Purim 2026 - The Reason Why We Need Prozac (Ep. 317)

Hi, this is David Alowski and welcome to the Rabbi Olowski show. And whether you're watching with our friends and producers over at Torah anytime or wherever you watch and listen to your podcast, as always, it is wonderful to have you along for the experience and uh some little bits of business. Speaking about my friends over at Toron Time, we just had the Toronto Time annual fundraiser and I want to thank everyone who contributed to Toony Time and particularly those who contributed to my page and uh I I went through all the all of the donations and the people and I saw a lot of our usual uh listeners who you know donated out of Carto to Time for making this possible. ible and I thank you personally really it's a it's a wonderful thing thank you very much I really appreciate it the pesak program and the nokiner invaria h we have a few rooms for the first part of pesak everything else is sold out um if you want to come just for the seder and then go back home and uh and make the rest of pesak we have some rooms available for that otherwise guys. Um, we'll just wait till next year. And I feel really bad because, uh, Castles tells me that they are getting inundated with calls of people who wanted to come. I told you this was going to happen. I'm sorry. I'll have to maybe find a larger location next year or something. I don't know what to tell you, but uh, I mean uh, one group called up, they wanted eight rooms. Another group called up, they wanted 12 rooms. I I just I don't have them, you know. So, we'll have to find a larger location, but I have a chance. I don't want to I don't want anyone to be left out. I want you all to be there. Okay. And our uh sponsorship for this episode. Dear Rabbi Alavski, it has been 30 years since I the have you as my Mashkani, a yeshiva or David. I was uh I was Mashkiva. I remember I went to recruit once and this fellow didn't you know was really in public school he was in NCSY and they said you know they were introducing me they said the mashk and the yeshiva and someone says why are they bringing us the guy who works in the kitchen that's the mash the mashi and of course the rash yesa just to make sure that it didn't go to my head used to refer to me instead of Hamashk. They used to call me Hamashk. Anyway, uh looking back, it is clear that your guidance didn't just impact my years in Yeshiva. It has shaped the trajectory of my life. You could tell that I had an impact if he's using a word like trajectory cuz uh I try to at least help people improve their vocabulary. And by extension, the lives of my children. Oh, it brings me immer immense pleasure to see the genuine excitement my two daughters have whenever a new Rabi Alaski show is released. Your Torah and your perspective have become a staple in our home. I I cannot be more moved by this. In fact, one of my daughters is currently in seminary and after a few months in the system, she has officially concluded that the world is missing one vital institution of Rabbi Elavski Seminary who girls who want to hear the truth and get the most out of their year. Um, I mentioned this already that uh I mentioned on a previous uh podcast that my bookcase was falling apart and I was contacted by one of our avid listeners who happens to be a um a carpenter full Israeli. I listened to the podcast even though his native language is is Hebrew and um and he offered to make me a uh new bookcases. So only those come in. Boy, I'm going to have to have him on the show to talk about it. But um uh but in the meantime, this is a wonderful idea. So if anybody out there wants to put together a seminary for me to run, uh the theme being get the most out of girls who want to hear the truth and get the most out of the year. I think that's a great line. I would like to dedicate this year in honor of my as Anna and my No, I don't know if this is Anna or Anna. I'm going to guess Anna because it's a NA. I think it was Anna. It would be a na. So, I'm I'm just uh just riffing here. And my children Daniela and Alisa. Those are easy. I can read those. They make me so proud every single day with their tireless dedication to Kira and Avodas Hashem. Wow. You guys must be really special to have uh a dad want to sponsor an episode just to give you guys shoutouts of how much he thinks of you. Um you know cuz most of them I get these things like I'm sponsoring this podcast uh in honor of my miserable children. Hopefully in the of this they'll turn out to be decent people. Of course, that's never happened. But anyway, um, finally, please consider this dedication a completely transparent and lightly veiled bribe. My daughter is ready and willing to work at your PESK program. She's hardworking, high energy, and already knows all your jokes. She's basically overqualified. If that doesn't work, we'll settle for a Shabas invite. We promise to laugh at all the stories we've already heard on the show. If your daughter wants to work, we have a few spots open, but I want you to know it's not going to be a lot of fun because most of the day you're going to be running around with very little children. And uh you know, I