Category Archives: personal

Makeovers

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Throughout most of my high school days, Aqua Net (the hairspray of champions) was my secret weapon to cool hair.  Had a friend not pointed out the bottles of Aqua Net on the shelf to me when we were shopping last week, I never would have noticed that Auqa Net got a new can.  I took a can of “Extra Super Hold Unscented” and opened the top…ahh, it still smelled the same..  That sort of crisp-dangerous-to-the-environment-gonna hang out with my friends-“Unscented” smell that is simply Aqua Net.  I guess the company decided sometime between 1989 and now that they needed to revamp their image.  I didn’t even know that people really used hairspray anymore.  My wife would never think of using it on a shaitel.  It would totally ruin the hair.
Is it the same formula?  I don’t know.  I have a feeling that it is.  Most likely as newer products came on the market the company decided that they had to revamp their image for a new generation.  It doesn’t really surprise me now that I think about it.  Feldheim did the same thing with the English adaptation of Michtav M’Eliyahu, Strive for Truth.   That series of six seforim has undergone 3 1/2 different book covers (I count the “cover” of vol 4 as only a 1/2, since it was the only one in the series with that cover) since it’s original publcation.  Why?  Probably the same reason as Auqa Net, they wanted to attract a different generation of readers.
I was constantly being told in school not to “judge a book by its cover”.  I never fully agreed with this notion.  Without getting into a debate about chitzonius (outwardness) and pnimyus (inwardness) I think it’s safe to write that the outer appearance is important, to a certain extent.  If you’re looking to buy a book or sefer, the cover does have to catch you eye (even if it’s plain like THE CATCHER IN THE RYE).  However, if a company changed the shape of a hairspray can, I’d gather that sales were probably down for a long time and this move was, like, their last chance.   I think about think that we have in our home that have been pretty much the same for generations:  siddurim, mezzuzos, Shabbos candles, a menorah, afikoman bags, the crazy construction paper rings that we put in the sukkah every year.  These are not really revamped, repackaged, or madeover.  Some might look more modern, but these items are pretty much the same.  Sales are hardly down for the things that are timeless.

Mixed up mussar

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Driving my kids to school is usually pretty a constant diet of deciding what music should be played or what “book on cd” to listen to.  This morning, however, I attempted to show them that life lessons can be found everywhere.

Yesterday  on the drive we saw a concrete mixer truck and it was full.  How did I know it was full?  Because the drum was turning around and around and around.
I asked the kids why the drum was turning and my uberson said that, “If the cement stops turning then it gets hard.”

My uberdaughter then said that, “If it gets hard then it is useless.”

I told them that each of us are like the cement and the cement mixer.  If we are not constantly in motion trying to be better Jews doing Mitzvos like helping our friends and serving Hashem then our neshamos will get stuck like hard cement and it will be difficult to build ourselves up and be better people.

Did the get it?  Sort of.  My 4th grade son told over the moshul to his Rebbe and got a “zechus ticket”.  My 2nd grade daughter told her younger sister that if she didn’t share then her neshama would get stuck like cement.

Finding your direction via your computer

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There are three links I recently saw I hope to be using for my personal Jewish growth in Avodas Hashem.


The first one was suggested to me in an email exchange with R Micha Berger.  It’s an online growth-based community called madrega.com, created by Modya Silver.  This online community allows on to work on specific middos within a two week period.  I’ve been on for less than a week and have found it very helpful on a number of levels.

The second link, is actually to something that R Micha Berger posted on his blog regarding a new AishDas eVaad sponsored by the Aish Das Society.  For details about this new venture please click here.

Third is The Mussar Institute, run by Alan Morinis.  You can subscribe to their monthly mussar newletter here.
There are great interviews with Mr. Morinis as well as information about their distance learning programs.



Home on the Range

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Sometimes I kid myself and think of this is a “mussar blog”.  It’s really just a personal blog with a bit of mussar that I give to myself thrown in from time to time.   Like now, for example.

Just over two weeks ago was the first time I had been back in my hometown of Wichita, KS in exactly twelve years (to the Parsha). My dad a”h had been hospitalized and based on what I had heard from family members and at the suggestion of my wife I flew out to be with him.

