The comforts of home in the hospital

I was asked by a friend to post the following request for help based on her own experience having to bring her son to the hospital:

This Thursday night I experienced a miracle. I had to take my son to the emergency room in the middle of the night. I was completely resigned to spending the night on a chair sitting by his bed (and that was if I was lucky, I have had nights in the emergency room with no chair-when it was really crowded). I sat down on the chair and told myself that I should be grateful that I had the chair, but the strain of dealing with a sick child was really overwhelming. Baruch Hashem things were stabelized and I was able to fall asleep. Suddenly, a nurse woke me up to say that they had an extra bed, would I like to lie down. I felt like I had been given a hug from Hashem. How many times have we gone to bed and totally ignored how yummy and delioucious it is to lie down on a bed.

The next time that you lie down on a bed, in a house with healthy children thank Hashem for how lucky you are. If you would like to help someone in the hospital who needs a little of the comforts of home please buy some raffles tickets from Chesed 24/7 who built and maintain Chesed Rooms all over the greater New York area in more then a dozen hospitals.

Right now you can enter their Chinese Auction for free to win an ipod touch just by going to THIS LINK.

If you can, please bid on more items to help that organization, or you can just enter for the ipod and it won't cost you anything. Any help will be appreciated. The auction will be over a week from Tuesday, on March 1st.

Picture courtesy of Chesed 24/7. Click here to get Dixie Yid in your e-mail Inbox or here to subscribe in Google Reader.

Help Win a Sheitel for a Woman who is an Agunah

My wife asked me, as a chessed opportunity, to post the following:

If you have a Facebook account you can do something that will help a fellow Jew, and it will take literally 10 seconds max!

An organization called Yaldeinu is running a contest where they are giving away a free sheitle (donated by Chaya's Precuts). There is a woman who has been an aguna for 8 years who runs her family solo. She works from early in the morning to late at night. My friend knows her and she can only afford a synthetic sheitle. Please help her win the free sheitle so she can feel like a mentch in a human hair sheitle
Like the following two links:

1. First like YALDENU:
2. Second like this link:

That is it! you are done!

If you know anyone who can help out also, please let them know.

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One Last Story on Uncovering Hidden Jewish Sparks

Here's one last aspect of my Grandmother's funeral, which showed me a Jewish spark in someone in whom one might not expect it.

Between my granmother's two sons, my father was the more Jewishly affiliated. My uncle, my Grandmother's other son, is/was totally unaffiliated. So I was somewhat worried that some of the things that we did at the funeral might make him uncomfortable. For instance, we did not merely shovel a few shovel-fulls of soil into the kever as a token gesture, as is done in some of the more assimilated funerals. Rather, I announced that we would be filling the entire kever, to the top. This was no small feat. After the dirt by the graveside ran out, the staff had to bring two more digger fulls of soil from another location for us to have enough. It was a lot of work and it took a long time.

Before we began this final mitzvah of escorting the vessel that contained my grandmother's neshoma, soul, to its final resting place, I spoke about the concept of the respect we have for the body, the vessel which contained the soul during the person's lifetime. We don't let the cemetary workers escort the body of the person we love to its place of rest. Rather, we want to escort the vessel for the pure soul of the person we love, ourselves.

I was quite amazed by this, but the one person who worked and sweated more than anyone else, with that shovel for the entire time till we were finished was my "Jewishly unaffiliated" uncle. It was so touching to see how he put everything he had and all of his focus into that mitzva. It was a true chesed shel emes, a true act of kindness. And it shows me that there is a great Jewish soul inside every Jew and that you cannot look at the external side of people.

Although it's not related to this post, I want to share a story that my uncle told about his parents, my grandparents:

My grandfather was an attorney and served, for his entire working life, in the JAG Corps. When he retired, he held the rank of Full Colonel. In the early 1950s, my grandparents were stationed in Heidelberg, Germany, while the country was still occuppied by the United States after the Second World War. There were many homes in Heidelberg that were still vacant after the war, and the American Army used those homes to house many of the officers and their families. When my grandparents moved into one of these homes with their children (my father and uncle), they had a major surprise their first night there. Late at night there was a hard knock at the door, and when they opened it, the German police were standing there. My grandparents first thought (less than 10 years after the Holocaust), was one of absolute terror, that these policemen were coming to haul them away to some terrible fate.