know uh we would love to have you participate more in the program, but if you're coming, you know, there's going to be a lot for you to do. So, if that sounds appealing and anybody would like to spend their pesak running around with a bunch of little children. Um, so, uh, yeah, we have some openings, but, uh, people are like, you know, yeah, I'll come and, you know, I'll work a little bit on Shaw and Yant. Yeah, that's not how it works. You know, you're you're come and you're going to be taking care of these kids. So, uh, if that sounds like a fun uh pes to you, please let me know. and we have some openings, but uh you know, it's not the kind of thing I would do to my own kids, but it will be good food and nice accommodations and uh wonderful people and uh you know, won't be won't be uh at night. It's only during the day, but it's still still a lot. So, if that appeals to you, then I think that's uh a wonderful thing. We'd love to have you along. Um, also an update on the merch. I mentioned this that someone once sent me, you know, an email with clips of every time I said we're working on the merch. Well, my daughter is actually working on it now and hopefully it will be ready in time uh for the Pes program and then of course we will make it available to everybody else. We will have Rabbi Olowski show mugs and uh jerseys, not t-shirts cuz you know the girls don't want to wear the t-shirts and have to wear a shirt underneath it. I mean that's kind of self-defeating. So I have jerseys and um and uh I don't know what else we're going to make. We'll see. You know, um I'm not making anything, but somebody's in charge of it and that's what's important. Hashem, my kids are working furiously on this PES program. I'm also going to be there. In fact, I have this uh conundrum. And this is sort of an introduction to what I'm going to talk about now because you know I I I tend to repeat my themes. I remember Rabbi Brown uh once I had this to go with him to Mosha Shapiro's Shirum and I said to him he said this before. So he says no he was dealing with it from a different point of view and he explained to me the difference and then he said something that was very profound as many of the things he says are profound. He said, "An artist has only so many colors, but he can make endless paintings." I thought that was interesting. And so I also try to um to come back to themes from a slightly different point of view, but every now and then something just like sets me off. And this was one of my questions that uh since I mentioned the PES program that I was trying to decide in the um dedication he mentioned, I know all of your jokes. A lot of people know a lot of my material. Uh when I was a scholar residence at Gateways, so I tried to come up with a brand new approach to uh to dealing with my Shiran Pesak because uh uh I I wanted to come up with a different theme and develop different shirum a different direction. And my son Yakov said to me, "You're making a mistake. People want to hear your classics. They want to hear the same ones again that that that they enjoy." I told the story already. I was in uh Melbourne, Australia, and I was doing one of my most famous talks, which is why Be Jewish. And this woman came over and said, "This is the 11th time I'm hearing this speech." And I said, "Oh, I'm sorry. I I could have done something else." She says, "No, no, I came dapka to hear it again. Yeah. Because it's such it's based on the first two lines of mash which says this is the and the shish of all of hashem I just develop it in a uh in a easily accessible way. But of course the mul sham says the only way you get benefit from his safer is by constant going over it and over it. So, uh, people tell me, I mean, I just got an email from somebody else. They said, you know, I was just listening to your, uh, share with every Nissle, and I always listen, especially the two-parters, I always listen to it two or three times because there's so much material there. That's true. We pack in a lot. So, I was I was always in a conundrum. Should I come up with brand new material or should I do my classics that everybody likes? Yeah. Frank Sinatra sang the same seven songs for the last 20 years of his career and everyone loved them because they knew what to expect and they looked forward to it. I I may have told this story recently. I feel like I did but I'm not sure. Um when I was a kid, a teenager when I was a teenager so on public television they had this show from England called Monty Pythons Flying Circus. These were a group of people who were professionals. they uh went to Oxford, Cambridge, you know, they were very educated. One was a lawyer, one was a doctor, you know, and um very very intelligent people and they did a comedy show which I thought was the funniest thing in the world. And wherever I went, I live in the house with four TVs. One or two of my brothers had to sit on either side and say, "This isn't funny. Why are you watching this? This isn't funny." me and I said then go away but they wanted the Dava sit there and tell me it's not funny but we were into Matipa and it was just we thought it was the funniest thing in