Rav Avigdor Miller On Apples - Click For Link

Pick One Of The Choices Below And Write An Essay Explaining Your Answer (100 points).

Exams test _______

a. students
b. teachers
c. the system
d. all of the above
e. none of the above

Tachanun

Yehi chasdechah Hashem aleinu. Perhaps we are not asking Hashem to perform chesed for us. Rather we are asking that Hashem's chesed should be upon us - that we should be blessed to be ba'alei chesed, as G-d is.

Taking Pause

Stream of Dreams

Rabbi Abraham Twerski, December 15, 2009, Yeshiva University - Part II

[For Part I Click Here]

"People ask me how I wrote over 50 books and I answer that I didn’t write 50 books but that I wrote one book 50 different ways. Self esteem is my one theme. Freud, at about 80 said that there’s a death instinct, like a life instinct. This was not stated simply due to depression of old age as his students said. The Gemorah says that every day the yetzer harah tries to crush us. Despite our upbringing we all have a yetzer harah that tells us that we are nothing and that we’re only worthwhile if we get external approval.

Low self esteem is not anivus. The Chafeitz Chaim was not self effacing. Did he know how much he knew (kol hatorah kula) ? Yes. He took authority, but he didn’t feel he was better than others. In his generation there were other gedolim: the Rogochover, Rav Chaim Ozer, Rav Meir Simcha, Rav Menachem Ziemba and others and he wasn’t included in that league. They say a cute story – that the Chafeitz Chaim davened to not be considered a gaon, and his tefillah was answered. You may ask, “So, why didn’t he daven to not be considered a tzadik?” The answer is he didn’t daven for that because it didn’t occur to him that he’d be viewed as a tzadik.

Rabeinu Yonah says that a baal ga’avah actually acts great because he feels inadequate and can’t tolerate his low self esteem. He tries to escape the pain of feeling like nothing by acting better than others. Alei Shor knew to address this as a need of our times. We must fight that sinister force out to kill us by telling us things like, “You think you won’t sin? You think you will understand the Tosafot? etc.”

If you know how good you are, that “neshamah shenatatah bi tehorah hee” then you should have self esteem. The Zohar explains the words, “He breathed life into man.” When you breathe out, you breathe from within yourself, so we bear Hashem within us. Think of that. How can one sit in front of a screen and look at evil and put his neshamah in the garbage, unless he thinks he’s garbage? Self esteem is our defense against what is unbecoming for us.

The number one goal for a parent is to set up a home of harmony. The greatest gift you give your child is the love you give your spouse. True discipline for a child is to let him or her know that they are good and not bad.

I can’t let this talk go by without sharing my favorite memory, which goes back to the thirties when I grew up living over a Beis Medrash. People at that time were mainly horse drivers collecting scraps of metal and rags. Before minchah every day the men would sit drinking hot tea and playing chess. At five years old, I watched, learned, and played chess with the men. By nine I could beat all the local old folks. Once a visiting rabbi from Chicago challenged me to a game on Rosh HaShanah. He told me it was OK. Later the shamash told me that the Rebbe, my father, wanted to see me. He looked up from his sefer and asked me if I’d played chess and with a slight look conveyed that I shouldn’t have. I waited to be dismissed. I couldn’t leave without being dismissed. I stood there waiting to be told, “Gei gezunteheit.” Finally my father asked, “Did you beat him?” “Twice,” I answered. And then my father said, “Gei gezunteheit.”

The Baal Shem Tov noticed that a chazzan was saying al cheit with a happy niggun. He asked the chazzan why he sang al cheits with joy. The chazan explained that cleaning the palace for the king is reason to be happy! The Besht agreed- teshuvah includes self esteem.

With positive feelings of self esteem we can do so much. Even now, while we are in a situation almost like the crash of ‘29. People are depressed. Yet, we can find things to be happy for. On Super Bowl Sunday people with foreclosures on their homes cheered for touchdowns. There is what to enjoy. How does a touchdown touch putting on tefillin or bentching? Simcha for the zechut of doing a mitzvah, can greatly lift us.

A Rebbe said, “’Ki besimcha teitzei’u’ means that with simcha you can get out of any problem in the world.” But the yetzer harah knows and attacks us with sadness.

The question is asked why in the time of the neis of Chanukah they looked for pure oil given the principle of tum’ah hutrah betzibur? The answer is that they were ready to be moseir nefesh to use shemen tohar, wanting to act with the utmost purity possible. Then the seemingly impossible occurred.

Up until 30 years ago it was a fact that a human can’t run a mile in less than four minutes, that it was physiologically impossible. Then Roger Bannister did it in 3:59 and it was a world wide celebration. Now hundreds have done it in that time and some have gone down to 3:57.

Things are only impossible until they’re done. That’s important to remember. Within a range of the possible great heights are achievable. And we need to move way up, particularly in midos."

"Insurance salesmen slink away from me at parties."