Waiting to board the plane in Chicago, people were dressed up in costume (as it was October 31). I was even asked if I was “dressed as an Orthodox Jew”? That in and of itself made the trip worth it, as a mussar lesson. After an hour and twenty mintues I landed.

As I got off the plane and walked past the TSA check-point, I could only smile, remember the dozen water guns that I had packed for family vacations in the 70s and 80s and how all of those water guns had been confiscated. At the time, it seemed like a big deal. In retrospect, most airlines would probably welcome a water gun these days. Not much had physically changed in the Wichita Mid-Continent Airport since I had been there last. They still had coat hook right inside the restrooms (which implied that crime was still low in the city) and the chairs throughout the airport were still the same. The phrase that came to mind was, “if it isn’t broken, then don’t fix it”.

A majority of my time was spent at the hospital with my family. Driving back and forth to the hospital I looked at the streets and buildings. Some had been torn down, many businesses had closed, with others opening up in their place. Certain professions seemed to have stayed afloat over the years. Most accounting, real estate, and dentisty businesses seemed to have stayed the same. Several indepenant “fast food” places closed only to have similar businesses open in their place. Aside from having several Starbucks locations not much had really changed. I drove past my old house, the flood prevention program (really it was a creek in my neighborhood that provided my bother and I with hours of adventure), and my old schools.

I also connected with a few close family friends from when I was growing up. One of them actually gave a beautiful hesped for my father a’h. I was reminded about the importance of community, specifically a Jewish community. The community in Wichita is pretty much made up of about 1000 Jews split almost down the middle as either reform or traditional. It’s a close knit community where people connect as Jews. Not so much in terms of observance or rituals, but because they are serious about their Judaism.

All of my aunts, uncles, and cousins came in for the funeral, as well. Most of them I hadn’t seen since my own wedding almost 13 yrs ago. It was comforting to see them, even under the above mentioned situation. Family comes together when it’s important, but you have to make it important (a lesson I’m learning now).

The morning after my father a”h was niftar I stopped off to buy a copy of the local paper at Starbucks (to have a copy of the obiturary and an article that was written about him) and the young man behind the counter introduced himself to me and said that he was sorry to hear about my dad. The manager at the Starbucks was also working and introduced herself as the wife of the Reform Rabbi in town. She also expressed her deepest condolences. That’s the community were I grew up.

My family lived in Wichita for 35 years. My father a”h went to the same shul with many of the same people for 35 years. To me that was impressive. Talk about lifelong friends. Wow. I hung out with two old friends that I had lost touch with years ago. We all had good memories growing up of our families doing things together. I’m fortunate that my kids have similar memories with close friends of ours here in Chicago.

I ended up spending a just under a week in Wichita. Had it been under better circumstances, I probably would have gotten together with a few old friends from high school. Instead I simply came back to where I was from and now I’m trying to move forward.

My hesped for my father a"h

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Delivered last Wednesday (Nov 4th) in Wichita, Kansas

I want to thank everyone for being here today. It’s a true testament to the type of person that my father was.
It is written in the Ethics of our Fathers, Pirkei Avos that:
“Rabbi Shimon used to say: There are three crowns–the crown of the Torah, the crown of the priesthood, and the crown of kingship, but the crown of a good name surpasses them all. (Pirkei Avos 4:17)”

I cannot stress how many of you have spoken with me about the high level of respect and love they had for my father. Growing up he was just my dad, who shlepped us to the Gypsum Hills and other exotic sites on Sundays, Shocker games, family gatherings, and always took us to great places to eat that were well “off the beaten path”. I was blessed to have not only know him as a father, but also as a grandfather. Grandpa, as we called him, loved his grandkids. He would always talk about sports with my son, and loved to watch my daughters dance, sing, and play. He was very proud of their Jewish education. My Dad and step-mother always made the most of their visits , even their last one in July when we spent an early morning at a flea market and then the rest of the day and evening at Six Flags. But there was another side of him that was fairly public, despite his attempts to keep it private.