the world so they performed live at the city center you know unbeknownst to me when they did the lumberjack song one of the lumberjacks was in fact Paul McCartney because all the rock stars were were fans of uh of Montipython in fact when they put out their movie Montipython the Holy Grail they couldn't get anyone to underwrite no studio. And so all the rock stars gave them money. They never thought they would see their money back. They they made a lot of money on that investment. So they came in and they just did their favorite skits that we all knew already. So one of their most favorite skits is the dead parrot sketch. I'm not going to go over it here, but it's a very very funny historically funny. Anyway, at different points throughout this show, it was a live show. It was all filled with Montipython crazies. You know, John Cles would come out carrying the cage with the dead parrot and everybody would go wild and he'd walk off. And he did this three times and the show was over and they like turn on the house lights and they put up on their big screen, you know, get out, you know, whatever it was. And then John Cle walks out again with the with the parrot in the cage and everyone goes wild and they turn down the lights and they do that one last sketch, you know. So, I'm always of two minds. Should I do my classics that everybody enjoys or should I make up all new material? I'm not really sure, but uh I just share that with you. So, sometimes I return to common themes that people tend to enjoy, I find. And uh I just I was I was waiting for this podcast. You know, everyone knows this already that I very often say, um, you know, before a podcast, I think, what should I talk about this week? But I've actually been anticipating filming this week because I know what I want to talk about. It is almost purim. I put on my son's pur tie. This is Yako. Used to wear this every pur. This is Yako's pur tie. And uh, Purim is is almost here. And of course in the Jewish magazines that my wife gets and I go to the recipe section. The three of the four publications are dealing with shalakis not the hamodia. Hamodia has got other stuff to talk about you know they did have a recipe. They always put in like two recipes. It was like mini meatloafes or something like that, you know. But these other ones are dealing with shalakis. And I read this and I just said as a public service I have to stop people who might actually read this and think, "Oh, I might do that. For the love of God, do not do any of this." Okay? Don't. Let me explain to you Shalakus. Shalakus. Find the easiest receptacle that stays together. Do not use anything that involves paper grass. Do not do anything that involves cellophane. We used to do that where we would get some kind of a tray and then we would sit there with the cellophane and we used like a four rolls of tape to try to get and hold the whole thing together. Don't do it. What our shall receptacle of choice now is a bag and depending on what we're putting in decides the size of the bag and we fill it up with enough stuff so that we don't have to stick in any grass or ripped up paper just to be able to fill up the bag. Just buy a smaller bag. Always include something homebaked unless you are a terrible baker. Then don't include something homebaked. Um, I make my own hamashen because like most Jewish foods, they don't have them here in Israel. What do I mean by that? Do they sell hamandashen? Yes, they do. But the dough is not the correct Hammentashian dough. I don't know why. It's It's like hard as a rock and tasteless. I don't know why they do it that way. It's an Israeli thing. It must be from all those years spent to draining the swamps or something. I don't know. The ones in America, Mamish, tastes like cake. And the only acceptable filling for humashin is prune or what they call leva. That's it. There's two acceptable ones, prune and poppy seed. The purpose of the poppy seed is in case you accidentally bite into it thinking it's prune so that you appreciate the prune. But prune hamashen, you cannot get it in this country in Israel, right? It's one of the sacrifices we make when we move here. You can get chocolate hamashian. Why? Why would I buy those? You can get it filled with tumarim, which is about as close as they can get. You can buy mun. You can get the the ones with the poppy seeds. You cannot get prune hamatashen in this country. I went to cheap cole and they bring in rise men's hamatashen chocolate. Where are the prune ones? If you're going to bring them in already from America, bring in the prune ones. when I was teaching Benji Riseman whose grandparents owned Ryman's bakery. I I was I was you know on a on a rant once about this. So I get I get very emotional about my prune and he sent me from Riseman's a box you know like a big box of prune homashen. We we used it for a long time. We held on to them. We we treasured them. So here I make my own amadashen. I make my own dough. And if and I have to make my own leaka. Sometimes you can find prune filling but not often. So I stew up the prunes with the with the different ingredients. I make my prune filling and I always make too