2007 Annual Rabbi Frand Teshuva Drasha/Shiur

The sound quality isn’t great and the volume is a bit low, but here it is! As always, Rabbi Frand gave his shiur to probably well over a thousand people, all crammed into Shomrei Emunah. Enjoy, and have an easy fast.

The actual mp3 is around 18mb (didn’t have time to shrink it too much), so give it time to load.

(link to last year’s drasha: http://aishel.wordpress.com/2006/09/29/rabbi-frands-2006-annual-teshuva-drasha/)

(link to  2003 drasha: http://aishel.wordpress.com/2006/09/28/rabbi-frands-2003-annual-teshuva-drasha/)

Designer Yarmulkas

While in shul this past shabbos, I was spacing out, and my eyes settled on a 10-year-old boy wearing a leather yarmulka (kippa/kipa/kippah, yarmulke, or whatever else you want to call it).  On the leather yarmulka was a picture of the Baltimore Raven’s logo (a raven), with the word “RAVENS.”  While looking at this kid, it began to bother me that a parent would even allow such a yarmulka.  I’ve gotten used to seeing designer yarmulkas (Ravens, Orioles, Nike, Spongebob, Spiderman, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and so much more) over the years, so I’m not sure why this hit me now.

The purpose of a yarmulka is to  remind us that Hashem is always above us.  It identifies that we are uniquely Jewish.  Why would we ruin that by putting on a yarmulka with a sports team (never mind the fact that there are probably copyright issues with doing so)?  I understand doing so with young children ages 3 or 4, as we’re trying to get them excited about doing the mitzva.  But even then, a 3-year-old is perfectly happy with a train that has the aleph-bais, which is not only educational, it can help serve the original purpose of the yarmulka.

Like I said above, I’ve seen designer yarmulkas for years, but for some reason, it has only just now started to bother me.

Rabbi Wohlberg on Mechitza’s

The Wall Street Journal had a great article yesterday on Mechitza’s, the partition that separates men and women in shul.  I particularly enjoyed Rabbi Wohlberg’s take on the issue:

 Beth Tfiloh in Baltimore went in the other direction. Years back, when it relocated to the suburbs from downtown, the congregation decided on separate seating but no partition. The concern was that a divider might alienate young families lured by synagogues where everyone sat together. But the tide has turned, says Rabbi Mitchell Wohlberg, and a new, more observant, generation would have left if it were not for the partition. At the same time, he adds, congregants “didn’t want to see women move to the back of the bus.” The solution? A “tasteful” mehitzah made of glass, wood and brass.

Rabbi Wohlberg is impatient with complainers. “Many of the people who say they want to sit with their husbands and wives at services, they don’t play golf together, they don’t have weeknights together,” he remarks. “All of a sudden, they can’t live without each other when they come to service?”

There is a God

The following video is a song by Yisrael Chaim (12) about his battle against cancer. The song was recorded between chemo sessions, a few days before his bar mitzva. Absolutely inspirational.

Talking to God

Today, I attended the CJE’s annual Yom Iyun, where the theme was God. After the initial keynote address by Rabbi Kushner, a reform rabbi from San Francisco, the 400+ participants broke up into several groups for talks by other community leaders. I attended a talk by Rabbi Goldberger, of Tiferes Yisrael, about talking to God, and the way we communicate with Him. The audience included people from all sorts of Jewish backgrounds and denominations.

He opened up with three basic questions.

1. Who can daven? Does it have to be someone special? Should it be someone who does the davening for you?
2. Are there specific times that one should daven? Meaning, is it something that should only be done mornings, set times, etc.
3. What should we daven about? Can we/should we only daven about the ‘important stuff’ like world peace or the health of the sick?

Guns ‘n Rabbis

The latest movie I got from my area Redbox (using another free code from the website I linked to previously, of course) was Lucky Number Slevin. In the movie, there are two mob bosses, the Boss and the Rabbi, and they go after each other in the movie.

