Wednesday, March 31, 2021
Friday, March 26, 2021
Karpas
Karpas, according to Rabbeinu Manoach alludes to the sale of Yosef. Pasim, the name of Yosef’s special coat (that signified his status) is connected to the word karpas in the Megillah. Rashi [Bereishis, 37:3] in defining Yosef’s coat explains that the word karpas denotes a special type of wool. The original custom of dunking the vegetable into red wine fills in the picture. In sum, we have the multicolored coat dipped into the blood – beckoning the sale of Yosef.
Why bring this up now? Because as we ponder leaving Egypt, we must remember how we got in. It is the question we barely speak of, because the shameful answer is through the terrible disunity within klal Yisrael. Thus we break the matzah, a rupture symbolizing unity torn asunder. We then hide the bigger piece for afikoman and look for it at the at the end of the seder. At some point, we find the afikoman. The ultimate way to redemption, both personal and national is through the search for a way towards unity. The geulah will beckon the ten tribes. After the afikoman we call in Eliyahu, the ultimate unifier of the generations – present at bris, seder and redemption. It is interesting that the seder often brings together a lot of different types of people. Perhaps it is a test for redemption, for ultimate geulah requires unity. [From the Orthodox Union]
Thursday, March 25, 2021
2 Rules - First Date
In our house we have 2 rules:
Dirt IS Chametz and Mommy IS the Korban Pesach.
Thank G-d, "March Madness" is over. We searched our house and found no Chametz! Except for food that some LUCKY GOY somewhere will soon own.
I first met my wife in the zoo 27 years ago the second day Chol Hamoed Pesach. That was our first date. I took her to the monkey cage and assured her that these monkeys are bigger lamdanim than I am [but I know more sports trivia].
[Note: That story may or may not be true].
Cuomo's Plea
NY Gov. Cuomo directed health officials to prioritize the governor’s own family and figures with ties to his administration in the early days of the coronavirus pandemic, the Albany Times-Union reported.
Cuomo’s brother, mother and one of his sisters were among those who allegedly received priority tests in March 2020.
The bombshell report emerged as Cuomo faces calls to resign after eight women, including current and former aides, accused him of harassment or misconduct. The NYS Attorney General’s Office and the State Assembly are investigating the claims.
Cuomo's reaction in a press conference: "We all know the yesoid: אין דבר העומד בפני התשובה. Cut me some slack. הודאה על החטא, חרטה, וקבלה להבא. I acknowledge my misdoings. I regret them. I accept upon myself not to repeat them in the future. I will treat women with dignity. I will not prioritize my family. I don't even like my brother. I bichlal hate CNN. My mother? Gimme a break!! Who wouldn't worry first about their old widowed mother. We are all human. Let us find forgiveness in our hearts. This can really kill my shidduch opportunities for the future."
Rav Aryeh Malkiel Ben Rischel
The Lakewood Rosh Yeshiva, Hagaon HaRav Malkiel Kotler was flown by Hatzolah Air to the Cleveland Clinic on Wednesday morning, where he will be seen by cardiac specialists.
The Rosh Yeshiva was taken to the Jersey Shore Medical Center by Lakewood Hatzolah. It was feared that he would require emergency surgery, but doctors managed to stabilize the situation to provide some time so that a decision could be made where to treat the Rosh Yeshiva.
A decision was made to fly him to Cleveland, and Lakewood Hatzolah transported him to the airport where a team from Hatzolah Air was touching down at 4:30AM ready for the emergency flight. The flight crew consisted of two specialized doctors and two Paramedics.
An ambulance from the Cleveland Clinic was waiting on the runway as Hatzolah Air touched down, and the Rosh Yeshiva was taken to the hospital.
Gam Zoo Li-Tovah!!!
I got to Orlando with the rest of Klal Yisrael.
Lo and behold - the house I rented for my family was rented out to 9 other families!!
תשפ"א - ת'הא ש'נת פ'סח א'ורלנדו
If Biden Were Melech Mitzrayim....
Moshe: Let my people go!!!!!!!!!!!
Biden: Open borders? Suuuuureeeee!!!!!!😀😂
Wednesday, March 24, 2021
CHADASH!!
Mishna Bi-iyun - Negaim 11-1, 12-1: Shutafus Akum Regarding Negaim, Tzitzis, Mezuza, Challah
Mishna Bi-iyun: Negaim 12-1 - Are Negaim Related To Kedushas Eretz Yisrael?
Pesachim 70b: Erev Pesach That Falls On Shabbos
Sheim Bi-Shvuah And Gidrei Neder And Shvuah
Sheim Bi-Shvuah And Gidrei Neder And Shvuah - Part 2
Sheim Bi-Shvuah And Gidrei Neder And Shvuah - Part 3
Tehilim 34: What It Means To Desire Life
Tshuvos R' Akiva Eiger 65 Part 2 - The Surprising Interplay Between Issur Achila And Bal Yeraeh
Tuesday, March 23, 2021
Science Confirms That Our Conversations Are Dysfunctional :-)
Scientific American
One evening Adam Mastroianni was reluctantly putting on his bow tie for yet another black-tie party at the University of Oxford that he had no interest in attending. Inevitably, Mastroianni, then a master’s student in psychology at the university, knew that he would wind up stuck in some endless conversation that he did not want with no way to politely extricate himself. Even worse, he suddenly realized, he might unknowingly be the one to perpetuate unwanted conversation traps for others. “What if both people are thinking exactly the same thing, but we’re both stuck because we can’t move on when we’re really done?” he wondered.
Mastroianni’s hunch may have been on the mark. A study published on March 1 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA reports on what researchers discovered when they climbed into the heads of talkers to gauge their feelings about how long a particular conversation should last. The team found that conversations almost never end when both parties want them to—and that people are a very poor judge of when their partner wishes to call it quits. In some cases, however, interlocutors were dissatisfied not because the talk went on for too long but because it was too short.
“Whatever you think the other person wants, you may well be wrong,” says Mastroianni, who is now a doctoral candidate in psychology at Harvard University. “So you might as well leave at the first time it seems appropriate because it’s better to be left wanting more than less.”
Most past research about conversations has been conducted by linguists or sociologists. Psychologists who have studied conversations, on the other hand, have mostly used the research as a means of addressing other things, such as how people use words to persuade. A few studies have explored what phrases individuals say at the ends of conversations, but the focus has not been on when people choose to say them. “Psychology is just now waking up to the fact that this is a really interesting and fundamental social behavior,” Mastroianni says.
He and his colleagues undertook two experiments to examine the dynamics of talk. In the first, they quizzed 806 online participants about the duration of their most recent conversation. Most of them had taken place with a significant other, family member or friend. The individuals involved detailed whether there was a point in the conversation at which they wanted it to end and estimated when that was in relation to when the conversation actually ended.
In the second experiment, held in the lab, the researchers split 252 participants into pairs of strangers and instructed them to talk about whatever they liked for anywhere from one to 45 minutes. Afterward the team asked the subjects when they would have liked the conversation to have ended and to guess about their partner’s answer to the same question.
Mastroianni and his colleagues found that only 2 percent of conversations ended at the time both parties desired, and only 30 percent of them finished when one of the pair wanted them to. In about half of the conversations, both people wanted to talk less, but their cutoff point was usually different. Participants in both studies reported, on average, that the desired length of their conversation was about half of its actual length. To the researchers’ surprise, they also found that it is not always the case that people are held hostage by talks: In 10 percent of conversations, both study participants wished their exchange had lasted longer. And in about 31 percent of the interactions between strangers, at least one of the two wanted to continue.
Most people also failed at intuiting their partner’s desires. When participants guessed at when their partner had wanted to stop talking, they were off by about 64 percent of the total conversation length.
That people fail so completely in judging when a conversation partner wishes to wrap things up “is an astounding and important finding,” says Thalia Wheatley, a social psychologist at Dartmouth College, who was not involved in the research. Conversations are otherwise “such an elegant expression of mutual coordination,” she says. “And yet it all falls apart at the end because we just can’t figure out when to stop.” This puzzle is probably one reason why people like to have talks over coffee, drinks or a meal, Wheatley adds, because “the empty cup or check gives us an out—a critical conversation-ending crutch.”
Nicholas Epley, a behavioral scientist at the University of Chicago, who was not on the research team, wonders what would happen if most conversations ended exactly when we wanted them to. “How many new insights, novel perspectives or interesting facts of life have we missed because we avoided a longer or deeper conversation that we might have had with another person?” he asks.
While this cannot be determined in the countless exchanges of everyday life, scientists can design an experiment in which talks either end at precisely the point when a participant first wants to stop or continue for some point beyond. “Do those whose conversations end just when they want them to actually end up with better conversations than those that last longer?” Epley asks. “I don’t know, but I’d love to see the results of that experiment.”
The findings also open up many other questions. Are the rules of conversation clearer in other cultures? Which cues, if any, do expert conversationalists pick up on? What about the dynamics of group chats?
“The burgeoning science of conversation needs rigorous descriptive papers like this one, but we also need causal experiments to test strategies that might help us navigate the important and pervasive challenges of conversation,” says Alison Wood Brooks, a professor of business administration at Harvard Business School, who was not involved in the study. “I think it’s pretty wild that we can put rovers on Mars, and yet we’re just beginning to rigorously understand how people talk to each other.”
One evening Adam Mastroianni was reluctantly putting on his bow tie for yet another black-tie party at the University of Oxford that he had no interest in attending. Inevitably, Mastroianni, then a master’s student in psychology at the university, knew that he would wind up stuck in some endless conversation that he did not want with no way to politely extricate himself. Even worse, he suddenly realized, he might unknowingly be the one to perpetuate unwanted conversation traps for others. “What if both people are thinking exactly the same thing, but we’re both stuck because we can’t move on when we’re really done?” he wondered.
Mastroianni’s hunch may have been on the mark. A study published on March 1 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA reports on what researchers discovered when they climbed into the heads of talkers to gauge their feelings about how long a particular conversation should last. The team found that conversations almost never end when both parties want them to—and that people are a very poor judge of when their partner wishes to call it quits. In some cases, however, interlocutors were dissatisfied not because the talk went on for too long but because it was too short.
“Whatever you think the other person wants, you may well be wrong,” says Mastroianni, who is now a doctoral candidate in psychology at Harvard University. “So you might as well leave at the first time it seems appropriate because it’s better to be left wanting more than less.”
Most past research about conversations has been conducted by linguists or sociologists. Psychologists who have studied conversations, on the other hand, have mostly used the research as a means of addressing other things, such as how people use words to persuade. A few studies have explored what phrases individuals say at the ends of conversations, but the focus has not been on when people choose to say them. “Psychology is just now waking up to the fact that this is a really interesting and fundamental social behavior,” Mastroianni says.
He and his colleagues undertook two experiments to examine the dynamics of talk. In the first, they quizzed 806 online participants about the duration of their most recent conversation. Most of them had taken place with a significant other, family member or friend. The individuals involved detailed whether there was a point in the conversation at which they wanted it to end and estimated when that was in relation to when the conversation actually ended.
In the second experiment, held in the lab, the researchers split 252 participants into pairs of strangers and instructed them to talk about whatever they liked for anywhere from one to 45 minutes. Afterward the team asked the subjects when they would have liked the conversation to have ended and to guess about their partner’s answer to the same question.