much because there's no way to put that much prune into a hamach. That's just the way it is. Yeah. But uh I make the prune ones and then I think I make blueberry ones just to you know create a little contrast or something. But I do that one year we made my wife's sweet noodle cook. This is a big job. We were making lots and lots of noodles and then you have to was I had a giant vat of it, you know, and you're and you're putting in all the ingredients and like mixing it like a like a cauldron. I was a witch, you know, bring it together and then you put it into these little tins. It was delicious. Well, a lot of people asked us for the recipe and to this day, I haven't I that was maybe 30 years ago I did it. To this day, people still call it the Rabrielki Purim Kal. Yeah. Well, not Rabiloski, the Olowski. The Olowski Purim Kog. And um um it was delicious, but it's something homebaked that you put in. Yeah. Uh is my children sometimes force me to uh to do a theme. Everyone's out of their house now basically. So they can do their own crazy. But um there was one year we did heart a heart theme. Maybe it was after my heart attack. I don't remember. But I got little heart-shaped pans and I made cakes in the shape of a heart and I wrote uh um uh in icing. It was really very special. And uh we made that, you know, but I'm going to make something that I know is yummy that people want. And uh then I'll find fun things to put in. I always put in a T just because I like tea. So, I put in a T. Um I uh one year I put in a W, but that's a different story. Um I uh I'll put in uh a large candy bar par because if it's milk, the whole point of something you're going to use at the perm suda. So if you put in a cake or you put in a koal or something that people are actually going to use. I know I have a neighbor who always sends two kalas and a bottle of wine figures you're going to use this at the seda at the porum suda. So don't use at the seda that's that's going to be a real problem. Um and uh yeah I'll put in a fruit I'll put in something like that. Something that people are going to enjoy. One year was a poor mish and we did a three theme. Everything had to be triple. I found these triple triple lollipops. I found triple things. So, one of the things I found was I I made a three green salad. That's a lot of work. Put on little containers and put them in. People enjoyed that. It was something nice. Um or you know it's not going to be done at the sedar at all but it's going to be something that uh I have a son-in-law who his shakman and he brings it early in the day is a cold cut sandwich. I know that doesn't sound very impressive on the surface, but it's a baguette with different types of cold cuts and different kind of spreads. And I think he puts in coleslaw or something like that. Wraps it up. And it's like the greatest thing ever. And I asked him, "What do you do? What makes your your baguette so special? Do you use a special sauce? Do you use this? Do you use different colors?" Goes, "Nope. Everything's ordinary." The reason it's so good is because people are busy a whole day prim and they never eat. So when you finally sit down and eat a real baguette with cold cuts, that's very exciting. People are very happy to have it. Clever. Clever. Um since the real is something that's going to be used at the suda, I always make one or two real shalakas. What does that mean? something that I know is going to be used at the seder. So, I get a platter and I make a fruit platter and cut up fruit, different types of fruit, things like that. And I know people are going to take this and put it out at their perm for dessert. And in fact, they do. I send that with a bottle of wine. Okay. I say then you have the shalakmonus that I like the little cute shalakis that people um you know pass around to other people and if you're lucky you get it back from somebody else and cuz I always like my own stuff anyway. So and then I get all my prune hamasha back. There's been more than one year that my kids were upset that there was no hamashen left over for them because uh we made too many shakmanas and I didn't make enough humashen. But that to me is a shakman shakman should be something that's small that's cute, you know. Uh I know not everybody has the time and not everybody has the the skill and not everybody has the money. Somebody would send a shalakon where it was either an orange or grapefruit and there was like two little like you know candies for eyes and licorice for the hair is that and that's what they s you would say with it that's cute you know um how much of that are people going to eat I don't know but uh that's the idea I want to send something that I know people are going to eat they're going to look at it they're going to enjoy it and have fun one time I was we were sitting we used to sit around when the kids were here and we try to come up with themes for for Sha Manus you know and whatever I thought up the kids would say that's corny now if you're not familiar with this term corny that's because uh there was what was called urban humor which was considered more intellectual and high class and then there was you know