Category: Inspiration

A Malach on Main Street

I have the privilege of preparing our Shul’s AYnouncements. (Hat tip to past president SR, for coining the term AYnouncements as in Ahavas Yisroel Announcements.) Although the weekly deadline nature of the job creates some pressure, I do consider it a privilege to be able to serve the Tzibbur in this manner.

An added bonus of the job is sharing it with a number of members to pre-read it – looking for omissions and corrections. One of the Rabbi’s sons is a pre-reader and he often will share halachic times that should be included. Last week’s AYnouncements had this inclusion: “Last Time for Kiddush Levanah is all night following Wednesday 12/7.”

(Full disclosure: It was actually missing the final h in Levanah in the AYnouncements, because it was a late addition, which was not resent to the pre-readers, and I forgot the rule: A Hebrew “hei” gets an English “h” at the end of the word.)

Anyway, this month that note was very relevant because we had a lot of overcast days and I did not have a chance to say Kiddush Levanah with the Tzibbur. Thankfully, I remembered the AYnouncements note this morning and it was still the night following Wednesday 12/7 – the last chance to say it. So as I was on the way to Shul, I pulled out my Interlinear Minchah/Maariv and crossed over to the east side of Main Street to see the almost full moon, and to say Kiddush Levanah.

As I finished I saw an older chasidish gentleman walking down a deserted Main Street smoking a cigarette. After he gave me a big Shulem Aleichem, I asked him if he had said Kiddush Levanah yet. He thought for a second and said that he hadn’t and he would say it with me. Since I already said it, I handed him the Interlinear Minchah/Maariv and listened with joy as he said a slow and beautiful Kiddush Levanah. Afterwards he thanked me profusely for being his shaliach for the reminder.

You can provide your own nimshal (moral) to the story, but to me it was as the author Sarah Riegler says “G-d Winked”. Sometimes you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right.

Why It’s Hard to be Truly Thankful

Robert Emmons, one of the world’s leading scientific experts on gratitude, says there are two component to gratitude. The first is to recognize that although life is not perfect, we benefit from many good things, including being alive.

The second is to recognize the source of this goodness as being outside of ourselves. True gratitude involves a humble dependence on others, acknowledging that people and G-d, gives us many gifts, big and small, to help us achieve the goodness in our lives.

The problem we face is that we’re not comfortable being dependent. In fact, in Hebrew, thankfulness shares the same root as admission – when we are thankful, we admit that we are dependent.

The spiritual root of our hesitancy to admit dependency is that G-d created us with the independent ability to create our spiritual reality through our free will based good choices. Thankfulness runs counter to this spiritual independence at the core of our soul.

The solution is to willingly give up a piece of our independence through the inherently dependent process of being thankful. Choosing dependency in relation to G-d connects us to something infinitely greater then ourselves. So as you enjoy your food, friends and football this Thanksgiving, put a heaping portion of gratitude on your plate – you’ll be bigger, in the right places, as a result.

Taking Five for Hashem on Chanukah

I didn’t always appreciate Maoz Tzur. Our Shul has a minhag to sing it before Maariv, with last verse repetitions, and it usually delays Maariv by about five minutes. I would sometimes get a little annoyed. I would take out a sefer. Or grudgingly sing along, as I wondered whether this delay in davening was really necessary.

A few years ago my feelings changed. While thinking through the “Miracles of Chanukah” sugya, I came to realize that lighting the Chanukah menorah expresses our desire to serve Hashem in a higher manner – in the absence of the full functioning Beis HaMikdash. Just like the Maccabees desired a pure service, our lighting expresses our connection and desire for such a service.

We can serve Hashem in many ways. There’s the learning of His Torah and the performance of His commandments. There’s the service of the heart – namely prayer. And sometimes we can serve Hashem by allocating five more minutes out of our busy schedule. Five minutes to sing a song of thanks and praise. Five more minutes in the Mikdash Me’at.

Maoz Tzur never sounded better.

How Awesome is This Shul

“How awesome is this place! This is the house of Hashem and the gateway to heaven”. When Yaakov said this, he was talking about the Beis HaMikdash. After the destruction, our Shuls function as our Mikdash Me’ats, our small places of holiness. They are our houses of Hashem, our gateways to heaven.

Our Shuls are truly awesome places. It’s the place that we can have a face to face conversation with Hashem three times a day. It’s the place where we can publicly declare Hashem’s greatness with our Jewish brothers and sisters. It’s the place where we can witness people working selflessly to keep this holy place functioning.

So why don’t we feel it? Why don’t we walk into a Shul and feel “How awesome is this place!”?

It’s probably the same reasons that we generally don’t feel Awe of Hashem. In the “Guidebook to Reaching Awe” (a.k.a. Mesillas Yesharim), the Ramchal highlights many deterrents that keep us from reaching adequate levels of Awe.

