Rabbi Avi Fertig speaking Monday night in Northbrook

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PLEASE JOIN
JET – JEWISH EDUCATION TEAM,
TLC (Torah Learning Center) of Northbrook and
The Mussar Institute

Rabbi Avi Fertig, author of the acclaimed Bridging the Gap, will lead us deeply into the process of bridging the gap: between our heads and our hearts; between who we are now and who we have the potential to be; between potential and actualization of that potential.
Monday, April 29th
8.00 p.m. (7.30 p.m. mincha/maariv)
Darchei Noam of Glenbrook
(located at 2095 Landwehr Rd in Northbrook)
No charge. Suggested donation $5

Deconstruction

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Graphic from here

In the realm of social media (i.e.- engaging with others online), I run in a few different circles.

There’s this blog which, until this past week, was linked to my Twitter account. It is a probably the crossroads between the ideal and the ordeal of my life.

My Twitter account, which I use mostly for staying on top of items of interest and also as the main tool of my own PLN (personal learning network).

My LinkedIn account is, for now, used for business networking.

Finally, there’s Facebook, which is was initially a very personal, real life, platform. Slowly some “blogging friends” were given access, but it mostly a good way to stay in touch with friends from Wichita, New York, and local Chicago types. I tried “importing” by blog posts into Facebook, but gave up because a majority of my posts were not something that the majority of my Facebook friends would find interesting. When Facebook first opened to the public I joined and saw that was mostly a way to express chizonius (the external), like people posting what they went shopping for and when they were making coffee. It’s still the number one vehicle I would use if I needed to get Tehillim said for some own, because of the amount of people who use it multiple times a day and the easy of sharing info. This blog is more of the penimius (internal) of who I am. As I wrote above, it is where the ideal and ordeal collide. What inspires me is revealed and what I find as a challenge also makes its way on this blog.

So, which one best represents me? All of them express aspects of who I am. Modern Uberdox is probably the most “real” because even though I blog under my own name, most people that I know, don’t read it (that I am aware of). That give me a little leeway with what I write and share, even though it is open to the pubic. I bring this up now because I understand that you are taking time out of your day to read this and I am appreciative. Time used to go online for anything is time that can be spent somewhere else.

There are times when you can simply add on to a house and not only update it, but make it bigger and better. Other times you find a structure is just not sturdy enough to work on and you have to level it and rebuild.

Rabbi Nachman of Breslov taught:
If you believe that you can ruin, believe you can repair. (Likutei Moharan 2, # 112)

While always attracted to growth and Mussar, I have tried for most of my observant adult life to build upon my own foundation. That has been successful for some time. I can say with confidence that my davening is tangibly different than it was a year ago. In the arena of several middos, this isn’t the case. With all of the learning I’ve done and work on myself, my Yetzer Hora got the upper hand with one specific middah and it’s been a slap in the face for me. It took a number of difficult situations over the past four months to finally accept the truth that I must rebuild from scratch. Not a fun realization, but I am grateful that it came with minimal loss. I now see that really working on myself is painful and difficult. If it comes too easy, then I am focusing on the wrong thing.

Like iron to a magnet

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Photo used with permission & text added by me

Last Shabbos Kodesh I is was learning Bilvavi Mishkan Evneh (vol 2, chapter 6) and Rav Shwartz explains a person who likes a particular food will eat it over and over again, never getting bored of it.  Likewise, he says, we might listen to the same song many times, because our neshama “connects to the song.” He brings up the question of why many people don’t experience this when it comes to Avodas Hashem? The answer can be found by checking out the link above to chapter 6, but the idea is that we need open ourselves up to “tasting” the goodness of Hashem. After the initial difficulty of working on this a person will be drawn after this “taste” of Hashem “like iron to a magnet.”

The phrase comes from the second to the last paragraph at the end of the first chapter of Mesillas Yesharim (found in Hebrew or English).  The Ramchal says that your every inclination be directed singularly towards our Creator and that all we do be for only one purpose- to draw close to Him and remove all the barriers that block you from your Maker, “until you are actually drawn after Him (may He be Blessed), like iron to a magnet.”  You really need to click the link(s) above and see what the Ramchal says inside. My few typed words really don’t give it over properly.

Rabbi Yaakov Feldman beautifully explains the idea of “iron to a magnet” follows in his own translation and commentary on The Path of the Just:

When metal is drawn to a magnet it becomes magnetized; when something is drawn to fire it is destroyed. In both cases, the object drawn in is nullified and changed.  But the metal nullified by the magnet benefits from the nullification, while the object nullified by the flame loses all.

So too, when one is drawn towards God, the become Godly. In fact, the faster he holds onto the “magnet,” the better, and the sooner the separation the sooner the loss. But the more one avoids contact with the “flame” (those things that separate us from God) the better off he is. (page 20)

A true Jewish response

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As I walked towards our children’s school yesterday, the sounds of music and children singing filled the square block surrounding Arie Crown Hebrew Day School on a misty Sunday morning. Hundreds of people filled the streets and sidewalks.  They were all there for one reason.