out in in Iowa and you know they used to say how would to play in Poria, you know, uh if anyone's old enough to remember those TV show Heihore, you know, with that kind of level of comedy and those were called corn jokes because they were like corny. They were out there in the middle of now place, you know. It's a whole different style of humor. But anyway, it was very interesting. Some of the highest rated shows on TV in the 1960s were in a shared universe. There was um the Beverly Hillbillies, Green Acres, and Petticoat Junction. They were all in, you know, uh they were all in the same Mr. Ducker. He was he was the glue that bound those three univer those three story stories together. It was a shared universe. Who heard of such a thing back then? And they cancelled it even though their ratings were good because uh they didn't want to do corny humor anymore. They felt these were too corny. So instead they wanted more urban like you know exciting things that nobody wanted to watch. But anyway it's not important. So um um so they said it was corny. So I said okay then we'll make a corn theme. I made corn salad. We got corn chips. We got I don't remember all the things we got, you know. I got candy corn. I had to bring that in from America. They don't have it here, you know. And um and it ends up I have a neighbor who was very upset. His name was Rabbi Korn. And he says, "I always do a corn theme." I said, "Oh, I'm sorry." You know, but this is our year. This is our year to do corn. Anyway, uh I've spoken about all this in the past. This is a but this is the kdesh. The kdesh is that the other Jewish publications all came out with shakman's ideas. I won't tell you which publications did which. It's not important. Um all I want to point out is that this should never be done by anybody. And if I stop one person from uh allowing their life to drift far away then I have done something worthwhile. Okay. The first one is called flower powered malak floor arrangements beautify everything and nothing says you're important to me more than flowers and chocolate. The photos on the next page may look daunting, but don't be fooled. That's the power of flowers. Whether you want to scale up the suggestions to make an impressive impact or tone them down to a single stem. Yeah, I've included both versions. I don't want to be busy with fresh flowers the night before pur dried or four blooms do an amazing job too. Okay, there's no flowers in shm. Now I know there's something called edible flowers. I know this because my kids one time when we went to America when my kids were little, you know, so we go to to go to exciting places. Hershey Park, Universal Studios, and um the big supermarket over there in Brooklyn. Pomegranate. And they just wanted to walk around pomegranate and look at it. I don't know what is so fascinating about this, you know. Someone tried to explain to me once. He goes, "You know, they have mayonnaise that comes in a tube." I said, "Is it better than Helman's?" I go, "Not really." I said, "Then what do I want it for?" it up. But you can go to the meat counter and see aged meat. And also they have edible flowers. Well, maybe that's a spar. Yeah. Okay. Here is a shalus. Okay. What you need for this? A fishbowl or short round cylinder size of your choice in plastic or glass. You have to go out and buy a fishbowl. Pebbles, candycoated nuts, chocolatecoated nuts, dinner mints, chocolate lentils, and M&M's. Okay. Is that really what you want to fit in your fishbowl? I mean, we had one year where we did a fish theme because Ada is masled and my daughter actually brought little fish bowls and put fish in them and put them on each table. The problem is nobody wants them afterwards and it seems sad to flush them all down the toilet. And since people don't really like to eat goldfish, you know, even in a sauce anyway, flowers of your choice, a small piece of floral foam soaked in water, placed in a disposable schnaps cup. Place the floral foam and bottle in the fishbowl. Add the pebbles to the height of the floral foam. So, I don't know if this this foam over here is necessary, but they put in a little foam here and this and some flowers. Don't do this, please. I'm doing this for your own good. Trust me. Yeah. a vase of of violets. You need a tall vase, which again you have to buy in a special place. See this tall vase or vase wrapped chocolate bark or other flat long food to be tied to the vase. I guess that's this. I don't know. And then flowers and ribbons and wrapped food items on sticks such as unicorn lollipops or chocolate dipped marshmallows and you stick them in with the flowers. If you want to send somebody flowers, just send them flowers. Okay, this this really people have to stop here. Oh, I guess this doesn't come with it. It looks like it's a brick. Yeah. Timeless toil. What you need? Velvet ribbon, clear foldable plastic boxes, hard lucite boxes, um toil patterned foldable cardboard boxes, food to fill the boxes. That's like a aside. Also, you should put some food on this. And the color of your choice. Caramel, popcorn, nuts, chocolates, truffles, mini liquor bottles. Where are those? I guess