Where MO might need to be headed

Find this here

Dr. Rabbi Alan Brill has a great post about a recent discussion with Rabbi Shlomo Einhorn here.  The observations by both Dr. Brill and Rabbi Einhorn are revealing and seem to be very on target towards my generation.  Here are a few great quotes:

Einhorn describes the need for his age group, the younger gen x and older gen y rabbis to seek the experiential. They grew up with a strict halakhic diet and a rationalist worldview which did not sustain their cravings for religious experience that they were taught to value in Israel.

Rabbi Einhorn is absolutely sold on Tony Robbins’s program for fire-walking to be transformed and to release the potential within.

I commented on the actual blog post and recommend you check it out what Dr. Brill posted and some of the comments.

Halevai...

Rav Moshe Weinberger says that the word הלוואי  contains almost the same letters as אֱלִיָּהוּ because, when we say, "Halevai such-and-such should happen", we really have to have the same level of emunah that we do regarding our belief that Eliyahu HaNavi will be coming soon to announce Moshiach!

Sunday's mussar morsel

Rav Yosef Yoizel Horowitz, the Alter of Novardok

"A man cannot dance at two chassunas (weddings)."

Meaning, you simple cannot be at two places at once. If you are at home with your family, then that you be your focus. If you are at work, then concentrate on work. If you are in shul for davening, then that is where your focus should be.

Story of survival from the Warsaw Ghetto (link)

This story, "I thought I was the last Jew left" was included in this weeks' AJOP e-newsletter.

It's a story of true survival and hashgacha! 

 

Link to a hesped for Revuen Kirshner a'h

Yesterday, Reuven ben Menachem Mordechai, the grandson of Rabbi Harry Maryles was niftar.  His body had been fighting cancer for 6.5 years and it was time for his neshama to return to the creator.  Like many others, I davened, learned, and did mitzvos in his zechus.  The levaya was very emotional, as you can imagine.  Rabbi Maryles delivered a hesped and it's posted on his blog, here.

Sunday's mussar minute

Photo from here

Originally tweeted by Rabbi Michael Green (follow him @rabbigreen) and found on a blog by Rabbi Shua Katz.

"The way to educate kids is to elevate them by pointing out the greatness they can achieve by utilizing their potential"~Rav Yechezkel Levenstein zt'l

Are you living a religious routine or a religious life?

Poster from here

I was listening to this discussion panel, titled "Igniting a Spiritual Passion" (black hat tip to R Mordechai Torczyner) today on my drive to work and I was struck by the following question:

Are you living a religious routine or a religious life?

Keep in mind that in the sefer זריעה ובניין בחינוך by Rav Shlomo Wolbe zt'l (translated and published as Planting & Building), the Mashgiach mentions that those children who don't, "possess any internal vitality" or "individual initiative" will become "human robots".  I ask you to think about the question above and how it relates to your own avodah.

The commuter's dream come true

I recently switched jobs and my former 18 minute (each way) is now a drive of, no less, than 40 minutes each way daily.  It's taken some getting use to, but I happen to enjoy listening to shiurim and also music (90% Jewish music and 10% non-Jewish).

Just last week, on RavMosheWeinberger.com, they reduced the price of shiurim credit to 99 cepts per credit and also started offering 50 downloads per month for only $6.99.  That's right, you can download 50 shiurim a month for the low price of about 14 cents a shiur.  You can even roll-over unused credit to the next month.  This is incredible and for me, means I can actually learn more Torah from Rav Weinberger and also catch up on a bunch of shiurim series that I've been hold off on purchasing.

I even figured out that if I drive on the non-toll roads about 10 days out of the month, I will have actually saved the same money as I'm spending on the the monthly download fees.  Of course, this means that it will take a little longer to get to work those days, but that's more time to listen to shiurim!!

Please spread the word about this great offer and go check out RavMosheWeinberger.com.

Sunday's mussar moment

Reb Shlomo Carlebach

Some people sleep until morning.  Other people...bring the morning!

