STAY CALM AND SAY "NI"

Let us start the day off with a little bit of Jewish law. As, quite naturally, one might do. Which is a good thing.

Talmud, Bava Metzia 59b

Rabbi Eliezer said: "To the Knight who still says ni; why, when everyone else in your shul is saying "ecky ecky ecky ecky pikang zoop boing goodemzoo owli zhiv", do you stubbornly insist that "ecky ecky ecky ecky pikang zoop boing goodemzoo owli zhiv" is NOT the minhag of the old country, and you don't care what these Gallitzianers or Rumanians do, you will still say 'ni'?"

Rabbi Judah said, in the name of Shmuel: "Minhag has the weight of halacha, and the minhag says 'ni'. Punkt. Keep saying 'ni' as you were taught in a heilige mesorah all the way from the mountain.
Ecky ecky ecky ecky pikang zoop boing goodemzoo owli zhiv is merely a ridiculous chumrah."

But Rabbi Joshua kvetched: "If learned knights are debating a point of chivalry, what are your qualifications to disagree? Ecky ecky ecky ecky pikang zoop boing goodemzoo owli zhiv is the correct custom of our kehilla."

To which Rabbi Eiezer retorted: "Not only is ecky ecky ecky ecky pikang zoop boing goodemzoo owli zhiv far more ridiculous than "ni", but it does NOT fit into a standard cartoon talk balloon."


Whereupon a voice from upstairs cried out angrily: "I only require one shrubbery. A nice one, and not too expensive. So there's NO point in getting two and placing the second one beside the first one, only slightly higher, to get the two level effect, et cetera. Even if minhag dictates that you should get one for each member of the family. And what's this about chopping sh*t with herring? That's SO Litvak!
Goyishe kop!"

Nu, it remains a machlokes.


That, more or less, was what went through my head when I thought someone else was being referred to as "Katzenbatz" yesterday.
There were several conversations going on at once.
One of which was Boris holding forth.
I may have misheard.


If so, I apologize for thinking that the name fit.


Katzenbatz.



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