Mastroianni and his colleagues found that only 2 percent of conversations ended at the time both parties desired, and only 30 percent of them finished when one of the pair wanted them to. In about half of the conversations, both people wanted to talk less, but their cutoff point was usually different. Participants in both studies reported, on average, that the desired length of their conversation was about half of its actual length. To the researchers’ surprise, they also found that it is not always the case that people are held hostage by talks: In 10 percent of conversations, both study participants wished their exchange had lasted longer. And in about 31 percent of the interactions between strangers, at least one of the two wanted to continue.
Most people also failed at intuiting their partner’s desires. When participants guessed at when their partner had wanted to stop talking, they were off by about 64 percent of the total conversation length.
That people fail so completely in judging when a conversation partner wishes to wrap things up “is an astounding and important finding,” says Thalia Wheatley, a social psychologist at Dartmouth College, who was not involved in the research. Conversations are otherwise “such an elegant expression of mutual coordination,” she says. “And yet it all falls apart at the end because we just can’t figure out when to stop.” This puzzle is probably one reason why people like to have talks over coffee, drinks or a meal, Wheatley adds, because “the empty cup or check gives us an out—a critical conversation-ending crutch.”
Nicholas Epley, a behavioral scientist at the University of Chicago, who was not on the research team, wonders what would happen if most conversations ended exactly when we wanted them to. “How many new insights, novel perspectives or interesting facts of life have we missed because we avoided a longer or deeper conversation that we might have had with another person?” he asks.
While this cannot be determined in the countless exchanges of everyday life, scientists can design an experiment in which talks either end at precisely the point when a participant first wants to stop or continue for some point beyond. “Do those whose conversations end just when they want them to actually end up with better conversations than those that last longer?” Epley asks. “I don’t know, but I’d love to see the results of that experiment.”
The findings also open up many other questions. Are the rules of conversation clearer in other cultures? Which cues, if any, do expert conversationalists pick up on? What about the dynamics of group chats?
“The burgeoning science of conversation needs rigorous descriptive papers like this one, but we also need causal experiments to test strategies that might help us navigate the important and pervasive challenges of conversation,” says Alison Wood Brooks, a professor of business administration at Harvard Business School, who was not involved in the study. “I think it’s pretty wild that we can put rovers on Mars, and yet we’re just beginning to rigorously understand how people talk to each other.”
How To Work Through A Difficult Sugya !!!!!!!
We have to use their methods for עניני קדושה!!!
--------
Some of scientists’ most rewarding moments come when we confront a hard problem or a difficult task. Solving a major methodological hurdle, designing an elegant experiment, making sense of a puzzling result, working on a new model or writing a paper or grant proposal are the intellectual challenges that make a career in science so exciting. But doing hard tasks is, in fact, hard. It can frustrate and weigh on us, and cause anxiety and stress. We can struggle to maintain focus on our hard tasks, including the ones we enjoy and eagerly wish to complete. We often postpone work on hard tasks, such as beginning to write a paper or do complex data analysis, in favor of quick wins from easier tasks, like fine-tuning a figure, organizing our calendars or making a dent in our e-mail correspondence.
In late 2020, I published a book, On Task, about the neuroscience of cognitive control: the mental function that allows us to connect our goals and plans with our actions. It is concerned with precisely this problem of how we get things done. It is ironic, therefore, that writing a book about how our brains do tasks was itself a difficult task to do. I enjoyed writing the book, and valued the goal. But there were moments when it was really difficult to find the words to convey a complex idea. And working on the book was never the most immediately urgent task in my day-to-day work, so it was challenging to carve out the time for the writing and thought it required.
You might not be writing a book, but everyone experiences the struggles of difficult tasks. They have been made all the worse with lockdowns, home-schooling and other lifestyle changes due to the pandemic. Everyone experiences bouts of procrastination or work-avoidance, and the guilt that comes with them. There is no avoiding these experiences entirely, but there are some strategies that can help us stay focused.
Make space
To solve hard problems, the brain needs ready access to the information, plans, procedures and knowledge it will be using. Cognitive scientists refer to this collective task knowledge as a task set. However, the task set is not always immediately available: we can’t hold it all active in our limited mental workspace, or ‘working memory’, all the time.
For example, when writing a scientific paper, we must bring to mind lots of information related to the background, logic, design and results of a study. If we have just been at a meeting on a different topic, and then sit down to write the paper, the necessary information might not be in the forefront of our minds. It must be mentally retrieved and organized in our working memory before we can start writing.
In practice, returning to a hard task in this way comes with a ‘restart’ cost: we must spend time and mental effort getting back into our task set, rather than making progress. For this reason, it is important to create time and space for hard tasks.
• Set aside large blocks of time. It is all too easy for working scientists to fill our days with meetings and other small tasks that leave only small gaps for the serious work. Long gaps are needed not only because of the intense thought and work required by hard tasks, but also because we need some time to re-establish our task set. Switching frequently between tasks makes producing quality work harder.
• Be consistent. We should try to reserve a consistent time and place for our hard work and be protective of it. Ideally, we should find this time and place every day. Even if we don’t make progress one day, that time should be spent on our hard task rather than other tasks, even if it’s just reviewing our work. Consistency can aid memory: memory retrieval is context dependent, in that it helps to have the same sights and sounds available when we learn something as when we will try to remember it. Thus, working on a task in the same context repeatedly might aid retrieval and help us to re-establish our task set when we restart.
Some of scientists’ most rewarding moments come when we confront a hard problem or a difficult task. Solving a major methodological hurdle, designing an elegant experiment, making sense of a puzzling result, working on a new model or writing a paper or grant proposal are the intellectual challenges that make a career in science so exciting. But doing hard tasks is, in fact, hard. It can frustrate and weigh on us, and cause anxiety and stress. We can struggle to maintain focus on our hard tasks, including the ones we enjoy and eagerly wish to complete. We often postpone work on hard tasks, such as beginning to write a paper or do complex data analysis, in favor of quick wins from easier tasks, like fine-tuning a figure, organizing our calendars or making a dent in our e-mail correspondence.
In late 2020, I published a book, On Task, about the neuroscience of cognitive control: the mental function that allows us to connect our goals and plans with our actions. It is concerned with precisely this problem of how we get things done. It is ironic, therefore, that writing a book about how our brains do tasks was itself a difficult task to do. I enjoyed writing the book, and valued the goal. But there were moments when it was really difficult to find the words to convey a complex idea. And working on the book was never the most immediately urgent task in my day-to-day work, so it was challenging to carve out the time for the writing and thought it required.
You might not be writing a book, but everyone experiences the struggles of difficult tasks. They have been made all the worse with lockdowns, home-schooling and other lifestyle changes due to the pandemic. Everyone experiences bouts of procrastination or work-avoidance, and the guilt that comes with them. There is no avoiding these experiences entirely, but there are some strategies that can help us stay focused.
Make space
To solve hard problems, the brain needs ready access to the information, plans, procedures and knowledge it will be using. Cognitive scientists refer to this collective task knowledge as a task set. However, the task set is not always immediately available: we can’t hold it all active in our limited mental workspace, or ‘working memory’, all the time.
For example, when writing a scientific paper, we must bring to mind lots of information related to the background, logic, design and results of a study. If we have just been at a meeting on a different topic, and then sit down to write the paper, the necessary information might not be in the forefront of our minds. It must be mentally retrieved and organized in our working memory before we can start writing.
In practice, returning to a hard task in this way comes with a ‘restart’ cost: we must spend time and mental effort getting back into our task set, rather than making progress. For this reason, it is important to create time and space for hard tasks.
• Set aside large blocks of time. It is all too easy for working scientists to fill our days with meetings and other small tasks that leave only small gaps for the serious work. Long gaps are needed not only because of the intense thought and work required by hard tasks, but also because we need some time to re-establish our task set. Switching frequently between tasks makes producing quality work harder.
• Be consistent. We should try to reserve a consistent time and place for our hard work and be protective of it. Ideally, we should find this time and place every day. Even if we don’t make progress one day, that time should be spent on our hard task rather than other tasks, even if it’s just reviewing our work. Consistency can aid memory: memory retrieval is context dependent, in that it helps to have the same sights and sounds available when we learn something as when we will try to remember it. Thus, working on a task in the same context repeatedly might aid retrieval and help us to re-establish our task set when we restart.
Minimize distraction and never multitask
When we do two or more tasks at once, either at the same time or switching between them, our performance efficiency and quality will suffer. This happens partly because the tasks use shared cognitive resources, such as working memory. As a result, they will compete for that shared resource and interfere with one another. When doing a hard task, it is important to minimize this interference from multi-tasking.
• Remove cues to other tasks. It helps to put away e-mail and social media and their associated cues. Phone notifications or a badge that tells us how many unread messages we have are distractions that pull us to other tasks. These result in multitasking costs, whether we do the other tasks or not. Even cues that we simply associate with other tasks, such as seeing our phones on the table, can distract us. As much as possible, we should keep our space and time for hard work clear of other distracting tasks.
• Beware the allure of easy tasks. When we decide to perform a task, our brains do a cost–benefit analysis on the fly, weighing the value of the outcome against the projected mental investment required to be successful. As a result, we often avoid hard tasks in favour of smaller, easier tasks, particularly if we aren’t making immediate progress. That will affect our motivation. Sending some e-mails or doing administrative work or straightening up the desk might all be worthwhile tasks and feel productive, but they prevent us doing the task we need to do, while adding multitasking costs.
Engage in good problem-solving habits
To find a solution to a hard problem or perform a hard task, we must structure the problem or task in a way that will allow us to succeed.
For example, a hard task such as doing a geometry proof might involve a structured process of retrieving, selecting and checking a set of geometry facts and theorems. The better that the solver knows these facts, and the more effectively they devise an efficient plan to evaluate them, the more readily they will solve the proof. As they do more problems, the facts come to mind more easily, and they follow familiar plans to evaluate each. In general, we can get better at structuring hard problems with experience. This is one reason that practice makes us more efficient and successful at hard tasks, and that experts outperform novices. Finding work habits that encourage this process helps us to stay focused.
• Stay with it. Finding the right structure often takes time. We might not make progress on a hard task every day, but it is important to keep trying. And we must be kind to ourselves when progress isn’t readily made.
• Be open to reconceptualizing problem structure. Often, the structure we invent doesn’t work for our problem and leads to dead ends. When stuck, we must be willing to reconceptualize a problem and look for new ways to address it.
• Take breaks. It’s not helpful to insist on trying to get everything done at once, if it just isn’t working. It is important to take breaks from difficult work. This not only keeps the mental costs low, but might allow new concepts and structures to be considered. There is evidence that incubation of this kind helps problem solving.
• Interact with others. Just like taking a break, interacting with others can help us conceptualize a problem in new ways. Talking to people with diverse backgrounds, perspectives and viewpoints that differ from our own can be a powerful way to break out of a rut and make progress, as well as get some perspective. Moreover, working with others whose company we enjoy makes hard work more fun. This social aspect has been particularly challenging during the COVID-19 pandemic: it has prevented the spontaneous interactions that are often helpful. It might be useful to make time for informal discussion over work, to recapture these interactions with others and avoid isolation.
When we do two or more tasks at once, either at the same time or switching between them, our performance efficiency and quality will suffer. This happens partly because the tasks use shared cognitive resources, such as working memory. As a result, they will compete for that shared resource and interfere with one another. When doing a hard task, it is important to minimize this interference from multi-tasking.
• Remove cues to other tasks. It helps to put away e-mail and social media and their associated cues. Phone notifications or a badge that tells us how many unread messages we have are distractions that pull us to other tasks. These result in multitasking costs, whether we do the other tasks or not. Even cues that we simply associate with other tasks, such as seeing our phones on the table, can distract us. As much as possible, we should keep our space and time for hard work clear of other distracting tasks.
