Category Archives: personal

Taking a moment…

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While there is always room for improvement, I must say that I recently took a moment to appreciate several good things in life. This started Sunday afternoon when I was driving home from a Bar Mitzvah. I was thinking about how fortunate I was to have heard Ruby Harris sing and play guitar.

Then, the car in front of me had a flat tire. Seeing it made me feel thankful that, while my car occasionally doesn’t start (if it was a Transformer, my car would be called Jumpstart), it was, all in all (with the exception of something getting caught in the engine last summer) a good purchase.

I then thought about what a nice Shabbos I had. Recently my Uberwife and I decided to try to make individualized time for our kids. One when out to get school supplies with Mrs. Uberdox and another recently got a day at the ‘beauty parlor’ (really just a haircut for our 5 yr old Uberdaughter).

So this past Shabbos night I at 9:30 PM I found myself with my son. Everyone else had gone to bed. We read stories, shmoozed about things, and had a great time. I hope that by spending more “Abba and Me” time with my kids, beautiful memories will pop into my head the next time someone runs in the house, shouts, doesn’t throw something away, wakes up little Uberbaby, or wakes their parents up. I can only hope that as I get closer to the Yom HaDin, Hashem recalls the ‘good times’.

As I got closer to home I thought about our almost 11 month old. She always has a smile and does totally radical things (yeah, I use the word ‘radical’) like puts one hand up in the air and says, “Ta Da” when she does something she’s proud of. She also just figured out how to ‘fake-snore’ and totally cracks herself up when she does it.

Then, just the other day, Mrs. Uberdox found for me, what might be, the ultimate Shabbos/Yom Tov shirt (total chessed on her part).

As I think about people I know who are sick/have sick relatives, are missing parnassah, need shiduchim, and just seem to have everything go wrong, I realize that it is, truly, important to realize what I should be thankful for.

Parshas Shoftim

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And it will be, when he sits upon his royal throne, that he shall write for himself two copies of this Torah on a scroll from [that Torah which is] before the Levitic kohanim. (Devarim 17:18)

Rashi on the pasuk:And it will be, when he sits [upon his royal throne]. If he does this, he merits that his kingdom will remain established. — [Sifrei] two copies of this Torah-. Heb. מִשְׁנֵה הַתּוֹרָה i.e., two Torah scrolls, one that is placed in his treasury, and the other that comes and goes with him (San. 21b).
(Thanks to Chabad.org)

I’ve always (well, since I first learned the Rashi) found this Rashi to be great instruction for me (even when I find myself occasionally slipping into Deceptijew mode).

The idea that the same Torah a King keeps in his treasury is identical to the one he keeps with him at all other times is a powerful idea.

Both our public and private life as a Torah observant Jew needs to mesh.

Rav Hutner was once asked about the idea of a Jew living in two worlds (secular and religious). His answer was that if a person has an apartment in one area of town and another apartment in another area of town, that is living two lives.

If, however, you have have a home with two different room that you spend equal time in, you are still in the same world.

I’d say that if you are hanging out in your front or back yard, that would count also.

I admit, I was going to save this Rav Hutner idea for a post dealing with “Bloggers as Superheroes” which was going to discuss my views on Anonymous Bloggers vs those who blog under their names (sort of a “who is a greater hero…Spiderman vs. the Fantastic Four). As I sit here I realize that the truth is that any blogger I’ve communicated with via comments or email that uses a ‘secret identity’ has always been a mentsch. On blog or off blog, at home or at work, in shul or in line to buy diapers, greenbeans, and kishka the ideal is to hold ourselves to the same Torah wherever we are.
Good Shabbos Kodesh!

OBSERVABOTS AND DECEPTIJEWS

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I don’t really care for either, yet as I think about myself on Rosh Chodesh Elul, I can see times in the past year when I have acted both like an Observabot and a Deceptijew.

The Observabots tend to do things by rote. While mitzvah observance is a major aspect of their life, it usually is laking in Simcha shel Mitzvah.

The Deceptijews are really not much better. While on the surface they seem fairly observant, it’s really just chitzionius or an external show of Yiddishkeit.

It’s hard to pick the lesser of the two evils. Take your average Observabot. He/She might make brachos, daven, and be involved in learning (even by plugging into the mainframe). It can be done without feeling and introspection, yet the actions are taking place.

Now, with your average Deceptijew, it’s a little tricky. The actions are there, for show. What happens in public might not be the same in their own home. There is hope, that eventually the chitzionius will bring a level of internal grown.

As I wrote at the outset, I can recall times over the past year when I showed aspects of both of the Tranformations. I’m not please with this realization, but coming to terms with it is, I hope, a start.

The funny thing is that even beneath the Observabots and the Deceptijews is a neshama that wants to be an Eved Hashem. Regardless of the areas that I know I am lacking in my own Avodas Hashem, I have a desire to truly be an Eved. Parhaps there is “more that meets the eye”.
Gut Chodesh!

Oh, the bloggers you’ll meet

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When I first started my blog, ideas such as getting comments, exchanging emails and other aspects of social networking were not even on my radar. I simply wanted to get back into writing more regularly. Of course, slowly comments came (once in a while) and emails were exchanged with like-minded individuals.

