Category Archives: Elul

Before I write about Rav Yisrael’s final Midah…

The following was recently posted on the “Daily Salanter” by Prof. Yitzchok Levine:

Rabbi Israel used to say that both the hasid and mitnagid ought to be reproved: the hasid for saying “Why do I need a book for religious study, when I have a rebbe?” The mitnagid for saying, “If I have a book for religious study, why do I need a rebbe?”

There are things that we do that we shouldn’t. There are thing that I do that I shouldn’t. There are also things that I don’t do that I should. Things that would help my neshama and my family. That is what Rav Yisrael is saying. Everyone has room for improvement, and not just during the month of Elul.

I know, for myself, that I am far from where I need to be. This was, as I’ve written previously, the impetus in blogging about Rav Yisrael’s 13 Midos. It’s my online Chesbon Hanefesh. I reread all of twelve of my midos postings tonight. The look great on my monitor. They sound great when I read them to myself. When it comes to real life application of the 13 Midos…I feel that I’m further away from where I should be after blogging about them. This isn’t a statement of false-humility. It’s just much easier to read about how I want to act, than it is to put it all into action at times. That’s probably why Rav Yisrael listed them as 13 different midos, so people could work on them one at a time instead of taking on an “all-or-nothing” attitude.

The last Midah #13 is SILENCE. If all goes well, it will be the topic of my next posting. I recently chose not exercise this midah during a conversation and ended up not looking like a mensh. I probably should have blogged about our next midah a lot sooner. The lesson I learned is that I always need to keep myself in ‘check’. I made a mistake.

I could rationalize that “we all make mistakes”, but a quick read of the second chapter of Mesillas Yesharim kills that rationalization in an instant:

THE IDEA OF WATCHFULNESS is for a man to exercise caution in his actions and his undertakings; that is, to deliberate and watch over his actions and his accustomed ways to determine whether or not they are good, so as not to abandon his soul to the danger of destruction, God forbid, and not to walk according to the promptings of habit as a blind man in pitch darkness. This is demanded by one’s intelligence…One who walks this world without considering whether his way of life is good or bad is like a blind man walking along the seashore, who is in very great danger, and whose chances of being lost are far greater than those of his being saved. For there is no difference between natural blindness and self-inflicted blindness, the shutting of one’s eyes as an act of will and desire.

The RAMCHAL says it all. For there is no difference between natural blindness and self-inflicted blindness, the shutting of one’s eyes as an act of will and desire. I am quick to close my own eyes to the worst aspects of my own personality. I close my eyes to the inconsistencies that creep up every once in a while. While I try to be constistant with what I blog about and how I act, there are times when I mess up. There are times when I get hot-headed, stressed out, or just forget that we are all created b’tzelem Elokim. Either I notice it myself or, more often than not, Hashem sends a sheliach (messenger) to let me know.

Rav Moshe Weinberger mentions on his “Inspired Parenting” shirum that the ikar nachas (the essence of happiness) for a parent is to see their child fall and get up again. The comfort in knowing that I can bring nachas to Hashem, my father, gives me strength to get up again after I fall.

To be concluded…

Quick thought on Ki Teitzei

It says in Devarim 22:3 “…and so shall you do with any lost article of your brother that may become lost from him and you find it; you shall not hide yourself.” Rashi says that you can’t cover your eyes and pretend that it’s not there.

We have a halachic obligation to return something that a fellow Jew has lost. That’s pretty easy to understand. The end of this pasuk say that we have a separate mitzvah not to “turn a blind eye to a lost object” (to use the words of the Sefer haChinuch, Mitzvah # 539).

During the entire year, and of course, during Elul, we are given an uncountable number of mitzvah opportunities. I wonder if I really see these mitzvah opportunities as gifts from Hashem or do I pretend they are not there?

The best I can do is keep my glasses clean and look for what Hashem, in his infinite Chessed, has given me.

