Tuesday, May 31, 2005

Link Heaven

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Like a link heaven
a haiku and blog filled post
windows of wonder

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I recently posted a comment on another blog in the form of this haiku:

elegant anguish
feeling sitting on a blog
a tint all its own

It was inspired by a poem that is presently the first entry on that blog: "a window into our's."
I found that site because of a comment that the author of the beautiful poems and thoughts on that blog left a recent comment at seraphic secret regarding a "Seraphic Shabbos".

Seraphic Secret is dedicated to the memory of Ariel Avrech. My haiku above is a description of the emotions that Robert and Karen express about their son, may his memory be a blessing.

Pearlies of Wisdom emailed me that my comment in haiku reminded her of graffiti artists who leave work without fanfare. Her remark reminded me of the man I once saw outside Central park who offered to sell me my choice of sonnet or haiku about myself. (Guess how I reacted).
As I recalled him I wrote this haiku:

central park poet
sells personalized poems
from poetry stand

I don't remember how, but I recently found a very impressive blog which has a recent post on the haikus of Richard Wright. Tamara, the blogger of that site, spent a recent Shabbos with a book of his work. I was intrigued and found some of his haikus online .
Here's one sample. I like that he sticks to 5-7-5, and pulls off saying much:

The neighing horses
are causing echoing neighs
in neighboring barns

That's it for now.

As a certain variety TV comedian used to say: Goodnight and may G-d bless.
Tell me if you remember who (unless you already answered last time I asked here).






Monday, May 30, 2005

In Light of Mussar: Remembering Rav Wolbe Part 1

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During Pesach Rabbi Shlomo Wolbe passed away. Rav Wolbe was a baal mussar, unique in our time. He served for over 35 years as mashgiach - spiritual guide at Yeshivat B'er Yaakov. Around twenty -five years ago he left that yeshiva to set up a beis mussar in Jerusalem.

The word mussar is often misunderstood. Telling someone off is called giving mussar. The association is negative and innacurate. Mussar books are studied at short set times. This is at variance with the Mussar Movement.

Rav Yisrael Salanter (1810-1883) was the founder of the movement. The doctrine of mussar taught techniques for spiritual character growth based on traditional ethical literature. This was more than academic study.

Mussar was was done rather than studied. It included excercises such as keeping track of behaviors as deliniated in the classic work Cheshbon HaNefesh , specific activities to strengthen character, and repetition of phrases that profoundly affect the soul. Mussar addressed
personality and ethics from a spiritual perspective.

The anonymously written Orchot Tzadikim-Paths of the Righteous explained mussar with the image of a string of pearls. While each pearl is valuable, the knot at the end holds it all together. The mussar perspective is that connection to G-d, through awe and love, is the thread that holds together all of the character work we do. (This is different from approaches within psychology which ommit or dispute the G-d piece of "self help.")

Rabbi Yisrael Salanter established the beis mussar as a place for holy work, where people went to "do mussar." Over the years the beis mussar, along with the general idea of mussar as a practice, has mostly fallen away. Rav Wolbe and his beis hamussar provided the exception to the rule.

I hope to continue my thoughts on Rav Wolbe and on mussar soon, please G-d.

For an essay on Rav Wolbe by Rabbi Francis Nataf click on this link.

Sunday, May 29, 2005

Me And Richard Joel And The Kite Story

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A few years ago a friend and colleague gave me a copy of a tape of another friend and colleague of hers. For years she'd been asking him to sit down and make a tape for her of some of the stories that he most enjoys telling. She asked me to do the same thing for her, which I did.

Her old friend was at the time the head of Hillel, and his name is Richard Joel. As you may know, today he is president of Yeshiva University.

A little over a year ago I heard President Joel speak at the YU - Model UN. He told a classic story, which is close to my heart, about the man who waved the lantern, but the train still crashed.

I had the pleasure of performing at the annual dinner of the synagogue he attends and he sat in the audience watching just like everyone else. (I did one joke in his honor: People ask me how I became a rabbi/comedian. Well, when I got my ordination I met with the head rabbi and he asked what I wanted to go on to be and I said "president of Yeshiva University," and he asked, "what are you a comedian?" And it was a lightbulb over head moment.)

The two emails pasted below confirm that he and I are kindred spirits. They are referring to the story that appears at the end of my post Inner Avot. As they emailed to me privately, I am disguising the names by just using the first initial.

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Hello Reb Nutta the Maggid -

Thought you may like to know that YU's President quoted you last night (well not quite you, but the famous kite story anyway). Thought it was a pretty cool coincidence. After his speech he presented a gift to each graduate - a kite!

Hope you are well.

- J

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Thanks Neil. I especially enjoyed the two stories you included. Richard Joel told the kite story on Thursday at the Y.U. graduation. (And by the way, they gave each student a kite with Y.U.'s emblem).

Hope all's well with you.

- R
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I wanted to end this post with a link to President Joel's speech. Apparently it is not yet on line. What came up at google was a graduation speech given by Billy Joel.

The same site has commencement addresses delivered by a wide variety of people including Lydon Johnson, Seamus Heaney, Robert Pinsky, Saslmon Rushdie, Tom Hanks, and Sting.

While I have never before found Billy Joel to be that articulate outside of his lyrics, I found his speech to be content filled and well done. Bob Newhart's speech ends with a serious explanation of why humor is important. He cites an impressive array of sources.

So, while I can't link you to Richard Joel's kite speech, you can click here and find many other graduation speeches. Enjoy.

DVD Review: The Emperor's Club

The Emperor’s Club (2002)
DVD/Video Review

I saw The Emperor’s Club in a sneak preview when it came out a couple of years ago. Everyone seems to wonder how this movie compares to Dead Poets Society, or as one blunt friend put it, "it looks like Dead Poets Society" all over again.

At the screening I saw Jeffrey Lions spoke and said that he sees hundreds of movies a year and about three of this caliber. His thoughts got me thinking – how come no one ever complains that Die Hard II is Die Hard all over again? Even if people do whine about the similarities between action flicks, that doesn’t seem to hurt these films in the box office. But a movie about a dedicated teacher is dead in the water if there’s already been one movie on the subject.

Dead Poets Society was a Hollywood creation about an anti-establishment character portrayed by Robin Williams. The Emperor’s Club was originally a short story by Ethan Canan. It is a subtle story with out suicide or rancor and stars a complex, understated Kevin Kline.

This film includes no sex, very tame cursing, and an ethical theme that is gently put forth throughout the entire production. Without giving anything away I’ll tell you that this story becomes clear after half the movie has passed and things jump about thirty years forward.

I liked this movie because it held my attention, even though I was tired when I saw it. It is beautifully made in terms of the acting, the scenery and the way the story unfolds. Maybe I’m biased, but I feel that there aren’t enough movies made about teachers. This joins Dead Poets, Mr. Holland’s Opus, and several others. It has more in common with the latter than the former. It probably has more in common with Goodbye Mr. Chips than with contemporary films about teachers. But it is not without its own twist.

I enjoyed the movie so much that right after seeing it I ran out and got the book it’s based on. As much as I liked the movie, I liked the short story more. The book is usually better than the movie. Generally, I try to see the film and then read the book. This way, it’s like researching extra explanations of the movie. In fiction you get internal dialogues and other background that a movie can’t provide. By reading the book second you get more, rather than the disappointment you get when you do it the other way around.

The book answered any questions I had regarding the movie. Some Hollywood touches, like a baseball incident and a love interest, are not in the book. The climax is handled better. While the movie is sophisticated and reflective by movie standards the book wipes the floor with it in this realm.

I recommend that you see this film – even if you’ve seen one of the small handful of other teacher movies. Why see junk and not see a good, moral tale? My friend Aaron Bulman – may he rest in peace – once suggested that frum ("Orthodox") leadership should give guidance as to what movies are the better ones to see, given the reality that people go.

If you have specific questions regarding the appropriateness of the content of this film, I recommend screenit.com. Rent or buy this movie. Then go out and read the even better book.

Wednesday, May 25, 2005

Bloggers Anonymous Meeting

"Hello my name is {YOUR NAME HERE} and I'm a blogger."

All: "Hi, {YOUR NAME HERE}

"I started out slowly. Someone told me I'd like it so I got a blogspot blog. It was free. I figured why not. I posted...I thought that was it. But a few days later I went back. Then I went back the next day. Before I knew it I was posting several times a day. Then I got my first comment. I'll never forget the rush...I was hooked. I started checking regularly for comments. Commenting on other blogs... hoping they'd visit mine. Then I stopped leaving the house because I needed to blog. Then I started skipping meals...staying up all night. Then a friend told me about these meetings. At first I said I could stop whenever I wanted, that some people had blog addictions but not me. Then they turned my electricity off because I didn't pay because all I was doing was the blog. The blog became a blob... taking over my life. So I joined a friend for a meeting, just to see, not because I was ready to admit my problem. And I couldn't believe the similar stories I read. People from far away... Texas and Toronto... with stories that sounded so much like mine. Computers needed fixing, books needed editing, students needed to be taught, but they all fell to the wayside because of THE BLOG. But then I saw people getting better... through the meetings. We will always be bloggers. But there is a force bigger than ourselves, even bigger than technical support. We must give ourselves over to the program. If you're in this chat room for the first time know... there is hope. Thank you.

~ copyrighted by Rabbi Neil Fleischmann 2005 ~

[click on title of post to link to NY Times article on blogging]

Tuesday, May 24, 2005

Dear Reader,

I didn't feel like writing tonight, but something told me not to break the chain. It's not superstition. I don't know what it is. It's for me more than for you, this much I understand.

