Gut Erev Yuntuf
I thank the readers that commented to my last post both on and off blog. I was in a mood yesterday. We're always in one mood or another, but you know what I mean.
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I've been thinking lately about the power of words. How different people use their words is fascinating. I love that old saying - what Peter says about Paul tells you more about Peter than it does about Paul.
Articulation
Can be a sword or a mask
'Tis a risk to ask
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Rabbi Yitzchak Hutner interpreted the King Solomon statement "A tzadik falls seven times and rises" in a novel way. His take is that we're not being taught simply that a tzadik has strength to rise after seven falls. The point is that the definition of a tzadik is one who falls and rises seven times, because that is the process through which one becomes a tzadik (or gets remotely close).
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The runner stumbles
besides a Dick Van Dyke film
story of our lives
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I won't say too much about this one.
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Unusual choice
writing in the Bet Midrash
I guess - thus, the stares
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The Rashbam says that his cellmates knew that Yosef's dream interpretations were true because words of truth are recognized. Perhaps, not just his words, but the integrity, the truth, of the man himself were evident. These thoughts have wide implications for life.
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Define a great man?
You know him when you see him.
Truth is recognized.
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Inspired by a sign to pray for someone:
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Mercy from Heaven
Some people - we're told - need it
Something we all get
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Here I sit, sipping leftover chicken soup. So many events and thoughts swirl as Rufus Wainright sings Halleluya on my radio. And they were swirling before, when the traffic was on.
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None of the explanations of why we eat dairy on Shavuot really excite me. Anyone have a compelling reason?
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Not many of my mainstream non-honors students seem to be staying up all night. When I was a Young Israel kid many of us stayed up.
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This morning in the barber shop I found a collection of Mary Oliver poetry. I asked if I could have it and the barber laughed. He only speaks Spanish.......I'm sitting here now glancing at it. My favorite is about a kitten she found. I googled it and instead of finding the text, I found a lot of blog discussion by people who hate that poem.
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Wishing everyone a good day. And if you don't hear from me again before I'll wish all a Good Yom Tov now.
posted by rabbi neil fleischmann @ 10:37 AM
8 Comments:
"The point is that the definition of a tzadik is one who falls and rises seven times, because that is the process through which one becomes a tzadik (or gets remotely close)."
This is so true. It's through experiences (bad or good) that we can hope to grow and become better people!
My favorite explanation for dairy on Shavuot is that the Torah is compared to milk (shir hashirim). Just as a baby nurses from his mother and receives sustenance from milk, so too we hope on Shavuot to be reminded that HKBH is the one who sustains us all by eating dairy, and of course learning Torah.
wishing you a chag sameach!
Glad you "got" that and old me so re falling. paul simon once sang - you've got to learn how to fall before you learn to fly.
My 11th grade Chumash class asked about dairy on Shavuos and I actually told them that that was the one answer I liked better than the others. It's still a drasha for a custom but there is a pasuk.
I also like your spin on it.
Chag Sameach
Thanks Rabbi Neil and MSB, you got me thinking. In considering milk as a metaphor for the Torah, I started playing with the word chalav(milk) and noticed that if lamed and vet are taken from the word, you have lev -heart, leaving still the letter chet- whose numerical equivalent is 8. As I learned from one of my rabbis, the Maharal says in his sefer, Ner Mitzvah, the number 8 is the number which stands for what is beyond the natural world. It's a number representing l'maalah min hateva- above the laws of nature (both what man does to partner with G-d in 'fixing ' the world- like a bris on the 8th day, and also what is beyond the natural order of things, above time and space, what is miraculous and supernatural.
Maybe, when we take heart, there's a chance for reaching beyond the limitations of this world to both partner with Hashem and more fully milk the experience of the sustanance-gift we've received and continue to receive from Him.
I like this approach to Shavuot dairy:
The Shulchan Arukh writes in Yoreh De'ah that we should make a [festive] meal at every completion of a mitzvah. . . . So we should make a meal [on Shavuot to mark] the end of counting the Omer. But we can't make this meal with meat, because the reason wouldn't be recognizable -- it would look like a regular meal to honor yom tov. So we make a dairy meal.
-- Beit Aharon, cited in Mat'amim.
Thanks Maayan and Uriyo.
I like that application of the idea of the number 8 via Maharal. Very nice, and any chance to review that idea of going above nature is worthwhile.
My question on the approach that we want it to be recongnized as a mitzvah completion celebration meal is that dairy seems like an odd choice (because it makes it not so Yom Tov appropriate - out of the perameters the rabbis set for a Simcha meal). We could announce it or maybe have a specal text/tefila - something other than dairy food. I heard from Rabbi Yonasan Sachs - and it strikes me as true - that the Pesach Seder isn't just a Yom Tov meal but is a Seudat Hoda'ah for the miracle of Pesach (which is why it's uniquely surrounded by Hallel) but no-one would think to have dairy to mark this idea behind the meal.
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I have taken it upon myself to try to post only once between now and Shabbat. So I will say here - for those who see it - that I hope everyone had a great and meaningful YT. Mine was great and meaningful, sprinkled with food and Torah.
gut vuch. hope your yom tov was meaningful and wonderful. i was wondering why is yuntuf called yuntuf and not yumtuf, and why do we say good yuntuf and not good yumtuf. i listened in shul and the only one who said good yomtuf was the rabbi. is there an origin to this word or was there a five year old who just couldn't pronounce it? just wondering...
MSB - Apparently our comments crossed, no big deal.
Without googling or asking around, I'd say that some words developed into mishmashes and became the colloquial pronunciation. Sholoshudes comes to mind. I had a Rebbe that when he davened from the Amud said Yankov instead of Yaakov - not sure how that one developed. I think I broke an unspoken rule by writing Yuntuf the way it's commonly pronounced.
thanks for your thoughtful response, but i still don't totally get it. the mishmash of sholoshudes makes sense to me because it is a merge of the two words. Yaakov to Yankov (i think) has it's roots in the ayin being a gutteral letter which the ashkenazim ignore and the sefardim don't. - so that kind of makes sense to me also. certain sects pronounce all of their ayins like "n"s. yet changing the "m" of yomtom to an "n" by "rov haolam" really throws me for some reason.
anyhow, you broke no unspoken rules because the universe does indeed pronounce it that way.
hope you have a great shabbos.
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