This is Rabbi Ben Planking on the Topsy Turvy Upside Down Bus...

I will keep planking. This is my third post about planking and if this keeps up I’ll need to change my name to the ‘Planking Rabbi.’

I think I really dig this whole planking craze because it makes me feel connected to Australia. I lived there for seven years and I kind of miss the place. And when I did this planking thing on the upside down bus, I felt like I was back in Australia.

Australians have this thing for irreverence, like worshiping Ned Kelly and the guy from Waltzing Matilda who steals a sheep. It’s Australians who would cheer a guy for planking on a police car and then buy the guy a beer. Something like planking would probably not go far in, say, a place like Germany where a passerby would see you planking on top of a national monument in the middle of the city and be horrified. They would then admonish you for your planking irreverence and instead of you putting a smile on their face you probably would have ruined their day.  Australians would probably ask you to hold the planking position again so they can get a photo. Australia is the kind of place where you could probably almost get the prime minister to plank on parliament hill.

So that’s why I’m planking: it makes me feel so Australian!

My other posts on planking:

http://travelingrabbi.com/2011/05/18/what-is-planking-why-are-people-planking-and-how-to-go-planking/

http://travelingrabbi.com/2011/05/16/is-planking-safe-for-jews/

An impossible plank in Salar, Bolivia

I first learned about planking when I read in the Australian news about the guy who planked on the back of a police car. I was rather thrilled to read this planking story, as I felt that it far more deserved front page headlines over celebrity gossip. It’s nice to hear about real people doing real things, like planking.

Because I lived in Australia and New Zealand for six years I feel a close connection to the absurdity that people over there come up with. Like A.J. Hackett, the New Zealander who developed bungy jumping. Who would have thought you could get people to tie a rubber band around their feet and dive head first off a bridge, and give you money for the opportunity to do it!

I’ve got to admit, planking has got me excited. It is such a stupid thing to do but it has some sort of pull to it. It has got my creative juices flowing as I walk around looking for the perfect place to plank.

What has made planking a success as a new craze is that it is simple, harmless, and easy enough that almost anyone can perform a basic plank. All you need to do is lay down straight as a board facing downward. Than the sky is the limit as to where you may plank.

Planking was started by a few guys just having fun taking some silly photos. Facebook allowed for it to go viral very quickly. There is something compelling us to go planking in front of the Eiffel Tower, the Taj Mahal, or on the steps of the capitol building in Washington.

For the meantime, planking is legal, although now with the death of one Australian planker, some are pushing for planking laws. The Australian planker died a couple days ago when he tried to plank on a balcony railing seven stories high. Sadly, he ended up planking on the ground. Perhaps in his memory they should bury him face-down so he could be doing the first underground-coffin plank!

Last night I planked on my mattress and felt like I was connecting to the millions of people who were out there doing the same. It got me thinking. Perhaps what we all crave is a way to connect with others? So we come up with things like flash mobs, flash freezes, and now planking. We feel good when we connect with others and even if it is by doing something as stupid as planking, we still feel part of a community.

I think with time people will come up with more things like planking because we are searching for ways to connect. We in our western world no longer live in tribal communities and have become more and more disconnected from each other. Many have never spoken to their neighbors other than a courteous ‘hello’ or ‘good morning.’ And now we spend more and more time alone on our computers, when we are at home or in the office. We go about listening to our own music with headphones when we take public transport, and we are even doing our shopping online.

Sometimes I see people walking down the street listening to their headphones and I want to stop and ask them, “Hey, are you participating in the world?”

Planking reawakens our desire to participate in the world and it makes us feel good to connect with others even if it is doing something as simple as planking. Perhaps what we need now is for people to create more global bonding experiences that we can use to achieve good.

One of the all time great planking masters who now lives in the Philipines

A Beautiful story I wrote about Planking

My other post on planking

http://travelingrabbi.com/2011/05/20/the-complete-guide-to-planking-how-to-go-planking-like-a-professional-planker/

Planking on an upside down bus

Checking kale for bugs in the Eden Village Camp kitchen

For the last couple weeks I’ve been acting mashgiach (kosher supervisor) at Eden Village Camp. The camp serves mostly vegetarian organic food. A vegetarian kitchen has fewer complications when it comes to kosher supervision. However because Eden Village is using only organically grown produce and, well, this makes for lots of bug checking.  Eden Village also uses far more green leafy vegetables than almost any summer camp.

The Torah forbids eating an insect or any part of one. This prohibition of eating sheratzim includes a multitude of insects: from ones that crawl to ones that fly, to ones that both crawl and fly, etc. Thus, from a kosher perspective, a salad filled with bugs could be worse than eating a piece of pork.

