Queens Jewish Link
Connecting the Queens Jewish Community 
One of the best things about the Jewish people is that we keep innovating new ways – especially around the yomim tovim – to make our lives easier, and also to maybe make a few dollars, because Yom Tov is expensive. And it’s even more expensive, because of all of these innovations that we have to get.
It’s that time of year – all the yeshivas and shuls are making dinners, so that everyone can get together for a night of chizuk and community and trying very hard not to say that this is all about the money.
We all know the saying, “There’s no such thing as a dumb question,” although yeridas hadoros since the saying was formulated has made us question whether it is in fact true. But there is definitely a dumb time to ask certain questions.
So I’m still on the phone.
If you don’t recall from last week’s article, or have blocked it out, I’m currently trying to transfer phone service from an old flip phone to a new flip pone, and also transfer my number so the five people who have it will be able to contact me.
One of the trickiest Pesach minhagim that some families have -- my own family included -- is that we don’t sell real chometz. I’m not sure what we sell. We do sell something, I know that. I do take time off on the busiest week of the year and go to a rav and tip him money in a secret handshake for doing something. The shtar says I’m selling him chometz. I’m not sure what, though. There’s no chometz that a non-Jew will find in my house that I didn’t find in three months of cleaning. Where is he looking? I think I’m mostly selling the hard bits on the dishes.
I’m on the phone.
No one loves sitting on the phone with customer service, but you’d think that the most efficient companies for this – the ones that the others should look up to as the model of how things should be done – are the cell phone companies. They should have it all figured out. But instead, using a phone to call a phone number to activate an entirely different phone than the one you’re on is not any easier than buying a new computer using the computer you have that you’re looking to replace.
