Poppin' the Burger Cherry

So, Burger King's new commercial campaign is based around the concept of 'Burger Virgins' choosing between a Whopper or a Big Mac in a taste test. Apparently there are people out there who have never eaten grilled beef.

They've gone as far north as Alaska, treating whole tribes of Inuit to never-before-tasted fast food fare. They've traveled to the far flung villages of Transylvania (yes...it's a real place) and fed the hungry masses meat patties with grill marks and sesame seed buns.

Here's the thing. I wouldn't ask a 'Car Virgin' to help me choose between a Taurus or an Accord. I wouldn't ask a 'Movie Virgin' to decide whether I should see Deep Impact or Armageddon. And I certainly wouldn't ask a 'Virgin Virgin' to offer an opinion on positions (wink wink, nudge nudge).

The notion that people who have never in their life eaten a burger would know better than me which sandwich tastes better is as ridiculous as this very sentence. The audacity of Burger King to circumvent all expert opinions and subject us to these know-nothing fast-foodies is infuriating. It shows a disregard and disrespect towards you and me. After all, we are the folks who have been eating burgers for most of our lives and let me tell you, we know a good burger when we taste it.

Of course, the really frustrating part is that...yes, the Whopper is a superior burger! I mean, really. The Big Mac is just two regular patties separated by a useless piece of bread. The Whopper is just...more delicious. I had one the other day, it still holds up!

So, dear readers. Take not this rant to be a call to action. Rather, one man's admonition of an unfortunate marketing scheme. 

'Burger Virgins' indeed. That's like asking a blind guy if this outfit makes me look fat.

Say it with me now, mo-neat...

I took a cab in Tel Aviv the other day, not really a milestone in and of itself, but I did find myself in a bit of an awkward position.

You see, in the past, when I was just a wee lad, I would be 'placed' into a cab. Often times, my father would stuff me into the front seat, tell the driver where I was heading and off we went.

For those of you who missed it, I said 'front seat.' So, this time around, when I hailed an empty cab, I saw that I had the option of either front seat or back seat. In the States, it's customary to sit in the back, but I'm not really sure what the protocol is here.

To make matters worse, just as the cab had pulled over, I was

 spotted by a friend of my father's. "Hey, David! How's it going? Where are you headed? Blah-blah-blah." I was so flustered by the encounter that at the last minute I called an audible and went around the car to sit in the front seat, worrying I may insult the driver if I were to sit in the back.

So here I am, riding shot-gun in a cab in Tel Aviv. If there were a gauge for Uncomfortable Silences, this particular moment would have broken the needle. I tried my best to 'act normal,' like I always sat up front.

I looked out the window and tried not to clear my throat too much. I shifted in my seat dozens of times and silently prayed for the driver to start the small-talk. Nothing.

It was the longest five minutes of my life. It's such a strange sensation sitting that close to someone and not saying a word. There was no radio, no weird questions about that state of affairs or the weather. Just two grown men, in a car, ignoring each other.

Oh, The Places You'll Go! (part 3) - Simchat Torah

Today was Simchat Torah. Literally translated, it means the Joy of the Torah. It concludes the marathon of holidays that starts with Rosh Ha-Shana, the jewish New Year, then Yom Kippur, a fun-filled day of fasting for the Lord's appeasement, which is then followed by Sukkot, a harvest holiday in which every meal is eaten outdoors in a palm-roofed cabana.

We had arrived in Hadera, the small city where my father grew up, on the day prior. Among other things, it is one of the first cities the Jews settled in after (and during) the establishment of the State of Israel. We were staying in the house he grew up in, the house in which his parents ran a small market and provided room and board to Romanian immigrants. 

Across the street is a small -I mean small! - Temple. At capacity, it can't possibly hold more than thirty men. It's the one both he and I were Bar Mitzvah'd in, practically unchanged after all these years.

At quarter to seven the next morning, we walked in to greet a roomful of dark-skinned men wrapped in Talis. As is usual for any Yemenite gathering, half of the people there were relatives. It's amazing how many cousins I have. Each one related to me by This Person's sister or That One's grandfather.

For those unfamiliar with a Yemenite service, let me set the scene. Unlike an American (or even Israeli) service, there is no rabbi to lead the prayer. Once the necessary requirement of ten grown men (a Minyan) has been reached, an agreed upon member of the congregation steps up the the podium and begins reciting from the prayer-book.

The rest of us soon join in, sounding first like an orchestra tuning itself to an "A" as we gradually reach a consensus on pace and volume, and then like a bagpipe, as words are drawn out with care, a few alto voices cutting through the sound scape and floating effortlessly over the mid-range bed of prayer words written centuries prior.

