I used to like mussar, the self improvement stuff that gets you off your feet and makes you realize you’ve been a real shitty person your entire life. Great, make me feel like crap for having a short temper, not cleaving to the Lord, and thinking about the skatepark during krias hatorah. Mussar takes two of the most important things in Judaism, guilt and character development, and allows Rabbis to project their misgivings upon you. I used to love it, until it started getting a bit ridiculous.
I like learning about the dangers of slander, gossip, anger, and not being a cheerful dude. I really like smiling, it helps me change from that guy giving you the finger for going 70 in the carpool lane to a simple wave as I pass you on the right. What I don’t like are the moshels from the days of yore that basically prove that whole thing about the Jewish people spiraling down from the generations since sinai.
A nice fellow with a very large brimmed hat spoke during shalosh seudos this week. With reshus from the Rav he spoke about Ellul and how far our spiritual market value has been lowered since Mir in 1920. Apparently when the chazon would announce Ellul during birchas hachodesh in 1920, one would hear screaming from the Ezras Nushim and the women would faint. Obviously, my first thoughts went to nether world where all the women of Mir were having extra marital relationships with the local water carrier while their husbands shteiged away – hence the fainting – but this was not the case. “How could it be that just 90 years ago, women were fainting at the mere announcement of Ellul, and today we have no reaction?” Damned good question. Follow it up with a fairy tale about the son trading some of the kings jewels for some rice in some far off land or being able to ask the richest man in all the land for anything you want and that about sums up every Ellul shmuess I’ve ever heard.
I can tell you that the vecker in my yeshiva one year was genuinely concerned that we were sleeping in during slichos. After all, it was the best time to sleep in, who could pass up the chance to avoid those pesky Rabbis pulling off your covers because they wanted to do slichos? I never thought I’d have to hear the crying voice of “Rabbosai It’s Ellul” again, yet here I am in San Jose, California and it continues to haunt me whenever I wake up on time for shul.
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I laughes numerous times while reading this.
You’ve been sorely missed.
Yidden went all the way from New York to Mir in the 30s to get their mussar fix and you’re trying to run away from it? You should be ashamed of yourself.
http://thepartialview.blogspot.com/2014/09/elul-hundreds-of-listeners-scream-e-l-u.html
It doesn’t seem like Judaism cares about you being a good person. What it cares about is doing what it says in the Torah. In the Torah it happens to talk about doing things which we perceive as good acts, such as giving to charity, but the end goal is not being a good person, it’s doing what the Torah says to do. Being a good person is a side product. Any thoughts on this topic? It has been bothering me for a while.
You should ask this question on http://judaism.stackexchange.com/questions/ask
Cool, Just did, Thanks
You have hit the nail on the head. Rabbis don’t care about you as a person they care about a book.
I don’t know what kind of rabbis you’re speaking to, my rabbis care about me deeply. “Kadsha Barich Hu Oiraysa Yisrael Chad Hu” –that means G-d, the Torah and we as a people are all one. You cannot truly, essentially care about one and not the other, or your care for one is not real.
Someone who only “cares about the book” is not acting as selflessly as they’d like to imagine.
For ourselves, it’s a lot to work on 🙂
Being a “good person” is completely meaningless without a legal framework.
Being a “good person” is completely meaningless without a legal framework. People are biased by nature in favor of their own self-interest, and will always gravitate in that direction regardless of how much they sincerely believe in being a good person. The fact is that it is completely obvious how to be a good person- as long as you are outside of the situation looking in. When you are inside of the situation, being a biased human being who is likely in the throes of strong selfish motivations, it is impossible to clearly see right from wrong. Your only hope for being a “good person” in practice rather than theory is to have a set of concrete rules to remind you when you have crossed a line- even though you are not always going to feel like following those rules. I mean, my landlady is a 70-something year old bleeding heart liberal who is always preaching about Christian kindness. You know what? She just told us to pay an extra 500/month or move out at the end of our lease! This after we just paid for a new oven since her highness refused to reimburse us for the one that went bust on us. This old lady has been preaching one message her entire life, but when the opportunity beckons, she is every bit as greedy and selfish as all of the people she judges.
