nice shabbat

Pardes had an Event, of sorts - that means supper - but it was nice. We went to Yedidya in the morning, and met various hosts there, and to Gail's (nice) place for lunch; she has this amazing fake-crab salad, the recipe for which I will get off her at some point. And to David the Dean's for seudah, and he has wall-to-wall carpets!!! which we were all agog at. And chocolate brownies, which were also highly agreeable.

And then lots and lots of people came back to our house to watch The Two Towers, as a revision session, very fun indeed - we made popcorn and put a mattress on the floor to supplement the chairs and sofa, and we squished in lots of people and a small baby, and watched TV until we were completely ready to see The Return Of The King when it comes out later this week.

(no subject)

http://www.e-daf.com/Kidushin/31b.gif - towards the bottom - discussion dealing with when you have to respect your father (by feeding him, etc), who has to pay?

Interesting progression - the tannaitic material implies that the son has to pay. The amoraic material turns the tannaitic material over and makes it that the father has to pay. The rishonim ask the logical question, what happens when the father runs out of money? and the answer is, while the son isn't legally liable to support his father, and he can theoretically put the father on the charitable support of the town, if the son has a lot of spare money (that is, he's just being a cheapskate) the community can force him to give a lot of money to charity. This is a pleasing circumvention of the law - while you may not be technically obliged to pay for your parents, if you're going to place a huge burden on the charity bag, you're going to be made to put a lot more into it. Same with children, when they get beyond the age to which you have to support them (young, about nine, we think).

Shiur very very boring, though, everyone wants to give their opinions. The point of having a teacher is that you hear the opinion of someone who actually knows something, instead of spending all the time listening to people who say whatever comes into their heads (I wouldn't mind if it was interesting, but it's usually totally irrelevant, or else they've misunderstood - ugh).