Are You a Bull, a Sheep,
a Donkey, or a Garment?

I'm a donkey, myself.

Thanks for the lectures you have been sending world over via email. They are "gevaltic"! Keep up the great work!! With much appreciation, Miriam Yerushalmi

this is the 2nd week in a row that I can't "get into" the lecture, all I get is a half-shaded picture of the front page picture. Ouch! I miss my shiur!

Refresh the page and press play. It should work, unless there is a problem with your internet browser.

Another vintage rendition. Thank you. Terrific.

tried to watch on wireless at a hotel; had 54 excellent connection but it runs only a few seconds at and time, stops, and then starts again - like the old "buffering" problem.

Try closing computer, and restarting and then press play. From our side, it seems to be working perfectly.

Mazal Tov to David & Eda Schottenstein. May you go me'chayil el chayil and live many happy and healthy years together.

The shiurim are timeless, but the graphics and technology is getting increasingly sophisticated.
I got a kick out of the bull ring in Spain.
While I was watching the shiur, the part of the beged not necessarily proving the pnimius of the person, a though hit me. I wonder if we can make any connection to the fact that Adam HaRishon and Chava were unclad until the sin and they themselves were embarrassed and looked to cover themselves up.

4. Questions and exercises:
1. Are you an aggressive person?
This chapter of Torah is talking about an ox or a bull as a prototype of aggressive person, whereas heifer is different type of personality and presented in some others chapters.
Does your aggression damage other people?
Not sure if they welcome a heifer at rodeo fights…
2. Are you cold and passive?
I am too fond of the game called life for that.
How does it damage people around you?
Some of them just cannot stand a person who disturbs their quagmire and constantly wakes them up.
3. Are you double-faced?
Not only double but triple or, may be even, “multicolored hypocrite”( What do you want from almost ready to go American licensed nurse, Russian original, who has children and wild mix of Yiddish and Sephardic blood?)
Are you a frenemy to anybody in the world?
Here is what I learned from this new word:
Adam and Eve didn’t know that they were naked before they took a taste of fruit from the tree of knowledge. Their nakedness was neutral sign of their innocence: neither good nor evil. It started trouble them only because they used a wrong source - serpent, in wrong time and in a wrong place. If they had patience to wait for G-d’s presentation of this fruit their psycho had been much safe. How do I know? It’s a fact that Hebrew words for friend and enemy sound similar and from the Torah perspective finally, in New Era our enemies will become our friends. Comes New Webster dictionary and sophisticatedly introduces its negative concept through the word frenemy: doomed, cynical and without any references to the Source!
4. Are you spineless?
With an awful back pain I sometimes wish I were spineless.
Meek, docile and easily submissive to where you are being pulled?
Yeah, easily submissive to pulling, waiting for the pain to subside.
How does it effect your daily life?
It brings instant tranquility with the sign on the background: “DREAM, LOVELY DREAM!
5. What is the cause of any of the above qualities in your life?
It might be either congenital or acquired
Ultimately it roots in the image of G-d according which we all had been created. See explanations below.
What can you do practically to change any of them?
Should I?
6. How can you reorient you any of the above qualities into a positive and productive force?
If those qualities are clinical, sorry it’s beyond scope of my practice, otherwise we can try the safest waywith shifting our bad attitude for a good one.
1. Aggression is the quality that, being curbed, makes a man so irresistible for a woman. Much better than edentate humans.
2. If a person feels cold and passive he might experience wisdom of King Solomon: “Futility of futilities”.
3. What’s wrong with the sheep? “On spiritual level a sheep does not have its spiritual identity”. Oh well, it’s our national trait that help us survive through whole history. Vladimir Nabokov invented a nice word for such kind personality: NETKA ... Furthermore, if we were created according to G-d’s image and G-d doesn’t have any image, then Darwin should resign: we all came from a sheep not from any kind of ape.
7. In conclusion, why does the Torah specify “bull,” “donkey,” “garment” and “sheep” in the laws of returning an object?
Because four of them are correlated to four major spiritual flaws in each of us and as such should be restored to proper service for Almighty.
Please specify.
Once again? I cannot repeat it as beautiful as Rabbi Yosef Jacobson. Just take time to watch this video.

Not very proud of being a Bull here but i believe in time i can reorient that attitude to channel positve energy.