A Few Precious Minutes

As of a few hours ago I had resigned myself to the fact that I would not be blogging today. The well had dried up. I was out of ideas. I had even informed one of my fellow readers of that fact. Life, however, is one big blogging opportunity. Let me tell you what happened.
I went to go daven mincha. Normally that shouldn't be that traumatic of an experience. I was asked to daven for the amud, nothing necessarily shocking about that either. However, at that point, the rabbi turned to me and said, the words that (in my mind, unfortunately) many jews long to hear, "heicha kedusha". For my women readers and others that may not be familiar, instead of everyone saying shmoneh esray together and then the chazan repeating the entire shmoneh esray himself, with a heicha kedusha, the chazan recites until after kedusha out loud and then finishes the rest of his shmoneh esray silently while every one does as well.
I asked the rabbi why he made that decision. Mind you, I have been davening at that minyan for quite some time, and he just decided to make the switch today. He just shrugged his shoulders. Someone pointed out that it's Rosh Chodesh and doing it that way would mean that yaaleh veyavo wouldn't get recited out loud. The Rabbi didn't care. He just shrugged his shoulders again and said this is the way it's going to be.
It is absolutely mind-boggling to me. I will exaggerate by saying that heicha kedusha will save a grand total of 4-5 minutes. It's probably more like 2-3. Are we THAT pressed for time that we can't spare an extra 4-5 minutes for our maker??? It's like the roar of approval that takes place if there is a chosson present or bris taking place which means that tachanun won't be said. How long does it take to say tachanun? Definitely not more than 2-3 minutes. I know that we are a generation of short attention spans, but this is absolutely ridiculous.
The heicha kedusha method, cuts out the saying out loud and thereby preventing of the kahal's being able answer amen to, 16 out of 19 berachos and the answering of modim. I recently read a wonderful sefer/book by a woman named Esther Stern on the power of the one word Amen. I still find it hard to believe and have no idea what a rabbi (after 120 years) will answer when asked how he could prevent so many Amens from being answered.
What did I do, you ask? I stayed until after kedusha. Then I left and davened at another minyan which repeated the full shmoneh esray. A Gutten Chodesh.

Din or Rachamim???

The parsha starts with the pasuk, “Vayedaber Elokim el Moshe, vayomer ailav, ani Hashem”. Chazal struggle with understanding why it’s written with two different names of G-d in the same pasuk. I heard a beautiful pshat this shabbos that I simply had to share here.
We are taught that Elokim is midas hadin – judgement and the name Hashem is midas harachamim - mercy/compassion. At first this makes the pasuk even harder to understand.
I heard in the name of Rav Hutner the following example to explain the pasuk. A person (chas v’shalom) breaks their leg, and they are upset about having been dealt with midas hadin. While they are in the hospital, they run a battery of tests and discover a much worse ailment, but having caught it at such an early stage, (boruch hashem) they are able to treat it. If not for the breaking of the leg, they would not have caught the ailment in time, and the result could and most likely would have been that much worse. Reflecting back, one realizes that breaking the leg was in fact NOT midas hadin, it was really midas harachamim. There are many other examples that explain this sentiment.
At the end of last week’s parsha, Moshe is complaining to Hashem that not only have Bnei Yisroel not been redeemed, but the Mitriyim have made their lives worse. We learned only years later that the extra difficulty of those years allowed them to leave Mitzrayim that much earlier.
Now we can understand the pasuk better. “Vayedaber Elokim el Moshe”. What appeared to be midas hadin was the way Moshe originally viewed it, but Hashem told him, don’t worry, “Vayomer ailav, ani Hashem” trust me, it’s really for their benefit and I am dealing with them with midas harachamim.