The typically pretentious blog posting that most people won’t read, but I’ve been wanting to write for quite some time

OK, I know, it’s a long title. The truth is that this posting has been brewing in my press pot of a long time. I hope that my few readers will allow me to go in a slightly different direction just for one posting. Rav Yisrael Salanter’s final two midos are coming very soon.

Fact: Whenever I post a comment on my own blog, the following message appears in my Hotmail inbox:

The sender of this message, neilsharris@hotmail.com, could not be verified by Sender ID. Learn more about Sender ID.
From: Neil Harris
Sent : Monday, August 21, 2006 9:57 PM
To : neilsharris @ hotmail.com
@hotmail.com>

Subject : [Modern Uberdox] 8/21/2006 09:57:46 PM

Could not be verified by Sender ID?!? What’s this all about?

Hotmail doesn’t recognize my email address when I post a comment to my blog. You’ve got to be kidding.
During Elul, it seems that introspection is about as commonplace as the ads for a new Sukkah in any great Jewish newspaper.
Not recognizing yourself is usually a bad thing, right? I’m not so sure about that. If one approaches the Teshuva process and is successful, then we change who we are. If we change ourselves, then not recognizing who we once were is a great thing.

As I reflect on the the past year (along with everyone else) I can divide the year into two different sections.
1) Life before moving to Chicago vs. Now living in Chicago
2) Life before blogging vs. Life as a blogger

Both sections share very common elements. In the moving to Chicago arena, I’ve been given an opportunity to start fresh in terms of who I am, and what identity I make for myself and my family. While we moved here knowing a few people, it’s really an open book.

The blogging arena is also much the same. By posting on a blog you reinforce your own identity. Or create a new one.
Plenty of people have very solid and legitimate reasons for blogging Anonymous. I greatly respect that.

I chose the other path. I use my name. I’ll be honest, one reason is that I want to be heard. I don’t mind saying this, only because I could have just as easily written this posting in a journal and kept it on a shelf (I’ve, in fact, kept journals for years). As a result of blogging I’ve been able to write more in the past four and a half months than I’ve written in the past four and a half years. This is a major accomplishment for me. Another reason is that using my own name helps keep me in check so I write as truthfully as I can and I don’t use my blog to slam others or go off on them for whatever reason sounds good at the time.
I do wonder if people who read my blog have some image of me that isn’t quite who I really am?

Cute quote time….
“I am not who I think I am; I am not who you think I am; I am who I think you think I am.” (I heard that it was written by Goethe)

I’ve thought about this line many times since I started my blog. It totally applies to the blogosphere. Bloggers blog about different things. Each blog reveals a little about someone. Some blog about personal issues, others about d’vrai Torah, others about their family, others about social issues. We all have something to say.
One blogger, who I respect and admire for their quality of writing, Torah knowledge, and overall menshlikeit mentioned to me “that what we blog is not who we are, but what is at our essence”.
Just think about that statement for a second…

Let’s take my blogs’ name. It’s is really a humorous label. It’s a phrase that I hadn’t seen used before and I thought it was catchy, in light of the fact that we live in a generation of people trying to Uber-Frum themselves in the eyes of others. In the 12th chapter of EYES TO SEE, (thanks to my friend in Atlanta for turning me on to the book when it came out) Rabbi Yom Tov Schwartz writes about the “Selectively Pious” Jews out there who pick and choose different aspects of Bein Adam L’chavero and Bein Adam L’makom to observe. Both types of Mitzvos are of equal importance. I try to bring that out in what I write about.

Remember when you first created you blog? I do. I debated about what to write for the blog description in the “settings” section. I finally settled on “ideas about Kehillah, Hashkafa, and Avodas Hashem”. Pretty general and not too creative. What I didn’t realize then was that Kehillah would end up referring to the online community and bond that bloggers create.
So back to my problem with Hotmail…Why won’t it verify who I am? I think the answer is that neilsharris at hotmail.com doesn’t refer to the real me. It’s just an address. And not even a physical address. You can’t Maquest an email address. It doesn’t reference where I am or where I live. While devarim or words (written or spoken) reveal one’s machshavos or thoughts, an email address reveals nothing. It’s just something on a screen that can be deleted. I find this lesson to be great mussar for myself. What I think of as my identity isn’t really an identity at all.
It’s Elul, and I need to figure out who I am and where I am.
Reb Nachman writes in Likutey Moharan that “You are wherever your thoughts are. Make sure your thought are where you what to be.”

