Author Archives: Neil Harris

Free recording of Yosef Karduner and a shiur from Rav Weinberger

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Photo from Dixie Yid’s blog

This past Shabbos Kodesh was the yahrtzeit of the Aish Kodesh zt’l. Rav Weinberger’s shul, Cong. Aish Kodesh, held their hilula with music from Yosef Karduner and a shiur in memory of Rav Kalonymus Kalman Shapira given by Rav Weinberger. His shiurim on the yarhtzeit of the Rebbe are always so moving and this one is no exception. The recording contains over an hour of music by Yosef, the shiur, and then more music. It’s available here. Black hat tip to Dixie Yid for the info on the recording.

Said over prior to lunch

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This past Shabbos Kodesh was our son’s bar mitzvah.  It was a beautiful simcha bringing together family and friends from Arizona, Texas, Kansas, Ohio, Louisiana, Florida, New Jersey, and New York.  We are so grateful to so many friends that helped make our son’s bar mitzvah an incredible experience.  I shared the following with about 75 family members and close friends prior to lunch.

Rav Joseph Solveitchik zt’l , the former dean of Yeshiva University’s rabbinic program once said that, “A person’s birthday is the day that Hashem decided that the world couldn’t go on without you”.

On Thursday morning, Eli Meir, your birthday, you read from the Torah at school during minyan and got your first aliya. It seems that you were waiting your whole life for this moment. Even when you were 1 and a half, you would dress up in hat and use your blanket as tallis. We all thought you were playing, but as I look back know, you were not playing, you were in spring training, waiting for baseball season to start.

Just over 13 years ago we gave you your name. Eliezer Meir, you were named after mommy’s great-great grandfather and my great grandfather. Not only did we pick the names to attach you to our family trees, but the meaning of your name is very special.

Eliezer, means “my God helps”.  I know that you have seen this in your own life, but you should always remember that Hashem is with you to help you, no matter what challenges you have in life. Mommy and I will always be there, too, no matter what happens in life, we love you and know the greatness inside you. Meir means “to bring light”. Since you were born you had a gift of making everyone you know feel happy and you bring light to our whole family. You are thoughtful, funny, bright, and helpful. You have always brightened up the lives of others.

I remember how Bubbie a’h use to talk to you on the phone and then tell mommy that talking to you was like medicine that made her feel better. I remember Zaidy a’hbeing so happy whenever we would visit him and loved talking to you on the phone. Especially while watching baseball, football, and basketball. Grandpa a’h loved coming to visit us and he always loved seeing you and was always thrilled when I told him an “Eli Meir” story. Grandma and Nana always tell me how you are such a special person. I don’t tell you this to embarrass you, only so you should know that you bring light everyone that you meet. This is one of the many gifts you have.

You rocked today, buddy. Mommy and I knew that you could do it and your leining was amazing. For the past whenever anyone found out your Bar Mitzvah was Parshas Noach, they all said, “wow that’s a tough parsha”. I then said, “Shhh, don’t tell Eli that.” I hope you will always be proud of what you’ve done today, Eli. Mommy kept on telling you that you could do it and she was right.

Originally, I had wanted to a special story with you, but we can do the next time we walk to shul together. Instead, I will share a teaching of Rabbi Kalonymous Kalman Shaprio, the Piaseczna Rebbe. He was the last remaining Rebbe in the Warsaw Ghetto and today is his yartzeit. The Rebbe taught that “The most important thing in the world is to do someone else a favor.”  This teaching sums up the type of man you are, Eli. Since you were little you were always finding ways to make others feel better and help them. Once, in kindergarten you even showed a friend how to roller blades. He kept falling down and you then fell down on purpose and told him that everyone falls sometime. Even this past Simchas Torah, you ran across the street to the old Klal Chassidim building to get a stranger an English Hebrew Siddur.

Today at the kiddush and here now, you are surround by people who wanted to be with you. They didn’t come for the chullent or the kugel, or because they like to get up early.  They came because they love you and you are important to them. As we all look around this room, there are those who we are missing. I know that Bubbie a’h, Zaidy a’h, and Grandpa a’h have been watching you this whole time.

Joanie has pretty much done everything to make this Bar Mitzvah a success. To say that it couldn’t have happened without you is… well, the truth. Thank you for teaching Eli to believe in himself. You have given him the best present in the world.