Hakaras Hatov

In Parshas Shemos we learn about Moshe as a baby being placed in the basket in the Nile and then subsequently we are taught the story of how Moshe killed the Mitzri and buried him in the sand. Moshe then disappears off the scene for about forty years, during which we hear nothing about him in the Torah and only what we can piece together from midrashim.
Based on the last fact, it's clear to us that not every story that took place in Moshe's life appeared in the Torah only those from which we learn out something. What do we learn out from the fact that he killed the Mitzri and buried him in the sand?
We fast forward to this week's parsha, parshas Vaera. Moshe is commanded by Hashem to bring about the makos on Mitzrayim. However, when it comes to the makos of dom, tzefardea and kinim, it is Aharon that brings them about not Moshe. Why not Moshe?
Chazal tell us that the reason is that dom and tzefardea came from the water and kinim came from the dirt of Mitzrayim. Moshe owed the water hakaras hatov for saving his life when he was a baby, and the dirt for saving his life when he buried the Mitzri. This is mind-boggling. Firstly, we are talking about two inanimate objects. Secondly, the dirt didn't even save Moshe. The next day already word got back to Paroh as to what happened.
The moral is obviously, even though the dirt is inanimate AND it didn't really do a great job of saving Moshe, nevertheless Moshe owed the dirt hakaras hatov, and I'm sure that's why that story is included in the Torah. How many people, let alone inanimate objects play such a vital role in our lives. Do we ever take the time to truly appreciate them and show them proper hakaras hatov?
I would like to take this opportunity to thank all of my readers and especially those that comment on my blog. There is no question that I get a certain satisfaction seeing, that of all blogs you chose to come to read mine (among others obviously) and when you take the time to comment, that's really the icing on the cake and makes it all worthwhile and truly satisfying.
Thanks.

Nisyonos

My last (slightly less than) 24 hours have been rather interesting. It started with a phone call that I received from my wife informing me that our car was stolen. I was thinking how much the insurance company will love us, especially after I had been in an accident, ten days earlier. Something didn’t sound right to me. Why would they steal our car of all cars available? Believe me, it’s a car, not an expensive car, it's a fairly typical car on the road. I did a quick search on the internet, and sure enough it was not stolen. Actually, it was, but not by your run-of-the-mill thieves, it was “stolen” by the Marshal’s office.
Time was ticking. I had to drive a half hour or more to pick up my wife and get over to the Marshal’s office before they closed at 5 PM. The car was towed at 3 PM, my wife noticed it was missing when she got back to the spot close to 4 PM. And the race was on.
My wife had called the police when she thought the car was stolen and when I pulled up to where she was, they had finally arrived. As much as I motioned and waved, she was engrossed in conversation with the police as precious moments ticked by. She finally got into the car and off we raced to the Marshal’s office, flying at incredible speeds and arriving at 5:02 PM. No amount of begging of pleading would convince them to allow us to get our car last night. Of course that meant paying for an extra day of “storage”.
My initial reaction was to yell and scream at her. If not for the unnecessary continued conversation with the police, we would have made it. Somehow I was able to be “misgaber on my yetzer”. I didn’t yell. After all, what good would it have done? It wouldn’t have changed anything. Not in this situation, and not for future situations. It turns out she was under the impression that we had more time.
Fast forward to this morning. Obviously I was going to be late to work, so I went to a later minyan. I was one of six. More frustration and aggravation.
I left the house with my wife to once again go to the Marshal’s office and the traffic was horrendous. It took us a horrific amount of time to get there. Of course, what’s going through my head is, if not for that continued conversation, we would have been done with this yesterday. Again though, I kept my mouth shut. We called ahead to get the exact amount needed and then found out that it can only be paid cash. Try and find a cash machine in that area….. MORE aggravation……
Finally get to the office and turns out that they overquoted us, I had the money, paid the marshal, and then went to drive a half hour to the impound lot to get the car. Is there a reason, the lot and the payment office couldn’t be near each other? At least a little closer. I know why. Just to cause MORE aggravation.
Well, FINALLY I get to the impound lot and it turns out that the marshal did NOT over quote. They included the money that I had to pay at the impound. Luckily, I therefore had the extra cash on me. Crazy, even though it was there for less than 24 hours, I had to pay for two days. As I reached into my wallet to get the money, I hear a groan from the gentleman behind me. He was a religious jew albeit of a different ilk than my wife and myself. He asked incredulously, “you have to pay money here as well?” I know the feeling…… Apparently, between the marshal and the taxi that he had to take to get to the impound lot he didn’t have a dollar on him. I was reaching into my pocket, but before I could, my wife already handed him the money he needed to pay.
They finally brought my car out all filthy and stickered up, it’s amazing what they did to it in such a short time. I left there with a huge smile on my face. All the craziness that I experienced in those twenty hours or so, each one was probably a test to see if I would lose my temper. Were all those things in place just so that when I did arrive at the impound, that other jew had someone willing to help him out? Or being that I didn’t lose my temper, was my reward the fact that I had this one last test, which I believe we passed by giving the man the money without a second thought. While we were waiting for our cars, we were discussing how much aggravation we had both gone through, but at the end of the day, that's all it was, aggravation. BH, we were all healthy and happy, just a few dollars and hours poorer.
One thing is for sure. We do not live in a vacuum. Everything happens for a reason. Even when things appear to be going badly, there is an ultimate good at the end of the road.
Oh, btw, I am finally back at work.