The other night I was sitting on the train and a woman was standing in front of me. She was absorbed in a book, totally taking it in, and laughing every now and then. At 96th I switched to the express and so did she. At that point she re-opened the book and started reading a poem to the guy she was with. It caught my ear. When I got home I searched the words that stood out. I found it right away, Riddle of Self-Worth by Christopher Kennedy. What a world. Click here to see the interesting poem and the book it's from. The woman in the subway told her friend she loved the phrase "ruthless as a jar of pennies." I've been in classes that have encouraged these kind of incongruous similes and I've read them in many a modern poem. Sometimes such wording works. Sometimes, like this time - for me - it simply makes no sense.

Driving Lessons

This morning my ride/colleague and I were trying to turn onto the ramp onto the bridge. My friend is a good driver, up to the challenge of negotiating the streets and turns of our neighborhood. But someone coming from the other way was hesitating, blocking the turn off, and holding us back.

I thought of this as an analogy to life. We can take care of ourselves, work on our issues. Yet sometimes, someone else and their stuff may block our way. And sometimes when that happens, it's out of your control and there's little you can do.

My friend commented that the guy who was waiting to turn on would have been correct in Jersey but was wrong in N.Y. This is a life truth. Context is key. What's right in one place or situation can be wrong elsewhere.

This all reminds me of the time years ago that it dawned on me that classroom rule, and life rules, are like traffic lights. It would be bedlam if a cop had to stand there and repeatedly ask and remind people to stop. The lights and signs work, keep things in order, save lives when we comply.

Rabbi Abraham Twerski On Mussar, Midot, and More

The following are my notes from the first half of Rabbi Abraham Twerski's shiur, delivered on Tuesday night December 15, 2009 in the Yeshiva University Glueck Beit Medrash. The first part of his talk focused on the importance of mussar and midot (I stuck with "midos" in the notes). In the second half he reviewed key points regarding his favorite topic of self esteem.

I wrote it out in first person, the I, in this case refering to Rabbi Twerski. As the notes were taken live and not from a tape or video it is not an exact transcript. Also, there were instances in which it seemed to make sense to adapt the phrasing. I hope this is meaningful and helpful to those who read it.

"A man gives an hour and half lecture. A guy from the audience asks afterwards if the speaker wants his message spread on TV, where he can have 3 minutes worth of time. The speaker likes the idea. The other fellow asks him, “Can you condense your message to 3 minutes?” “Yes,” the speaker replies. The audience member asks, “So why didn’t you do it?"

The Gemorah in Makot tells us that The 613 Mitzvot were repeatedly condensed until they were knocked down to the one statement of, “Tzadik be’emunato yichyeh.” It is a good idea to condense as much as possible, so while on the one hand I wish I had more than these forty minutes to tell you the many things I have to share, it is enough time to convey the basic message.

We live in a darker, perhaps morally darker than ever, world. I’ve had 40 years of practice that focused on addiction. Gambling and internet have caught up with old addictions. We have no immunity. You have no idea of what category of people have fallen to the internet. The yetzer harah is strong. Hopefully no decent person looks for negative things on the internet. But you can hit a wrong button and then you have 3/10 of a second to turn it off and in that fourth quarter one can get addicted. I get calls about this now almost every day. It ruins families. I saw a sefer that says that in the generation before mashiach the satan will have absolute control. It seems like it’s time, via this realm.

Greek philosophers wanted Hellenism over Torah. The triumph was that the reverse occurred. But what is Torah and how does it endure?

People here in this room are interested in Torah and mitzvoth - the bricks of yidishkeit. Bricks don’t make a house. Midos are what put the bricks together, and we need to take care versus the yetzer harah inside us. We have an animal body and also a neshama that can restrain the forces that can overtake our lives. I believe one must be as baki in Mesilat Yesharim as in Ashrei, repeating it as its mechaber says. As Rav Yisrael Salanter said, one must learn mussar with emotion, ki heim chayeinu – otherwise the negative forces of the world will get to us.

Today’s world is not the world I was born into or even the world that you [college students] were born to. It changes in seconds today. Sfas Emes says Noach knew how much he could handle of wine. So why did he get defeated by the wine? The answer is that he knew what he could handle before the flood. But he didn’t realize the world changed post mabul and so his immunity changed. Truman used hell in a speech and there was a natural, national outrage. Now a president can misbehave in more reprehensible ways and keeps respect. In this particular world we must be extra careful about midos.

I wrote a book on spousal abuse, when asked – as I often am – how it’s possible for a frum person to behave that way I reply that it’s impossible for a frum person, because it’s like being frum but eating pork. Such a person is a sheigetz. Similarly, ka’as, we’re told is like avodah zarah. A frum person does not lose his temper.

If a person ate treif in his lifetime then on his Yom HaDin he gets schar and onesh, and that one act doesn’t erase all his mitzvoth. But if someone is mevayesh another person in public, “Af al pi sheyeish beyado Torah uma'asim tovim ein lo cheilek..!” That shows us the care we need for midot.

Rav Chaim Vital, successor of the Arizal said that midos are more serious than aveirot because midos become part of a person’s character, Teshuva on such is so hard. Bad midot are worse than aveirot, Rav Chaim Vital writes. And he states, “Kol hako’eis oveid avodah zarah mamash.” Therefore, he says, one must be cautious with bad midos more-so than with the kiyum of mitzvoth asei velo ta’asei.

