YirAhava

I found this image here when I searched

yirah ahavah in google images

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Here's a public service announcement. The YU/SOY Seforim Sale Starts Sunday (tomorrow). You can find the schedule here. I've been there many times over many years. For a long time I was looking for the sefer, LaTorah VeLamoadim, a book of essays on the parsha. Several Seforim Sales back I asked an acquaintance (who is now a major Rosh Yeshiva) if he knew where I could find that book. He'd never heard of it and when I described it he announced, "You've got the wrong hombre' (sic).
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Over Shabbos I read a new idea in Rav Zevin's sefer. He says that everyone has their own characteristics and that these traits are intrinsically neither good or bad. When G-d says that he hardened Paroh's heart, he means that Paroh was born with the trait of being stubborn. What he did with it was up to him. Thus, the oft asked question, "Why was Paroh punished if G-d hardened his heart?" falls away. I shared this at dinner last night and the two other guys at the table felt compelled to share the answers they knew to this question (such a guy thing to do). Rav Zevin (Wikipedia entry) was a smart man (edited Encyclopedia Talmudit) and I find his explanations to be worth taking in.
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I am tempted to write a bit about my interests in pop culture. I hesitate because the last time I referenced a TV show I got this comment (pasted as posted): "A rabbi who watches t.v.? Interesting... Are you a real Rabbi? Or a rabbi in training? Or are you considered a Rabbi just because your grandfather was a rabbi? Orrr are you just a want to be "rabbi" also know as a FAbbi (fake Rabbi)"
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That post got a lot of comments and I look back at it fondly. I am blessed and grateful to G-d that I get mostly kind and with it comments from my loyal, kind and with it readers. You can read that post, which I kinda like, here. Sigh.
h hl
Here's a site that tells you about the background of famous songs. It gives you a taste, but you need to delve elsewhere for deeper looks into the writing, etc. I looked at it earlier tonight, thinking about Come Dancing.
u ki
I had not watched a movie in a theater or seen one on video for a while. Over my break I watched the first one I've seen in some time, Vera Drake. it is a truly unique and impressive film. It's one of several that I bought at a discount price over the years. Next on the stack is Hotel Rwanda, possibly to be followed by Coming Home, which I hope is not dated.

I've started reading Special Topics In Calamity Physics. It's pulling me in.
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Closeness and distance

The extremes of love and fear

Challenge at all turns

Requiem

It came to me the other day:
Were I to die, no one would say,
“Oh, what a shame! So young, so full
Of promise — depths unplumbable!”
wb
Instead, a shrug and tearless eyes
Will greet my overdue demise;
The wide response will be, I know,
“I thought he died a while ago.”
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For life’s a shabby subterfuge,
And death is real, and dark, and huge.
The shock of it will register
Nowhere but where it will occur.
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— JOHN UPDIKE

From The Handbook Of Jewish Thought

Both man and nature have meaning

because they were created by a purposeful Being.

It is this Being that we call G-d.

~

- Aryeh Kaplan

Eretz Chemda

On Thursdays I teach 6 periods. Five down, one to go. That sounds terrible. I wish to cherish my classes, and often enough I do. Today's classes were filled with sweet moments such as a debate over whether or not the land of Israel has an emotional, almost human side to her.

Amy said that Israel is a land that spits out it's inhabitants, in possession of an almost human element. Jordana feels that in the end it is still a land, not a human being. Rav Kook, I told my tenth graders, writes at the start of Orot, that Israel is not a land like any other land. She is not just a place for the Jewish People to live. She is a part of the Jewish People.

This brought to my mind the statement of Chazal that - Yisrael, Torah, VeKudsha Brich Hu, Chad (something like that) - the Jewish People, Torah, and The Holy One Blessed Be He are one. Rav Kook stressed the idea that the land of Israel is linked to this unity as well.

Rav Kook told of a man who dated a woman and finds her unattractive. Another man met her and found her to be wonderful and was moved to marry her. The explanation of this is that the woman did not like the first man so she showed her negative side to him. She was interested in the second man and therefore showed him her beauty. Rav Kook says that there are people whom Israel embraces and others whom she rejects. My teacher, Rabbi Nachman Kahane says this explains why some people move to Israel today and it works and for some it doesn't take. The land has emotions and accepts some people while turning others away.

How blessed am I that I get paid to discuss these ideas?

Modeh Ani Lefanecha Hashem Elokai...

Elokeinu...

“G-d of Our Fathers”
But first we say, “Our G-d”
We each ask, “Be Mine.”

A Day Full Of Possibilities (Click To Link)

I wrote in August about ambivalence about blogging. I've written about it on other occasions. Right about now I won't write about it. I was struck by a comment by "therapydoc" on my previous post. I was thinking of answering in the comments, but it sparked so many thoughts for me that I am considering writing a post in response to the comment. This thought brings to mind the book The Talmud and the Internet, and the idea that the two are somewhat similar. I like the idea of linking from one post to another and the fact that sometimes the key to post is in the comment and response portion. This reminds me of the way I used to climb a slide as a child, which I wrote about here. I really like the comments on that one and was encouraged to go deep in that section of the post. In a broad context, I also wrote about my backwards slide climb here. This morning I bumped into someone who I had a long talk with at the Kotel a couple of summers ago. In looking to see if I blogged about that chat I found this post about my time at the Kotel. In looking through posts past, I came across this one from two years back, which which was cited in this rich summer post from about half a year ago. Anyway, It's a snow day, so for now this is all I have to say, time to go my own way.

Happy Birthday Jackson (Click For Link) (Today)

I like Billy Collins because he is so accessible. I like Seamus Heaney, but find him harder to understand. Here's one of his easier poems that resonates for me.

Hope everyone is having a good day. I have mixed feelings about a snow day tomorrow. If only people wouldn't anticipate and talk so much.

Hurt People Hurt People

Isn't it an amazing thing how some people push our buttons and others don't? Someone just pushed my buttons. Maybe the person who pushes my buttons is the type of person that's just looking to push, because my buttons don't get pushed that easily. Let me be clear that I'm talking about the negative context here.

As I type this I'm listening to a positive thought - the song Unsingable Name.

Frame Work

Every time I think I'm done with parshapost, I get pulled back in. I just posted a thought on Bo. Get a headstart and take a look at my parsha thought, here (if you feel like it, no pressure).

Here's a companion piece to the haku one post down.

Words won't fix it all

I need a new picture frame

To reframe my life

With strong will in the center

I thank G-d for perspective

The Picture We Take

Inspired by Quinn Cumming's post about reframing:

Frames work; this I know

G-d bless me to frame life well

Answer prayers with You

How Close Is A Close Call?

I remember when Poetry In Motion started to appear on the subways. it was a big deal for me to be able to look up and see a poem that drew me in. I'd take out a diary and start copying them down (happened several times).

I was just in a used bookstore and bought a collection of Poetry In Motion (for 5 bucks). I remember copying down these lines one day while on the train. I'd like to know these by heart:

In masks outrageous and austere

The years go by in single file;

But none has merited my fear,

And none has quite escaped my smile.

~
- Elinor Wylie

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Debra Winger has a way of staring down an old phrase and making it sound new. Toward the end of her book, which I'm reading very slowly because I don't want it to be done, she talks about the cliche's words "a close call.

[

"How close is a close call if we do not let it change our lives?"

ii

;

Winger recalls almost losing her life on a boat in India and imagining each of her dear family members living on without her. At some point she asks the above cited question. She goes on to say, "I do believe that they are there to do just that: change us in a way that allows us to connect the things that have wanted to come back together because they belong together."

[

Many obvious ideas come to my mind. Here's a more obscure link. Rav Hirsch stops on the words, "G-d is close to all who call Him, to all those who call Him in truth." He comments that the ambiguity of the repetition here can be explained in the following manner. G-d is indeed close to all, but you'll only feel that closeness if you call to Him in truth.

