Lag BaOmer vs. Chodesh Irgun

It’s an age-old question.

Which is worse: Lag BaOmer or Chodesh Irgun?

Of course, if you’d ask me today, I’d have to go with Lag BaOmer, hands down.

But I admit that I may be somewhat biased, because this year’s regular Lag BaOmer after effects were only exacerbated by a number of scheduling conflicts.

For instance:

• A young man I know went to a bar mitzvah last night – i.e. the night after the bonfire - and didn’t get home until nearly midnight.
• Today was the math bagrut. (“Don’t worry,” a certain teenager assured me. “I’ll be home early [sic]. Our medurah is going to end at 2 am, because everyone needs to study…”)

In other words, a more objective approach to this issue is in order, and thus I have taken the liberty of preparing the following chart:

Lag BaOmer	Chodesh Irgun
Exhausted, kvetchy kids	Exhausted, kvetchy kids
Bemused, exasperated, but ultimately resigned parents	Bemused, exasperated, but ultimately resigned parents
Clothes reeking of smoke	Clothes splattered with paint
The hypnotic glow of the bonfire	The hypnotic glow of the ooltra
Parents waiting anxiously for their darling offspring to come home	Parents waiting anxiously for their darling offspring’s performances to come to an end
An entire month wasted spent collecting wood and searching for an ideal bonfire spot	An entire month wasted spent painting the snif and rehearsing the performances
Fodder for many an Our Shiputzim blog post	Fodder for many an Our Shiputzim blog post
Begs the question: What do the kids do all night??	Begs the question: Is the new shevet’s name better than HaGevurah??
Overheard: “It’s 3:00 AM. Do you know where your kids are?”	Overheard: “We need to finish making all the tchuparim before the yashvatz!”
Adored by kids; barely tolerated by parents	Adored by kids; barely tolerated by parents
Only in Israel!	Only in Israel!

So, what do YOU think: Lag BaOmer or Chodesh Irgun?

Don’t forget to show your work… ;-)

__________

P.S. The newest Haveil Havalim is available here. Special thanks to the Rebbetzin's Husband for including my Iyar Challenge post.

A seasonal Chanukah party

The kids were adorable; the performance was beautiful; and the mothers surreptitiously shed a few tears.

But nevertheless, in many respects, the recent gan Chanukah party was rather disappointing.

I mean, consider the following flagrant breaches of gan Chanukah party protocol:

1) In stark contrast to last year’s paean to pyromania, this year’s party was surprisingly free of fire hazards. The requisite purple lights and their electrical cords were well out of the kids’ reach, and the gannenets lit the chanukiyah themselves. Moreover, they used tea lights rather than glass jars filled with olive oil, and they blew out the flames a minute or two later. (More on this chanukiyah below.)

2) Although the gannenets dutifully obeyed the edict from on high that gan must be dismissed early on the day of the Chanukah party, the kids were sent home at the relatively civilized hour of 12:00 – rather than at the more typical but highly inconvenient 11:00.

3) The party actually started more or less on time and ended a mere 1¼ hours after it started.

4) Many of the classic elements were missing, including the Giant Dreidel Piñata, the Building a Chanukiyah Out of Wooden Blocks, and the Joint Parent-Child Arts & Crafts Project.

5) Very few of the kids are eldest children. Thus, there was only one (1) pushy mother blocking everyone else as she attempted to video her precious offspring from every. single. angle.

And yet, in spite of these egregious lapses, the Gan Party of 5770 does have one claim to fame.

In years to come, it will surely be remembered as the only Chanukah celebration to feature a… tinsel-festooned chanukiyah:

“We wish you a merry, er, Chanukah…”

Secrets from the world of hadrachah

Kids staying out late every night? Check.

Homework being ignored? Check.

Paint-spattered clothing? Check.

{nods} Yup. Tis the season.

As bemused, exasperated, but ultimately resigned parents across the country are well aware, Chodesh Irgun has arrived. (Which means that the ooltra is surely on its way...)

With most (but not all*) of the Shiputzim children being dedicated and active youth group members, we’ve seen this movie many times before.

But this year, there’s a significant difference.

You see, a few weeks ago, ACIT (a certain Israeli teenager) became the first member of the Shiputzim family to “go into hadrachah” (to use the Heblish term) – i.e. to become a madrich/madrichah (a youth group counselor).

Which means that I’ve been privileged to get a glimpse at some of hadrachah’s more esoteric aspects.

For instance, I now know that while chevrayah bet (i.e. the older division) is referred to by the acronym חב”ב (pronounced chaBAB), one never, ever says חב”א (i.e. chaBA) when discussing chevrayah aleph (the younger kids).

Also, I recently discovered that the Hebrew word for co-counselor is madash/madashit – מד”ש/מד”שית. (Madash is masculine, and madashit is feminine.)

Apparently, madash/madashit is an acronym for madrich/madrichah she’iti -  מדריך\מדריכה שאיתי – literally, “counselor who is with me”.

Here’s how one would use madash/madashit in a sentence:

.המד”שית שלי נוסעת לשבת – Hamadashit sheli nosa’at l’Shabbat. - My madashit is going away for Shabbat.