• Beware the allure of easy tasks. When we decide to perform a task, our brains do a cost–benefit analysis on the fly, weighing the value of the outcome against the projected mental investment required to be successful. As a result, we often avoid hard tasks in favour of smaller, easier tasks, particularly if we aren’t making immediate progress. That will affect our motivation. Sending some e-mails or doing administrative work or straightening up the desk might all be worthwhile tasks and feel productive, but they prevent us doing the task we need to do, while adding multitasking costs.
Engage in good problem-solving habits
To find a solution to a hard problem or perform a hard task, we must structure the problem or task in a way that will allow us to succeed.
For example, a hard task such as doing a geometry proof might involve a structured process of retrieving, selecting and checking a set of geometry facts and theorems. The better that the solver knows these facts, and the more effectively they devise an efficient plan to evaluate them, the more readily they will solve the proof. As they do more problems, the facts come to mind more easily, and they follow familiar plans to evaluate each. In general, we can get better at structuring hard problems with experience. This is one reason that practice makes us more efficient and successful at hard tasks, and that experts outperform novices. Finding work habits that encourage this process helps us to stay focused.
• Stay with it. Finding the right structure often takes time. We might not make progress on a hard task every day, but it is important to keep trying. And we must be kind to ourselves when progress isn’t readily made.
• Be open to reconceptualizing problem structure. Often, the structure we invent doesn’t work for our problem and leads to dead ends. When stuck, we must be willing to reconceptualize a problem and look for new ways to address it.
• Take breaks. It’s not helpful to insist on trying to get everything done at once, if it just isn’t working. It is important to take breaks from difficult work. This not only keeps the mental costs low, but might allow new concepts and structures to be considered. There is evidence that incubation of this kind helps problem solving.
• Interact with others. Just like taking a break, interacting with others can help us conceptualize a problem in new ways. Talking to people with diverse backgrounds, perspectives and viewpoints that differ from our own can be a powerful way to break out of a rut and make progress, as well as get some perspective. Moreover, working with others whose company we enjoy makes hard work more fun. This social aspect has been particularly challenging during the COVID-19 pandemic: it has prevented the spontaneous interactions that are often helpful. It might be useful to make time for informal discussion over work, to recapture these interactions with others and avoid isolation.
Nature.com
Using And Misusing Freedom
America is an AMAZING place. So much freedom!!! We Jews LOVE freedom!! We have an entire holiday celebrating it!!!! :-) A country where all people's rights are closely guarded and preserved. There is no country like it on earth [although we must remember that the USA still lacks קדושת ארץ ישראל...] .
But there is another side. Unbridled freedom and "bills of rights" often give people a sense of entitlement.
In a normal world, a world of morality, a world where people practice self-control, it would be beyond absurd to suggest that money should be forcibly taken from people in order to facilitate an active sex life for single people. A guy meets a girl in a bar and they decide to spend the night together and everyone else has to foot the bill. Insane.
That is EXACTLY what has been demanded. 8 years ago, Georgetown law student Sandra Fluke came before the House Democrats to lobby for the rights of women to receive money - our money, taxpayer money - in order to have relations whenever they feel like it. [The whole thing was a FLUKE!!] This is part of what she said [with my small addendums:-)]:
"Without insurance coverage, contraception, as you know [I DON'T KNOW!!!], can cost a woman over $3,000 during law school [being a בעל תאוה is an EXPENSIVE proposition!!!]. For a lot of students who, like me, are on public interest scholarships, that's practically an entire summer's salary [so you go to school for free and want yet more!!!]. Forty percent of the female students at Georgetown Law reported to us that they've struggled financially as a result of this policy [that means that there is a LOT of גילוי עריות at Georgetown. What would GEORGE Washington say??]One told us of how embarrassed and just powerless she felt when she was standing at the pharmacy counter and learned for the first time that contraception was not covered on her insurance, and she had to turn and walk away because she couldn't afford that prescription [rough but not as bad as being told you have pancreatic cancer or lukemia]. Women like her have no choice but to go without contraception [and THAT is unacceptable!!!]."
No, actually they HAVE a choice. Control yourselves. But that is not part of the conversation. The narrative is that we are all doing it with random men with whom we have no interest in building a family and we demand money to pay for this.
Rush Limbaugh called her some choice names [none of them being "צנועה" or "טהורה"] on his radio show and created quite a scandal. Even then-President Baruch Obama got into the fray and denounced Reb Rush.
I am not going to call her names [except maybe "Sandra"]. I don't want to get Baruch or anyone else mad:-). But she does highlight an important point:
We are JEWS!! YIDDIN!!!!!!!!!!!! We treasure FAMILY!!! Intimacy is ONLY in the context of building a FAMILY and solidifying a LONG TERM, COMMITTED RELATIONSHIP!!!!
In עלינו we thank Hashem שלא שמנו כמשפחות האדמה. We are not like the rest of the world. Our FAMILIES are fundamentally different. When we have children - we take RESPONSIBILITY for them for LIFE. In some other communities, men sire children and then take off. We don't do that. We also don't believe in randomly sleeping with strangers as our hormones dictate.
Chazal say that Hashem's only places his Holy Presence on families of pure lineage. Explains the Maharal:
אין הקב"ה משרה שכינתו אלא על משפחות מיוחסות שבישראל, הדבר הזה הוא, כי השכינה אינה שורה רק על הנבדלים מן העריות, וכל שאר דבר שהוא זנות אין השכינה שורה שם, לכך אין השכינה שורה רק על משפחות מיוחסות שנולדו בקדושה ולא באו מן הערוה, אז הם ראויים לשריות השכינה. ועוד יש טעם אחר, והוא עיקר, כי השי"ת משרה שכינה על אשר הם משתלשלים ממנו, ועליהם משרה השי"ת השכינה, אבל אשר נולדו בפסול לא נקרא שהם משתלשלים מן השי"ת מקדושתו, שהרי נולדו בפסול והם זרים, ולכך אין משרה שכינתו עליהם. וכן זה עצמו שאין השי"ת מעיד עליהם כאשר תבין, כי העיקר מתייחס אל הענפים היוצאים ממנו בלא עירוב, רק בסדר השתלשלות... וכאשר יש דבר זר שהורכב באילן אין העיקר מתייחס אליו, ולכך אין משרה
שכינתו עליהם גם כן ואין מעיד עליהם. (חידושי אגדות קידושין ע ב)
DEEEEP KABBALAAAAAAAAAA!!!!
We celebrate Pesach with our FAMILIES.
דַּבְּרוּ אֶל כָּל עֲדַת יִשְׂרָאֵל לֵאמֹר בֶּעָשֹׂר לַחֹדֶשׁ הַזֶּה וְיִקְחוּ לָהֶם אִישׁ שֶׂה לְבֵית אָבֹת שֶׂה לַבָּיִת.
We eat the Korban Pesach with our FAMILIES!!!
TRUE FREEDOM is having solid, pure families. Not unbridled expressions of our most base desires. The latter is actually a type of slavery. Slavery to one's passions. This slavery compels modern man [and woman] to demand payment for his/her illicit desires.
We BARUCH HASHEM know better.
MUSSAR HASKEL: Let us work hard Pesach and ALL YEAR ROUND in solidifying our familial relationships.
Monday, March 22, 2021
Pictures
Bilvavi
People often love to get their pictures taken. Whenever people make a family occasion or whenever they go away on trips, people usually take pictures of themselves.
Why do people want pictures of themselves? It is because people want to be remembered…and why do people indeed want to be remembered?
The deep reason behind this is because people identify themselves as mainly being a body and not a soul. If people would identify themselves as being a soul, why do they need their body to be remembered in a picture? It is only because people place their main value on their body, and thus they want their body to always be remembered…
When a person identifies himself as his body, he wants his physical appearance to be remembered, because he thinks, “This is how I look.” But when a person knows that he is his thoughts, he considers his body only to be a garment on top of his essence. When a person is very concerned about his ego, it is really because he identifies himself as being a physical existence. He thinks that his body is who he is; he fears death because it’s very scary that his body will disappear after he dies, and he therefore wants very much to be remembered in a picture. But if a person knows what his essence is, he knows that a picture of him is not really his picture, because his physical appearance isn’t himself. He knows that he doesn’t ever die, because the soul is eternal and does not die. Chazal state that “the righteous are called being alive even after they die.” This is because great people don’t view themselves with a body attitude, but from a soul attitude. A more inner kind of person, when he sees a picture of himself, is able to say, “This isn’t me. It might be a garment of who I am, but it’s not who I am.” He differentiates between his physical appearance and his essence.
שלא עשני ....
Why am I so happy to be Jewish?
For a TRILLION reasons.
Here is one: If I were a גוי, I would not have a shyla how to fulfill the mitzva of "shaleshudes" this coming Shabbos!!!
EXCITING!
Who Are Jews?
People who walk through the ages - with the Sages - in the pages.
A black Baptist Minister
Tefilla #185: Mi Yaaleh Bi-har Hashem
It doesn't say מי יעלה על ההר implying that one can actually reach the top of the mountain. There is no such thing. The mountain, the climb towards Hashem is endless. מי יעלה בהר השם - Keep climbing. Don't stop!!😊
[Rav Charlap ztz"l]
Tefilla #184: Ask The Grave????
The word for grave is "שאול" [as in העלית משאול נפשי] - the same as "ask. What is the connection?
A בור is an ignoramous [אבות - אין בור ירא חטא]. What is the difference between a בור and an עם הארץ?
What is the connection between the בור-person and the בור-pit and the בור-field [an unplanted field].
What is the difference between העלית מן שאול נפשי [you raised my soul from the grave] and חייתני מיורדי בור [you gave me life from falling into the pit]? It seems like it is saying the same thing twice??!
Does Hashem REALLY notice LITTLE ME when there are billons of other human beings besides me - not to to mention all of the animals and plant life??!!!!!!!!!
Good Advice
A basic step for giving better advice: Instead of just saying “Here’s what’s helped me,” try asking “What’s helped you before?”
Reflecting helps people crystallize lessons from their own past resilience—and gain confidence in their ability to overcome current adversity.
It empowers others instead of making them feel helpless.
Sunday, March 21, 2021
LISTEN AND LIVE!!!
The Distinction Between "Ratzon" In Kinyanim And "Ratzon" In Issurim
The Distinction Between "Ratzon" In Kinyanim And "Ratzon" In Issurim - Part 2
Rambam Yesodei HaTorah 5-4/6: Gidrei Pikuach Nefesh And Ones
Can There Be Yeush If The Object Is In One's Own Possession?
Three Resolutions To The Contradiction Between Yesodei HaTorah 5-4 And 5-6
Saturday, March 20, 2021
Keeping Perspective/ Who Is A Cynic?
A very chashuve Yid ["chashuve" b/c he gave a lot of tzdaka] was recently niftar. A few months before his death, he put his home up for sale.
Asking price: 65 million dollars [!!!!!!!!!! - not a typo]. I don't know if he managed to sell it before he passed away although I am sure that he didn't enjoy the money [nor did he need it...].
I really wanted to see what this house looked like [just in case the Ribbono Shel Oilam decides to gift me - לי הכסף ולי הזהב נאום השם!]. So I found some pictures.
WWWWOOWWWWW!
Like, Gan Eden - w/ a swimming pool!
Now his home is a small, narrow coffin beneath the ground [not that he would enjoy a luxurious coffin more].
I was struck by how shattered his family members seemed. I'm thinking - what's bothering you so much?? You are now among the richest people on the planet [he didn't leave ME anything so I assume they they inherited him]. There is NOTHING you can't buy???!!
