The following is Torah thought from Revach about not despairing.
As told by Rav Refoel Salzer of Gateshead - Approximately 17 years ago, I took a class of 12-year old boys for Chumash-Rashi. One particular boy in the class (we’ll call him “Reuven”) gave me cause for concern. I knew him to be a serious, hard working boy with excellent ability, and I expected him to be at least among the top of the class. It alarmed me therefore to note that he was scoring around the 40% mark, week after week. His Gemoro Rebbe confirmed that in his class, Reuven was “bombing away” at the head of the class.
I took Reuven aside and queried this situation – and I was even more astounded by his explanation. “Rebbe,” he said in all honesty and sincerity “ this has been going on for years! I have just never been able to ‘get my teeth’ into Chumash Rashi. There’s just something about it that does not let us get on!” He then went on to assure me that it had nothing to do with the Rebbe – it had been the same with all his past Rebbeim. When I tried telling him how fundamental Chumash Rashi was to his Yiras Shomayim and the success of all his learning, he replied that he was fully aware of all this, - but he simply could not get to grips with this crucial Limmud.
This left me absolutely dumbfounded – I could not understand why such a solid, ‘tachshit’ of a boy should have such difficulty. He was clearly talking from the heart, and I found myself helpless in a inexplicable situation.
That night I attended a Chasuna which was graced by Harav Matisyohu Salomon Shlita. He had just returned from a visit to the then Soviet Union, and he related a ‘vort’ he was told there by an ‘elterre Yid’ who had heard it from the Chofetz Chaim!
In Parshas Vayera, when Hagar took the ailing Yishmael through the desert where she ran out of water, Chazal tell us that the well of water she discovered later, was actually there all the time. Hagar however was prevented from being able to see the water until after her encounter with the Malach.
Why, asks the Chafetz Chaim did Hashem hide the water from her in the first place? If nature would have been allowed to run as normal, there would have been no crisis to begin with. Furthermore, if we examine the pesukim, we see (פרק כ"א פסוק י"ז) that Hashem had decided that Yishmael should be allowed to liveכי שמע א...ם את קול הנער באשר הוא שם. It is only in פסוק י"ט that Hagar is able to ‘discover’ the well of water. In between these two pesukim is an entire possuk
קומי שאי את הנער והחזיקי את ידך בו כי לגוי גדול אשימנוIt appears that Hagar needed to go through this process of lifting and grasping her son before she was to be released from her torment. What is the meaning behind all of this?
The words of Harav Salomon almost knocked me off my seat. The Chafetz Chaim explains that the reason why Hagar lost the ability to locate the natural supply of water – was a result of her having despaired and having “written off” Yishmael’s chances of survival. In fact, we are being taught here that when a person is Misyaesh and does not believe in his own ability, his attitude becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy and Hashem removes the ability that he actually had!
Even after the Divine ‘psak’ that Yishmael should live, Hagar was still deprived of the water supply. The only way to change the situation was for her to change her attitude! She had to lift the child, hold him tight and have faith in him that he will indeed grow into a great nation. Once this was done, Hashem reversed the situation to its original natural state, and Hagar could partake of the resource that was waiting for her all along.
Suddenly everything made sense! Reuven’s success was being withheld from him because of his misguided perception of his ability. If only he would lift himself up and take a firm grip of himself, he would be allowed to grow as he so badly desired.
The following day, I decided to share this vort with the entire class I did not even make eye-contact with Reuven when I said this over but I fervently hoped that he would take the message on board.
To this day I cannot be certain whether this made a difference, but I do know that from that week onward, Reuven (who is now a Magid Shiur) began to achieve increasingly better grades at Chumash Rashi.
http://revach.net/article.php?id=4188
6 Nov 2011
5 Nov 2011
Occupying personal agendas
Ira Stoll writes about an Occupy Boston contingent who occupied the Israeli Consulate.
Still, the whole event illustrates the way the Occupy movement has become a forum for people to air whatever pre-existing grievance or agenda they have, even if it has nothing to do with Wall Street. And how readily a protest against bankers can elide into one against the Jewish state.
Read full article and watch video at: http://www.futureofcapitalism.com/2011/11/occupy-boston-occupies-israeli-consulate
President Obama's attorney sent a letter to Congressional investigators on Friday, saying the White House would not cooperate with a subpoena requesting documents related to its doling out a $535 million loan guarantee to now bankrupt solar panel manufacturer Solyndra.
