lethargic_man | Entries tagged with adventures with the rabbit

Now that must have been an interesting discussion: the ultra-Orthodox rabbit, the secular Jew and the Christian saint:

Whilst Bar-Navi was busy with that, Jane went on an expedition to view the Hippopotamus Fountain:

Be careful, Jane; hippos are very aggressive animals!

Meanwhile the hunters are searching very hard, but they just don't seem to be able to find the hippo.

When the fountain is turned on, water jets upwards out of the hippo's nostrils, but apparently I chose the wrong time to visit.

What to do when your baby has grown too big for his cute bunny slippers:

( View image )

Crossposts: https://lethargic-man.livejournal.com/552890.html

Some of you might have noticed the lack of Adventures with the Rabbit posts here recently.

Actually, there's a good reason for that: Bar-Navi and Jane have observed what now happens to rabbits in our household who don't keep a low profile: They get their ears sucked, and quite vigorously too:

( View piccy )

Of course it's their ears that get sucked; it's the tastiest part of them. Poor Peter Rabbit!

Still, just to prove that the rabbits (and a few hares) are all still there, here's a family photo:

( View piccy )

aviva_m: "We don't have enough rabbits in this household!"

Of course, the day after the photo was taken, I found a couple of cute bunny slippers that Rafi had; and indeed when I took it, I couldn't find the little black obsidian statue of El-Ahrairah. (It wasn't sold as being of El-Ahrairah, they've probably never heard of him at Mt Etna, but I knew it was him because of the glitter in the ears.)

Crossposts: https://lethargic-man.livejournal.com/552476.html

Today's blog post takes us to what was for aviva_m undoubtedly the highlight of our time in Japan: the small island of Okunoshima in the Inland Sea, home to over eight hundred rabbits, all wild but sufficiently accustomed to visiting rabbit fans that they might as well be tame.

( Prepare for an overdose of cute )

Crossposts: https://lethargic-man.livejournal.com/549307.html

( View piccy )

The track listing, FWIW, involves a bunch of Django Reinhardt, Charleston music from the twenties, Sweet Emma Bartlett, a bit of ragtime, a Sydney Bechet track... You get the idea. :o)

Crossposts: https://lethargic-man.livejournal.com/545251.html

It's been a while since we've had an adventures with the rabbits post. So what have they been up to all this while?

Well, mostly same old, same old. Here's Bar Navi giving a shiur to the other rabbits in the household:

( View piccy )

But the most exciting piece of news is of course the wedding of the year, between Bar Navi and Jane. They held this immediately before the Wandering Jews event aviva_m and I hosted as part of our Sheva Berochos. All of the other rabbits in the household were guests (though none of the photos seem to have more than two or three in), as well as those who had managed to get to ours for Wandering Jews before Shabbos came in.

In this photo, you can see the happy couple at the right, along with Ginger and Monty, the other established rabbit couple in our household. The two white rabbits wearing taleisim are the witnesses at the wedding (and were a wedding present to us from curious_reader).

( View piccy )

Under their chuppah, the rabbits exchanged ring equivalents. There's no insistence in Judaism upon a wedding being performed with a ring; it merely has to be something belonging to the giver worth above a certain value; which is most convenient when you're a crocheted rabbit with no fingers. So Bar Navi gave Jane a silver necklace with a silver carrot pendant; Jane gave Bar Navi a tallis clip also with silver carrot pendants. Here are the happy couple wearing them under the chuppah (with one of the guests visible in the background).

( View piccy )

Of course, they had a kesuba for their wedding too, which you can see here, along with the becher used in the wedding service:

( View piccy )

When you're a rabbit, your wedding bouquet (made, unknowingly, for the rabbits by someone at our wedding) can conveniently double as part of the wedding feast...

( View piccy )

And here's a last photo before Shabbos of both happy couples:

( View piccy )

Phew, what an exhausting day; time for rabbit bedtime [shot, of course, on another day]:

( View piccy )

Thanks to Frauke Ohnholz as official rabbit wedding photographer; you can see full-size versions of all her photos here, along with a short video of us singing סִימָן טוֹב וְמַזֶל טוֹב to the rabbits.

Crossposts: https://lethargic-man.livejournal.com/544083.html

Ginger the rabbit skypes her family.

( View piccy )

Crossposts: http://lethargic-man.livejournal.com/540452.html

The addition of coloured emojis to the Unicode character set makes it easier for our less literate rabbit friends to send emails...

( View piccy )

Crossposts: http://lethargic-man.livejournal.com/540115.html

Thanks to the talented Sarah Behrnd, the rabbits are now more prepared to get married than we are! —Thanks, Sarah!

( View piccy )

Crossposts: https://lethargic-man.livejournal.com/539554.html

A little daily ritual in the

lethargic_man/

aviva_m household (featuring Ginger the rabbit, so-named because she arrived in the household at the same time as Fred the fish).

Link to video on Facebook.