Answer: Having a father or husband or grandfather is worth more than all the money in the world. I mean - If you have a living father and were offered by the Satan, one hundred million dollars [in cash] to take his soul in exchange, would you go for it?? Not if you are a normal human being.
I am reminded of the line of Oscar Wilde that a cynic is someone who knows the price of everything but the value of nothing.
I was on one hand profoundly saddened. On the other - it gave me chizzuk to keep the bigger things in mind. This is a very short stay and that cliche that "you can't take it with you" happens to be true.
והחי יתן אל לבו.
Thursday, March 18, 2021
Cleaning For Pesach
Preparing for Pesach is Part of our Avodas Hashem
In whatever time or situation we are in, we should always be aware that it is an inseparable part of our avodas Hashem. It doesn’t matter if it is something that has to do with ruchniyus (spirituality) or not or if it is something more mundane. Wherever we are, whatever the situation, it is somehow part of our avodas Hashem.
We must wonder in every situation: how is a Jew supposed to go about this?
In these weeks, the frum world, who keep Torah and mitzvos, is very careful to clean the house scrupulously from any trace of chametz. We have a commandment in the Torah to make sure that we do not see or find any chametz in our house; but this mitzvah has much to it which seemingly has nothing to do with Pesach.
Upon reflection, we will be able to see how preparing for Pesach is part of our avodas Hashem, and how through it we can bring ourselves to be closer to Hashem.
“Melumadah” – Acting By Rote
There is a simple point that we must all know and be aware of. This simple point is that we can find Hashem in anything – without exception!
1) When a person begins to clean his house for Pesach, he first has to get rid of the “melumadah” – the tendency to do things by rote. We are not simply cleaning out the house for Pesach “because we have to clean.” Why are you cleaning for Pesach? Because that’s what you did last year and the year before it?! That is not the reason.
2) We all know that to clean the house for Pesach is a mitzvah of the Torah, but what are our thoughts as we do this? If a person doesn’t stop to think, he is only bothered by questions such as: What is the best way to clean the house? What needs to cleaned, and how much? The whole relationship with Hashem is lost with all these questions.
So first, we must get rid of our tendency to just do things without thinking. We must realize that preparing for Pesach is purely avodas Hashem. After we know this we can begin to know how it is avodas Hashem, but the first step is this: don’t just do it like a robot. Just like we understand that learning and davening is avodas Hashem, so must we be aware that preparing for Pesach is avodas Hashem.
If a person feels that cleaning the house for Pesach is not part of avodas Hashem, we can almost tell him that he is forbidden to do it! The Chovos HeLevovos writes that there is no such thing as a gray area; it’s either forbidden or permissible. If it’s not a mitzvah, then it’s wrong to do.
We will try to explain how cleaning for Pesach can be avodas Hashem, in a way how everyone will be able to enter the Yom Tov amidst avodas Hashem, not amidst stress.
Preparing For Pesach Is Part Of Our Avodas Hashem
Each time period we are experiencing in the Jewish calendar brings with it a particular, unique role in our avodas Hashem. Some avodah may seem more mundane or physical and some may be more overtly spiritual. But it is all somehow part of our avodas Hashem of this particular time period. In order to enhance our avodah, we should inquire as to the underlying spiritual component behind every physical avodah.
For instance, in the weeks leading up to Pesach, a Jew is very careful to clean the house scrupulously and to get rid of every trace of chametz. Though the Torah commands us to make sure that we do not see or find any chametz in our homes, at first glance this may seem to be just like ‘spring cleaning’ and nothing to do with Pesach. Only when we reflect on the underlying spiritual aspect of our cleaning can we learn how the physical action of this can bring us closer to Hashem.
“Melumadah” --Acting By Rote
We must believe without a doubt that we can find Hashem in anything – without exception! Unfortunately, one of the biggest barriers to experiencing this truth is the practice of carrying out each physical activity “melumadah” – by rote. This risk is especially high in our Pesach preparations. For instance, we may start to clean our houses in preparation for Pesach simply “because we have to” or “because we do it every year.” If this is our sole motivation and intention, we are essentially doing the mitzvah by rote. In turn, this form of cleaning prevents us from elevating our actions by connecting to Hashem through the physical, mundane action.
Yet, it is not enough simply to be consciously aware that we are cleaning the house for Pesach just because it is a mitzvah of the Torah. We must also consider what our thoughts are as we do this? If we fail to stop and contemplate the true kavanah /intention behind our actions, we may still be at risk of focusing only on physical questions such as "What is the best way to clean the house?" or “What needs to cleaned, and how much?” In doing so, we will lose this precious opportunity to increase our relationship with Hashem in the process.
Thus, the first step is to be conscious of the tendency and try to avoid carrying out our actions by rote. We must realize that a fundamental part of preparing for Pesach is our avodas Hashem and our connecting to Him through the physical actions. Only after we put thought into our actions and avoid acting by rote can we then figure out how we can enhance our avodas Hashem through this practice of cleaning. We must realize that cleaning and preparing for Pesach is avodas Hashem in the same way that davening and learning Torah is.An additional benefit of this approach is that by understanding that cleaning for Pesach can be avodas Hashem, we can maximize our potential for viewing the Yom Tov with an elevated positive mindset, and reduce our stressover the physical status of our cleaning tasks.
Mistaken Intentions Behind Cleaning The House For Pesach
Some people do not have any intention at all when they clean for Pesach, and just do their Pesach cleaning by rote. Others may have intentions in doing it which are not linked to Hashem and His mitzvos at all. Some people may clean because they feel bad standing around and watching everyone else do all the work. In this sense, they are acting for the sake of chesed.
Another possible underlying reason for cleaning at Pesach time could be that we naturally crave cleanliness and thus seize this opportunity at this time of the year to “spring-clean” the house. Hashem created each person with different levels of tolerance for mess. Those that have a lower tolerance for dirt may simply be using this time period to exercise their natural born tendency to clean.
Another possible underlying drive for a person’s pre-Pesach clean-up may be their desire for orderliness. During the rest of the year people may be very busy so they set aside this time before Pesach to arrange everything in their house. (Note that this is not the same thing as a desire for cleanliness).
How can we alter the above underlying reasons, so that our intentions will elevate our Pesach cleaning? Obviously, those who are simply on ‘auto pilot’ and clean the house robotically, must try to put more thought into their cleaning and remember that it is ultimately done in order to find chametz as Hashem commanded. However, even those who clean the house with the underlying awareness that it is a mitzvah can put more thought into their physical actions.
A practical suggestion may be that before one begins to clean the house, one can talk to Hashem and say, “Ribono shel olam, for what purpose am I going to clean my house? I have other things to do, I could be learning or relaxing. The reason why I am going to clean my house now is because You, the Ribono shel Olam, commanded me that the house be free of chametz. Since I want to give You a nachas ruach, I will exert myself now to clean my house.” One should spend at least a few minutes reminding oneself as to the real reason why one is doing what one is doing. Another alternative is to think Torah thoughts and thus learn Torah in one’s mind as one cleans.
Such intellectual exercises are not geared or limited to people who are on a very high level and always have d’veykus in Hashem wherever they are. Rather, this practice can be something very basic.
For instance, those who clean the house because they want to do a chessed for others can contemplate their actions first. They can speak to Hashem and say, “Ribono shel olam, Why am I doing this? I don’t personally feel a need to clean my house. The only reason why I am doing it is so that I can do chesed with my family.” They can remind themselves “Ribono shel olam, it is my will to do Your will. One of the pillars of the world is chesed and I am thus doing chesed in order to give You a nachas ruach.”
The advantage of this will be that instead of being purely a physical exercise of cleaning the house, one’s entire day is filled with pure avodas Hashem. In this way, a person is attached to ruchniyus even while being involved in this mundane world.
The Natural Desire For Cleanliness
Most people appreciate cleanliness, to a greater or lesser extent. The soul of each person naturally recoils from messiness to varying degrees. Those who are naturally more attracted to cleanliness may simply clean before Pesach because cleaning up reduces the aversion they have for dirt. This rationale alone appears to have nothing to do with trying to become closer to Hashem. Rather, this type of person is simply trying to save his soul from some pain.
In order for this type of person to elevate his cleaning activities before Pesach, one can try to connect one’s physical labor to Hashem by asking: “Why do I like to clean? Did I make myself this way? No. Hashem gave me this nature.” A second step is to ask oneself: “Why did Hashem give me such a nature? What is the purpose of wanting cleanliness, and how do I use this natural desire ? What are the pros and cons of it?” This process of contemplation can help one bring Hashem into one’s mundane, physical act of cleaning and thereby enhance the relationship.
What Is The Root Of Our Desire For Cleanliness?
Cleanliness/nekiyus is one of the ten steps in the ladder of avodas Hashem as described by the sage Rabbi Pinchos ben Yair, which is the basis of sefer Mesillas Yesharim. In spiritual terms, the concept of cleanliness exists in order for us to cleanse ourselves from sin, since sin sullies our soul. Since every power in the soul manifests itself somehow in our body, our physical need for cleanliness represents the soul’s yearning to be free of sin.
The truth is that the more a person grows spiritually, the more he increases his need for cleanliness. Some people are very clean in their soul [making sure to purify their character and keep away from sin], and in others this nature of cleanliess is expressed as being very particular about physical cleanliness (in addition to their need for spiritual cleanliness). The point is that the more a person purifies himself, the more of a need he has for cleanliness and the purer his soul becomes.
The root of our desire for physical cleanliness comes from an inner desire to be purified spiritually. However, many people mistakenly only focus on the physical aspect of it and fail to focus on the spiritual ‘mess’ their soul is in. Knowing this underlying cause of our desire for physical cleanliness can help us focus on our real avodah: our soul’s need for cleanliness and purity.
The Importance Of Orderliness
Just like a person has a natural need for cleanliness which stems from Hashem embedding in our souls a desire for purity, so did Hashem instill in our souls a natural desire for orderliness. Some people have more of a need to be organized than others, but all people have a need to get things organized.
Often, we may simply assume that this is a physical trait alone, and hence use our desire for organization in order to cater to our body’s physical needs, such as the need to look very put together and organized.
A person whose cleaning stems from a desire for orderliness must first recognize that some people were born with a need for orderliness. This need is a characteristic from Hashem and it is a way to serve Hashem.
Then, one can examine and contemplate true underlying soul-based reasons for one’s desire. Physical orderliness can stem from a need of our soul to also be orderly. The more orderly a person is, the more one may systematically be able to build and work on one’s avodas Hashem. In this way, this need for orderliness can be used as a way to connect to the Creator.
In order for our soul to get orderliness in spiritual matters, a person needs to first make sure he’s neat when it comes to his physical being. It is well-known that when a tzaddik would look for a prospective match for his daughter, he would inspect the boy’s room and see if he’s neat. When a person has no sense of orderliness when it comes to the physical, it is a sign that he is spiritually messy as well. Thus, some people who are not naturally bothered by disorder may do well to not only realize that they need to tend to the ‘order’ in their soul but also to awaken a desire to have orderliness.
Days That Provide Opportunity To Grow
One may wonder why Hashem commanded us to do something so physical and mundane in order to prepare for such a spiritual festival such as Pesach. Doesn’t this hard physical labor seem contradictory to our opportunity to grow spiritually?
However, we must remember that Hashem knows best how we can serve Him. Since Hashem commanded us to clean and organize the house, then this is surely the best way for us to acquire our maximum, precious spiritual growth as well.
