Category Archives: Middos

My role as a pick-up artist

Leave a reply

I often find myself picking up candy wrappers, seforim, and the occasional napkin or fork during kiddush on Shabbos. At times, I’ve even, with a simple greeting of, “Good Shabbos Kodesh”, picked up the ears of those that I pass in the street. I make a point to also pick up garbage in front of an inside my children’s day school when I am there, as well. It is an issue of Kavod HaTorah. The Holy Hunchback, I’m not, but I try.

In Kelm the talmidim fought for the coveted position of being able to clean the Talmud Torah of Kelm and even to take out the garbage (usually a job for the oldest bochruim).

My kids know that if they are walking though shul with me and see a Dum Dum wrapper on the ground that either I’ll pick it up myself or ask them to. They don’t mind picking it up, because were they not there, they know that I’d be the one throwing it away.

I cannot stop people (usually kids) from carelessly throwing candy wrappers on the ground. However, I can make sure that the shul where I daven is fairly clean, if newcomers, guests, or non-observant Jews come by.

What to think about when your kids are chutzpadik

Leave a reply
Graphic from here

I have noticed over the past year that my children, well the oldest (10 and 8) are now showing a sense of confindence when they talk back.  At first I chalked it up to a “phase” that my son (10) and daughter (8) were going through.  BH, our little one (4) hasn’t quite picked up on this mode of behavior.  However, a phase is usually short lived, this isn’t.  Don’t me wrong, my kids are good, loving, sensitive kids.  They just figured out that they can talk back and exercise their free choice to do so, while at times being less than respectful to others.
I was that way back in my youth.  Of course, this didn’t happen until I was about 14 or 15.

It’s not just what they say, it’s how they say it.  Often times, we will tell them thing like, “How can you say that in a nice way” or “How would you respond if someone spoke to you the way you are talking now?”

I think I will just have to accept their acts of chutzpah as par for the course.  Of course, their words do not go unnoticed nor do do they “get away” with how they speak to others.  There is a cause and effect and they are learning to understand that.  However, I am left wondering, if being chutzpadik might be derech ha’tevah?  Sort like gravity, built into the way of the world.

This line of thinking is based on what I recently was reminded of while reading In All Your Ways by R Yaakov Meir Shechter.  He quotes the gemara at the end of Sotah (49b), that says:
“In the footsteps of Moshiach, chutzpah (insolence) will increase and kavod (honor) will decrease.”

If I am to believe that Moshiach can come today (or any day), then why not simply accept chutzpah for what it is, a sign that the Geulah is coming.

The middah of Simplicity

2 Replies

My thoughts about histapkut, simplicity, are currently posted at madrega.com.

Here’s teaser:

Exercising histapkut helps one gain a level of maturity to approach life by realizing what is really important. This middah is very different than the concept of sameach b’chelko, “being happy with one’s lot”.

When I was in my teens, one of my favorite games to play with my friends was “Desert Island Discs”, based on the BBC Radio program. We were all big music fans and we would each come up with a list every six months of what ten albums we would want if we were on a desert island. Then we would…

To read this in its entirety or hear the recorded mp3 about this middah (record my me), you’ll have to go to madrega.com and register (for free) to join this exciting web-community designed for self-growth.
It’s easy to join and will only cost you time time you invest.

Help… I need middos

Leave a reply

Well, really, what I’m looking for are successful Middos programs that have been run in day schools.
I’ve heard of Project D.E.R.E.C.H.,but I don’t have any contact information about the actual program.
If you know of any programs out there please let me know.  Our school did have a Middos Awareness
Program (M.A.P) that focused on a specifc middah per month, but it needs revamping.
I’m attempting to work on a project for the day school our children attend and any resourse info would be great.

Neil Harris
neilsharris@gmail.com

Blame it on the bus

8 Replies

We (meaning my wife and a couple we’re close with) have running joke that when our kids exhibit behavior or say something that is totally beyond appropriate or not in line with the way of a young mensch/maidel-Yisrael, we say that they must have “learned it on the bus”. (Note: We have busing in the afternoons from school to home for our kids, thanks to the tireless efforts of the Agudath Israel of Illinois. This is truly a bracha in many ways.)

Yesterday my 5th grader told my wife that the bus driver and, even, several 8th grade boys have been “swearing” on the bus and that he and a friend were going to speak to the principal about it. I asked him exactly what words and he told me. One started with S and one with F (and it wasn’t Simcha and Freilich, although if we lived in an extremely anti-chassidishe world, it would be really funny if those words were considered “swear words”).

So, I asked him if he had known about those words before yesterday. He had, but he had never actually heard them said. This opened the door to a short conversation about Nivul Peh and the responsibility to use the mouth that Hashem gave us for serving Hashem with our words. I suppose that I should be happy he lasted this long without really hearing those kind of words.

I know there are times when I’ve gotten injured or angry about something and before I know it I’ve uttered a word that I normally wouldn’t think of using. People slip (commit an aveira, distance themselves from Hashem’s Kedusha, call it what you wish) and hopeful try to better themselves. What bothers me is that I happen to know a handful of people who I think of as good Yidden, but who will casually throw in an occasional Simcha or Freilich when they feel like it. Now, it may be a habit leftover from their past, it may be that they feel it’s acceptable to do so based on the culture (since those words are allowed in PG-13 movies, songs, tv), or their way of expressing themselves within a religion that seems to have laws about everything, or because English isn’t viewed as loshon haKodesh. I’m sure they have their reasons.

