe had learned the secret - it all depends on how they use their stubbornness. Moshe was saying to Hashem - stay with them because they will use their middah of k'shei oref in a positive way to stubbornly stick to their religion.

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Sunday Night Suds - Leinenkugel's Big Eddy Wee Heavy Scotch Ale

After a week's hiatus, Kosher Beers returns with a review of Leinenkugel's Big Eddy Wee Heavy Scotch Ale.

[Due to many issues which arose over the past week including what I will call "the Esther Project" as well as an incredible family simcha in Baltimore, I was unable to post to the blog after Sunday of last week. I can't blame my inability to post yesterday's beer review on anyone, but we can just chalk it up to my following the old adage, never blog while inebriated].

I picked this beer up in a Total Wine superstore in the Towson area. Those who live in New York are terribly deprived because there is no Total Wine outlet in this state. Having visited three Total Wne outlets over the last six weeks, I can attest that there is no store which is in any way comparable. They have aisles upon aisles of beer (at least eight in each of the stores that I visited) and they have two long aisles which are dedicated to just single bottle purchases. The upcharge on buying single bottles is a bit high (as much as 40%!) but the selection is unparalleled and the prices on six or twelve packs is competitive.

The Big Eddy line is a recent addition to the Leinenkugel family of beers and represents an initial foray into the "big beer" market. The Wee Heavy Scotch Ale is sold in four packs at prices starting at $10 per pack of 12 oz bottles. The beer has a 9.5% abv, which underscores the attempt to move beyond macrolike brews.

The Leinenkugel Wee Heavy Scotch Ale is the second kosher certified Scotch Ale which I have come across. The only other kosher Scotch Ale I saw was produced by Saranac in 2008 as a limited edition (it was the subject of the very first Sunday Night Suds review - http://kosherbeers.blogspot.com/2008/02/sunday-night-suds-saranac-scotch-ale.html). Although Samuel Adams has produced a Scotch Ale, it was never approved as kosher by the Star-K.

The Wee Heavy Scotch Ale poured a dark coffee brown with a little bit of amber foam. Before I had my first sip, I smelled the sweetness of the brew, but this is not a product of any additives or flavorings. Instead, the beer's sweet/toffee flavor is a product of the basic four ingredients and an extra long boil in the brew kettle. 

This beer is not for pairings with a meal as it is more in the line of a barleywine - something to be sipped after a meal.

Leinenkugel's Big Eddy Wee Heavy Scotch Ale is certified kosher by the Orthodox Union, but like most Leinenkugel brews, it does not have an OU on the label. If you would like a copy of the LOC please contact me via email. 

To see what the experts on Beer Advocate think about Leinenkugel's Big Eddy Wee Heavy Scotch Ale, please follow this link http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/710/78261. 

As always, please remember to drink responsibly and to never waste good beer unless there is no designated driver.

If you've tried this beer or any others which have been reviewed on the kosher beers site, please feel free to post your comments (anonymous comments are acceptable). 

If you have seen this post being carried on another site, please feel free to click http://www.kosherbeers.blogspot.com to find other articles on the kosherbeers blogsite. Hey its free and you can push my counter numbers up!

Purim 2013 Kosher Beers List

As a community service, Kosher Beers publishes a list twice a year of the beers which are known to be certified kosher. The list will be updated periodically until the next edition (Labor Day 2013). For the Purim 2013 edition, I will again be using scribd to upload and maintain list. All newly added beers are in bold.

Kosher Beers List Purim 2013

Sunday Night Suds - Samuel Adams Maple Pecan Porter

This week's Sunday Night Suds looks at Samuel Adams Maple Pecan Porter.

As winter ebbs slowly away, Samuel Adams has rolled out its spring mix box which it calls the Spring Thaw Beers. The box includes the flagship Boston Lager, last year's spring seasonal - Alpine Spring (  ), the occasionally hard to locate Irish Red and three new brews (all with a Star-K on the label!) - White Lantern, Double Agent IPL and the Maple Pecan Porter.