He was a person who truly lived up to his Hebrew name, Avraham.
Avraham, Abraham, is known in the Torah and throughout Rabbinic writings as embodying the essence of Chessed, the Hebrew word for Kindness. My Dad never was one to seek out fame and pats-on-the-back for his deeds. He quietly, and many times behind the scenes, did many acts of kindness for everyone he came in contact with. No matter if it was a smile, a greeting when you came to into the Synagogue, offering advice, maintaining the cemetary erev Yom Tov, before a Holiday, making sure food was prepared just right, or simply thinking about how he could help someone else, he was constantly doing chessed. Even when it came to shipping out artwork sold on eBay, he would take time to make sure that each piece was packed in a way that it would arrive intact to the buyer. The truth is, most us of will never know of the chessed, the kindnesses, that my father did for others, as he was not one to ever broadcast what he did. That was the type of person my father was, thus, earning the “crown of a good name” as a brother, husband, father, uncle, friend, and especially as a grandfather.

There is a book in my dad’s basement titled “The Bar Mitzvah Treasury”, printed in 1954, that was given to my dad as a Bar Mitzvah present. In it there is a story is the following story about Rabbi Israel Salanter, a Rabbi who lived in the 1800s and started an Ethical movement within Judaism. It seems that one day, even though there was a full pail of water in the house, he used very little of it to wash his hands prior to eating bread. His pupils were quite astonished that their revered Rabbi, know for his pious acts, did not perform properly the commandment to wash thoroughly before eating bread.
Hesitantly they turned to him and said: “Please forgive us for asking you this. But we cannot understand why you used so little water to wash your hands.”

Rabbi Salanter replied: “I saw that their maidservant delivers this water to the house from a far-off well. She, poor creature, bends low under the heavy load when carries the yoke on her shoulders. I do not think it is right to perform a Mitzvah at the expense of some else’s shoulders!”
This story totally encapsulates my father. Always thinking of others and not wanting to burden anyone.

As my step-mother said to me last night, and I quote, “Random acts of kindness don’t only change the world but they elevate people.”

The true greatness of a “Ba’al Chessed”, the Hebrew term we give to a “master of Kind Acts” is that even after he leaves this world, his acts of kindness continue. I am truly blessed, that even at this difficult time, he has allowed me to reconnect with family and friends whom I was very close with when I was growing up. The crown of his good name, Avharam ben Zorach, Albert Lyon Harris, can live on in each of us, if we simply think about what we can do to help someone else.


Switching Tracks

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(Image from Flickr)
I was recently asked a very interesting question during an interview for a volunteer position.  The question was, “What is my style of parenting”?
I answered that I tend to be somewhat strick but within large parameters, so that there’s flexibility and a feeling of making a choice.  In truth, I’ve been working on being more laid back since the kids started up in school again.  Prior to being asked the question, I had been giving my parenting skills a lot of thought over the past two months.  My wife has pointed out that I’m, at times, somewhat demanding about little things, especially after my kids have spent almost eight hours in their day school.  As a product of the public school system, I really don’t know what it’s like to deal with both a duel-curriculum and a long day at such a young age.  My wife was right (as usual), I was putting emphasis on the wrong things and at the wrong time.
I had been wanting to write about this for quite some time, especially after reading something that R Nosson Kamenetsky wrote in Making of a Godol regarding Rav Nosson Tzvi Finkel, the Alter of Slabodka and his derech of Mussar within the Slabodka Yeshiva (Knesses Yisroel), the yeshiva he started.  The following is from page 57:

By 5664 (1904), with Russia’s humiliating defeat in its war with Japan, the winds of Socialist revolution blowing through the Russian cities and villages for decades increase in velocity.  By 5665 (1905) they had reached hurricane force and sucked in a sizable number of yeshiva students- including a son of R’ Noson-Zvi.  The anti-Musar forces merged with the revolutionary element to endanger the very existance of the yeshiva.  To the good for fortune of both yeshivoth [Knesses Beis Yitzchak and the Alter’s yeshiva], when the revolution was quashed, the goverment clampdown on all Socialist sympathizers cleared the yeshivoth of their troublesome elements.  R’ Frankel’s stance through the first years of the crisis was perceived by many as passive and weak, and evoked sharp criticism within his yeshiva.  But beneath this outwardly inert pose, cataclysmic changes were evolving.  The Alter was metamorphosing his educational technique, and ultimately, when he personally was struck with the tragedy of his son’s apostasy, a new approach to Musar crystallized inside him.  No longer did he dwell on the weakness of humanity.  He turned instead to reflect on man’s potential for greatness.  His shmuessen (“conversations”, musar talks) began concentrating on the sublimity of Adam before the Sin, on the superiority of the Patriarchs, on the grandeur of Biblical figures, on the loftiness of the Generation of Wisdom hearing the Word of G-d in the desert- and on how every individual can reach those dizzying heights.

