2 Related Poems By Yehuda Amichai
Poem Without an End
Poem Without an End
Thoughts on Three Poems
By Neil Fleischmann
Human beings are always more than the one thing that they are pigeonholed them to be.
When I was about 13 I was finally able to articulate something that I sensed but didn't previously have words for. I confronted my parents and my eye Dr. and the doctor conceded that there was an issue with my eyes called Strabismus. I couldn't (still can't) use my eyes in sync with each other. I asked about surgery (knowing that my down the block friend had had such surgery). Dr. B. told me and my parents that there was surgery, but that if it was his kid he wouldn't do it and that was the end of that for many years.
When I was living in Israel in my twenties I went to a top strabismus surgeon there and was told that surgery was a safe and viable option. I went to America and convinced my parents to get on board. I had the surgery (by the same specialist who had done the procedure on my down the block friend back when he was a kid). The surgery works best on infants and did not fully work on twenty something me.
How amazing is it that James Robinson coined the perfect colloquial synonym for strabismus? it is a condition that I was born with. It was my honor to correspond a bit with the author of this book when he premiered his video on the subject online a bunch of years ago. I look forward to reading the book.
Avot 2025 Installment 1
A Galilean taught, while standing above Rav Ḥisda: Blessed is the all-Merciful One, Who gave the threefold Torah: Torah, Prophets, and Writings, to the three-fold nation: Priests, Levites, and Israelites, by means of a third-born: Moses, who followed Aaron and Miriam in birth order, on the third day of the separation of men and women, in the third month: Sivan. Shabbat 88a (Sefaria translation)
Winter Yahrtzeits
– Adapted By Rabbi Neil Fleischmann
From Hegyonei Halachah By Rabbi Yitzchak Mirsky
In recognition of the miracles G-d does for us daily Klal Yisrael recite Modim thanking Hashem for what he does for us constantly. Our appreciation goes so far that we also have a blessing that we recite when we pass a place where a miracle was done for our ancestors: “Baruch she’asah nissim la’avoteinu bemakom hazeh (Shulchan Aruch, Ohr HaChayim 218:61).
This relates to the halachah regarding one who sees someone else’s neirot. Someone who passes by someone else’s Chanukah candles and has not lit candles himself says “she’asah nissim…” (Shulchan Aruch, Ohr HaChayim 676:2). The saying of the brachah, even though he didn’t light the candles himself seems based on saying “she’asah nisim la’avoteinu bemakom hazeh,” which is also said only due to the seeing of a place where a miracle occurred.
Avudraham says that the obligation to say a brachah when you pass a place where a miracle occurred is derived in the Gemorah (Brachot 54a) from Yitro. When Yitro saw the Jews in the midbar he said, “Baruch Hashem asher hitzil etchem… (Shmot 18:10). (There are several people who said Baruch Hashem in the Torah, can you name them and the surprising common denominator they share?)
The Avudraham cites Rabeinu Gershom, who notes that Yitro did not actually see the place (Yam Suf) where the miracle happened. Nevertheless, we learn about this blessing from Yitro. It seems that since Yitro saw the Jews who were saved at the sea it’s as if he saw the sea itself. The same can be said about Chanukah that when you see someone celebrating the miracle it is enough to say the brachah of she’asah nissim yourself. (Although the Rogochover and others say we don’t go this way today.)
Chanukah was basically established as a holiday just to express appreciation for the miracle. Therefore, The Rabbis composed a specific prayer telling about the miraculous events of Chanukah. They included this prayer in Shmoneh Esrei and Birkat HaMazon.
It was more obvious to The Rabbis that it is obligatory to say Al HaNissim in Shmoneh Esrei than it was regarding Birkat HaMazon (Shabbat 24a). This can be understood two ways. There is the approach of Rashi and the approach of Tosafot.
Rashi says that since the days of Chanukah are all about giving thanks to Hashem it makes sense that we must do this in our regular main prayer: Shmoneh Esrei. On the other hand Birkat HaMazon is not a set basic daily prayer, but one that you only say if you happened to eat bread. This is why Chazal were less sure about obligating saying Al HaNissim in bentching than in Shmoneh Esrei.
Tosafot has a different theory as to why the Rabbis were sure that you must say Al HaNissim in Shmoneh Esrei, but less sure about obligating its recital in Birkat HaMazon. He says that the point of Chanukah is not simply to thank G-d but to publicly show our appreciation and spread the news of the miracle. This is why in davening which is done in Shul with a tzibur, you must say Al HaNissim. However, eating is done privately, usually at home, and therefore when you bentch is it optional to say Al HaNissim because you are saying it in private and not really publicizing the miracle.
The Shulchan Aruch rules based on the Gemorah that you have the option to say Al HaNissim in Birkat HaMazon. The Gemorah, however did not offer this option for Al HaMichyah (unlike other holidays) and so we do not mention Chanukah in Al HaMichyah.
I write here much less often than I once did, but just now I "accidentally" set up to write on this blog instead of on Facebook, and am going to stay the course. The other day I tested positive for COVID after having felt sick for awhile. Now I'm back to being negative, have been for a few days. Went to a wonderful wedding last night. Sometimes I go to affairs where I know just the parents of the bride or groom, or just the bride or groom themselves. During those weddings I can get lonely even when (or sometimes especially when) I end up engaging with the strangers around me.