Read here about how the administration who promised transparency is not cooperating with a Congessional investigation.
H/T Memeorandum
Still, the whole event illustrates the way the Occupy movement has become a forum for people to air whatever pre-existing grievance or agenda they have, even if it has nothing to do with Wall Street. And how readily a protest against bankers can elide into one against the Jewish state.
Read full article and watch video at: http://www.futureofcapitalism.com/2011/11/occupy-boston-occupies-israeli-consulate
President Obama's attorney sent a letter to Congressional investigators on Friday, saying the White House would not cooperate with a subpoena requesting documents related to its doling out a $535 million loan guarantee to now bankrupt solar panel manufacturer Solyndra.
Read here about how the administration who promised transparency is not cooperating with a Congessional investigation.
H/T Memeorandum
4 Nov 2011
The first video
1 Nov 2011
Rabble without a cause
Michael Savage calls the protestors in Zuccotti Park, "rabble without a cause."
Incidentally, he also spoke about eating at a restaurant this past weekend when the owner came over to him and told him that there was a 103-year-old woman celebrating her birthday at the restaurant. Mr. Savage got up to meet her and asked her why she thought she lived so long. She looked at him in the eyes and said, "be nice to everybody." He then asked her if she believes in G-d. She responded, "of course, G-d rules over all."
Larrey Anderson has an article titled Generation Null at American Thinker.
Move over, Generations Y and X -- make room, at least in Zuccotti Park, for Generation Null. This is the generation whose ignorance passes for knowledge; these are the protesters whose selfishness is thinly disguised as sincerity. This is the generation where the self supplants the spirit. Of all the crises America faces, the Occupy Wall Street movement proves that our greatest plight is spiritual. We are daily witnesses to the rants of young people who have no concept of the human soul.
Read full article: http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/11/generation_null.html
Richard Goldstone writes in the New York Times, "the charge that Israel is an apartheid state is a false and malicious one that precludes, rather than promotes, peace and harmony."
Unfortunately, after reading a couple of responses to his op-ed and the comments that followed, I believe that Mr. Goldstone is preaching to the converted and won't sway opinion one way or the other.
Incidentally, he also spoke about eating at a restaurant this past weekend when the owner came over to him and told him that there was a 103-year-old woman celebrating her birthday at the restaurant. Mr. Savage got up to meet her and asked her why she thought she lived so long. She looked at him in the eyes and said, "be nice to everybody." He then asked her if she believes in G-d. She responded, "of course, G-d rules over all."
Larrey Anderson has an article titled Generation Null at American Thinker.
Move over, Generations Y and X -- make room, at least in Zuccotti Park, for Generation Null. This is the generation whose ignorance passes for knowledge; these are the protesters whose selfishness is thinly disguised as sincerity. This is the generation where the self supplants the spirit. Of all the crises America faces, the Occupy Wall Street movement proves that our greatest plight is spiritual. We are daily witnesses to the rants of young people who have no concept of the human soul.
Read full article: http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/11/generation_null.html
Richard Goldstone writes in the New York Times, "the charge that Israel is an apartheid state is a false and malicious one that precludes, rather than promotes, peace and harmony."
Unfortunately, after reading a couple of responses to his op-ed and the comments that followed, I believe that Mr. Goldstone is preaching to the converted and won't sway opinion one way or the other.
The wife kidnapper
Earl and Bubba are quietly sitting in a boat fishing, chewing tobacco and drinking beer when suddenly Bubba says, "Think I'm gonna divorce the wife - she ain't spoke to me in over 2 months."
Earl spits overboard, takes a long, slow sip of beer and says, "Better think it over.............women like that are hard to find."
A friend told me yesterday, "I used to ask you if you heard about the latest engagement. Now I'm asking you if you heard about the latest divorce."
Another friend told me, "in every divorce there are three stories; his story, her story and the truth."
The importance of not jumping to conclusions and rushing to judgement really hit home this evening as I read a story at the Yeshiva World about a man who was almost arrested because police thought that he was abducting a woman. Apparently, she and her husband were in a car and her eyes were covered. The police thought that she was being kidnapped and that the driver of the car had blindfolded her. It turned out that the husband was driving his wife home from eye surgery.