This I Believe

Below is an excerpt from a great piece by Quinn Cummings:

Too often, the loudest events which come up in our lives become the most important, even if we don’t really like them or don’t want to make them a priority. The narrative, the picture, becomes one of great movement and activity but we lose the thing at the center of the frame which matters. We find ourselves wondering why an entire week has gone by and everyone we care for has been fed and cared for but we haven’t had a single transcendent moment. Maybe we tell ourselves that feeling a sense of connection to our ultimate goals is too much to ask for on the week the kids go back to school, or we start a new job, or the holidays are upon us. But then when can we ask for it?
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I need to frame my picture better. I need to move less and think more. I need to start viewing each day as productive not only for how many things I knocked off the “To-do” list but for the moments when I was truly present and grateful.This I believe.

How was Shabbos/Saturday? Mine was a blessing, for which I am grateful. I heard some Torah:

Why in the middle of the story of Moshe's taking the Jews out of Mitzrayim - just as things are about to turn around - are we (finally) told his genealogy? Rav Samson Raphael Hirsch suggests that this a measure G-d took to remind us that Moshe was a human being.

Why were three of the ten plagues done directly by G-d? Rav Amnon Bazak explains that the descriptions of those three makot include words about G-d making a separation between the Jewish and the Egyptian people. This separation is uniquely Divine. Someone at the presentation (of Rabbi Zev Reichman) noticed as well that these three plagues were all inflicted upon living creatures. it would have been easy to dodge the bullet were it not that these makot were orchestrated directly by G-d.

Many commentaries say that the acronym of R Yehuda, which groups the plagues into threes is not just a mnemonic. Rav Hirsch says that the first three show G-d's power over water and land, the second three show G-d's power over the land's inhabitants, and the third group demonstrates G-d's power over the atmosphere surrounding the land and the people on it. Then Rav Hirsch does something different . Rav Hirsch suggests that there is a common thread to the first, second, and third plague in each of the above mentioned groups.

The first one of each of the three groups (Blood, Wild Beasts, and Hail) form the category of Alienation. The ruination of their river took away the confidence and arrogance which they previously felt in their fertile homeland. When wild animals roamed through their property they were reminded that safe boundaries are provided only by G-d. The Torah tells us that there never was hail like this one in Egypt like this hail. That's because there never had been hail in Egypt at all. It was weather which was alien to them, a literal and metaphorical change in their climate.

The second of each of the 3 groups of plagues (Frogs, Pestilence, Locusts) form the category of Slavery. A task master feels that he a) belongs to a species superior to that of his slaves and b) that he is superior due to his power and wealth. Frogs are generally fearful of people and flee at the sight of man. The fact that frogs invaded the space of man was a clear message that these men had lost their mastery. Horses and donkeys carried their wealth, cows and sheep were a symbol of their prosperity. This was stripped away from them in the plague of pestilence. Whatever produce survived the pestilence plague was wiped out by the locusts which came next.

The third of each chronological set of three plagues (Vermin, Boils, Darkness) form the category of Affliction. The lice and blisters cause severe physical pain. The darkness provided an amorphous prison which caused them to be immobilized, unable to access food and thus caused starvation.

Shavua Tov to one and all.

Traveling Alone

Billy Collins has a formula, and sometimes I see the formula under the form. Still, it works. I am going to post a poem of his as the first comment here. It resonated for me. It reminds me of a joke of mine about how when they put the menu under my door I open it and ask if they can talk...

Breaking News

In case this is where you look for breaking news - here it is:
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Paterson Picks Gillibrand for Senate.
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Air And Simple Gifts : Not Live But An Incredible Simulation

You Tell On Yourself

You tell on yourself by the friends you seek,
By the very manner in which you speak,
By the way you employ your leisure time,
By the use you make of dollar and dime.
u
You tell what you are by the things you wear,
By the spirit in which you burdens bear,
By the kind of things at which you laugh,
By the records you play on the phonograph.
u
You tell what you are by the way you walk,
By the things of which you delight to talk,
By the manner in which you bear defeat,
By so simple a thing as how you eat.
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By the books you choose from the well-filled shelf:
In these ways and more, you tell on yourself.
p
— Author Unknown

Pre-Face

Disappointment is misplaced hope.

But bitterness will kill you.

@

- Debra Winger

by Debra Winger y

I think the first part of the quote above is remarkable. And the second part is pretty strong too. It's from Winger's book, Undiscovered (the last lines of an essay named Summer In A Life Boat, page 161).

jn

Here's the preface:

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It is a beautiful spring day in May, and I am pruning my boxwoods. I planted them seven years ago with the intention of having a major topiary experience, but most years I find myself editing them to their most essential square. When pruning boxwoods, it is recommended that you not cut into the leaf. You must find the "Y" in the twig and cut it from there, otherwise you risk harming the shrub's growth. I find this small yet precise move, leading to a large overall effect, very familiar.

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A dozen years ago the question of where I was going got louder than anything else in my head. My life had taken a certain trajectory into the world of films and stardom when I was quite young, and I hadn't stopped to question it. But in truth, it was like wanting a pony for your birthday and getting a big shiny merry-go-round instead.

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Although I have participated in the odd film project here and there over the last twelve years, I had no real desire to hop back on that merry-go-round. I watched others as they grabbed for the golden ring and felt fine out in the country on my pony. It is a strange experience to be so in a certain world, and then not. I tried to imagine how to start anew.I collected doors: odd ones from barns, farms, homes, and from my travels. I have dreamed of them in the forest, imagining myself walking through just the right one when I need a boost. I see them as thresholds to newness. Transformations can begin with a start.

yh

Once, my friend and mentor James Bridges found me hiding under the covers, as I often did when I finished a job. I always felt that the roles I accepted must be inextricably linked to my life if I were to keep finding the passion to fuel each job. I had been to the desert making a film, and now everything in my life looked different. He quoted, "She took to her bed to lose her looks."Charles Dickens, I think. It always made me smile. I could never quite decide if it was about the way the world looked at me or about the way I looked at the world.

h

I am always searching for the next door, the next role, the next change.

j

But right now I am pruning boxwoods, twelve to be exact, and I am wondering just how long it will take my mind to stop chattering and allow me to write. A fat red robin with the most laughably blue eggs in its nest is flying to the mud beneath the mailbox, hunting worms like letters from the earth. I want her to come and write this preface.

l

This morning in May, I am cutting boxwoods, pre-face and after-words on the threshold of my slender volume, with no instructions, directives, or map - just a sort of pruning of a dozen years to their essential square. - Copyright © 2008

Her Horoscope Was Right

I just heard an intriguing news story, I was going to paste an article about it, then noticed that at the bottom of the page it says, "This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed." I hope that a link is OK. I am forever fascinated by Fate and Providence. Check out this article and tell me you don't feel happy for this woman.

Nachal Arugot

I've been to Nachal Arugot four times. That is my most relaxing place. The Kotel has a force, but it doesn’t have water. I used to love to climb up the trail and then finally reach the waterfall. And I would stand under the fall. Just stand under the fall. And let the water fall on me. And those moments were beyond. Beyond this world.

Heaven

( written at Nachal Arugot, Summer 1991 )

My fourth time to heaven...
I was more hurt, more cynical, more aware

Three years had gone by,
So long away from paradise
But I had grown - so they said

Seven people had followed
But I always went alone
And You were always there

C.S. Lewis' Wisdom

The future is something everyone reaches

at the rate of sixty minutes an hour,

whatever he does, whoever he is

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- C.S. Lewis

i

The quote cited above found its way into my soul a few years ago late one night and inspired this poem. I've been thinking about Lewis since Wyeth passed away on a day that will be remembered for other reasons, like Lewis who died on the same day as JFK was assassinated, thus going out with a whisper.

