My final blog entry before Bike the Drive (this Sunday) is available here.
Monthly Archives: May 2010
Biking updates that you might have missed
If you are interested, I’ve updated my biking blog, here. The big ride is this Sunday morning. I’m looking forward to it, but I hope it’s not 90 degrees at 6 AM.
If you are interested in sponsoring me (any amount would be great) and helping to raise money for Chai Lifeline you can donate here.
Thanks!!!
R Hillel Goldberg on the true meaning of Shavuos
The Intermountain Jewish News has a great essay by R Hillel Goldberg, titled “Shauvuot-Something Real, But Not Concrete” available here.
An excerpt:
Shavuot celebrates the giving of the Torah. If one does not delve into the Torah, its meaning is meaningless. One may approach many Jewish holidays at the last minute. Not Shavuot. One must live with the Torah, breathe it, find joy in it, be troubled by its sometimes seemingly inaccessible teachings. One must occupy oneself with the Torah, struggle with it, let it color one’s mind and soul, in order to grasp it.
Kabbalas Ol Mitzvos shiur this Shavuos night…
Constructive Solutions to where the middos have gone…
Last week the Jewish Press ran an article titled “Where Have All Our Middos Gone?”
The article has generated some buzz and this week the Jewish Press printed a fantastic letter to the editor written by R Micha Berger.
The letter can be found here, by scrolling down the page or you
can just read this:
Constructive Solutions
Re: Soferet Dugri’s front-page essay “Where Have All Our Middos Gone?”
I agree this is a burning question. Perhaps it is the greatest issue we must address today for our own souls, as well as to stem the tide of children choosing to leave Orthodoxy. And how much easier kiruv would be if people exploring Torah observance didn’t encounter such situations, either first hand or in the newspapers?
But rather than lament the loss of middos in the frum world, let’s do something about it! We can benefit from centuries of conceptual development and techniques for improving our middos. Notably R’ Yisrael Salanter and the Mussar movement produced an actual plan one can follow to create a middos-centered Judaism. R’ Shlomo Wolbe, zt”l, has step-by-step instructions in Alei Shur, Volume II, Section 2, for running groups that work on their middos together.
We at the AishDas Society (www.aishdas.org) have experience setting up such programs, and would be happy to help your shul or community get started. We can also assist with one-off events such as providing speakers, a shul Shabbaton or Yom Iyun, etc. Feel free to contact us at the above site for more information.
In Highland Park, New Jersey, there is an initiative called ACTT (www.actt613.org), an applied approach to working on one’s middos that has the support of the community’s rabbis. Look into that as well.
Haven’t we gotten beyond the point where just acknowledging a problem exists is considered a step forward? If we continue to sit around lamenting the situation rather than working to fix it, things won’t ever actually improve.
Rabbi Micha Berger
(Via E-Mail)
Dvar Torah in merit of a refuah shelaima
I was asked by my shul to submit a dvar Torah for their Torah-blog. What I submitted is posted here as merit for a refuah shelaima for Esther bas Sara.
Speaking schedule in NY area for Bilvavi Mishkan Evneh author
Rav Shwartz, the author of the Bilvavi Mishkan Evneh seforim, will be in the U.S. the week before Shavuos. He will be speaking in Flatbush, Boro Park, Far Rockaway/5 Towns, Monsey, & Lakewood. Click on this link to see the full schedule.
For private meetings with the Rav in Monsey or Boro Park, please call 718-249-6047 for an appointment.
For the one day seminar in Flatbush this Sunday, May 9th, it will be at Rabbi Mayer Fund’s Shul, Cong. Sheves Achim in Flatbush, Brooklyn (1517 Ave. H, off corner of East 16th [across from Q Train]). The shiurim will be at 12, 3, & 6 PM. All proceeds are going to publish more seforim by Rav Shwartz. $20 admission $200 sponsorship (includes private meeting with the Rav). CLICK HERE or call 516-668-6397 to register.
The information above was supplied by Dixie Yid.