Authorities Incorporated

I leaned back on the brick wall that lines the building exterior, my hands tucked into each opposite coat sleeve, and I tried to breathe in a relaxing pattern. I inhaled deeply and let out a nervous breath. Inquisitively, I bent over and looked around me. The place was different than I expected, in the sense that it was quiet, not the come-and-go rush I assumed it would be like. I pushed the lit doorbell again, held it down a little harder this time, and waited.

“Why aren’t they opening?” I whispered to my husband impatiently. “Huh? What's taking so long?”

I confess I didn’t come there with the cleanest of souls. My chassid had planned to go with a kvitle anyhow, and he thought I could use a blessing from a good yid that has a special bond with God. When he first mentioned it, I laughed till my guts spilled out, wiping tears away, but when the hysteria died down I noticed that I’d been doubled over alone. Yoelish didn’t think it was funny. He was convinced a trip to the Rabbi will do us good and that I have just to go to find out that he was right. He couldn't get much enthusiasm out of me when it comes to rabbis, but I did intentionally pick that old grey and navy, dull scarf to tie on my head. I figured a shpitzle veibele with sagging shoulders will distract the rabbi from my sinning insides.

By the time they ushered me in to the rabbi's room, I was already considering leaving the whole ordeal and walking right back home. I was tizzy with tension. Having never gone to the Rabbi before, what followed passed in a blur of men's black long coats and thing belts tied on top. I don’t really remember how I arrived into the big room, one laced with sefarim on its endless walls. I think we went there was a quick toll exchange between Moshe and the gabi on our way in.

In the room, I wasn’t offered a seat or a kichelech made by the rebbetzin. I just stood at the door of the fluorescent-blue room that was empty of props but the rabbi’s heavy table. My husband rushed over to kiss the rabbi’s hand. The Rebbeh Shlita shukled in a front-to-back motion and loudly benched us with wonderful things.

"Umeyn... Umeyn... Umeyn... Umeyn..."

I nodded amens fervently. Then the rabbi fell silent. Yoelish’l spoke; he said it. I felt sick with fear when he made the admission about my personal shortcoming, my hidden reality. Yoelish told the rabbi that I have a blog, and that I feel it’s starting to poison my mind. That I stumbled upon the Internet unintentionally, and I’ve been trapped ever since. What should we do?

I began chewing at my nails. I pulled my pocket book strap back over my shoulders.

“Ah Blok?!" The rabbi's question came in a learning tune. "And there’s J Net or any other such program?”

“Yu, Yu, of course!”

The rabbi gazed down on his sefar, his fingers running through his beard through his beard. Then he balled up the end of his beard in his hand. He seemed unable to sit without jerking in little movements. Finally he looked me in the eye and asked, “In Gugle edsense (Google Adsense), iz doos doo? (do you have that?)”

My husband turned to me confused about what that adsense was all about.

“Se-iz mayglech” I murmured, my eyes fixed on my nails. It's possible to install it.

“Meyn froe zoogt es is mayglech, it’s possible” Yoelish repeated to the rabbi.

“Nee." came his hoarse, pshetldig voice, "Our educational institutions are struggling financially. The melamdim in the yeshivos are not getting paid and the buildings can't be covered. Oz men ken oroishelfen, if we can help out, that would be a big mitzvah. Seshteyt duch, "shliach mitzvah eyneh nizoykin" he who does a good deed cannot be in danger. Should der eybershter help you and you should be successful in alleh inyanim, amen!”

So very dear reader, I’ve put Google Ad Sense up. Let us hope that in the merit of a combined Blogger’s effort we’ll be zocha to see a lot of riches for this rabbi and a few more rabbjs, until moschiach tsidkayno, Amen!