Interesting Posts and Articles #236

1. Obama's home teleprompter malfunctions, from ONN:
   
   
   
2. Hirhurim has a twist on the difficulty of Judaism by Rabbi Jonathan Sacks.
   
   
3. And the Jewish Worker has chinuch lessons from Yaakov and Esav, from Rav Shamshon Refael Hirsch.
   

   Down to our present day we have been able to observe the disastrous consequences of a one-sided approach to the unique task of being a Jew. Many a son of a pious talmid chacham has been totally lost to Judaism because his father insisted on training him to become a talmid chacham without considering whether his personality and inclinations truly lay in that direction...

   
   
4. Life In Israel with Rav Steinman on abusive education, from back in the day...
   
   
5. SkyNews has an awesome video of sharks born from an impromptu C-section:
   
   
   
6. Rationalist Judaism on yeridas hadoros:
   

   The notion of yeridas hadoros is rarely defined, but certainly most people take it mean that Rishonim, and all the more so Chazal, were more intelligent than us. With this understanding, yeridas hadoros conflicts with two aspects of rationalism.

7. Bad 4 Shidduchim on engagement rings. She is all for them, and against the idea of using cubic zirconium.
   

   But it wasn’t the earrings that threw us into discord. It was the engagement rings.

   Yes. There we were on a second date discussing engagement rings.

   He said CZ ought to be fine.

   I said absolutely not.

   I am reminded about the dispute whether to use a minimum of shava peruta or shava dinar for kiddushin, between Bet Shammai and Bet Hillel.
   
   
8. An ancient reptile goat.
   
   
9. Here on parshablog, was Yitzchak poor? And whether the kiss between Yitzchak and Yaakov -- as well as between Yaakov and Rachel -- was on the lips or on the cheek.