Eechsa!!

Struck me. All the things we generally associate with repulsive and disgusting (or the more colloquial "eechsa") like excrement, vomit, bodily fluids, etc etc ..... it's the moisture or water element which engenders the human aversion.

Take away the moisture of any of them and we amazingly no longer relate to them the same psychologically even though you're left with basically the same exact elements as before.

"Never kick a fresh turd on a hot day" -- President Harry S Truman

Benevolence or Sexual Harassment?

זוהר לך לך פו ב

רבי אלעזר הוה אזיל לבי חמוי ... אמר ר' אלעזר הא חמינא דאתערותא דלעילא לא איהו אלא כד אתער לתתא דהא אתערותא דלעילא בתיאובתא דלתתא תלייא וכו

Seems to go very well with the point made earlier of Initiating the Initiator.

Without a showing of some form of receptivity on the part of the female any advance on the part of the male is then, ultimately, harassment.

There must be an אתערותא דלתתא just to allow for the אתערותא דלעילא to be an act of benevolence and not one of harassment.

Or maybe put another way: the difference between your classic Big Bad Wolf and that of Sam the Sham...

[p.s. Just look at how history views European Colonialism in its entirety]

ספר הכוונות מנהגי האר"י

See, on or around page 7 of ספר הכוונות (a book written by a talmid noting all that he noticed of the הנהגות of the Arizal):

1) The Gemara in Horayot of הקורא כתב שעל הקבר קשה לשכחה is only said by אותיות בולטות and not שוקעות

2) The Gemara in Horayot of מאכלים המשכחים is only said by עמי הארץ who can't be מכוין to the ענינים properly.

יפליא - Falo - Portuguese

In my never-ending quest to learn all the languages spoken here in the Merkaz Klita I've discovered that in portuguese "Falo" is the word for speech

as in: איש כי יפליא לנדור נדר נזיר וגו

[Also note: phallos, phallus - מילה]