" .
The Price Of Free Will
.
Of course G-d knew what would happen
if they used their freedom the wrong way:
apparently He thought it worth the risk.
Perhaps we feel disinclined to agree with Him.
But there is a difficulty about disagreeing with G-d.
He is the source from which all your reasoning power comes:
you could not be right and He wrong
any more than a stream can rise higher than its own source.
When you are arguing against Him you are arguing
against the very power that makes you able to argue at all:
it is like cutting off the branch you are sitting on.
If G-d thinks this state of war in the universe
a price worth paying for free will -
that is, for making a live world in which creatures
can do real good or real harm
and something of real importance can happen ,
instead of a toy world which only moves when he pulls the strings -
then we may take it it is worth paying.
,
- CS Lewis (A Year With CS Lewis Pg 58)

( / )

You can hear and see Josh Bell here (Ava Maria), and here (where he talks about and plays Chaconne by Bach) and here (Tzigane). (I read one article and I'm an expert!) There are many selections of his playing on Youtube; pick anything and see if you are not moved. I believe that great beauty is recognizable without prior training. (I was particularly struck by Ravel's Tzigane.)
h

The answer to the question I asked in this post is... Barack Obama. He wrote that poem when he was nineteen. It's in a collection of best poetry of the year from 2008, because The New York Times published it this past year. It's from a college journal. He wrote it when he was 19. y

j
----------------------------------------------------y

j
2 VaEira Haiku

~
~ If we can't be heard
by the ones closest to us
how will strangers hear?
k
--------------------------------
k
Everyone but G-d
resisted The Redemption
Paroh, Moshe, Jews
ijjj

For a parsha post from four years ago (sic) click here (it's an elaboration on the first haiku and is a piece I'm pretty pleased with).

h
Rabbi A Twerski (on VaEira) addresses the meaning of sivlot Mitzrayim. The Jewish People came to tolerate the suffering of Egypt, much the way we often come to tolerate life situations - to our own detriment. He writes that we're like the worm that thinks that the horse radish is sweet. And he says the solution is only found in Torah, full Torah.

b

Many commentaries say that the acronym of R Yehuda that groups the plagues into threes is not just a mnemonic. Rav Hirsch says that the first three show G-d's power over water and land, and the second three show G-d's power over the land's inhabitants, and the third group of three plagues demonstrates G-d's power over the atmosphere surrounding the land and the people on it. Then Rav Hirsch does something different . He says that the first one in each group, and the second one in each group, and the third one in each group each form their own group...

y

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

g

The Oscar nominations were just announced. For best picture, these are the contenders: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Frost/Nixon, Milk, The Reader, Slim Dog Millionaire. As of this writing I have not seen any of these movies. Have you? (I'm leaning toward Frost/Nixon because I'm a big fan of the backslash sign and this would be the first time that the award was won by a movie with a backslash in the title). (I've been fond of using the / in my writing for some time, lately though I've become very fond of parentheses).

...And All You Need To Know

"Many people hate poetry, and many of them teach English" - Billy Collins

Many English teachers (some of my best friends) don't appreciate poetry. Collins believes that we learn poetry in the womb via the mother's heartbeat that we hear. Then the English teachers come along and destroy our natural inclination to the poetic.

I am aware of that Collins sentiment as well as some other gems, due to this article. I know about that piece because the author emailed me a link to it. The author emailed me a link to his Collins interview in response to a letter I wrote him about a prize winning feature of his that has been edited, adapted, and all but ruined and spread around on the Internet as an email that makes you want to run to Snopes and see if it's true (I did. It is.)

That article is what this post is about.

Dear Mr. Weingarten,

I just discovered your article on the Joshua Bell experiment. I only regret that I found it so late in the game. It is a masterful and profound piece and I thank you for writing it. Perhaps you know that there is a version of the story going around on chain email. I received that email last night and immediately checked out the story on Snopes. com, which verified that it was true.
h
I am glad the article won the Pulitzer, it was very much deserved. Part of me only wishes that the sad reality you revealed would not be what it is. I was a philosophy major, and am a big fan of poetry - Billy Collins in particular. I related to the Collins quote, but I find the facts so sad. I wanted you to know that this article meant a great deal to me and gave me food for thought that I will digest and absorb for life. I hope to blog about this soon.

Thank You!

Sincerely,

Rabbi Neil Fleischmann

Twenty three minutes after emailing this journalist, I received a reply. I loved the Collins piece that he alerted me of and even more - so the piece that I'll get around this bush and write about in the next paragraph.

Mr. Weingarten asked a virtuoso named Joshua Bell if he'd be willing to play violin in a Washington train terminal and Bell agreed and the event became an article with many threads to it. The idea was to see how the people who passed through the station while Bell played (1,097 over 43 minutes) would react. There were theories that great crowds would gather and that the police might need to be called in. Some of the questions before the fact were - would people stop, for how long, and would there be ovations.

The author cites philosophers ("IF A MUSICIAN PLAYS GREAT MUSIC BUT NO ONE HEARS . . . WAS HE REALLY ANY GOOD?: It's an old epistemological debate, older,, than the koan about the tree in the forest. Plato weighed in on it, and philosophers for two millennia afterward: What is beauty? Is it a measurable fact [Gottfried Leibniz], or merely an opinion [David Hume], or is it a little of each, colored by the immediate state of mind of the observer [Immanuel Kant]) and poets (What is this life if, full of care, We have no time to stand and stare - from "Leisure," by W.H. Davies) as well as quotes from the people who were experimented on ("Where was he, in relation to me?" "About four feet away" "Oh"). (Those who passed and were stopped by the reporter were merely told that they would be called later and asked questions for an article about commuting).

Most people didn't stop, didn't even notice the musician, and were certainly not moved. Lottery tickets - as usual - went like hotcakes, people - as usual - ran to catch their trains. One little boy was enamored by the music and his mother dragged him away as he kept turning back (later when she was told that it was a master violinist playing a three million dollar piece, the mother simply said of her son, "Evan is very smart!").

It seems to me that there’s an irony at play in this email that goes around about the Joshua Bell experiment. The email is short and inaccurate. It does not do justice to the original piece, which presents layer upon layer of a story about the human experience. It was a substantial essay, now passed around the net in a fluffy version. The irony is that the article was about how people today don’t stop to appreciate beauty. And people don’t stop to read this beautiful article.

The original piece can be found here. Do yourself a favor and take the time to read it.

Rinse, Repeat

I'm racing, no time to blog at the moment. And yet.

Questions are the key that life is set in, the key of life. Why am I so fond of questions? Is it true that if there is no question then there can be no answer? Have I always been into the question format?

Here's a great article by Sarah Shapiro about questions.

As I type this (and realize that if I don't leave soon, I'll be late for my dentist appointment) Joni Mitchel sings on WFUV - "...And we've got to get our self back to The Garden."

I am appreciative of all who read this blog. I am appreciative of comments and understand why readers don't comment. Anne recently got a comment asking why she doesn't reply to comments. I think it's a big, broad question.

I often wonder

What exactly is a blog?

I know, when I see

I am appreciative of recent comments that I have not replied to. Maayan changed the zero into a one on the post, 20 Questions, I am also appreciative of her lone comment of my post yesterday about The Road Not Taken. The book that idea was adapted from is called The Intellectual Devotional: Revive Your Mind, Complete Your Education, and Roam Confidently with the Cultured Class.

I could be wrong, but think that the first question in the Torah is "Ayeka?" - "Where are you?" That's not by accident. That's the number one question we always need to ask, "Where am I at?" Who am I? A question we need to ask, and then ask again. Rinse. Repeat.

Pop - By _________ ___________________

See if you can name the author of this work. I'll give you 10 guesses. I googled the poet that read at today's inauguration and I ended up at this work of another poet. Guess who.

Please don't give it away if you already know because you've seen the poem before.


Pop

Sitting in his seat, a seat broad and broken
In, sprinkled with ashes,
Pop switches channels, takes another
Shot of Seagrams, neat, and asks
What to do with me, a green young man
Who fails to consider the
Flim and flam of the world, since
Things have been easy for me;
I stare hard at his face, a stare
That deflects off his brow;
I'm sure he's unaware of his
Dark, watery eyes, that
Glance in different directions,
And his slow, unwelcome twitches,
Fail to pass.
I listen, nod,
Listen, open, till I cling to his pale,
Beige T-shirt, yelling,
Yelling in his ears, that hang
With heavy lobes, but he's still telling
His joke, so I ask why
He's so unhappy, to which he replies . . .
But I don't care anymore, cause
He took too damn long, and from
Under my seat, I pull out the
Mirror I've been saving; I'm laughing,
Laughing loud, the blood rushing from his face
To mine, as he grows small,
A spot in my brain, something
That may be squeezed out, like a
Watermelon seed between
Two fingers.
Pop takes another shot, neat,
Points out the same amber
Stain on his shorts that I've got on mine and
Makes me smell his smell, coming
From me; he switches channels, recites an old poem
He wrote before his mother died,
Stands, shouts, and asks
For a hug, as I shink, my
Arms barely reaching around
His thick, oily neck, and his broad back; 'cause
I see my face, framed within
Pop's black-framed glasses
And know he's laughing too.