Last night I knew almost everyone at my table and I like them a great deal, dear friends - many. It was a Washington Heights reunion, the wedding of a girl I know since before she was born, and I'm close with her brother, parents, grandmother. I was surrounded by the bride's aunts and uncles, all of whom I know through the warm patriarchal Shabbos table of her grandparents. What a wonderful thing - to dance, to walk and talk, to truly connect in celebration.
I have a 3 o'clock chavrusa. He's never late. So any second I expect to be caught off guard (sic) by his distinctive bell ring as we go back to going through Tehillim. One of the things I've learned in looking at Tehillim is that the lines are almost always doubled, something like this: The lines of Tehillim are doubled / Psalms sentences come in two halves.
Wishing you well whomever and wherever you are!
NY Times: Describe your ideal reading experience (when, where, what, how).
Everyone talks about why when Yosef finally reveals himself to his brothers he asks, "Is my father still alive?" There are many answers. But I'm thinking that whatever we want to say about that specific question in that moment there's a broader context to consider. In the big picture Yaakov is always split between being Yosef's father and being the father of his other sons. This is true in terms of how they saw him as their father and how he related to them as his children.
Today is 7 Av, the Yahrtzeit of the Nesivos Shalom, previous Rebbe of Slonim. His work, somehow overflowed fro his branch of Chasidus into the entirety of the Jewish world. I have no words for my feelings that include gratefulness and go beyond it in response to having his Torah in my life.
Instead of sharing his Torah exclusively here, now, I will share something that I'm thinking about that started with a Torah thought of his (that's a Slonimer tradition, as so much of his teachings are).
The Torah says that G-d said "Let there be light" and there was light. As he does from time to time, in the Chasidic tradition, the Nesivos Shalom brings out new meaning of a verse by using something other than the conventional punctuation. In the case, if you put a comma after the first Hebrew word in this verse it can mean that a person says. Then if you put in quote marks, the statement is "G-d, let there be light," followed by the words, "and then there will be light." So, now, the pasuk is telling us that when we cry out to G-d and tell him we need light in our lives and we can only get it from Him, that is when we will find light enter our lives.
Besides putting the idea in my head of making this verse a mantra, this Torah insight also got me thinking about the Jewish view of spiritual light. I was recently at a class which discussed what the number one pasuk, so to speak, in the Torah is. (It comes from a Medrash shared in the introduction to the sefer Ein Yaakov, and the author himself says that he could not find the Medrash.) The presenter suggested we each think about what pasuk we could make an argument for being the most important in the Torah. Taking a bit of poetic license in re-interpreting the question I want to say that this is a verse that is very important to me and which I think has more depth than people realize. (This could be said about any pasuk. In fact, in this shiur I attended, we were each instructed to open a Chumash to a seemingly random page and line and then argue for the verse we found being The Line of the Torah!)
It's of interest that light was created on day 1 of the creation we read of in Breishit. The sun was only created on day 4. So where did this original light emanate from, what was it's nature and purpose?
Rav Kook wrote the book of Orot, Lights and many other books with light in their title and theme.
We praise G-d daily for creating light. Might this be a spiritual light?
The Nesivos Shalom points out the the time of the three weeks is a dark time of year spiritually and physically, as reflected by the days getting shorter and the nights longer. (This is the reverse of Chanukah time , which is considered the light time of year becaus ethe very short days start to get longer that that time.)
Some people light one more Shabbos candle for each child born representing the light that person brought into the world.
May the light the Nesivos Shalom's light continue to enlighten us all.
I recently bought a book as an impulse by at the cash register of the Upper West Side's Shakespeare and Co.
Spine Poems, An Eclectic Collection of Found Verse, For Book Lovers, by Annette Dauphin Simon is rare in many ways, including that it is everything it claims to be in its title. I was ready to settle for another cute, short book of quick poems where I find one or two that I like, or another light book for bathroom reading. This is on a vastly higher level.
If you see see a young child wearing a coat that's way to big for him you'd be wise to conclude the coat for made for someone bigger than him (probably his father). Similarly, we see our depth of emotional, intellectual and spiritual is enormous to such an extent that it would be wise to conclude that it was made for something bigger than simply getting through our physical existence on this plane (which is what lower forms of life do, instinctually, with smaller coats).
Kids have so much on their minds
I'm in this episode and the one before it (and the one before that).
Here I am, talking about A Tree Grows In Brooklyn!
Here's a previous post where I wrote about the book/movie.
And this, from this rich post, in which I write about the King in the field in Ellul:
This, from this post, about the Lech Lechas of our lives:
I chose to write about Francie Nolan from A Tree Grows in Brooklyn Brooklyn (Betty Smith, Harper and Brothers 1943). What jumped out at me from the book was the depiction of different worlds. Francie has many worlds, all of them real: one world in the library, another on her porch, one in school, another at home. Within her home various relationships stand alone for Francie. Francie’s father Johnny lives in different worlds too. The reality of these worlds is driven home after Johnny dies. When Francie goes to his barbershop to pick up his shaving cup, the barber tells her that her father was a good man. At this moment, Johnny’s worlds of friends and family touch for the first time.
And, see here, for a nice post where I think I am more articulate in talking about Francie and her dad and her entering his barbershop world.
Here, I write about five of my favorite films ever, and include A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.