Growing up

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Our son, just past his 2nd birthday

Our son will become a “Bar Mitzvah” this Shabbos Kodesh.  Over the years I have written about how I’ve  shepped nachas from him making a friend feel comfortable, how we danced it up on Lag B’Omer, how we learned from a chumash belonging to my grandfather, and his awesome one-liner one Shabbos night.  All in all, he’s a great young man.  There are times when he is wise-beyond-his-years and other times when he acts well below his years.  He finds humor in things that others don’t see.  He understands the importance of a moment in time.  The excitement he felt on Tzom Gedaliah, when he put on his Zaidy’s tefillin was beautiful, because, he understood that even without making a bracha, it was special.  He started wearing his Shabbos hat on Rosh Hashanah and is aware that it’s not just another accessory.  I have always told him that he needs to keep his head covered, that’s the main thing.  He fully gets the fact that wearing a black hat doesn’t mean he has any more kedusha than any other Jew.

We have been fortunate that even when he was young, thanks in part to hours of listening to Uncle Moishy, he has had a certain fire for Yiddishkeit.  He has strong sense of what is right in the world and even when he would dress up with an old Shabbos hat and a tallis and play with at “Torah” he made in pre-school, there was a look in his eyes that, to him, he wasn’t just playing.

Watching him learn to lein has been quite an experience.  His diligence and desire over the past year has been inspirational.  He has even opted to listen to the mp3 files of his parsha instead of listening to baseball games on the radio at night (sometimes).  For him, this is a major accomplishment.  His has a great group of friends in his class that he has known since the middle of kindergarten.  He is looked to as role model by many younger boys our family knows, he is liked by his teachers and respected by his rebbeim.

He, like every kid, has his moments that make me want to pull out what is left of my hair, but I love him and he usually knows that.  He is loved by many and I hope he sees this over Shabbos.  We are zoche to live in a beautiful community that is rich in Torah, Avodah, and Gemilus Chassadim.

The countdown is here, my brother arrived before Shabbos, and before we know it we’ll be with out-of-town family and friends who have come in to join us in this simcha.  The absence of my wife’s parents a”h and my father a”h is not easy, but, as we wrote in the Bar Mitzvah invitation:
“Though one’s parents have passed on, Hashem escorts them from Gan Eden to participate in their children’s simcha.” (Zohar 3:21b)

A new tool for In-Reach

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This is probably old news to most people, but I got clued into Chavrusamatch.com tonight.
It was founded by Rabbi Jason Gelber, a member of Rabbi Ner Israel Kollel and the co-founder of a substance abuse center in Baltimore, MD.  I found the site easy to navigate and the “resources” page had great link for on-line texts and tools for learning.  The site has great potential for people who don’t have time for a chevrua and are interested in one-on-one distance learning.  While I am be fan of Partner’s in Torah, I think this site will be great for In-Reach among the already observant.  While learning on the phone or via Skype is cool, I’m curious if there’s potential for the website to be used to match up people locally?  Time will tell.

From their website:
What is Chavrusamatch.com?

Chavrusamatch.com connects Jewish people of all ages, backgrounds and interests to learn Torah together at a time and in a manner that works for them. Busy men and women can find their same-gender matches to engage in dynamic Torah study.
Chavrusa Match facilitates three types of learning arrangements: in-person, for the individual struggling to identify a chavrusa locally, due to scheduling constraints or other limitations; and phone or Skype/video chat, for busy professionals or those living in remote locations without access to in-person resources.

Audio links to "Planting Seeds for a Meaningful Year"

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Last night’s joint Yeshiva University Torah Mitzion Kollel and NCSY workshops and panel discussion rocked!!!  Aside from using the Spring Issue of Klal Perspectives as a springboard, the talented speakers addressed issue like making Shabbos more meaningful, the need to bring feeling into our halachic observance, and ideas of what type of learning we can engage in.  The Aish Kodesh zt’l and his seforim came up a few times and Rav Reichman skillfully showed a major differnce between Chassidus and Mussar.
 
The following audio links were recently posted from the event:
 
Introduction

 

Workshop Sessions
Bring Back that Love and Feeling
Rabbi Reuven Brand, Rosh Kollel
Rabbi Steven Burg, Managing Director of the OU and International Director of NCSY
Rabbi Josh Livingstone, Director of Meor Northwestern
Rabbi Zev Reichman, Director of Jewish Studies at YU, Rabbi of East Hill Synagogue of Engelwood, NJ
 
Panel Discussion

A grosse Yashar Koach goes to all who planned this wonderful event.