What bothers me is that it’s being done on the bus. Some parents would say that if I don’t like what my kids are being exposed to on the bus, then speak to the Agudath about getting a money back from what I initially paid for bus service and just pick up my son from school myself. That’s one way to deal with it. My son and his friend are attempting to see if the administration of the school can try to do something, first. Again, what bothers me is that it’s being done on the bus. On the bus with an adult who is busy driving the bus (which is his job). On the bus that has a group of 4th-8th grade boys hanging out on their way home from school. On the bus without any “adult” watching their behavior. Without anyone to be accountable to.

Many kids, even from the best, frum, homes don’t feel that accountability all the time. That feeling that is stated as the first thing in the Kitzur Shulchan Aruch, the concept of “Shevisi Hashem l’negdi tamid – I have placed Hashem constantly before me”, is something that goes beyond home, shul, and school. This, in my own opinion, is half of the problem. The other half, and maybe the root of the problem, is that some kids (and adults, like this writer) forget that the greatest Yetzer Hora is to forget that they themselves are the son or daughter of the King.
Call it a lack of B’tzlem Elokeim.
Call it being in the dark about Gadlus HaAdom.
Call it not understanding the goal of shelaymus.
Call it a result of not knowing that D’veykus with Hashem is a good thing.

How do we act when we think that no one is looking? The bus just happens to be the lab where the experiment takes place. The drive to work is also the lab. Being in your office is the lab. Going shopping is the lab. We control the results of the experiment.

For sources on Nivul Peh, see R Morechai Torczner’s HaMakor site.
For resources about why not to curse, see the Bleep! site.

Advice from my father-in-law a"h

4 Replies

The 12th of Cheshvon, marks the 3rd yartzeit of my father-in-law, Dan HaLevi ben Aaron a”h, Dan Huth.

My father-in-law a”h had a very unsual knack for telling over very pithy sayings and coming up with on-target analogies that seemed to make things crystal clear.  My wife happened to have inherited that trait, too.  One of my favorite sayings of his (I’m not sure of the origin of this saying, sorry) is:

If you are throwing roses to someone and it hits them like bricks, then you are throwing bricks.

Often it’s easy something to someone and have it taken the wrong way.  Usually we’re not aware of it, and it’s an honest mistake.  However, even if it wasn’t your intention, your words can end up hurting someone else.  This is called onaas devarim.  Most people are aware of when they say something hurtful, it s a conscious decision.  But, many times we think we are giving a compliment or offering advice and what we end up doing is throwing bricks.  I’ve seen this happen too often (and mostly I’m the one throwing bricks).

Over Tishrei I decided that we (my family, that is) needs to work on being more sensitive to onaas devarim, so starting this Shabbos Kodesh I’m attempting to go through sections of R Zelig Pliskin’s book on this topic, THE POWER OF WORDS, at each Shabbos meal.  Hopefully it will make us more sensitive to the importance of what we say and, more importantly, how we say things.

Written as an aliyah for the neshama of Dan HaLevi ben Aaron

Rav Avraham Shorr shiur about Tisha B’Av (link)

Leave a reply

I am fairly stiff-necked.  What I mean is that I don’t like to change.  I like the idea of improvement and working on middos (thus my own gravitation towards Mussar), but this is mostly because I tend to resist change.

Last night I downloaded a shiur that, like it or not, is causing me to think about a number of things and might lead to change.  If you’ve ever seen or heard Rav Avraham Schorr, then you know that he tends to tell it like its, but with a level of clarity that few have in our generation, IMHO.

The shiur I downloaded regarding Tisha B’Av is available from TorahLectures.com, here.

Constructive Solutions to where the middos have gone…

3 Replies

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)

Alter of Slabodka on Mishpatim (and his yartzeit)

Leave a reply
This Shabbos, the 29th of Shevat is the yartzeit of R Nosson Tzvi Finkel, the Alter of Slabodka.  The following was story was printed in Likutei Peshatim, published weekly by the Hebrew Theological College.
“And when a man opens a pit…and he does not cover it, and an ox or a donkey falls into it.” Shemos 21:33

One of the students studying in the Yeshiva of Slobodka saw a piece of paper on the floor. He bent over to pick it up, thinking that it might have been a scrap from a holy text which would require that it go into a geniza (a burial vault) to maintain its holiness. When he realized, however, that the material written on it was merely some trivial matter, he threw it back on the floor.

The Saba from Slobodka noticed his actions and called him over to speak to him. “It was an act of negligence on your part to toss that paper back on the floor!” he said. “You have now created a hazard in the public domain with that crumpled up paper.” The student was amazed. A “pit” is an obstacle which may cause an animal to stumble into it or a person to get injured. What damage could a simple piece of paper cause?

The Saba noticed the student’s lack of understanding and he explained. “Do not think that a ‘pit’ is only dangerous when you create a trap which may ensnare and injure another person or animal. Even now, you have required another person to have to bend over and to clean up this trash. His path is disturbed and he will be delayed in his studies. You have stolen from his time. This is also a damage, and it falls under the category of “bor” – the prohibition of creating an obstacle which causes harm to others.

“Furthermore, although you are not the one who owns the paper and you did not toss it on the ground originally, you have legally acquired it by lifting it up.” (See Bava Kamma 30a).

HaSaba MiSlobodka