Effed on the F: Superjews
Benjamin | Friday, December 12, 2008 at 5:54AM 
Some commuters read novels, some read the New Yorker, computer manuals, highlighted textbooks, medical journals - and some sketch, dick around with their iPhones, PSPs, Treos - but not the F train Superjew!
Nope, the Superjews on the F train do one thing and one thing only:
Superjews on the F train, whether they're older men with yamakas or hot little 20-something chicks with long skirts, they all sit with hebrew texts and (?)
What are they doing? Does anyone know? You can't really google this, and I don't want to give my mom the satisfaction of letting her know I'm interested.
Here's a hint: The males, like my man pictured above, all have large books and seem to be studying silently (pop quiz with Yahweh?) - whereas females:
...all seem to have tiny books and move their lips while the read. My guess is that they're praying while the men are studying. Correct?
One other interesting point - look how none of the hebrew letters came out in the crappy cellphone pictures I snuck... It's almost like g-d is defending the holy text from my prying electronic eye.
I took "Jewish Mysticism" in College - it was Kabbalah pre-Madonna's interest. Extremely interesting stuff - really drew me more to judiasm than anything I studied for my Bar Mitzvah. Anyway, there's a passage at the beginning of one of the textbooks that always spooked me out:
This book contains divine names. Do not take it into the bathroom or any other unclean place.
Ah Jesus, look at my pics - there's no text on the books! It was right there, I swear. It's like the movie The Ring - all that shows up in my photos is a ball of glowing light. Kinda scary!
Maybe I shouldn't post this at all. Ok, I'll post it- but if Yahweh leaves a comment I'm definitely taking it down.
Shabbat Shalom!
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Reader Comments (9)
I always assumed they were praying. They have to pray a lot.
I have told them repeatedly not to take them on the subways. I mean, talk about unclean.
Yuck!
Yahweh FTMFW - epic
What happens when they reach the end, do they move on to Tom Clancey?
I bet the men are studying Talmud and perhaps the women are reading psalms.
I only say that 'cause I suspect there is a lot of Talmudic learning at Yeshivas, whereas the only tiny Hebrew books I know are often psalm books.
How do you manage to take pics of people on the train without someone decking you?
Yes PC! Finally a little fuckin credit - it's HARD to take these damn spy pics without having someone beat me to death with my own cellphone.
Erica was giving me a hard time that the quality of my pics suck so hard - I said bitch please! Quality? I'm lucky the pics aren't of me bleeding on the subway floor.
PC wins the Golden Latke Award!!!
Yes, the men are studying Talmud.
If you look carefully at the pages of the books they are studying, you will see a single passage from the Torah in the center of the page. That passage is then surrounded by "commentary," the wisdom of the ages, written by sages who dissect those passages. Two bunches of text per page is never enough, though! Those two passages are then surrounded by....are you ready?....commentary on the commentary.
It takes something like six years, one page per day, for a Jew to finish all the books of the Talmud.
Then, they are entitled to go to Madison Square Garden (I kid you not)...not for a Knick game, not for a Ranger game, not for the circus, not for Paul McCartney and certainly not for Madonna, but for a celebration of the completion of the Talmud!!!
Yes, the women are praying or reading Psalms.
And...to prove they're utterly 21st Century, some Super Jews have started downloading their Talmud to their Blackberries (OU/K)!!! So those books may soon be a thing of the past.
I believe it's a Psalm Pilot, the earliest known version of the Kindle.
anon 2:15 -
Thank you so much - that's exactly what I wanted to know. Thanks for being so open and fortcoming and cool about it...
b