Crossposts: http://lethargic-man.livejournal.com/539290.html

aviva_m and I were in the Beethoven Museum in Bonn last weekend (in the house where Beethoven spent his first four years—it's the only house he lived that still exists)—and my parents-in-troth got us this beautiful little piano music box as a souvenir.

Arnie the rabbit seems to have really taken to it; I don't know where he learned to play so well!

See video (I don't think I can embed this).

...although possibly this explains something:( View piccy )Right, that's enough excitement for one evening; time for bed:( View piccy )

Crossposts: http://lethargic-man.livejournal.com/538816.html

Today is the last day of Chanukah; the rabbits have been lighting their menorah every day and uploading each photo to Facebook. Here at the end is the complete collection crossposted to DW and LJ: ( View piccies ) It's always sad to see Chanukah end, but at least I'm not going to have to do any more grubbing around on the rug looking for dropped ball bearings for the next year. (The rabbits response is similar to this one.)

Crossposts: http://lethargic-man.livejournal.com/537571.html

The pictorial homage to Mel Blanc after he died inspired this response to Richard Adams' death today:

Crossposts: http://lethargic-man.livejournal.com/536483.html

In a few days time it will be Succos, concerning which the Torah says:

Leviticus 23:40 ויקרא כג מ

And you shall take you on the first day the boughs of goodly trees, branches of palm trees, and the boughs of thick trees, and willows of the brook; and you shall rejoice before the Lord your God seven days. וּלְקַחְתֶּם לָכֶם בַּיּוֹם הָרִאשׁוֹן פְּרִי עֵץ הָדָר כַּפֹּת תְּמָרִים וַעֲנַף עֵץ־עָבֹת וְעַרְבֵי־נָחַל וּשְׂמַחְתֶּם לִפְנֵי ה׳ אֱלֹהֵיכֶם שִׁבְעַת יָמִים׃

Leviticus 23:40	ויקרא כג מ
And you shall take you on the first day the boughs of goodly trees, branches of palm trees, and the boughs of thick trees, and willows of the brook; and you shall rejoice before the Lord your God seven days.	וּלְקַחְתֶּם לָכֶם בַּיּוֹם הָרִאשׁוֹן פְּרִי עֵץ הָדָר כַּפֹּת תְּמָרִים וַעֲנַף עֵץ־עָבֹת וְעַרְבֵי־נָחַל וּשְׂמַחְתֶּם לִפְנֵי ה׳ אֱלֹהֵיכֶם שִׁבְעַת יָמִים׃

Here in northern Europe, one doesn't exactly find palm or citrus trees growing, so we have to import these at some expense, but in the southern Mediterranean in which Judaism originated, it's quite a different matter. aviva_m and I were recently in the beautiful Kolymbetra Gardens in the Valley of the Temples in Agrigento, Sicily; and, seeing a section devoted to citrus trees, got excited at the thought of seeing esrogim growing on trees. When we found in turn each one of the Four Species, we wanted to find a rabbi to check if they were kosher, but since there were no rabbis around, we asked a rabbit instead.

( The Four Species, illustrated with rabbit photos )

Now that we've got all four species, we bind the last three together with willow leaves, with the myrtle on the right and the willow on the left, take them in our right ~~hand~~ paw, with the citron in our left, and wave them like so:

[photo]

Chag sameach!

Crossposts: http://lethargic-man.livejournal.com/507851.html

It's been a while since we've had any adventures with the rabbits; what have they been up to? Well, same as most of us: same old, same old, most of the time. Bar Navi's been continuing to study Talmud:

( View piccy )

...and daven in a chareidi shul:

( View piccy )

(This is not a photomontage; I really did photograph him there!)

However, in amidst all that, he did have time to pose for a third birthday card for my niece:

( View piccy )

The little rabbit we haven't seen here before. His name is Arnie the אַרְנְבוֹן (rabbit).

Jane again got Bar-Navi a present for Tu BəĀv this year. So what do you get for the frum rabbit who already has capel, tallis, tefillin and Talmud volume? Answer: A Sefer Torah!

( View piccy )

(

aviva_m, on helping Bar-Navi open the present: "Oh, you didn't!" (even though she originally suggested it). Actually, the scroll has been sitting on my shelf in Newcastle, largely ignored, for twenty-five years; I thought Bar-Navi might get more use out of it than me.)

( View piccy )

Crossposts: http://lethargic-man.livejournal.com/489412.html

For Chanukah, I got

aviva_m a T-shirt that she'd seen online and expressed admiration for, but then forgotten about. This meant I was in the rare position of being able to get her a present that was a surprise but which I knew for certain she'd like—as indeed she did:

[photo]

The green patches on it are actually felt stuck onto the T-shirt. Bar-Navi the rabbit, however, disagrees with the sentiments on it:

( View piccy )

Speaking of which, what did Jane get Bar-Navi the Talmud scholar for Chanukah?

( View piccy )

It's a rabbit-sized copy of מַסֶכֶת אֲרְנְבוֹנִים (Tractate Rabbits) of the Babylonian Talmud.