SitComs

My last post made me think how much sitcoms were a large part of my youth. We were almost synonymous. If it was a sitcom, I was watching it. Whether it was MASH, Taxi, Odd Couple, Honeymooners, Cheers, Seinfeld, Friends, Three's Company, etc etc etc.
I'd like to hear about your favorite sitcoms and if possible also favorite episodes of that sitcom.

Two of my favorites would have to be George as a marine biologist on Seinfeld and Woody's wedding on Cheers.

also, try and come up with an obscure sitcom that nobody remembers. Does anybody remember Double Trouble?

I apologize to my non-tv watching readers.

Nothing

Well, nobody, and I don't mean Nobody28, thought it was possible, but for the moment I am out of blog ideas. I know. Shocking. I am sure it will pass shortly and I will be kicking myself saying, why didn't you post about ..... well, if that happens, tomorrow IS another day. However, I still feel inspired to post something. So, although I have previously criticized Hollywood for it's lack of originality in movies, I am going to go with a blog concept that's not my own. Don't criticize me. It's different. They get paid millions of dollars to come up with ideas and produce movies. I have yet to be offered a penny to post anything.

Today's post is about nothing. Seinfeld originated the concept and had a very successful show for years and years. I am going to attempt to go with what's been tried and true and behold you have my post about ....... nothing.

I'm not sure if you can see it, but in the upper right hand corner, there is a picture of nothing.

Rainy Days

Dark and dreary mornings. As it is I get up when it's still dark outside. It definitely was not easy getting up and out of bed this morning. I just wanted to stay in bed all day under the covers, but I had a blog to write, so here I am. It's amazing the incentive that blogging provides.