When Rabbi Yosef Dov Solovetchik was giving his shiur-class when he was older and weaker, he paused on day at the end and said how much he appreciated the people who still came to hear him. And he quoted the saying that more than the calf needs to drink, the mother needs to nurse.

Thank you
Rabbi Neil Fleischmann

Monday, May 23, 2005

3 Posts In 1



Haikus of the Day

Love neighbor as self
Hillel says that's the whole thing
plus commentary

Reminders abound
everywhere I look I see
Yerushalayim


Event of the Day

Tonight I stepped into Dougie's and looked at a kid and he looked at me. After years of teaching this happens a lot: I see a young person that has the look of a typical student and I'm not sure if I know them, and if I do where from.

In the second that I met eyes with this young man the usual thoughts rushed through my head; Camp or school? Which one? When?

As I'm pondering, he comes at me and asks if he knows me. I say "maybe." Tell him my name. He asks if I taught in a certain camp. Bingo. He gets happy and excited. "I knew I knew you the second you walked in. Yeah, from Camp X. I knew it. How are you. Blah blah blah." And then another question shoots through my head and as I'm considering this one he nonchalantly answers my unasked question by saying, "you threw me out of your shiur."

In my years of teaching I've thrown out maybe five kids from class. And generally that meant asking them to go to the authorities and be dealt with one time and return. But in this case I actually insisted this fellow not return to my class, and the request was granted. It made sense, as his behavior was so egregious.

Here he was, happy to see me, referring to the event in a matter of fact way, seeming to understand the justice of it, harboring no resentment. He shook my hand several times and gave me a hug and we parted ways.

I sometimes have issues setting boundaries. This was a reminder that people are not so fragile. Letting someone abuse is never right. Letting them abuse you is not good for you or for them. In fact people (and that's what students are) appreciate your assisting them in drawing lines that they know they need but can't set for themselves.

A lesson to be learned in the classroom and in life.

Link of the Day

Long Live the Joke

According to this article in the NY Times ( Seriously, The Joke Is Dead ) people don't tell old fashioned (introduction-set up -punch line) jokes any more. Today it's all one liners, or irony, or observation, or insult. So they say.

I remember after I won the contest for Funniest Rabbi in NY a prominent rabbi came up to me after the performance. He complimented me and kibitzed a bit. Then he offered me advice saying that my routine was good but the traditional Jewish jokes I did at the end should be skipped. After he walked away Freddie Roman, a veteran comedian, and the emcee of the evening who had been standing nearby came closer and said, "don't knock the old jokes. they got you laughs."

Indeed standard jokes get laughs from many people in many places on a daily basis. Several comedians that I know who perform in Jewish settings do the same thing as me - do their own stuff and then finish with a few classic old style jokes. The old form serves a great need. One could suggest a holy need. And I believe that reports of the joke's death have been highly exaggerated.

Inner Avot

This week I'm posting my parsha thought early.
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"And I will remember my covenant with Yaakov and my covenant with
Yitzchak and my covenant with Avraham and I will remember the land."

This consolation follows Bechukotai’s description of the punishments that occur when we stray. Why are similar lines are absent from the Tochacha in Ki Tavo?

Daily we pray to G-d in the merit of Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov. What right do we have to ask for things in their merit?

Pirkei Avot is Chapters of the Fathers. Why the word fathers, rather than one that better indicates rabbis? Why is each chapter introduced by a Mishna stating that All of Israel has a share in the World to Come?

Rav Nissin Alpert explained that the hopeful note on which this Tochacha ends is clearly hinged upon the Jewish People have maintaining an attachment to the values of the Avot. If G-d sees that we haven't severed our ties to the qualities of Chesed-Kindness, Gevura/Avodah-Strength/Service, and Torah - there is hope. In praying daily bizechut Avot-in the merit of our forefathers we invoke G-d's mercy based on the merit of the attributes of our forefathers that are inside us, rather than based on the historical merit of their deeds.

Pirkei Avot is appropriately named because statements that we read in this book are not remote words of distant Sages. These are words of our fathers, words that live inside us. We must recognize and nurture this connection if there is to be hope. This idea of connection is reinforced by the Mishna read before each chapter which assures our share in Olam HaBa, the world in which all souls are connected. This idea comes up again, early in the second Perek (2:2) when we're told that the merit of the community’s predecessors helps them.

A little boy was flying a kite. The wind was strong so it was a good day for it. He continuously released string, as the kite soared to the sky. An old man passed and asked the what the kid was doing. The boy said he was flying a kite. The man pointed out that there was no kite in sight, only a taught string leading to the clouds. The boy insisted that his kite was at the end of the line. The man demanded: "How do you know the kite is there?" The boy replied, "I can feel it's tug."

We have the tug of our ancestors inside us. Many of us, like myself, have been blessed with parents that value and passed on Jewish tradition. It would be wise to heed the spirit of the Avot inside us. We must foster Chesed, Gevura/Avodah, and Torah in ourselves and our community. As long as we feel the tug, there is hope.

It takes effort to cultivate the good inside ourselves. In life we become what we make ourselves, not what we simply wish to be. And there is always competition for our attention.

One evening a Cherokee Indian told his grandson about a battle going on inside him; "My son, it is between 2 wolves. One is evil: Anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority and ego.The other is good: Joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith." The grandson thought about it and asked his grandfather, "Which wolf wins?" The old Cherokee replied, "The one I feed."

May we be blessed to nurture the good in ourselves to great spiritual success.

Sunday, May 22, 2005

Anorexia of the Soul

Going through my files I came across this article called Anorexia of the Soul. It was in a supplement enclosed in my NY Jewish Week. Rather than pasting I'm mentioning it and if you want to read it you can press on the title of this post and link to it.

Five years ago Richard Lewis wrote a book called "The Other Great Depression: How I'm Overcoming On A Daily Basis At Least A Million Addictions and Dysfunctions and Finding A Spiritual (Sometimes) Life." When I went up to get my book signed ("To Neil, Shalom and Get Laughs - Richard Lewis")(an acquaintance on line told him I was a comedian) I asked Richard if I could give him something, and he said "Yeah, you can give me whatever you want." So I handed him a copy of this article.

55 Fiction

I like the idea of writing succinctly.

Strunk and White's rule number seventeen in The Elements of Style's Principles of Composition (as cited by Stephen King in his On Writing) is "omit endless words."

Cleaning through my compter files I came across my entry to 55 Fiction. As you'll find by clicking on this post's title, 55 Fiction is a contest in which you're asked to tell a story in 55 words or less (the title doesn't count). (I can't tell if this site is updated or if the contest still exists.)

Here's my attempt:

Modern Medrash
The scene is Heaven. He’s been busy prior to a human being’s creation and now G-d smiles.
"Before I let you go, I must give you one last thing; "a sense of -"
"Humor," one man finishes.
"Direction," another says.
Which is why some people have a sense of humor, others a sense of direction.

Friday, May 20, 2005

Shabbat Shalom

It's about 25 minutes before early Shabbos. Some of the highlights planned are reading to my friends' four kids, and learning with a former student.

Yesterday I wrote these haikus about efforts that we sometimes make that aren't real efforts. There's a saying - worrying must work, because nothing I worry about happens.

We are the gerbil
spinning wheels that stand alone
disconnected spins

Castles in the sand
seems more than a metaphor
like we really build

I'm going to get ready and then sign off right pre Shabbos...

...A couple of months ago a journalist called me on a Friday. He was writing about what Jews think about when they sing about welcoming the Sabbath Bride. Here's hoping the experience is Divine and sublime for all about to experience it.

Mah Inyan Shmitah Eitzel Har Sinai

Mah Inyan Shmita Eitzel Har Sinai?

I was standing outside of Angel’s Bakery in Yerushalayim and I was confused by what I saw. A tough looking guy, sans kippa, was yelling at another guy who also wasn’t wearing a kippa. It was like a scene out of a Beit Medrash; one of the oddest sights I’d ever seen. It was business a related dispute, and I couldn’t figure out why this guy kept screaming Rashi’s question on the start of this week’s parsha – "Mah Inyan Shmita Eitzel Har Sinai" at the other guy. Rashi wants to know what prompts the Torah to describe specifically this mitzvah as given on Sinai. It’s a great question. But why was one non religious guy screaming it incessantly at another man?
One day the answer to my question was provided by a book which included a story about watching Kojak on Israeli TV. When Kojak snapped –"What’s that got to do with the price of tea in China?" and the subtitle read, "Mah Inyan Shmita Eitzel Har Sinai?" the author realized that this phrase was an Israeli idiomatic expression, meaning - what’s that got to do with anything? It was then that I figured out that the man on the street seemed to be quoting Rashi, because that phrase has become part of the man on the street’s language in Israel today.

But the deep meaning of Shmita is not known to the man on the street in or out of Israel. The answer to Rashi’s question seems elusive.

One Shabbos a while back Rabbi Reuven Drucker, Rabbi of Agudah in Highland Park, NJ offered the following insight: Everyone used to work a farm, so when G-d instructed people to rest the land for a year, He was telling them not to work for a year. I think this can be well explained using imagery I heard from Rabbi Noach Weinberg:

If you're drinking coffee and someone asks who you are, you don’t say I'm a coffee drinker, as you realize it’s not your total definition. However one might say I'm CEO of IBM.

Is it accurate to define ourselves by our job? According to Rabbi Drucker, the point of Shmita is that we are not our job. Practically, Shmita meant that Jews had to face themselves without titles.