( View piccy )

As you can see, it's from the Vilna edition.

( View piccy )

Hands up if you didn't think there was a Tractate Rabbits in the Talmud!

( View piccy )

Actually, there's not even a word for "rabbit" in the Hebrew and Aramaic of Talmudic times, because rabbits were not then to be found in the land of Israel or Babylonia, but don't tell Bar-Navi; he's very pleased with his present!

( View piccy )

In exchange, Bar-Navi gave Jane a dreidel for Chanukah, and the four of us enjoyed playing dreidel with it, even if Bar-Navi did end up winning all our money. It was the first time I've actually played the dreidel game, rather than just idly spinning it, since I was a kid.

Crossposts: http://lethargic-man.livejournal.com/467849.html

For the benefit of anyone reading here who is not friends with me on Facebook:

On the first night of Chanukah, I saw lots of people posted on Facebook photos of their lit menorah, which I suppose constitutes one way of פִּרְסוּמֵי נִסָא (publicising the miracle of Chanukah). I wasn't originally going to join in, but then posted the following:

I'm not posting this because everyone else is posting photos of lit menoros, but, as will be obvious to aviva_m if no one else, because nobody else's features a rabbit.
( View piccy )

I originally intended that as a one-off, but then things suggested themselves to me:

It's the second night of Chanukah; that means two rabbits. (And two candles.)
( View piccy )

From then on, the pattern was established. I think the following two are my favourite photos:

( View piccy )

The candles in the above photo are larger, to be lit before Shabbos comes in, and still be burning until half a halachic hour into the night. They're actually the results of my first bout of candle-making, when I was a teenager, and are made from dental wax, courtesy of my father. As you can see, they're all different shapes. The green one is a triangular prism.

[Photo of menorah and four rabbits]

By the fifth night, it was beginning to resemble a Nativity scene:

( View piccy )

That was my last night in Berlin, and I don't have enough rabbits at home to continue, so I asked

aviva_m to continue for me:

( View piccy )

Hmm, the left-most rabbit seems more interested in the camera than the menorah.

Seventh night - and this can only mean one thing:
( View piccy )

The seventh rabbit is actually a radio; that's why it has things on its toe pads.

And finally:

( View piccy )

I was intrigued to see what she'd use as the eighth rabbit, since she only has seven (and indeed turned down the opportunity to acquire an eighth on Sunday). Can you see the eighth rabbit? I couldn't, initially! Here's a close-up:

( View piccy )

Crossposts: http://lethargic-man.livejournal.com/466127.html

In the course of planning a Chanukah present for Bar-Navi, Jane the rabbit typed in a Google image query for "vilna edition frontispiece". Have a look at what came up, and try scrolling down to the second page.

Crossposts: http://lethargic-man.livejournal.com/463604.html

It's always bothered me slightly that Jane the grey rabbit has eyes which are solid blue with no pupils or scleras:

( View piccy )

I considered making a little modification to give her pupils, but thought I'd mock the results up before I did anything about it:

( View piccy )

The results, as you see, are so freaky I decided to just leave her as she was!

Crossposts: http://lethargic-man.livejournal.com/459441.html

A little while ago was Tu BeAv, on which the Talmud tells us:

The daughters of Jerusalem would go out and dance in the vineyards located on the outskirts of the city. Everyone who didn't have a wife would go there. And what would they say? "Young man, lift up your eyes and choose wisely. Don't look only at physical beauty; look rather at the family: 'For charm is false, and beauty is vanity. A G-d-fearing woman is the one to be praised...'" [Proverbs 31:30]

In modern times, it's become a kind of Jewish Valentine's Day, and Jane the grey rabbit got a Tu BeAv present for Bar-Navi:

[Jane gives present to Bar-Navi]

( Read more... )

Crossposts: http://lethargic-man.livejournal.com/454027.html

Profile

Lethargic Man (anag.)

My Website

May 2025

S	M	T	W	T	F	S
				1	2	3
4	5	6	7	8	9	10
11	12	13	14	15	16	17
18	19	20	21	22	23	24
25	26	27	28	29	30	31

Syndicate

Page Summary

Style Credit

Style: Classic for Refried Tablet by zvi and Aaron B. Russell

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags

Page generated Saturday, June 14th, 2025 12:02 pm

Lethargic Man (anag.)

Entries tagged with adventures with the rabbit

Disputation / Nilpferdbrunnen

Bunny slippers

Rabbit family photos

Japan trip report #10: Rabbit island

What every rabbit-owning household needs

The rabbit wedding

Ginger skypes her family

Rabbit emails

Rabbit chuppah!

Ding dong

Arnie plays Beethoven

Rabbit menorah

RIP Richard Adams

The Four Species

Rabbits and Torah, two subjects which go together like rabbis and carrots

Chanukah presents

The eight rabbits of Chanukah

"Vilna edition frontispiece" Google image search

Jane's eyes

Probably the only rabbit in the world with tefillin

Profile

May 2025

Syndicate

Most Popular Tags

Page Summary

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags