Highmoon's Ponderings

When I go to Israel, I am so getting one of these babies!

ספר החוקים לשחקן
Mevochim V’Drakonim Sefer Hachukim L’Sachkan 3.0

I’m pretty sure you can figure out the English translation for that.

There’s a meme going around, a test to find where is your (English) accent from. Everyone I’ve seen that’s posted has said “right on,” so I was like, sure, I’ll take it. So I did. And I think I broke it.

What American accent do you have?
Created by Xavier on Memegen.net

Northeastern.
You’re probably from somewhere near New York City, possibly north Jersey, or Connecticut or Rhode Island. If you are from New York City you may be one of the types who people never believe when you say you’re from New York.

Southern. Love it or hate it, your accent says you’re probably from somewhere south of the Ohio River.

Mid-Atlantic. This is what everyone calls a Philadelphia accent although it’s also the accent of south Jersey, Baltimore, and Wilmington. Well, everyone that lives near there, that is. Outsiders can tell you talk differently from them even though they can’t tell what your accent is.

Take this quiz now – it’s easy!

We’re going to start with "cot" and "caught." When you say those words do they sound the same or different?

Different Same Same, no wait I mean different, maybe, a little bit different…

Aren’t you supposed to get only one result? Nope, I got three. Which pretty much invalidates the whole test. I mean, according to this I have an Eastern Seaboard accent.

Which really just proves that I don’t have an accent, or rather, that I do have an accent (which I most certainly do) but it’s not based on my place of origin, but rather on the fact that English is a learned language for me and I have picked up the pronunciation of various words from very diverse places (I even pronounce some words in the British fashion, sans the cool, you know, accent).

Then again the same test said that my 1st-gen Cuban-American Florida-born wife had a Western accent, so go figure.

Fifty-nine years ago today (5 Iyar), the modern country of Israel was established and the Jewish people finally had a homeland again.

Yes, it’s not perfect; yes, there’s been growing pains; yes, there’s been mistakes made; and yes, it’s not where it really should be to truly be the home on Earth of the Jewish people and G-d, but it is our home, and we love it, wherever we are in the world.

As a convert, the feeling I have for Eretz Ysrael cannot be explained logically. I’ve never been to the country, rarely gave it any thought before my conversion, or knew anyone from there with whom I had an emotional tie. Since the conversion, however, the love of Israel has grown, a phenomenon I have seen in other converts as well. We read about Israel, learn the stories of our glory days in the land that Hashem gave to us, get excited when we remember Joshua’s conquest of the land or King David’s establishment of Jerusalem as the home of the Holy Temple. These things, all breed a love for Israel within me.

There’s also the sad times, the attacks, the bombings, the wars; these all make me feel connected to the people halfway across the world, people I have never met, people with whom I share nothing except the link that unites us all as Jews. My love for Israel was learned, yes, but it is nevertheless real, much like one learns to love a spouse or a friend.

I have a home country that I love very much in Puerto Rico, but that is the homeland of my guf, of my body; Israel is the homeland of my neshama, of my soul, and I cannot wait to visit it, to lay my eyes upon the land that saw my spiritual ancestors walk across it, the land that saw G-d’s miracles on a daily basis and which now awaits that time again, the land where my spirit belongs. It is my home I’ve never been to.

May Hashem continue to bless Israel with peace and prosperity, and may we merit the arrival of Mashiach soon so that we can all move to Israel and restablish G-d’s home on Earth.

Just finished reading the press released issued by Paizo and Wizards of the Coast:

I am stunned and speechless, seriously. These magazines, Dragon in particular, have been staples of the gaming industry for decades, one of the true intergenerational links the gaming community has. To know that it will be cancelled, rolled into an online delivery method, just saddens me to no end, even if I had stopped buying it a while ago (and no, low sales was not the reason behind the cancellation of the license; the mags were actually doing quite well).

I will always have fond memories of Dragon Magazine; when we couldn’t find any gaming material in Puerto Rico, an issue of Dragon Magazine was something to be treasured and protected (I have the very first issue I bought still, covered in clear contact paper), a window into the larger gaming world that existed outside our little island, our one link to the gaming community at large.

It all sounds silly, I know, but Dragon was not just a magazine, it was an institution, a rally point around which 95% of the gaming community could gather about.

DRAGON Magazine, I salute you.

Why is there death in the world? So that evil will not live forever.

Because, since we ate of the Tree of Knowledge, no one walks forward without stumbling, no one climbs without falling, no one does good all his life without causing some damage along the way. Until, at the end, our lives are an absurd muddle of good and evil inextricably bound.

With death, evil dies as well. The failures, the ugly acts and the damage done–all these wither and eventually perish. But the good we have accomplished–and that we truly are — this lives forever.

A Daily Dose of Wisdom from the Rebbe
-words and condensation by Tzvi Freeman

Wow. I never stopped to think about it this way, but it makes perfect sense. It accounts for why even good people die, though it may not be something we may wish to acknowledge. I think this teaching needs to go hand in hand with this one: we are in this world to perform a mission, and once that mission is performed, our time here is done.

I mean, what about a, G-d-forbid, newborn baby that dies? They really had no chance to do any “evil” in this world. But maybe they fulfilled their mission just by being born; their soul, thus realized, simply returns to Heaven, where it truly longs to be.

I’m not saying it’s not a hard lesson to grasp and internalize, especially because we can all think of cases where death was almost random, perhaps even wanton, but there is sense and logic to it. G-d grant us the ability to understand and accept His ways.