In marriage, the relationship is so important that Rav Chaim Vital says, “Midot nimdadot” – “A person’s character is evaluated “ach verak” – “only on how he relates to his wife. If a person does chesed with alfei alafim and is sure he’s set for olam habah due to his chesed, he should know for a fact that beis din shel ma’alah will check on his chesed toward his wife. If he was kind then tov lo, if he was provocative or irritable and did not act with chesed, that’s what will decide his din. And there will be no mention of all the chessed he did with others.

Some sefarim should never leave our table, like Mesilat Yesharim and Orchot Tzadikim. Every generation gets the new mussar that it needs. We got Michtav MiEliyahu and Alei Shor, and need to study these works."

See today's NY Times for an article on 94 year old artist, Carmen Herrera.

"'Paintings speak for themselves,' she said. Geometry and color have been the head and the heart of her work, she added, describing a lifelong quest to pare down her paintings to their essence, like visual haiku."

Shavua Tov

Hope all had a good Shabbos. A friend of mine was stuck on how Reuven could offer his two sons. Shemen HaTov says that Reuven was hoping that his two sons would be shvatim - what ended up happening to Ephrayim and Menashe. He was not literally saying that they should die but talking about them not being counted in the tribes. The Ohr HaChayim HaKadosh says that the word used, in this context, refers simply to punishment and not to death.

Nice Torah talks over the day. I shared with a friend the idea that Yosef's redemption, his release from prison, came when he saw that two other people were down. He asked them why they looked sad, and it led to good things for him. A profound lesson.

Parent - teacher meetings are supposed to be tomorrow. Odds are good that won't happen. The decision/announcement won't be made till morning.

I'm thinking of doing a blog interview with a survivor of 1549. Anyone interested?

I've heard Rabbi Abraham Twerski on several occasions, probably about 15 times. I think the talk he gave at Y.U. on Tuesday night was one of the best I've heard. He said that the bricks of Judaism are Torah and Mitzvot but what holds them together is midot. Without the work on midot, the house falls.

Haiku of the Day

My own ball and chain

I locked it, misplaced the key

G-d please release me

Life from your own loins

I wonder what that feels like

A human you made

I wonder how to

face the voice that tells me that

I am a child

If my bar mitzvah

was yesterday, tomorrow

I'll be eighty-one

A Thousand Words

Me at around thirteen, in the backyard

Post of Chanukah Past and Late Night Haiku

I wrote this last year, "during these days and at this time."

I wrote this post Maariv tonight:

Constant miracles

In those days and at this time

For these we thank G-d

Evening Chanukah Haiku

Every day of life

so far my light has returned

I like how this works

Giving Thanks on Chanukah Part I

– Adapted By Rabbi Neil Fleischmann

From Hegyonei Halachah By Rabbi Yitzchak Mirsky

In recognition of the miracles G-d does for us daily Klal Yisrael recite Modim thanking Hashem for what he does for us constantly. Our appreciation goes so far that we also have a blessing that we recite when we pass a place where a miracle was done for our ancestors: “Baruch she’asah nissim la’avoteinu bemakom hazeh (Shulchan Aruch, Ohr HaChayim 218:61).

This relates to the halachah regarding one who sees someone else’s neirot. Someone who passes by someone else’s Chanukah candles and has not lit candles himself says “she’asah nissim…” (Shulchan Aruch, Ohr HaChayim 676:2). The saying of the brachah, even though he didn’t light the candles himself seems based on saying “she’asah nisim la’avoteinu bemakom hazeh,” which is also said only due to the seeing of a place where a miracle occurred.

Avudraham says that the obligation to say a brachah when you pass a place where a miracle occurred is derived in the Gemorah (Brachot 54a) from Yitro. When Yitro saw the Jews in the midbar he said, “Baruch Hashem asher hitzil etchem… (Shmot 18:10). (There are several people who said Baruch Hashem in the Torah, can you name them and the surprising common denominator they share?)

The Avudraham cites Rabeinu Gershom, who notes that Yitro did not actually see the place (Yam Suf) where the miracle happened. Nevertheless, we learn about this blessing from Yitro. It seems that since Yitro saw the Jews who were saved at the sea it’s as if he saw the sea itself. The same can be said about Chanukah that when you see someone celebrating the miracle it is enough to say the brachah of she’asah nissim yourself. (Although the Rogochover and others say we don’t go this way today.)

Chanukah was basically established as a holiday just to express appreciation for the miracle. Therefore, The Rabbis composed a specific prayer telling about the miraculous events of Chanukah. They included this prayer in Shmoneh Esrei and Birkat HaMazon.

It was more obvious to The Rabbis that it is obligatory to say Al HaNissim in Shmoneh Esrei than it was regarding Birkat HaMazon (Shabbat 24a). This can be understood two ways. There is the approach of Rashi and the approach of Tosafot.