My first look at the Spring Thaw box came when I was in Costco. I was reluctant to purchase the box, based on the price and also since I did not know anything about the kashruth of the new varieties. Fast forward to last week and I was on my way home from work on Friday and needed to pick up some Saranac Diet Root Beer (a staple of our Shabbos table since 2009). I stopped in at my favorite local beer store - Beverage Barn on Jericho Turnpike in Garden City Park to pick up a six pack and saw that they were carrying six packs of the new Double Agent IPL and White Lantern so I picked up a bottle of each. But I still did not know the status of the Maple Pecan Porter, until...

This past Friday Night, Sarah & I were zoche to attend a shalom zachor being hosted in honor of our friends Shaun and Michelle Z's new son. After arriving at the shalom zachor and giving a warm mazal tov to Shaun and receiving a fist bump from Hunter, I was offered my first up close look at the Maple Pecan Porter. Sure enough it had a Star-K on the label, so I opened a bottle and poured some into cups for Mrs KB and me.

My first reaction to this beer is - boy is this sweet. They brew the Maple Pecan Porter with Maple Syrup and you really would need to have a severe cold to miss it. After a few sips, I started to detect a little of the nuttiness from the pecan, but it was a struggle with all the sugary maple which dominated the brew. By the time I had finished my cup, my teeth felt sticky from the maple syrup and I was sure of two things: (1) this was not a beer to have with any type of substantive meal and (2) I was glad that I had not bought the Spring Thaw box so that I did not need to find a way to get rid of multiple bottles of this pancake syrup masquerading as beer.

The Samuel Adams Maple Pecan Porter is under the Kosher Supervision of the Star-K and has a Star-K certification mark on the label. To see what the experts on Beer Advocate think about this brew, please follow this link - http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/35/88427. 

As always, please remember to drink responsibly and to never waste good beer unless there is no designated driver. If you've tried this beer or any others which have been reviewed on the kosher beers site, please feel free to post your comments (anonymous comments are acceptable). 

If you have seen this post being carried on another site, please feel free to click www.kosherbeers.blogspot.com to find other articles on the kosherbeers blogsite. Hey its free and you can push my counter numbers up!

Thursday's Parsha Tidbits - Parshas Terumah

The following is a brief summary of thoughts said over by R' Frand on the parsha this evening. I have attempted to reproduce these vorts to the best of my ability. Any perceived inconsistency is the result of my efforts to transcribe the shiur and should not be attributed to R' Frand.

This week's parsha begins with an instruction from Hashem to Moshe that he should speak to the Jewish people and collect terumah from whomever's heart inspired him to give. The collected funds were used in the construction of the Mishkan.

R' Frand quoted the Yalkut Shimoni who states that the use of the words speak to ("Daber el") are similar to the use of the words Dabru al lev Yerushalayim which appears in the Haftorah of Shabbos Nachamu. In the context of the Haftorah, Hashem speaks to the Jews in a language of peeyus - of appeasing or mollifying.

It is difficult to comprehend why the Jews needed to be appeased in the context of this week's parsha. In the Haftorah of Nachamu, the Jews had just endured the destruction of the Beis Hamkidash, a blow from which the Jews still have not recovered to this day. It is obvious that the Jews needed some uplifting talk. But in this week's parsha, the Jews had just said na'aseh v'nishma in the end of Parshas Mishpatim. The Jews were on cloud nine and had just left Egypt, why would they need to be cajoled?

R' Frand answered by saying that the parsha is teaching a truth - it is very difficult to get people to part with their money. This is the pasuk in Mishlei that it is better to have a poor man than a wealthy man with desires (not a great paraphrase on my part). Many times a person makes plans about what he will do if he wins the lottery. R' Frand gave a personal example where he said that if won the powerball and it was $350 million he would spend some money on a jet to avoid the hassle of the TSA and maybe an apartment in the Old City of Jerusalem and give the rest of the money away. But many times after a person has the money, he no longer follows through with his plans of  giving charity and he rationalizes away giving less and less.

The Jews in the midbar had no expenses as their clothes never wore out, they had the manna so there was no need to buy food. The Jews had no rent or mortgage and had money which came to them by the cartload when they left Egypt. But still they did not want to part with their money.