In whatever situation we encounter, we should always seek out the potentially higher level we can achieve. Often, the more confusing and seemingly pointless a situation appears, the more greatness lies in it when we uncover it. We can enhance our spiritual growth at this time by remembering that our physical cleanliness and orderliness can represent a spiritual cleanliness and orderliness. Therefore, there is a precious gain contained here, with regards to avodas Hashem. The yetzer hora may seek to steal this lofty level away by turning our physical cleaning into merely mundane actions, bereft of all spiritual connection to Hashem.
Another way to enhance our avodas Hashem is to simply bring Hashem into all our physical labor. We should remember that He commanded us to clean and this is the best thing for our souls too.
As a rule, everything we do can be a form of avodas Hashem. If we spend these days before Pesach simply doing rote, mechanical, physical actions without elevating and connecting our behavior to Hashem, then even though we may have a clean house free of chametz, we have missed a precious chance to connect to Hashem. Though we exert our bodies to prepare for Pesach, we really need to become aware of the inner depth in what we are doing. It is really a preparation of our soul for the coming days. By preparing for Pesach in the right way, a person comes into Yom Tov the way he should, rather than simply exhausted and stressed out from all the physical, meaningless labor. In this way, the days preceding days of Pesach can be days of ruchniyus through the mundane, special days of closeness to Hashem.
In Conclusion
Hashem should help us that we prepare properly for Pesach with a sincere desire to give pleasure to our Creator and fulfill His will. May each of us merit increasing our true closeness and love of Hashem in these days preceding Pesach.
Bilvavi
A Goyishe Disease!!
Interesting.
I have seen numerous frum events and smachot on line over the last few months [even pre-Pfizer] where just about the only masks were worn by the non-Jewish workers. Like at weddings everybody is on top of each other, sweating and dancing, completely ignoring the imperative of every doctor everywhere in the world [except for anti-semitic doctors who encourage Jews to do this].
Why would this be? Is there some sort of Halacha forbidding one from wearing a mask? That can't be b/c Moshe Rabbeinu himself wore a mask [Shmos 34-33]! Not a Fauci-dike mask but a mask nonetheless.
The only explanation I have is that only Goyim get Covid. [Maybe the real name of the virus is Goy-vid or Goy-rona].
I have a few questions on this theory but I will stick with it until I find a different explanation.
"כל המחלה אשר שמתי על ארץ מצרים לא אשים עליך כי אני השם רופאך"
Self Respect
Being selective about how you spend your time and who you spend your time with is a sign of self-respect.
Listen And Live!!!!
What Is Emunah And How Does It Relate To Your Mother?
The Meaning Of Issru Chag - Pedagogical Secret: It's OK Sometimes Not To Understand!
Is Dibbur Necessary For Kiddushin?
The Kabbalistic Secret Of The Relationship Between The 15th And 21st Of Nissan
Sefer Torah Ohr: D"H Bietzem Hayom Hazeh - The Names of Hashem
Machatzis HaShekel In Avodas Hashem - Part 3
The Secret Of Moshe Rabbeinu's Unique Level Of Prophecy
Takanos Of The Beis Din HaGadol And Gedolim Of The Later Generations
Takanos Of The Beis Din HaGadol And Gedolim Of The Later Generations - Part 2
Takanos Of The Beis Din HaGadol And Gedolim Of The Later Generations - Part 3
Wednesday, March 17, 2021
How Should One Write Divrei Torah?
Some prefer modern Hebrew. Others go with the old fashioned Rabbinic Hebrew. Others intermingle between the two [that is how I preferred to write back when I used to write]. What are the advantages and disadvantages of each approach?
כתיבת דברי תורה בסגנון הולם הִנָה בדורנו בבחינת עבודה קשה שבמקדש. בתקופה שבה הייתה לשון הקודש מיועדת כמעט בלעדית לדברים שבקדושה, המחיצה בין שפת הרחוב לשפת בית המדרש הייתה ברורה, וכתיבת מילי דאורייתא בלישנא דרבנן הייתה מובנת מאליה. אך עם תחיית השפה העברית וחדירתה לכל מרחבי החיים, נוצר מצב חדש לחלוטין. בפני תלמיד חכם בן זמננו קיימת קשת רחבה של דרכי התבטאות (שהן, בחלקן, אף דרכי חשיבה), השאובות מעולמות שונים - בית המדרש, האקדמיה, הרחוב - שכולן שייכות ללשון הקודש, ברמה זו או אחרת, וכולן מעורות בהווי שאותו תלמיד חכם מושרש בו. הבחירה בגוון מסוים או שילוב כמה גוונים להרצאה ולליבון הוויות דאביי ורבא הפכה להיות אפשרות של ממש, והיא מחייבת מודעות ותשומת לב. ישנם המתעלמים, ואפילו השואפים להתעלם, מהתפתחות הלשון, והממשיכים לכתוב חידושי תורה ב'עברית הרבנית' המקובלת. יתרונות גישה זו - בעיקר, הרצף עם מסורת הדורות והזיקה לבית היוצר של דברים שבקדושה ברורים; אך כמו כן, החסרונות. לא כל אחד מסוגל לכך, ולא כל אחד רוצה בכך. פרט לסלידה מן המליצה מורגשת אצל רבים נימה של מלאכותיות בהצבת מחיצות בין השפה שבה אני מתייחס לדברי תורה לבין זו שבה אני נעזר בכל תחום אחר. ומעבר למישור האישי, הזיקה לעבר נקנית, במידה מסוימת, על ידי נתק מסוים מההווה ומן העתיד - שכן חדירת השפה הכללית לעולמם של ספרי הלכה (רבים היו משתמשים כאן בביטוי "הספרות התורנית", אך זה בדיוק ממחיש את הבעיה שלנו. מה ידעו ה'אבני נזר' וה'בן איש חי' על "ספרות תורנית", וכיצד היו מתייחסים לביטוי?) היא תהליך המתעצם לנגד עינינו ופוק חזי מאי עמא דבר. ישנם, מאידך גיסא, הנסחפים - אם שלא מדעתם, ואם מרצונם - בזרם המילולי הכללי, ומאמצים את העברית המודרנית על קרבה ועל כרעיה ככלי להבעת דברי תורה. גם לדרך זו יתרונות ברורים - הן הקשר לדור לדורשיו ולקוראיו, והן כמה מאפיינים של סגנון זה: בהירות, סדר, דיוק, וכו'. אך גם לכיוון זה מחיר ברור - ואפילו מסוכן. הכתיבה המסודרת, ולעתים אף "מכופתרת"; ההתבטאות הצלולה והצרופה; המינוח המדעי והמשפטי למחצה לשליש ולרביע - כל אלה נוטים לינוק מאווירה אקדמית ולהשרותה. הם מאפיינים עולם שבו אובייקטיביות אינטלקטואלית הכרוכה בשמירת מרחק מסוים נערצת כערך עליון; ויש בהם כדי להפיג את הלהט היוקד של בית המדרש ואת חרדת הקודש של גישה לדבר ה' בדחילו ורחימו.
Rav Yisroel Perkowski ztz"l
Rabbi Marvin Schick
In the early 1950s, about fifty-five years ago, a group of teenagers came together in what was known as the Zeirei Agudath Israel of Borough Park, the youth division of the local Agudah that had recently relocated to a two-story building on Fourteenth Avenue and 46th Street. The Agudah davened on the first floor and the Zeirei on the second floor. Nearly all of us were children of immigrants who were hard working parents and though some of us were born in pre-Holocaust Europe, we were essentially boys who liked baseball and other things American. For high school we went by subway to yeshivas in other neighborhoods.
The teens went by quickly and before long there were marriages and additional members, with the minyan growing to about seventy families and undergoing several name changes, including the "Young Agudah" and several locations, settling finally on a modest facility on Sixteenth Avenue where we remain. Our homes were also modest and that, too, remains. Before long, we came to realize that we needed a Rabbi, a man who would inspire and teach and elevate our families. At the time, yeshiva-world shuls, including those of the Agudah, generally functioned without a rabbi. We reached out to Rabbi Yisroel Perkowski, a scholar and refugee who had studied at the renowned Mir Yeshiva in Poland before the Holocaust. He had davened with us during our Zeirei days, before moving to East New York where he was a Rosh Yeshiva or dean at Beth Hatalmud, a top level talmudic seminary that for many years has been located in Bensonhurst. Rabbi Perkowski accepted our request, maintaining his important role at Beth Hatalmud.
Our choice was fortuitous. For about forty-five years our minyan was blessed by a man who forged with us and our families a powerful bond of love, respect and admiration. We responded eagerly to his teachings, his warmth and his ways. In truth, he came to a group that possessed the potential to accept what he offered us. As boys, we were a special group. Rabbi Aharon Kotler, the transcendent Orthodox Jewish leader in the American Jewish experience and the founder of the great yeshiva in Lakewood, New Jersey, had davened with us when he was in Borough Park for Shabbos. Each year, he and Rabbi Moshe Sherer made an appeal for Torah Schools for Israel, the network of religious schools that he established in Israel, and the fellows pledged $20,000 or more each year, an extraordinary sum for the 1950s and for a group that was so young.
Under our Rav's guidance, the minyan reached new heights in Torah study, communal service and charitable giving. It is not easy to describe his leadership style because it was enveloped in humility. There is an esoteric religious Jewish theological concept called "Hester Panim," which means that G-D's glory is hidden from us. In perhaps an allegorical sense, this can be understood as referring to how the glory of our religious life is hidden from view. We are ensnared by celebrityship, by what is trumpeted and noisy. We fail to see the grandeur and sanctity of the typical religious Jewish home where modesty and Torah observance and study are embedded, where despite the struggle to make ends meet, there is an abundance of caring about others. What was hidden in the life of our Rav was his wisdom and his stature as a scholar. Even in the yeshiva world, he was not a celebrity.
He would have it no other way. I know but one photograph of him prior to his coming to the United States. It is of the study hall of the Mir Yeshiva which had miraculously found refuge in Shanghai during the dark years of the Holocaust. Our Rav is seated near the rear and all the way on the side. He abhorred being front and center anywhere. About twenty years ago, a delegation of eminent rabbis came to ask that he become a member of the Moetzes Gedolei Hatorah, Agudath Israel's prestigious Council of Torah Sages. They did not have a chance.
As much as his skin, humility was a part of his essence and no more than his skin could it be separated from him. He was entirely happy with what G-D had given him, including a wife of comparable sanctity and seven children. Even in his 90s, he would with a loving smile admonish those who attempted to help him, as when he was putting on his coat. He knew who he was and what he wanted to do. He had opinions and they were always expressed softly, as when he admonished us not to talk during davening, a lesson that we learned well. His speeches were masterly, invariably lasting fewer than ten minutes. He always began in a very low voice, barely above a whisper, for he was doubtful of the propriety of his speaking in a sanctified place.
I never heard him speak a word of English, yet he well understood the world in which we live. As the bond with him became as strong as steel, we knew that we were blessed with a rare treasure. This was a perfect relationship. When guests davened with us, they sensed our pride, but we never boasted because that would be unbecoming.
Over the years, our small group has become smaller. Some moved away and some passed away. Few of our children live in Borough Park because housing is expensive and maybe also because of the American Jewish imperative, "Thou shalt not live near your parents." On a typical Shabbos, the shul is half or more empty. We have now suffered our greatest loss, with the passing during the intermediate days of Sukkos, of our beloved Rav. He was buried twenty-two hours later in Israel and in accordance with his will, there will be no eulogies. If these lines are a violation of his wishes, it is the first time that I have transgressed against his instructions.
