Category Archives: personal

When no one is home…

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The following is from chapter 10 of the second volume of Bilvavi Mishkan Evneh:

Let us imagine that a person is alone late at night.  No one is home.  He feels lonely.  What does one do?  He immediately tries to call someone.  It’s hard to be alone.  “It is not good for man to be alone.”

But the truth is that the real company for a person should be Hashem!  Whenever you feel lonely, you should recognize this truth.  Sure, it’s not always possible to act upon this awareness, but you must first attain the recognition of this truth, and when alone at home and feeling lonely, you should not rush to the phone to speak, but rather, stop and think:  “Why did Hashem create in me this feeling of loneliness?  Why did he cause me now to feel so lonely?”

After thinking, you will understand that loneliness is a tool for realizing that one cannot live here alone.  The way to solve the problem of loneliness is not the one people superficially imagine.  Hashem wants to bring one to the truth, so one will not feel lonely.  How?  By connecting to the Creator!

When one sits at home and feels lonely, he must first remember the first point, which is that this loneliness derives from the soul not feeling that Hashem is here. 

He must collect his thoughts and say to himself, “I know that the truth is that Hashem brought me to this situation of loneliness so that I will connect with Him.  I also know that I am not yet on that level, and I can’t do that yet, but Hashem wants me to get to that level.  He is not allowing me to forget the truth.  That is why He is constantly arousing in me the feeling of loneliness, so that I will be inspired and remember that the only way to fill the inner emptiness is through Hashem.

On the pasuk, “And Yaakov remained alone” (Bereishis 32:25), there is a well-known comment of Chazalthat this relates to the phrase, “And Hashem will be alone on that day” (Yeshayahu 2:11).  That is to say, the “alone” of Yaakov Avinu must be joined to the “alone” of Hashem.  The pasuk likewise states, “Behold a nation that dwells alone and is not counted among the nations” (Bemidbar 23:9).  The “alone” of a Jew must connect to the “alone” of the Creator, and then there is real companionship.

I had read this last year and then reread it this past Shabbos night.  It totally helped crystallize some thoughts I’ve been having lately.  I’ve been alone and lonely for the past week (yeah boo-hoo).  My family has been in NY and I stayed in Chicago to work.  I will be, thankfully, joining them later this week and for Shabbos.
It’s been lonely at home.  The first night was all right, but then the quiet got spooky.  I sat and read most of the time.  I wondered around a few grocery stores simply because it wasn’t fun being home.    I did find myself davening longer, spending more time in shul and thinking about Hashem.  I think the Bilvavi is right, “When one sits at home and feels lonely, he must first remember the first point, which is that this loneliness derives from the soul not feeling that Hashem is here.”


Thanks to A Simple Jew for suggesting I post this.

A father’s love

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Just last week I was able to view some old home movies from my childhood.  These were old 8mm movies that were transfered to DVD.  Although my children didn’t really understand why there was no sound, my father and I got a kick out of watching them.  For me it was really something very unique.


When you look at old pictures you get a feeling for that frozen moment in time, but viewing movies is a totally different experience, even without the sound.  I watched footage of my parents playing with me when I was a newborn, my fiirst birthday party, family trips and visits with relatives.  While these were all great to view, there was one thing that really got to me.  Seeing my father play with me.  These images were priceless.  It showed a side of him that I hadn’t seen in many years.


My relationship with my dad is a very formal one.  We talk a few times a week, but mostly it is about things that are really not that important (this is something that is being worked on).  To see him playing with little old me in these old home movies really got to me.  It reminded me how parents have such a strong love for their children, even before their children are old enough to do things on their own.  It reminded me of how much I love my own kids and how fun it is just to play with them.  The joy and love that a parent has for a child is, in fact, almost childlike itself.  We act silly with our kids, do things to make them laugh, and shower our kids with affection.  Eventually the child grows up, life has more demands, and, at times, the parent/child relationship becomes more serious than fun, more formal than comfortable.  This is just my observation.