The Kirshner and Maryles families, together with supporters of the Yechi Reuven Fund, had invited the community to a Hachnosas Sefer Torah in memory of Reuven ben Menachem Mordechai Kirshner zechrono levracha, in commemoration of his first Yahrtzeit, which was this past Shabbos Kodesh. Reuven was a 9 year old student at Arie Crown when he was niftar.  His father, Rabbi Menacham Kirschner, is the assistant principal and his mother, Tovi, is currently the one of the 5th grade girls teachers. The procession was lead by students holding torches as the infamous “Wi-Fi Fire Truck” complete with Kesser Torah on top blasted music in the streets.  Behind the fire truck you could see family, friends, students, faculty, and rabbonim from throughout the community all dancing and singing alongside the chuppah and the and new Sefer Torah.

Eventually the Sefer Torah and the crowd of hundreds made their way in to Arie Crown’s beis midrash/multi-purpose room and the live music and dancing continued.  Rabbi Menachem Kirschner proudly danced with this special Torah surrounded by all. I saw students, rebbes, fathers, friends of the family that came in from St. Louis (where the Kirshner’s lived before moving back to Chicago), Rabbonim from other schools and shuls all there, together. Eventually the males, both young and old, made two lines as they all made a tunnel with their hands, singing as the Sefer Torah went into its new home in the Aron Kodesh.

I looked at the scene, seeing 5th grade boys joining hands with people in their 50, making a connection in celebration of that which connects all generations, the Torah.  I thought about all of the updates and difficult posts that Reuven’s grandfather, Rabbi Harry Maryles had written over the years.  How people who didn’t even know Rabbi Maryles, aside from his blog, davened and learned for Reuven.  I thought about being in this same school for the levyah and how much emunah this family had, as reflected by Reuven’s own strength throughout his illness. I looked and outside the corner of my eyes I saw three man, all friends, all grandfathers, dancing together. They were all in same semicha class of Rav Aaron Soloveichik z’tl. They were together for this event, ultimately because it was learning Torah that initally brought them together.

I took it all in because Hashem’s plans for us are not always what we daven for or think they should be. We hear bad new, experience a tragedy, or get dealt a “bad hand” and how we respond is indicitive of our “Jewishness” and hashgafa (perspective/outlook). The Kirshner and Maryles families response in this situation was, and is, a lesson of emunah, one that is constantly felt by everyone. It is a true Jewish response. Now, thanks to them, Revuen’s neshama will forever be connected with the Torah that he loved so much.

Why aren’t books like these being written for Jews?

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The books Dharma Punx and Hardcore Zen are real. I have seen them, flipped through both of them, and marveled at the way they were written. They are geared towards a specific demographic, those looking for something in Buddhism that fits into their lifestyle. Aside from reading Letters to a Buddhist Jew by Rabbi Akiva Tatz and David Gottleib, I don’t know much at all about Buddhism. I do know that these two authors and many within the non-Jewish religious publishing world realize that speaking a generation in their language is important when it comes to getting your message out there.

So, why aren’t books or e-books like these being written for the not-yet-observant Jewish Gen Xer and Millennials? There are, as I see it, two reasons.

  1. It’s exactly the same reason punk music isn’t popular in the Jewish music world. Any BT with a punk music background or FFB who is into punk would rather use their talent towards more “mainstream” music, rather than create any frum punk rock. Once you create something that sounds clearly like non-Jewish music, the odds are that those nice boys (and girls) who listen to it will want to check out the original sources of the music. So, in essence, the frum musician would be indirectly responsible for frum kids listening to non-Jewish music and no one wants to deal with that on Yom Kippur.
  2. They just haven’t been written, yet. They are probably in the hearts, minds and hard drives of slackers who “sold-out” in order to pay tuition for their kids to learn in yeshivos and day schools. When I use the term “sold-out”, what I mean is that they realized that they can be just as individualistic, independent, and iconoclastic without having to look that way externally. Many (and I’d like to include myself) haven’t given up any core values, they have just focused than punk energy into things like Torah, Avodah, G’milus Chassadim, family, work, and community.

Those involved in kiruv know that that Torah needs given over in a way that is customized for each generation. The success of both “campus kiruv” and Chabad on the university level is proof that you have to know how to market to your demographic. NCSY‘s initial success in the, in part, was due to their leadership realizing that teens had a tendency to rebel. They simply give teens the option of focusing their rebellion against the prevailing culture of the 1960 and towards Torah u’Mitzvos. Chabad‘s success, on a family level, is partially due to having excellent pre-school programs and providing amazing day camp experiences for both children and their parents. Ohr Someach and Aish HaTorah have capitalized on providing opportunities for college-aged young adults to get a “yeshiva experience” that give them a taste for more learning.

