A Weighty Problem- My struggle to get back to where I was

The articles ( and here and now here) could not have come at a worse time. While I appreciated experiencing the 15 minutes of fame that Andy Warhol said we all receive, the timing of my weight-loss success story could not have come at a worse time. After five years of maintaining my weight and becoming a serious marathon runner, I have put on more than a little weight and am struggling to get back into running.

When I first learned that CNN wanted to do an online story about me back in April, I was excited. I enjoy sharing my story with others and through it have helped others others take up running and become more healthy. The writer, who is the sister-in-law of a friend, reached out to me and we spoke by phone and communicated through email. Although I was not running as frequently as I usually did at the time, I was not concerned, nor did the slight accompanying bump in weight worry me. I knew I’d be back. I knew I would never let go of the changes I’d made to my life.

Only I did. During an incredible seven weeks that I spent in Israel this past summer, as the head counselor for Sdei Chemed, I ran too infrequently and I ate things I shouldn’t have eaten. The combination of Israel’s summer heat, the exhaustion that came from a lot of amazing trips, and the lack of my usual running support network, kept me off the roads. As for the eating, let’s just say that Israel’s amazing food was too tempting for me. I told myself I’d get back on track when I got home, but a habit broken is not easily recovered.

The fact that CNN was not able to publish the article until recently, left me with mixed feelings when I got message from friends and strangers saying “Respect” and “Awesome”, and thanking me for the inspiration. I wondered how people would feel if they saw me. I hesitantly shared the first story, but felt no desire to do so with the latter ones (the last of which I did not know was coming).

So here I am, wondering whether I have it in me to get back to where I was. In the past, I only semi-jokingly said that I’d traded my eating addiction for a running one. Now as my drive and desire to run have faded, and I’ve lost some of the self-control I had with eating, I struggle to get back on track. I will resist the urge to end this with some sort of upbeat message along the lines of knowing that I’ll be back, because right now, I just don’t know.

How Old was Rivkah when She Married Yitzchak? - Audio shiur for parshat Chayei Sarah

In this week’s shiur, we discuss the well known midrash, which is quoted in next week’s parsha, that Rivkah was three years old when she married Yitzchak, and that he was 37 years her senior. We look at a midrash which offers to be a more tenable approach as well as suggesting a number of figurative ways of understanding the message of the midrash that she was 3.

(Running Time- 50 minutes)

Malachim- What are they and can we see them? (Audio shiur for Parshat Vayera)

Link for shiur for Parshat Vayera

Our parsha contains one of the stories from the Torah where people seem to interact with physical malachim. In this shiur, we consider four different approaches to explain how such an interaction can take place, and evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of each approach.

(Running time- 50 minutes)

Words of Wisdom- Educating our children to the beauty of Torah

As a teacher and student, I’ve walked down more than my fair share of school hallways. I’ve seen hallways with pictures of great rabbis, educational posters, and photographs of beautiful scenes from nature. Last night, at a wedding, which took place at a yeshiva in Lakewood, I saw something in a school hallway that I’ve never seen before. On one side of a long hallway, opposite pictures of gedolim, there were framed facsimiles of old pashkvilim from Israel.

Anyone who has spent time in Israel has seen posters known as pashkvilim hanging in charedi neighborhoods. Pashkvilim are posters of a religious nature which generally are used to try and enforce appropriate religious behavior. They might discuss proper religious attire for the neighborhood, or mark certain activities or locations as off-limits.

As I looked over the various posters, I wondered who had decided that this was something to use to decorate a yeshiva. Sure, they were historically interesting, but what educational message was given when hanging posters that either banned so many activities, or forbade entry to so many places? Is the idea that Judaism is about assering things an educational message that our children need to hear?

There was one poster that caught my eye. It set a minimal price limit for eggs (six for a grush). An explanation was given that this limit was there to protect the poor people of Yerushalayim. Now this was a poster that had educational value. Imagine if the hallway showed in various ways, the message of deracheha darchei noam. Along with a poster like this showing gedolim using their power to help the poor, there could be other pictures and posters emphasizing the idea that Torah can and should be a driving force for kindness and goodness.

I didn’t recognize all of the gedolim whose pictures lined the other walls, but among those who I did know, were Rav Moshe, Rav Yaakov and Rav Shlomo Zalman, who were pictured with their characteristic smiles. If one indeed wants to hang posters with the words of chachamim in the yeshiva (leaving aside the educational question of whether this is a good idea), wouldn’t it be better to hang posters with the words of these and other chachamim that show the boys of the yeshiva the teshuvos and divrei Torah of Toras Chessed koach d’heteira adif  that these great men produced and represented? This is not to deny the fact that there are prohibitions in the Torah, and  some things that are off-limits. Still at a time when so much is banned and forbidden, it behooves us to show our children (and selves)  the beauty that Torah represents.