So, it seems that even though the Alter started out with one particular derech, he realized that there was another route that would allow him to arrive at his destination.  I read this passage two months ago.  I’ve been reading it every day since then, prior to my hisbodedus.  While it is far easier for me to pick apart things that my children don’t do, it takes effort and strength to be able to help build them up.  To be hypercritical about clothes being thrown on the floor, is really not the most important thing in the world.  Letting your children know that you believe in them and their innate greatness is probably more important.

I think that’s what the Alter realized.  To change one’s battle plan midway though the war means that you have both humility and confidence in what you feel is right.  It takes much strength to accept what the real emes (truth) is.  I’m sure there were murmurs throughout Slabodka and Kovno (just across the river Vilna) when the Alter’s Mussar started focusing on Galdus HaAdam (the greatness of man).  While I could not find any biographical information about what ultimately happened to Rav Rav Nosson Tzvi Finkel’s son, I do know that Slabodka and it’s talmidim became one of the most influential forces with the yeshiva world.  Probably because the Alter of Slabodka chose a track that builds, not one that breaks.

The Koach of Torah

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Today marks the 8th Yartzeit of Rav Ahron Soloveichik z”tl.
In the fall of 1989, I was a freshmen at YU.  As I recall classes had been barely going on for even a week and I saw a flyer in my dorm about a shiur on Lecture about “Hilchos Teshuva”.

I was fresh out of public school and had been observant for just over two years, at the time. Through my high school involvement with NCSY I had heard the name “Soloveichik” (although usually in reference to the Rav, who spelled it “Soloveitchik) quite a bit and had even read an article written by Rav Ahron regarding a Jew’s place in non-Jewish socieity. I was curious what this “Rabbi Ahron Soloveichk” was like and figured it would be cool thing to hear him lecture (the term “shiur” wasn’t in my vocabulary back then).

I showed up a few minutes early, which was easy since the lecture took place in the “shul” in my dorm building, and took a front row seat. Slowly the chairs filled up. I recall seeing a lot of older YU guys, probably semicha students. Slowly, I heard mumbling and some commotion from the back of the room, as two gentlemen escorted an elderly man who was using a walker, the Rav Ahron Soloveichik.

To me he looked frail and I remember being inpressed that he was able to use a walker, despite having had a stroke in 1983. Slowly he made his way to the table in the front of ths shul. The two men who accompanied him helped Rav Ahron transition from the walker to the seat at the table. Again, the one word that came mind was “frail”.

It is commonly know that even if one doesn’t understand a language, it is very possible that you can get an idea of what a speaker is talking about by emotions that come through in the spoken word. Rav Ahron’s shiur on “Hilchos Teshuva” was given in English, my native language, but I really didn’t understand much of it, I sadly admit. Based on my background at the time, most of the quotes from the Rambam and, what must have been, the brilliant analysis on the part of Rav Ahron were really lost on me. I did, however, take away something just as meaningful and memorable.

When Rav Ahron Soloveichik sat down at that table to begin his shiur, he was hunched down with head just about at the height of the table. As he started speaking his voice was soft, but as he continued his voice got stronger. Almost in sync with the strength of his voice, with each word of Torah that came from his lips, he seemed to start sitting more and more upright. He started moving his arms as he spoke and became animated. By the middle of the shiur his voice was booming and he seem to be sitting fully erect. It was almost like a different person was speaking. As I’ve looked back over the years at this incident, I realized that what I had witnessed was the true Koach of Torah.

Learning Torah and being able to teach Torah changes a person. For Rav Ahron Soloveichik Torah was a lifeline, I saw that with my own eyes! It connected him and gave him incredible strength. I was zoche to see that evening that the Torah wasn’t simply something that we took out three times a week from the Aron Kodesh, nor was a collection of stories, teachings, or laws. The term, “Toras Chaim” comes to mind. The Torah is a living Torah and Rav Ahron both received strength from it and used that strength to give over the Torah to future generations.