The pain of his loss will endure. The boys of the Zeirei are in their 70s and nearly all are grandfathers. More than a few are great-grandfathers. Our ranks will continue to diminish and perhaps one day this remarkable minyan will be no more. Whatever the future brings, we know that we were blessed.
In the early 1950s, about fifty-five years ago, a group of teenagers came together in what was known as the Zeirei Agudath Israel of Borough Park, the youth division of the local Agudah that had recently relocated to a two-story building on Fourteenth Avenue and 46th Street. The Agudah davened on the first floor and the Zeirei on the second floor. Nearly all of us were children of immigrants who were hard working parents and though some of us were born in pre-Holocaust Europe, we were essentially boys who liked baseball and other things American. For high school we went by subway to yeshivas in other neighborhoods.
The teens went by quickly and before long there were marriages and additional members, with the minyan growing to about seventy families and undergoing several name changes, including the "Young Agudah" and several locations, settling finally on a modest facility on Sixteenth Avenue where we remain. Our homes were also modest and that, too, remains. Before long, we came to realize that we needed a Rabbi, a man who would inspire and teach and elevate our families. At the time, yeshiva-world shuls, including those of the Agudah, generally functioned without a rabbi. We reached out to Rabbi Yisroel Perkowski, a scholar and refugee who had studied at the renowned Mir Yeshiva in Poland before the Holocaust. He had davened with us during our Zeirei days, before moving to East New York where he was a Rosh Yeshiva or dean at Beth Hatalmud, a top level talmudic seminary that for many years has been located in Bensonhurst. Rabbi Perkowski accepted our request, maintaining his important role at Beth Hatalmud.
Our choice was fortuitous. For about forty-five years our minyan was blessed by a man who forged with us and our families a powerful bond of love, respect and admiration. We responded eagerly to his teachings, his warmth and his ways. In truth, he came to a group that possessed the potential to accept what he offered us. As boys, we were a special group. Rabbi Aharon Kotler, the transcendent Orthodox Jewish leader in the American Jewish experience and the founder of the great yeshiva in Lakewood, New Jersey, had davened with us when he was in Borough Park for Shabbos. Each year, he and Rabbi Moshe Sherer made an appeal for Torah Schools for Israel, the network of religious schools that he established in Israel, and the fellows pledged $20,000 or more each year, an extraordinary sum for the 1950s and for a group that was so young.
Under our Rav's guidance, the minyan reached new heights in Torah study, communal service and charitable giving. It is not easy to describe his leadership style because it was enveloped in humility. There is an esoteric religious Jewish theological concept called "Hester Panim," which means that G-D's glory is hidden from us. In perhaps an allegorical sense, this can be understood as referring to how the glory of our religious life is hidden from view. We are ensnared by celebrityship, by what is trumpeted and noisy. We fail to see the grandeur and sanctity of the typical religious Jewish home where modesty and Torah observance and study are embedded, where despite the struggle to make ends meet, there is an abundance of caring about others. What was hidden in the life of our Rav was his wisdom and his stature as a scholar. Even in the yeshiva world, he was not a celebrity.
He would have it no other way. I know but one photograph of him prior to his coming to the United States. It is of the study hall of the Mir Yeshiva which had miraculously found refuge in Shanghai during the dark years of the Holocaust. Our Rav is seated near the rear and all the way on the side. He abhorred being front and center anywhere. About twenty years ago, a delegation of eminent rabbis came to ask that he become a member of the Moetzes Gedolei Hatorah, Agudath Israel's prestigious Council of Torah Sages. They did not have a chance.
As much as his skin, humility was a part of his essence and no more than his skin could it be separated from him. He was entirely happy with what G-D had given him, including a wife of comparable sanctity and seven children. Even in his 90s, he would with a loving smile admonish those who attempted to help him, as when he was putting on his coat. He knew who he was and what he wanted to do. He had opinions and they were always expressed softly, as when he admonished us not to talk during davening, a lesson that we learned well. His speeches were masterly, invariably lasting fewer than ten minutes. He always began in a very low voice, barely above a whisper, for he was doubtful of the propriety of his speaking in a sanctified place.
I never heard him speak a word of English, yet he well understood the world in which we live. As the bond with him became as strong as steel, we knew that we were blessed with a rare treasure. This was a perfect relationship. When guests davened with us, they sensed our pride, but we never boasted because that would be unbecoming.
Over the years, our small group has become smaller. Some moved away and some passed away. Few of our children live in Borough Park because housing is expensive and maybe also because of the American Jewish imperative, "Thou shalt not live near your parents." On a typical Shabbos, the shul is half or more empty. We have now suffered our greatest loss, with the passing during the intermediate days of Sukkos, of our beloved Rav. He was buried twenty-two hours later in Israel and in accordance with his will, there will be no eulogies. If these lines are a violation of his wishes, it is the first time that I have transgressed against his instructions.
The pain of his loss will endure. The boys of the Zeirei are in their 70s and nearly all are grandfathers. More than a few are great-grandfathers. Our ranks will continue to diminish and perhaps one day this remarkable minyan will be no more. Whatever the future brings, we know that we were blessed.
Charles Barkley And Helping Jews Make Pesach
Former NBA star Charles Barkley and now commentator recently revealed on national TV that he is dieting b/c his daughter Christiana is marrying a Jewish boy ["Ilya Hoffman"] and he heard that Jews carry around the father of the bride in a chair [limyseh - sometimes yes and sometimes no] so he wants to be slim and thus easier to lift.
He also revealed that he told his daughter that she has a choice - Either a fancy expensive wedding and small wedding gift or a more simple wedding and a generou$$$$$ wedding gift. She chose the latter.
A few comments.
1] About 70 percent of our people are marrying out. We should be aware and feel the pain of losing so many of our people. And those who can do something about it - should!!
2] The "Chosson's" friends and family will keep the "Jewish custom" to lift up the father of the "Kallah" but the Chosson won't keep the no less important Jewish custom to marry a Jewish girl. How utterly sad.
3] I was wondering how much money Charlie has that compelled him to skimp either on the wedding or the gift.
Chuck is worth an estimated 50 MILLION DOLLARSSSSSS!! Throwing a ball in a net while wearing undergarments and also talking about whether the ball went into the net can be PROFITABLE endeavors. [I have done a lot of both in my life and nobody wants to give ME a PENNY!! Anti-Semitism!!!].
So why can't he give his only child the wedding of her dreams and ALSO give her a generous gift??? Why either-or???
My attempts to contact Chaim [maybe he will convert and change his name] were unsuccessful. So if you see him - ask him. But POLITELY. We don't wanna get him MAAAAAADDDDD.
4] We Jews might skimp when it comes to our own needs but not when it comes to the needs of others. Or so it should be.
Rambam [Yom Tov 6-18]:
When a person eats and drinks [in celebration of a holiday], he is obligated to feed converts, orphans, widows, and others who are destitute and poor. In contrast, a person who locks the gates of his courtyard and eats and drinks with his children and his wife, without feeding the poor and the embittered, is [not indulging in] rejoicing associated with a mitzvah, but rather the rejoicing of his gut.
And with regard to such a person [the verse, Hoshea 9:4] is applied: "Their sacrifices will be like the bread of mourners, all that partake thereof shall become impure, for they [kept] their bread for themselves alone." This happiness is a disgrace for them, as [implied by Malachi 2:3]: "I will spread dung on your faces, the dung of your festival celebrations."
We are living in the Covid era. There are PLLEEEENNNTTTYYYY of Yiddin who don't have for Pesach.
Implementing Ideas
"You don't make progress by standing on the sidelines, whimpering and complaining. You make progress by implementing ideas."
– Shirley Chisholm (1924 - 2005), American politician, educator and author; first African American woman elected to the US Congress (1968)
Tuesday, March 16, 2021
Rights Or Obligations?
ההלכה בענייני חברה מבוססת פחות על זכויותיו של האדם ויותר על חובותיו. מכאן, שהתפישה הרווחת במערב, שדוגלת בעיקר בזכויותיו של הפרט, עומדת בשורשיה בניגוד לגישת היהדות. אין זאת אומרת שהיהדות שוללת זכויות מסוימות של האדם, אבל גישתה מבוססת בעיקרה על הדגשת חובותיו של אדם לזולתו, ולא על זכויותיו. האדם נדרש לפעול כמצווה, וזהו המוקד העיקרי בהשקפת עולמו של כל יהודי.
מִצְוָה אין פירושה זכויות. היא אינה נותנת. היא רק דורשת, ודורשת הרבה. קודם לכל היא דורשת מעמד בסיסי של האדם כלפי הקב"ה. לאחר מכן יש לה דרישות ספציפיות בכל תחום ותחום שמבחינה מעשית אינן מוליכות לכיוון של התפשטות אלא דווקא לצמצום, לא לשתלטנות אלא לריסון.
A manual for hard times
1) Be kind to every stranger, especially those that seem the most stressed.
2) Actively practice gratitude.
3) Deploy optimism.
4) Check-out of social media, and check-in with family.
5) Remember, If it costs you your mental health, it's too expensive.
Reflections On Our Tzuras Hadibbur [Mode Of Speech]
I saw the following thought-provoking article. He is against the way frum Jews speak. He thinks we should stop using Hebrew, Aramaic and Yiddish words ["speaking Yeshivish"] and speak proper English. Why? B/c non-frum Jews don't know what we are talking about and it turns them away.
Li-myseh - point well taken!!! A very chashuveh nekuda to be misboinen about.
But he is missing some fundamental points.
1] Research has shown that the language one speaks and the words one uses has a profound psychological effect on himself and others. [There is a lot available on the Internet that discusses this]. Speaking our internal jargon makes us more Jewish whether we are aware of this or not.
2] It serves to separate us from general society which we want to do to a certain extent. That is why there was such a battle [for example] in the earlier part of the 1900's in Israel that frum schools should remain in Yiddish and not the Zionistic secular modern parlance. To this day in many of the major yeshivos, the shiurim are in Yiddish, even though the boys understand English or Hebrew much better. Chazal say that in the merit of preserving our language, we were redeemed from Egypt. Today, our language is yeshivish.....
3] It is VERY HARD to find translations for a lot of words. Translate "mechutan". Say in English: "It is mutzka and also a serious shyla in the poskim achronim of Borer". "It doesn't matter that the תובע has a migoo b/c the נתבע has a chezkas mammon. And so what that he has a tynas shema!!". "There is a kiddush in shul on Shabbos for Moishe Weinstein's aufruff. I really want to hear the chosson's drasha". "He's a heimishe guy". "A chashuve balabos". Even if you can think of translations a] It loses a lot in translation and b] it is clumsy and a pain. It is soooooo much easier to just say terms in their original.
4] Where do we draw the line? Should we stop saying "Shabbos" and wish each other a "Good Sabbath". Or "Where are you eating your third meal?" Sounds really silly. Should we call "Moishes" Moses and "Avrohoms" Abraham?
5] Nobody refrains from davening and keeping Kosher b/c he doesn't understand the way some frum people speak. If someone wants Yiddishkeit ["Judaism"] explained in clear modern English, there are many outlets.
My suggestion: When addressing a person who is not initiated into our unique way of speaking - use only words he/she knows. When I speak to Goyim, that is what I do. I don't say to the Gentile waiter "Is it shayach to get a kezais of Hamotzi before I start the main part of the seuda". When speaking to not yet frum Jews about Torah, one should explain Jewish terms and not take for granted that the person knows what you are talking about.
Anyway - here is a chelek of the maamar with his tynos [:-)].
