Thursday, 28 May 2009
Sunday, 10 May 2009
This is not a kosher phone
I think it should be clear why such a phone would not be considered tzanua
Saturday, 2 May 2009
Heeeeeeeelp!!
We just had a rather exciting Shabbos and that prompts a rather different blog posting from previous ones.
We'd had kiddush and were just on the verge of going out to friends for lunch and all of a sudden my wife screams!!! --- there's a snake in the kitchen!
I told her to get out of there calmly, which she did, and I could hear the snake hissing as she did that. I remembered that there was someone who had advertised that he would catch snakes in the neighbourhood, but not who he was (and nothing in the Shemeshphone either)! I suggested that my wife go over to our hosts and inform them of our predicament - perhaps they would know someone who could help us (our immediate neighbours didn't know of this person either). Meanwhile I stood outside the kitchen, watching, to make sure that it didn't come out and go elsewhere in the flat. We shut Miki [the cat] in the mamad (mama"d??) in the meantime, which she didn't like but I reckoned that this was only loose confinement (and therefore not major "tzod") and also contributing to pikuach nefesh as maybe should would scare the snake.
It took a while but when my wife came back it was with our hosts' son and Rabbi Natan Slifkin. So he wanders into the kitchen, and... no snake. (I hadn't been watching the snake, after all, only the kitchen). So he pokes around for us under the dishwasher as maybe it went there but no luck, no snake (only balls of dust...). Well, we'll just have to wait for it to come out. Nothing to do so we went to lunch.
We come back from lunch, still no snake but no calm either (where's the snake now??!!). Straight to bed for a nap (well away from the kitchen). We did actually sleep despite the worry.
I woke up a little late to get to the Rav's shiur on time but decided that if there was a snake around it would be better not to leave my wife alone so I wouldn't go, not even to mincha. But she said I should go, so up I get, and as I look around the living room on my way out, there's the snake by the balcony door, which I had left closed. If it had got out we would have been on a wild goose (ha ha) chase looking for a snake which had gone - better to be looking for something which was there. So here I am with a snake in the living room. In grabbing a chair to sit and keep an eye on it I make a noise which scares the snake into slithering into the corner, but by looking under the side table I can see it there. I call my wife over and ask her to watch the snake and I go off looking for Rabbi Slifkin. At this point I didn't know when I was going to catch mincha but it turned out that I caught up with him at the beginning of his mincha minyan so I got to daven there too.
After mincha, off we go to catch the snake (with a friend of his and the same hosts' son in tow). To cut a long story short, after some deliberation over what to do (kill, catch etc., because Rabbi Slifkin was tending towards thinking it was not poisonous) we end up chasing it around the living room, hurriedly shifting furniture to do that, and finally catching it under a plastic container.
Well, this snake wasn't too happy about that and was hissing away etc but we were a lot calmer knowing where the thing was and we got to eat seudah shelishis. The snake calmed down too for a while.
After Shabbos we got hold of the snake-catcher, whose name is Meir Goldsmith, and he and Rabbi Slifkin came over. Reb Meir had a look at this snake and finally declared it to be a Palestinian viper (which is poisonous...). With his gloves on he started working on getting the snake out from under the container but the snake proved to be more than a little annoyed so he got all kitted up (arm protectors and all) and eventually pulled the snake out from underneath. He had tried to get the snake to go straight into a container of his own but it was wanting to strike him so that wasn't going to happen. Don't try this at home, I suppose, but he got it out by grabbing the tail - which had come out from under the container when he'd moved it - and pulling it out slowly until he could grab it sufficiently close to the head.
Reb Meir showed us the snake, which was quite irritable, close up. It's quite amazing. He showed us how it bites - it was holding on to his gloved finger with its jaws open to 90 degrees! (Unfortunately I didn't get a picture of that) Finally he put it away in a container he brought. He'll release it deep in the mountains.
So... an exciting (and somewhat stressful) day. BE"H I'll post photos (from after Shabbos obviously) soon.