Simchat Torah is a particularly significant holiday, because it marks the reading of the final chapter of the Torah. It takes a full year to read all five books chapter-by-chapter, one each weekend. The final chapter of the final book of the Torah is primarily a series of blessings Moses bestows upon the twelve tribes of Israel. Having written the entire volume of bible thus far, Moses lets Joshua take over. He writes the remaining 'paragraphs' in which Moses ascends to a mountain, having been forbidden to enter Israel for an earlier indiscretion. 

Before the prayers started that morning (at quarter to seven AM!!!), a bit of business had to be dealt with. Auctioned off to the highest bidder, was the honor of leading the morning service, reading each of the six 'paragraphs' of the chapter, and carrying the six copies of Torah scrolls. In what ended up being a festive bidding war, members of the congregation tried to out-bid others by varying amounts. Some would bid 10 Shekels, other 30, and still others would bid in increments of 18, the numerical value for the word Chai (H-a-i) which means strength in Hebrew.

Finally there was the Torah Groom. He would be the lucky fellow who would read the final portion of the final chapter of the final book and then immediately start us off with the first portion of the first chapter of the first book (Genesis), thus bringing us back to the start. From here on, every week we will read a chapter from the Torah until, one year from now, we reach the end and celebrate with Simchat Torah. 

OK, so we've bid out the different tasks, we've taken our place, now let's do this! The morning prayer goes as usual and soon it's time to read the Torah. Those who won the honor, take the Torah scrolls from behind the velvet curtain and place them upon the podium. The one that's been prepped is opened and the reading commences. One by one, the men approach, bless, and read. It's an orderly process that's been performed this way since Jews started reading the Torah. First a Cohen, then  a Levi, then what's known as 'third', then 'fourth' and so on. 

A Yemenite service is not a stuffy affair, to be sure. Should a word be mispronounced, any member of the group may take it upon himself to make a correction. In fact, most times they'll just shout it out until the reader goes over and pronounces it correctly. Better to be right then quick. Also, should there be any question as to the order of things, the men will argue right then and there until an agreement can be reached. In a Yemenite Temple, consensus is correctness.

The reading nearly complete, the opportunity now presents itself for anyone at all to come up and read one of the blessings Moses bestows in this chapter. Most are only three sentences long, and the honor is so great that people practice for this moment well in advance, myself included. 

At first, children go up. It's sort of like a prep for the Bar Mitzvah, which is the most terrifying moment in any thirteen year old boy's life. After the kids go up and do their thing, it's my turn. 

I've practiced the few lines at home with my dad. When the Torah is in book form, it has all of the pronunciation marks and rhythmic cues. You can see clearly when to start, hold, stop-short, finish with flair, etc. Just like sheet music, each word is marked according to how it is to be read out-loud. 

The scroll, however, is naked of all but the letters, which in Hebrew is little more than a rough guide as to what the word may actually be. My heart raced as I got up to the podium. I recited the opening blessing for memory. It was the same I had been reciting for years, a necessary greeting to the scroll as a way of reverence for the parchment itself. 

I can't quite tell you how I managed to get through it, other than a: once you're up there, there's no turning back, b: I'm related to most of the people in the room, so the crowd's on my side, and c: reading the Torah's hard, once you accept that, you just try to do your best and not cry.

I somehow finished without anyone screaming corrections at me and I was soon lavished with praise I felt undeserving, but, come on, who am I to argue?

Once the reading had come to a stopping point, juuuuuuuust before the end, we took a break to do some dancing...seriously. The seats were pushed up against the wall and we paraded the Torah scrolls around the podium while singing songs and blessings. From the doorway, women threw candy at us as children dove through our legs to get as much of it as they could.

This went on for nearly half an hour until we moved the party outside, at which point we were joined by a group of young men from a nearby yeshiva. They had their own Torah, and they joined in step as we continued singing and dancing and dancing and singing.

It's no small feat to finish reading the Torah, that which has long been considered by the Jews as one of the greatest gifts god gave them, and to do so was certainly cause for celebration.

After a few more passes around the crowd, the Torah scrolls were gently set aside and we sat down to eat a delicious assortment of traditional Yemenite breakfast foods. Most of which included something made of dough, a staple of any Yemenite meal, dates, fruits, and even some Ar'rak, a Middle Eastern liquor which can be brewed of nearly anything, but mostly just tastes like licorice. 

The morning crept into afternoon, and after nearly six hours of merriment and prayer, we had completed our part of the bargain, we had celebrated the Joy of the Torah, and we had done so with style. 

After an exhausting month of celebrating, we have reset the dial back to zero and are now ready to commence with the day-to-day activities that make up our lives. The year can truly begin anew and we've thoroughly cleansed ourselves of any after-taste the previous year may have left behind.

Personal belief aside, it's been nice to be here for the holidays. Tradition has a way of grounding me and giving me something else to think of other than the usual chaos I obsess over. 

Your family says a lot about you. There's no denying the influences those in your life have had over those in your life who are close to you. They have helped shape the person you are slowly becoming. I think that in order to know where you're going, you need to know where you came from, and I've clearly come from a warm, caring place.