So let's remember this story next time we hear someone assign blame. It's his fault. No it's her fault. The truth might be somewhere in between. We may never discover the truth. And, most of the time, it's none of our business.
Earl spits overboard, takes a long, slow sip of beer and says, "Better think it over.............women like that are hard to find."
A friend told me yesterday, "I used to ask you if you heard about the latest engagement. Now I'm asking you if you heard about the latest divorce."
Another friend told me, "in every divorce there are three stories; his story, her story and the truth."
The importance of not jumping to conclusions and rushing to judgement really hit home this evening as I read a story at the Yeshiva World about a man who was almost arrested because police thought that he was abducting a woman. Apparently, she and her husband were in a car and her eyes were covered. The police thought that she was being kidnapped and that the driver of the car had blindfolded her. It turned out that the husband was driving his wife home from eye surgery.
So let's remember this story next time we hear someone assign blame. It's his fault. No it's her fault. The truth might be somewhere in between. We may never discover the truth. And, most of the time, it's none of our business.
31 Oct 2011
UNESCO and UNICEF
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) today voted to admit Palestine as a full member of the Paris-based agency.
UNESCO’s General Conference, the agency’s highest ruling body, took the decision by a vote of 107 in favour to 14 against, with 52 abstentions, according to a news release.
Read full article: http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=40253&Cr=Palestin&Cr1=member
Acting under a legal requirement to cut U.S. funds to any U.N. agency that recognizes a Palestinian state, the State Department on Monday announced that the United States has stopped funding UNESCO because of the vote. Department spokesman Victoria Nuland told reporters that the Obama administration would not make a planned $60 million payment to the agency due in November.
...Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said she fully supports a cutoff of aid as mandated under U.S. law.
“Today’s reckless action by UNESCO is anti-Israel and anti-peace,” she said in a statement. “It rewards the Palestinian leadership’s dangerous scheme to bypass negotiations with Israel and seek recognition of a self-declared ‘Palestinian state,’ and takes us further from peace in the Middle East.”
Read full article: http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/unesco-votes-to-admit-palestine-over-us-objections/2011/10/31/gIQAMleYZM_story.html
A few days ago I wrote about an appeal made by UNICEF "to the Israeli Government to release all Palestinian children currently in Israeli military detention."
Recently Yid with Lid wrote a post about not giving money to UNICEF.
Claudia Rosett adds further reasons as why not to give to the organization including that "earlier this month, UNICEF handed out a regional award for children’s broadcasting in the Middle East and North Africa. The winner? Iran."
UNESCO’s General Conference, the agency’s highest ruling body, took the decision by a vote of 107 in favour to 14 against, with 52 abstentions, according to a news release.
Read full article: http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=40253&Cr=Palestin&Cr1=member
Acting under a legal requirement to cut U.S. funds to any U.N. agency that recognizes a Palestinian state, the State Department on Monday announced that the United States has stopped funding UNESCO because of the vote. Department spokesman Victoria Nuland told reporters that the Obama administration would not make a planned $60 million payment to the agency due in November.
...Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said she fully supports a cutoff of aid as mandated under U.S. law.
“Today’s reckless action by UNESCO is anti-Israel and anti-peace,” she said in a statement. “It rewards the Palestinian leadership’s dangerous scheme to bypass negotiations with Israel and seek recognition of a self-declared ‘Palestinian state,’ and takes us further from peace in the Middle East.”
Read full article: http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/unesco-votes-to-admit-palestine-over-us-objections/2011/10/31/gIQAMleYZM_story.html
A few days ago I wrote about an appeal made by UNICEF "to the Israeli Government to release all Palestinian children currently in Israeli military detention."
Recently Yid with Lid wrote a post about not giving money to UNICEF.
Claudia Rosett adds further reasons as why not to give to the organization including that "earlier this month, UNICEF handed out a regional award for children’s broadcasting in the Middle East and North Africa. The winner? Iran."
On technology
Nancy Colier writes an article titled Is Your Smartphone Stealing Your Life?
The most frequent complaint that I hear in my psychotherapy practice these days is that people feel estranged from their own lives, unable to enter their experience -- as if they are ghosts, floating outside the experience of life itself. Their life is happening and time is passing, but they are not exactly the ones living it, at least not directly. Our cultural disease is one of absence, as if our own presence has gone missing from life.
Read full article: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nancy-colier/living-in-the-moment_b_1064626.html
Dara C. Lifschutz, M.D. writes about her Facebook hiatus.
So what have I been doing without Facebook? Meditating. Catching up on lectures. Reading. Hanging out with my nephews and niece, having conversations over bagels and cream cheese, dodging flying objects, and playing hide and seek instead of being transfixed by a computer screen or a Blackberry.
The past two days I have been reading Mesilas Yesharim. I started on Chapter 3 today and read the following.
As our Sages of blessed memory said (Bava Metzia 83b), " ` You laid down darkness and it was night' (Psalms 104:20). This refers to this world which is similar to night." How wondrous is this truthful commentary to him who concentrates upon understanding it. For the darkness of night can cause two types of errors in relation to a man's eye: it may either cover his eye so that he does not see what is before him at all, or it may deceive him so that a pillar appears to him as a man, or a man as a pillar.
Click here to read Chapter 3 and decide just how much technology should rule your life or should you rule over technology.
The most frequent complaint that I hear in my psychotherapy practice these days is that people feel estranged from their own lives, unable to enter their experience -- as if they are ghosts, floating outside the experience of life itself. Their life is happening and time is passing, but they are not exactly the ones living it, at least not directly. Our cultural disease is one of absence, as if our own presence has gone missing from life.
Read full article: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nancy-colier/living-in-the-moment_b_1064626.html
Dara C. Lifschutz, M.D. writes about her Facebook hiatus.
So what have I been doing without Facebook? Meditating. Catching up on lectures. Reading. Hanging out with my nephews and niece, having conversations over bagels and cream cheese, dodging flying objects, and playing hide and seek instead of being transfixed by a computer screen or a Blackberry.
The past two days I have been reading Mesilas Yesharim. I started on Chapter 3 today and read the following.
As our Sages of blessed memory said (Bava Metzia 83b), " ` You laid down darkness and it was night' (Psalms 104:20). This refers to this world which is similar to night." How wondrous is this truthful commentary to him who concentrates upon understanding it. For the darkness of night can cause two types of errors in relation to a man's eye: it may either cover his eye so that he does not see what is before him at all, or it may deceive him so that a pillar appears to him as a man, or a man as a pillar.
Click here to read Chapter 3 and decide just how much technology should rule your life or should you rule over technology.
30 Oct 2011
Our universities
Yesterday I posted about a call from the great Torah Sages to learn Sifrei Mussar.
For those of you who followed the link to Mesilas Yesharim Chapter 1, I implore you to click here to read a letter by Tabitha Korol addressed to the President of Kent State University complaining about Professor Julio Peno's behavior during a speech given by Ishmael Khaldi.
For those of you who followed the link to Mesilas Yesharim Chapter 1, I implore you to click here to read a letter by Tabitha Korol addressed to the President of Kent State University complaining about Professor Julio Peno's behavior during a speech given by Ishmael Khaldi.
Fostering understanding
On October 23 the New York Post ran an article about the developer of a community center near Ground Zero, wrting that he is due in court on Thursday for a case about violations in a Washington Heights building. "If he doesn’t show up, he risks being sent to jail."
Curious as to what was the outcome, I googled the case but could find no reference to what happened this past Thursday. I did find this article and this disturbing article which includes a list of active lawsuits pending against him and his company.
A WSJ article states that "the developer behind the proposed Islamic community center near the World Trade Center said Tuesday he is exploring commercial uses there, including condominiums, a hotel and an office tower."
The NYT reported that "Mr. El-Gamal said his vision remained: a Muslim-led community center modeled on the Jewish Community Center on the Upper West Side, where his children learned to swim."
The Park51 site offers a vision that "we will foster cooperation and understanding between people of all faiths."
It also has a list of activities scheduled activities and lectures. On November 16 the public is invited to a book release of In the Presence of Absence by Palestinian poet, Mahmoud Darwish, translated by Sinan Antoon.
A book description at Amazon contains the following sentence.
"In this self-eulogy written in the final years of Mahmoud Darwish's life, Palestine becomes a metaphor for the injustice and pain of our contemporary moment."
Adam Shatz wrote the following.
