Documentary: The Boy With the Incredible Brain

Just a heads-up, this video is aprox 45 minutes long.

Why I Love Calculus

Click here to find out

Are words necessary?

YES, yes they are... post your comments below

Wild Pigs in Europe

I didn't realise that there were still wild pigs in eastern Europe, but apparently Robert Reichel (the NHL player) was charged by one near the drawbridge of a castle outside of Prague last year. (Fortunately for Reichel, he managed to dodge it at the last second and it plunged into the water; hence, Reichel showed the moat a boar.)

The Voldie Oldie

"Moonlight Desires" (Gowan, 1987)

QUOTI OF THE DAY

"Ah! I'm tearing the floor apart."
"It's to match the ceiling."

- JM, MF the Elder, in former Israel Program Centre

From Baseball Shorts

"You eat a lot of chicken because you don't know what the other meat is."

- Barry Jones, on playing winter ball in the Dominican Republic

On Asking Questions the Rishonim Didn't Ask

http://darklordsblog.blogspot.com/2007/03/on-asking-questions-rishonim-didnt-ask.html

RBP Is Famous

http://hirhurim.blogspot.com/2007/03/some-torah-links.html

Hirsch Article Now Available Online

http://www.stevens.edu/golem/llevine/rsrh/

Brilliant Mathematical Comment from Hirhurim

citing my brother-in-law:

I know 1 million digits of Pi. And they're all 7.

josh waxman Homepage 03.14.07 - 1:23 pm #

(Commenting on the post http://hirhurim.blogspot.com/2007/03/happy-pi-day.html.)

The Voldie Oldie

"Martha My Dear" (The Beatles, 1968)

QUOTI OF THE DAY

"You bring up the soul of Ben-Gurion, and you say, 'How is it in Gehennom?'"

- RBP, describing seances

From Baseball Shorts

"Birds eat those things. I told the team I'm afraid some of you guys might start molting on me or maybe go to the bathroom on newspaper."

- Rocky Bridges, on players who eat sunflower seeds

On the Study of History

Modern science has demonstrated the enormous value of empirical study in testing theorems and thereby isolating the truth from everything else. Unfortunately, planned and controlled experimentation is not possible in all fields of human intellectual endeavour. For example, a theory of national governance cannot be tested in a laboratory to see whether it results in a just and happy society.

I believe that one of the principal merits of the study of history is that it reveals the closest available approximations of experimental evidence regarding political and sociological questions. The dynamics of every historical situation are highly complex and only ever partially understood, and no situation ever repeats itself in all its details - so no social theory can ever be rigorously tested for accuracy or effectiveness in one historical scenario and then applied to another with any sort of guarantee of success. Nonetheless, history provides us with the best (and only) empirical evidence that exists about humanity - in particular, about the human collective. It therefore allows us to test and improve our understanding of humanity via some of the methods that make science so reliable and successful.

The Voldie Oldie

"The Great Beyond" (R.E.M., 1999)

From Baseball Shorts

"That's more than I expectorated."

- Frenchy Bordagaray, on being fined $50 for spitting

QUOTI OF THE DAY

"You know what's pathetic? When the highlight of your day at school is taking a dump."

- JS Jr.

The Voldie Oldie

"Real Love" (The Beatles, 1996)

From Baseball Shorts

"On Father's Day, we again wish you all happy birthday."

- Ralph Kiner (announcer)

QUOTI OF THE DAY

"Well, some women, you know... oh my god."

- MH

Ephraim Stulberg on Ki Tisa, 5767

Please note that Ephraim has now entitled this feature "Occasional D'var Torah."--HWMNBN

The phrase "interesting grammatical observation" might sound like a contradiction in terms to most, but I believe it may be aptly applied to a verse in P' Ki Sisa. I refer to 31:15, where we are told that"for six days shall work be performed." The passive "ye'asseh" is of course masculine, in spite of the fact that its subject is the feminine "melakha". And so follows the question: What's up with that?

R' Yaakov Kamenetzky, which used to be spelled "Kamenecky" (which makes one wonder if Wayne Gretzky was once "Grecky" - ugh!), observes that in many instances in which the word "kol", or "all", is used to modify a noun, the gender of the verb/adjective used to describe even a feminine noun will be masculine. Thus, in P' Bo, we have the phrase "kol melakha lo ye'aseh bahem" (12:16), where the masculine "ye'aseh" refers back to the word "kol" more than it does to the feminine "melakha". R' Kamenetzky suggests that the verse in Ki Sisa is to be read as though the word "kol" were present.

R' Kamenetzky also quotes the opinion of a certain R' Nathan, who appears to have been some sort of confederate of his back in Lithuania, who explains the incidence in P' Bo by positing a rule in which the gender of passively constructed verbs does not necessarily correspond to the gender of their related nouns. R' Kamenetzky issome what dismissive of this suggestion, though it clearly solves the question in P' Ki Sisa much more effectively.

The truth is that R' Nathan's suggestion had already been anticipatedby an earlier authority, namely Radaq, who typed out his comments on I Kings 2:21 on a Compaq computer. He explains that when the passive voice is employed, it creates a sort of gap between noun and verb. Radaq reads the verse in Kings as follows: "It shall be given, namely Avishag the Shunamite, to Adoniyahu". Likewise, we would read: "For six days it shall be done, namely 'work'". Actually, this is not very different from the explanation given by R' Kamenetzky. R' Kamenetzky makes the important point of noting that the phenomenon is not limited to the nifal, and that it really applies in any case where a neuter noun is employed. However, R' Nathan's point is also crucial, for it recognizes that this phenomenon will be much more prevalent in cases in which the nifal is utilized, thus creating an implicit break between subject and verb which is filled by the invisible neuter.