THE RAMBAM RECORD
The eNewsletter of Rambam Mesivta High School
March 31, 2006 / 2 Nisan

Project Mitnadvim '06 Recap

Gabi Nachmani, the director of Livnot U'Lehibanot, thanked those students who volunteered in this year's Project Mitnadvim and urged those who could not to do so in future visits to Israel.

Nachmani said: "When you come to Israel, you see a beautiful city, a spiritual place, and you feel so glad we have a home. But, let us not forget that there are 42 soup kitchens in Jerusalem that distribute 12,000 meals to needy families every day."

The students were treated to a slide show presented by senior Zoli Honig of the activities of Project Mitnadvim 2006. Over this past winter break, 10 Rambam students flew to Israel and spent their winter break volunteering on behalf of the people of Israel.

"This is the sixth year Rambam has engaged in Project Mitnadvim," said Rambam Principal and Project Mitnadvim Founder Rabbi Yotav Eliach. "Each year, it represents the Rambam philosophy in action - If you believe something is right, don't just talk about it, do something about it."

In past years, the students volunteered on army bases aiding the Israel Defense Forces with upkeep and maintenance of their facilities. (Click here to read article.)

This year, students volunteered for Livnot U'Lehibanot, a not-for-profit organization which is committed to helping poor families in Israel by serving food, and painting and repairing homes of families who need that assistance. The students also visited many yeshivot during their stay in consideration of furthering their studies after graduation. (Click here to read article)

Rabbi Eliach announced that, because of the positive contribution made by the talmidim this past winter break, in all likelihood, next year's Project Mitnadvim, would also be on behalf of Livnot U'Lehibanot.

A "Magical" Shiur

Binyamin Cohen gave a "magical" shiur on Thursday, March 30 at Rambam. Cohen entertained and enlightened the talmidim using a mix of sleight-of-hand tricks, a cutting sense of humor and profound insight into the real world explanations of some of the "magic tricks" that are referred to in the Chumash and Gemorah.

Cohen, an acclaimed frum expert on "magic tricks," discussed the various opinions of magic fourn in Torah sources. He presented an explanation of how the magicians of Paroh were able to imitate some of the wonderous acts of Moshe Rabeinu and yet were unable to do others.

Without giving away all of his secrets, Cohen demonstrated to the enraptured group how fire and sleight-of-hand can easily fool people into believing in things that are not real. He made birds appear, water turn red, and cucumbers fly in the air. (Gemorah in Sanhedrin).

Cohen's shiur provide an insightful perspective as to how to view the "magic of old."

On Language

By sophomore Jeffrey B. (Rocky) Reichman

Imitatives: Blah-blah-blah and yadda-yadda-yadda

“You wait for a gem in an endless sea of blah,” said Lawrence Grossman, President of NBC News in 1988.

“Our democracy, our culture, our whole way of life is a spectacular triumph of the blah,” Patrick Jake once said.

“... just don't get blah. This is not ... is not the blah of blah-blah-blah, the dialect ... is rather the blah of the blahs,” wrote William Safire on October 22, 1995, in his "On Language" section of the New York Times.

The American Heritage Dictionary has blah (and blah-blah-blah) as and so on; etcetera,” and according to Webster’s Dictionary, Unabridged, blah can also be “an exclamation of disgust.” An example use of this word according to the Concise Oxford English Dictionary is “North American blahs.” The phrase yadda-yadda-yadda is related to blah-blah-blah. Where does yadda-yadda-yadda come from? The only source I could find was yatter (incessant talk). Yatter is an imitative, and is related to chatter. These words are also probably related to the words babble, yak, prattle, rattle (to “rattle something off”) and prate (all bearing the same meaning).

If you Google yadda-yadda-yadda or just plain yadda (not to be confused with Middle East village of Yatta), then you only get 606,000 results, whereas the more common phrase blah blah gets 2,400,000 results. Yatter, even more rare than yadda, gets a mere 993 results.

It is no mystery where blah blah is from, but what about yadda -what’s it’s history? Yadda, taken from the word yatter, has not been around long. In the television show Seinfeld, when Jerry says “yadda-yadda-yadda" to Elaine, was most likely what put yadda-yadda-yadda firmly in our lexicon.

So, getting on to our next Etymology article, yadda-yadda-yadda, we can learn a lot.

For more etymology articles from Rocky, visit his website http://literarymagic.com.

The Rambam debate team continues to roll! They were selected as the best debate team at the most recent debate on Tuesday, March 21st at the Stella K. Abraham High School for Girls (SKA). Senior Raffi Holzer won the award for the best debater at the event.

Rambam hosted its second blood drive in the last three months on Wednesday, March 22nd. Over 30 students lined up to donate a pint of blood each in this drive run by the New York Blood Center and organized internally by junior Yehuda Borg.

A hearty congratulations to all the students, teachers and administrators who participated!

Rambam students can now do college Prep on the Internet! Professor Lisa Korman, head of the College Guidance Department, has announced a Rambam partnership with PreHQ, which provides online software to help better manage and monitor your son's college preparation and application process.

PrepHQ enables students and parents to monitor the college application process and application status; review his most current GPA, test scores and grades; search colleges and get general information about each school; monitor messages sent to the student from the Counseling Offices; track college visits; find out about summer programs and much, much more.

The boys are currently registering online and Professor Korman expects that all will be registered before Pesach.

Mazel Tov on the marriage of Yoni Posnick ('03) to Rikki Blumenkrantz, and Dov Sassoon ('99) to Aliza Schuman (pictured).

Mazel Tov to Chananya Weissman ('96) and Avraham Bronstein ('97) for receiving Smicha from Yeshiva University.

Mazel Tov to Dr Neal and Naomi Rosenblum on the engagement of their daughter Judy Rosenblum to Zvi Rosenblatt.

Mazel Tov to Chaim Williams ('00) and his wife Natalie on the birth of his baby boy.

Mazel Tov to David Feder ('00) & his wife Hindy on the birth of their baby girl.