Sunday’s Spark of Mussar
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Category Archives: Yom Tovim
Lego Purim story from Aish HaTorah
While about 13 years behind the Brick Testament, this video is great to show your kids…
From Aish.org.
Food for thought
Before Rav Shimon Schwab left Europe he went spent Shabbos with the Chofetz Chaim in Radin. Shabbos night a group of students came over to the home of the Chofetz Chaim and he said:
We know the mun had the ability to take on whatever taste we wanted it to. What happened when the person eating the mun didn’t think about what he wanted it to taste like?
The Chofetz Chaim answered his own question: Then it simply has no taste.
This gets me every time. It’s one of my favorite d’vrei Torah. If I don’t think about my Avodas Hashem, then it has no taste. If I don’t appreciate the people my family, it’s like they don’t exist. How often does my learning or mitzvah performance seem like tasteless mun?
I know that I go through the motions quite often. I’m aware of it and I attempt to work on it. I’m sure that Rav Schwab heard the words of the Chofetz Chaim and it also gave him food for thought.
I often, especially lately, will see or read something and it hits me in the face. Most recently, it was comic in the Forward that has become a bit of a bee in people’s bonnets. I chose to contact the artist and got his side of the story. If perception is everything, then we as a Torah observant community have our work cut out for us. To eat the mun and not taste it, is up there with feeding the mun to someone else and they only tasting something bitter.
(The beginning of this post was originally posted here)
Why most Jews light Chanuka Candles
From Rav Yosef Stern’s Sfas Emes sefer, Days of Joy:
There’s a halacha in germara Shabbos 21b that describes how certain oils and wick are “not acceptable for Shabbos candelabra, but are permitted for the Chanuka Menorah. The substances are prohibited for Shabbos use because of the flame’s inability to cling to the wick. Likewise, the light of Torah is unable to fully penetrate certain souls even on Shabbos. Yet on Chanuka these rejected wicks may be used. So too, souls that are not inspired by the weekly Shabbos are spiritually moved by the yearly observance of Chanukah. A certain spark, an inner purity, always remains burning bright in the heart of every Jew. This spark, know as the Nekudah HaPinimius, constrained all year long from permeating the Jewish psyche, is liberated on Chanukah through the power of praise and gratitude, for the miracles that occurred at this time”
TorahLab Chanukah links
Speeding for thrills
The photo above was taken with the camera on my cell phone. It’s actually the rollercoaster cars of the Vertical Velocity (V2) ride at Six Flags Great America zipping past me at 70 miles per hour (from 0-70 in four seconds).
Growing up, I was wasn’t a big rollercoaster fan. I wasn’t scared of them, but there was always that thought in my head (especially with wooden coasters, which are the best to ride on) that if I was on a ride and the car flew off the track, oh man, that would probably hurt. As I got older I began to be less worried about this. It’s not because my Bitachon was so great, but I realized that the odds were pretty good that nothing so horrific would happen to me. I remember in high school reading an old interview with Abraham Maslow and he was asked what things he was sure of in life. His answer was great. He said that he was fairly sure that when he sat down in a chair that the chair wouldn’t break. He based this on the fact that he has never fallen on the floor from sitting on a broken chair. I think the same is true for most amusement park rides.
So, a week ago last Sunday I found myself in line for the V2 with my friend’s 5th grader son. This kid loves coasters. I happened to be the only one out of three adults willing to go with him on the ride- ok, I really wanted to go on the ride, too. As I stood in line I was talking with a few people and found out that most of them were repeat customers for the V2. They loved the speed and the felling of the straight 185-foot vertical freefall drop. I stood in line, watched the cars race past me and thought about saying some Tehillim. I got on and kept telling myself that as long as we stay on the tracks we’ll be fine. I admit the freefall drop is pretty scary, but cool. I got off the ride and it was over for me. Of course, my companion wanted to again, but I said once was enough for me.
I get it, it’s fun. But why go on any it again? The best answer I can come up with is that people want to relive that initial thrill. I can sympathize. I remember my first real Shabbos. I recall an awesome Shalosh Seudos with great niggunim. I will never forget my first date with my wife. We all want to go back, somehow. The problem I have in attempting to use this real-life analogy is that it seems like you are going no where fast if you settle to go back on the same ride again and again. Essentially you are choosing a thrill of comfort.
There are other rides based on the same principles of physics and speed in the amusement park of Yiddishkeit. Life shouldn’t always be the same. As I get closer to Rosh Hashana I feel more and more like I don’t really want to reach a level of ruchnius like I had on my “best Rosh Hashana ever”. That isn’t creating something chadash, new. That simply is going on the same ride again and somehow I don’t believe that is what Hashem wants from me this time.
Sunday’s Spark of Mussar
Rav Yisrael Lipkin of Salant
On the eve of Rosh Hashanah, Rav Yisrael Salanter would instruct each member of the family how to behave. He would warn them against getting angry and against idle conversation, for they were all in grave danger. Their carefulness was to last at least through the morning when the judgement is strictest.
From Sparks of Mussar by R Chaim Ephraim Zaitchik
Rav Gifter shiur on the Yomim Noraim 5744
I found and listened to this shiur tonight from Rav Gifter z”tl. I’ll probably listen to it again. For me, it’s worth it. The shiur is simply titled Yomim Noraim 5744. It’s from a great site called Close To Torah.
What’s so important about the number 316?
The unchanging Guard
I am not a fan of Right Guard. I wasn’t a fan of it when I was, like, 12 or 13 yrs old, and now that I’m 38 I am still not a fan. I dread having to use it every Pesach. It’s really as simple as that. However, I also hope every year that when I buy my “Pesach can” of Right Guard, it will smell different.
The smell of the stuff hasn’t changed in years. As newer advances in technology and medicine take place, as more and more people become “connected” in our global village, Right Guard stays the same. Maybe that’s the point. Once a year, we come to Pesach and each of us has that vort we love to say over at the Seder, that recipe that everyone loves, and those one or two items that the kids made in school that are always on the table. Sometimes, not changing things, is actually a nice change.