Rashi says that since the days of Chanukah are all about giving thanks to Hashem it makes sense that we must do this in our regular main prayer: Shmoneh Esrei. On the other hand Birkat HaMazon is not a set basic daily prayer, but one that you only say if you happened to eat bread. This is why Chazal were less sure about obligating saying Al HaNissim in bentching than in Shmoneh Esrei.

Tosafot has a different theory as to why the Rabbis were sure that you must say Al HaNissim in Shmoneh Esrei, but less sure about obligating its recital in Birkat HaMazon. He says that the point of Chanukah is not simply to thank G-d but to publicly show our appreciation and spread the news of the miracle. This is why in davening which is done in Shul with a tzibur, you must say Al HaNissim. However, eating is done privately, usually at home, and therefore when you bentch is it optional to say Al HaNissim because you are saying it in private and not really publicizing the miracle.

The Shulchan Aruch rules based on the Gemorah that you have the option to say Al HaNissim in Birkat HaMazon. The Gemorah, however did not offer this option for Al HaMichyah (unlike other holidays) and so we do not mention Chanukah in Al HaMichyah.

Mid-Day Hallel Haiku

I was struck during Hallel and wrote this.

Dovid: "Ahavti"

He loved G-d because

He heard his supplication

From the bonds of death

H.O.T.D.

We are in the world

I am here and you are there

Or, you here - me there.

Chanukah 5770 Day Six Version Two

5770 Chanukah Day Six

Chanukah 5770 - Night 5: How do you translate la'agor?

"Love and light can not be hoarded"

"Ahavah va'ohr ee efshar la'agor"

- Natan Yonatan

Chanukah 5770 Day 4: Lighting Up The World

When put on the spot with, "Tell me a vort," the first one that enters my mind is the one about this world being like a wedding hall (ha'olam hazeh domeh leprozdor lifnei olam habah) and also being compared to darkness (domeh lechoshech). An answer to this apparent contradiction is that the world is a beautiful place and it is covered in darkness. Torah (i.e. our leading a life of Torah) illuminates and thus reveals the grandeur of our dark world. (I heard this from Rabbi Zevulun Charlop, Shli"tah, at a rabbinic luncheon circa 1991. He cited an obscure sefer that I really want to find out the name of).

5770 - Fourth Night of Chanukah: Chanukiah

"Me'at min ha'ohr docheh harbei min hachoshech"

"A bit of light pushes away a lot of the darkness"

- Tzeidah LaDerech

(commentary on Rashi written by

Rabbi Yisachar Ber ben Yisrael Laizer Parnaz Eisenberg

Rabbi of Gorizia, Italy, elected Rabbi of Tzefat

died on the journey there)

Chanukah 5770 - Day Three: More Light

In Tehillim 113:13 Dovid HaMelech states "Mimizrach shemesh ad mevo'o mehulal sheim Hashem" - "From the rising of the sun to its setting, G-d's name is praised." This is the pasuk on the Tehillim card that I randomly chose from the pack today. The comment on the bottom reads, "From the time the sun rises in the east until its return to its source, we are actually witnessing G-d's lending us of His light." I assure that not all of the cards speak of light. I am not stacking the deck.

You Never Know: A Legend Of The Lamed-vavniks explores the concept of the thirty six hidden righteous people who keep the world going. It draws a parallel between what these people bring to this world and the thirty six Chanukah lights. It develops the idea that light and goodness can be hidden and things are sometimes not what you think. I think this is a serious matter, deserving of serious treatment and contemplation.

In the previous post I cited a passage about the woman whose wedding was a celebration of her life which was almost lost on Flight 1549. She appreciated hearing words of praise and seeing how many people turned out, saying it was a foreshadowing of what she might expect at her funeral. This brought to mind PT Barnum's request of the New York Evening Sun to print his obituary early to be sure he saw it in the paper before he died. They did it, writing among other things that "he added to the sum of childhood's and of human joy." In other words, despite his flaws, he contributed to the world positively, in his own way.

As I prepare to shut the light, I write.

Better try the old ABC system, I think

Come and listen to my pre sleep thoughts

Dualism is an issue in my life

Everywhere I turn I see choices

For me there is also a good deal of grey

Great things come if you see all the shades

Help me G-d is sometimes all I can say

I'm thinking of light, maybe because it's Chanukah

Just a little more light, and a little more...

Knowledge is light

Let me have clarity

My G-d rolls away darkness for light

Now my body enters darkness, my soul goes to the Light

One G-d, just one G-d, one.

Please - one G-d, help me

Quietness is noisy sometimes, I pray for balance

Right now I am alone with G-d (and you)

Such odds - how did those Chashmona'im win?

Time flies, we have to hurry

Understanding Chanukah, like life, is not simple

Viewpoints abound; why eight days for a miracle of seven?

Why not say one day is to celebrate the miracle of "nature?"

Xmas has got nothing on the joy we should be feeling

Yes, we did

Zoroastrianism was wrong, there is only one G-d.