Hmm. I definitely understand what you’re saying I just can’t say I agree with it. In the case of your landlady, she simply wasn’t being a good person in that situation no matter how often she talks about. I do agree that it is one thing to have an ideal of being a good person, and something completely different to practice it in daily life. One can talk about being good all the time and it can mean nothing if its not practiced, as is obvious from your situation. And even with a legal framework, one can simply choose not to follow it. What I am troubled by is that there doesn’t seem be a virtue of being good and nice to the people around you, in whatever form it can come in. Much more emphasis is placed on doing mitzvos. That’s not to say that there isn’t good being done by Jews, there’s actually lots of it, but those forms of service seem to come in 2nd ranking to learning Torah and doing mitzvos. In my mind, goodness and harmony with the people one interacts with seem much more important.
It is important to note that when rabbi Hillel was asked to summarize the torah he said “love your fellow as yourself the rest is commentary now go learn”. Also, there are problems with the jewish community, not judaism.
That’s not what he said. He said “What is hated upon you don’t do onto you’re friend”. Vastly different from R Akivas “Love you’re fellow as yourself is a great rule in Torah”. Hillel isn’t talking about being kind, he is talking about not being a jerk. This is not the forum to discuss the difference.
Wasn’t the 2nd Temple destroyed for sticking to the exact letter of a legal framework? A legal framework can take away from humanity. And who’s legal framework? All if them, including our own, change overtime and what’s changing them? Our inner sense of humanity. And I can tell you a thousands stories if from Jews who screwed someone over.
Oh, c’mon, those Jews who screwed someone over were not doing it within the framework of the Torah. They were lying, cheating, didn’t have bitachon, etc.
And yeah it is interesting that G-d created the Torah with Torah shebaal peh. He gave us this kind of flexibility. Torah was created for man, right? But we have to interpret it according to the laws of Torah SheBaal Peh and tradition of course.
One of the ways Hashem relates to us, i.e. husband-wife, father-son etc, is called I think “mishtatfim”–we’re partners. Hashem wants us to have a giant massive part in building His world. I think it is so beautiful.
Hence the concep of “Naval Birshus HaTorah” an awful person who fulfils the Torah’s commandments. He is in violation of Kedoshim TiHiyu according to Nachmanades.
Women in Mir went to shul?
BS”D
Discussion with Moishela (with his family)
A
Handicapped child
3Av 5774
(July 29, ’14)
We Must Prepare Ourselves To Be Unblemished Sacrifices
Since the last time that I wrote, much has happened.
The world has almost turned up-side-down. Besides the war that we are having
here in Eretz Yisroel, many other wars have begun and the world has become a
much more dangerous and frightening place. One of the reasons that it is so
frightening, besides the fact that these wars are cruel, shooting, killing wars,
with blood flowing freely, besides that fact, what frightens us the most is
that much of what is happening today simply doesn’t work according to a logical
mind, a normal logical mind. Pieces are missing from the puzzle that should be
evident. We don’t know who the good guy is. We don’t know who the bad guy is. We
don’t know from one minute to the other who is on whose side. Suddenly there
are certain things that are uncovered that we had no inkling had ever been in
existence, and they tell us in the highest places with the most knowledgeable
of people so-to-speak that it has been there for the last ten, twenty, fifty
years festering and growing and becoming monstrosities, and we scratch our
heads and say how in the world did that happen. How did it become so bad? How
come it came upon us in such a sudden way? How come no one knew, and if they
knew, how come no one did anything?