Even noble jobs are not a person's total. As the Rabbi of the shul I grew up in, Rabbi Louis Bernstein, was fond of saying – “your kids don't call you Rabbi.” We've all met doctors, teachers, and other professionals that are almost unrecognizable without their professional setting providing context and confidence. We know workaholics that are afraid of the kind person they might be exposed to be without the protection of their business. Shmita provided a check system against hiding behind titles.

Rashi says that the statement that Shmita was given at Sinai teaches us that just as Shmita was given at Sinai, so too were all mitzvot given at Sinai. Perhaps this means that just as the point of Shmita is to remind us that more than our jobs, we are servants of G-d that gave us Torah at Sinai, similarly all mitzvot should serve to remind us who we are in life. Mitzvot shouldn’t be just something that we do like a job without being a meaningful reinforcement of our essential spiritual nature and the centrality of serving G-d in our lives.

May we be blessed to remember who we are and what is important in life.

Good Shabbos
Rabbi Neil Fleischmann

Poems Are Written By Fools Like Me...

Today, Mirty asked about a saying of The Rabbis. I am going to address the topic she raised.
Mirty, or the sites she cited, are welcome to paste this.

In Pirkei Avoth (Chapters of the Fathers - sayings of The Rabbis) Chapter 3: Saying 9 (Pirkei Avot exists in many versions, it is one of the most widely reprinted Jewish books - second only to the Hagadah [not counting The Bible] and often different versions vary in how they number things, often combining or breaking paragraphs in alternate ways - so it may be a different number nearby, depending which edition you look in. Also, it's in the Siddur-prayer book, so they have different numbers sometimes too) Rabbi Yaakov (there are no variations on this, if on line you find a different name, it's a mistake) says - "One who is walking on the way and learning Torah, and cuts off from his learning, and says,'how beautiful is this tree, how beautiful is this field,' the Torah considers it for him as if he is worthy to give up his life."

My favorite commentary on Avot, since I was a kid, is Ethics From Sinai by Irving Bunim. It is three volume set, with several in depth pages of explanation on each mishnah-saying. He picks up on the fact that the word used for interrupting your studies is "mafsik," which does not just mean to pause, but to break away from. A "hefsek" is when you break from one thought or action with something else. So what it's saying here is that a person who is learning Torah sees Torah as meaningful. But, when he comes upon nature he sees it as a separate realm. Rather than seeing G-d's world as holy, he only sees G-d's word as holy. When he looks at science and creation there's a disconnect. This is offensive, and the meaning of his entire life is put into question as a result of this literal thinking. The entire world, and all of life are g-d's work, and are to be appreciated by us as such.

He gives an example of a simple villager who visits a big city. In the big city he sees a fire break out. And he's impressed when the fire is quickly put out by a chain of people who appeared after someone hit a bell. Each of them, starting at a well, passed buckets of water to the next, until the buckets were all poured and the fire was extinguished. Impressed, he buys a bell before he goes home. When a fire breaks out in his town he rings the bell, but is disappointed when no people, and no buckets appear. He failed to understand that the bell wasn't of value in and of itself, it represented planning.

"Only G-d can make a tree," wrote Joyce Kilmer. The beauty of a tree lies in the story behind the tree. Someone who studies Talmud, etc should understand this. If such a student can break away from his learning and simply say "nice tree" then something is lacking in his world view. Appreciation of nature should flow rather than be disconnected from study of Torah.

Thursday, May 19, 2005

HASC, Holland

About nine years ago my dear friend Rabbi Binyamin Blau told me about this essay. He spent several summers in Camp HASC and I heard him read this at Bruriah HS as part of a presentation about his experiences at HASC. Today I was talking to a colleague about books and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time came up. And the conversation turned towards kids with disabilities. And I thought of this article and realized that even though I didn't have a printed copy of it, today it may be on line. Sure enough I found it.

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WELCOME TO HOLLAND
(Author Unknown)

I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability - to try to help people who have not shared the unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It's like this ...

When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip - to Italy.

You buy a bunch of guidebooks and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum, Michaelangelo's David, the gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting.

After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland!"

"HOLLAND?!" you say. "What do you mean, Holland? I signed up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy!"

But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay.

The important thing is that they have not taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different place.

So you must go out and buy new guidebooks. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.

It's just a different place. It's slower paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy.

But after you've been there for a while and after you catch your breath, you look around, and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills. Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.

But everyone you know is busy coming from and going to Italy, and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say, "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned."

And the pain will never, ever, ever go away, because the loss of that dream is a very significant loss.

But if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things about Holland.

Inside Today's Suit

I wore a jacket today that I haven't worn since Pesach. In the jacket was a page from the NY Post. It took me a minute to recall what it was. One of the guests gave it to me because of a comic strip on it called Rhymes With Orange.

In the one long frame you see two men sitting at a bar. One of them has a martini glass in front of him. He turns to the other guy, who has four glasses of wine in front of him and asks, "rough day?" And he replies, "nope, Passover."

Also in the pocket were several taffy candies that were thrown in Shul. One man read his haftorah very meticulously and excitedly, like a bar mitzvah boy. So some of his friends and family threw candy when he finished. I thought it was nice. The gabai thought it was ridiculous. I just tasted them for the first time. Delicious.

All Work and No Play...

Yay!!! (I don't believe there's an age limit on that phrase). I finished writing my college recommendations. In the past I've had around 40, but this year it was lower - more like 8. I'm talking about an essay that 6 different teachers have to write about an eleventh grader. Then the college guidance office puts them all together into one. As I was giving in the last few the head of C.G. told me how much she liked a specific one that I wrote. It was about an academically challenged student that has the most spiritual, sincere soul. I was very effusive and I believed every word I wrote. She asked permission to show it to he student's mother. Why not?

Two students next door to the office where I'm writing this are visiting from college, having graduated last year. They're talking to a rabbi/teacher about how much they've grown up this year. They're sharing their GPAs, comparing notes. One of them is pre-med. The teacher asks if that's a major. This teacher has a reputation for being smart and with it. To me, it's a simple fact that pre-med is a thing you do, not a major. They're talking about competition of an academic type. "A lot of stereotypes have been put to rest," one says. He's taking "orgo" in the fall, volunteering in a children's hospital at St. Peters Hospital. They're going on and on, talking about part time business jobs and clients.

They have no idea how young they are.

When people are speaking a foot away from me I experience their words, hear what they say. I don't mean to eavesdrop, but if you talk right next to me I will hear you.

Now they're talking about Israel after HS. These boys are being a bit defensive putting down a lot of friends who went for the year. And putting down the fact that they feel that kids were pushed by the HS to go. Some kids, they say "were looking for a quick fix in Israel and now they dropped out and they're working for their dad." One of them says that they were told last year that it's for everyone, but he disagrees. Some kids use it as an escape he says. These kids are done with their semester; this rabbi better be careful, they could shmooze forever.

Now, they're talking about a program that I run, not realizing that I am here and hear. This is why I keep a taperecorder in my office, so that if I want to I can play it and not hear the talk around me. I bought it after the first time I heard a student talking about me through the wall.

"I actually feel like I'm getting such a good education," one says. He's talking about "a kid who's consevadox-ish, I guess, who came to go to our college in NJ from LA..."

I must push publish now.

Headlines, Haikus

Headlines

REHEARSALS BEGIN AGAIN FOR "MATCH MADE IN MANHATTAN" -
SHOW OPENS IN NEW SPACE IN EARLY JUNE

AFTER READING "A HISTORY OF LOVE," ONE READER MISSES THE CHARACTERS AS THOUGH HE'S LOST REAL FRIENDS

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Haiku Chain

I ride in taxis
all over this big city
guilt is everywhere

Anxiety comes
from without not from within
made by man, not G-d

In the beginning
G-d created all of us
and also one man

Breathe in and breathe out
and breathe in and breathe out and
breathe in and breathe out

Six constant mitzvot
know them like you breathe the air
breathe in - G-d is there



Tuesday, May 17, 2005

Jew's Real Haikus



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Click on the title to link to an article about the ultimate Jewish haiku.
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Here are some haikus I wrote. A poetry teacher of mine suggested adapting them into a different style poem. For now at least I like them as haikus. Some fit together, but they're each a haiku. Some are stronger. Some will resonate. I'm going to push PUBLISH now.
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once upon a time
will once be said about me
he once wrote haikus

boats on the water
how do they feel in the rain?
why do they remain?

it's only money
what poor people tend to say
i sometimes wonder

life is a postcard
we start out writing so big
then there is no space

only now is real
later is only a now
it just comes later

my student waitress
learned from me two years ago
now she brings me soup

truth, justice, and peace
three things let the world endure
shlosha devarim

trivia question
who's the father of free form
answer: walt whitman

hip, no longer young
you seem somewhat unhappy
you seem so human

seems so unhumble
shirtless sit ups in the park
he might be lonely

here's an irony
talented famous person
finds himself alone

saw carol miller
my old favorite dj
hospital, alone

i'm always waiting
right now i'm waiting for sleep
i'm tired of this

black sweater smirks back
as grey t-shirt nods his head
green jacket writes this

lilting jill sobule
sings"having a better day"
along with my thoughts

i feel far away
far away from a feeling
deep inside my blood

It's an icy world
and it's a beautiful place
It's a package deal

Have you seen my Alps
God will ask us all one day
All beauty is His

jews please understand
the world has only one G-d
and that G-d is ours

confidence attracts
self pity pushes away
give up, people run
----------------------------------
take care of yourself
because if you don't do it
then no-one else does

End Of Work Day Musings

It's 6:10 PM

I'm sitting a my little office, which is around the corner from the stage. The play is coming up soon and they are rehearsing something called "Barbecuing Hamlet." I helped one of the students in it prepare for his audition. Part of me wishes he'd be more appreciative of that. It bugs me when people don't show appreciation. There's someone who works in the office here who started working there as a student. And the way they got there was that I placed them there as their weekly chesed work, because they told me they (I keep saying they to hide the gender, rather than typing he/she - which would have been less typing than this whole thing) really wanted to do something where they weren't directly working with people. The secretaries in the office are appreciative, but the student doesn't seem so much to remember.

