Category Archives: Middos

Bullying- an impediment to Achdus

A Twelve year old at the ‘Shabbos park’ asks a group of boys if they want to play with him. He is rejected because because he has a slight behavioral disorder.

A third grader is threatened by a peer and is told that if he is tells anyone he will get his head put into a toilet.

A sixth grade girl walks out of a classroom and is rushed by classmates who start piling books into her empty backpack so that it will overfill and fall down, along with its’ owner.

A boy is shunned during recess and not allowed to play football with the other boys because he “doesn’t throw well”.

On the school bus home a child takes another child’s jacket, throws it on the ground and steps on it.

Bullying is a problem in any school. Even in our own day schools/cheders/yeshivas/girls-only-schools. It shows no bias regardless of the school’s hashkafa.

In our educational intitutions, where even three year olds learn about Rabbi Akiva and the mitzvah of Ve Ahavta Lera’eha Kamoha and six year olds understand that 24,000 students died because they didn’t show respect and kavod HaBre’os to each other, bullying has become an issue.

There are schools that have anti-bullying programs in place. Some school have their special committees to deal with the issue. The school my children attend even has an actual curriculum that starts before first grade and includes a list of required books for summer reading that deal with bullying.

I didn’t attend a yeshiva until I was eighteen. I attended public schools and was not at all athletic or considered ‘gifted’. I was, until the end of eighth grade, rather nerdy. Then things changed. I started listening to some different music and adopted a particular style of dress. My hair went through different styles, shades, and lengths. The summer before eleventh grade I attended a summer program in Israel and returned Torah observant sporting a yarmulka and tzitzis.

For those prone to bullying, I certainly gave them ample opportunity. I was a great target. The only Torah observant teen in a midwestern city with a population of 350,000. I listened to everything but top 40 music, and dressed mostly in black. However, due to the ‘no tolerance’ policies in the schools I attended, I was never really bothered by anyone.

So I wonder, why is bullying an issue in our schools?

It can’t be solely because these bullies have parents who are bullies.
It can’t be solely because our schools are afraid to discipline bullies for fear of potentially turning the bully into an ‘at-risk child’.
It can’t be solely because kids today are never told “no”.
It can’t be solely because today chutzpa is about as common as the flu.

No, not solely, but I believe these are all factors. Like most really important issues, there are no easy answers or band-aid remedies.

Bullying is an impediment to the value of achdus that we hold in such high esteem.

If you have kids, talk with them. If you can get involved in your school, give it a try.

Don’t walk in front of me, I may not follow
Don’t walk behind me, I may not lead
Just walk beside me and be my friend
And together we will walk in the way of Hashem

While doing research for this post I came across a pretty interesting site called, Stop Bullying Now. Comments, suggestions, and solutions are welcome. Thanks for reading.

Parshas Emor

Stain Resistance and Bad Midos

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I once heard an interesting approach to dealing with bad midos. The idea is that you should think about anger, depression, jealousy, or any other potentially harmful midos as outside forces that are moving towards you. To fight them you simply just imagine that they cannot get past the buttons of your shirt and bounce off of you, like a shield.

Today I was reminded of that moshel.

While driving to work this morning a car switched lanes right in front of me. Of course, without signaling. Of course, I was sipping my coffee. Of course, I spilled some coffee all over my shirt. Baruch Hashem, I was wearing a stain-resistant shirt from Old Navy that my wife bought me. The best thing about this shirt is that water and oil based liquids, like my coffee, roll right off of the fabric.

It really worked. The coffee just rolled off of my shirt. It was as if the coffee was never spilled!

Bad midos are out there. Forces, external and internal, try to make us depressed and angry. The yetzer hora constantly tries to make me lose my patience with people. I can fight it. I just need to remind myself that I, too, can be stain-resistant, like my shirt. This is the first line of defense. I just can’t let bad midos get past my buttons, or push my buttons.

Why I recommend saying "Good Shabbos"

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I lead, what I think of, as a pretty regular life. So when something singular happens, it’s pretty exciting for me. As common in most communities and with groups of friends, when someone has a baby people start offering to make meals for that family (in this case, my family).

Last motzei Shabbos we got a call from our friend who was coordinating meals for us. It seems that a couple wanted to do a chessed and give us a meal. The problem was that we had no clue who they were. We didn’t recognize their names nor did our kids have anyone with the same list name in their classses. Later that night we found out the wife’s maiden name, and she claimed that we were her former NCSY advisors. I still wasn’t sure who it could be. For four days I was trying to figure out who these people were. I did know someone by the wife’s maiden name, but different first name. Last night, the mystery was solved. My wife opened the door when our guest came (I was still at work) and it was all revealed…

I try to be a friendly person, so as I walk to/from shul Shabbos morning I always say “Good Shabbos” to people I see. It makes no difference if I know them or not. As it happens, in Chicago, people say “Good Shabbos” back, too.