In terms of bloggers I know personally (off-blog) the list is rather small. Rabbi Harry Maryles and I often see each other walking on Shabbos and around town. I met Psychotoddler briefly after he finished a gig. Frumhouse and I occasionally run into each other, as well. There are bloggers who either know me personally or know of me through a spouse or friends. With readers, there are some I know personally and others do know me, but don’t always comment or reveal their true identities.

This past Shabbos I met up with several bloggers. Originally I had walked to a specific shul to, finally, meet Rafi G, who was in Chicago visiting family. Of course, commenter-brother Shaya G was there too.

After davening I ran into R Harry Maryles. Then during kiddush, I met the the author of How to Measure the Years (I hadn’t read his blog before, but have since read his posts), who was also visiting.

Of course, the next day I had thought of a few great lines that I should have used when I saw these people:

I’d like to post a comment about the Crown Royal.
Hmm, not much chulent left. I bet it got a lot of hits today.
I’m sorry I couldn’t wish you a ‘Gut Shabbos’ earlier, but I was a victim of comment moderation.

I even ended up spending time with one of these bloggers during my afternoon at the park.
As great as email is, there is nothing that compares to a handshake, a smile, and saying hello to someone. It’s nice to meet the people behind the blogs.

My favorite book that most people have never read

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I shouldn’t say that most people have never read it, but as I travel in various circles within Torah observance, and discuss writings that really give a clear image (in my opinion) of what a traditional view is our our faith, the book JEWTHINK by Rabbi Avi Shafran usually doesn’t come up in conversation.

While it was originally written in 1973 and published in 1977, I only found out about it in 2000. I was in Boston for an interview with an outreach organization and was looking through the books in the home of the organizations’ director. I read the whole thing in one sitting. It was such a concise summary of Yiddishkeit. I would humbly put it up there as a must read if you travel in the secular world.

I have used the book as a basis for outreach with both teens and adults, as well as for discussions with not-yet-religious Jews. It’s is a relatively easy read. Rabbi Shafran quotes great sources and it is written in a very clear and straighforward manner. Look at this passage from chapter 13-Fear of God:

There is yet another concept (this one more an emotion or feeling than an attitude) which goes by the nickname of “fear”. This is the “fear of G~d’s greatness” which we mentioned in passing back in the first chapter.
This is the emotion felt when one is confronted with, for instance, the vastness of the universe, or the wonders of biology, the kindness of G~d towards His creations, or, spare us, His power of destruction and retribution. In short, whenever G~d’s presence makes itself particularly evident and jolts us into a stronger realization of Him, we are experiencing this “fear”. A storm rolling in, a glance through a telescope, a baby’s development, an earthquake, or a solar eclipse all have the potential to arouse this emotion in human beings.

This is one of those books that I try to read once a year (along with the Nineteen Letters). If you have a few minutes, it worth the look.
It is available on online, by simply googling JEWTHINK and going to the first hit.

Heroes

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In no particular order here are a few of my heroes:


A boy who moved communities in 8th grade and rather than go to public school made the choice to finish the year in a completely new day school not knowing a single person
An adult who left a successful 20 year career with the same company to move from the Midwest to the East coast and start a new job so that his children could attend a yeshiva high school
A couple who gave up their ‘dream house’ for an apartment in the eruv
A man who decided to visit his children for Pesach by car instead of by airplane, because he could listen to more Torah tapes on a car ride than in the air
The parents who daven that their children should be shomer Torah u’Mitzvos and never forget that they are children of the King of Kings

Who are your heroes?
(A comment is nice, but just thinking about the questions is nicer)

Get inside yourself

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There’s an interesting online personality test available here. Among the things it sheds light on are the ways we communicate and how we learn. I found it to be pretty on target with how I see myself.


I’m curious how well a blogger’s personality matches their blog in regards to this study?
Let me know what you think, if inclined.

What sits on my bookshelf

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I never met my paternal grandfather. I do share his name, Solomon (which is my middle name in English, Zorach in Hebrew). Then about 8 years ago my father brought me a collection of ‘Jewish books’ that were owned by my grandfather.

The collection includes:
A machzorim set printed in Austria in 1889
A linear Chumash printed in 1905A set of Mikros Gedolos from 1889
A siddur (Hebrew-English) printed in Austria in 1857
And a set of Graetz’s History of the Jews printed in 1895 (which if you know anything about Rav Hirsch, he had colorful history with the author)

I usually use the machzorim for at least on davening during any given Yom Tov.
Once in a while I’ll open the siddur and daven from it. When I do use the siddur or the machzorim I admit, I feel some kind of connecting to something. Maybe it’s just because they have been in my family for a long period of time. Maybe it’s because I am looking for some connection on any level.

It does blow my mind that because these seforim haven’t been opened or used in the longest time. I’m the first Torah observant person on either side of my family in at least three generations.

On April 15 of this year my son came home with his first Chumash and the homework that came along with it. After I listened to him say and translate the first pasuk in Breishis I opened up to the same pasuk in my grandfather’s Mikros Gedolos and let my son read from it. It was an incredible feeling to listen to him read in a sefer that was 118 years old.

I am proud and thankful to have these seforim in my collection and it is a constant reminder that Limud HaTorah spans the generations.

My thanks to A Simple Jew who suggested I write about this topic.

The photo in this post is of several of the seforim mentioned above