The movie itself was excellent. Great action, lots of interesting and unpredictable twists, shooting, great plot, etc. The only thing I didn’t like was the way they portrayed the Rabbi. Now I don’t know if they’re making it so ridiculous that it is supposed to be obvious that it is fake, or if this is what they think we actually do. For example, two of the Rabbi’s henchmen are supposed chassidim. One of them has a buzz cut (I’m talking about a zero), with a yarmulke that looks, plain and simply, silly on the guys head. The other guy also has the buzz cut, but he also has a Chassidic hat with the curled payos. The only problem with the second guy is that he doesn’t have a beard, just a five o’clock shadow. Since when do chassidim shave their beards? (BTW, I see this was brought up here).

Later, when Slevin walks in on the Rabbi, the scene shows the Rabbi with his yarmulke suddenly on, and he is reading from a seemingly real sefer torah, using a yad. The room is also filled with things that are significantly Jewish. The walls have Hebrew lettering, there’s a menorah in plain sight, etc.

The whole way they portrayed Judaism is just plain and simply weird. But either way, it was a fun movie and I recommend it to all.

Merry Christmas vs. Happy Holidays

The ongoing debate that is out there this time of year is whether to greet someone with Merry Christmas or with Happy Holidays. It has been my belief for the longest time that people should stick with Merry Christmas. After all, in the US, 88% of the population is Christian (all denominations), and only 1.4% of the population is Jewish (source). When the Christians are in such a majority, why should things change just because of us Jews? Yes, I know we’re special, but we have to remember that we’re living in golus.

I know that we’re living in an age of political correctness, but with the kind of Christian:Jewish ratio that we have, I think that this is just silly. I understand that some people only say Happy Holidays because they’re not sure if the person they’re talking to is Jewish or not, but if you know for sure, why not say the right thing for whatever holiday they’re celebrating. For example, I know that my mailman isn’t Jewish, so when I handed him my annual Christmas holiday tip, I said Merry Christmas. And of course he knows that I’m Jewish, so he responded with Happy Chanukah.

Reminds me of a funny story. A couple years ago, I was on some mailing list and when they sent out Holiday cards in the mail, it said, “Happy _______ (fill in the blank)”

Update:

See Yid with Lid’s post on this.  I agree with this a lot.

My First Sephardi Minyan

I don’t know how this has not happened to me, but until Monday, I had never been to an ultra-Sephardi minyan. There is an Iranian guy who lives in the building next to me who unfortunately just lost his mother (in Iran, so he couldn’t even go to the levaya) and was therefore sitting shiva. My upstairs neighbor is in school with one of the Iranian’s neighbors and asked for guys to come for minyan. So on Monday morning, I showed up (was one of 11 guys), and got to experience my first Sephardi minyan.

While I have seen their sifrei torah before, it was always from afar. Now that I was able to see it up close, I can see just how beautiful and ornate a sefer torah can be. There were lots of things I wasn’t used to, like Birchas Kohanim during chazaras hashas, but it wasn’t too hard to follow along. Sephardim also seem to say a lot of extra stuff at the end of davening, so I managed to finish a good 5 minutes before someone else before I realized that they were saying other things.

Anyway, it was an interesting experience, although going to daven at a shiva minyan isn’t the most optimal reason to experience this.

Birchas Kohanim at the Kotel

Point of Pinchas has first hand video footage of the birchas kohanim from Monday at the Kotel.  It is really inspiring to see and hear thousands of people answer amen to the bracha.

Hookah in the Sukkah

Apparently, Hookah in the Sukkah isn’t only reserved for the Towson Hillel. Today’s Wall Street Journal had a front-page article on Jews and what they’re willing to pay for Sukkah’s this year.

You can read it here. (link is available for 7 days)

Rabbi Frand’s 2006 annual Teshuva Drasha

Ok, I recorded it, and it came out great! It took me longer to upload it than it did to edit out the extra stuff, but its finally finished.