The fact that it is Rosh Chodesh Menachem Av only makes this post more meaningful, for if it wasn’t for our Father’s love, Avinu Shebashamayim, we would not be here.  The love never stops.

OK, I did it.

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When I was young I enjoyed reading the Sunday Comics.  “Family Circus”, was never my favorite thing to read (I was more into the Far Side) , the classic NOT ME Ghost always gave me chuckle.  Mostly because I could totally see myself in a situation where it was obviously my fault that X had happened, I could envision myself saying, “Not me.” and deflecting blame to another party.

I realized Wednesday night, while driving for an hour, that Hashem has taught me a very difficult lesson in responsiblity.  The times that I judge to quickly, find a reason to hate someone, or try to make myself feel better by talking badly about someone don’t go unnoticed.  I’ve get it.  I don’t like it, but I get it.  It’s my fault.  As I’ve been told and as I’ve read for years, “Each generation in which the Beit Hamikdash is not rebuilt is considered as if it was guilty of its destruction”.  I hope to make the next Three Weeks very meaningful.

Real Ahavas Yisrael

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Most agree that it’s a good idea.  There are plenty of people we meet, however, that  we just don’t like.  That’s OK.  The mitzvah is to love them as Jews, not like them as people.  Recently I experienced true Ahavas Yisrael from almost complete strangers.  They helped me because it was a mitzvah, looking beyond my background or my hashkafa.

Real Ahavas Yisrael, not the kind that end up as a short story in a gloss weekly Jewish magazine or as a chapter in children’s Gadolim biography.  Real Ahavas Yisrael that wakes you up that the cup of coffee that you psychologically know you need in order to function.  Real Ahavas Yisrael, I’m talking about the kind that reminds you that we have to help others because Hashem is constantly helping us.  Real Ahavas Yisrael, the kind you daven that your kids will practice when they become older.  
Originally I was going to fill the post with several quotes on the importance of loving our fellow Jews from the likes of the Rambam, Rav Hirsch, and the Chofetz Chaim.  I decided against this.  Often in life we tend to meet people and try to figure out “what their angle” is.  It seems that society has programmed us, well me, to think that most people I encounter have a hidden agenda.  An act of kindness, a true Chessed, has an agenda as well, the most pure agenda, the will of Hashem.  I am humbled that my creator has allowed me to meet a few people in my life that remind me of the kind of Jew I want to be.

Hitting a wall

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 ( Photo from here )
Ever feel like you’ve hit a wall and you really have only one option and that option is to just break through said wall?
I’m sure you have.  Most of us do.  The problem I have, is that I’ve realized that the wall happens to be a mirror and my own reflection is what’s stopping me.
There’s no easy way to say it.  It stinks, like the skunk I happened to have ran over the other day.  The smell just lingers.  I tend, when all is said (or written) and done, to be the one real wall.  I am the person who holds myself back from my own goals.  Like the many people that read this and don’t comment, I end to chose silence over real action.
Without getting to personal (I leave all the personal chizonius for Facebook), for all of the hours spent in hisbodedus and reading Mussar seforim, I, and all the pleasant insecurities that make me who I am, are the wall that keeps me from going forward.
Reb Nachman said it like this from Likkutei Moharan 2:119:

This world is like a little coin that is before one’s eyes and blocks out a great mountain.  One can easily move the coin aside and see the mountain

I just need to grab hold of the coin and put it into the pocket of my khaki pants.

A defining moment

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Recently, in what started out as a casual (not that I really believe in these things) conversation with the head of local adult education program, I was asked what I’m my interests are in regard to learning.  I mentioned that I  ‘enjoy’ mussar and had for many years.  I was then asked how I got “into Mussar”?  I smiled and responded that it was more like mussar got into me.