Day 7

Though they might have taken it as such, it was not at all a joke when people asked me what I planned to do during my vacation and I said, "Breathe." I am very much enjoying breathing (even the occasional sigh, that for some reason I just exhaled as I wrote this line). I hope that when I return to work I will remember how important it is to take space for myself, and that I remember that very few people will remind me of this need or look out to make sure that I take care of myself. May G-d bless us all to breathe in a healthy way so that we have strength to lead meaningful lives.

Hope

A Thought Less Taken

The Road Not Taken
~
~
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

u~
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,~

~ y
And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

u~
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

~
- Robert Frost

I don't recall the name of the book that I read the following thought in. I remember that I found the argument convincing. This book, which has separate pages of thought - one for each - on various well know ideas, has a take on this poem which is presented as obvious, though it wasn't obvious to me. The author says that this poem is widely misunderstood.

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If you read it you will see that it makes sense to say that the two roads really are pretty equal. The walker/writer wants to differentiate between them, but can't really do it ("the passing there had worn them really about the same, and both that morning equally lay"). He chooses one, pretty much randomly, not because it is clearly the more out of box, daring approach. He wishes he could take both at once ("sorry I could not travel both and be one traveler") but of course he can't. Yet, he hopes he will have the chance in time to travel both of the available paths, to go back - though he knows life doesn't usually work that way ( "I kept the first for another day! Yet knowing how way leads on to way,I doubted if I should ever come back").

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The general take on the last stanza is that something terrific happens based on his brave choice of the road less taken. But nothing in the previous stanzas suggests that he has anything to brag about. It was fate, or chance, depending on how you choose to frame it, but it was not his choice that was the sole factor of the positive outcome. And we don't know what the result truly was of this man's under described selected path. The author of the book, whose name eludes me, suggests that this is bravado. This man is saying that one day he'll tell his grandchildren what a hero he was for having chosen the road less taken. But if you listen carefully, you'll hear him betray himself with a sigh ("I shall be telling this with a sigh somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I - I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.")

Midrashic Life

"Reality is not just the story we are locked into" - David Grossman. A friend of mine sometimes reminds me that the way I tell the story is sometimes tainted (just like for every other human being), sometimes not The Story. That came to mind, as this line jumped out at me from an article that another friend emailed to me. It also fits with something I was learning with a chavrusa tonight.

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We were learning about the Meraglim and how (as Rabbi Yitzchak Twersky develops in it in his Amittah Shel Torah) they chose to tell their own story. G-d told them that the land was good, but they decided that it was bad.

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The Torah makes a point of describing the giant grapes that they carried out of the land in broad daylight. The inhabitants of the land stood by as these visitors took their fruit, apparently intimidated. G-d was showing them that they had the upper hand.

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The story they choose themselves is a very different one. They twist things around in their heads and herts and come up with the idea that the only reason they were able to carry out the fruits was because they were insignificant (like grasshoppers) in the eyes of the native giants of Israel.

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On another note, Rabbi Josh Hoffman told me about a Kli Yakar which says that the mistake of Moshe was sending men rather than women. He says, as we see from the daughters of Tzolfchat, that the women of the time loved the land. But the men did not. So G-d said, if you really think that men love the land and will bring back a good report then send them, but I'm telling you that they don't and they won't. G-d said to go with the women - according to the Kli Yakar.

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I am in the middle of two ambitious posts, one about he Josh Bell experiment and the other about sailboats. I am also in the middle of life. Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right, here I am stuck in the middle...

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Avivah Zornberg writes on page 3 of The Particulars of Rapture, "...I would like to claim that the articulation of the repressed is the genius of midrashic narrative. Adopting the psychoanalytic model, I suggest that the peshat, or plain meaning of the text, functions as the conscious layer of meaning; while the midrashic stories and exegeses intimate unconscious layers, encrypted traces of more complex meaning..."

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I think some of us lead midrashic lives. We see layers, hear subtexts, live deep inner lives. Like the story the medrash unfolds, one layer at a time, some of us are always peeling away layers, almost as naturally as we breathe.

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It's late at night, it's time for bed, the thoughts bounce around the walls of my head. I wish you a good night and blessings from G-d. May all our prayers be answered for good.

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Shma Koleinu

~

Hear our voices, please

Bestow compassion/mercy

Send us not empty

Six

It is the sixth day of my winter break (But who's counting?) (Me.) I sit in my luke warm apartment as the radio broadcasts Obama saying, "I think everyone is going to have to pitch in," while pausing from his own voluntary public service, helping homeless teens.

I just had a long phone talk about my Pesach position. Ahhh vacation. Work never ends. Freud once said that there are 3 impossible jobs - clergyman, teacher, and therapist. I've chosen all three. I would add that these jobs are also amorphous, boundless, endless.

My short term goal for the moment is to get out of my apartment. I want to go to the library and do some prep. I am up to Shlach in Chumash and jut wrapped up Ein Holchin BeMamon Achar HaRov in Gemorah. I also want to work on my Lulu poetry book and a couple of major posts.

Lately, I've been reading (and re-reading) the Far Side. Recently I titled a post after one of the strips and thought someone might have wondered about it. I wanted to post the strip, but they're not available on line (click here to learn why Larson doesn't allow the strips to be on line). The strip shows a man and woman sitting in their living room and in the top left corner of the drawing i box containing the word "Later..." The woman turns to the man and whispers, "Ed, the 'later' is back. I found it funny - it made me laugh out loud - and also profound, as now turns to later even as we talk about it, even now.

When I searched the words "Ed the later, " a whole bunch of posts came up and I'm not sure why, as I expected only one. Among the posts that popped up was this one, close to my heart, in which I describe what is perhaps the best short story ever written (along with other stream of consciousness thoughts). I noticed that on this post there was a whole string of comments that I neglected to address. I am sorry. Thank you Kishke, Maayan, Shneur, RR, Miriam, and Anonymous.

OK - off of the home computer. Off to the library. Preparations to do, thoughts to process, life to live...

Good Vuch

"So, as we go on this journey in search of ancient wisdom..." Seven Shepherds, by Chaim Dovid plays, Shabbos has ebed away. A nice Shabbos with rest and Torah and health and comfort. Thank G-d.

Rashi says that VaYishritzu means that they gave birth to sextuplets. Sforno says that this word relates to the word for creeping, crawling bugs. The Jews had degenerated to a low level. Thus, the understands the next line, which states that the new king did not know Yosef, along these lines as well. Sforno says that Yosef as certainly recorded in the annals of the kings. He says that this line is really telling us that the king could not reconcile the behavior of this people with what he knew about Yosef. And he could find no reason to treat them with kindness.

Aviva Zornberg takes this approach and develops it. I started copying out this piece from her book and recommend you find it and read the whole essay. The part that I wrote out is now up at parshapost.

I think that many of us are misled, by the medrash which says that the Jews did not change their names, mode of dress, and language, to think that they maintained a high level of identity. I think that my friend Steg is right in understanding that this medrash is actually telling us that all they had left were these externals to set them apart as a people, but that their spiritual essence had almost petered out.

I'm listening to a mix - just heard Yehudah Solomon's Hesped, followed by Neshama singing Shomer Yisrael, Av Harachamim by Kol Salanika, and now Yosef Karduer's Mizmor LeDovid.

What else can I tell you nice people? Sometimes when I'm doing my routines, I pause and pose that question to the audience. I see it as related. I'd like one day to d a one man show, which would be like a live blog, just me talking and sharing poems and Torah thoughts and and and.