they're over there someplace. Yeah. And then a rectangle or or a square tray. You better hope that it fills it up because otherwise you're going to have to now go for the cellophane. And then flowers. And of course, floral foam to put the flowers in. Make a tray of brownies. Could even do blondies. I'm okay with either one. Color block. This is made out of stackable black and white checkered mugs. Four for $26. Well, since you need four to make this, that means you spent 26 bucks just on the little cups for this shakon. You can buy the bags at Oshad for like 10 for five shekels. I think it might be cheaper than that. What you need? Black and white checkered kitchen dish of your choice. Red flowers, floral foam, red velvet. Is there any food in this at all? Um, stick with black and white items. Black and white cookies, chocolatecovered nuts, white denim mints. Okay, listen. If anybody reads these things, don't send this to me, please. I love you. Don't do it. Don't spend 26 bucks on cups. For that money, you could send me a rose beef. Now, here we we we uh went with flowers and candles. We we moved beyond that. Velvet ribbon, cylinder containers, scented candle, which by the way is delicious at your suda. You always want to take a bite out of a scented candle, florals, a bud vase, candle tray, and food. If you're doing pink, oh, do pink and white cookies, pink truffles, pink dinner, pink candycoated almonds. Humashen. What? Read my lips. Prune. Humashen. Okay. Now, in case you're not already on the verge of a breakdown and you're actually thinking of doing these things because you're too cheap to buy Prozac, which would probably be more worthwhile. What could be better than making individual cookies? And then you make the cookies and then you have to put a fondue on top of it and then you have to write different things on the cookies to give it to people. Yeah, get right on that. Or you can make individual chocolates, which is also with your names on it and stamped and very exciting. And uh here are macaroons, which take an enormous amount of work and nobody wants them. Okay? No, nobody nobody wants macaroons. Trust me. All right. I don't want to be negative, but I am. I am what I am. Okay, this is what we're missing. This is what we need to work on. Personalized treat boards. You will need graphics printed on sticker paper, foam board, plastic cover or box, candy, glue gun, and double-sided tape. You will notice there is no food in this. I mean, you can buy like a little candy and stick it in, but all of that is aside from the fact, look at this. You spent all that time and they gave you two little tiny candy bars. Like mini bars. Sorry. Sorry. I'm really upset. I'm telling you, I read this and I was annoyed. And and I have to tell you that one of the one of the podcasts I made that got the most reaction was where I talked about things that annoyed me and it was like, "Yeah, me too." So, I hope this is annoying you. Sprinkles. The forecast calls for 100% chance of sprinkles. Make your porm sparkle and twinkle. Nothing says happy quite like sprinkles. How about putting a few things into a bag and then sitting down having a cup of coffee and maybe learning a safer about pumm? How about that instead of sprinkles? Do you think that might give you a smile on perm? Nothing says happy quite like sprinkles. I created a custom sprinkle blend using white sugar sparkles red and pink beads and a touch of gold sprinkles. What you need? Tray. Toffee almonds. Clear box for the almonds. Mask cookies. Cookies in the shape of a mask. Mini tequila bottle with cork stopper. Oh yeah. And flowers. That's of course really what everyone needs to be working on going into PES. But that's we we're not done. Here is a gentleman's gift. A leather box sets the tone. doesn't say how much it costs, but my experience, leather boxes are expensive. You can buy bags at Osha. I think they're like 10 for five shekels. I think this makes a shakon that's classy and fun. I have a better idea. Take a a little paper plate and put roast beef on it. That says classy. Uh jerky. Beef jerky with rustic potato chips is cleverly labeled meat and potatoes. That is uh uh that is definitely clever. You know what would be more clever? Meat and potatoes. Nuts and bolts. Uh what goes into there? It's uh basically peanuts. It looks like Yeah. And of course, Cuban cigars, which are just um like baffle. That's it. What you'll need a leather box available on Amazon. Oh, I'm sure they're really cheap. Navy and red striped grass grain ribbon. Yeah, get that. Blue moss. Sure. Mini liquor bottles, beef jerky, rustic potato chips, assorted nuts, wafer rolls, wine bottle stopper available on Amazon, custom food labels. Okay. Oh, and then of course a lavender rustic arrangement. What you need? Lucid section tray. Scrapbook paper to line the tray. Lavender linen spray. Really? There's a spray in this. Yeah, there it is. Very tasty. Floral pouch. Small wine bottles. Dubai pecans. Blueberry almonds. Vegetable chips. Spiced dried mango. Natural dried pineapple tea blends available at Bingo from the Nut Factory. Two small jars, corkked glass tubes and coarse ribbon. Tulips done two ways. What you need? Three section acrylic box available at ham.com. Tulip paper plate accent available at altunastore.com. Twine and leaf ribbon available on Amazon. Custom tags available at Etsy. Uh I I don't know. I don't know why. Why is this necessary? Clown says happy purim. What you need? Green acrylic tray from Amazon. Small glass bottle. 