Great Expectations

The mind is an incredible processing machine. It's amazing what it processes and how.
I'm sure everyone has had the experience where there were two containers next to one another, identical in all ways except as to the volume of its contents. The mind makes a determination which it will pick up and its expectations as to whether that is the full or (almost) empty container. If the mind "guessed" wrong, an interesting thing happens. If it thinks it's lifting the full container, but in reality it reached for the empty one, the container will fly into the air as if it weighed a feather. If it thinks it's lifting the empty container, but in reality it reached for the full one, there is often a moments hesitation as if the brain has to reprogram to lift the "heavier" container. How heavy are the objects that we are talking about? A three year old can lift a full container. Yet, what the mind expects makes such a difference.
Similarly, if a person is expecting a $50,000 bonus or raise and they ONLY get $10,000, they are terribly disappointed. However, if they were expecting $1000, or less, if anything at all, receiving that same $10,000 would thrill them beyond belief.
This carries true in all facets of our lives. We expect people to act a certain way, and when they don't it upsets us. We expect life to treat us a certain way, and when it doesn't it upsets us.
I once heard a Rav say, one of the problems with our generation is that everyone believes that they were born with a tag on their toe that said "100% satisfaction guaranteed or your money back". Unfortunately that's not the case. That's simply not the way life works.
Once again, I look around me, and particularly in blogworld, and I see so many people that are sad and depressed about things in their life. I am NOT chas v'shalom looking to diminish or make light of other peoples' problems, I am sure everyone's issue is serious.
However, maybe, if we figured out a way to lower our expectations, we wouldn't be as sad or depressed or perhaps, more accurately, disappointed with aspects of our lives. Again, I repeat, if someone has health issues or family issues, shalom bayis issues, etc. these are all serious issues, I am not referring to those. I am referring to the smaller things that we all tend to make a bigger deal of, because we expect more. I can tell you that I, for one, I am one of the biggest culprits.
So, from now on, I will do my best to expect nothing from anybody. Yeah, right. I am sure that will work. Seriously, how do we program our brains to expect less? I really think it would make a huge difference in our peace of mind and our quality of life.

In the meantime, smile. If nothing else, it makes people wonder what you're up to.

Procrastination

OK, fine, it's about time. I admit it. I'm a procrastinator. I don't know or understand why. It's just the way I am and the way I've always been. I wait with everything till the last minute. When I travel, either business or pleasure I will inevitably pack at 2 AM the night before the flight. Yes I am usually late when I go places as well.
Why do I do that? Why do I always wait so long?
You want to know why? Because I get away with it. I always (B"H, Bli Ayin Hara, etc etc etc) pull it off, sometimes even with flair. I just recently had a situation at work with this became very evident to me. I also think I enjoy the adrenaline rush. The problem is, I am starting to see the same traits in my child, but I don't know if my child will always be able to pull things off as well. :-(


P.S. I meant to post this ages ago........ ;-)

Wanting what we can't have

I posted something like this a while ago, but I am sitting here in my office and the same concept once again, comes to mind. I can go days without eating while I'm in my office. Along comes one day, a fast day, and I can't think about anything else. Why are we programmed this way?
Now, about my neighbor's wife.......

Criticize? or maybe......

If we buy something and we don't like it, or if someone mistreats us, we are very quick to be vocal and complain and criticize. What about when things go right?
I know we all lead very busy lives and we have to make snap decisions every day on every conversation that we lead, but why is it that we are so quick to complain and so slow to compliment?
My wife is BH much more careful about this than I am. We were recently at Parents Teachers night in my child's school. We waited fifteen minutes on line to speak with the principal. Why? Because my wife insisted on telling him how happy we are with the school, and BH how happy my child is in school and how well my child is doing because of that. After ten minutes of waiting, I asked my wife if we can go, and why do we have to keep waiting. It's not like there are any problems BH. I got my answer after speaking to the principal. He said, "I must have spoken with over a hundred sets of parents tonight, each one with some complaint or another. I must tell you Mr and Mrs Idealist, you made my night." I was amazed. My wife was so right. It's amazing how far a little positive reinforcement and compliment goes.
We were recently at a hotel. The service there was incredible. Everyone there was so courteous. Good morning Mr Idealist, Good afternoon Mr Idealist, Is there anything I can get you Mr Idealist. It was a fairly large hotel, I am shocked they remembered my name. It was a very good feeling for us, to be treated so nicely. When we left, my wife insisted on leaving a comment and thanking the management for instilling such courtesy in their staff. If we hadn't left the comment would they have changed, I doubt it, but after the first experience with the principal, I, too, felt it was the right thing to do. It actually made me feel good to do it.
People want to feel appreciated. It's such a little thing, but it means so much. It happens to really work well on your spouse too. I turned to my wife and told her at one point, that I appreciate her and I appreciate every thing she does for us. It was almost as if I had gotten her a diamond ring. Yeah, right. OK, but it did mean a lot to her.