Well what about the whole idea of ‘batel b’shishim?’  This is a kosher concept that says that if something non-kosher gets mixed into with something kosher as long as there remains 60 parts more of the kosher stuff, it is okay to eat. However there is the rule of a ‘bari,’ which means that a complete entity never becomes nullified. A complete bug floating in a bowl of soup or on a piece of lettuce must be removed. If the bug were mashed up than it could be okay, however a Jew may not deliberately mash the bugs up.  Therefore, many products that contain mashed up bugs are still kosher.

For Example, the FDA permits the following insect counts in spices. These spices with the ground up bugs and maggots could still be kosher. Yummy!

• Ground Oregano: Less than 1,250 insect fragments per 10 grams
• Ground Paprika: Less  than 11 rodent hairs per 25 grams
• Ground Cinnamon: Less than 400 insect fragments per 50 grams
• Ground Pepper: Less than 2 rodent hairs per 50 grams

And for spinach:

• Less than 50 aphids, thrips, and/or mites per 100 grams
• Less than 12 mm of combined length of caterpillar

In frozen broccoli the FDA will allow up to 60 aphids, thrips or mites per 100 grams of the vegetable….sounds good!

Use a good light when checking for bugs

Well it’s only a few more weeks of bug checking for me. I took the job because it is the pre-camp season at Eden Village Camp. When the summer arrives there will be 200 people here and I’d not want to be checking vegetables for bugs nonstop.

You can find the above info on the FDA site. Makes for happy reading. Enjoy!

http://www.fda.gov/food/guidancecomplianceregulatoryinformation/guidancedocuments/sanitation/ucm056174.htm#intro

This is me in Brazil in 2007 laying on a rock with a 1000 foot drop below. Wow, I almost invented planking except it is not a pure plank because my body is not entirely horizontal.

The new craze of planking has to be one of the stupidest things ever to happen. The craze has recently got one person killed and now the world is debating just how safe planking is. Well for starters I thought that the Traveling Rabbi should go out and do a plank if he’s going to comment on planking. Perhaps this planking business provides some deep meditative G-dly experience… and how would I know without trying?

So after much deliberation, I found a peaceful patch of grass to plank on. I held the position for a few seconds and have concluded that things like skiing, mountain biking, and paragliding are far more exciting than planking.

The world is arguing how safe planking is. This is an important question because if planking is considered dangerous, than a Jew would not be allowed to plank. A Jew is not allowed to put their life purposely in danger. After trying planking in the garden outside, my conclusion is: If I stayed in the plank position for the next month, I could die of starvation, otherwise I do not see any inherent danger in the plank itself…

Reverse Planking on the Salt plains, known as Salar de Uyuni in Bolivia

…So I’ve been thinking, what about doing a reverse plank? Because I’ve already done a few of them, like this reverse plank I am doing on

the salt plains in Bolivia. I think people should also do reverse planks, which maybe people will start planking in reverse once once the novelty of planking face done wears off.

Then  I thought, what if I flip this picture? Now I have an impossible plank, it’s like I’m planking in the sky with lots of other miniature plankers…Well what if this was in an zero gravity space? Than there would be no up , down or sideways and thus the plank position in itself would be of essence not the direction of the plank?

An impossible plank in Bolivia with multiple plankers

Okay, I’m applying way to much scholarly thinking to this whole planking subject.

So if you have nothing to do, go plank!

See my other articles on planking

Nonukah Celebration at Eden Village Camp

Last night here at Eden Village Camp, we celebrated Nonukah. Nonukah first started eleven years ago when a group of college students organized a party for what they thought would be the last night of Chanukah. They miscalculated and it turned out to be the day after Chanukah. Instead o f canceling the party, they decided to call it Nonukah.

Campfire at Eden Village Camp Nonukah Party

They have kept the tradition alive by having a Nonukah party every year, which is also a reunion. The only criteria is that it cannot be held on Chanukah.

Rachel and I are not part of the Nonukah group but we are currently at Eden Village Camp. I am acting as mashgiach (kosher supervisor) here for the month of May. I’ll talk more about Eden Village Camp more in the next few days, but now for the party….

Happy Nonukah 2011!

There was singing around the bonfire, fire spinning, and hula-hooping. One Nonukah friend who is in Los Angeles could not make it, but still ordered twelve pizzas to be delivered to the party. Another guy brought some left over kugel and kishkeh from a young Yiddish-speakers’ Shabbaton.

A highlight for me was all the Shabbos singing. One boy showed up who studied in the Chabad Lubavitch system and knew many of the beautiful niggunim, which we sang together.

I really enjoyed getting to meet so many interesting people from all walks of life.