It's funny how at 6:00 I feel less tired than I do at 3:00. Sometimes (today) I feel better after a long day than after a short one.

There was a Model UN meeting, a follow up to our competition of this year and a gearing up for next year. This was after school at 5:15. So it ended recently and here I am, soon to head home.

During a break in the afternoon I finished The History of Love. I really liked this book. It's the kindd of book that the less you know about it going in, the better. I wish I knew someone else who read it that I could discuss it with. I'm a hard sell when it comes to books. I need to be pulled in or you lose me. And this was quite compelling.

6:13 now. A good time. Time to go home. May G-d bless us all.



Public Domain

Here I am in the teacher's room. The big talk is last night's sleep over in school for Sophomores. Teachers are complaining that there are too many fun activities going on and about this one in particular. Teachers are really upset, grumbling behind this computer around the big rectangular wood table. But they're whispering, it's funny when people whisper angrily, a unique sound...

Now, they're getting louder, cant hold it in, explode loudly - "Do it PROPERLY, that's the key word." "Today's going to be a waste." "Mah Nishtanah?" "There are kids sleeping all over, what should I do, give up?" "I'm not right wing or anything, don't consider myself right wing at all, but was this appropriate?" "As long as the parents are happy and the kids get into good schools..." "It's frustrating, it really is to see the way things are evolving." "It's the me generation, entitlement" "The idea of a sleep overr in school." "Wasn't there supervision?" "There was."

Monday, May 16, 2005

Breathe In, Breathe Out

Is relaxation a Jewish concept?

It's 11:15. I'm going to do some pre-sleep things and then deal with this question before going to bed.

11:55 now.

I think the answer is yes.

Two Posts In One

I FEEL GOOD

What are the odds that James Brown's "I Feel Good" would come up twice in one week?

Last week Pearlies of Wisdom wrote bout hearing a James Brown song on the radio and listening to the whole song through as she recalled her wedding. In the yichud room - she revealed to the chagrin of an anonymous commenter - she kicked off her shoes and sang and danced to James Browns' "I Feel Good," truly feeling good about the whole thing.

Then on Shabbos I was told about Meir Bulman's recent dream. My dear, late friend Aaron's son dreamt that his father and another man from the community who passed away at around the same time were both on stage playing and singing, and the song they were singing was, "I feel good." Shelley took this as a nice message and hoped it brought some consolation to her mother in law who has hoped for a dream visit and not yet received one.

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ON STORIES

Why do stories get a bad rap? Isn't life a story? I recently overheard a student ask his rabbi if they'd be doing stories again and the rabbi said yes. But when I asked him happily, "I didn't know you told stories!?!" he explained defensively that these were biographical backgrounds of the rabbis of the Gemorah not story book stories. As this rabbi himself sometimes says, "what's up with that?" I told him that a story is a story, whatever the context.

Rabbi Nachman of Breslov wrote that starting with stories is so important that even G-d in the Torah started with stories. And, he said that the world tells stories to put people to sleep, but he told stories to wake people up.

Rabbi Yaakov Kranz, sometimes misunderstood and underrated because he often spoke in stories, told a tale of two close friends. One was popular, one resented. One dressed in colorful clothing, the other walked around naked. One day, upon seeing his friend feeling down, the one friend offered to lend the other some of his clothing. Sure enough when people saw the naked friend wearing beautiful silk they were attracted rather than reviled. And they came to appreciate the second friend as much as the first.

The name of the friend who liked to parade naked was Truth. And the one who lent him some of his clothing was Story. No-one likes the naked truth, but everyone likes a nice story. Truth clothed in a story becomes more palatable. So said the Maggid of Dubno (aka Rabbi Yaakov Kranz). I believe in the truth of this story.

Sunday, May 15, 2005

Make (Me) Believe

A hundred
thousand
years ago
in a land
far away
before time
you’d fill
my days
and nights

Mr. Stone
and Quigley
I miss you
in my baths
and pictures
on the wall
where are you

Imagined friends
can’t disappear
till someone
says goodbye
so I wonder
where are mine
so hard to find

Vin and Nicole

12 AM - Vin's show just ended, and in the last moments he announced that his guest next week will be Nicole Krausse. It's interesting, but shouldn't be so surprising to me, how my worlds interconnect. I'm about half way through her book and enjoying it. I was thinking that she's the type of author Vin would have on.

Saturday, May 14, 2005

Another Saturday Night With Vin

10PM
Vin Scelsa (on 90.7FM in NYC every Saturday night from 8-12) is talking about aging. He's segued into talking about James Earl Jones and how with it he is. He just saw him in On Golden Pond and was amazed by his performance. His guest, Rebecca Martin (formerly of Once Blue) is talking about the diaries of someone that inspired her, someone who's older now and just gardens and does other things she loves. They're talking about focusing on what's important, particularly as we grow older.

Vin: "we hope we maintain brain power and health as we age, and then die painlessly." Bill McHenry, the sax player chimes in that when our bodies go, a person's memories go and that's what's sad. She brings up a Tom Waits song about a box in which everything cost a dollar. She remembers her family at bazars buying old boxes of memories of other families, pictures, nicknacks, etc... Vin points out how sad this is that sometimes these things are left to be cared for by strangers disconnected to the memories.

Friday, May 13, 2005

The History Of Love - A Review


This article appeared during Pesach and was the first I heard of this book. It has gotten mixed reviews. This one's favorable (as is my own - so far.)

April 25, 2005
BOOKS OF THE TIMES; The Story Of a Book Within A Book By JANET MASLIN

The History of Love By Nicole Krauss Illustrated. 252 pages. W.W. Norton & Company. $23.95.

''There are two types of people in the world,'' one of Nicole Krauss's characters in ''The History of Love'' decides, ''those who prefer to be sad among others, and those who prefer to be sad alone.'' There are also two kinds of writers given to the verbal tangents and cartwheels and curlicues that adorn Ms. Krauss's vertiginously exciting second novel: those whose pyrotechnics lead somewhere and those who are merely showing off. While there are times when Ms. Krauss's gamesmanship risks overpowering her larger purpose, her book's resolution pulls everything that precedes it into sharp focus. It has been headed for this moment of truth all along.

One of this novel's many endearing conceits is that books are like homing pigeons. Zvi Litvinoff, a published author who plays a pivotal role in this story, has sent out 2,000 copies of ''The History of Love,'' a book-within-a-book that contributes to the hall-of-mirrors sensation here. He imagines what it would be like if those copies ''could flap their wings and return to him to report on how many tears shed, how many laughs, how many passages read aloud, how many cruel closings of the cover after reading barely a page, how many never opened at all.'' And while Ms. Krauss's ''History of Love'' is headed for wide popularity, Litvinoff's is an abject failure. Nineteen hundred ninety-nine pigeons vanish; only one mildewed copy attracts any attention. But that one disintegrating volume is enough to shape the destinies of everyone within Ms. Krauss's vibrantly imagined world. It travels from Europe to South America to New York. It prompts plagiarism, fuels imaginations, makes people fall in love. It envisions whole new chapters in human history, like an Age of Silence during which hand gestures were the only means of communication. This was a time when the scratching of a nose could be easily misconstrued to mean ''Now I realize I was wrong to love you.'' This obscure ''History of Love'' contains all the world's deepest secrets -- or so it seems to 15-year-old Alma Singer. When Alma's parents named her, they took to heart a line from the moldering ''History of Love'': ''The first woman may have been Eve, but the first girl will always be Alma.'' Now Alma's father is dead, and her mother has been hired by a mysterious stranger to translate the book, which was originally written in Yiddish, from Spanish into English. This amounts to one of the simpler transactions in Ms. Krauss's mesmerizingly convoluted scheme.

In Ms. Krauss's most important scene -- her novel's last -- characters communicate by tapping one another twice. This can be seen as a form of shorthand for what has come before. Nothing in ''The History of Love'' exists without some kind of echo or doppelgänger. There are multiple Almas, multiple texts and several interrelated old men.

The noisiest of these, Leopold Gursky, lives on the Lower East Side and speaks with a crankiness (''The Starbucks employee looked at me as if I were a cockroach in the brownie mix'' vastly different from Alma's teenage breathlessness. About having worn her late father's sweater for 42 days in a row, Alma explains: ''On the twelfth day I passed Sharon Newman and her friends in the hall. 'WHAT'S UP WITH THAT DISGUSTING SWEATER?' she said. Go eat some hemlock, I thought, and decided to wear Dad's sweater for the rest of my life.'' If for no other reason than the range of voices she has persuasively created, Ms. Krauss would stand out as a prodigious talent.

Speaking of which: the wunderkind writer whose themes and fancifulness most closely resemble Ms. Krauss's is Jonathan Safran Foer. His work would come to mind just as readily -- more readily -- if the two were not married. But while Mr. Foer's current ''Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close'' has a character playing ''Flight of the Bumblebee'' on the tambourine by its second page, ''The History of Love'' appears restrained by comparison.