12 sandwich cookies. 8 oz dark baking chocolate. Colored baking chocolate. Silicon letter mold. Small candies and glue dots. Okay. And here is part of the clown get up. You want to make some clowns, etc. I I would love to see somebody work out the cost of each one of these things. So, I'm going to tell you a story when I taught in seminary. I was teaching in seminary and yeshiva at the same time. And there's a concept the permik. I'm sure you've heard of permik. I was driving my car and I hear this terrible whistling. I don't know what it is. I bring it into the service center and he says, "Okay, leave the car. We'll get to it." I pick it up later in the day. And he shows me someone stuck this whistle in my exhaust pipe. Apparently, he thought it was permitt. I didn't have my car for an entire day. I had to pay for a taxi back and then a taxi back again and 300 shekels for him to re point out that there was a whistle there. A great permikick. Yeah. Cost me hundreds of shekels, but that was funny. So in the seminary they decided to do a stick. They took all of the desks out of the classroom so they couldn't have class and when the rabbi came in to teach there was no place to sit and of course they had to take all of the um things back in and set up the classroom and they killed half the class. Yeah. in my class because what Ebenezer Scrooge was to Christmas I am to Purim. Um so these girls came in wearing paper bags over their head. Now don't get me wrong, there are some students I've had over the years where a paper bag might be a good idea, but these actually were very fine young ladies and they didn't need a paper bag over their head. And I did not acknowledge it at all. I didn't say anything. I just started teaching. And a girl raised an hand and says, "Rabbi, you have any good ideas for permik?" I said, "Phtic?" I said, "You mean PM stick where you disrupt an entire class and this RV comes in ready to teach you about the meaning of pur and instead he can't teach cuz all of the tables and chairs were taken out. So you lost time learning Torah?" Let me ask you a question. Which character in the PM story would like to see Jews not learn Torah? I'll give you a multiple choice. Was it A Morai, B Esther, C Hammon? So, which of the characters in the PUM story are you associating with for your PM stick? I said, you want some PM stick? Here's an idea. Yeah. Why don't you go through your closets cuz it's getting towards the end of the winter and take all of those clothes that you don't plan on taking back and give them to poor people who don't have clothes to wear so that they could also have some clothes to wear at the end of the winter. There's a good stick. Hey, you want another stick? Here's one. All that money that you were going to spend to go to eat with your friends and get facials, how about give that to the poor people. So they could buy food. Hey, there's a great permick. Hey, I got another one. How about Anyway, you get the idea. Suffice it to say, as I was in this particular rant, the girls with the paper bags took the bags off of their heads. And what in the world could you be thinking? What could be the possible purpose of this pumtick that Mameish creates? Bal tora and takes us away from our vod hashem and and you you cost your rebi hundreds of shekels because you thought it would be funny. You know that's a pmtick. It's not a pmtick. It's it's it's it's my mole. You've thrown yourself into anatis into a boiling bathtub to cool it off and stop the Torah learning. That was the famous veratskll in in Panovich. He says what was a malik? He says they cooled off the bath. He says you know who's a malik? Anybody who tries to cool off the learning in the base mash. That's a malik. when you when you decide to smoo with your friend or to go out for a coffee or to come late and the whole ru of the base medish goes down that's a malik that's what they want to accomplish now ask yourself what you want to accomplish there are yeshivas where pum night they have a say the whole night they learn the whole night of pumm and then they dik and uh read the migill, let everybody get a little sleep and then go for the suda and give it their shakman. But to spend this kind of money on shalakis for us, it's very classy. Don't get me wrong, and if you have the disposable income, but think for a minute if instead that amount of money you were going to spend on your shakmanas, I'm not saying not to have shalas is a beautiful thing. It makes people loved my noodle cook. It was not expensive. There noodles and eggs and cinnamon and vanilla and um and raisins and fruit cocktail. I don't know if there was anything else in it. Sugar. There's been other things. Little aluminum pans. Everyone enjoys it. People like my hamandashen and I think it's a mitzvah to provide