Good night and G-d bless

I am tired I confess

Happy Chanukah

Chanukah 5770 - Second Night/Day

We light thirty six official wicks during Chanukah, I'm still thinking about lights. The Rokeach says that this parallels the thirty six days of the first three days of light in creation. That light was so intense that it was dissipated and reserved not for now but for later. The Sfat Emet (as adapted by Rabbi Yosef Stern in Days of Joy) says that the Rokeach's comment "is not merely a numerical analogy but also reveals his insight that every Chanukah by kindling the lights, we are somehow able to elicit the first light of creation."

Adam made a major goof, and G-d told him that Adam had now brought death into life. Adam didn't understand what this meant (like many of us). When the first winter came and daylight started decreasing Adam thought this was death itself. Adam experienced the days getting shorter as a return to the darkness and chaos that enveloped life (like many of us). He set up an eight day period of somber penitence. Then he witness the slow return of light. And he set up an eight day holiday. Hmmmm.

I haven't used my Tehillim cards in a while, till today. I picked a card any card and got one with this message under the pasuk: "G-d encourages all, yet only those willing to face their deficiencies, the humble, receive G-d's light, into the darkest recesses of their lives." I like.

Miracle On the Hudson

I just finished reading Miracle On The Hudson. The survivors formed a group and commissioned journalists to tell their story. It's a remarkable feat. Many pages cover the three minutes or so of the flight. Then the jumping into the water and getting out on the wings. And then the twenty four minutes that it took the ferries, boats, helicopters, and divers to save every single person on the plane.

There was one baby on the flight and the mother, at certain points of the escape from the plane and subsequent rescue, had to trust strangers with taking and hold her baby in precarious circumstances. That's the background you need for the first of the following three excerpts:

Damian was handed around the raft until his mother wedged herself in between others who made room. "Someone literally handed me the baby," said Beverly Mills. "He was just priceless. He screws up his face like he's gonna cry, and he looks at me... He starts playing with my earring. Now he's totally absorbed with this earring... I turned to the other people on the raft and said, 'Guys, I don't know how the rest of you are doing, but the baby is playing with my earring..." We spend a lot of time worrying about the future and regretting the past. We don't spend much time in the moment, and he was in the moment. It was pretty cool." (page 183)

A week after the accident Tripp Harris went to see his pastor in the hopes of making sense of it all. "There were so many things that had to line up. The right pilot on the right plane... My biggest question to my pastor was, 'If G-d put all these things together, why not just move the birds?" Harris was not being flip. His pastor told him that G-d moves birds for a lot of other planes, 'But this was a time when G-d needed to show that he can make miracles happen,' the pastor said. 'This was time when everyone around the world needed a miracle.' (page 206)

Michelle DuPonte had her dream wedding in February, in Hawaii, although the reception did not go exactly as she'd planned. It was better. Despite the bad economy, virtually every friend she's invited spent the money to attend the ceremony. 'Half the people who came couldn't afford to be there,' DuPonte said. 'Everyone was there to celebrate more than Dave and me getting married. It was a celebration of me being alive. Every speech talked about me living after that plane crash. Do you ever wonder how many people are going to attend your funeral? I feel like I have an idea.' (page 213)

All This And Chanukah Too

I had a parsha post I wanted to finish, looks like it won't be happening pre-Shabbos. I have a Chanukah quiz I wanted to re-post, ditto. I have so much to vent and don't know how to choose or quite why I would choose to share anything at all here. And yet.

A neighbor of mine just told me in the grocery that he doesn't have a Chanukah gift for his wife. I told him he could peruse some new books I got a book fair but he seemed set on running to try to get something that feels more appropriate. I just got home a moment ago myself, and there's a lot to do. And yet.

I've been told by a colleague and friend that I've worked with for the last ten years that I bring light to the work place. I believe that she truly feels that way. One year I shared a class room with a Spanish teacher who said that she felt good karma when she entered the room. I believed her too. There's nothing like when someone compliments you and it seems sincere.

I like the idea of light. Every day we thank G-d for creating it. Every day we try to bring a little more of it to the world. When Rabbi Abraham Twerski was born his mother started lighting one more candle for Shabbos. And she told him later that it was because when he was born more light came into the world.

In potential we all have our own share in this world, just like we all have a share in the world to come. And our job is to bring some other worldly light into this world in the way only we can. Once a week we light candles. Once a year we light candles for a week. Light is a major force in Judaism.

I want to be a light creator, not a light blocker. Why does it sometimes feel like a fight? Both from inside and outside the light doesn't always seems to be permitted to readily flow. Part of Chanukah's prayers is that our sparks should be fanned into flames, our hopes should win out over our fears, our Torah should shine brighter than anything.

Every week Erev Shabbos is a scramble for a little light as darkness encroaches. On Chanukah that happens repeatedly over eight dusks. And when it's Friday night and Chanukah then the stakes go really high, the pressure and the pay off are greater.

And that's where I find myself at this moment...

Sometimes it's amazing that we forget basics. Anne Roiphe once got herself in trouble by publicly displaying, in the New York Times, her ignorance of the history of Chanukah. After that she re-connected a bit with her roots.

Here's a little quiz I wrote on the basics of Chanukah. For the answers click here.