Secured Messages

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I recently received a secured message on my work email. I had tried opening it several times with a password I had previously set up. I tried accessing the message four times and the password wasn’t being accepted. It got to the point that I had actually tried too many times to open the message with a non-accepted password and was locked out.
Finally, as a last resort, I reset my password and was able to access the message. As I approach Yom Kippur I see, that even though Hashem’s messages are constantly being sent to me, in order to read them it is I that must change (which is also part of the message).  Changing what I think is the correct path, when all is said and done, means accepting that what I have been doing so far, isn’t really working.  I might be careful about not talking in shul, but am I really concentrating on the words (and translations) of what I’m saying to Hashem?

Evening of Jewish Spirituality…

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…thanks to Midwest NCSY and the YU Torah Mitzion Kollel

Last Winter, NJ NCSY ran an unbelievable program very similar to this one.  I am so happy that NCSY and  the YU Torah Mitzion Kollel of Chicago are bringing this evening to the Chicago area.  This is a perfect way to deal with the subject of the Spring issue of Klal Perspectives.

The event is Sunday, September 23rd from 8:00pm-9:30pm at Congregation Or Torah in Skokie.

The Rebbetzin’s Husband: A most moving video for the Ten Days of Repentance (link)

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Just click the link below and see an amazing video that will get you thinking.  I found it deep, moving and it brought a tear to my eye.

The Rebbetzin’s Husband: A most moving video for the Ten Days of Repentance…: We split our repentance process between two tiers, one our religious relationship with G-d and the other our personal relationship with our …

The story of the lost girl

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Rav Moshe Weinberger tells the following story in this shiur, Call of the Wild- Understanding our Inherent Need to Daven:

Once there was a little girl named Rivka and she was lost. The whole shtelt was looking for her and was looking for her and nobody could find her. It was getting dark and the everyone stopped looking, except for her father. Even though it was so dark, and in those days dark was really dark, the father kept on looking and looking through the forest. Nebach, litte Rivka was terrified and lost in the forest and fell asleep by a tree. She was freezing and frightened and cried herself to sleep. All of the sudden the father, the only one looking for her, cleared away a tree and subconsciously she heard the moving of the branches and she sat up, opened her eyes and said, “Tate, Abba, I FOUND YOU!”
Of course, he found her and that’s the story of our lives. The moment we wake up, Hashem is so sweet, he makes us feel like we found him. The truth is that he has never ever stopped looking for each and every one of us. We just have to wake up and realize that.
 
I wish you a k’siva v’chasima tova and a year full of simcha and shelaymus.

Cheshboning …À la carte

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Pic from here

With Rosh HaShanna basically around the corner, Elul and all of it’s glory (and I do mean that, since I happen to love the energy of Elul) already seems like it’s almost over. My mind turns towards the things that I’ve been cheshboning.  Thinks like how I spend my free time, the way I speak to those I love, exercising patience.
I find with any real cheshbon ha-nefesh that when all is said, written, charted down, or audited I am left with a fairly stripped down view of my thoughts, actions, and words. The common thread among these thoughts, actions, and words is that they all hinge on bechira, free will. It is my choice what I think, what I do, and how I speak. That’s the good news.
The bad news is that since we have this thing called bechira, we are free to choose. When I sit and make my cheshbon of how I talked to my wife or my kids, I have to be honest and choose to examine all of the time, not just the time that I spoke nicely.  

The bad news is that since we have this thing called bechira, we are free to choose. The real life effort involved in productive cheshboning comes when we force ourselves to be non-biased, we have to choose. Subjectivity in the way we look at ourselves is the kryponite of a cheshbon hanefesh.

When I sit and make my cheshbon of how I talked to my wife or my kids over the past few months, I have to be honest and choose to examine all of the times, not just the times that I spoke nicely. I recently decided to change how I engage and stay connected with social media. Part of that change involved taking both the Twitter and Facebook applications off of my phone. For me, just taking those apps off my phone was the first step. I could have easily stayed just as connected using a computer whenever I wanted to, so I also began to regulate when and how I would use both of these social media tools with my laptop at home a few nights a week. I find Facebook to be an excellent way to get in touch with people and also get messages out to the masses. However, my life is just as exciting even without knowing what people are up to on a daily basis.

Any performance evaluation has to be based on meeting expected goals. While it’s easier to evaluate others, like the guy that has DADD or the person who always talks about someone else, that’s not the point of cheshboning. I can only look at myself and daven that I can see who I really am and who I can be.