POTUS on The Daily Show..well done Stewart

So the POTUS was on the Daily Show the other day.  Yeah that's right, President Barack Obama became the first standing President to go on to the Daily Show.  And I must say it was a good interview.  There was no pandering yet it was light hearted too.  He asked some good thought provoking questions of Obama.  


And some of the things that Obama answered almost made me feel better about the whole shabang.  One of the points that he made was that the promises he made in 2008 were not promises to fix all the problems over night.  He made it clear that he was also upset by some of the ridiculous things that go one in Congress, like the 60 vote rule or the filibuster.  


It definitely made me feel that he is doing a pretty decent job of trying to balance the ideals that he has with the reality that he faces.  And that is about all I can ask from my President.  (but a law banning fur or circuses wouldn't hurt either) :)

quick little vegan thought

Just a quick little vegan thought before Shabbat settles in here in J-lem.  
Did you know Matisyahu was a vegan???
Cause he totally is! At least as of April 2010. 


Reading about why he became vegan made me think of a few of my own reasons.  (Not to mention freak out cause I freakin' love Matisyahu!!)


One of the main reasons is actually connected to this week's parsha.  It is about living about to the ideals of Hashem.  You see throughout Tanach (The whole of the Jewish Bible: Torah, Prophets, and Writings) Israel constantly lets Hashem down.  Start off with the species as a whole:
Adam & Eve sin, get butts kicked outta paradise.
Noach: People sin, Hashem destroys His own creation. (mostly)
Israelite nation: let me count the ways.....


It seems as though throughout the whole holy scroll we let God down.  And that is okay.
He accepts that we as humans have faults and may not be able to live up to the ideals He wants us to live up to.  But because he allows for our faults does not mean we should fall back on them.


We should try to rise above them and meet God where He wants us to meet Him.
In the Beginning (as it were) we are veggies.  We share the exact same diet as our fellow animal creatures.  But we can't live up to that high ideal and our bloodlust consumes us leading to the Flood.  So God allows us to eat meat.  
But we should still try to live up to the ideal.  The ideal world was veganism.  A world where we live in peace and side by side with all living creatures.


Matisyahu saw that.  I saw that.  And many other people around the world see it too.  We aren't sinners for eating meat.  But we aren't living up to our full potential, our full capacity as God's creatures, and most importantly, His ideals.