Shout-out to Mordechai HaYehudi

I was recently visiting a friend whose mother was sitting shiva and we were talking about the fact that we didn't have each other's cell numbers in our phones. Now, our family has been to him for Shabbos lunch and we have davened together every Shabbos Kodesh for the past six years. So, the question comes up why didn't I have his cell number? Because, we daven together ever Shabbos Kodesh, so why would I need to call him. I do have his email address and we're friends on Facebook, so if I needed to I could get ahold of him. However, despite the term "social", Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter are really not so social.

Being social means that when you see a guy in shul and don't know his name, you find it out and say, "Hi". Being social doesn't mean (and I admit, I am a shtickel guilty of this) that because we have 223 friends in common that we should become friends or linked into a professional network.

On Purim I got up to daven at 5:30am with my son, heard megillah at 6 and then worked 4 hours, so I could rush home. I gathered my kids and our shaloch manos and drove around two different neighborhoods double parking and finding creative parking spots to be social. My kids went up to people that they don't exactly know and gave out our very creative (thanks to my wife) parcels. We gave to friends, teachers, acquaintances, and some classmates of our uber-kinderlach. Since giving is the precuror to love, as taught by Rav Dessler zt'l, I have to give a shout-out to Mordechai HaYehudi for having the chachmah to creat a real social network for Klal Yisrael.

Goldfish and good times

Photo from here

Growing up as a "traditional" Jew, Purim was always fun. Mostly because of the potential to win a goldfish and see how long they would live. My congregation's Purim carnival was not only fun (even when I had to help run it as an NCSYer), but brought our members out of the sanctuary and the social hall and down into the basement. Aside from throwing ping pong balls into cups filled with goldfish, we played musical chairs, the fishing for a prize game, and if you had enough tickets you could put someone in "jail". There were other games too, but these come to mind. The whole "Shaloch Manos" thing was pretty much confined to Sunday and Hebrew School.  It, for sure, wasn't on our family's radar.  All in all, it was a fun holiday when I was growing up.  Good time...good times.

I wax nostalgic and remember being surrounded by the people my family was close with as we celebrated what I understood as a victory for the Jews.  The feeling of being part of a community was overpowering.  Looking back now, it was a feeling of achdus.  Maybe because we were a massive minority in Wichita, KS, but we had such pride (especially on Purim) about being Jewish.    

I think about this now, as an adult, because the value of having fun in Judaism is something that I that I feel is important.  The mitzvos ha yom all involve connecting with others and giving, but we have to make it fun. It's often easy to focus on our costumes, d'vrai Torah, and rushing around assemble and then deliver Shaloch Manos.  I know that sometimes I'm running around so much that I forget the simcha shel mitzvah and the simchas ha chaim.  Those are two things are worth giving over to others on Purim.

 

Sunday's Salanter selection

Photo from here

R Yisrael Salanter said:

The Maharal of Prague zt'l created a golem.  It is a great wonder, but it is far more wondrous to transmute the nature of the materiality of Man and to make out of it a man [mentsh].*




* As sited on page 210 of Israel Salanter: Text, Structure, Idea by Rabbi Hillel Goldberg

An inspiring evening

Art found here

Monday evening I attended an informal dinner meeting hosted by Chai Lifeline to hear about a proposal for bike riders from Chicago to join in the amazing BIKE4CHAI 150 mile ride in NJ that ends at Camp Simcha. It's an interesting idea that I'm really considering, since this year's Bike the Drive event is on Shavuos.

That night I met two very inspiring people.  The first person was also attending our meeting.  He's a 75 year old businessman who has joined the ALYN ride six years in a row.  ALYN's ride is an intense 5 day ride in Eretz Yisrael along some serious routes. His biking chevrusa (and gemara chevrusa) also was at the meeting and related that this 75 year old man doesn't get off his bike to walk up any of the inclines on the ALYN ride...amazing!  To be 75 years old and have that much koach is something to admire.

After our meeting, a man at the next table in the restaurant came over and asked the Chai Lifeline representatives, Rabbi Sruli Fried (director of Chai Lifeline NJ) and Rabbi Shlomo Crandall (director of Chai Lifeline Midwest) about their program.  As introductions were being made, it turns out that this fellow (a medical doctor visiting Chicago for a meeting) is, in fact, the founder of www.dafyomi.org.  He started the website in the mid 1990's and doesn't solicit donations or have advertisements on the site to help offset the maintenace costs.  He is one of the most l'shaim shamayim people I've ever met.