Beyond the vigorous whiplash that keeps Ms. Krauss's ''History of Love'' moving (and keeps its reader offbalance until a stunning finale), this novel is tightly packed with ingenious asides. They range from parodying various publications' characteristic obituaries of a very famous writer, a man who was best known for a single, ecstatic five-page paragraph (Ms. Krauss perfectly mimics the syntax of both The Times and The New Republic) to skewering the kind of editor whom all writers dread. He takes Litvinoff and his wife out for a drink, regrets being unable to publish ''The History of Love,'' presents ''a gift of a book his publishing house had just brought out'' and leaves the Litvinoffs with the check.

Other notions are described no less realistically, even when they are as imaginary as the Age of String. (''There was a time when it wasn't uncommon to use a piece of string to guide words that otherwise might falter on the way to their destinations.'') Even at their most oddball, these flourishes reflect the deep, surprising wisdom that gives this novel its ultimate heft.

In addition to the book's tricks and all of its beloved Almas, Ms. Krauss's work is illuminated by the warmth and delicacy of her prose. ''Grammar of my life,'' says Gursky, describing a loneliness that this novel will transcendently remedy: ''as a rule of thumb, whenever there appears a plural, correct for a singular. Should I ever let slip a royal WE, put me out of my misery with a swift blow to the head.''
Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

Yeshiva students learn from 'Funniest Rabbi in New York'

This article is about four years old (in case math is hard for you.) Since then I've continued teaching and doing other things in my school. I also have a steady flow of performances. Shuls, schools, single events, fundraisers. They call me. What can I do - say no?

I just felt like posting this, sharing what I think is a nice article. The article also appeared in The Jerusalem Post as well as several syndicated Jewish Papers. Enjoy.

One disclaimer. The lines are crafted, don't assume real things about me or the people I've dated or my parents or my students or anyone based on these lines. Thanks. G-d Bless.

RNF

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Yeshiva students learn from 'Funniest Rabbi in New York'
Thursday, January 11, 2001


By DEENA YELLIN
Staff Writer
The Beregen Record


-- PARAMUS
The Rabbi of Shtick fingered his closely cropped beard and squinted at his audience.

"Your generation is very interesting to me," he quipped. "You're the first generation to be raised by the Simpsons."

The classroom of high schoolers in Paramus broke into giggles.

Holding up his watch, the clever clergyman said, "My grandfather on his deathbed . . . sold me this watch."

Bada-boom.

Welcome to the Rabbi Neil Fleischmann show.

His students don't need to go to a comedy club for laughs. They can catch them for free in Room 17 at The Frisch School, a yeshiva high school in Paramus.

They're regularly treated to the quips and antics of their Bible and Talmud teacher, who just happens to be the reigning Funniest Rabbi in New York, a title bestowed by Stand-Up New York, a Manhattan comedy club that chose Fleischmann over 10 other rabbis with a joke to tell.

His title has earned him gigs at Caroline's and the New York Comedy Club, as well as at several hotels in the Catskills, and community centers, schools, and synagogues throughout New Jersey and New York.

But Jackie Mason, an ordained rabbi himself, need not move over quite yet.

Fleischmann has no plans to quit his day job in Room 17, where his penchant for mixing humor with teaching Jewish studies draws rave reviews from a crowd that's normally tough to please.

"I brought home a girl I liked and my mother didn't like her, so I stopped dating her. Then I met another girl and brought her home, but my mother didn't like her, either, so I got rid of her. Finally I found a girl who was exactly like my mother. I brought her home and my father threw her out of the house." Big laughs.

But Fleischmann's class is not a steady stream of belly laughs -- there's no monologue or banana peels -- just a Joke of the Day at the end of class. Mostly, his lessons are as serious as Lot's wife, with a lot of textual analysis and stories of rabbis from Talmudic times. But that doesn't stop him from peppering his teaching with a zinger or two to keep his students alert.

Among his audience of 10th- and 11th-graders, he's earned something akin to celebrity status.

"He's the coolest," sighed one 10th-grade girl.

"I never met a rabbi who is as funny as he is," said Marcia Kahnowitz, a 12th-grader from Livingston.

"Most rabbis try to be funny," said Danielle Bruck of Paramus. "But he really is."

Fleischmann, who shuns blue material and insulting jokes, often hinges his humor on self-deprecating quips.

"There's a certain gentleness to my humor," said the Washington Heights resident, who calls himself a disciple of the Woody Allen school.

"Most people associate humor with 'Saturday Night Live,' where you are breaking down what's sacred, making fun of people, or trying to shock. The healthy kind of humor is where you are strengthening, not hurting. You don't have to be dirty or offensive to be funny. Bill Cosby is very clean."

There's a Catskill-like quality to his style -- his lines resemble some of the zingers tossed out by old-style borscht belt comedians such as Henny Youngman or Jack Benny. You almost expect to hear a drum roll after each one.

His killer quips lament the challenges he finds in being single: "I sat down at the restaurant and ordered my dinner. My date ordered hers -- to go."

Or this, referring to signs in restaurant restrooms reminding employees that they are required to wash their hands: "My favorite thing is to come back from the bathroom and wave my hands and say, 'Thank goodness I'm not an employee.' That happens a lot on first dates because there's never a second. I don't know why."

Steve Marshall, a comedian and professional comedy coach who numbers actor John DiResta of "Miss Congeniality" among his clients, is a big Fleischmann fan.

"People expect rabbis to be nerdy and anal," said Marshall, who remembers his own bar mitzvah training all too well. "But he's so open and casual. He's self-effacing, and that's very disarming."

Marshall acknowledged that Fleischmann needs to develop more as a comedian before he'll ever become a household name. But, he said, "If he sticks to it, he's got a real chance. He's softer and less aggressive than Jackie Mason. He's like what Jerry Seinfeld would be if he were a rabbi."

Fleischmann has his own doubts about whether he could become a late-night host or sitcom star. But that's mostly because as a Sabbath-observant Jew, he doesn't work Friday nights or Saturdays and is intent on keeping his values intact.

Freddie Roman, creator and star of the show "Catskills on Broadway" and president of the New York Friars Club, remembers Fleischmann's performance last fall at the Funniest Rabbi Contest. "He had good material. Some of the rabbis sounded like they were delivering sermons. He sounded more like a comedian."

Fleischmann, a native of Queens, discovered comedy as a youngster listening to records of Robert Klein and watching Laurel and Hardy movies. He wrote his own scripts and, when he was 12, started performing stand-up for his school and synagogue youth group.

He put his comedic aspirations on the back burner while he pursued his religious studies at Yeshiva University. He became a teacher and a part-time pulpit rabbi in Staten Island. But all the while, he continued cracking his jokes and thinking about comedy. When he heard about the contest in Manhattan, he couldn't resist.

Although he loves performing, he said he doesn't want to trade the fulfillment of the classroom for a nightclub billing. Instead, he wants to combine both worlds.

Fleischmann noted that the Talmud advises teachers to begin their lessons with a joke to get their students' attention. "Humor is a big plus for a teacher," he said. "It's made me more popular with students. It's not what they expect of a rabbi."

Rabbi Yamin Goldsmith, assistant principal at Frisch, likes one of Fleischmann's standard gags in particular. "When people ask him where he's a rabbi, he says, 'Everywhere I go.' That's true because he's saying that it's not just something he does on the pulpit, but a way of behaving all the time."

As for Fleischmann, he joked that when he got started in comedy, he was nervous that it conflicted with Jewish law. "So I went to my rabbi and performed 20 minutes of my best stuff. When I got through, the rabbi said, 'There's no problem with Jewish law, but there's another problem: You're not funny.'

"A few days later, I'm flipping through the channels on TV and there on 'Late Night,' I see my rabbi. He's performing all my best stuff."

The class laughs and the bell rings.

As his students leave for their next class, Fleischmann bids a warm farewell to his fans and preps himself for his next act.

"Thank you," he says with a mock bow. "Thank you very much -- I'm here all week."


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Staff Writer Deena Yellin's e-mail address is yellin@northjersey.com


Copyright © 2001 North Jersey Media Group Inc.

Thursday, May 12, 2005

Re; The Times (Click to Link To Styron Book)

I didn't write any intro for that post below. I should have included something like this:

I found this article very of great interest. Particularly interesting was the point about the glamour that many attribute to sadness and depression. A musician once told me that a mentor of his once reminded him that happiness is also an emotion.

This book sounds well researched, well grounded. Rabbi Abraham Twerski writes that depression is more common amoung Jews than other groups. It is a real thing, worth learning about.

I also found it interesting that he was critical of Styron (author of Sophie's Choice and more recently a book about his late in life bout with depression). Not long ago a prominent rabbi/educator (who was the Yom HaAtzmaut guest speaker today in the school I work in) wrote a first person piece in Jewish Action about his struggles with depression. One of the things he found helpful when he sat for hours upon hours reading everything he could find on the subject was Styron's book.

Another Night

It's 6:05 PM, just got home from work pretty recently. On the way home I stopped at Radio Shack and got a universal recharger that'll work for any cell phone. In Radio Shack the row of TVs broadcasting one news story demanded my attention. Right nearby where I live a supporting wall of a highway collapsed. The casualties are not yet known.

Joseph Telushkin writes in his book Jewish Values about complaining to a mentor of his (Zalman Schachter Solomni) about how many noisy ambulences are always passing him in NewYork. His rabbi told him that instead of focussing on the annoyance, whenever he heard the sirens he should pray for whoever the ambulence was for. A good point.

I hope anyone who may have been affected by this accident will be OK.

Right after I typed this they just announced on WCBS radio that firefighters have reported no casualties from the accident. Except for the traffic.