1. In what year (BCE) did the Macabeees rededicate the Great Temple of Jerusalem (Beit HaMikdash)?
2. What does the word Chanukah literally mean?
3. Which people did the Macabees reclaim the Beit HaMikdash from?
4. a. In the time of Alexander the Great, Israel was considered part of what country? b. Israel was considered a province of what empire?
5. What was the job of the provincial governors?
6. What name is given to Greek culture?
7. What type of god or gods did the Greeks worship?
8. Where were Greek laws written and how were these laws decided?
9. a. How did Alexander force people to accept his beliefs? b. How did his immediate successors do this?
10. What was Theos Epiphanes’ real name and what does this chosen name mean?
11. What policy did he introduce ?
12. Who was worshipped in the Beit HaMikdash under the rein of Antiochus IV?
13. What two things served as tests of political loyalty?
14. Give four examples of things that were prohibited and punishable by death?
15. In what town did the rebellion against Antiachus begin?
16. a. Where was this town? b. Near what modern town?
17. What event sparked the revolution?

The sky is turning pink.

My face is probably flushed.

It's getting close to Shabbos.

I'm almost dressed.

-

Darkness is descending.

The sun is is quickly setting.

It's getting late fast.

I am still prepping.

-

It's a miraculous occasion.

All this and Chanukah too.

I am reminded of being a child.

I want to re-light my youth.

Vayeishev 5770

Peretz Part II

(Continued from part one)

Rabbi Zevin quotes from Yaakov's statement to Lavan in Breishit 31:52, "This heap will be witness, and this pillar will be witness, that I will not pass over this heap to you, and that you will not pass over this heap and this pillar to me..," as the paradigm of a boundary that staves off exit and entry.

He says that the boundary between Israel and chutz la'aretz - land outside of Israel serves these two aforementioned functions. One should not leave Eretz Yisrael. Also, one should not bring in to Israel "avir eretz ha'amim" - the air of lands of other nations."

A Few Mid-Day Quotes

"There is nothing noble about being superior to some other man. The true nobility is in being superior to your previous self." - Hindu Proverb. A student shared with me today that this is his yearbook quote. It reminds me of something Colonel Potter once said on M*A*S*H, to the effect of, "The only man I compete with is the one I am today." I googled the quote about your previous self and found it attributed to Hemingway. The student wondered aloud if anyone will consider it wrong for him to quote a Hindu saying. I was confident that if I searched it I'd find another attribution. You never know about the sources of these quotes; you only know that they are true.

One of my favorite yearbook quotes ever was the one used by my friend Seth Berman, “Talent is G-d given; be humble. Fame is man-given; be grateful. Conceit is self-given; be careful.” - John Wooden. My friend Scott Gordon went with, "There is a light in the darkness of everybody's life," which he credited to the Rocky Horror Picture Show. Mine was from Osh Sebrow - "What will you give me, there's nothing I need. When I gained understanding I lost all my greed."

VaYeishev 5770

If you are interested in a post from this parsha week O.Y.A. please see here where there are links to several ghosts of Vayeishevs past.

Peretz Part I

The Ramban explains that the root word peretz indicates the breaching of a fence and a passing through, the overstepping of an expected boundary. The name of Peretz comes from the fact that he took it upon himself to break through and come out first during the birth of twins. As another example of the use of this word the Ramban cites Breishit 28:14, “Ufaratztah – and you shall break through to the West and to the East…” (Sforno explains that those words contextually. G-d says that we will be many/great following the words saying we'll be like dust because the process is such that we must be denigrated through galut before we are redeemed with geulah.

Rabbi Shlomo Yoseif Zevin in LaTorah VelLaMoadim takes pause at the Ramban’s comments on the word peretz. Boundaries, Rabbi Zevin explains, work in both directions – they keep inside what must stay inside and they block out what should not enter from outside.

My 100 Word Challenge - Try It - Write Anything Coherent and Whole That Is Exactly 100 Words

I want to be profound inside a hundred words. I have the dots, just need to connect them: Faith, honesty and integrity, respect for self, friends, authority, and G-d, family, friends, love, work, health - both mentally and physically, creativity and play. For these words to mean something you need to have G-d and other people in your life on a regular basis. You need to be there too. You have to always be tending to your giant pot of soup, sharing it, and believing that the Master Chef is constantly stirring and tweaking it for you, making it perfect.

Rav Hirsch On VeHu Rachum Before Maariv

"When at night, which for us marks the start of a new day, we look back in retrospect upon what we have done during the day that has just passed, we are filled with a crushing sense of inadequacy, and only the thought of G-d's compassion in which he has so often granted us atonement in the past can sustain us." Hirsch Siddur pages 533-534

Frayed Rainbow

The Tzadik, With Capital Ts

A lifetime ago on a very good date I was asked who my favorite character in Tanach was. My answer was Dovid, warrior, guy's guy, poet, song writer, man of G-d. Sounded cool to me.

This morning during leining I thought of Yosef HaTzadik with fondness. Things change. For a moment, I thought Yosef may be my favorite, as it were. Yosef: a dreamer whose dreams came true. He defied temptation. He was G-d focused for real and likewise regarding his Jewish identity. He was a giver.