Apparently last Shabbos I said “Good Shabbos” to this “former NCSYer” and as she told my wife, when she got down the block she realized who I was. She figured that I was in town for a chassuna. Then she was speaking to a friend and our name came up also. Then she saw a birth announcement in one of the community emails. All of this happened over Shabbos.

It turns out that she was the NCSYer I was thinking of (it’s been almost 10 years since I’ve heard her name), but she’s going by a slightly different name these days. She and her husband moved here two years ago. What a way to reconnect with someone and all from saying, “Good Shabbos”. Try saying it, you, too, might end up with a great story of hashgacha pratis.

Frumkeit, Changes, and Rav Dessler

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A recent article titled “Frum or Ehrlich” was written by Dr. Yitzchok Levine. I printed it before Rosh Hashana and over Yom Tov I probably read it four different times. I urge you to take a look at it and give it some thought. I hope to blog about it more in the future. It’s pdf-alicious (yes, this is a term that I use outside of the blogosphere). Here’s a sample:

The Difference Between Frum and Ehrlich
Years ago the highest compliment that one could give to a Jew was not that he or she is frum, but that he or she is ehrlich. The term frum is perhaps best translated as “religious.” More often than not it focuses on the external aspects of observance. It describes a person whose outward appearance and public actions apparently demonstrate a commitment to religious observance. The categorization of someone as being ehrlich, literally “honest,” implies that this person is not only committed to the externalities of
religious observance, but also is concerned about how his or her religious observance impacts upon others. Frumkeit is often primarily concerned only with the mitzvos bein odom laShem (between man and G-d), whereas ehrlichkeit, while certainly concerned with bein odom laShem, also focuses on bein odom l’odom (those mitzvos that govern inter-personal relationships.)

As I’ve read and re-read this article I’ve been thinking about my own behavior at times. During Aseres Yemei Teshuvah I’m pretty hardcore about changing a lot of things. In the end, I usually end up changing very little. What small things that I attempt to change usually end up happening after Yom Kippur. During the days before Yom Kippur and certainly afterwards we all try to be a little better. Some of us stay on target, others, like myself, fall short.

I attempt to: watch less TV, start attending a new shiur, stop staying up late for blogging-related-activites, be more productive at home, show my kids that what they have to say is of the upmost importance to me, listen to my wife more, let my kids be ‘kids’ and not prototypes for some sort of midos-management-utopian-ideal-Invasion of the Body Snatchers-chinuch manifesto that I have cooking in my head like a chulent gone bad. As I look back over the past week, I really didn’t get too far.
But with any change in myself I run the risk of appearing to some as ‘to frum’ at the possible expense of not being ‘ehrlich’. There will always be those that will point out behavioral inconstanties in our actions and say, “You think you’re frummer than everyone else” or “You didn’t act this way during Elul, why change now”. More often than not, it’s not people who say this to us, but what we tell ourselves or what our Yetzer Hara tells us.

Sefer Hachinuch says something amazing, that man is molded by his actions (found in Mitzvah #16). This means that if we chose to behave in a certain manner, even externally before internally, then we are molded into that manner or direction. This touches on the topic of metoch shelo lishmah bo lishmah (from doing something not for its own sake one comes to do the thing for its own sake)- Pesachim 50b.

Rabbi Aryeh Carmell zt’l was nifter a few days before Rosh Hashana. This hit me very hard. I never had an opportunity to meet him, but he opened my eyes, heart, mind, and neshama to the world and thought of Rav Dessler. The way he conveyed Rav Dessler’s writing was a major influence in my development and made me realize that following halacha is only one aspect of being a Torah Observant Jew. The English version of Michtav Me’Eliyahu actually discusses the topic I’m blogging about. I’ll quote directly from what Rabbi Carmell writes in Volume I page 97:
How does shelo lishmah lead to lishmah? This is by no mean obvious, nor is it always the case. Not every shelo lishmah leads to lishmah. One knows people who start learning for ulterior motives and remain with them for the rest of their lives.
Our illustrious forebear, the great and saintly Rabbi Simcha Zissel Sieff of blessed memory, used to say that the transformation can take place only if one intends right from the beginning that it shall lead to lishmah. If our main aim and ambition is to achieve a pure and unselfish mode of service to Hashem and we make use of the shelo lishmah to ease our struggle against the yetzer hara, then we stand a good chance of eventually arriving at the stage of lishmah. [But if we start off without a glimmer of lishmah, only desiring the shelo lishmah for its own sake, how can our shelo lishmah actions ever lead us to lishmah? In the spiritual life one arrive only at the destination one intended in the first place.]
It seems that what we and others might view as hypocracy or outwardly inconsistant behavior might not be so bad if we have actual goals towards avodah Hashem. Maybe changing isn’t so hard, with Hashem’s help.
POSTSCRIPT: I’ve realized after blogging for over six months that it’s unnervingly easy to share certain things about myself via my blog. Things that I would, pre-Blogger, only share with close friends. As I enter Yom Kippur I can only daven that I will be able to actualize the words of Tehillim (19:15) May the expressions of my mouth and the thoughts of my heart find favor before You, Hashem, my Rock and my Redeemer, as easily as I open up my web browser to the Blogger Dashboard.