As I was walking from the bus terminal I heard a lot of sirens. The newscaster just said he hasn't seen this many emergency vehicles since 9/11.

A newscaster on TV said that this was one of those things that you had to see on TV, that radio couldn't do it justice. Maybe.

I found out about it through a fluke, by walking in somewhere where there was a TV. The same thing happened a while back when I walked into the local kosher pizza store and saw McGreevy's unexpected resignation speech from start to finish.

My reality is that I don't own/do TV. Recently posted a poem about this on Mimaamakim. Some of the commenters interpreted this as religious elitism. It's not.

It's a different life, not having a TV. It's my life. Every now and then I see TV and it's a big deal for me.

I'm going to post now and go try to do life a bit, other than writing.

G-d Bless,
RNF

Click The Previous Title

From now on, if you click on the title you might find that it links somewhere. The last one links to a book by that title. A few years ago at a workshop run by Schools Attuned (Dr. Mel Levine) this book was shown in a slide show to illustrate a point.

Slowly, Slowly, Slowly, Says The Sloth

Thank G-d. Thank you Mirty. (I thought about that - that's the right order.)

Here I am in the teacher's room. People that aren't old are complaining about being old. A 28 year old says she needs only four hours of sleep a night. And that's more than she needed when she was "young." And a fifty-ish man scorns the comment. And I'm sitting in the middle of this, writing it all down.

A thought came in my head recently; so often in stories - traditional texts, as well as books and films things - change in one moment. There is a saying -Yaish Koneh Olamo Be'Sha'ah Echad - some people can acquire their wold to come in one instant. On the other hand there is a concept of things happening as a process.

On Pesach we drink four cups of wine. Each wine glass represents a different stage in the process of redemption. This is often misunderstood to mean that there are four synonyms for redemption that inspired the four cups. But in fact it's much deeper. The redemption from Egypt was not one entity described four ways, rather it was one thing that could be divided into several stages. This is important.

Inspirational stories have led me to believe that one day one solid prayer will turn everything around. There is a concept of prayer changing things 180 degrees. And there is a concept of Yeshuat Hashem Keheref Ayin-the salvation of G-d comes like the blink of an eye. And there is also a concept of things changing over time as a process. One of the ideas behind the story of Megilat Esther (and the reason why The Rabbis considered not treating it with all the holiness of other Torah books) is that when you look at any human story over a period of time you can see the hand of G-d orchestrating a transformation. I believe in the process. (Can you tell I have a masters in social work?) I thank G-d for how far I've come in the process. Maybe one day there will be a sudden turn. But till then I am happy for every little step, every miracle.

The 28 year old just said something again about being old and this time I turned around and said, "you HAVE to stop saying that." She laughed.

Wednesday, May 11, 2005

This Is A Test

I'm trying to see if new posts will have paragrah breaks or not.

To this end I am breaking the cardinal rule of having at least three sentences to a paragraph.

The paragraphs in this section wil sometimes have less than three sentences, unless of course the program is still mushing them all together. Sigh.

History of Love

I started reading The History of Love and it's compelling. In flipping through the pages (a bad habit, always jumping ahead and reading random later parts) I noticed that G-d's name, the name that traditional Jews don't write or pronounce or prounce the spelling of (Yud-Kay- Vav-Kay), is written many times throughout the book in actual Hebrew. This means the book has to be treated a certain way, due to the holy name written inside it.

Technical Difficulties...

Today I set something up to put links in. In doing so I did something that has reset my whole blog to have no spaces. If you know if I can get it back to how it was for the posts that exist, and/or for future posts please let me know.

Also, I think my blog clock is on California time (as it's 3 hours back from NY time.)

Tuesday, May 10, 2005

Times Article

'Against Depression'
That 'Prozac' Man Defends the Gravity of a Disease



By JANET MASLIN

Published: May 9, 2005

In his new book, Peter D. Kramer tells a story about traveling to promote the best-known of his earlier books, "Listening to Prozac," and regularly encountering the same kind of wiseguy in lecture audiences. Wherever he went, somebody would ask him whether the world would be shorter on Impressionist masterpieces if Prozac had been prescribed for Vincent van Gogh

Sunflowers and starry nights aside, this anecdote is revealing. It conveys both the facts that "Listening to Prozac" made a mental health celebrity out of Dr. Kramer (who is a clinical professor of psychiatry at Brown University) and that the book's success left him uneasy. He became a target, not only of New Yorker cartoons (one of which featured a Prozac-enhanced Edgar Allan Poe being nice to a raven) but of condescension from his professional peers. He found out that there was no intellectual advantage to be gained from pointing the way to sunnier moods.

"Against Depression" is a defensive maneuver against such vulnerability. With both a title and an argument that summon Susan Sontag (in "Against Interpretation" and "Illness as Metaphor"), the author argues against the idea that depression connotes romance or creativity. While fully acknowledging depression's seductiveness (Marlene Dietrich is one of his prototypes of glamorous apathy), and grasping how readily the connection between gloom and spiritual depth has been made, Dr. Kramer argues for a change in priorities. He maintains that depression's physiology and pathology matter more than its cachet.

Dr. Kramer makes this same point over and over in "Against Depression." It may be self-evident, but it's not an idea that easily sinks in. As this book points out, the tacit glorification of depression inspires entire art forms: "romantic poetry, religious memoir, inspirational tracts, the novel of youthful self-development, grand opera, the blues." There isn't much comparable magnetism in the realms of resilience, happiness and hope.

What's more, he says, our cultural embrace of despair has a respected pedigree. Depression is the new tuberculosis: "an illness that signifies refinement," as opposed to one that signifies unpleasantness and pain. In a book that mixes medical theory, case histories and the occasional flash of autobiography, Dr. Kramer speaks of having been immersed in depression - "not my own" - when inundated with memoirs about the depressed and their pharmacological adventures. He finds there is a lot more confessional writing of this sort than there is about suffering from, say, kidney disease.

But depression, in his view, is as dangerous and deserving of treatment as any other long-term affliction. When regarded in purely medical terms, evaluated as a quantifiable form of degeneration, depression loses its stylishness in a hurry. Here, matters grow touchy: the author is careful to avoid any remedial thoughts that might appear to promote the interests of drug companies. So there are no miracle cures here; there is just the hope that an embrace of strength and regeneration can supplant the temptation to equate despair with depth.

"Against Depression" returns repeatedly to this central, overriding premise. Perhaps Dr. Kramer's talk-show-ready scare tactics are essential to his objectives. "The time to interrupt the illness is yesterday," he writes, building the case for why even seemingly brief interludes of depression can signal a relentless pattern of deterioration in a patient's future. For anyone who has spent even two straight weeks feeling, for instance, sad, lethargic, guilty, alienated and obsessed with trifles, "Against Depression" has unhappy news.

The author does not stop short of declaring that "depression is the most devastating disease known to humankind." But this claim, like much of the medical data discussed here, is open to interpretation and heavily dependent on the ways in which individual factors are defined. How far do the incapacitating properties of depression extend? Do they lead only to sadness and paralysis, or also to self-destructive behavior, addictions, failures, job losses and patterns passed down to subsequent generations? Whatever the case, Dr. Kramer is clearly well armed for the debate he will incite.

While its medical information, particularly about depression-related damage to the brain, is comparatively clear-cut, it is in the realm of culture that "Against Depression" makes its strongest case. In these matters, Dr. Kramer is angry and defensive: he finds it outrageous that William Styron's "Darkness Visible" endows depression with such vague witchcraft ("a toxic and unnamable tide," "this curious alteration of consciousness") or that Cynthia Ozick can complain that John Updike's "fictive world is poor in the sorrows of history." He himself finds Updike's world rich in life-affirming attributes that tend to be underrated.

He wonders how much of the uniformly acknowledged greatness of Picasso's blue period has to do with its connection with the suicide of one of Picasso's friends. By the same token, he is amazed by a museum curator's emphasis on the bleakest work of Bonnard, though this painter strikes Dr. Kramer as "a man for whom fruit is always ripe." Similar material, with the potential to illustrate the high status of low moods, is endless. There is a whole chapter on Sylvia Plath that the author didn't even bother to write.

There is more breadth of evidence than innovative thinking in "Against Depression." Nonetheless, this book successfully advances the cartography of a (quite literally) gray area between physical and mental illness. And in the process it settles a few scores for the author, whose last book was a novel about a radical blowing up trophy houses on Cape Cod. Here is his chance to assert that he wrote his senior thesis on death in Dickens's writing; he listened to a lot of Mozart and Schubert in college; that he, too, has succumbed to the erotic power of bored, affectless, emotionally unavailable women in candlelit rooms.

But he wrote this book in a state of reasonable contentment. He finds life well worth living. He's tired - in ways that have potent ramifications for all of us - of being treated as a lightweight for that.

When Differences Melt Away

I have recently discovered a few new blogs, mostly through the recommendations of Pearlies of Wisdom. Today's entry at this site was well put and hit the spot.

Night/Day

Tori Amos is being interviewed on WFUV as I write this, talking about a song called Parasol, based on a famous painting. She's talking about the subtle controls that happen in relationships that are only seen and felt behind closed doors. The character in the song wishes to be the character in the painting, because if she existed in a painting, she would be safe from being controlled.

Tonight in Barnes and Noble, I noticed that a reading was about to start. I missed hearing who it was, but was drawn in by the introductory words and reading of the author. There was something beautiful about the author and the way she was reading and what she was reading. There was one striking piece about a father who was estranged from his son imagining how he would have, if he could have, taught his son to swim.