The summer after our junior year at our pluralistic Jewish high school near Washington, D.C., my stepbrother and I spent two weeks at Yale with 35 or so modern Orthodox peers. The program we attended taught the works of C.S. Lewis and Joseph Soloveitchik, and I was eager, for the first time in my life, to meet serious Orthodox people my age. Which I did. But we had a language problem.
These kids from Teaneck, Long Island, and Boston, learned in subjects Jewish and general, spoke (a mild form of) what sociolinguists call Yeshivish, an Aramaic/Yiddish/Hebrew-infused dialect of English used by many Orthodox Americans. When speaking with me, my new friends were OK—but not great—at using only standard English. And to their credit, they graciously answered questions like, “Dovid, what does al achas kama v’kama mean?” or “What is the Triangle K, and why wouldn’t someone—what’d that guy say—hold by it?” or “Can just anyone bavorn?” But all the same, my decade of Hebrew study, my lifelong attendance at an old-school Conservative synagogue, and my charitable disposition toward Orthodoxy couldn’t thwart the belief that my peers’ very vibrant religion was also downright bizarre. It was a religion I got only in translation.
I was the lonely man of faithlessness, frustrated by an in-speak that kept me out, even though nobody was actually trying to keep me out. After one alienating day I demanded an explanation from one of the program’s faculty, Meir Soloveichik, the noted Orthodox rabbi who leads Congregation Shearith Israel in Manhattan. “Why would you go in for this religion?” I asked. He replied: “Because it’s true.”
Because it’s true. This was something novel, and for somebody not yet Orthodox, something of a problem. The content and form of Soloveichik’s statement—he and the other faculty always spoke to me in 18-karat English—denied that Judaism was esoteric or secret, and that denial invited me to join him and my peers in the community of faith. Performed by my peers, Orthodoxy was very cool but very much not mine— offered in my mother tongue, as Soloveichik did then and after, I could now understand it, and so had to reject or to accept it.
I ended up accepting, but the linguistic stumbling block I had to overcome stops many people from having the choice. Soloveichik is one of the few Orthodox personages nowadays whose speeches and essays about Judaism can be understood by anyone with a good command of standard English. Jonathan Sacks was of course the master in this respect, and he enlightened millions of Jews, and tens of millions of gentiles, about the claims of Judaism. Norman Lamm. Erica Brown, too. The list is short. I haven’t heard more than a dozen sermons in Orthodox synagogues that would qualify (Soloveichik’s aside). Peruse Yeshiva University’s audio archive, and try to find a lecture that a secular Jew with a university but no Jewish education could follow. Orthodox Judaism—which I believe in, practice, and love, and which I think every Jew has an obligation to believe in, practice, and love—has cordoned itself off from 5 million American Jews. And the most potent instrument of this auto-segregation is Yeshivish, the language in which so much Orthodox life is conducted.
Yeshivish is, simply put, “one more of the language varieties Jews have created based on the language of their nation in residence,” writes John McWhorter, the Columbia linguist. Yiddish grew from a Jewish German, Ladino from a Jewish Spanish; Bukharan Jews speak a kind of Jewish Persian. “Languages coming together is a default,” McWhorter writes. Four melded to make Yeshivish: English provides the grammar and much of the vocabulary. Yiddish, the vernacular of most Ashkenazi Jews in Europe, is the largest non-English source of words. Next is Hebrew, the language of sacred Jewish texts, excepting the Talmud, which was composed in Aramaic—the fourth influence—and which is studied by the most conspicuous group of Yeshivish speakers: Yeshiva students (bochrim) and their teachers (rebbeim).
Like Hebrew for Israeli Jews, Yeshivish is both a sacred and a secular language, and its content varies by group and by context. Hasidic enclaves use more Yiddish in their Yeshivish. As a friend of mine points out to me, men as a rule speak with more Aramaic than women, because in many communities women don’t study Talmud. The Teaneck, New Jersey, variant is tamer—more comprehensible to most Americans—than that of Kew Gardens Hills, Queens, which is again milder than what’s spoken in Lakewood, New Jersey. Sometimes the foreignness of Yeshivish manifests in isolated nouns and adjectives: “Sheyfele, behave yourselves, or Tati will give you a patsh,” a mother might admonish her children in a park. Then there’s the ubiquitous “by,” an import from Yiddish (and before that, German) that replaces numerous prepositions in standard English, as in: “I heard by the shmorg that the kallah got her sheitl by Shevy’s. Shpitz!”—or, as we might say, “I heard over hors d’oeuvres that the bride bought her wig at Eliza’s. Very ritzy!” Sometimes the non-English element is thicker. Here is a defense of Donald Trump’s sanity: “M’heicha teisi are you noyteh to say that Trump has a dibbuk? He’s a groyse friend of Klal Yisroel, and his machatunim are frum!” (“Why are you inclined to say that Trump is a lunatic? He’s a great friend of the Jews and his in-laws are observant.”)
And in religious contexts, prepositions and articles and suffixes are often the only signs the speaker knows English. “L’maskanah Raboysai, the Mishneh Torah is takeh mechaleik between stam eidus mukcheshes, which is mevatel the cheftzah shel eidus, and eidim zoymemin, who are tokeif the gavra eidim, mamash the kat!” Roughly speaking, that means, “Gentlemen, in conclusion: Maimonides’ Code distinguishes between conflicting testimonies, which simply cancel each other out, and witnesses who accuse other witnesses of conspiratorial perjury, thus attacking their very credibility as people.”
This is all very interesting for the lexicographically or linguistically minded, and I can recommend to you Chaim Weiser’s Frumspeak, the first dictionary of Yeshivish. But what I want to ask now is whether this is the way things ought to be. Judaism, the religion itself, is a severe dogma and way of life. Its liturgy and texts are in Hebrew, which I myself knew well enough when I became Orthodox but which is foreign to most American Jews. To add on top of this a hybridized communal dialect—well, let me put it this way: If you were trying to make Orthodox Judaism inaccessible, what would you do differently?
Yeshivish doesn’t trouble me for ideological reasons. I don’t have some stodgy, Ivy League devotion to “pure” English, because there is no such thing. Nor do I think Orthodox Jews should be like other Americans—Jewish difference is Jewish strength. And it’s not that I don’t love Hebrew, Aramaic, and Yiddish—I know the first, I read the second, and as for the third, well, I hope she’ll teach me, whoever she is.
No, I’m against Yeshivish because it hinders an urgent task of Orthodox Jews in this country: restoring to the Lord’s covenant our rapidly assimilating brethren. The math is just brutal. According to projections by Edieal Pinker of the Yale School of Management, the Reform and Conservative movements will shrink by a million members over the next 40 years. Those who remain will mostly be older; the younger will be very likely to intermarry. Perhaps the terror of anonymity or perhaps a Jewish catastrophe will awaken millions of Jews who, however they identify, right now simply do not act as though Jewish continuity outranks their pursuit of American happiness. Perhaps. But there is a third option: the largest recruitment effort in Jewish history, commanded and staffed from Orthodox enclaves.
Orthodox Jews have the material resources, the institutional know-how, and above all the love of God and of Torah needed for such a mission. But if we want to reverse American Jewry’s self-mortification, Orthodox Jews will need to scotch their smug pity for liberal Jews—Orthodox folks, please do not pretend not to know what I’m talking about—in favor of evangelical zeal and religious fluency in English, the only language common to American Jews.
Most Americans Jews don’t know a chumra from a kula. HaKadosh Baruch Hu and the Ribbono Shel Olam are as alien to them as sushi was to the shtetl. Avraham Avinu, Sarah Imeinu, Dovid Ha’Melech, Esther HaMalka, the Gra, the Grach, the Rov, the Rav, the Rebbe—these are the heroes of Jewish history, but naming them as I’ve done (rather than as “Abraham,” “Sarah,” etc.) puts that history on a shelf marked “not for you.” Anywhere a non-Orthodox Jew might be listening in—an office, a college dining hall, and many more synagogues than you’d think—is a place where a small change in language can invite someone toward Judaism instead of repelling her from it.
Cultural in-speak does have its functions. And it’s not just cultures—families, friends, and married couples often can’t be fully understood by outsiders. And that’s a good thing. Semiprivate languages express the special regard we have for certain people, the gratitude for our common form of life. The richest goods—marriage, parenthood, friendship, country—cannot exist unless some people are in and others are out. The relationship between man and God is the most particular of all: God is jealous, demanding total fealty from creatures on each of whom He has stamped an unreproducible image of Himself. We do not talk to or about God as we talk about others. To do otherwise is idolatrous. In a similar vein: To sacrifice a Jewish way of talking for a gentile one—we wouldn’t know ourselves.
But let me ask something. Who’s we? I think the proper referent of we is all the Jews. We’re a family. Christians are content to live each among his own countrymen, united by a creed professed in hundreds of local vernaculars. Jews are bound to each other by blood and by faith, each Jew the guarantor of every other. I once asked a Chabad rabbi how the Lubavitcher Rebbe got thousands of couples to go all over the world. This rabbi told me he once heard the Rebbe speaking to a group of these couples about to get on a plane: See that man in the suit with the briefcase and no yarmulke? the Rebbe said. That’s your brother. The woman who doesn’t know her grandmother spoke a gorgeous Yiddish? That’s your sister. Many of our brothers and sisters do not know our words. Most of them will not learn ours unless we first learn theirs. Not to do so, not to speak Jewishly in English, is malign neglect.
But is speaking standard English self-sabotage? If Jewish children talk like gentiles they’ll become more like gentiles, won’t they? Here’s my proposal: communal bilingualism. Not in Yeshivish and in English, but in English and in Hebrew. To our shame do so many Orthodox Jews speak bad Hebrew. Hebrew is the language of Jewish texts and the language of Israel, the world’s largest Jewish community. If American Orthodox Jews want to be Jewish in a Jewish language, Hebrew is it, as a matter of religious obligation and national solidarity. But for those of us who remain in America, we have duties to Jews who, through no fault of their own, were raised far from faith. Besides, as a matter of professional necessity, most Orthodox Jews need to know English anyhow. I’m proposing an expanded vocabulary for the sake of a good, I might say holy, cause.
The summer after our junior year at our pluralistic Jewish high school near Washington, D.C., my stepbrother and I spent two weeks at Yale with 35 or so modern Orthodox peers. The program we attended taught the works of C.S. Lewis and Joseph Soloveitchik, and I was eager, for the first time in my life, to meet serious Orthodox people my age. Which I did. But we had a language problem.
These kids from Teaneck, Long Island, and Boston, learned in subjects Jewish and general, spoke (a mild form of) what sociolinguists call Yeshivish, an Aramaic/Yiddish/Hebrew-infused dialect of English used by many Orthodox Americans. When speaking with me, my new friends were OK—but not great—at using only standard English. And to their credit, they graciously answered questions like, “Dovid, what does al achas kama v’kama mean?” or “What is the Triangle K, and why wouldn’t someone—what’d that guy say—hold by it?” or “Can just anyone bavorn?” But all the same, my decade of Hebrew study, my lifelong attendance at an old-school Conservative synagogue, and my charitable disposition toward Orthodoxy couldn’t thwart the belief that my peers’ very vibrant religion was also downright bizarre. It was a religion I got only in translation.
I was the lonely man of faithlessness, frustrated by an in-speak that kept me out, even though nobody was actually trying to keep me out. After one alienating day I demanded an explanation from one of the program’s faculty, Meir Soloveichik, the noted Orthodox rabbi who leads Congregation Shearith Israel in Manhattan. “Why would you go in for this religion?” I asked. He replied: “Because it’s true.”