Frames: Building and Breaking

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Last night, I helped a friend put up the frame for his sukkah and then he, in turn, help me put up my sukkah frame as well. Thing went well for the first 15 minutes of me helping my friend, but then chaos occurred. In a freak accident involving myself, a nut, a bolt, and a power tool my glasses were knocked of my face and one of my lenses flew in one direction, while my glasses frames went in another direction and part of my frame broke.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m a big fan of Mitzvah Goreret Mitzvah (and I’m not talking about the Piamenta tune, which, BTW is awesome), but as was picking up the pieces of my glasses I started wondering where this was headed. Every day I daven that Hashem shows me the tov in everything. I figured that I’d help my friend and then he’d help me and that would be the end result of our involvement in terms of Mitzvah Goreret Mitzvah (Pirkei Avos 4:2). Having my glasses broken was not part of the deal.

Needless to say, without my glasses I can really only see 12 inches in front of me and it took a bit longer that estimated to put his sukkah frame together. I really had trouble seeing. I began to really appreciate the gift of sight. It was much harder that I thought it would be go without my glasses, even for an hour. I thought about birchas hashachar and the bracha of “Pokai’ach Ivrim”,
Who give sight to the blind. This bracha has new meaning for me.

After putting my friends’ sukkah frame together, we headed over to my place. My wife dug up an old pair of glasses (at least 10 years old and really not so hip) and we put together my sukkah frame. B”H, thanks to my friend, it went up pretty fast. After a few hours of searching I found a “newer” old pair of glasses I was ready for the next day.

During work, Mrs. Uberdox took my broken glasses to a local Shomer Shabbos optometrist. At lunch time my stoppedtoped by work to see me. She surprised me with my repaired and good as new glasses. When I asked her how much it cost, her reply was, “The optometrist was a real mensch. He repaired them on the spot and didn’t charge me anything.”

“One mitzvah leads to another mitzvah”, in this case it has nothing to do with my friend and I helping with each others’ sukkahs. It had everything to do with the chessed and menshlikeit that this optometrist did for me and what I, in turn, will do for someone else when the opportunity presents itself.
Blessed are You, Hashem, our God, King of the universe, Who give sight to the blind.

How Not to Say Selichos

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The following was emailed to me as part of the Rabbi Yisrael Salatner Daily e-list compiled by Prof. Yitzchok Levine, and is being posted with permission from Prof. Levine:

Given that Ashkenazim begin saying Selichos this Sunday, I think that the piece below is particularly apropo at this time of year.
From pages 215 to 216 of the Mussar Movement, Volume 1, Part 2.
He [Rabbi Salanter] would point to many such object lessons [where people harm others while doing a mitzvah] in every day life:

It is customary at the end of the month of Elul and during the Ten Days of Penitence to rise in the middle of the night or very early inthe morning for the Selichot services. In their eagerness to perform the mitzvah, people commitmany misdeeds.
It is not infrequent for an energetic individual to make so much noise in rising from bed that he wakes his entire household and even the neighbors.
Sometimes there are sick people or infants in the vicinity, and his behavior causes them pain and suffering.
One individual might even have the housemaid rise and make tea for him. In most cases, she is a widow or orphan, and so he transgresses the prohibition, “You shall notafflict any widow or fatherless child.”
In his haste he pours dirty water in a place where people pass by, and so he sets an obstacle in a public domain.
When he enters the synagogue; he might discover that his lectern has been moved from its place.
He reprimands the shamash, and in this instance he is guilty of slander and publicly shaming his neighbor.
Sometimes the one who has moved his lectern is a full-time student who has been awake all night engrossed in Torah study, and the owner now inflicts grief and humiliation upon a Talmid Chacham.
And so R. Israel enumerated seven grave transgressions one is liable to commit in this instance, yet remain sublimely unaware of having done anything wrong and derive smug self-satisfaction from his fervent prayerand sincere repentance, blissfully unconscious tha this loss outweighs his gain.
Earlier issues of The Daily Salanter are at http://www.stevens.edu/golem/llevine/salanter/

Rav Yisrael Salanter’s 13 Midos- #13

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Silence: Deliberate on the ramifications of your words before uttering them

Let’s get down to business. If you read my last posting then you know that there are times when we don’t need to speak. There are times when we’re tired, or upset, or we’ve had one to many l’chaims and we just say whatever pops into our head. This is the worst. It’s only the worst because the person we’re speaking to thinks that we’ve put hours of thought into, what we know, is an off-the-cuff remark.