If interested in buying a copy of EYES TO SEE, it’s available at most seforim stores or online here.

Rav Yisrael Salanter’s 13 Midos- #11

Righteousness: In the normal sense of justice; and also as the sages interpret the term- give up what is yours even when not required to do so

Earlier this morning in shul I (along with anyone else who went to shul) heard:
“Justice, justice shall you pursue, that you may live and possess the land the Lord, your God, is giving you.” Devarim 16:20

As I enter Elul, I wonder what is the true meaning of “Righteousness”, justice, or Tzedek?
There are mitzvos that seem to make since based on how things run in a society that is governed by basic human rights (Rav Hirsch dedicates a great deal to this concept in his commentary on Chumash and several chapters specifically in Horeb and in the Nineteen Letters, but a discussion about his views will be for another time). Maybe this is what Rav Yisrael means by “in the normal sense of justice”?
I think it means that we all have certain thing that we are entitled to. When I say that we are entitled to certain things, I really mean that Hashem gives me what I need at a certain time. Ultimately, Hashem deals with me in a way that my needs are fulfilled based on my merits. There are exceptions to every rule, and some people do seem to get more in life than we may think that they merit. Reb Nachman has a whole teaching about this (the Treasury of Unearned Gifts).

Rav Yisrael goes on to give us a better definition of Tzedek, “give up what is yours even when not required to do so”. To me, it doesn’t get more practical that this. Just because something is “yours” you can still give it up.
A few examples come to mind: giving up your parking spot, giving up your seat in shul (putting aside the concept of “makom kevuah” for a minute), your kids giving up their room for a guest, not taking the last brownie, , giving up a smile or a kind work, or (and this just happened to me) giving up on taking the credit for a great one-liner during kiddush after shul (I’m only using this as an example. When my line was used by someone after they heard me say it I was, truthfully, kind of upset, but then decided that it really wasn’t worth it only because the goal of what I said was to bring a little humor and levity to the kiddush, and not to show how witty I could be).

I find it interesting that Rav Yisrael’s great- grandson, Rav Eliyahu Eliezer Dessler took this concept of giving and taught the Torah observant world that it is giving that leads us to love, not love that leads us to giving. Rav Dessler, in fact, devided the world into two types of people: Givers and Takers. To quote from Rabbi Aryeh Carmell’s translation of Michtav Me-Eliyahu, “Man has been granted this sublime power of giving, enabling him too be merciful, to bestow happiness, to give of himself.” (Strive For Truth! Volume I, page 119)

As each day brings me closer to Rosh Hashanah, I hope I can be a giver, and not a taker.

If anyone is interested in viewing what Elul was like back in the day, please feel free to read Elul in Slabodka.

I’m sorry for not posting too much last week, but I decided to greatly reduce my online time and blog reading/commenting. Last week was a difficult exercise in self-control, but I managed. I’m still reading/commenting, but I’ve set aside certain time at night to do so (and not every night). Going online and checking email throughout the day is something of a habit for most of us. I found it, in some ways, conciously controling my urges to check email/blogs much more difficult that some of the things I stopped doing when I became frum.

On a more serious note, please, if you can, continue to daven for Reuven ben Tova Chaya. The health of any child is a true Bracha from Hashem.

Geting Organized…

Here’s an excerpt from an e-list newletter I subscribe to by written by Maria Gracia, from Get Organized Now!