Post by Pesach Sommer.

Meeting Our Partners in Peace

I know that I am not the only Zionist who has sometimes asked the question “Where are Israel’s partners for peace?”. Reading a steady stream of headlines and articles about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it’s easy to wonder where the Palestinians who are willing to talk and listen can be found. Still, I have always assumed that once you get past the Palestinian leadership, there are people on the street who want peace as much as Israeli citizens do. I must admit that I sometimes wonder whether all of those who ask the question, are really interested in meeting and hearing from those partners, or whether the question is just a way of seeing the Palestinians as a faceless other and deflecting the need to listen. In writing this, I hope to give people the chance to meet, hear from and talk with Palestinians who also believe in dialogue.

I recently wrote about the opportunity that I had to hear from Ali Abu Awwad, the co-founder of Roots, a West Bank based organization dedicated to peaceful dialogue,  at a local Reconstructionist temple. I wondered why it was that I had not had the opportunity to hear from those like Awaad in any Orthodox institutions. After the event, I discovered that my friend Rabbi Hanan Schlesinger, who lives in Alon Shvut, was one of the co-founders of Roots. When I reached out to him, he told me that he had been unsuccessful in finding Orthodox institutions in the US and Canada that were willing to host a Roots event. I expressed my hope that this was just an aberration, and that I was interested in serving as a matchmaker of sorts, and helping to identify Orthodox shuls and schools that would host such an event.

In May 2015, Awwad and Schlesinger will be coming back to North America to speak about Roots and the real progress that they are making in creating meaningful dialogue between Israelis and Palestinians. They will be in the States through early June. If you believe in dialogue and are interested in hearing from a legitimate partner for peace, please do not what you can to bring Awwad to speak in your community. Although my focus in this post is on the Orthodox community, I encourage people from all walks of Jewish life to take advantage of this special opportunity. There are real partners for peace who want to talk. Please join the conversation.

Post by Pesach Sommer.

A Case Study- Some thoughts on my interests in Torah

The other day, I commented to my wife how glad I was that the seforim on our shelves are being used so frequently. While this was perhaps, in some small measure, an attempt to justify my frustrating habit of not returning sefarim to the shelf and putting sefarim back in a fairly messy way, there was much more behind my comment. To me, it is sad to walk into a house and see from the sefarim that they are positioned in a way that suggests that they are hardly ever used. Essentially, I was saying that no one would ever make that mistake by looking at our shelves. Thinking about it a little more, that’s only half true. It depends upon which of our shelves one looks.

We have about 6 bookcases packed with sefarim in our living room, with three on one wall, and the other three on the adjoining wall. Along one wall, are the sefarim that deal with Tanach and machshava/philosophy. On the other shelves, are sefarim that deal with gemara and halacha. Of course, being that these sefarim are mine, it’s not quite that neatly divided, but I digress. The first set of shelves look as if they have been hit by a tornado. Sets are somewhat broken up, sefarim lay horizontally on top of other sefarim, and everything looks used. By contrast, the Shas and halacha shelves are, if not collecting dust, way too ordered and neat. It’s hard for me not to think about what this means.

For a long time, my learning interests tended to be talmudic and halachic, as were the shiurim I gave. I loved tracing a topic from its talmudic roots through modern day posekim. I would often pick up a SHU’T (Shailos and Teshuvos) to see how a modern posek dealt with a particular subject. All of that has changed. While I continue to be fully observant and enjoy hearing halacha shiurim when the chance comes up, that is not the area that draws my mind and heart. These days, I am more likely to pick up Rav Kook rather than Rav Moshe, the Moreh rather than the Mishnah Torah, and the Tzidkas HaTzaddik rather than the Mishnah Berura.

This was brought home to me last night when I posted a comment that contained a few sloppy mistakes about halacha. While it was by no means part of a serious Torah post, I couldn’t help but realize that I wouldn’t have made that same mistake five years ago. Whereas a number of friends took the opportunity to push me to return to a more balanced approach, I’m not yet ready to find the middle ground. For now I simply recognize that I traded one pole for its opposite. I know the middle exists, and I will one day find it, perhaps by looking at the interplay between the two poles, but for now, I am not yet ready.

Reaching Out- God, Avraham and choice (Audio shiur)

In Lech Lecha, God commanded Avraham (Avram at that point) to leave his land to go to Canaan. Absent from the story is any reason for Avraham being selected for his special role.

In the shiur, we explore various possibilities as to whether God chose Avraham or Avraham chose God. In the process, we explore the concept of what it means to be chosen, and the relationship between God and mankind.

Below are the links (the shiur is in two parts due to technical reasons)

Running time 1:10

Part I

Part II