Right before Shabbos, and I mean right before, I got a call from a dear old friend who is also my dentist. We both have a hard time saying goodbye and the following thought came to mind: Some people are so good at being the one to say they have to go - even at a very young age. I have high school students who I'll pass in the hall and start to sat hello to and before I get to the second L they'll say in a deep, authoritative voice - "I'd love to chat Rabbi Fleischmann, but I have a class awaiting me..." Then there are people like me and my friend who can be talking (listening) to someone for twenty minutes until we say, "Sorry, but I'm supposed to be at a wedding right now and I'm late." "Why didn't you say so?" they ask. "Because I was engrossed in talking with you..."

I recently wrote about Ebert's review of The Wrestler and then it disappeared. The link is here. I like Ebert's reviews and the wisdom he sometimes imparts. Years ago in a review of JFK he cited a mentor critic who once said, "A man sees a movie, and a critic must remember that he is that man." (On a similar note, in a debate with Siskel, Ebert once said strongly, "It's a movie, Gene!"). The smart aside in The Wrestler is this, "There is always a chasm between pros and their audiences. That's why so many show-biz people marry each other."

Pursuant to nothing else in this piece per se:

Once upon a time

Writers wrote about topics

The theme is now them

Now writing is self conscious

The writer being right there

3 Good Kinks Songs

Life can be rough. I recently remembered the classic song Better Things, which you can hear and read the wonderful lyrics for at the same time at this Youtube posting. Ray Davies is a great lyricist and composer. He has a strong sensitive side too. I think he grew particularly melancholy in his later years, although it came through in some early songs too. "And those who are successful, be always on your guard. Success walks hand in hand with failure along Hollywood Boulevard." Click here to see a nice slide show accompanied by Celluloid Heroes and see if you are not moved. Dancing is clearly a palpable memory and reality and also a powerful metaphor for life for Davies, as evidenced by (click for music videos) Come Dancing and - from the same period - Don't Forget To Dance.

I always feel bad for a person I really admired and have been amply inspired by: C.S. Lewis. The day that Lewis died is one of those days that everyone can tell where they were at, that everyone remembers vividly. It's a day that history will never forget, but not because Lewis died that day. The day C.S. Lewis might have gotten more attention for that reason had it not also been the day that President John F. Kennedy was assassinated.

Today will be remembered as the day after the miracle of Flight 1549, the only successful landing of a jet on water ever. I feel badly for painter Andrew Wyeth, whose death today at age 91 would have gotten more press were it not for yesterday's amazing news. You can read his New York Times obituary, here.

1549

Yesterday afternoon I was sitting and doing work with the radio on. Call me crazy but sometimes I leave on news radio for long periods of time, even though the stories repeat every ten minutes (and I'm not in traffic, and I don't care for sports). It was then that I heard the first report about a plane hitting the Hudson river.

My first reaction was to be a bit miffed at the station but sounding a bit like vultures, almost like they wanted this to be a tragedy. They took calls from people, grasping at straws - some people saw fire/others didn't, some heard an explosion/others didn't, a woman saw the plane go down. What was she seeing now? Nothing, she was long gone, getting home in the Bronx.

I listened, as the story unfolded. I don't know for sure how long it was, it feels like it all happened in a bout an hour. Eventually, it was announced with certainty that everyone on the flight had gotten off the plane. Thank G-d.

There was talk pretty early on about geese and how that seemed to be the cause. An expert explained, with the right timing it was possible that geese could fly into both engines and jam them up. By the end the pilot was being heralded as a hero.

While it was all fresh and new, they said that the pilot had walked up and back twice, after everyone was off the plane (which was going to Charlotte and then Seattle - I believe - and spent six minutes in the air, running into trouble after three). It came out later who he was;a man with forty years of flying experience.

In the age we live in people will have plenty to read about and view on this occurrence (while the rescue was taking place I went on Youtube and found that people had already posted video footage, and of there is a constantly updated entry at Wikipedia under Flight 1549, which at the moment includes the full story plus two photos, 37 footnotes and links to US Airways' Latest Announcement, the flight path via google earth, a myriad of flicker pictures, and more).

Despite the steady flow of coverage I feel compelled to write about this. I think it is miraculous. I was struck by the anchor-woman on WCBS radio saying the word amen twice this morning, perhaps not realizing the connotation. The first amen came after an interview with Steve O'Brien. Mr. 'Brien, who was on the flight - heading back home to Charlotte, said that he wanted to thank the pilot, and that his children thanked him and that 155 people thanked him and that he didn't quite know what to say to someone who saved his life. The other amen came after the business reporter quoted someone from Wall Street saying that in today's work climate younger people are favored and that this story presents an important example of a long time worker that drew on years of experience to handle things in a calm, professional manner and to avoid catastrophe.

I think that the miracle aspect can't be stressed enough. And I think that this is an example of the importance of the combination effect of hishdadlus - human effort, and bitachon - trust in
G-d. Who knows exactly what happened here, what the story is with the geese, how and why all this happened. What we do know is that 155 people survived what could have been a tragedy, and that along with Divine Providence the many people who helped others were at the top of their game.

Fate is fascinating.

Why does G-d have a horrible event almost happen and then have everyone come out alive? Does the role of the geese in this event shed light on the many possible factors in unexplained crashes of the past? How many possible things could go wrong, that usually go right, at any second? Why were the people that ended up there all there on this plane? What is the reason for the way in which each of the many individuals who were touched by this story were and will be effected by this event? Do you believe in miracles?

Mayor Bloomberg said that New Yorkers had an "indomitable spirit" and that the city "got away with a miracle.'' That's a funny turn of a phrase that I don't recall ever hearing before. And yet I feel compelled to respond to the mayor's words by citing the anchor-woman from CBS radio this morning, "Amen to that."

Two

One day I'd like to write a book about all of the ways of dividing the world. Over the years I've heard and thought myriad times the expression, "There are two types of people in the world..." Two come to mind at the moment: "Two types of people: those who like Neil Diamond, and those who don't" (from the film For Gillian On Her 37th Birthday). Two types of people in the world: those who like olives, and those who don't (my own). A new one just came to mind. There are two types of people in the world, those who will be engaged by the following paragraph, and those who won't.

I really enjoy diet ginger ale and wonder why it's hard to find, at least in my neighborhood. I saw it in my local grocery on Tuesday night (when a friend drove me home from work and went in to say hello to the owner who is one of his best friends) and bought two large bottles. And as snow falls outside, and I sit in my warm apartment typing away, I want to tell you that drinking cup after cup of diet ginger ale is a rare joy. It's amazing to me that such a small thing can bring such pleasure.

Which leads to one of the things I want to riff about (I feel like it's been a week or two since I wrote a personal piece as opposed to parsha, etc.) If you go down about 5 posts, you'll see that the untitled post that includes some thoughts on personality tests, you'll see that there was a recent comment. I'm going to include it here (in part), front and center, because it got me thinking and I want to reply in full:

I was reading your comments about DISC. I took the assesment for the first time a few months ago, and it turns out I an an S. This was a very validating and empowering experience for me. Those traits of mine that I had been insecure about ,suddenly I was proud of! If i understood your comments correctly (you can tell I am married to a social worker!) it sounds like you were displeased with your letter. If so, I encourage to embrace your letter and be proud of your DISC identity! I'd love to hear your response...B'yedidut,Noam


First let me say - which will sound unrelated but really is related - that I don't think people are aware of or use the in blog search engine enough. If you search INFP, or Meyers - Briggs in the top left corner of this blog you'll discover the other times over the years that I've written on this topic. Personality types is something I think about quite a lot.

I was not displeased with my DISC results. The truth is that I didn't take the DISC test (except I have a vague memory of taking it many many years ago at a school meeting, but I didn't take it recently). My friend Dara told me what she thinks I might be and when she explained the groupings it wasn't hard for me to figure that I'm probably within the latter two groups, certainly not in the first. I have done the Meyers-Briggs and got a clear answer of my letters within that. Also, I am a big fan of the color personality test.

