Monthly Archives: April 2012

The cold mikvah moshul

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Once, when the Chofetz Chaim immersed in the mikvah, he found the water to be very cold. He questioned the caretaker, who insisted that he had heated up the water before adding it to the mikvah and even showed him the kettle he had used. The Chofetz Chaim first felt the kettle, then he put his finger into the water of the kettle, and found the water to be lukewarm. He explained to the mikvah attendant, if boiling hot water is added to the mikvah then the water will become warm. However, he noted, if the water is only lukewarm when it is poured into the mikvah, the water will remain quite cold indeed.

Similarly, if we are trying to ignite within our children an excitement and fervor for Yiddishkeit, we ourselves must be piping hot with enthusiasm. If our ardor for Torah and mitzvos is tepid and unenthusiastic, how will our children be energized and invigorated?

-From Rav Dovid Goldwasser, in the Spring 2012 issue of The Klal Perspectives Journal

Manifesto for a culture of growth

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We have problems and finally the editorial board at The Klal Perspectives is letting us see the insights of many well know leaders and trailblazers within the frum community. The problem is that many (myself included) are not always inspired to grow in our Avodah.  I offered a solution a few years ago that worked for me here, but there’s not just a “one size fits all” cure (well, there might be, but you’ll have to read all of this post).

I’ve been privileged to communicate with both the editor of Klal Perspectives and two of those that answered the questions posed for this issue.  A commonly recommended suggestion in four of the articles is the establishment of learning groups (some call them vaadim or chaburos) geared towards growth-oriented learning.  This is, in fact, something that the AishDas Society has been doing successful for a number of years.  For me, the vaad/chabura model works, in edition to the Bilvavi seforim. I know of classes based on this model in several shuls and it seems to work for some.  It’s not a THE solution, but it’s a viable option and an established one.  Giving people an option to grow can open up multiple doors in a shul.

Getting people to learn seforim that are growth-oriented is a major challenge.  It’s sort of like exercise. People wo do it regularly love it (so I’ve heard).  I know that I don’t exercise enough, but when I do I feel better.  The “Zumba” craze has become very popular with women who want to exercise because it’s fun (this is based on speaking with people who do Zumba and also based on a very improptu Facebook survey I took).  Zumba’s motto is, “Ditch the workout; Join the party!”


They know that exercise is hard work and often difficult. By putting music and dance moves together they have made it fun. I think growth oriented Judaism needs a similar motto. Maybe it should be, “From pause to Go with the turn of a page” or “If you’re not growing, your not living“.
There are mornings when it’s a struggle for me to get out of bed and daven with a minyan. There are plenty of times I say Shema and don’t feel that I’m fully accepting Hashem as King. There are times that I will choose not to go learn in the evenings so that I can go to sleep or just veg out. I admit it only because I know that I’m not alone. This is just something that people don’t talk about with their friends.  Those that do know me, know that being inspired is something I attempt to work on.  There are days when I successed and days when I can’t wait to try again.


I did write that there might a “one size fits all” cure and I think it’s finding a community (ie- shul, beis medrash, kollel, Rav) that is focused on Torah, Avodah, and Gemilus Chassadim, which are the foundations of our world. These three items are also the driving force behind Cong. Ahavas Yisrael and often mentioned in the writings and comments of Mark Frankel from BeyondBT.  Each of us can connect and grow by our invovlment in one of these three. We can learn, commit to meaningful davening, or involve ourselves and families in chessed. The main point, as Micha Berger mentioned to me in an email, is that our Torah life has to be a growth process.


I think back to the lyrics of the old TV show “Diff’rent Strokes” as proof for this:
Now the world don’t move to the beat of just one drum,
what might be right for may not be right for some.
There’s also a great discussion going on at BeyondBT regarding the current issue of Klal Perspectives, here.

A lesson from Eeyore (rebooted)

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This week, finally, I had my initial “session” with my Partner in Torah.  The person I’m learning with is semi-local, so I decided that our first learning experience should be in person.  It was great.  He’s a really friendly guy.  Partner’s in Torah even supplied us with a curriculum, which made things much easier than the pressure of trying to figure out what to learn.

As we were learning, I admit, I felt rather grateful for my own Jewish education that I was able to receive after finishing public high school.  It’s funny how there are so many things I think of as givens within Jewish thought and law that, in fact, were so foreign to me years ago.  On the drive back I thought about an idea I learned from Eeyore many year ago.

“I’m telling you. People come and go in this Forest, and they say, ‘It’s only Eeyore, so it doesn’t count.’ They walk to and fro saying, ‘Ha ha!’ But do they know anything about A? They don’t. It’s just three sticks to them. But to the Educated – mark this, little Piglet- to the Educated, not meaning Poohs and Piglets, it’s a great and glorious A.” -Eeyore, summarized from The House at Pooh Corner (chapter 5)

How each of us sees things is based on our own background and knowledge.  It’s very easy to live a traditional Jewish life and forget that to those not blessed with the same opportunites you’ve had, ‘A’ is just three sticks.

If you can give 30 minutes a week on the phone to learn with someone who wants to grow in their Jewish knowledge, give a call to 800-STUDY-4-2.