We trust the governments to make sure that all our
medications are not dangerous to us. We trust the courts that they will give
everybody a fair shake so-to-speak. We trust the doctors that they will give us
the right diagnosis. We trust the economists that tell us that things are
looking up financially, or they give us advice how to invest. We trust all the
different aspects of the Egel Hazahav, but we don’t trust the Truth. The Truth
is Hakodosh Boruch Hu, and we trust man more than the Truth with a capital T. I
know that we are coming very close to Moshiach. I know that we’re soon going to
throw off the bonds of this terrible Golus. I know that only those who recognize
Truth, with a capital T will ever be able to live in a world of the Truth with
a capital T, and therefore I want to explain to you that things look jumbled
and not logical because it’s not the Truth. It’s not the way the world was
created.
What is happening today, it’s going against the Truth.
Its degenerate, and its pulling us into a degenerate mode, and its taking over
the whole world, and we have to resist. The only way to stop it is to recognize
that something is very wrong here and we’re hanging on to the wrong lifesaver
for dear life. We think we have a rubber tube to float on the water and be
saved, but we don’t. It’s full of lead and it’s going to bring us down to the
bottom of the sea, Chas Vesholom. What does Hashem want from us? How can we
survive this terrible calamity, this evilness that has oozed out from every
corner of the world that nobody realized existed in such a tremendous force?
How can we survive all this? Who are we, only puny people without any strength.
How can we survive this terrible, terrible flood of degeneracy? There is only
one way. We have to prepare ourselves.
We have to prepare ourselves now to greet Moshiach. We
have to prepare ourselves to be perfect sacrifices, and yes I did say Korbanos
Shleimos, and we have to be Shaleim, Shaleim or at least try very hard to be
Shalem. If we don’t get to Shleimus, Hashem will make the Shleimus, but it will
be so difficult and so hard, and cause us much pain, no less pain than an
operation, only it will be a spiritual operation which can be much more painful
than a physical operation. There’s no anesthetic for this kind of operation,
and we’ll feel every single pain, so we must prepare ourselves to be Korbanos
to be as pure as possible. Don’t get too frightened. I don’t mean that we’re
all going to die Al Kiddush Hashem. I mean that Hashem wants us to live Al
Kiddush Hashem, and He wants us to be as perfect as possible, and the way to
become as perfect as possible is to trust Hashem completely. Trust everything
He demands from us. Do not question one thing that He demands from us. We want
to do His complete Ratzon. I’m not saying that we will be able to get to that
high level, but we have to make a really, really good try for it. We have to
really, really put our minds, hearts, and soul, and our bodies into this great
endeavor, probably the greatest endeavor ever.
Yitzchok Avinu was a perfect Korbon. He was a Korbon
Shaleim. His father was ready to listen to Hakodosh Boruch Hu and sacrifice his
only son. The only son that could continue and become the father of Am Yisroel,
one of the fathers. Only Yitzchok could do that. He was willing to die because
Hashem said so. That is the kind of Bitachon we have to have. In the end it was
enough that Yitzchok allowed himself to be tied onto the Mizbayach so that he wouldn’t
squirm when the knife came to his throat. He put his throat out so it would be easier
for his father when he had to do the Shechting, and he was happy to do Hashem’s
will, and Avraham Avinu didn’t hesitate once to Shecht his only son, because
Hakodosh Boruch Hu wanted it, and he knew that everything that Hakodosh Boruch
Hu does is for our good. He also knew that nothing that we have, nothing that
we think we own, no child of ours is really ours. Nothing is ours. Everything
is His, and we too are His, and that’s the way you achieve Shleimus.
You have to be sure in every way that Hashem is Hakol
Yachol and whatever He does is absolutely perfect for us, and will be the best
thing for us no matter how much it makes us suffer, because our suffering is
only an illusion. It’s from our twisted desires and we have to realize that
this world is only a very short visit for us, and then we go to the next world.
But now we won’t go to the next world. Im Yirtzeh Hashem, we’ll go straight to
Olam Habah of Moshiach.
So now my dear Yidden, be strong. It’s time to change.
