Reverse Discrimination in Dating

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A friend of mine who is also a BT was recently dating a guy who was frum from birth. She really liked his personality, his enthusiasm and his sense of humor. There seemed to be a lot going for them as a couple, which is why they were introduced in the first place. But she had a real problem relating to him on one level – he had never had much to do with the secular world, had never had secular or non-Jewish relatives; and that was a very important part of her life.

My friend is very close with her non-religious family. She grew up with some frum friends and a lot of non-frum and non-Jewish ones, many of whom she is still in touch with. She thinks it’s extremely important that whoever she marries feels comfortable going to her family for non-religious holidays, occasional Shabbosim and family events.
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Crisis in Israel

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Does everyone know what is going on here in Israel? The crisis that has come to Klal Yisrael? If you are unaware –Prime Minister Sharon is in Hadassah Hospital, having suffered two strokes and massive inter-cranial bleeding. He is on life support. Ehud Olmert (!) is now Interim Prime Minister. Our enemies are rejoicing – They are saying that this as a gift from G-d. This is a very crucial and dangerous time for Eretz Israel and Am Yisrael. Please daven for all of us that Hashem should guide us through this chaos with rachamim. This whole topic deserves much more than this cursory note – but I wanted to get this out ASAP.

When the Bloom is off the Rose: Joining a Community

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When the Bloom is Off the Rose

One of my students, a BT couple, has an adopted girl who was recently asked to leave the “frum” Jewish day school in town. The girl has issues with yiddishkeit, learning difficulties, and some behavioral problems. The father is very disillusioned with the “frum” community because of the way the whole situation was handled. I personally don’t agree with the way the school handled the issue, but that is not the main aspect of the entire event.

In counseling the father, I tried to make a few points that I felt were most important. Firstly, his anger is a sign that he’s a good father. He should be upset that his daughter has been rejected. But lets put things in perspective. Secondly, we always need to judge others favorably. Even if the school administration handled things poorly, they mean well, they have everyone’s best interest in mind, and they have constant difficult decisions to make that affect numerous neshamos. Thirdly, as a fellow Jew, you have the right and probably the obligation to go to the person most responsible for the way the decision was carried out and speak to them one on one and say, “I’m angry with you for treating my daughter and us this way.”

The fourth point, though, is what I think is the most important.
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Davening in English or Hebrew

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As a BT I find davening hard, I grew up in a very spiritual house where my mother always said G-d is with you always and you can talk to him in anyway you choose the same way you’d speak to one of your sisters or friends and that is exactly the kind of relationship I had (have?) with G-d. At times we’d be the best of friends speaking 5 times a day and at others there would be some unspoken distance between us and weeks might pass without so much as a word (on my end of course).
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Beyond BT Survival Kit – Pick 6 Books

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There’s a show on public radio called ‘Survival Kit”. The show starts out as follows:

“So you’ve had it with the rat race and feel you’ve just got to get away. We’ll arrange an escape for two or three months. Far from everything – snowed in at an isolated cabin in Montana’s Yak Valley or, if you prefer heat, on a desert island. What would you need to maintain your sanity? We’ll provide you with plenty of food, of course. A dictionary, a bible, the complete works of Shakespeare and the tools of your trade.
But what else must you have?”

Each week, the host interviews a celebrity and asks about what they would put in their survival kit.

Let’s tweak this a bit:
Read more Beyond BT Survival Kit – Pick 6 Books ›

Shidduchim, the Dating Scene at Penn, and the Baalat Teshuva

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If you can’t tell by now, I go to a secular university, but one that has a quite large frum population (around 300 including both undergrads and grads). The community is very Modern Orthodox, so shidduchim don’t happen around here so much. We’re all stuck on this campus for four years, and thus if anyone is dating, it is usually another person from within the Penn community. And although 300 is a big number, that means there are about 150 frum people of the opposite gender, and if you take out the people who are taken, and then the people who you would never date, and those that would never date you, it turns into a very small number, which may or may not be equivalent to 0.
Read more Shidduchim, the Dating Scene at Penn, and the Baalat Teshuva ›

A Fresh Look at Davening

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In the beginning, davening was all about singing and dancing and connecting to G-d. They were amazing times…..We would go to the old ivy covered Hillel House at G.W.U. (George Washington University in D.C) on Friday night, first daven the “service” and then make a communal Shabbat dinner (or maybe it was the other way around back then). There must have been 15 or 20 of us, blue jeans and long hair, loving the world, and in love with being Jewish, eyes shining and hearts wide open, and we danced and sang underneath the huge banner across one wall of the room that read, “Transcend!” We felt so in touch with G-d and the universe, so connected and united with the Jewish people all over the world, and all through history, that the words of the Shma burned deep into our souls, and I knew that I had found my place.
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Rugby Judaism and the Weather

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It is my philosophy that baalei teshuva should not abandon everything about their past when they become observant. Some life experiences from ‘pre-teshuva’ days are valuable when one is observant too. I use my experiences a rugby player to make this point in a somewhat lighthearted way. As winter settles in here in Chicago, I thought I would write about rugby and the weather.