He would have told his son that the son was once a fish and so he knows how to swim. And that he knows this (he would answer when the son asked "how do you know?") because he was once a fish too. And he would tell his son that it would be OK when he let go because he would remember how he swam when he was a fish. And he would gently let go, and his son would swim. And then he thinks about it, how he would teach his son to swim without him, which really meant that he would teach him to live without him. And then he thinks, maybe that's what it means to be a father - to teach your son to live without you.

Before she started reading, this author said that the impetus of the book was her thoughts about how many people is it worth writing a book for? What if only one person reads it? Five hundred isn't considered a lot for book sales, but to be in a room with five hundred people is to be with a lot of people. (And to be in a room with one person is a thing as well, she was implying.) I couldn't hear too well, I was still back in the poetry section. But I started to get pulled in. I missed some of the words, but got the gist of the story she told of a reading she once did, when only two people showed up, and neither bought the book.

After the reading, someone asked how she plotted out the various pieces of the book. And she spoke about having a good sense of direction and how when she arrives in a place, she feels like she's watching the place from an aerial view, as she gets a sense of where she's going. And she had that kind of an aerial feeling with the book.

Then someone asked if she was an artist, if she drew, because there seemed something in her writing that intonated that she painted or drew. The author was excited by this question, said it was an original, good question that she's probably never be asked again. She said that she's always leaned towards art, but only dabbled in it when younger and still hopes to one day get good at it. She also said that there are tiny drawings in the book, done by a friend, and that she likes the idea of having her friend's presence in the book.

After the questions a line formed for the signing. I now knew the author's identity because I overheard someone whisper it to someone else in awe. (But I'll not tell you yet.) I bought the book. As I waited on line, I noticed that the author related to each person before she signed. She had a little chat, asked if they were the person it was being dedicated to. Often, they spoke first. When it came to my turn, she said hi and asked how I was doing. I asked her if she could wish me success in my writing in what she wrote. So, she asked if I was a novelist. And, I said, "no, just a blogger." And she asked, "just?" And I said that I always write, write in a diary too, and I produced my diary from my pocket.

She wrote, "For Neil - With Luck + Hope, and signed it with her name, Nicole Krauss. Then she wished me well and gave me a sweet goodbye wave. I was reminded a bit of when a friend of mine met Nathan Englander a few years ago at a book reading that she ran and for some reason (jealousy?) didn't want to like him, but in the end found d him to be very nice.

I found Nicole to be more than nice, she struck me as a very special person. And from what I've read about the book, and what I heard her read tonight, it sounds like a unique, great book. Not since The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night Time have reviews of a book so intrigued me. In that case, when I read the book I liked it as much as I hoped I would. Maybe, it will be that way again with The History of Love. In any case, the memory of this evening will remain a meaningful one.

Monday, May 09, 2005

This morning during the recital of Hallel - praise - for Rosh Chodesh - the new month celebration - I thought about the words "I call to G-d from the straights and he answers me with divine breadth" (my translation.) It dawned on me that what seems narrow to us does not seem that way to G-d. So He answers us, but from a place of truth, where our pain is wide and comfortable. It's kind of like the joke about how long a million years and how much a million dollars are to G-d.

We quote King David's words, "this is the day G-d made, let us be joyful, and happy in it." Which day does this refer to? I think the answer is, every day. Every day is a day made by
G-d, worthy of celebration. I once bought a carton of eggs that mysteriously had this biblical quote printed on the inside of the top of the crate. I kept it.

Hallel is always meant to be sung with joy on happy occasions. But what is the celebration on Rosh Chodesh? Perhaps it is the idea of taking stock, appreciating a unit of time and celebrating it. Similar to Shabbos. Similar to Rosh HaShana. Similar to what we should do at the end of each day.

This morning during prayers I recalled an incident from first grade. A friend of my mother's was substituting, and took us to the playground. I was afraid to climb the ladder on the slide. But I was not afraid of the slide. Not sliding down it, and not climbing up it. So, even though one could argue that it is objectively more dangerous, and thus more worthy of fear, I would get to the top of the slide by climbing up the slide itself and then awkwardly. but carefully turning around and perching myself at the top before sliding right back down. (By the way, I'm talking about a time when the slide was all metal and the floor below was pavement.) To the substitute, T.R, it looked like I was being a daredevil. She told me to get down, just as she looked up from her intricate needlepoint and caught me in the middle of my ascent. I tried to expain, asked to be allowed to continue. She threatened to tell my mother if I didn't retreat at once. So I did.

I thought about this during davening this morning, as a phenomenon. I wonder if it happens to others too. Do you ever do something a certain way because it feels more right to you, but it ends up looking more wrong to everyone else? I don't sit during davening. I've never felt like claiming a seat. it felt pushy, uncomfortable, so instead, I pace up and down the isle, the only one doing so. Standing out?

Here's a haiku I wrote during the reading tonight, while the author was still a no name to me:

The beauty of her
Her reading is beautiful
Beautiful beauty

And here's one I wrote, right before I got off the train that took forever to get me to my parents for dinner yesterday.

Moments before I
will be late to meet parents
anxiety hurts

Some time ago I posted a poem her called Did I Miss Anything? I've shared thyat poem many times and it always gets a strongpositive reaction. So, yesterday I looked up the poet, Tom Wayman, and found his email and sent him this note:


I don't know that you'll have the moment to read this. I just want to tell you how much I love your - Did I Miss Anything? As a teacher and human being it really resonates for me and has hit the spot with everyone I've ever shared it with. Thank you for getting it.

Today, I was thrilled to receive this response:

Dear Rabbi Fleischmann:
Thank you indeed for your response to the poem. As you know, poetry is sent off into the void and one never knows what adventures a poem will have unless one hears something back--positive or negative. I appreciate very much you taking the time to write.
Very best wishes,
Tom

Little things like this are very big to me, moments like this can make a day, make a life. Thank G-d for life.

Sunday, May 08, 2005

aaron used to write poems in only small letters too

Pearlies of Wisdom quoted from cummings today and reminded me what a smart man he was.

e.e. cummings - in time of daffodils

in time of daffodils(who know
the goal of living is to grow)
forgetting why,remember how

in time of lilacs who proclaim
the aim of waking is to dream,
remember so(forgetting seem)

in time of roses(who amaze
our now and here with paradise)
forgetting if,remember yes

in time of all sweet things beyond
whatever mind may comprehend,
remember seek(forgetting find)

and in a mystery to be
(when time from time shall set us free)
forgetting me,remember me

Gilda's Dog Story

There's a piece of Gilda Radner's book, It's Always Something that I've always been struck by. I tried to find the book, but it's out of print. Recently, I came across the audio version of the book on two tapes, read by Gilda a month before she died. I came across it on my own shelf, had forgotten I owned it. It's the last words of the book, probably the last words of any kind of a "performance" that she ever did. Dibby was her housekeeper/nanny with whom she was very close.

When I was little, Dibby told me a story about her cousin who had a dog – just a mutt – and the dog was pregnant. I don’t know how long dogs are pregnant, but she was due to have her puppies in about a week. She was out in the yard one day and got in the way of the lawnmower and her two back legs got cut off. They rushed her to the vet who said, "I can sew her up, or you can put her to sleep if you want. But the puppies are OK – she’ll be able to deliver the puppies. Dibby’s cousin said, "keep her alive." So the vet sewed up her backside and over the next week that dog learned how to walk. She didn’t spend any time worrying; she just learned to walk by taking two steps in the front and flipping up her backside and then taking two more steps and flipping up her backside again. She gave birth to six little puppies, all in perfect health. She nursed them and then weaned them. And when they learned to walk, they all walked like her.

Sunday Blog

(By the way, for those who read the previous post; when I said "today" regarding the Pelcovitz lecture I meant Shabbos, as I was writing it late at night, even though the post says Sunday.

----------------------------------------------------------

For years I've kept diaries. It's a way of venting, an effort towards sanity. It's my world. I remember once staying in someone's house and needing to write, having forgotten my diary. I asked for paper. They didn't have any. I was shocked. How different people's worlds can be!

Sundays are challenging. I have a love-hate relationship with structure. So I struggle to do what needs to be done... It's 10:35 AM now and while I still wonder who reads this, as I don't get many comments or emails (fleischmann@mindspring.com) I will do one of my breaks to do things that must be done and will return at some point to write more as a self served reward.

2:30 PM now - Got a bit done, spoke to a few people. I wish I was better at embracing and enjoying down time.

A friend wrote that he/she likes reading about themself on my site and wonders "what's that about?" I don't know. I haven't read about myself on anyone's blog.

Friends of mine once had a guest for a Shabbos meal, a graduate school classmate of the wife. She told them her blog and they were shocked to read all this stuff about them on it! She had all these internal thoughts that she put in print that they never would have guessed; comments about them. the other guests, projections about what they were thinking, etc. That could be annoying.

So, back to the question - what is liking reading about yourself about? Part of it is that my comments were positive. Everyone likes being appreciated, though not everyone admits it.

I guess that some of us like reading about ourselves no matter what. I remember in first grade being told a story about a man who robbed a bank just to get his name in the paper. I've heard that some stars appreciate any publicity, even negative. Then there's the phenomenon of students who want attention, and sometimes will take that attention any way they can get it.

I'm going to post this because I want to post something else separately.

Dr. David Pelcovitz On Happiness

Dr David Pelkovitz spoke at YU today, and I live nearby, so I went. He spoke about happiness. Here's my reconstruction.