people with prin hamandash and the deprived people in don't get a chance to have a prune hamandash what sometimes I'd go to America before pur and I'd find in a bakery nice beautiful prune hmentage I wouldn't have to make them myself stick them in a little plastic bag and put a little twister on it you know what I mean but um ask yourself what your priorities are going into PUM and what is it that's going to be what Cla celebrated on PM yeah thanking recognizing the Nissim or is it a celebration of gross materialism And like I say, if this is important to you and to the people who are getting it and it will create, you know, shalom and you say, I have no choice. I have to go to all of these websites and buy all this mishagasum and stick in a little bit of food also to to make a shas. Okay, if you if you travel in those circles and that's considered good. But if one person this year instead goes and buys a paper bag, and you know what, could be a plastic bag, could be a vinyl bag, it could be a clo, I don't care. And you put in stuff that people actually want to eat. And if it's actually something you can use at the suda, wow, then then I think you're actually getting the mitzvah. But like I say, I'm not here to judge anybody. I'm only here to share my own sense of frustration and I hope everybody has found it meaningful. And now of course as uh my producer always sends me appreciation comments to share with everybody. Dear Rabowski, a big thank you for all your sharim/shows. I've really trained people over the years. My wife introduced me to your content and I have not looked back ever since. My wife and myself are avid fans of your shows and it is appropriately we share our anniversary with your birthday. We celebrated our anniversary this year with a big Rabbi Olowski cake. Without going into too much detail, it was very tasty. Please go into more detail. I want to hear about the Rabiolowski cake. Did it have a picture of me? Was it shaped like me? In which case I would see why it was a big rabbi cake. Mazle on your birthday and may you continue a fan from the UK. PS. You can get Charles Turret shirts with pockets for those who suffer from vibrations. And of course, Ari the producer put a little note here. You mentioned them in your annoying episode cuz he knows I would never remember any of the things that I say. This is in fact a Charles Ch with a pocket. My son had to have them made special. Thank you for that. Love the podcast. Love is capitalized. Going through a difficult time. So the annoying podcast with a breath of fresh air. I laughed out loud repeatedly and that's something we all need more of. Yes, we do. Please, please take care of your health. I'm trying. One of the things I did because, you know, one of my problems with my diabetes is I stopped checking my blood. So, as far as I know, I'm fine. I worry about you terribly. Don't worry. Kushu had the chance to take me 12 years ago and he doesn't want me. So, I'm just going to linger. to 120. By the way, I would love to join the PES program, but I have a tradition to only do PES at home, but it sounds amazing. I wish tremendous and tons of parnosa. Anyone who has a minute not to eat out and not to go, I understand. And uh we'll miss you. We'll be thinking of you. And uh we are somebody wrote me an interesting thing. They said, "Do you have a day option?" So, we're going to make a day option for somebody who wants to come out for just for the day, you know, and uh I I'll work it out with the hotel facilities, join us for dinner, you know, I think it'll be a fun thing if anybody's in it and wants to spend a day in the hotel. Of course, if you don't eat out, it's not going to be as much fun. But, and there are some people who say, "I wish I could come, but I can't come, but I'd like to come at least for a day." So, we're going to we're going to bring that as an option. And that's it for this episode. If you want to find out more about the show, you can go to my website, rabelowski.com. You can send me an email. You can make a comment. You can sign up for one of our online sher. You can uh sponsor an episode, sponsor a paran, sponsor a question and answer. Uh you can uh do something, you know, about my car, which is not running too well. It's 12 years old. uh or uh or if you want to do something about starting the seminary which we mentioned at the beginning. I'll settle even for yeshiva if you want to make a yeshiva I'll I'll go there and that's it. There's lots of stuff you can do there. You can read uh articles. You can do all kinds of things there. All kinds of fun fun and exciting things. That's it for this week. Until next time, I am David Olowski and this has been the Rabbi Olowski Show. >> It's the Rabbi Orloski Show. Torah and Sima ready to go. The Rabbi Olavski show. Knowledge and wisdom will help you grow. Lots of fun in every episode. And we don't have to rhyme, though we don't. It's the Rabbi Orlavski show on Rabbi Olowski.com. Torah anytime you and more. It's Rabbi Olowski show. Torah and ready to go. It's the Rabbi orski show. Till next time till we meet again. The Rabbi show. It's the Rabbi show. It's the Rabbi orski show.