One of the deterrents is worldly distractions. We’re dealing with a lot of things on a daily basis: our jobs, our finances, our families, our friends, our health, and what exactly are we going to have for breakfast/lunch/dinner today. It’s hard to put those things out of our minds.

A second deterrent is our self-centered perspective. The davening is fast. Or slow. It’s hot. It’s cold. It’s talkative. It’s unfriendly. I want my seat. Don’t sneeze on me. There’s no cholent. That’s our default perspective.

Perhaps when we walk into to Shul, we can start with the thought – “How awesome is this place!”. This is the gateway to heaven. Hashem, the Master of the Universe wants to hear my voice. He wants to hear my problems. He wants to have a deep relationship with little ol’ me. Maybe if we start with these thoughts, we can gently push the other concerns to the side – for a little while. It’s worth a try.

Covid Created Purim Opportunities

We are taught that “All Hashem does is for the good”, and this includes Covid. Let’s look at how that might apply to Purim.

Shaloch Manos
We are obligated to give two foods to one person. These foods gifts should be significant, but because we often choose to go wide instead of deep, we find ourselves giving a lot of smaller insignificant gifts to more people. This year Covid recommendations suggest cutting down on the number of gifts we give, so we can give use our Shaloch Manos funds for something significant. One year I gave a half-platter of Sushi and a bottle of Scotch to someone and it really made the impact that was intended with Shaloch Manos.

Megillah Reading
The absence of Hashem’s name in the Megillah teaches us that even when it’s not obvious, Hashem is the guardian of the Jewish People. However, Jewish Unity is a prerequisite for our ultimate salvation. We see that crucial unity develop in the Megillah. When you’re in Shul for the reading, look around and appreciate all your fellow Covid weary Jews, who have come together to publicize and recognize Hashem’s hidden miracles. Despite our differences, we are family!

Purim Seudah
Our goal is to Serve Hashem With Joy. If we’re not feeling the joy, then our service is lacking. Unfortunately the scourge of Covid has been a downer this year and it might also reduce the number of guests at our Seudah. The key is to focus on the people who are at our Seudah. How much we love them and how happy we are to be together with them. And how fortunate we are to be able to serve Hashem together by having a joyous time.

Covid creates opportunities for us to re-focus on all that we have and do. Let’s take advantage of it.
Chag Purim Sameach!

The Joy of Loving Your Shul

The Gemara in Taanis (29a) teaches us that Mishenichnas Adar Marbim B’simcha, when Adar begins we increase our happiness. Rashi comments that “Purim and Pesach were days of miracles for Yisrael” and therefore Adar and Nisan are joyous months. Let’s take a brief dive into the Torah concept of happiness so that we can maximize our joy during this wondeful time.

The Maharal in his commentary to Mishna 6.1 in Avos teaches that happiness flows from completion just as grief is the result of loss and deficiency. Happiness takes many forms. When we crave a favorite food, attaining it creates a sense of completeness, and generates happiness. Much of our lives is composed of wanting things, getting them, and achieving a small dose of happiness as a result. When we do the right thing in a difficult situation, we feel more complete in the use of our strengths and capabilities, and this generates happiness. When we feel connected to friends and family through the emotion we call love, we feel more complete and happy. The Chovos HaLevovos, the Mesillas Yesharim and the Rambam teach that love of Hashem generates the highest sense of completion and therefore the greatest pleasure and happiness.

The higher levels of happiness take more time and effort to attain, are deeper, and are high Torah priorities. “Loving Hashem” and “Loving Your Neighbor as Yourself” are two cornerstone mitzvos. When we appreciate the miracles that Hashem did for us on Purim and Pesach, we deepen our connection and love of Him, which increases our sense of completion and our happiness.

With regard to our Shul, we can appreciate that we are bound together in a common history, heritage and mission to bring Hashem’s presence into the world. If we consistently focus on this, we can feel the resulting sense of completion and happiness. Initially, it might not generate the same happiness as a Kiddush after davening. However, it we persist, and focus on the thoughts of connection and completion, we can acheive the Joy of Loving our Shul.

Searching All Over for Inspirational Prayer

Judaism has the power to put pleasure, happiness, meaning and purpose into our lives 24 by 7. Prayer is one of the primary mechanisms to accomplish our purpose of connecting to Hashem. However, as we’ve discussed previously, prayer is difficult and we need regular inspiration to maintain and elevate our prayer.

One common source of inspiration is the Baalei Tefillah.The right nusach or niggun can emotionally unite and lift the entire Shul. One problem with this source of inspiration is that yesterday’s popular Chazzanos has become today’s unpopular kvetch and cry. In Minyanim with a deep bullpen of younger Baalei Tefillah this is not such a problem, but in some cross-generational Shuls, a regular diet of Baalei Tefillah based inspiration is hard to come by.