Many thanks to Reb Meir Goldsmith and Rabbi Natan Slifkin!!
Shavua tov!
We'd had kiddush and were just on the verge of going out to friends for lunch and all of a sudden my wife screams!!! --- there's a snake in the kitchen!
I told her to get out of there calmly, which she did, and I could hear the snake hissing as she did that. I remembered that there was someone who had advertised that he would catch snakes in the neighbourhood, but not who he was (and nothing in the Shemeshphone either)! I suggested that my wife go over to our hosts and inform them of our predicament - perhaps they would know someone who could help us (our immediate neighbours didn't know of this person either). Meanwhile I stood outside the kitchen, watching, to make sure that it didn't come out and go elsewhere in the flat. We shut Miki [the cat] in the mamad (mama"d??) in the meantime, which she didn't like but I reckoned that this was only loose confinement (and therefore not major "tzod") and also contributing to pikuach nefesh as maybe should would scare the snake.
It took a while but when my wife came back it was with our hosts' son and Rabbi Natan Slifkin. So he wanders into the kitchen, and... no snake. (I hadn't been watching the snake, after all, only the kitchen). So he pokes around for us under the dishwasher as maybe it went there but no luck, no snake (only balls of dust...). Well, we'll just have to wait for it to come out. Nothing to do so we went to lunch.
We come back from lunch, still no snake but no calm either (where's the snake now??!!). Straight to bed for a nap (well away from the kitchen). We did actually sleep despite the worry.
I woke up a little late to get to the Rav's shiur on time but decided that if there was a snake around it would be better not to leave my wife alone so I wouldn't go, not even to mincha. But she said I should go, so up I get, and as I look around the living room on my way out, there's the snake by the balcony door, which I had left closed. If it had got out we would have been on a wild goose (ha ha) chase looking for a snake which had gone - better to be looking for something which was there. So here I am with a snake in the living room. In grabbing a chair to sit and keep an eye on it I make a noise which scares the snake into slithering into the corner, but by looking under the side table I can see it there. I call my wife over and ask her to watch the snake and I go off looking for Rabbi Slifkin. At this point I didn't know when I was going to catch mincha but it turned out that I caught up with him at the beginning of his mincha minyan so I got to daven there too.
After mincha, off we go to catch the snake (with a friend of his and the same hosts' son in tow). To cut a long story short, after some deliberation over what to do (kill, catch etc., because Rabbi Slifkin was tending towards thinking it was not poisonous) we end up chasing it around the living room, hurriedly shifting furniture to do that, and finally catching it under a plastic container.
Well, this snake wasn't too happy about that and was hissing away etc but we were a lot calmer knowing where the thing was and we got to eat seudah shelishis. The snake calmed down too for a while.
After Shabbos we got hold of the snake-catcher, whose name is Meir Goldsmith, and he and Rabbi Slifkin came over. Reb Meir had a look at this snake and finally declared it to be a Palestinian viper (which is poisonous...). With his gloves on he started working on getting the snake out from under the container but the snake proved to be more than a little annoyed so he got all kitted up (arm protectors and all) and eventually pulled the snake out from underneath. He had tried to get the snake to go straight into a container of his own but it was wanting to strike him so that wasn't going to happen. Don't try this at home, I suppose, but he got it out by grabbing the tail - which had come out from under the container when he'd moved it - and pulling it out slowly until he could grab it sufficiently close to the head.
Reb Meir showed us the snake, which was quite irritable, close up. It's quite amazing. He showed us how it bites - it was holding on to his gloved finger with its jaws open to 90 degrees! (Unfortunately I didn't get a picture of that) Finally he put it away in a container he brought. He'll release it deep in the mountains.
So... an exciting (and somewhat stressful) day. BE"H I'll post photos (from after Shabbos obviously) soon.
Many thanks to Reb Meir Goldsmith and Rabbi Natan Slifkin!!
Shavua tov!
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