It turned out that they were there looking for the housekeeper of the previous officer family that had lived in the house, who was suspected of stealing something. But that first moment of the German police knocking on their door at night never left them.

May Hashem have mercy on us, that we may never experience anything like that again!

-Dixie Yid

(Picture courtesy of williambowles.info)

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Can Unbalanced Parenting Styles be Successful?

Click on over to A Simple Jew for my answer to the following question about the balance, or lack thereof, between the traits of Chesed and Gevurah (kindness and strictness) in parenting:

A Simple Jew asks:

On a few occasions, I have witnessed examples of working fathers still attempting to play the role of traditional nurturing mother because of their distaste to sometime have to play the stricter masculine role that a father is often required to play. Instead providing the counterbalance of gevura, this type of father will attempt to replicate the chesed exhibited by the mother so he never has to be viewed as the "mean" parent. Rachel Arbus once wrote, "Parents need not act in the same manner - but they must have similar philosophies and a common goal."

Do you think it is possible that a chesed-chesed type of parenting style can ever be successful? Also, do you think it would be possible that a chesed-gevura parenting style with flipped roles with the father as the chesed and mother as the gevura be successful?

Dixie Yid Answers:

Enjoy!

-Dixie Yid

(Picture courtesy of benches.com)

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The Meor Einayim On Teshuva and It's Relation to Din/Chesed

The Meor Einayim has an amazing explanation for why Chazel derive the nature of the aseres yemei teshuva from the pasuk, "דִּרְשׁוּ יְהוָה, בְּהִמָּצְאוֹ; קְרָאֻהוּ, בִּהְיוֹתוֹ קָרוֹב." "Seek out Hashem when He is found; call out to him when He is close." (Yeshayahu 55:6)

He quotes the Gemara's (Rosh Hashana 18a) kasha that asks, "Are there times when He is not found!?" Rather, this refers to the Aseres Yemei Teshuva. He then asks what the gemara saw in this particular pasuk to read in this remez to aseres yemei teshuva davka in this verse. Then then gave a couple of yesodos for background so that he could answer his quesiton.

One is the fact that the gemara in Menachos 29b sayt that the pasuk in Bereishis 2:4, "אֵלֶּה תוֹלְדוֹת הַשָּׁמַיִם וְהָאָרֶץ, בְּהִבָּרְאָם," says that the word, "בְּהִבָּרְאָם," teaches that, "אל תקרי בהבראם אלא בה"י בראם." This means that the gemara is saying that Hashem created the world with the letter Hei. How and why is this so?

Hashem created the whole world for the sake of mankind, that they should serve him. He first created the world with the mida of din. And then it was created with the mida of chesed. Why was it done this way (with the switch from first din to later chesed in the creation of the world)? He explains how din is the instigator or the cause for mercy. The din preceeds and gives birth to the mida of chesed. This can be seen from the letter hei, with which the gemara said Hashem created the world. The letter Hei is made up of two other letters. There is a Daled, which make up the top and right sides of the yud. And there is the vav, which is small and makes up the left side of the hei, and which is surrounded by the daled.

He says that the daled is the feminine side, the side of din. This can be seen from the fact that the word "daled" is from the word "Dal," which means "poor." Leis l'megarmei klum. This represents the feminine side which is also called leis l'megarmei klum because the female side is that of the mekabeil. That is why is is refered to as poor, or "dal." The vav within and surrounded by the daled in the letter hei is the male side, the side which is mashpia. That is because the vav is known as the "vav Ha'hamshacah." The vav which draws down hashpa'os from shamayim and is mashpia them to the female side, the daled.

This whole setup of the daled and the vav within the letter hei refer to an amazing paradigm whereby the feminine side of midas hadin surrounds and ultimately gives birth to the male side like the pasuk in Yirmiyahu 31:21 says, "נְקֵבָה תְּסוֹבֵב גָּבֶר."

How does this apply to Aseres Yemei Teshuva? Everyone's consciousness of the Yom Hadin, the day of judgement, creates in them a feeling of fear and awe. This feeling of fear and awe creates in them the motivation to do teshuva. And when people do teshuva, this fulfills the whole purpose of the world, and this "awakens" within Hashem the mida of chesed and "creates" the desire in Him to have the world continue to exist. So we are recreating and validating the creation of the world on Rosh Hashana, and the aseres Yemei teshuva when we do teshuva based on that realization of the reality of Din.

