Big Tefillin - Narrow Sleeve

YU is having a commemaration of Rav Soloveitchik's 20th yahrtzeit. This is wonderful! His legacy should never be forgotten. I saw that one of the topics was "The Multiple Faces of the Rav". Being "two-faced" is no compliment. I would have preferred "The Multiple Aspects of The Rav" or something like that.

:)

In any event, a myseh with the Rav: When he became older, he stopped davening Shachris with a jacket. Many interpretations of his behavior were offered until someone actually asked him.

He explained that he started wearing the tefillin of his grandfather Rav Chaim and that they were very big and didn't fit into his sleeve. But to wear his jacket without the sleeve is not the way one would come before a king [and thus not before the King of Kings] so he stopped wearing the jacket altogether.

מספר פניני הרב


 [Rav Chaim Kniyevsky also paskened that one shouldn't wear one's tefillin outside the sleeve of his jacket]

Disproportionate

This world is called "Alma Di-shikra" - the world of falsehood. There are COUNTLESS indications of this. Here is one.

The most important world leader is clearly the President of the United States. Billions of people are affected by his decisions. His yearly salary is four hundred thousand dollars a year. There is a nice gentleman of Hispanic roots named Alex Rodriguez. His job is to hit a spherical object as hard as he can with a piece of lumber and then run as fast as he can in a circle. For this he receives THIRTY MILLION DOLLARS a year.

Hmmmmmmmm. Possibly a lack of proportion here?

And a public-school teacher who is dedicated to educating the next generation is going to make in one year what Alex makes in two thirds of an inning.

A myseh with Babe Ruth: When asked whether he thought he deserved earning $80,000 ($1,099,442 inflation-adjusted), while the president, Herbert Hoover, had a $75,000 salary, Ruth famously remarked, "What the ... has Hoover got to do with it? Besides, I had a better year than he did."

Ella Bas Freyda

Please daven for Ella Bas Freyda who is having a serious operation tonight.
בתוך שח"י

If you have a few minutes and a strong stomach... see here and here.

"First, I was dying to finish high school. Then, I was dying to finish college. After that, I was dying to get married. Then, I was dying to have children. Then, I was dying for the kids to get older so I could marry them off and relax. After that, I was dying to retire. Now, I'm just dying and I realize that I never really lived."

70 year old patient in Intensive Care Unit

I thank R.S.F. the sender:).

"If you identify with a mental position, then if you are wrong, your mind-based sense of self is seriously threatened with annihilation. So you as the ego cannot afford to be wrong. To be wrong is to die. Wars have been fought over this, and countless relationships have broken down."

Read about a special bottle of wine here.