I was the proud owner of a new car (one Friday Afternoon):

A few weeks after buying my new car, I was driving home from work on a Friday, and stopped about 20 miles from home to get gas. I locked the keys in the car in front of the pump, with the engine running.
The gas station people were very nice about this. No problem! One of them felt along the roof of the gas station and pulled out a long, wicked looking flat tool. He shoved it down the outside of the window into the bowels of my car's front door, and - dropped it inside the door of my car.
"Do you have another one?" I asked.
"NO!" he said.
I started to get nervous. I could wind up with my engine going dry AND not getting home for Shabbat. The gas station owner started making calls, and twenty minutes later a guy showed up with an identical tool. This time he was careful; they opened the door, retrieved the other tool, put some gas in my car, and I just beat candle lighting time getting home.

Cohanim!

Here in Galut, when I lead Shachrit or Musaf, I'm careful not to call the Cohanim up for the three-fold blessing. I know that Israeli Cohens are used to duchaning daily, and that the strongly highlighted word “Cohanim” is a call to duty. Instead, while doing the repetition of the Amidah, I'm careful not to emphasize the word, but to group “Cohanim am kedoshecha ka-amur” as one phrase. I think I'm being helpful.

In Galut…

I was surprised to see one of our Israelis at minyan this morning (first of Adar 1) since he wasn’t there yesterday. But then I realized : of course! Here in Galut, we celebrate Rosh Chodesh for two days…

What would That Great Rabbi have Poskened?

I’ve been following several discussions online that express an idea which makes no sense to me. Several of the posters, not all in agreement, explain what they are sure some great halachic expert would rule were he alive today – either on a new subject, or on a subject where they have already poskened, but new data is available.
Now it seems to me that part of what has made these illustrious Rabbis so great in halachic reasoning, is that they have often surprised everyone with the brilliance and clarity of their arguments that reach an unexpected conclusion. I might personally claim that I know how perfectly ordinary Rabbi X might rule on a question, but my inability to predict what a Gadol haDor might rule, were I ever so much more knowledgeable, is simply part of what made them great.

I can recall a similar situation in medicine. A surgeon counseled a rather extreme operation for a certain condition. He encouraged us to consult with the surgeon well-known as one of the two greatest experts in the field, but he said, “and I know what he will say! He’ll tell you that this is the operation you need.”
The great expert counseled no operation at all, rather alternative treatment that made the operation quite successfully unnecessary. If the first surgeon had really known what the second one was going to say, he would have had to be an equal or greater expert in the field, not just someone familiar with his work.