“If you can’t say something nice, then don’t say anything at all.” How many times did my parents say that to me? I know, sometimes, I feel an urge to put my two cents in, just to be heard. At times, you truly show how intelligent you are by knowing when to keep your mouth closed.

Rav Yisrael says that we need to deliberate on the ramifications of your words before uttering them. How often do I say something without really thinking about it? How often do I daven without really thinking about what I’m saying? How often to I talk to family members without really thinking before I speak?

As I wrote when I first started this series, the gadlus of Rav Yisrael’s 13 Midos is that they have applications on both the Bein Adam L’makom and Bein Adam L’chavero levels (which are really equal levels).

Words reveal our thoughts. It doesn’t make a difference if we’re talking to a friend, writing an email, posting a blog, or even commenting on one. I need to think before I speak. I remember once posting a comment on a blog and the admistrator deleted what I wrote. I had criticized another comment posted by someone else. I was polite when I made my criticism, but there was that underlying tone, that came through loud and clear in what I had written.

Rav Yisrael’s last midah challenges me to think about how powerful the gift of speech really is. When I communicate with someone, I need to realize that I’m revealing part of my neshama. The part in me that is connected to Hashem, the source of all truth.

This brings us back to the first midah…
Truth: Never speak a word unless your heart can testify to its truth

Before I write about Rav Yisrael’s final Midah…

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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…

Rav Yisrael Salanter’s 13 Midos- #12

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Thrift: Do not spend even a penny unnecessarily

This is a very different midah that all of the previous ones I’ve written about. Take a look back and you’ll see that each of the other midos are character traits concepts that don’t involve material items. This midah directly discusses something very materialistic, money.
The following might shed some light on why Rav Yisrael thought that the concept of “thrift” was so important in midos development:

A person is recognized through three things – his Kos (how he acts after drinking), his Ka’as (anger), and his Kis (wallet or how he spends).- Eruvin 65B

How we spend what Hashem give us is an indication of what we value. I remember my parents always telling me not to spend my money on foolish things. As l think about the things that I still own from when I was growing up I really only have a few books (literature) that belonged to me while I was in high school and maybe half a dozen cassette tapes (yes I still have them). All the other things that I bought when I was much younger are long gone.

Rav Yisrael says, “Do not spend even a penny unnecessarily.” If we realize that every dollar and every penny is ultimately given to us by Hashem, then shouldn’t we be careful how we spend it? Our salaries at work, what money we make selling things on Ebay, what (if anything) we get back after taxes are all decided for us by Hashem. There have been times in my life when I went to Starbucks every day of the work week. There have been times when I’d be happy to have enough money for (I dread to even write the next two words) instant coffee.

We also need to cheshbon out how we spend our money. Until this past week gas prices were out of control. I constantly heard on the radio that Americans were drastically changing their spending habit due to high prices at the gas pumps. Every cent we spend is important, especially towards Shabbos Kodesh.

The truth behind this midah is that Hashem provides exactly what we need (I can’t write this enough). Part of the draw of the Haskallah was that you could be cultured, intelligent, affluent, and accepted into non-Jewish society even if you were Jewish. Have thing changed all that much?
Rav Yisrael, I believe, wanted to remind Jews that affluence wasn’t everything. It’s what you do with your pennies that counts.

There’s a story in Holy Brother that come to mind. It’s about how we spend money…
The summer before Reb Shlomo Carlebach zt’l was nifter he was in a coffeeshop in Liberty, NY. He had ordered a soda to go. He was told that the price was only $.50. He gave the cashier $2.00 and told her to keep the change. The person Reb Shlomo was with whispered to him, “Shlomo, when you order to go, you don’t give a tip, and certainly you don’t give a $1.50 tip for a $.50 soda.”
He smiled at the person he was with, Yitta Halberstam Mandelbaum (from the Small Miracles series of books), and said, “Holy sister, Yitta, I know, I know. But I’m trying to make up for unzer tierla yiddalach (our sweet Jews) who don’t give tips, and consequently make a chillul Hashem (defame God’s name).”

It’s truly amazing how we can use everything that Hashem give us. Good Shabbos Kodesh!

Modern Uberdox

“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

Category Archives: Middos

Bullying- an impediment to Achdus

Parshas Emor

Stain Resistance and Bad Midos

Why I recommend saying "Good Shabbos"

Frumkeit, Changes, and Rav Dessler

Frames: Building and Breaking

How Not to Say Selichos

Rav Yisrael Salanter’s 13 Midos- #13

Before I write about Rav Yisrael’s final Midah…

Rav Yisrael Salanter’s 13 Midos- #12