Rugby is not a game for the timid. That is maybe why it is played in the winter. Which in South Africa is from about May until September. Now winters in South Africa are a lot, lot milder than here in Chicago. I used to swim in the ocean in the middle of winter, growing up in Port Elizabeth. However, it still gets cold, wet and windy. When you only have shorts and a rugby jersey to wear, it can be pretty miserable out there on the field.
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Those Five Magic Words

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“I never would have known!”

What a thrill I feel every time I hear it. But as Rabbi Greenman so movingly describes, how healthy is it to want to “pass”?

Like all of you, I’ve explored so many stages of BT-hood; found the truth beyond those early idealized visions of the frum world. The amazement and longing that lured us to this world have matured into a grounding of understanding, regret, flashes of cynicism, and…moments of amazement and longing. Rather than suffer a damaged self-image (as warned by Rabbi Greenman) by not wearing my journey on my sleeve, I’m proud I’ve found a comfort zone: I’m proud that my instincts and impulses are frum ones.
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Plateauing & Leaving the Cave

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There’s a story in the Gemara which I think describes the phenomenon of plateauing in two of our greatest spiritual giants.

Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai and his son Elazar were forced to live in a cave for 12 years, hiding from the Roman authorities, who had an execution order out for them. After the decree was rescinded they came out of the cave, but whenever they encountered people they “burned them with their eyes” (euphemism for “ayin ra,” according to the commentaries). Their fire for emes prevented them from accepting people as limited human beings, not always filled with the same fire of Torah and avodas Hashem they possessed.
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You Used to Be So Much Fun – Part 1 – Audio Post

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Rabbi Shlomo Goldberg, Menahel, Yeshiva Ohr Eliyahu (LA) gave a number of lectures at the Life After Teshuva conference in Passaic in 2001. Today we are making available part 1 of “You Used to be So Much Fun – Relating to Non-Religious Family and Friends”.

You can click here to listen. (To download the audio file to your computer, click with the right mouse button on the link and select Save Target As)

Here are some of the main points from part 1:

In his introduction, Rabbi Goldberg tells us that he’s not discussing halachic issues. And he is not going to talk about how to change our friends and relatives.

We have to look at what can we do to improve these relationships. What have we done to be part of the problem? We can’t talk our way out of problems that we might have behaved our way into.
Read more You Used to Be So Much Fun – Part 1 – Audio Post ›

Davening in Shul or Yeshiva

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For the past several years I have been davening Shabbos mornings in one of the local yeshivos. It is comfortable, quiet and my chavrusa sits across from me. Immediately after davening, we learn and I don’t have to involve myself with the inevitable politics that occurs in some shuls. My family and I are also members of a well-known and prestigious shul. The Rav is an extraordinarily respected talmid chachom and posek. The people are chashuv and menschlich. It’s also quiet and there are no disparaging conversations. However, the needs of the yeshiva are few while the needs of the shul are many. After nearly two years of the Rav saying to me with a big smile, “Come around a once in a while, we miss you,” combined with my boys’ (ten and seven) desire to attend Shabbos groups and my wife’s thirst to develop and bond with others, I relented. Considering that I am not easily persuaded about most things, my wife was shocked at how efficiently and effortlessly I began davening at our shul. Of course when the Rav finally looked at me straight in my eyes and ominously stated, “You’re making a very big mistake, ” I had little choice.
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Believing in Yourself

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A baal tshuva – or any other Jew with aspirations – needs two primary spiritual resources: Belief in Hashem, and belief in oneself. Many sources speak about the former, but few discuss the importance of the latter.

Young BT’s are frequently misled by mistaken concepts of “anava”, or modesty. Hashem doesn’t expect you to walk around telling everyone that you’re “gornisht”; those who do so, even if they are sincerely trying to rid their lives of arrogance – end up believing that they really are nothing. That’s wrong. A soldier must know his capabilities in order to effectively utilize the weapons at his disposal. An F-15 pilot must be perfectly aware that the government has entrusted $50 million sophisticated airborne arsenal in his hands, including an array of ultra high-tech weaponry in order to get his job done. He can’t say, “I’m a weak nothing,” or else he’ll be endangering the security of his country, wasting potential, and losing the war.

