Divrei ben Abuya

In the Babylonian Talmud, Elisha ben Abuya was a great sage who lost his faith in God. So great was he that his and subsequent generations continued learning from him - to the extent that the authors of the Talmud needed to create a story that would serve to legitimise his teachings despite his apostasy. His lesson is a lesson for us all: that great stature is not contingent upon blind faith, nor high learning upon the observation of Torah precepts.

August 27, 2006

Just a little guy...

Now that Pluto is officially a "dwarf planet", and the number of planets in our solar system down to a paltry eight, it has rightly been observed that a new mnemonic is required. No more may children declare that their very eldery mothers are doing anything that even remotely concerns their pa. The following are my two suggestions so far:

"Murdered Vietnamese Envoy May Justly Startle UN"

and

"Mexican Viagra Embargo Makes Juan So Unbelievably Numb"

Feel free to add your own suggestions: either here or with Allegorical Nonsense, who first came up with the idea!

2 Comments:

At 2:53 AM , Anonymous Anonymous said...

Just ask your parents: they were brought up with no Pluto.

 
At 7:58 AM , Blogger SFH said...

Really? They might be offended to hear you say that, because Pluto was discovered in 1930! Unless you are suggesting that it failed to make the curricula for some time? Not unlikely, I imagine it will be some time before they remove it again.

 

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