I find that these tests, for me, are usually spot on. I like these tests. I like knowing who I am. I guess my dear friend Noam (it was nice crying with you too) sensed between, and maybe in the lines, that there is - for me some struggle. Sometimes I'm very proud of being the type that I am, sometimes (as Paul Reiser would put it) not so much. (Did I ever share here that the dad of two of my students is one of Paul Reiser's best friends?)

I think we need to embrace who we are, and that's one of the points of these tests. I also believe that we have to seek balance. An INFP is extremely sensitive and emotional and would be well served by balancing some of those chesed type traits with some from the gevurah side of the menu. (I would like one day to make a test with Jewish phrases like chesed and gevurah.) I have a lot to say on this topic, but this will hopefully this will do for now.

On the topic of the search engine, please search the word Shmot if you want to see things I've said here on Shmot (it might be spelled Shemot, but I don't think so) over the years.

OK, I'm not done with the personality topic. The Gemora comes to mind, which says that there are people with certain inclinations (born under certain signs). The Gemorah says that someone with an inclination to spill blood should be a shochet or a moheil. Fascinating - to me. The Gemorah acknowledges personality types and says that you should do work that suits you well. That sounds to me like the first personality test/job counselling ever. (That reminds me of the time in HS that we met with someone who gave us a test and then told us what jobs would suit us. A dear old HS friend, a reader of this blog, was told that he should consider being a florist, which he did not take well to.)

I caught Mickey Rourke winning the Golden Globe for best actor (you can see it here, if you don't mind watching a version of someone who held their video camera in front of their TV). There was something very raw and real about him and his words.

I have been reading movie reviews assiduously since I was about ten (and discovered the stack of mini review filled New York magazines sitting next to me in the backseat one morning on the way to grandma's house). In 1980 I discovered Siskel and Ebert from the back of The Morg lounge. I stood and watched Ellen Burstyn in Resurrection, not knowing what it was. Then the camera pulled away from the scene being shown on a movie screen and panned to two men sitting in the theater who proceeded to argue over whether or not it was a good movie.

Siskel is no longer with us, but Ebert is hanging on. He gave The Wrestler a good review and said it's as much about Rourke about the title character. You can read his review if you go to IMDB and put in The Wrestler and click on external reviews.

I had written a good deal more and it somehow got erased. Gam zu letovah. G-d Bless.

Shmot via SALT #3

In yesterday's SALT, David Silverberg cites Shmot 3:1, where we are told that Moshe took Yitro's sheep to the wilderness. He cites Rashi who (in contrast to the medrash some of us learned as children about Moshe running after the thirsty sheep and carrying it home) cites a medrash to explain how Moshe ended up at Har Choreiv: “Across the wilderness – to distance himself from theft; so that they would not graze in the fields of others.”

The medrash and Rashi further develop the verse, which explains how Moshe got to the Sinai desert: “And Moshe was shepherding the sheep of Yitro his father-in-law, priest of Midyan. He led the sheep across the wilderness and came to the Mount of God, to Choreiv” The question is - what major element of Moshe's essence is being reveled to us by this comment of the medrash?

Sometimes the question is the answer. What might seem like a minor detail seems to be a major deal in the eyes of G-d. The medrash may be saying that you that to become a Moshe, the greatest prophet who ever lived, you have to work hard - from the bottom up. Moshe was, as was noted before, a private man of integrity. He simply wanted to do the right thing. Every time. In Moshe's day, it seems that theft was commonly rationalized. He made the unusual trek to the desert to ensure that his sheep would not wander off and graze off of private pastures. And it was there that he was called upon by G-d.

As Rabbi Silverberg puts it, "In light of the medrash's interpretation of this phrase, it is hard to ignore the connection that emerges between the two clauses of this verse: “He led the sheep across the wilderness, and came to the Mountain of G-d.” The lesson seems to be that if we wish to come close to G-d we should start with how we working our relationships with ourselves and with other people. To reach great spiritual heights, we need to start with entry level decency.

The medrash does not say that he wished to prevent himself from stealing. It sounds like the medrash is actually telling us that Moshe wanted to separate himself from a climate which lacked boundaries, "to distance himself from theft." The lesson seems to be that one must work carefully on oneself in order to reach the Mountain of G-d.

20 Questions

This is a copy of the sheet I gave out before a talk I gave to the Kollel members who learn and train and teach in my school. Feel free to answer, comment, etc. Etc. is my favorite.
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January 8, 2009 - Presentation to YU Kollel Members - Torah Guidance and The Classroom
20 Questions To Ponder By Rabbi Neil Fleischmann

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1. Name reasons why someone becomes a Jewish Studies teacher/ Rebbe? What do you think the reason might be for you?
2. In what way is love of learning Torah a significant reason to become a teacher of Torah? What are the pluses and minuses of this factor?
3. How do you define teaching of Jewish Studies? What elements play a role in trying to answer this question?
4. What is your impression so far of the Frisch demographic and dynamic? How has your impression of what Jewish Education changed (or not) in your months here?
5. Where do you see hashkafa fitting in to curriculum in an ideal teaching situation?
6. Where do you see Halacha fitting in?
7. How much Gemorah should be stressed?
8. What are your thoughts on tracking? What have you noticed in Frisch about this and how has this affected you weltanschauung in regard to teaching?
9. With whom do you think a teacher must be most concerned with answering to? (A related/unrelated question: Whom do you think a teacher should be most concerned with receiving answers from?)
10. What are your thoughts and beliefs regarding different personality types/styles? Are you familiar with Meyers-Briggs or DISC? Do you think that Jewish categories such as a Chesed or a Gevurah type are relevant in a similar way to the categories of these tests? Are these differences important to note in regard to students, teachers, both, neither?
11. What are your thoughts about different styles of learning? Again, is this a question that should be focused on the teacher, the student, both, neither?
12. In what ways might it be positive or negative for students and teachers to talk outside of the classroom?
13. In talking to a student about religious matters or about anything what would you place as your priority one as you plan to meet the student and then have them sitting before you?
14. What are your thoughts regarding critical thinking and various types of students? How would you apply this to the most concrete and literal minded students?
15. How many teachers can you think of that you have positive memories about? What did/do you most want from a teacher? How different do you think the answer to this question varies from person to person (is there a common denominator between people’s answers)?
16. How important is context /setting in answering the previous question? Is it important that a teacher be liked (or well liked) (name the literary work that makes that distinction)?
17. How does one balance ahava and yirah in teaching and in life? What is the meaning of this balance? How far reaching is it in its application?
18. How thin is the line between formal and informal education? How thin is the line between subjects in the department of Limudei Kodesh and Limudei Chol? How thin is the line between a school and a yeshiva?
19. What is our purpose in this world? How important is it to keep in mind this question and an answer while teaching?
20. If you were setting up a yeshiva/school tomorrow, what would it look like? What would you be looking for in a teacher? What tips could I give someone applying to your school?

Through Poverty and Wealth

Proverbs Chapter 30

ח-ט ...רֵאשׁ וָעֹשֶׁר, אַל-תִּתֶּן-לִי;הַטְרִיפֵנִי, לֶחֶם חֻקִּי.

פֶּן אֶשְׂבַּע, וְכִחַשְׁתִּי-- וְאָמַרְתִּי, מִי יְהוָה:

וּפֶן-אִוָּרֵשׁ וְגָנַבְתִּי; וְתָפַשְׂתִּי, שֵׁם אֱלֹהָי

@

8-9 ...Give me neither poverty nor riches;

feed me with mine allotted bread;

Lest I be full, and deny, and say: 'Who is the LORD?'

Or lest I be poor, and steal, and profane the name of my God.

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The above quote came to mind as I read today's thought on SALT. Rabbi David Silverberg points out that of the three episodes that the Torah presents from Moshe's adult life before being chosen by G-d there are two distinct, extreme categories.

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The first two events - the defense of a Jew being beaten by an Egyptian, and the breaking up of a fight between two Jews - took place when Moshe was a young prince. He was living a charmed life, but chose to step away from the comforts of his palace. As a result of his brave behavior Moshe had to run for his life and give up everything physical that he had, except life itself. He starts his life again as a poor man, in a foreign land, with no family. Alone.