R' Frand told a story about how the Chofetz Chaim received 500 rubles in cash in the mail. The Chofetz Chaim was confused - why would someone trust the post office enough to mail such a fortune in cash to the yeshiva, instead of sending a money order or check? The Chofetz Chaim instructed his assistant to track down the sender and find out why the money had been sent in cash.

After some searching, the assistant was able to track down the sender and he asked the question. The donor replied that he had made a promise to himself that if a particular business deal went through, he would give 500 rubles to the Yeshiva. The deal came together towards the end of a particular day and it was too late for the man to go to get a money order or bank check. The man felt himself beginning to rationalized that the Yeshiva really did not need the full 500 rubles and that it would be OK to send 50 rubles. The man knew that if he waited until morning, it might only be 5 rubles that he would send. To guard against this possibility, the man quickly put the cash in the envelope and mailed it to the Yeshiva.

This is the meaning of the "daber el" in this week's parsha. Because Hashem knows that when a person has money, it is often times hard to get him to part with it. Therefore, Moshe is told to appease and speak nicely to the Jews when asking for donations to the Mishkan.

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Monday's Musings on Sports - Derek, Tommy and R' Moshe Feinstein

Over the weekend I read a piece on Yahoo's excellent baseball blog (Big League Stew) which reiterated a story that ran in the New York Times about the lengths that adults will go through to get Derek Jeter's autograph. (To see the blog post on Big League Stew, please click here).

The article detailed how grown men would get in line at 3 AM for a chance to possibly score the Yankee captain's autograph. If Jeter decided that this would be day that he would sign autographs, those waiting for the "magical moment" were told by a Yankee underling named John Johnson to "keep in line" and not to engage in any conversation with Jeter as  "he doesn’t want to hear about your personal life, so don’t ask him about his!”

The piece also had a humanizing side of the Yankees involving Tyler Austin, a prospect who is trying to make the team. Austin related that when he was eight years old, he attended a Chatanooga Lookouts (AA) game after which some players refused to sign autograps. Although he was only in grade school at the time, his mother told him "One day you’re going to be there, and I swear if I ever see you walk by anybody and not sign a thing for them, I will come and personally slap you right across the face."

The Jeter/Austin article reminded me of a story from one of Tommy Lasorda's books about his interaction with Buster Maynard. When Lasorda was in grade school, he volunteered as a crossing guard because he heard that the nuns would take them to a baseball game as a reward at the end of the year. When the day finally arrived, Lasorda visited Shibe Park for his first major league game. He had prepared an autograph book and approached the major leaguers, but was brushed off by a member of the other team who Lasorda did not recognize. Lasorda checked the scorecard and learned that the players name was Buster Maynard.

Years later, Lasorda was a minor league pitcher for the Dodgers and was pitching in a game in the South Atlantic League. When the announcer gave word that Buster Maynard would be the next batter, Lasorda knew what he would do. Lasorda threw the first pitch at Maynard's head. Then he threw the next pitch at Maynard's head. After he threw the third pitch at Maynard, Maynard charged the mound. 

After the game was over, Maynard sought Lasorda out in the locker room. Maynard said to him - I never faced you in a game before, so why did you throw at me. Lasorda told him the story of how he went to Shibe Park as a kid and Maynard brushed him off. Maynard left the locker room, shaking his head.

In contrast to Maynard and Jeter's actions, I would like to briefly reiterate a story that R' Frand told a few weeks ago about R' Moshe Feinstein, zt'l. One summer, R' Moshe and his family went to a bungalow colony for a planned vacation. After a few days, R' Moshe told his family that they needed to go home. He did not tell them why they were going home and they did not ask why. Instead, they called R' Yaakov Kaminetsky zt'l and asked why R' Moshe had moved his family back to the city. R' Yaakov called R' Moshe and learned that an almanah (widow) was living next door to their bungalow. The widow's daughter would come and sing for her and this created a kol isha problem for R' Moshe. Rather than tell the woman of the problem created by the singing, R' Moshe moved his family back from the country to the Lower East Side, so that the woman would not feel uncomfortable.

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