Thanks God, Sincerely, Pharaoh

People often ask about the point of the ten plagues.

After all, on a scale of one to ten on how difficult it would have been for God to simply have the Jews waltz out of Egypt (or perhaps hora out would have been more appropriate), the number is probably somewhere between easy- shmeesy and no- sweat (technical terms often used by actuaries). So again, why all the drama? Okay it would have made a pretty boring movie plot otherwise, but our seder would certainly have been shorter! "We were slaves, then we weren't. Let's eat!"

Here is a list of a couple of answers (some better than others).

• God purchased His 'geting out of Egypt kit' at Costco, and didn't want to waste it.

Nah

• The Egyptians made the Jews suffer so much over the years, they deserved a little payback.

OK, but why the creative, nature altering plagues? Why not just make them eat sardines or something?

• God wanted to show his complete control over the world. Weather, livestock, health, economy, wind, wild beasts. Once He did that, nobody can question his abilities. (Ramban)

Now we're talking! Is there something more?

• God got a real laugh out of frogs and it all sort of flowed from there.

Are you feeling okay, Locker?

• It was actually being nice to the Egyptians!

Huh?

• No really. They did bad stuff. Had God just said, "Game over, exit Jews," they would not have had the chance to improve. This way, God gave them chance after chance- "Hellloooo, wake up Pharaoh. You're evil. Please change your ways or else I'll beat you up."


• It's kinda like a parent who finds out their kid did something really damaging. A lazy parent just cleans up the mess and doesn't mention it to the child. A proactive parent takes the time to explain to the child where they went wrong, and provides consequences if they refuse to improve.


• Although the Egyptians may not have realized it at the time, the plagues were (at least partially) for their benefit! Ironic. (Seforno).

Never would have thought of that

So it wasn't just, "Hey Egyptians, you just wait until my big brother finds out you've been bullying me and then you'll be sorry." It actually made a lot of sense for the evil Egyptias, who, after all their wickedness, are still children of God, too.

Pesach themed cartoons

Here are a couple of Passover themed cartoons I sketched for one of my teen classes.
The idea behind the classes was to admit that the seder, indeed the whole Passover experience (although fun) can be very confusing if you look at it from an intelectual angle, and to explain in depth how it all makes perfect sense. Giving teens and appreciation for the beauty of the holiday and its rituals.


This one was from the first class in the series which dealt with the difficulty in understanding the purpose of the whole holiday.


This class dealt specifically with the structure of the Haggadah, and how to understand its organization, thereby developing a deeper appreciation for its seemingly random paragraphs.

If you won't come to the Mountain

One of the least know, yet most important Jewish holidays begins tonight. Know what it is?

If you're scratching your head right now, then you probably need a new bottle of Head n Shoulders. Aside from that, you need to check out these articles about SHAVUOT.

http://www.aish.com/shavuotthemes/shavuotthemesdefault/Shavuot_Family_Parsha.asp

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shavuot

Shavuos, or Shavuot is one of my personal favorites, and not just because my wife made cheese cake in a chocolate pie crust. It celebrates our graduation (yo, Jeff, can I get some pomp and circumstance?) from the U 0f Sinai (known as JUST- Jewish University at Sinai- Torah). It's when G-d gave us all the instructions and tools we need to be good people and productive people. In honor of that, some of us stay up all night (just like color war) and sleep all day (like a waiter).

I plan on learning Torah all night long tonight. Crack open a Jewish book and learn a bit yourself. The credits count towards your graduation.

Bring it

Here's a little song I wrote about the holiday of Shavuos (starting tonight):
To the tune of 'Just wrap it'

Sha-sha-sha-vuos, for thee I be yearnin'
Sha-sha-sha-vuos, all night I be learnin'

Three thousand years back, plus,
we was chillin out at Sinai,
G-d asked us to accept,
and we said a-ight; fine - I

will do and I will listen,
to the rules that you make
and then when we be done,
we gonna eat cheesecake

Sha-sha-sha-vuos
Sha-sha-sha-vuos

Yup you got it, tonight sis Shavuos, the holiday that we celebrate receiving the Torah (bible), our guidebook to life. It also happens to be the best selling book of all time (eat that J.K. Rowling!).