Note: This idea about Eeyore and kiruv is something I posted in 2007. After learning with my partner it popped back into my mind.

Two realities

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In an emailed newsletter from Beis Hamussar that I received today was the following:

If we were asked to encapsulate all of Rav Wolbe’s teachings in one sentence, the task would seem impossible. He wrote numerous seforim and gave thousands of discourses over the course of his life. How could one possibly summarize so much in one single sentence? However, Rav Wolbe himself did just that when he sat with a group of former talmidim.He asked them to relay what they understood to be the focal point of all the discourses that they had heard during the years they had studied in his Yeshiva. Each student offered an opinion, but Rav Wolbe was not satisfied. “The message I was trying to convey in all my discourses” he said, “is that we should realize that ruchnius (spirituality) is no less a reality than gashmius (physicality).”

For example, we must believe that just as eating something dangerous is detrimental to one’s body, transgressing a commandment is at least as detrimental to one’s soul. Conversely, performing a mitzvah does more for us (and the world around us) than the food we eat.

This yesod of acknowledging the reality of ruchnius might have been the basis for this idea found in the introduction to Da Es Atzmecha by Rav Itamar Shwartz (the mechaber of the Bilvavi seforim):

I have come to write this sefer  because of an inner mission – an awareness of a particular world that exists, which in reality, is more real than the world we sense, but is very hidden from people. The inner world is enchanting, it is a world of pleasure and connection, but it is not a world of delusions.  It is a world more real than the table.  It is clearer than the familiar world of the table, the chair, and the  lamp.  Sometimes, when we try to enter the inner world, there is a feeling that since it is unfamiliar, maybe it is just our imagination, maybe it is just delusions of people who want to experience all kinds of things, and so they create a whole structure out of all their fantasies.  But you must know that the inner world is more realistic than the world we live in.  However, just as a blind person doesn’t see what’s in front of him, and he might ask, “Are you certain this exists?” 

Both Rav Wolbe zt’l and R Shwartz are teaching us that there are two realities. Most of us want to see the results, peiros (fruits), or the carrot at the end of the stick (even if the carrot is imaginary) in our spiritual efforts. It doesn’t work like that. This idea, the reality that is referenced above, is something that isn’t on my mind enough. Try as I might to be passionate about living a life of Simchas HaChaim, I find it easy to be focused on the reality that is only preceived by my five senses.

I have no idea if the spiritual reality is something that my kids have been taught about.  I know that they understand that each mitzvah we perform perfectly creates a malach that is our advocate in Shamayim.   It seems to me that our acknowledgment of the reality of ruchnius has to be as strong as our acknowledgement of the neshama.  We have a body and a soul, both are real.  This sort of gives a new spin to the phrase, “Keeping it real”.

The one time of the year it’s ok to be "the Jews with the crumbs"

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From here

This phrase, “the Jews with the crumbs” is one that I use in a semi-joking way with my family and close friends. It’s sort of my version of the speech that kids get when they go on a school field trip or their camp goes off-site for an activity.  You know the speech, it always starts off, “Now kids, we’re going to a place where they don’t usually see a group of Jews like you. Jews who love Hashem and follow his Torah.”
As a general rule, I dislike going to recreational places on a Sunday (or during Chol HaMoed) where there are tons of other observant Jews, because, more often than not, we all bring our own snacks with us.  That’s all find and dandy, but often I, sadly, find that many of my brothers and sisters will not pick up their trash and leave a huge mess of litter, heimishe food wrappers and juice boxes…thus giving those of us who accept Torah mi’Sinai a bad name.  So, I tell my family that I don’t want us to be known as, “the Jews with the crumbs.”
Call me extreme, fanatical, and over-sensitive. I don’t mind. I think that every time we are at home or in public we have an opportunity m’kadesh Hashem.
That being written, I sat at my desk today during work and ate my shmura matza with jelly, carefull not to let too many crumbs escape the plate.  I had flashbacks to my favorite lunches when I was in public school from K-12.  Hands down, the best lunches of the year were my kosher for Passover lunches.  Corned beef on matza, lox on matza, brisket on matza, margarine and jelly on matza, a hard boiled egg, a fruit, and usually some type of small chocolate or the every popular jelly fruit slices.  Not only were those lunches yummy, but they also were a very visable way to seperate myself from everyone else eating lunch.  There was no way to hid the fact that I was Jewish.
I am not a fan of leaving messes around.  However, for all of the children and famlies that have always gone to school within the day school and yeshiva system, I think Pesach outings allow us to really remember that we are different than everyone else.  Eating your matza sandwich in a park, designated eating area at a museum, or a zoo means that you’re out in public and other see that we are different.  As the tile of this post indicates, this might be only time in the year when it’s ok to be “the Jews with the crumbs.”

There’s nothing wrong with being different, looking different, or eating different, just try not to make a mess.

"How long did your Seder last?"

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From my earliest youth, I remember that the children would ask each other on the first morning of Pesach, “How long did your Seder last?”
This was true in my youth, and it is still the case today. If the children were to ask me this now, I would answer them, “I made sure to eat the afikoman before chatzos (midnight).”

–Rav Shimon Schwab zt’l from Rav Schwab on Prayer (pg 541)

May you have a liberating and freilichen Pesach!