Two Stories

Victor Frankel was called over by a dying woman in a concentration camp. And she points through a slat to a tree outside and tells him, "before I was here I never appreciated the beauty of life. But now I have learned to appreciate each moment." Right before she died, she told him, "this is the happiest moment of my life."

A man at a weekend for parents with children (rachmana lizlan – G-d should save) with cancer said that on Yom Kippur he had a moment in his prayers of great happiness. (And this resonated for many of the people there in similar situations.)

Most Peoples Answer

When asked what would make you happy, most people say money. But this is not the case. As Shlomo HaMelech put it, one who loves money will never have enough money. But there’s another angle too. There is a concept of relative deprivation.
A man came to Dr. P. in the 1990’s very depressed. He had just received a bonus of half a million dollars. But his co-worker who did the same job had received three quarters of a million. The man was not happy.

The healthy approach to happiness includes things other than money.

Friends (Community)

Statistics show overwhelmingly that people are actually healthier if they lead more social lives. People who move from states in the US that are considered less social to ones that are more social actually improve in their health and happiness.

A co-worker/psychiatrist at Dr. P’s hospital married off a child. He was a "frum" man and it was a typical large, frum wedding. Also invited were a few psychiatrists who were not Jewish. (Dr. P. noted that there are many frum psychiatrists and the most recent past head of the PSA was frum.) To Dr. P. it was nice, but just another of many such weddings. But his colleagues were affected by the experience and felt compelled to tell him about it. They were struck by the sense of connection and community. One Itallian Dr. told him that he thought such a sense of community had stopped existing many years ago in Sisily. And he told Dr, P. to appreciate how blessed he is, because most people in America today don’t have this.

Family

Pesach is one example of family, and the beauty of it. The support, etc, even if it sometimes feels like a bit much. Statistics show that married people are healthier and happier. If a man’s wife (rachmana litzlan) dies, whether or not he remarries is very much connected to how happy, and yes – how healthy he will be. (For some reason the statistics don’t show that women are as radically affected.) Dr. P. said that the statistic bandied about regarding an over 50% divorce rate are bogus (I don’t know how he knows/can prove that.) And he says that most people develop a relationship, despite the difficulties of the differences between men and women, in which they feel their spouse is their best friend. (He mentioned that the Hebrew word for marriage – Nessuin – means to carry, and that there is a responsibility carried of making things work between man and a woman who are naturally different.)

Faith

Having a connection to G-d makes a person happier. This combined with the other pieces made the man on Yom Kippur happy. This combined with the other parts forms what we should always keep in nind to stay happy in life.

He ended with the story about Rabbi Klomomus Kalaman Shapiro (the Pieszesner Rebbe, Rebbe of the Warsaw Ghetto.) A doctor that Dr. P. knows told him this story about his (the doctor’s) own father. He was in Rabbi Shapiro’s yeshiva and was learning in the study hall very late at night and went to sleep on a bench. In the middle of the night he woke up and felt the Rebbe moving the bench over to the side and kindly tucking him in. Later when this young boy was on line in a concentration camp, he realized that his colleagues were being sent to the left, which meant death. He began to feel resigned to death, but then an image popped into his mind. He remembered the Rebbe’s concern for him, remembered being tucked in. He took strength from that memory. Suddenly a soldier announced that people on the line who were carpenters should come forward. With the image in mind of feeling himself to be of value, worth staying alive, he said that he was a carpenter. He was chosen, and his fellow Jews protected and covered for him, allowing him the task of sweeping the floor. But it was that sense of being of value that came from that gesture of the Rebbe that initially and continuously inspired him towards life.

Gotta Love the Title

I finally started reading this book that Aron Bulman (of blessed memory, gone for three years) lent me and really wanted me to read. it is exceptional. The sentences are beautifully written, thoughtfully constructed. I'm reading it slowly, thankful to be reading it.


Memoirs of a Fortunate Jew: An Italian Story by Dan Vittorio Segre

From Publishers Weekly
The author, now in his 60s, is a Haifa University professor, a Jew who grew up in Fascist Italy. With a sharp eye for vivid details, Segre recounts his comfortable childhood in the Piedmont, where his parents were at once assimilated Jews and vigorous Italian patriots. The crisis that sparked his quest for self-identity came in 1938, with the passage of Italy's first antiJewish laws. Once sheltered amid a natural-seeming Fascism, Segre suddenly discovered his "Jewish condition." At 16, virtually ignorant of Judaism, he fled to Palestine, where on a kibbutz and in the British army he worked to understand "the meaning of the new life facing me." Segre's reflections on people and incidents give considerable depth to this unusual story of coming of age.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Friday, May 06, 2005

Writing is for me what candy or other things are for other people, it's a treat that I love. And so I'll let you in on a secret, I'm going to use this as a bait for myself. It's now 6:50 and I will not allow myself to write more till I have taken care of my laundry...

7:15 now, back from laundry patrol. Now I get to write before the next pre-Shabbat errand.

It's happened a couple of times just recently, and it's happened before. What? You'll need background. I tend to teach the weaker classes, although that's not a good word for it because they are so strong. I don't believe they're dumb, or more disabled than anyone else. So I've chosen the weak word, but I'd love help with a better one. Anyway, past students come to visit. Not just to say hi. It's happened actually three times recently, now that I think about it, that a kid has given up his free period to sit in my class. It's not for the knowledge of what's taught, but to share space and presence. And I am proud and thank G-d for this good karma that students sense in my classroom.

Now back to Shabbos prep and hopefully I'll be back with one more thought pre-Shabbat.

7:35 Sundown approaches another time. What a blessing. Thank you G-d for this time that feels different, like a place that I go to wherever I am at this time, a world that is imagined for me. May we all feel the peace of this day and may it flow and over and over flow.

Thursday, May 05, 2005

Talking About Unsaid

This poem by Dana Gioia strikes me as remarkable. I told him that when I saw him at a small reading in 2002. He kindly inscribed my book with "for Neil Fleischmann with best wishes said and unsaid." If you search his name you'll learn that he is a big shot poet, author, politician. But to me he's a very good man who "gets it."

Over Pesach there was a group of interns who were offered room and board, a bit of pay, and some Jewish learning and environmentalism in exchange for some work. I did a session with them on Poetry of the Soul. I hadn't thought of this poem at the time, just rediscovered it "randomly" now. But the power of poetry emerged at that sitting. And this would have fit with the general theme.

One girl started crying because poetry evoked strong memories and feelings for her. It was quite a class. I gave out a booklet. If anyone wants to google some of them, they were: Otherwise, by Kenyon, Rain by Carver, Did I Miss Anything, by Wayman, a poem on poverty by Rabbi Abrasham Ibn Ezra, a poem on faith by Rabbi Samuel Adelman, my poems Natures Call, A Response to Nature's Call, and I Wonder.

The following poem fits with a thought that often fills my head. Some differ, but this much I know is true (that's a quote from somewhere, can't remember where.)

----------------------------------------

Unsaid

So much of what we live goes on inside–
The diaries of grief, the tongue-tied aches
Of unacknowledged love are no less real
For having passed unsaid. What we conceal
Is always more than what we dare confide.
Think of the letters that we write our dead.

Straight Talk

"Be the change you want to see in the world." - Mahatma Gandhi


Why do we speak loshon hara? I think a close look at two lines in Parshat Kedoshim provides an answer. We're told not to speak disparagingly of others. In close proximity to this we are told to reprimand our fellow man. The juxtaposition of these two sentences is not random.

When someone acts in a way that bothers us we feel compelled to talk about it. Venting to friends, a common coping mechanism, is understandable. But there is a harder, more honest option. We can get pain off our chests by going directly to the person who behaved in a manner which we are uncomfortable with. By talking directly to the other person we take a negative and make it a mitzvah. Thus the Torah is presenting Hochai’ach Tocee’ach Et Amitecha-the command to reproach as the antidote to Lo Teileich Rachil Be’Amecha-the prohibition against slander.

We often don’t feel close enough to someone to tell it to him or her straight. But the question is whom are we protecting by not talking straight to another person? Often, we are actually afraid ourselves of getting close to another human being. So we backstab with cowardice rather than confronting in friendship.

The real issue is do we see other human beings as human beings? I’d like to address this via an analogy. Kids that have learning issues, and adults too can memorize words sometimes without really understanding the concept. For example 2+2=4 is a concept that many people clearly see. But for some people if you show them two pens and another two pens they somehow don't see it but just write it down and remember and spit it back. So that if you show them two fingers and another two fingers they can't tell you that it makes four fingers and they'll wonder - why are you talking about fingers now when you taught them yesterday that the whole two plus two thing was about pens – "what are you talking about - this is so confusing!"

The sad reality is that many people don't see that a human being is a human being. They hear it and memorize it. But they don't get the concept. "This guy too, cleaning up the cafeteria from breakfast - but you told me yesterday it was the old teacher who I don’t like but I still have to respect! Which is it, this is so confusing?" And it applies to adults who speak rudely with a sense of entitlement to waiters in hotels.

*STORY* Rav Chaim Brisker was thrown off a train by Russian peasants because he wouldn't play cards with them. When they got to Brisk and found out who he was, they wanted to apologize, but he wouldn't accept. He said it wasn't him - the revered rabbi - that they showed disrespect to; they thought he was just a simple old Jewish man. If they wanted forgiveness they had to go deek it from every old Jewish man.

Who are the people around us? Do we really have any idea? If we care to ask, everyone has a story to tell. And if we hear the story, maybe it will help to see the person. May we be blessed to connect rather than divide, to see other people as real, to speak to others rather than about them. Please G-d!

Shabbat Shalom
Rabbi Neil Fleischmann