You're probably all asking, "Dani, what's your favorite thing about Shavuos?"
Well, maybe not all of you are asking that, just some of you...
OK, OK, so none of you care, I'm gonna tell you anyway, so just quiet down and listen!

When the Jewish people camped around Mt. Sinai to get the Torah, it says, "He camped beneath the mountain." Why does it say 'he', if it was a whole group of a few million people (some people say that the 'he' is referring to my imaginary friend Bartholomew, but it's a minority opinion)?

The answer is that the Jewish people at that time were such good friends- they had such unity (go unity, go unity, it's your birthday, etc.), that it was as if they were one person!

It's easy to love Jews who go to Camp Nageela, but the lesson we learn on Shavuos, is that in order for us to get on G-d's good side (and let's face it, that's about as good brownie points as you're gonna get), we gotta love every Jew, and treat them as if they were our own left pinky toe (pedicure, anyone?).

Also... note the title of this post, "Bring it."
On Shavuos people would bring offerings of the first fruit that grew in their fields, to thank G-d for giving them fruit (I always bring offerings of my first pickles). It's sorta like the original Thanksgiving. Appreciate the people who give us stuff.

So this Shavuos, don't forget to bring it!

Dvar Torah, Dvar Torah, Dvar, dvar...

At the very end of this week's Torah reading (for those who stay awake long enough to hear it) is a line thsat says, "And you shall be holy, for I [G-d] am holy."

You might not know it, but the Torah tells us not to eat insects. You know that 4 inch slimy cockroach that's been zipping around your bathtub? Yeah, the one that looks kind of like... never mind, I don't want to insult anyone.

You might have the attitude, "yuck, who would wanna eat that (Mordechai just got a new idea for the canteen)?" The Torah is saying that we should think, "hmmm, maybe it is good. There are even some ppl who might want to eat it. I won't eat it because G-d doesn't want me to eat it!"

There are lotsa mitzvas that are real easy to keep, because we wouldn't wanna do anything different (have you ever gotten an urge to drink blood? If you have I don't want you back in camp... but anyway the Torah doesn't let us eat blood), but it's an extra mitzva to do it because G-d wants us to do it, and not for any other reason.

So when you come back to Camp Nageela this summer, don't do it because it's the coolest, most amazing, fun, chillin, adventurous, wacky place in the world. Do it because G-d wants you to!

Happy New Year!

Dvar Torah, Dvar Torah, Dvar...

This Shabbat we get to read from two separate Torah scrolls (yipppeeee!)

. We read the special part about the mitzva to make months, and to make this upcoming month (Nissan) the first month. So that means this week is New years!!! Hooray!

Let’s picture this scene for a minute.

The Jews are comin’ out of Egypt after bashing and trashing- bumping and thumping- smashing and crashing Egypt for a full year. G-d had pulled off some pretty cool stuff for them including an animal show that would make ANIMAL PLANET look like a petting zoo, a pretty HOT hail storm, and the worst water shortage (or rather blood plenty) in history. HE brought skin diseases that would make anthrax seem like sugar and a plague on all the cattle that left the Egyptians wishing they had any cows to get mad cow disease. All the Egyptian radio and TV stations were forced to close down due to darkness, and ConEd of Cairo insisted they were doing all in their power to get things back on track… to no avail.

Okay, okay, I’m getting a little carried away with my imagination, but my point is that G-d had just done awesome stuff for the Jewish people. They were ready for the real deal- the mitzvos- the Torah.

What’s THE FIRST MITZVAH that G-d gave them? Making the Jewish calendar. Huh? What’s so important about that?

The answer of course is because we need a calendar to know when Camp nageela starts, and to know when visiting day will be so we can plan our candy consumption.

Besides that there might be another reason (duh)

The months are a majorly important part of being Jewish for a bunch of reasons. One of them is because the Jewish people are just like the moon (yup, we're made of green cheese, too). The moon gets bigger and smaller, and when it's small we know that it's gonna get big again. We're like that too. We go through some tough times, but with G-d on our side, like HE was in Egypt back in the day, we're in pretty good shape.
There may not be a man in the moon, but there is a little moon in every man.