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Moshe arrived in a new town, looking to start a new life. You couldn't be blamed if you imagined that he wanted nothing more at that moment than to never be a hero again. And yet. He arrives at the well in the center of town, broke but not broken. Staring up at him from the well are he once again sees the oppressed and their oppressors. Without hesitation he defends the persecuted women at the well.

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Moshe was first privileged, then poor. These are two situations where a person often wants to be alone, from others, from G-d, from the right and the good. Moshe reached out and defended the destitute from within situations that would have caused most men to turn inward and think only of themselves.

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Moshe exhibited unusual empathy and compassion, when it was particularly difficult for him to do so, and thus showed G-d that he was the consummate leader. By not vying for the position, but quietly illustrating his own integrity, Moshe proved that he was the only man for the job of being the first leader of the Jewish People.

Shmot - Short Thought

There's a really great website call vbm, virtual beit medrash. And there's a part of it called SURF Little Torah (SALT). Yesterday I read something really nice on that site on Parshat Shemot. The author, David Silverberg, points out five parallels between Moshe's arrival in Midyan and Yaakov's arrival in Charan. Then he points out a striking contrast between this crossroad in the lives of these two men.

Yaakov knew that he was entering a phase away from home and that he would return to Canaan. Moshe had left Egypt and thought Midyan was where he's remain for the rest of his life. He was called by G-d and told to go back to lead the Jews out of Egypt when he was 80 years old!

The lesson here seems to be be that even "late" in life we need to be open to a new call from G-d. We all get into routines and grooves, but we all also never know what G-d has in store for us.

Friends are diaries

who listen, perhaps respond

I know that they're there.

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I just received the above haiku from a friend, and it means the world to me. I have another friend, who reminds me of this one, who years ago I nicknamed "The Vault." He is a master at holding the secrets of others. And over time I have had the honor of holding his truths close to my vest , as well. What an honor it is to be friend in life. What a relief it is to know that you have people you can spill to.
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There is so much that comes to mind right now, but I feel like presenting only pieces, hints, and headlines. I wonder about whether I should ask every time I post something by someone without using their name. Twice in my blogging history when I did that I was asked to not do it again (later I discovered that the two requesters were dear friends).
o oo
Almost twenty years ago I taught a little girl who was in sixth grade (who must be older now too, though she's frozen in my mind at that age). She shared some of her remarkable poetry with me, and I wonder sometimes if I can share it without using her name, but giving credit as I just described her. When I applied for social work school (also years ago, sigh) (did you know that when I write the word sigh, it means that I actually just sighed - sigh) I wrote about that student and others like her who were comfortable sharing with me.
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There's a story from a Chaim Walder book (a dear friend that I told this to liked it better the way I processed it than the way the story appeared on the page) that comes to mind about a teacher in a resource room that kids approach filled with fear:
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The students don't want help, they don't want to speak up. They await the bell and then they ask with anxious eyes, "Can I go now?" While they sit in stoic silence, the warm teacher asks them to write about themselves, their secrets, their fears.
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She shows them a locked metal box and promises that the paper they write on and fold with their hands will be seen by no human eye once they put in in the locked box. Each visitor writes and deposits their note in the box of secrets. Each individual leaves and then decides that this teacher's space is "not bad," and it goes up from there.
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Another teacher, in a moment of jealousy veiled as curiosity asks, "Why do the students like you?" The teacher tells about the box. The other teacher misunderstands. She thinks that the first teacher's secret must be that she reads what the children write and then manipulates and utilizes that information.
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It backfires. She approaches the other teacher, who explains the power of the lock on the box, the element of the trust.
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Many years later the teacher with the box (by this time, many boxes) of secrets is ill and presents the other teacher with a last request. Many tears are cried as the living teacher opens the boxes and pours the secrets into a soon to be sealed grave, to be buried with their trusted keeper for eternity.
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I was thinking about secrets and poems and friends and students and trust. Somehow in my mind and heart this relates to personality types. Are you familiar with DISC ? It stands for Dominance, Influence, Steadiness, Compliance. A test reveals your personality inclinations. The words kind of speak for themselves. I recently sat at a simcha next to an old dear friend of an old dear friend. On my other side was the friend who taught me about DISC, together with her husband. They said they felt the strong personality contrast, as they watched me and said friend's friend interact. I've been seeing, and feeling and carrying that for years. He's got to be a D. I'm not a D.
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Then there's Myers-Briggs, which has four categories and sixteen possible combinations within those categories. I'm an INFP, not so common in the world, but common in my inner circle (which can cause me to forget what the big wold is like, and view things in a skewed way). That means, roughly, that I lean more toward my inner world (Introvert vs. Extrovert), tend to interpret things rather than take in just the facts (iNtuition vs. Sensing), look at contextual factors before I look at black and white logic in making decisions (Feeling vs. Thinking), and like to leave things structurally open in my emotional life (Perceiving vs. Judging).
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I could write so much more, but also can't. Maybe later. I feel for now, like sending this out there; this is my balloon into the sky, my bottle in the ocean, my blog in the web.
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GNAGB Vol 812

Some feel strongly that blog posts should not be edited. Sometimes I go that route, like now , as I still struggle with cold, and hopefully head to sleep. I read Rabbi Riskin's dvar Torah this week, thinking back to the many times I read his piece in my life, particularly during my most formative years. Before him there was Rabbi Emanuel Rackman. I used to clip the Dvar Torah column and save it in a folder filled with many of them,over years...k

I was also thinking back with gratitude to G-d that I appeared in that space last week. I am also grateful to those who read early versions, listened, fed back. I remember.

Memory. Someone recently told me in no uncertain terms that my remembering of things through my experiencing them so strongly is nothing other than a curse. On the other hand a dear friend recently emailed me that, "we're both jealous of each other. i wish i had your empathy, your thoughtful memory for personal details about other people,which - don't take this the wrong way, it's a very strong compliment - i do not think your memory comes from a mnemonic devices or even a rain man type of brain: i think it comes from your very genuine, heart-level caring about other people. that sears these details in your brain. my kinat sofrim of you is, among other things, for that caring." I'll go with choice B, please.

I am typing this on wireless, as I head off to sleep, thinking about the Jewish Week. A writer named Klagsburn (I think) (A friend gave me her book on Shabbos as a Birthday present a few years back) wrote about gratitude. She' grateful for having written for the paper for 15 years, for relative good health, for having known Rabbi Emanuel Rackman, and more. It was a nice piece.

As sleep approaches

I am grateful for this blog

I am grateful, yes

For friendships forged here, intense

For this chance to share myself

A Limner

I was gently blown away, by a strong story in The New Yorker. It's called The Limner. ( A limner was an itinerant painter of 18th-century America, an artist who usually had little formal training.)

It's about a deaf (racmanah litzlan) painter named Wadsworth, and tells the story of his essence through one incident, the painting of a testy tax collector. He tries to get the rich man to agree to have him paint his children but the man is not interested. This part really resonated for me:

Children were more mobile than adults, more deliquescent of shape, it was true. But they also looked him in the eye, and when you were deaf you heard with your eyes. Children held his gaze, and he thereby perceived their nature.

Adults often looked away, whether from modesty or a desire for concealment, while some, like the collector, held his gaze challengingly, with a false honesty, as if to say, Yes, of course my eyes are concealing things, but you lack the discernment to realize it.

Such clients judged Wadsworth’s affinity with children proof that he was as deficient in understanding as the children were. Whereas Wadsworth believed children’s affinity with him proof that they saw as clearly as he did.

The story is available in full, here.

Tanka Of The Day/Night

we ask - "how are you?"
do we really want to know?
or want to be asked?
then, do we want to answer?
can this question be answered?

Guten Erev Shabbos

There was a stage in blogging, which I seemed done with, when I felt like blogging everyday. It's ironic, but i a way I was out to lease the naysaying knockers of blogging, who were often the first to ask, "Do you post every day?"

I also felt a particular inclination to blog as Shabbos approached. Lately I've been skipping day, even erev Shabbos. But now I feel like saying hi, as Shabbos drifts in.

