Month: August 2019

All You Need is Love

When discussing revenges and grudges in the chapter on Cleanliness (Nekiyus), the Mesillas Yesharim says that the Yetzer Hara inflames the heart of a person about past wrongs done to him. This makes it very difficult to totally forgive a person. Therefore the Torah comes immediately after the verse prohibiting revenge and bearing a grudge with the all-encompassing rule of “You shall love your fellow as yourself”. As yourself with no differences, with no distinctions, exactly as yourself.

If we focus on loving people and connecting to them in our actions and in our hearts, we can accept the imperfections and mistakes of others. Shuls provide many opportunities to put this Torah principle into action. On occasion a phone will go off during a shiur or during davening. Most people refrain from saying something, but perhaps a fleeting thought questioning the person’s technical prowess enters the mind. The solution to overcome any negative thoughts is to love this fellow Jew. Even to the point of feeling his embarassment over the small disturbance the phone created.

We can take this principle a step further and apply it to the father with the crying baby. We can change “What was he thinking?”, to “Most of the time babies behave in Shul”. We know that this is not easy, as the Ramchal said, our natural inclination is be negative and judge and react infavorably towards people. Thankfully we have the Torah which gives us the rules and the tools to use these challenges to become bigger.

Elul is starting and we can use these small interpersonal disturbances as growth opportunities in preparation for the day when Hashem will judge us for our shortcomings. In the words of a modern day poet – “All you need is love”.

The Weekly Newsletter and Shul Announcements

A Vehicle Born Via the Internet
As we mentioned previously, the monthly newsletter morphed into the weekly newsletter when it became inexpensive and efficient to send it out via email on a weekly basis. In the process, some Shuls no longer use postal mail to distribute newsletters.

Where Did the Columns Go?
In the monthly newsletter it wasn’t uncommon to see a Rabbi’s column, a President’s column and perhaps columns from the Women’s league and other groups in the Shul. Although it was often hard to keep the columnists to the monthly deadline, it was achievable. Moving to a weekly publication makes it almost impossible and some Shuls have eliminated the column, while others have managed to keep it, sometimes in a less frequent basis then weekly.

Production Schedule
A weekly newsletter creates a weekly deadline which makes the Shul secretary’s job harder. Every week (s)he must email the newsletter to the members on Thursday night or early Friday morning. It’s helpful to keep the deadline as late as possible to include as much late breaking or arriving news as possible, but it has to be early enough so the secretary can edit it together. Deadlines considerations must include the fact that some (or many) people will send information after the deadline. In addition, if there’s somebody who is helping with proof reading, time has to be allotted for the editing-proofing cycle.

Shabbos Disemination
In addition to emailing, some Shuls print hard copies to distribute in Shul on Shabbos morning. This creates another task for the Secretary, but keeps people who are not so Internet active, more informed.

The Announcement Dilemma
The last issue to consider is which parts of the newsletter will be announced on Shabbos morning by the president or the gabbai. On one hand you want to wish Mazal Tovs and condolences and publicize Shul and community events where appropriate, but on the other hand people get impatient if announcements take too long. Practice in delivery is helpful here. If you can keep the announcements in the 2-4 minute range you will be able to minimize making the members feel burdened.

Mourning the Destruction and Cell Phone Glancing

The internal conversation goes something like this: I don’t talk in Shul. My phone, text and email are set for relatively non-disturbing vibrating alerts. I get to minyan more or less on time. And I don’t even look at my phone during Shema or Shemoneh Esrai. So what’s the big deal if I glance at my phone when I get an alert during the davening down times?

My good friend, Rabbi Moshe Schwerd, provided a fairly compelling answer in a shiur about Mourning the Beis HaMikdash, which you can download here. He explained that Hashem took away our primary portal for connecting to Him when He destroyed the two Temples because of our sins. However, He did leave us with one primary prayer portal, the Shul. And now we’re blocking up that portal, with a disrespectful approach to prayer and to our Shuls.

Rabbi Schwerd illustrated this by explaining that call waiting is the only way we can insult two people in 5 seconds. First we tell the person with whom we’re talking to hold on because we want to see if the person on the incoming call is more important. And when we find out that he/she isn’t, we tell them we’ll call back because the first person is more important. Of course we don’t use those words, but that’s the message we’re sending and the message we send everytime we interrupt any conversation to check our phone.

The Shul is Hashem’s house. Even when we’re not davening we’re there for an encounter with the Master of the Universe. Do we really want to put Hashem on hold when we come to meet Him? Would we check our phone during a meeting with the President or our boss when asking for a raise? If we want to develop a relationship, shouldn’t we have the courtesy to pay attention?

So the answer to the opening question, is yes, it’s a big deal to glance at our phone. Hashem wants our attention in Shul. He knows it’s hard to have kavana during Peskukei D’Zimra, Shema and Shemoneh Esrai, but He also knows that we can put the phone away for the 40, 15 and 12 minutes at Shacharis, Mincha and Maariv respectively. Listen to Rabbi Schwerd’s shiur and think about it.