His 1988 poem "Those Who Pass Between Fleeting Words," published in the early days of the first intifada, provoked an outcry among Israelis, including some of the poet's left- wing friends. Although Mr. Darwish insisted that he was addressing Israeli soldiers ("Live wherever you like, but do not live among us"), many Israelis interpreted the poem as a call for them to evacuate the region altogether.
http://www.mahmouddarwish.com/ui/english/ShowContent.aspx?ContentId=21
Ben Cohen calls attention to Darwish making a connection between Palestine and the Jews in an article titled The Candour of Mahmoud Darwish.
Is presenting the poetry of Mahmoud Darwish the way to go to foster understanding between people of all faiths? Or, is it a way of indoctrinating a new generation into the terms of "occupation" and encouraging more anti-Israel sentiment? Is the community center really modeled after the Jewish Community Center in Manhattan?
I want to thank Mayor Bloomberg's office and those who have expressed support for the community center to be developed.
Curious as to what was the outcome, I googled the case but could find no reference to what happened this past Thursday. I did find this article and this disturbing article which includes a list of active lawsuits pending against him and his company.
A WSJ article states that "the developer behind the proposed Islamic community center near the World Trade Center said Tuesday he is exploring commercial uses there, including condominiums, a hotel and an office tower."
The NYT reported that "Mr. El-Gamal said his vision remained: a Muslim-led community center modeled on the Jewish Community Center on the Upper West Side, where his children learned to swim."
The Park51 site offers a vision that "we will foster cooperation and understanding between people of all faiths."
It also has a list of activities scheduled activities and lectures. On November 16 the public is invited to a book release of In the Presence of Absence by Palestinian poet, Mahmoud Darwish, translated by Sinan Antoon.
A book description at Amazon contains the following sentence.
"In this self-eulogy written in the final years of Mahmoud Darwish's life, Palestine becomes a metaphor for the injustice and pain of our contemporary moment."
Adam Shatz wrote the following.
His 1988 poem "Those Who Pass Between Fleeting Words," published in the early days of the first intifada, provoked an outcry among Israelis, including some of the poet's left- wing friends. Although Mr. Darwish insisted that he was addressing Israeli soldiers ("Live wherever you like, but do not live among us"), many Israelis interpreted the poem as a call for them to evacuate the region altogether.
http://www.mahmouddarwish.com/ui/english/ShowContent.aspx?ContentId=21
Ben Cohen calls attention to Darwish making a connection between Palestine and the Jews in an article titled The Candour of Mahmoud Darwish.
Is presenting the poetry of Mahmoud Darwish the way to go to foster understanding between people of all faiths? Or, is it a way of indoctrinating a new generation into the terms of "occupation" and encouraging more anti-Israel sentiment? Is the community center really modeled after the Jewish Community Center in Manhattan?
I want to thank Mayor Bloomberg's office and those who have expressed support for the community center to be developed.
29 Oct 2011
Sifrei Mussar
עת צרה היא ליעקב
Kikar Hashabat has an article about the Torah Sages, including Rav Elyahsiv, Rav Steinman, Rav Wosner and Rav Kanievsky, issuing an impassioned plea that, in the wake of recent misfortunes, people should work on their middos and their Yiras Shamayim and should delve into sifrei Mussar. The article ends with a call to school principals, Rashei Yeshivot, homeowners, women and children to set aside time to learn from holy books which lead to a strengthening in Yiras Shamayim and good middos.
Here is a link to the first page of Mesilas Yesharim by Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto. Why not set aside a number of minutes and read what the author has to say? There are those who get lost on the intenet for hours, not knowing where the time went. Why not put it to good use?
Kikar Hashabat has an article about the Torah Sages, including Rav Elyahsiv, Rav Steinman, Rav Wosner and Rav Kanievsky, issuing an impassioned plea that, in the wake of recent misfortunes, people should work on their middos and their Yiras Shamayim and should delve into sifrei Mussar. The article ends with a call to school principals, Rashei Yeshivot, homeowners, women and children to set aside time to learn from holy books which lead to a strengthening in Yiras Shamayim and good middos.
Here is a link to the first page of Mesilas Yesharim by Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto. Why not set aside a number of minutes and read what the author has to say? There are those who get lost on the intenet for hours, not knowing where the time went. Why not put it to good use?
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