Vidui Mitzvos

R' Kook, "... therefore, just as there is great benefit for rectifying the soul in confessing sins ... so too, in confessing mitzvos, so that he will rejoice with them in his heart and strengthen the pathways of his life in the way of Hashem."

Who are You Really?

R' Aharon Weinberg, a Slonimer Chassid and speaker, told a story about R' Godel Eisner, Gerrer mashgiach in Chidushei Ha'Rim.  He kept the bachurim going during the worst of the war years, and was always demanding things of them while giving them hope for the future.

Then he was mechazek people after the war.  There was one bachur who dropped Yiddishkeit but R' Godel did not say a word to him about his behavior.  This bachur had a 'pass' and this was regarded with much astonishment.

Half a year after the war, he told R' Godel that he's getting married. To who? A goyta. R' Godel thought for a moment and said a goyta? I don't think it posses (suits) a chassidishe bachur.

Who me, a Chassidishe bachur, the fellow asked?

Said R' Godel, of course you're a chassidishe bachur! The war affected all of us, and some are quicker and some slower [to come back to Yiddishkeit].  I, for example, am quick, and right after the war I went to mincha.  Remember Yankel? He came back the first Shabbos.  Others took a few months.

The bachur burst out crying and asked for a Chassidishe hat.

What a brilliant mashgiach!

Bechira not Victimhood part 2

I was reminded of this post: here when I came across another remarkable and similar story.  She is a young girl raised by drug addict parents, in environments without electricity and running water.  And yet, she has been singularly focused on getting an education and making better choices than her parents.

Here is the CNN fascinating article and video: here

What's missing is what makes her and her brother different than countless people growing up like her, who choose to follow in their parents' footsteps.  She says,  "If I had not had those experiences, I wouldn't be such a strong-willed or determined person." But I don't believe that! I think her nature is to be strong-willed and determined and therefore, despite her abysmal upbringing, she is focused on making a better future for herself.

Bechira, not Victimhood

I read chunks of a fascinating though creepy book in which the author describes in detail what it was like growing up with drug addicts for parents.  I didn't read the entire book because some of the descriptions of street life and the underworld were too seamy for my sensibilities.  However, it is quite remarkable that with such a turbulent, unstable, poverty-stricken upbringing, the author and her sister have made fine lives for themselves.  The following quotes are taken from interviews that were held with the author:

I grew up with a family surrounding me and a home full of love.  It just so happened that my parents were addicted to cocaine and heroin and my mother was an alcoholic.
I realized my life is a blank slate.  I had the freedom to declare - what do I want my life to be about?
It occurred to me that the answer is education.  I felt invigorated by going back to school.
Nobody knows what's possible until they do it.
Every single day is another chance.
I learned to say - it's unlikely but it's possible, and put all my efforts into possibilities rather than limitations.
I felt deeply loved by my parents.  I don't hold anger towards them.  I saw them as sick.  People can't give you what they don't have. 
I knew I had to be independent.  It was up to me to figure out my life.  I felt no one owes me anything.  I'll have to figure stuff out on my own. I'll have to create what I want in this world.  I was responsible for my life.  No one was going to pave the path for me.  It was normal for me, something I understood instinctually, not a realization that I had.
I was homeless at the same age that my mother was homeless and I wanted to break the cycle of poverty I had come from.  So choice by choice, day by day, I went to school.  Part was choice and part was having the help, the support.
After my mother died, and we loved each other deeply, her dying unlocked my mind to possibility in my own life.  At one moment I had a family, I had my mother and then I lost everything.  Life changed rapidly, for the worse.  I saw that life can change and I was inspired by this. 

What transforms a life? One empowered choice after the next, over time.
I had a passion that I felt of - what if I just kept going?

You either move on or you don't and I decided to move on.

Let go of being stuck in the energy of all the things you don't have, and be grateful for the things you do have and calling that enough, and moving forward from there.

In the frum world we have children, teenagers, young adults and even older adults who need to hear messages like these.  Even if their circumstances were not quite like those of this author, the message of bechira rather than victimhood is powerful.  The downside is that this author doesn't speak about G-d; it's all about her choices.

It would be enormously helpful if we had the frum version of this woman's story, the story of a contemporary frum boy or girl who overcame adversity to become solid people with firm Torah values.

No matter what your history is, no matter where you've come from, every moment is a new possibility.

An Elul message indeed.

GPS - Navigation for Your Soul

I'm really enjoying this book, "GPS - Navigation for Your Soul - inspired by the writings of the Nesivos Shalom" (an Artscroll Shaar Press publication). 