It’s time to take account of our lives, each part of our lives, and try to be
much better because if we don’t do this we’re going to be in big trouble. I beg
you, make an accounting. Balance your checkbook with Hashem. Find what you owe
Him, and find what you think He owes you, and I‘m sure that we all will find
that we are deeply, deeply in debt, and
that we need to show Hashem how we love and trust Him, how we will do anything
in the world that He asks us, even if it means our lives. That’s what we have
to show Him. We are going to be called upon as Jews to be tested in the most
difficult ways, and we must be close to Him. We must take out of ourselves all
the superficial nonsense of this world of lies, of this world of Egel Hazahav,
of this world of illusions and come to the truth. Its very frightening because
all of your, what you call regular lives, is going to be totally, totally
different. You’re going to have to give up things that have become out of disproportionately
important to you, and you’re going to have to take from your heart all the petty
nonsense that you so come to depend on to help you pass time in a superficial
way. You are going to have to deal with the truth. It’s very frightening, and our
lives will change. The great wealth that this so-called western world has known
is going to vanish. It’s going to be gone. We are going to have to learn to
live in a much more simple way, and that will help us become closer to Hashem. It
is happening now already, and World War Three has begun already, and I think we
can all see it, and it is going to spread. It’s going to become a great, great war,
a great and frightening war, and I know that all true Jews will know that what
I am saying now is true. Prepare yourselves my dear Jews, my dear Yidden.
Hashem loves you and wants you back wants you back with Him. This is a lowly generation
but the Jewish heart and soul is still here and on that Jewish heart and soul
of every single Yid will be built Olam Habah of Moshiach.
Q: Why don’t you sleep at
night?
A: I don’t sleep at night
because I know that in the not so far future we’re really going to have to
trust Hashem. We are going to realize that food and clothing and shelter will
not be forthcoming so easily at all, and we will have to trust Hashem. When I
say we I’m talking about the whole world. I’m talking about every single person
in the world except those few who think that they can rule instead of Hashem,
Chas Veshololm, but we will be the winners because in the end Hashem will
banish them into nonexistence and we will get all the benefits. We will not
starve to death and we will not be out in the cold if we trust in Hashem, if we
trust the fact that He is Hakol Yachol.
That’s why I cry, because I
know it’s going to be very hard for many Yidden, and by the way do you realize
how much of the world is going to be destroyed, Hashem Yishmor? It is said so
clearly in the Nevuas. Do you realize what a shock that is? I don’t think there
will be any CNN around to be able to photograph it, but what can I tell you?
Just thinking about the shock of it is enough to make me cry, cry for Am Yisroel,
cry for the whole world. The Reshaim are playing their sinister games of murder
and bloodshed. They are such foolish
people especially the Goyim the Jews are also being foolish because we are not
coming close to the Truth, to Hakodosh Boruch Hu. We have made our whole lives
superficial Yiddishkeit and all I can do is cry over it. We have split up into
millions of factions instead of being one with Hashem, but Hashem will teach us.
He loves us. He wants to save us, but we’re making it very hard on ourselves.
Just remember that
according to many great Torah sources most of the Jews of this generation, the
generation just before the Geula Sheleima, will be Erev Rav. They can be Frum or
secular but not true Jews and they will try to pull us away from the Truth.
Yes my crying has to do
with Am Yisroel. I’m so worried. It’s not so simple. We have to be strong and
we have to be without blemish.
Go away and shut up
great post moishela! thanks a million
My favourite month is mar Cheshvan
Don’t you mean menachem Cheshvan?
Haha true say, that’s where the real peace is.
For anyone who doesn’t know, facilitated communication, the method of extracting these messages from autistic children, has been clearly proven false back in the 90’s already. There has been whole documentaries about it. The transcript for the documentary can be found here http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/programs/transcripts/1202.html, and the film can be found on youtube in segments, the first is here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXw8Ksvyt5Y.
You’d love Rav Kook who believes the world is getting better. And Gush since they love to talk about more people today than ever before learn and the amount of Torah being learned is the greatest since the exile. It gets my blood pumping more than all the crap how we are the worst ever. If we expect to be worse we will be worse. People need to stop thinking everything was better back when the world was awful.