That is what it means that Hashem created the world with the letter hei. Hashem recreates the world every year on Rosh Hashana with the reawakening of chesed that comes as a result of the Din, the judgment of Rosh Hashana. And now this is how he answers up his original question of why Chazal inserted their understanding of Aseres Yemei Teshuva into the specific pasuk of, "דִּרְשׁוּ יְהוָה, בְּהִמָּצְאוֹ." Seek Hashem when "hei" "matza'oh," when the letter hei makes [the world] created. (Matza, as a shoresh, means to create or brought into existence, as in the word metzius, which means "reality" or "existance.") Seek out Hashem when the letter hei (daled/din creating/brining out chesed/vav) brings the world into existance. And looking at the pasuk from that perspective, one can understand why the ultimate time where this happens is Rosh Hashana and the aseres yemei teshuva. So it is no wonder, then, that Chazal used that pasuk, which refers to this reality of din preceeding chesed, as a reference to the aseres yemei teshuva, which mean the same thing in terms of the annual recreation of the world.

May Hashem bless us that we be conscious this time of year of the Din that is going on so that we can be zoche to do teshuva and create merit for the continued existance of the world!

-Dixie Yid

(Picture courtesy of Sinai Central)

New Yerushalayim Center for Torah and Chassidus needs support!

Rabbi Tal Zwecker is requesting our support for a new center for Torah and Chassidus in the center of Yerushalayim. Please click here for more information!

-Dixie Yid

The Problem With Giving to Everyone Except Your Family

I wrote an answer to a question posed by A Simple Jew on the topic of being involved with every Chesed, Shul activity or kiruv opportunity but totally neglecting one's family. The posting can be found here.

I'll copy/paste A Simple Jew's question to me below.

A Simple Jew asks:

There once was a man who was the epitome of selflessness. The needs of others were paramount in his eyes and his tremendous acts of kindness remain legendary to this day. As inspiring as he was, there was one tragic aspect to his personality. Perhaps he considered his wife and children as part of himself, however for reasons that we will never know, his selflessness did not extend to them. He was always caring for others and was not able to provide the attention that his wife expected. In the end, his selfless nature cost him his marriage.

This man was certainly on a level miles above me. As I have reflected on this man's life, I am reminded of a teaching I once saw from Rabbi Chaim Vital:

"When a person faces his judgment in Olam Haba, he is not evaluated according to how much he helped other people. He may be a tremendous activist, may be constantly running from one affair to another, may be constantly involved in one project or another, but his worth is measured according to how he behaved with his wife and children. The way a person acts with his family reflects who he really is."

As with all great men, had this man devoted himself solely to his family he would not have been able to leave behind the world with all the precious gifts that he left behind. However, based on this teaching from Rabbi Chaim Vital, in your opinion should this man have followed a different path and devoted himself to his family instead?

Dixie Yid answers...

-Dixie Yid

(Painting "Waiting for Dad" courtesy of Silver Dove Gallery)

A Tzadekes in my Daughter's School

My daughter's in second grade and her birthday party is this coming Sunday. Besides giving out invitations on Monday (today's Wednesday) to her entire class, she also wanted to give one to her friend from the school bus. The only problem is that this friend is in the 8th grade. I have heard a lot about this young lady from my daughter, and it really sounds like she has taken my daughter in under her wing, like a little sister. She means a lot to my daughter and she's a great role model for her, especially on days when my daughter can't find anyone else to sit next to on the bus. This young woman always makes my daughter feel welcome.

My wife and I explained to our daughter that her older friend would probably not be able to come, since she's in the 8th grade, and the birthday party is geared towards our daughter's second grade class. She said that she understood, but undeterred, she insisted that she was still going to invite her 8th grade friend who she likes so much, which she did on Monday.

Last night my wife gets a phone call from this eighth grade girl. She wanted to tell my wife that she would love to come to the party, but that her gradmother's birthday party (age 91!) is at the same time. She said that she knew it meant a lot to our daughter, so she had baked a cake for her birthday (!) which she would give to my daughter in school today.

I was floored by such chesed and sensitivity by an 8th grader towards a little kid in her school. I saw this girl's mother when I was dropping off my girls for carpool this morning, and told her what an amazing daughter she has. So that's why I had to share that story!

-Dixie Yid

Update: She gave our daughter the cake on this bus on the way home from school today, and they shared the cake with the whole bus. So they shared the wealth and a good time was had by all.