There are chapters on Hashem's tremendous love for every Jew and how nothing we can do can eradicate that love, how to respond to our challenges in life, and the power of our mind.  Rather than present fundamental ideas in ordinary essay form, the authors use an extremely friendly layout and format that engages the reader.  Although I am familiar with the ideas that are presented, I am interested in reading all 487 pages because it is a pleasure to read this book.

It is an excellent source of inspiration and a reminder about who we are, what our relationship with Hashem is about, and what we are here to accomplish, suitable for teens and up.

What Doctors Say

A mother said, "My daughter was valedictorian recently. I'm proud to say it because she had a very hard beginning, and spent many weeks in an ICU after she was born. The neonatologist said she will never be in a regular classroom."


Time and again, I read stories in which doctors make dire pronouncements and are proven wrong.  In Judaism we have the principle: doctors are permitted to heal (with Hashem's help).  They have no right to make pronouncements about the future.


They make dire prognostications in the name of honesty and enabling parents or the patient to be prepared, but since they aren't prophets and are sometimes (often?) wrong, what they say is cruel and counter-productive.  As authority figures, what they say carries a lot of weight and it can be very hard to be optimistic and have bitachon in the face of bad news from a doctor.


How many parents have gone through months of agony because a doctor said their unborn child would not be normal, would be deformed, until to have a healthy child be born? I'm always left wondering whether the doctor interpreted the information correctly and the couple's prayers changed things, or the doctor was mistaken from the get-go.  I don't know, but I have read numerous stories in which this happened.  True, the doctor's negative expectation may have been the impetus for lots of prayer and good deeds, but that did not give him the right to scare people who won't abort and can't do anything about the situation.


It would be helpful if someone collected many of these stories, verifying the information, i.e. what the doctor said and what actually happened, in categories like: pregnancy, preemies, illnesses, comas, what faculties and abilities patients were told they could and could not regain, and how many years they were told they would live.  It would be a great resource in bolstering our faith in the Rofei chol basar.

Jews are Great

I read a Chizuk message that said:

We are far from perfect. We sin, we fall, we fail.
And we come to Hashem with requests for life, health, zivugim, etc. and when we are ready to show what we are giving in exchange, we open our palm and discover - nothing!
What do we have to 'pay' for these gifts?
Our palm lies open, and empty.
We lower our eyes in embarrassment. We are asking for a free handout.
Not only do I not deserve the kings good, but quite the opposite; I deserve to be punished for all the times I accidentally failed you! Yet you treat me with kindness anyway. I have no way to ever repay you for all you give me, king. But I can promise to always try."

We can't ever deserve Hakadosh Baruch Hu's chesed.

Hashem doesn't expect us to, as He knows it's impossible.

It's probably because I have fallen prey to the Entitlement Generation's sentiments but I don't relate very well to the ideas presented above.  I find it amazing that after all G-d put us through we, the Jewish people, are still hanging in there, doing mitzvos. 

Over the past 250 years or so, Hashem inflicted us with pogroms, government persecution such as unfair debilitating taxes, abduction of Jewish children to serve in the Czar's army, abduction of Jewish children in Moslem countries when they were orphaned or unmarried, socialism, communism, the development of modern scientific thought, World Wars, the Blue Laws in America and on and on.  And when it comes Pesach and I think of all the Jews, all over the world, with and without a Jewish education, who are celebrating a seder, and come September, all the Jews who attend shul, who fast on Yom Kippur.  Those who light Chanuka Menorahs, who support Jewish education when they themselves are not even religious. The newly religious who may be the first in their family for several generations to be shomer Shabbos.  Those who kasher their kitchens.  The Jews who have received a proper Jewish education who stick proudly to Jewish observance despite the fact that the outside world is very tempting and they are a tiny minority within the Jewish people.

Hilchos Shabbos.  Hilchos Shemiras Ha'Lashon.  Hilchos Talmud Torah.  Love and Fear of Hashem.  Do not stray after your hearts and eyes.  Eliminate anger.  Be exceedingly humble.  Fargin others.  The chesed that is done.  Opening up homes, hearts, wallets.  Attending shiurim.  Listening to shiurim in cars, on phones, on mp3 players.  All the obligations.  The exhortations to grow spiritually.  To cultivate good middos.  To be grateful.  To make good use of our time.  To love every Jew.  It's a very, very tall order.

I like Rabbi Levi Yitzchok of Berditchev's approach.  He addressed G-d and said: If You placed Olam Haba and Gan Eden and (l'havdil) Gehinnom right in front of us, and You put the enticements of the world into a sefer, then surely no Jew would sin.  But now that You put all the enticements of the world right in front of us and You put Gan Eden etc. in a sefer, well, it's not surprising ....