And if we expand the acronym in the above example, we get the following:

.המדריכה שאיתי שלי נוסעת לשבת – Hamadrichah she’iti sheli nosa’at l’Shabbat. – My counselor who is with me is going away for Shabbat.

As to be expected, ACIT didn’t see why this amuses me. (“What? Madash is now a regular word…”)

But I suspect that some of you might appreciate the humor.

And as an extra side benefit, now that you’ve learned about madashim, perhaps you’ll be able to decode a bit more of your Israeli teenagers’ Facebook statuses…

_______________

*As I noted in this post: The other Shiputzim children are adherents of what is euphemistically known as “Iyov” (איוב – an acronym for אשרי יושבי ביתך – Ashrei yoshvei veitecha - “Praiseworthy are those who dwell in Your House”) – i.e. they prefer to stay home…

Channeling her inner pyromaniac

As a rule, Israeli ganenets have never met a fire hazard they didn’t like.

Whether it’s the ubiquitous ooltra with the electric cord lying right where the kids can trip on it or the sparklers which the kids are supposed to hold at their birthday parties (!!), these ganenets do everything in their power to show their disdain for basic fire safety.

But at this evening’s Chanukah party, the ganenet took things to a whole new level.

The performance began innocently enough. Each child was given an oversized wooden block covered in gold paper, and they then built a giant chanukiyah out of the blocks.

Now, before any of you interrupt and say that “Building a Chanukiyah Out of Wooden Blocks” is a standard element of gan parties (along with the Giant Draidel Piñata), let me explain that this chanukiyah was different.

Instead of placing the blocks on the floor in a single layer, the kids built up. In other words, the chanukiyah was over a meter high. And since the blocks were not uniformly sized, the top layer was far from level.

When the kids were finished, the ganenet put nine (i.e. 8 plus 1 for the shamash) glass bottles each filled with water, olive oil, and floating wicks – on top of the very rickety, wooden structure*.

She then lit the “candles”, and the kids stood around and waved colored paper streamers not too far from the dancing flames.

Apparently, I wasn’t the only one who was nervous, because one of the kids shouted out, “Zeh me’od mesukan!” (“That’s very dangerous!”)

Yet the ganenet merely smiled.

She knew that the laws of physics don’t apply when it comes to gan parties…

_______

* Sorry, no pictures. Our camera’s battery died soon after I arrived at the party.

They did the ooltra…

Shavua tov!

Yes, I’m still here. It’s just that the bar mitzvah is this coming Shabbat IY”H, and so things are understandably busy here in TRLEOOB.

And on a related note, I would like to take this opportunity to thank my real-life friend and commenter MB and her family for hosting us for the now-traditional Meal on the Shabbat Before the Simcha (or, in Our Shiputzim-speak, the MOTSBTS). May our families continue to share many, many future smachot!

As some of you know, the Shiputzim children are members of Ariel* – rather than Bnei Akiva. (Ariel uses the same names as Bnei Akiva does – hence, last week’s HaGevurah post.)

Anyway, this Shabbat was Shabbat Irgun for the girls. (This coming Shabbat – yes, the Shabbat of the bar mitzvah! – will IY”H be the boys’ Shabbat Irgun.)

The reason I mention this is to reassure our loyal readers that yes, there was an ooltra. And the truth is that – all kidding aside – the dances were, as always, quite beautiful.

In fact, the girls introduced a new twist to the ooltra dance. Usually, such a dance is done to fast, up-beat music. However, this time, they did something completely different.

This shevet’s (age group) theme was “Captives and MIAs”. After showing a short slide show about the Israeli MIAs, the girls did a slow ooltra to Boaz Sharabi’s haunting “K’she’tavo”, a song about Ron Arad. The entire audience agreed that dancing in the dark was a moving and fitting tribute to the MIAs.

And in conclusion, mazal tov to our resident HaGevurah member on the new name. (Admit it – the name is starting to grow on you, isn’t it? )

_______
* That is – some of the Shiputzim children are Ariel members. Others are adherents of what is euphemistically known as “Iyov” (aleph,yud,vav,vet – an acronym for אשרי יושבי ביתך – literally, “Praiseworthy are those who dwell in Your House”) – i.e. they prefer to stay home.

Ooltra cool

A fairly common feature of Israeli children's hofa’ot (performances) is the way overused fresh and original ultraviolet light.

Typically, the young performers don black clothes and put white socks on their hands and shoeless feet. Upon occasion, the kids will then add white belts or scarves to complete the look.

The overhead lights are turned off, and – with the “purple light” shining on the stage – the captive audience proud and loving parents watch as disembodied white blobs dance in unison before them.

Over the years, I’ve been privileged to see countless renditions of this routine - especially in honor of Chodesh Irgun and also at Chanukah parties in gan.

But it was only today that I learned that an ultraviolet light is known as an ooltra in Hebrew.

And what about the dance itself? According to one of my favorite Heblish-speakers, it’s referred to as “doing an ooltra.” (Sample sentence: “For our rikud (dance), we’re going to do an ooltra.”)