Set a Time Budget

When it comes to making purchases, most people have an idea in their minds of what they’re willing to spend. You probably wouldn’t walk into a shoe store and say, ‘I will buy that pair of shoes no matter how much they cost.’ If the salesperson says the shoes cost $400, most people would not buy them. That’s because when it comes to making purchases, people set a budget in their minds of how much those shoes are really worth to them.
But what about when it comes to how you spend your time? Do you sometimes spend more time on certain tasks than they’re really worth? For instance, when it comes to cleaning your home do you spend an hour a day doing so? Two hours? Three hours? More than three hours? Is dusting really worth that much of your time? What about your other projects and appointments? How much is that time worth to you?

We all get the same amount of time each day–24 hours. At least 8 of those hours are allocated to sleeping. So, we all have approximately 16 hours when we’re awake.

By setting a time budget for certain activities, you will always ensure your time is being spent on what is most important to you, your family and your future.How much time are you willing to invest with a spouse or loved one? How many hours will you allocate to working, cleaning, exercising, eating or watching television?

Before doing anything, ask yourself how much time you’re willing to invest. Write those time investments down so you’re able to reference them regularly. Then, stick to your time budget.

Time isn’t an unlimited currency, so be sure to spend it wisely.

End of article.

For more ideas, feel free to check out the Get Organized Now! website. The monthly newsletters and blog are interesting.

My thoughts:
I’ve found that reading blogs and writing my content can take up a lot of time. With Elul around the corner and I know that I need to start craking down. Time is an element that we can mekadesh, or make holy. In fact, from what I’ve read and been told, Rav Soloveitchik was very into this concept of people being able to mikadesh certain days and physical objects. As I’ve posted on a few other blogs and, at least two emails to fellow readers, a close friend of mine and someone whom I look up to, mentioned to his son, on the occasion of his sons’ Bar Mitzvah, that “how we spend our free time defines who we are”. As I’ve been posting on my blog over the past 4 months, I find myself constantly thinking about that quote, if not every time I go online. So far the only thing I’ve figured out is that I need certain times set aside for online use at home. When time is up… I need to walk away. Time budgeting might be an answer. Any thoughts…

By the way, my name is Neil Harris, and I’m a Bloggaholic.

Some Postings Need No Title

I write not because I have the strength to write, but because I do not have the strength to remain silent.”
-Rav Avraham Yitzchok Kook zt’l

I came across the quote last night. I had copied it from somewhere and scribbled it in a journal way back in 1994. I wasn’t planning on posting, but I decided that consistency is a good thing, even if it means writing when I don’t feel like it.
It’s been a long week. Primarily due to the matzav in Eretz Yisrael. I’m worried, just like everyone else. Then, there’s the shadow of the Three Weeks hanging over Klal Yisrael. Finally it’s been a long week for for me blog-wise. I read over all of my postings and I feel that I probably take myself too seriously. That was not my intent. There is a more casual side to me.
Ever see the Beatles’ movie HELP? It’s great. The best part is the blurb on the back of the box about the flick. It states that the Beatles made the movie at a period of their life when they didn’t take themselves too seriously. While I enjoying posting about Rav Yisrael’s 13 Midos, it’s taken a toll on me. It’s like Elul in July.
I’ve been thinking a lot about the whole Ir Miklat-unintentional murder deal that we’ll hear in shul this Shabbos. Like most people, I try to relate the parshios to my life. As I’ve gotten older I think some of my core-personality has gotten misplaced. Maybe I’ve unintentionally “killed” my fun-loving-humorous-go-with-the-flow self, and I’ve been exiled to an Ir Miklat of my own design. I hope that’s not the case.
If I killed someone by accident, and retreated to an Ir Miklat, I’d never sleep. How could I when I know that my freedom would be dependant on the death of one person… the Kohen Gadol? Who would sleep?

When a man learns that just as he broods over himself so does G-d yearn for him, he is at the beginning of a higher level of consciousness” (Rabbi Steinsaltz). This quote appears at the end of an article written by Rav Moshe Weinberger. You can read the entire article here. It’s well worth it.

Good Shabbos