He started off with the entire list of locations that were getting the shiur broadcasted live over the TCN network, and I lost count after 30 or so. Lots of places all over the country listening in! The meat of the shiur starts at around the seven-minute mark.

Anyway, here it is! Enjoy. If you do pass this on, please include a link to this post.

Rabbi Frand’s 2003 annual Teshuva Drasha

I was going through some of my files and found Rabbi Frand’s 2003 annual Teshuva Drasha, which I had recorded on my Yepp (which, when I bought it, was cutting edge technology holding an amazing 128mb!). I tried uploading it to various audio hosting sites, but for some reason, every time it was finished uploading, the file would play in a high, squeaky voice, as if it were being played on high speed. I finally uploaded it to my personal homepage at my university via FTP (maybe that’s the solution, I don’t know), and it seems to be working.

You can listen to it here or right-click to download it. It’s about 8mb and 70 minutes long. The clarity isn’t the best, but you can definitely understand what is being said without difficulty. I’m going to try and make it to the shiur tonight and record it, and if successful, I will post it here.

Non-Jews greeting Jews

Why is it that non-Jewish people see someone Jewish and they want to strike up a conversation, they start with “Shalom?”  I highly doubt that when they see a Muslim they say “saalam aleikum,” or when they see someone French, they say “Bonjour.”

Why are we special?

Insecurity

While I can never do justice to any speech I hear, I’m going to try to give a brief summary of what Rabbi Gottlieb said last night before selichos.

He said that as we approach Rosh Hashanah, we’re left with conflicting feelings.  On the one hand, we’re looking forward to a new year, a fresh start.  On the other hand, what has changed since last year?  We all have things that we said we’d work on last year, yet find ourselves in the same predicament; are we going to change this year?  While we are supposed to enter Rosh Hashanah with confidence that we will have a good outcome (which is why we shave, get haircuts, and wear nice clothing), it is this insecurity with our actions and their possible effect on our outcome that fuels our kavannah (concentration) in our davening.

Insecurity has had very signifanct results in history.  Rabbi Gottlieb mentioned that the reason we blow 100 shofar blasts on Rosh Hashanah is because we are counteracting the one hundred cries of the mother of Sisra.  It seems odd that we’d have shofar blasts in correspondence with such an evil person.  But the reason is because of the mother’s uncertainty and insecurity.  When Sisra went to battle and his mother didn’t hear back from him, she was uncertain if he had had the greatest victory of all time and was celebrating, or, and more depressing for her to think about, perhaps he had suffered a great defeat and even killed in battle.  With this insecurity in mind, she let our her 100 cries. (There’s more on that here.)

It was very apropos that  9/11 occurred approximately one week before Rosh Hashanah.  This happened about a year after the Intifada in Israel had started, and since it was Elul, many parents chose not to send their children to Israel for the year because they were afraid of all the bombings.  In other words, they were insecure with sending their children there.  Yet just a few weeks into Elul, the planes smashed into the Twin Towers showing everyone that no one is secure anywhere, and the only way to actually be secure is to place your trust in God.  With the towers collapsing, people realized just how insecure they were anywhere.

This insecurity is what drives us and we should take the insecurity to motivate us to daven properly and with full kavanah so that we can merit to be properly secure in our relationship with Hashem to do His will.

Singing

Over Shabbos, I was eating lunch with a neighbor, and he brought up an interesting observation after we concluded a zemer (song).  Amongst non-Jews, you don’t hear people breaking out in song, and singing together as one.  Sure, people will sing songs to themselves, either quietly or out loud.  But have you ever heard more than one person getting together with another and singing it together in its entirety?  The only exception I can think of is religious functions like church and/or Christmas carols.

But Jews very frequently join together in song.  Whether at the Shabbos table, at a wedding, mesiba, oneg shabbos, or other type of simcha, Jews get together and sing together in unison.  It creates a spiritual bonding that uplifts the soul.  I think it is very special and should be treasured.