May his neshma have an aliyah.

Speeding for thrills

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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.

The social stigma of the poverty we don’t like to talk about

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photo from here
There’s type of poverty that we don’t hear people talking about too much. I read about it, but rarely do I hear people I know actually discussing it (of course, I’m writing about it and not discussing it also). Baruch Hashem, many opportunies are available in bigger Jewish communites for assistance with food, tution, shul dues, medical care, debt consolidiation, rides, learning, and homework. Financial aid committees are in place in most schools and many g’machs have been created to help with many of our phsyical needs.
The type of poverty that I’m not sure how we hear about, and one that has touched me from time to time, is being poor in emunah. So poor that there is nothing either your emunah checking account or your emunah saving account. It’s something we don’t really talk with our friends about at the Shabbos park or at a kiddush. Why? Well, I think that there is a social stigma that’s associated with it. To admit to having a lack of faith shows that we are not “100% frum”. I have read on various blogs over the years that people, both those frum from birth and baalei teshiva, tend to feel burned out or lose their emunah to some degree. Again, bringing this up to people is, for some reason, a taboo subject, almost like telling someone, “I almost turned on a closet light on Shabbos because we couldn’t see” or “I was so hungry that I almost bought a packaged salad at the grocery story…without a hechshar”.  We might think about telling others, but we recoil from what their reaction might be and how they would view us. 

I’ve seen a trend recently in seforim being published that deal with issues of emunah. R Lazer Brody’s The Garden of Emunah happens to be an incredibly popular sefer. The translations of Bilvavi Mishkan Evneh, Building A Sanctuary in the Heart (vol 1 and 2) are amazing and, for me, changed the way I saw many things and my relationship with Hashem. A translation of the Chazon Ish’s Emunah v’Bitachon, Faith and Trust, was recently published as well.

Many times I’ve seen statements online such as, “Why don’t they have kiruv programs that can inspire those who are frum without feeling?” or “How come there are no programs to help strengthen emunah?”.

I wish I could announce a brand new program for those who find their “lack of faith disturbing” (to throw in a Star Wars quote). I think it is something that kiruv organizations should look into. If lectures, workshops, or guest speakers are organized and people start attending these events, this stigma and state of emunah-poverty might be helped. This would be an idea solution.

However, with the economy in the state that it is right now, every organization is just trying to keep their heads above water and to secure more funding for a new program might not be in the cards.

I offer the following suggestion to anyone reading this:  Make an emunah book club or informal chaburah/vaad. A book club that is based on the many writings about emunah currently available might be just the right fit for many people.

Note: Also see this post on Rav Schwab on Emunah and Bitachon.

Feeling Elul’s pull

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(Picture found here)

Am I feeling it?  Sort of.


For those who attempt to grow closer to Hashem and work on their Avodah these weeks of Elul, before Rosh Hashana have a momentum of their own.

Part of me doesn’t want to accept the responsiblity that it’s actually Elul.  It’s time to come to terms with all that I haven’t done during the past year, the wasted potential.  Still, part of me loves this time of year.  I remember phone calls and conversations with my mother-in-law a”h during this time of year.  She would always quote the Rav Shneur Zalman of Liadi (the first Lubavitcher Rebbe) and say, “The King is in the field”.

I often think of the words of the Alter of Slabodka:
“We come now from the material vacation to the spiritual vacation: From the months of Tammuz and Av in the forests and the fields to the months of Elul and Tishrei in the house of the yeshiva. What distinguishes that vacation from this vacation? We know, of course, that just as that vacation is essential to fortify the body, so too this other one is necessary to heal the soul. Even more so, for all are sick vis a vis Elul…” as written in the diary of R Avrohom Eliyahu Kaplan z”tl (available here).


It’s the realization that I must come to terms with many things and the excitement of rebirth.  While people are planning out their Yom Tov meals, others are already looking out for the simanim, and still others are quietly jotting down their own Chesbon HaNefesh.  I’m somewhere in between “going from day to day” and “getting ready to face the King”.


It’s that gravitational pull of Elul.  It is inescapable and it calls me.  And like Shabbos, which I can’t imaging how I survived prior to keep it, I can’t image what my year would be like now, without an Elul.