Making the most of life

Disclaimer before I begin. I am not chas v'shalom implying that the picture on the right is indicative in any way, shape or form of the appearance of the avos. That being said.......

In this week's parsha when Yaakov comes down to Egypt, Paroh asks him what appears to be a simple question, "kama yemei shenei chayecha?" or "how old are you?". Yaakov's response is anything but simple "yemei shenei megurai shloshim um'as shana, m'at veraim hayu yemei shenei chayai, vlo hisigu es yemei shenei chayei avosai beymei megureihem", loosely translated (in the Stone edition) as "The days of my sojourns have been a hundred and thirty years. Few and bad have been the days of the years of my life, and they have not reached the life spans of my forefathers in the days of their sojourns." Simple question, complicated answer.
I heard what I think is a beautiful explanation from Harav Asher Weiss shlita.
He points out a few other interesting pesukim and then ties them all together.
When the torah mentions the death of the avos and imahos it uses an interesting language:
"Vayihyu chayei Sarah meas shana v'esrim shana v'sheva shanim, shenei chayei Sarah"
"V'aleh yemei shenei chayei avraham asher chai, m'as shana, vshivim shana v'chamesh shanim"
Why the repeated use of the word "chayei". In each case, it's duplicated in the pasuk.
Also we notice that Paroh asked Yaakov about "chayecha" and Yaakov answers using both the term "megurai" and "chayai". One last question. No matter how bad Yaakov had it, it's hard to understand how or why he would complain and gripe to Paroh about his life.
Harav Weiss answers as follows. The word "chai" doesn't just mean living. It means productive living, lshem shamayim. The torah is testifying that in the case of Avraham and Sarah, their lives were "X" amount of years and each and every one of those years was used productively. When Yaakov was asked the question directly about himself, his tmimuskeit (is that a word) and anivus, prevented him from answering what his own years of chayim were. So we should translate Yaakov's response to Paroh, as follows: "I have existed/sojourned on this earth for 130 years. Compared to my father and grandfathers lives, my productive years pale by comparison." However, looking ahead to next week's parsha, the torah tells us, "Vayechi Yaakov ...., Vayehi yemei Yaakov, shenei chayav, sheva shanim, v'arbaim um'as shana".
Yaakov may have been an anav and said about himself that not all of his years were productive, however, at the end of his life, the torah testifies to us that all of his years were truly productive years, l'shem shamayim."
We obviously have our work cut out for us. Let's make the most out of life.

Lack of Originality

I recently read a post on frumgirl's blog regarding copycatting. At the time I read it I understood it on a more individual level. This weekend I went to the movies, and was astounded at the tremendous lack of originality. Cheaper by the Dozen 2 out in the theaters now. Memoirs of a Geisha is based on a book. Mission Impossible 3, X-Men 3 (based on a comic), Ice Age 2, Pink Panther and a new version of Superman coming soon to theaters near you. I know this isn't a new phenomenon, after all, we already had three Supermans, three Rambos, five Rockys with a SIXTH on the way.
For crying out loud, aren't there people in Hollywood getting paid to come up with creative ideas? Every year there will be one or two good new ideas, but why not more???

Sad but True

In this week's parsha, the parsha begins with the argument between Yehudah and Yoseif as it pertained to Binyamin's future. Yehudah pleads with Yoseif that if the "naar" doesn't return to his father, it would kill his father. The term "naar" usually connotes a young boy. In this case, the young boy, Binyamin, was in his low 30s. According to rashi in last week's parsha, he already had nine children. I recently heard the question asked, that being the case, why didn't Yehudah plead a perhaps stronger argument, if Binyamin doesn't return, you are creating nine young orphans. The lesson is that it is not a stronger argument. It is harder for a father to lose his son (rachmana litzlon), than for nine children to lose their father.