Because it’s true. This was something novel, and for somebody not yet Orthodox, something of a problem. The content and form of Soloveichik’s statement—he and the other faculty always spoke to me in 18-karat English—denied that Judaism was esoteric or secret, and that denial invited me to join him and my peers in the community of faith. Performed by my peers, Orthodoxy was very cool but very much not mine— offered in my mother tongue, as Soloveichik did then and after, I could now understand it, and so had to reject or to accept it.
I ended up accepting, but the linguistic stumbling block I had to overcome stops many people from having the choice. Soloveichik is one of the few Orthodox personages nowadays whose speeches and essays about Judaism can be understood by anyone with a good command of standard English. Jonathan Sacks was of course the master in this respect, and he enlightened millions of Jews, and tens of millions of gentiles, about the claims of Judaism. Norman Lamm. Erica Brown, too. The list is short. I haven’t heard more than a dozen sermons in Orthodox synagogues that would qualify (Soloveichik’s aside). Peruse Yeshiva University’s audio archive, and try to find a lecture that a secular Jew with a university but no Jewish education could follow. Orthodox Judaism—which I believe in, practice, and love, and which I think every Jew has an obligation to believe in, practice, and love—has cordoned itself off from 5 million American Jews. And the most potent instrument of this auto-segregation is Yeshivish, the language in which so much Orthodox life is conducted.
Yeshivish is, simply put, “one more of the language varieties Jews have created based on the language of their nation in residence,” writes John McWhorter, the Columbia linguist. Yiddish grew from a Jewish German, Ladino from a Jewish Spanish; Bukharan Jews speak a kind of Jewish Persian. “Languages coming together is a default,” McWhorter writes. Four melded to make Yeshivish: English provides the grammar and much of the vocabulary. Yiddish, the vernacular of most Ashkenazi Jews in Europe, is the largest non-English source of words. Next is Hebrew, the language of sacred Jewish texts, excepting the Talmud, which was composed in Aramaic—the fourth influence—and which is studied by the most conspicuous group of Yeshivish speakers: Yeshiva students (bochrim) and their teachers (rebbeim).
Like Hebrew for Israeli Jews, Yeshivish is both a sacred and a secular language, and its content varies by group and by context. Hasidic enclaves use more Yiddish in their Yeshivish. As a friend of mine points out to me, men as a rule speak with more Aramaic than women, because in many communities women don’t study Talmud. The Teaneck, New Jersey, variant is tamer—more comprehensible to most Americans—than that of Kew Gardens Hills, Queens, which is again milder than what’s spoken in Lakewood, New Jersey. Sometimes the foreignness of Yeshivish manifests in isolated nouns and adjectives: “Sheyfele, behave yourselves, or Tati will give you a patsh,” a mother might admonish her children in a park. Then there’s the ubiquitous “by,” an import from Yiddish (and before that, German) that replaces numerous prepositions in standard English, as in: “I heard by the shmorg that the kallah got her sheitl by Shevy’s. Shpitz!”—or, as we might say, “I heard over hors d’oeuvres that the bride bought her wig at Eliza’s. Very ritzy!” Sometimes the non-English element is thicker. Here is a defense of Donald Trump’s sanity: “M’heicha teisi are you noyteh to say that Trump has a dibbuk? He’s a groyse friend of Klal Yisroel, and his machatunim are frum!” (“Why are you inclined to say that Trump is a lunatic? He’s a great friend of the Jews and his in-laws are observant.”)
And in religious contexts, prepositions and articles and suffixes are often the only signs the speaker knows English. “L’maskanah Raboysai, the Mishneh Torah is takeh mechaleik between stam eidus mukcheshes, which is mevatel the cheftzah shel eidus, and eidim zoymemin, who are tokeif the gavra eidim, mamash the kat!” Roughly speaking, that means, “Gentlemen, in conclusion: Maimonides’ Code distinguishes between conflicting testimonies, which simply cancel each other out, and witnesses who accuse other witnesses of conspiratorial perjury, thus attacking their very credibility as people.”
This is all very interesting for the lexicographically or linguistically minded, and I can recommend to you Chaim Weiser’s Frumspeak, the first dictionary of Yeshivish. But what I want to ask now is whether this is the way things ought to be. Judaism, the religion itself, is a severe dogma and way of life. Its liturgy and texts are in Hebrew, which I myself knew well enough when I became Orthodox but which is foreign to most American Jews. To add on top of this a hybridized communal dialect—well, let me put it this way: If you were trying to make Orthodox Judaism inaccessible, what would you do differently?
Yeshivish doesn’t trouble me for ideological reasons. I don’t have some stodgy, Ivy League devotion to “pure” English, because there is no such thing. Nor do I think Orthodox Jews should be like other Americans—Jewish difference is Jewish strength. And it’s not that I don’t love Hebrew, Aramaic, and Yiddish—I know the first, I read the second, and as for the third, well, I hope she’ll teach me, whoever she is.
No, I’m against Yeshivish because it hinders an urgent task of Orthodox Jews in this country: restoring to the Lord’s covenant our rapidly assimilating brethren. The math is just brutal. According to projections by Edieal Pinker of the Yale School of Management, the Reform and Conservative movements will shrink by a million members over the next 40 years. Those who remain will mostly be older; the younger will be very likely to intermarry. Perhaps the terror of anonymity or perhaps a Jewish catastrophe will awaken millions of Jews who, however they identify, right now simply do not act as though Jewish continuity outranks their pursuit of American happiness. Perhaps. But there is a third option: the largest recruitment effort in Jewish history, commanded and staffed from Orthodox enclaves.
Orthodox Jews have the material resources, the institutional know-how, and above all the love of God and of Torah needed for such a mission. But if we want to reverse American Jewry’s self-mortification, Orthodox Jews will need to scotch their smug pity for liberal Jews—Orthodox folks, please do not pretend not to know what I’m talking about—in favor of evangelical zeal and religious fluency in English, the only language common to American Jews.
Most Americans Jews don’t know a chumra from a kula. HaKadosh Baruch Hu and the Ribbono Shel Olam are as alien to them as sushi was to the shtetl. Avraham Avinu, Sarah Imeinu, Dovid Ha’Melech, Esther HaMalka, the Gra, the Grach, the Rov, the Rav, the Rebbe—these are the heroes of Jewish history, but naming them as I’ve done (rather than as “Abraham,” “Sarah,” etc.) puts that history on a shelf marked “not for you.” Anywhere a non-Orthodox Jew might be listening in—an office, a college dining hall, and many more synagogues than you’d think—is a place where a small change in language can invite someone toward Judaism instead of repelling her from it.
Cultural in-speak does have its functions. And it’s not just cultures—families, friends, and married couples often can’t be fully understood by outsiders. And that’s a good thing. Semiprivate languages express the special regard we have for certain people, the gratitude for our common form of life. The richest goods—marriage, parenthood, friendship, country—cannot exist unless some people are in and others are out. The relationship between man and God is the most particular of all: God is jealous, demanding total fealty from creatures on each of whom He has stamped an unreproducible image of Himself. We do not talk to or about God as we talk about others. To do otherwise is idolatrous. In a similar vein: To sacrifice a Jewish way of talking for a gentile one—we wouldn’t know ourselves.
But let me ask something. Who’s we? I think the proper referent of we is all the Jews. We’re a family. Christians are content to live each among his own countrymen, united by a creed professed in hundreds of local vernaculars. Jews are bound to each other by blood and by faith, each Jew the guarantor of every other. I once asked a Chabad rabbi how the Lubavitcher Rebbe got thousands of couples to go all over the world. This rabbi told me he once heard the Rebbe speaking to a group of these couples about to get on a plane: See that man in the suit with the briefcase and no yarmulke? the Rebbe said. That’s your brother. The woman who doesn’t know her grandmother spoke a gorgeous Yiddish? That’s your sister. Many of our brothers and sisters do not know our words. Most of them will not learn ours unless we first learn theirs. Not to do so, not to speak Jewishly in English, is malign neglect.
But is speaking standard English self-sabotage? If Jewish children talk like gentiles they’ll become more like gentiles, won’t they? Here’s my proposal: communal bilingualism. Not in Yeshivish and in English, but in English and in Hebrew. To our shame do so many Orthodox Jews speak bad Hebrew. Hebrew is the language of Jewish texts and the language of Israel, the world’s largest Jewish community. If American Orthodox Jews want to be Jewish in a Jewish language, Hebrew is it, as a matter of religious obligation and national solidarity. But for those of us who remain in America, we have duties to Jews who, through no fault of their own, were raised far from faith. Besides, as a matter of professional necessity, most Orthodox Jews need to know English anyhow. I’m proposing an expanded vocabulary for the sake of a good, I might say holy, cause.
Tefilla #183
בקדש הסך נסך שכר לה'.
You shall pour out a drink offering of strong drink to Hashem in the holy place.
The wine libations represent Simcha. Chochma lasts even after the experience of Chochma. Simcha is primarily felt at the time and in the place of the Simcha. This wine is שכר - drunkenness, representing the ecstatic level of Simcha felt in Shomayim, which remains בקדש - In the holy place and doesn't exit there [where excessive inebriation can cause damage]. If we can connect to this Divine Simcha, it will bring us to a state of ecstasy as well.
בקודש הסך נסך שכר לד'. שני תפקידים ישנם להאורות הרוחניים. התפקיד האחד הוא אותו הענין שהוא מאיר לשעתו, בעת הגדלות הנשמתית, שהנשמה מלאה רוח הקדש, והיא מתענגת על ד' ועל אורו. והתפקיד השני הוא ההמשך של רשם האורה, שבא ומשמש אח"כ לכל ערכי החיים והמעשה, גם בעת התעלמותו. ביסודה של תורה שהחכמה והשמחה מתחברות בה, נכרת היא רשימת החכמה ביותר בהארת הדרך ההולך ונמשך אחר התעלמותה, והשמחה זאת היא תכונת הקדש שהעליה העליונה לשעתה היא בה רוממה מכל. אין ערך כלל לדמות את קדושת רישומה אחר העילום לרוממות ערכה בעת הגלותה. וזו היא אחת מסגולותיה העליונות של שמחת הקדש, שאינה צריכה לצאת מחוץ למעלתה העליונה, כ"א בקדש הסך נסך. ומפני שכל יסודה היא לפעול את גדולותיה בעת הגלותה, שבחינה זו נשארת לעד בצורה העליונה הנעלמת, גם בעת התעלמותה, בלא התמשכות כזאת שתוכל להפגע מגדרי חיים שאינם מותאמים לערכה, שכר לד', – "פוקקין את השיתין, כי שבע אינש חמרא מגרוניה שבע" (סוכה מ"ט). כלומר, ערך הרוממות של עת ההגלות, שאין לה דוגמא, זהו היסוד הפועל בקדושת השמחה, שמקורה היא שמחת אלהים חיים, ששמחת אנשים מסתעפת ממנו בתולדה שניה, ולא בתור המשך כדוגמת החכמה.
ומפני הסגולה הזאת שקדושת השמחה אינה יוצאת חוץ ממחיצתה במקורה העליון, תוכל להתגבר מאד, באין חשש של שום מכשול. וכשם שהשכרות היא פוגמת בחיים הרגילים, ככה השמחה העליונה, כשהיא באה מרוב טובה למעלת השכרות, זהו אור החשק הנשגב, שכל החושים החצוניים מסתלקים מפני גדולת האור האלהי, שהיא מוסיפה יפעה ורוח אלהים עליון לרומם את כל היצור. שכר לד'. כי עדי עד צמאה לך נפשי כמה לך בשרי.
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