These alternative sub-culture styled religious books, tend to take punk ethos in one hand and religion in the other and attempt to make the two fit together. With Yiddishkeit, the two can fit, but you have to be willing to accept that the priority is Torah.  The Torah is a constant.  It was around before the world was created and will always be here. I think there’s a whole segment of Jews that we are not reaching.  It’s not because their music is too loud, or their noise-reducing earbuds are to effective.  It is because we have yet to figure out a way to successfully communicate the idea that being mevatar yourself (withdrawing from your ego) or demonstrating bittul (nullifying your will) is probably the most hardcore punk thing there is.

Feb 26 @ 8pm- Nourishing the Neshama

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“Nourishing The Neshama” is a new project in Chicago.  It’s a partnership project of Ida Crown Jewish Academy, the YU Torah Mitzion Kollel, NCSY, YU Institute for University-School Partnership, and Congregations Chochevei Torah, KINS, KJBS & Or Torah.

Tuesday night, Feb 26 at 8pm come hear Rabbis Reuven Brand (Rosh Kollel of the YUTMK, Micah Greenland (Midwest Regional NCSY Director/Interm International Director of NCSY), and Leonard Matanky ph.D (Dean of ICJA and Rav of KINS) as they lead a discussion about bringing meaning to Mitzvos at the home of Orah and Lev Katz- 3045 W Jarlath (WRP).

I am very excited about this new program and can’t wait to get invovled.

My disdain of hipsters

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DIY shirt inspired by this


I used the word “disdain” with a smile.  I don’t hate anyone (except for the nation of Amalek), but I really don’t like hipsters.  They have always rubbed me the wrong way.  No, this isn’t a rant.  Just take a breath and give your eyes another 1.5  minutes to read this post.

The main reason I disdain hipsters is, ironically, because I was a hipster before there were even hipsters, yet I (and my contemporaries) don’t get any credit.  My issue with hipsters is that they are coasting down a road that was paved by the punks and alternative-types in the 80s, yet they think being so anti-establishment is completely their chiddush.  It’s smacks of coolkeit (a termed coined by The Rebbetzin’s Husband in this post).  It’s a lack of hakoras hatov, on their part.  There are always people in every culture and subculture that go against the grain and do their own thing.  There’s the guy that loves to quote lines from obscure movies, the girl that can throw out a song lyric that seem apropos in any given situation, and the dude who is learning a sefer that most people have never heard of.  Now some people do this because they want to be noticed, while others are just into doing “their own thing”.  Then there is are the hipsters, who have skillfully jumped on every bandwagon, yet pretentiously figured out a way to do it while seeming to be original.

I see those hipsters sitting in front of their MacBooks or brainstorming about social networking and it strikes a cord.  They remind me that I still can get anchored to accomplishments of the past.  I see them and it takes me back to high school and my freshman year at college, when I was more idealistic and hung out with same-minded people who helped fuel my creativity.  When late nights out with friends revolved around coffee, watching people get drunk, and pseudo-philosophical discussions about Albert Camus, Ayn Rand, Jack Keroauc, and why bands should not sign with major labels.  Hipsters, by their nature, gravitate toward the past and seeing them totally blinds me from being grateful for my own present and envisioning the many simchos in my own future.  I’m not anti-the past, but if you keep looking back, then you can never look forward (as told to me by my brother-in-law many years ago).  Eventually the hipsters will get older and a newer breed will take their retro-throne.

It’s a well know teaching of the Baal Shem Tov that when we see deficiencies in others, it’s really a reflection of the deficiencies in ourselves.  With this in mind, I find myself wondering why do I actually care?  Why do I feel that I (and those who are in their late thirties and early forties) need recognition for doing something before someone else did it?  That’s the heart of the matter.  It’s guyvah, arrogance, and pure ego to think, “Hey, I did that first.”  I am guilty of it more often than I’d like to admit.  I don’t try to be the first person to eat a new restaurant (I’ll wait two weeks until the buzz dies down) or attempt to be the first of my friends to get the newest iPhone, just to say, “I got it first.”  However, I do find that I’ll read something and share it with someone and then get upset when that person shares the same thing without giving me the credit.  It’s a lacking on my part, I know.

Of course, my own frumkeit says that it’s because I remember that the 48th way to acquire the Torah is to say something in the name of the person who said it.  As the 6th mishna in the 6th chapter of Pirkei Avos concludes:  “One who says something in the name of its speaker brings redemption to the world, as is stated (Esther 2:22), “And Esther told the king in the name of Mordechai.”  As I wrote, it’s ego.  If I had stronger Emuna and Bitachon, then I’d be more secure in not needing recognition from others.  I think that’s the point.  It’s not that Morechai had a desire to be quoted by Esther.  It’s Esther (it’s always the woman) who knew it was derech eretz to tell Achashverosh.  Bringing the geulah means being mevatar your ego.