This conversation brought me back to what I might loosely call a “defining moment” in my Yiddishkeit, while learning in Israel in 1990.  I had spent my freshman year at YU and now I had an opportunity to actually learn Torah “all day” for the upcoming year.  It was the end of my first day in a yeshiva in Israel, and our Rabbeim had left for evening, thus leaving about 40 fresh off the plane guys in the beis medresh with several of our madrichim and a few kollel-types.  On the schedule was something called “Night Seder”.


I’ll be honest, I had no clue what this was.  A nice amount of guys left our yeshiva (which back then was in Gilo) and took a bus into town.  The dozen or so left sort of just hung out.  I looked around and saw that a few people were learning b’chavrusah and some were just “reading”.   I decided to start checking out the books in the yeshiva’s small library.  I happened upon a small book called “The Path of the Just” .  I had never heard of it (not that I really had heard of much aside from Rashi, Rav Hirsch, and R Aryeh Kaplan) and decide to pick it up.



As most people, the first sentence hit me with its’ humility and deep insight into how to open up to someone:

“I have written this work not to teach men what they do not know, but to remind them of what they already know and is very evident to them, for you will find in most of my words only things which most people know, and concerning which they entertain no doubts.”


Wow.  I kept reading and reading and reading.  I quickly realized that I wasn’t one of those people who didn’t really know all the things the RAMCHAL expected me to know.  That was fine with me, I was willing to learn.


I had always been interested in psychology and why we do what we do.  That aspect of insight in the life of a Torah Jew was, as a 19 year old, something that I hadn’t formally come accross during my development in Torah observance.  The whole idea of becoming a better person was an area of Judaism that I had thought about but never really read anything about, until now.  I felt my world sort of opening up and I quickly began to see the “bigger picture” of a whole different aspect of Avodah.  It was a classic Peak Experience,  as Abraham Maslow would have put it.


Eventually when I reach the end of this sefer I was again, amazed.  It ends with this pasuk from Tehillim:

“Let Israel be happy in its Maker, the sons of Zion rejoice in their King” (Psalms 149:2)


The end result of growth should be that we have a relationship of simcha with Hashem.  Simple, yet deep.  That evening and the subsequent ones spent reading and learning Mesillas Yesharim with several different people helped give me an anchor and a direction that I hadn’t thought possible. As I look back, it may have been a defining moment for me.

The unchanging Guard

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I am not a fan of Right Guard.  I wasn’t a fan of it when I was, like, 12 or 13 yrs old, and now that I’m 38 I am still not a fan.  I dread having to use it every Pesach.  It’s really as simple as that.  However, I also hope every year that when I buy my “Pesach can” of Right Guard, it will smell different.

The smell of the stuff hasn’t changed in years.  As newer advances in technology and medicine take place, as more and more people become “connected” in our global village, Right Guard stays the same.  Maybe that’s the point.  Once a year, we come to Pesach and each of us has that vort we love to say over at the Seder, that recipe that everyone loves, and those one or two items that the kids made in school that are always on the table. Sometimes, not changing things, is actually a nice change.

Birkas HaChama

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R Selig Starr zt”l often told his talmidim that “you should know what you know and know what you don’t know”.  I have heard this from several of his former talmidim from HTC and my son has heard it his current rebbe, who was one of R Starr’s students.



Until about 9 months ago, I had no clue what Bircas HaChama was.  I became Torah observant when I was 16, in 1987 and, of course, that last time we said this tefillah was in 1981.  I did get a copy of R Bleich’s original sefer on this event thanks to someone who was giving away their late father’s Judaica library, so I was able to read up and a fairly good understanding of the event.  This year I will, like my 9 yr old son, experience this for the first time.


All too often there are so many “routine” things in Torah observant life.  For me, it’s nice to learn about a not so common event and still feel that I’m part of a “global happening”.  

Pesach Shopping

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I happen to love Pesach shopping. I know that in most stores it is a zoo, with people grabbing everything off the shelves, but you also get to see a lot of Jews who might not always buy Kosher items during the year. It’s a great opportunity to remember that being polite to other shoppers can be a really big Kiddush Hashem.

(Originally posted on the Facebook group Middos Tovos )