"Time keeps on slippin', slippin', slippin' into the future"

Blogging, like many things boggles my mind. I've been writing here for five years. Blogging was about as in as it was going to be when I started, now it's less than a tweet, barely a face in a book of thousands.

Life goes by. I see it as I blog. Right now I'm playing a Pandora station called Tommy Emanuel, centered around a guitar virtuoso recommended by a reader that became a friend.

Only a cold, I hope as I sniffle. As a kid I used to read the back page of my father's Forbes magazines: Thoughts On The Business Of Life. I still check it out from time to time. This week the focus is on colds and the like and this quote is included: "Illness is the night side of life, a more onerous citizenship. Everyone who is born holds dual citizenship, in the kingdom of the well and in the kingdom of the sick." - Susan Sontag

Going back five years, I wonder about the ramifications of this blog. There have been major effects. Blogs and bloggers have come and gone. And the idea of writing longhand thoughts and feeling seems to be evaporating.

Go know who's going to be your true friend when the moment of need comes. Go know if who you thought would come to your side resembles, in any way, what you guessed the scene would look like.

I am tired, but not done.

Not long ago I was fourteen, reading this article, by Ellen Willis, in an Ellenville hotel.

Good night and G-d bless.

"The Essence Of Wisdom Is To Know Yourself"

Rav Noach Weinberg Z"TL

The Rambam believed in taking wisdom where he found it. So do I. Here is a slide presentation of quotes of a man who brought wisdom into my life during what's generally considered the most formative of years (though I'm still forming). May his memory be for a blessing.

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Flowers at Camp IF, a place of possibilities where I have run twenty public seders and myriad minyans, given lectures, facilitated discussions, run programs, counselled, performed,

emceed talent shows and been for the past ten years

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An other

photo

An other

memory

An other

piece of me

I carry

Delimited World

Mezzetin By Jean-Antoine Watteau

An offbeat book that I bought for three dollars at the Goddard book fair was this one by art critic Jed Perl. It's about his favorite artist and what caught my eye was that he wrote the book in alphabetical sections. My feelings about writing alphabetically is that it propels you off the ground in a way you never expected to fly.

Here's an excerpt from the book. It's the first entry: Actors. And it relates to the painting above, a portrayal of a known clownish actor sitting in front of a set.

"For Watteau, life is a casting call, an audition, a rehearsal, a coaching session, an intermission, an opening night party, a day spent in idleness after the play has shut down. Although Watteau's paintings are saturated with the life of the theater...the more I look at his paintings, the more forcibly it's brought to mind how few of his characters are actually onstage. The strictly delimited world of the stage is too readily comprehensible to really interest Watteau. An actor onstage is a personality, a figure, and Watteau is fascinated, above all else, by the impossibility of ever being sure of who you are, at least for more than a very brief time. He is a master of in-between situations, less interested in life as a stage than in the preparations for going onstage..."

Taking Things Seriously

Every year on the Sunday before Thanksgiving The Goddard Riverside Community Center holds a book fair. They get brand new and relatively new books donated and sell them at half price. If you came during the last hour of the sale they still have a lot of good things left and sell books with price tags of up to forty dollars (or more) for between one dollar and three.

Here's a highlight of one of the books I purchased this year (it's my second year in, last year the big finds were Debra Winger's Memoir: Undiscovered, Nancy Peacock's A Broom of One's Own, and multiple gift copies at a buck a piece of Haikus For Jews.) This year the fare was broader if not better, in other words I bought more. The receipt was kind of funny for a giant bag full of books reading roughly, $1, $3, $2, $2, $2, $2, etc. for these beautiful, wonderful books.

One example: Taking Things Seriously. I recommend clicking on the link, even if you generally skip the clicks. I love the title and the book (One definition of a good title is that it has at least one more than one meaning) resonated for me. I've listened, perhaps against my better judgement, to my personal organizer who argued that it's the memory not the object that counts. He said with confidence that if someone gives you something they want you to hold on to the gesture and don't care if you hold on to the object. Though, I know of at least one case where a giver did not feel this way. I gave away some books and threw away some movie stubs and other things. But I still subscribe to the idea that the objects are worth a lot, including worth holding onto. This is why I was happy to find my cherished pencil from kitah vav.

I recommend Taking Things Seriously. It was worth every cent of its two dollar price tag. At that price even Abbie Hoffman would agree to buy this book.

Named For An Allman Brothers Song

"Pronounce 'haphazard.'" I was taken off guard to find that someone came to a post of mine by googling those words. What post? When post? Evey now and then I look at recent word activity, it's the one stat tool I use. (A fellow blogger gets an email telling her who looked at what post and when. I have no idea how to do that and am not sure I want to know. These key words are intriguing and enough.)
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The four year old post has no title (and spelling errors - I need an editor bad), the opening words are, "Thanks Tamara." If I started a post that way today I might add, "whoever you are, wherever you are...hope you're OK." That piece goes through words that are written one way yet sound another, and variations on that theme. I really enjoy those posts that were ubiquitous in the blogosphere three years ago in a world where Facebook and Twitter didn't yet rule.