I've been told by several people about the rule of three. That would be that if you hear something three times about someone, it's worth looking into. According to that it's time for me to look into someone I know and his o her plans to move to Israel.

I have been with cold, hard to shake. For the longest time I thought taking naps a bad thing, that's just what I thought. But I'm learning to do what a friend's occupational therapist wife calls respecting your pain. So today I took the unusual erev Shabbos nap between work and greeting the Shabbat Queen. And it was good.

The cold is up and down. Did you ever want to just wish a cold away, but find you can't do it as quickly as you'd like? Anyway, here I am, anxious for Shabbos to arrive. My rest will take on a new, hopefully holy flavor.

I don't recall if I ever posted one of my favorite anecdotes: A man gets to ask G-d any question. So he asks, "G-d, what's a million years to you?" And G-d says, "A million ears to me is a second" And then the man asks, "G-d, what's a million dollars to you?" And G-d says, "A million dollars to me is one penny." The man pauses and asks G-d, "Can you spare a penny?"

When I tell that, usually people laugh at the above line. But that's not the end. G-d replies to the man, saying, "Sure you can have a penny... In just one second." And the moral is that for us time and money sometimes feels like everything, but to G-d it's a figment created for people.
G-d is above time and money.

Shabbos is a time that we work on bridging the gap between us and G-d. May we be so blessed over the next 25 plus hours. Shabbat Shalom.

Shalom

A friend sent me this picture and it struck me. The sun is shining through, forming a star on a star. It's a nice picture and a strong sign of hope. I pray for peace.

Vayechi - And He Lived

I am with cold. I like saying it that way, as much as I dislike having a cold. I wrote to a friend of mine that "I am with cold," and he wrote back, "Well, that has 19th century Victorian novel written all over it."

When I returned from five years of study in Israel I went to Y.U. to finish up smichah. One end of one week I was approached by a red headed fellow who was feeling ill and was unable to go to Livingston, N.J. at the last minute. He asked if I could fill in for him as advisor. We didn't know each other but had overlapping friends. He prepped me on the session topics about spirits and more.

On Motzai Shabbos I was looking at my Sichot Mussar and learned a bit with a serious NCSYer who at the time was a student in the school that I would take a job in around 15 years later. Today he is a Rosh Yeshva at Yeshiva University.

I recall that the piece I saw for the first time on that Saturday night somewhere between Shabbos ebbing away and Kumzitz was this one:

Rav Chaim Schmuelvitz suggests that the name Yisrael connotes happiness while Yaakov reflects sadness. He says this is clear at the start of VaYechi: “And it came to pass after these things that someone said to Yoseph: 'Behold, your father is sick.' And he took with him his two sons, Menasheh and Ephraim. And someone informed Yaakov, and said: 'Behold, your son Yosef is coming to you.' And Yisrael strengthened himself, and sat upon the bed.” (There’s some poetic and interesting literary parallelism here– first someone tells Yosef something about his father, then his father is told something about him.)
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First sad, then reinvigorated; Yaakov then Yisrael. This reminds me of an interview I saw in which Robert Klein was asked if he sees himself or someone else when he watches videos of his old performances. He said that he actually sees different people in each of the performances over time, not him as he knows himself now. We are all, hopefully, different people during different ages, different moods, different times.

Yaakov was sometimes so sad that he was a different person. And yet he was always forefather and role model. Different states of mind are opportunities, not excuses. This is a difficult truth, true nonetheless. And wherever we're at and whoever we are at any moment we are expected to be our best, to do to our best to be close to G-d.
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"It was really interesting; I could hardly sleep, I was thinking so much about this last night," I was told by a student I was meeting with. He's a passionate kid and was referring to Rabbi Twerski's Happiness book. It bothers me when people (including Rabbi Abraham Twerski himself) say that he writes the same book over and over again. I find something new and different in each work. Though, I must confess that in recent years I felt like holding back on buying a few of the newer books after having bought about forty of his previous ones. One book I didn't buy was Happiness.

My student told me that he's riveted by this book, presently by chapter 8. One part that really struck him was a story about an unappreciative older woman. Her nurse was frustrated with the woman's sour tone. Rabbi Twerski said that he had trouble responding to the nurse until he had an epiphany.

He was drawing blood from another elderly woman and as he inserted the needle he said that he would try to make it as painless as possible. The woman said that she was fine with it hurting. She explained that as she was preparing to leave this world, if there was no pain it would make it harder to go. Rabbi Twerski went back to the nurse who'd approached him with her complaint . He asked her what the woman she worked with her said at the end of each day. She said that she thanked her and said she'd see her tomorrow. Rabbi Twerski said that the woman was appreciative, but her apparent lack of gratitude was a manifestation of her making peace with the stage of life that she was at.

This student told me about that part of the book the other day and just came back to me with another insight. He said that Rabbi Twerski writes about cars and cylinders/engines. He says that if a car has 8 engines but it only using 6, it'll provide a bumpier ride than a car with 4 that is using all 4. He ties this in with people making the most of what they have at a specific stage of life, with the idea that you should use what you have to the fullest - as best as possible.

I wish I could converse with, listen to, learn from students all day.

Today I presented a talk to the Y.U. kollel members that are interning at my school this year. I focused on Torah Guidance and how it relates to the role of a teacher. I wrote up 20 questions that are on my school computer. Perhaps I will post them tomorrow.

A student recently recalled a story to me and I googled it. It sounded like it was about Simon Wiesenthal, and it was. I found it on a website of people remembering him and stories he told. In 1946 or '47 he went to a castle that was serving as a warehouse of books. He went with a rabbi and the rabbi picked up a prayer book and the prayer book had two sentences in it that never left him. The first was: "Whoever picks up this prayer book, contact my brother," and secondly, "Remember what these killers did to us." It probably was the words of the Book of Deuteronomy, "Remember what Amalek did you..." The rabbi looked at him and said this book is intended for you. It turned out that it was Wiesenthal's sister's Sidur.

This post comes to mind for sundry reasons: the quote, the poems, the readers' (thanks for being here Uri, Kishke) and my dynamic...

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4 ON VAYECHI

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Things Change

I'll take care of it
Yosef assured his brothers
And then he was dead

At the end of Breishit, Yosef tells the brothers, "I will provide for you." He settles them and guarantees their safety. We turn to Shmot and read that there's a new king to whom Yosef is insignificant. This juxtaposition reminds us how quickly things change .
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Holy Land

A deep connection
Jewish People, Jewish Land
We need to be there

Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch states that Yaakov is telling his children, "I don't want to be buried outside of Israel." The implication of not wanting to be buried outside of Israel is that one should not want to live outside of Israel.
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Are We Almost There?

When already, when?
like an impatient father
awaiting the birth
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The Malbim was asked why he and others predicted the arrival of Mashiach, while Chazal tell us on this week's parsha that Yaakov Avinu tried to tell his children about the end of days and he was blocked from doing so. The Malbim uses the familiar image of kids on a trip to explain his position.

"Are we almost there yet?" kids inevitably ask minutes after the family car pulls out of the driveway. And fathers ubiquitously reply, "No. Relax!" Towards the end of the trip when the kids ask again, "are we almost there yet?" the father tells them "ten more minutes." Why the difference? Because at the start the question is inappropriate, but later, as the kids sense that they really are getting close the question makes sense.

The Malbim says that the beginning of Exile was not the right time to speak of when it would end. But after thousands of years, as we start to sense that we're almost there, it s logical to estimate how long it will be
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Not I Forgive

"It's from G-d," he said,
"You meant bad, He made it good."
But not "I forgive."

Years ago during Ellul, I heard Rav Nachman Kahane make the observation that with all Yosef says to his brothers, he does not say "Salachti." Teshuva is a gift from G-d that can not always be granted by humans. We try. Yosef wanted to make peace, worked on his feelings, attempted to rehabilitate the brothers' behavior. But the words, "I forgive you" seem to have eluded him.

Rav Eliyahu Lopian was asked to forgive someone. He surprised the person, saying that it was a hard process. He said he'd work at it that he'd tell them later if had yet been able to forgive them. May we all be blessed to work to forgive each other as best we can.