Every Hanukkah, menorahs appear around every Jewish community. Chabad expends a significant amount of time and money putting up their distinctive chabad menorahs with the straight branches connected to the main stem at an angle. Chabad has decided to make this their standard menorah that they use all over the world, and I have to respect their ability to standardize on anything in this day and age when we Jews can’t seem to standardize on anything. The problem is, it’s completely inaccurate.
The bible, lacking pictures, gives a textual description of the menorah, which is a little vague on some details like the straightness of the arms. Chabad bases their menorah on the Rambam (Maimonides), who drew a menorah in mishnah torah. The problem is that the Rambam, living in 12th century Baghdad, had never seen the menorah, which disappeared some time during the 6th century. There have been numerous archaeological discoveries which have shown the image of the ancient menorah depicted on coins, mosaics, pottery, and even ancient graffiti. While there is some debate about what the base of the menorah looked like, all the graphical representations show the menorah with curved arms. The Biblical Archaeology review has an exceptionally nice gallery of ancient depictions of the menorah which you can peruse at your leisure.
Why does Chabad insist on continuing to use a shape that is wrong? Some treat it as branding - a simple and easily recognizable symbol. People who want to be downright hostile to Chabad also claim that this shows a separation between Chabad and the rest of Judaism, but that’s reaching IMHO. My feeling is that it’s probably just another case of tradition trumping what we know to be historically accurate – a choice was made, and without a central leader, they have no mechanism to change that decision now. Besides, you know how we Jews are about tradition. If I can eat Turkey, then Chabad can have a straight armed menorah.
I went to the bible lands museum today (overall rating: not spectacular, but still pretty good). They had a temporary exhibit on the shofar (horn blown on special occasions like Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur). I learned, among other things, that the shofar was sounded when a Jew was put in herem.
They also had a wonderful documentary about the blowing of the shofar at the kotel during the British mandate period from 1923-1947. The British had allowed Jews to pray at the kotel, but did not allow them to pray loudly, have torah scrolls, or blow the shofar for fear of disturbing the Arab population. Every year though, the shofar was blown at the end of yom kippur as an act of civil disobedience. The British of course tried to arrest the violators, some of whom were caught, and some of whom were sentenced. The documentary was made a few years ago when someone decided to get the remaining living shofar blowers together to tell their stories, and tell they did. The stories are funny, touching, sad, and joyful. My favorite is when one man explains how when they spied a British undercover agent the Jews communicated in Hebrew (which the British did not speak) by simply singing their message in the same tune as the prayer service.
As a followup to a previous post where I complained about the lack of transparency in Israeli cell phone plans (it’s actually a symptom of a larger problem – there is no transparency here in any large institution – banks, government, telecommunications, commerce, etc.), I finally found a solution. Rami Levy. Initially a chain of discount supermarkets, Rami Levy has been expanding. Rami Levy has entered the cell phone market as a virtual network operator (MVNO). They have no physical infrastructure, but buy airtime in bulk from pelephone, and resell it cheaply. They have made a public commitment to being open and transparent about their pricing, as well as to being cheap. So much so that while Orange can’t even tell me what their rates are, RL’s are published in the newspaper. When I walked into one of the new RL cell phone stores, the first thing that happened was someone handed me a flyer that detailed their plans and the costs. Needless to say I’m now a satisfied Rami Levy customer.
Now here’s a few things that struck me as interesting. Rami Levy is buying air time from pelephone for 0.14 per minute, and resells it for 0.20 per minute. Pelephone and Orange sold comparable plans where they charged 1.00 – 1.20 per minute. Since I assume Pelephone is still making a profit on the airtime they sold to Rami Levy for 0.14, their profit margins must have been obscene on the plans they sold. How on earth is it that none of the big three decided to undercut the other two by lowering their margins to increase their volume? (Otherwise known as “competition in the western world). The answer, unfortunately, appears to be simple: collusion. This also demonstrates a serious flaw in the Israeli system where there is no transparency and large duopolies and triopolies dominate almost every industry: price fixing and collusion are rampant. Already the competition has done good – 2 of the 3 big cell phone companies have slashed rates in response to Rami Levy. Rami Levy is apparently going to be followed by several other new MVNOs in the next few months, so perhaps the stranglehold of the big three will be broken. Hopefully Rami Levy will also decide to keep being disruptive and break a few other industries open as well.
I’ve heard many (many many many) fellow IT employees complain about how the industry is so male dominated. I don’t claim to know the source of the problem, but I know that scantily clad booth babes certainly don’t help.
One of the things that drives me nuts about Hebrew is that the word for “like” is the same as the word for “love”. Every so often I’ll be watching a TV show (srugim BTW – great show), and one character will profess feelings for another. But I’m unclear – did they profess love or just affection?
Every Hanukkah, menorahs appear around every Jewish community. Chabad expends a significant amount of time and money putting up their distinctive chabad menorahs with the straight branches connected to the main stem at an angle. Chabad has decided to make this their standard menorah that they use all over the world, and I have to respect their ability to standardize on anything in this day and age when we Jews can’t seem to standardize on anything. The problem is, it’s completely inaccurate.