The other day is one of my classes something came up about right and wrong - a sad tangent. Someone said, "Two wrongs don't make a right." I counted down in my mind the three seconds till another student inevitably replied, "Two Wrights make an airplane."

About twenty minutes later a student from another class came in asked politely if could ask Melissa a question. Sure. The question was about her tweet. "Did D.C. really say two rights make an airplane?" "Yes." Melissa had tweeted to Nathan what D.C. said without getting it. When I explained it she got it and thought it was cute. She's a typical tweeter. Tweet first, think later. By the way, she's one of the best and brightest and most sincere and kind and hard working in the class.

Name The Film

In 1973, 1975, and 1977 I was taken by my one or both of my parents (TSLABW) to see a movie made by my favorite writer, director, and star, soon after it opened. (We skipped the two made in 1978 and 1979 - though my parents understandably saw the 1978 one on their own - but went as a full family to Long Island shortly after the opening of the one that came out in 1980). This photo is from the middle one of those films. Can you name the movie this picture is from and give the voice over quote that accompanied it?

Shabbat Shalom

What Are A Thousand Pictures Worth?

Someone in one of my recent pictures was alerted to my posted photo by a person in Ramot. One never knows, do one?

In eighth grade a classmate of mine commented that school seems to go slow as you go through it but then seems fast when you look back. Yuhuh.

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It's been a long, quick week and I'm tired.

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Tonight I learned in the Y.U. B.M with a wide array of my students, present, past, and passing.

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I'll close with a thousand words:

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Falling Up - VaYishlach

By Rabbi Neil Fleischmann
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Yaakov Avinu seems to always have people around him, a life filled with family, with one stark exception. In anticipation of re-meeting Eisav he prepares for battle, for a typical, physical war. Yaakov divides his camp strategically and advises them on how to deal with Eisav. He helps the fifteen members of his nuclear family cross the stream of Yabbok. Then, suddenlly, briefly – though it probably feels like forever -Ya'akov finds himself unusually alone. “Vayivater Ya’akov levado – and Ya’akov was left alone (Breishit 32:25).” Then he is confronted by an unexpected enemy of a unworldly sort. There is no explicit documentation of his preparation for his spiritual battle. Ya'akov's life up until this moment was his preparation. There was no cramming for this exam.
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Rabbi Yosef Blau sees this story as reflective of all of our lives. The major battles are spiritual and our sole preparation for the fights that count is the way we live the episodes of our lives up to the moment when we are tested. These conflicts are amorphous. When they arrive is unannounced and unknown. The physical challenges that we think we must prepare for, often never come. When the unexpected confrontations occur the people who usually travel with and support us can suddenly be absent from our surroundings . We can fight dark forces and win, but like Ya'akov we may come out limping. We can survive and thrive and, like Yaakov, in the end gain a new identity, sanctified through our spiritual victories. It is to our advantage to view these hurdles in a positive light.
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Shlomo HaMelech wrote "Sheva Yipol Tzaddik Vekam" - "A tzaddik falls seven times, and rises" (Mishlei 24:16). We all fall. A tzaddik moves on even with his many falls. Rav Yitzchak Hutner explains that rather than being a tzaddik despite falling down, a tzaddik is a tzaddik because of the times he falls and rises. In a letter to a student experiencing hard times, Rav Hutner developed the idea that achieving greatness is a process of overcoming and moving on. He explained that while we imagine righteous people being born righteous, it is more likely that they struggled to become great.
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"Ma'ayan nirpas u'makor mashchat: tzaddik mat lifnei rasha"-"A righteous man falling down before the wicked: like a muddled fountain, a polluted spring" (Mishlei 28:26). Rabeinu Bachai cites this pasuk as ancillary to "Sheva Yipol Tzadik Vekam". A tzadik stumbles through encounters with reshaim. Just as a sullied spring re-invigorates and returns to its previous purity, a tzaddik collapses into the hands of a rasha but soon regains his glory. Rabeinu Bachai offers these lines from Mishlei as an introduction to Parshat VaYishlach. Yaakov was temporarily humbled before Eisav; he showered his brother with gifts and addressed him as master. In the end, Ya'akov departed unscathed from his encounter with Eisav. The Sfat Emet notes that Ya'akov bowed before Eisav seven times (Breishit 33:3), an allusion to "Sheva Yipol Tzaddik Vekam". Using Rav Hutner's sense of the pasuk this can be understood to mean that Ya'akov not only fell and rose before Eisav, but his falling was part of the rising. This can be applied to the seemingly myriad rough times Ya'akov went through.
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The physical altercation with Eisav which never happens takes the form instead of a spiritual fight. The wrestling match which precedes Yaakov’s meeting with Eisav tells us what it, along all of Yaakov’s other hardships, was really all about. In Ya'akov's lifetime as in seasonal cycles, fall foreshadowed spring. In the lives of individual Jewish people as in the life of the Jewish People as a whole, we fall to rise again. The road to geula is galus, as our private exiles are paths to personal redemption. May we soon merit to see redemption for ourselves, our families, Klal Yisrael, and the world.