Yiddishkeit is also a war. Read more Believing in Yourself ›

Making Chanukah Cookies

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Growing up, one of my family’s annual traditions was making Chanukah cookies. We would spend an entire day rolling out dough, cutting out shapes and decorating hundreds of cookies. After we were finished making them, we would save some for ourselves and then package up the rest in bundles to give to friends. My parents would often come to my school and do a presentation on Chanukah for my class (I was one of only a few Jewish students), and would hand out the cookies along with latkes.

Once I became religious, it made it hard to participate in our yearly ritual. I moved away from home because I wanted to be able to be part of a religious community (there were very few Orthodox Jews in Alabama, nothing that could be called a “community”) and didn’t get the opportunity to visit very often. Read more Making Chanukah Cookies ›

Chanukah, the Maccabi Games and the Pintele Yid in Each of Us

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If you think about it, it’s very ironic. The Maccabees at the time of the miracle of Chanukah were willing to give up their lives to protect their Jewish values. Their adversaries were the Greeks. The Greeks’ worship of the human body was epitomized by the Olympic Games. Here is the irony: Israel has her own version of the Olympic Games. What are they called? The Maccabi Games!!

My Rabbis at Ohr Somayach would often share this insight around Chanukah time, highlighting the contrast between the Jewish values of the Maccabees and secular values of the Greeks.

Yet I would always remember my own experiences at the Maccabi Games. How two weeks ignited a spark inside me that changed my life and began a spiritual journey that led to me becoming a Rabbi.
Read more Chanukah, the Maccabi Games and the Pintele Yid in Each of Us ›

Some Links to End the Week

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Thank G-d that we have been able to share so many ideas and experiences in such a short time. We’ve been told that we’re delivering too much of a good thing too fast. So next week we’ll slow down so we can all digest a little better and get some more interaction and ideas in the comments. We’ll be going with two posts a day on average, one in the morning and one in the afternoon (and sometimes one in the evening) . There will also be multiple current topics in a given week.

Here are some links for your Pre and Post Shabbos reading pleasure:

Mordechai Housman (Kressel’s husband) on Becoming Religious, and Your Family

Read more Some Links to End the Week ›

Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner

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Many of you might remember the classic Spencer Tracy – Katharine Hepburn film of that title in which liberal, social activist parents are shocked by their daughter’s choice of fiancé, a black man played by Sidney Portier. The point of the film is the parents’ hypocrisy, but I’ve often said that the true test of liberal Jewish tolerance would not be a daughter’s choice to marry a black man but her choice to marry a black-hatted one. Baruch Hashem, my parents passed the test.
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My Non-Jewish Father and My Oh-So-Jewish Mother

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When I first became frum, I wanted my parents to completely embrace my new lifestyle and take on the same things I was taking on but they were pretty much indifferent. I later moved away to a predominantly BT neighbourhood where people shared stories with me of parents who had disowned them or continuously fought with them about their frumkeit. I began to appreciate my parents’ indifference to my life. They didn’t have to be excited or angry or anything special about my new life. I was okay with that. I realized how great they both were in that they let me make my own choices and were happy if I was happy.

My mother’s biggest issue in the whole thing came very recently when she realized I didn’t have a TV. She actually cried over it and offered to buy me one. Read more My Non-Jewish Father and My Oh-So-Jewish Mother ›

Dealing with Non Observant Parents

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This issue is one in which I would be shocked if there were not a multitude of approaches and results. However, I think that the best advice that I could give be would be a set of caveats that may or not work for you:

1) Your parents will respect you when they see that you are dedicated and sincere and that Torah Judaism is your way of life, as opposed to a cult. If your parents become frum with you, that is fantastic. On the other hand, if they don’t reach that level, you have to work for their tolerance of the fact that you and your family will be living a different way of life than themselves and your siblings and still maintain a relationship with them, even if it appears that they barely tolerate your lifestyle and possibly overlook conduct by your siblings that a Torah Jew would not approve of in any manner. Read more Dealing with Non Observant Parents ›

HaGaon Rav Yitzchok Hutner Z”TL

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Today, 20 Kislev marks the 25th Yahrzeit of one of the towering architects of post-war Jewry, The Chaim Berlin Rosh HaYeshiva and author of Pachad Yitzchok, Rav Yitzchok Hutner Z”TL.

Rav Hutner practiced kiruv and inclusivety before they were catchwords and slogans. He created an ambience in Chaim Berlin whereby one gets ahead by yearning and striving in Torah and Avodah (service) irrespective of yichus (pedigree) or background. Read more HaGaon Rav Yitzchok Hutner Z”TL ›