A second source of inspiration has unfortunately arrived and that is the Covid crisis. Shuls across the world are saying extra Tehillim. However, this is one source of inspiration that we hope will vanish.

A third source for inspirational prayer is the flame that burns within. It begins with a mental commitment to improve our davening. The flame is raised further by davening slower and by making more effort in concentration. Learning more about the prayers adds a freshness to the familiar words in the prayer books.

Of course not every prayer will be a home run, but finding inspiration from within is the most reliable way to increase our on-base prayer percentage.

The Four Most Important Words in Shul

Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan explains that the key to establishing a palpable closeness to G-d when we say the Shemoneh Esrai, are the words Melekh (King), Ozer (Helper), uMoshia (Rescuer), uMogen (Shield) in the first brocha. We start off addressing G-d as a majestic but somewhat distant King. A Helper is more available and closer than a King, like a friend who we know we can call on. A Rescuer is closer than a Helper, because he is right there to save us when we need help. A Shield is closer than a Rescuer because he is surrounding us, protecting us from harm. If we say these four words slowly (4+ seconds per word), focusing on the different perceptions of closeness, we can sense Hashem’s protection.

This four word progression is also applicable to the Yomim Noraim. On Rosh Hoshana we focus on Hashem as King. In the ten days of Teshuva, we call out more in Selichos to Hashem, our Rescuer, because He is more available in this period. On Yom Kippur, we pray and confess to Hashem, our Saviour, as He saves us from the consequences of our sins. On Succos, we focus on Hashem, our Shield, through the mitzvos of the Sukkah and the feelings of protection that it generates.

The idea of the progression from King, to Helper, to Rescuer, to Shield, might help explain a question regarding brochos. Every standalone or sequence-beginning brocha must contain Hashem’s name and the word Melekh. However, the beginning of Shomeneh Esrai is missing the Melekh. Tosfos gives the most quoted answer: the first Brocha mentions Avrahom, who was the first one who made Hashem King over himself. The question still remains: why not just put the word Melekh, like we find in every other brocha?

Perhaps we can say that the word Melekh by itself represents a distant King. However in Shomeneh Esrai we are talking directly to Hashem, To help us create that conversational closeness, the Men of the Great Assembly, put the word Melekh at the end of the brocha in the progression leading to Magen. This is the relationship Avrahom personified, and that is the relationship we are pursuing in the first brocha and in the entire Shomoneh Esrai.

May we all merit to make the progression from Melekh to Magen in these upcoming Yomim Noraim, and in every tefillah that we daven.

Dealing With Inherent Conflicts

I have about 3 minutes for a drasha at the Hashkama minyan this Shabbos, so here are the 441 words I plan on saying.

Korach is the parsha of Machlokes or conflict. The Gemora in Sanhedrin 110a says:
The Torah states: “Moshe rose and went to Dasan and Aviram” – Reish Lakish said: From here we learn that one should not persist in a quarrel. For Rav said: Whoever persists in a quarrel violates a prohibition as it is stated: “He should not be like Korach and his Assembly”.

Hashem created the world with conflict. The most fundamental conflict is between our physical side which includes our desires and ego, taiva and gaiva, and our spiritual side, our soul, composed of our nefesh, ruach, and neshama. Dr. Dovid Lieberman phrases this conflict as “the body wants to do what feels good, the ego wants to do what looks good, and the soul wants to do what is good”.

Torah is the antidote for the man vs himself conflict – as it teaches us how to properly integrate all our actions, emotions and thoughts with our soul.

When Hashem created us as Tzelem Elokim he gave us the ability to create our own spiritual reality and become a creator like He is a Creator. This creates a conflict between ourselves as creators and Hashem as Creator.

We address the man vs God conflict through prayer in which we regularly acknowledge that all our accomplishments are dependent on Hashem.

The third conflict is man vs man. In the Mesillas Yesharim Chapter 11 on Nekiyus, the Ramchal discusses the big four negative character traits of pride, anger, envy and honor – which are all rooted in gaiva. The Ramchal says “a person would be able to overcome his desire for wealth and the other pleasures and still be pressed by the desire for honor, for he cannot endure seeing himself as inferior to his friends”.

The antidote for the man vs man conflict is Gemilas Chasadim. When we give to another person we connect to them and we no longer view our relationship from the ego perspective of superiority and inferiority, which is at the root of the big bad four.

One final helpful piece of advice from Rabbi Itamar Schwartz author of the Bilvavi and the Da Es Atzmecha seforim. He says that we need to change our perspective from a body with a soul – to a soul clothed with a body – which takes mental work, given that we experience the world primarily through our bodies. The nature of spiritual souls is to connect whereas the body and ego cause desire, division and sadness.

We can’t eliminate the world’s inherent conflicts, but we can lessen their divisive effects and work on the connection generating properties of our spiritual soul-oriented world.