Deriding Those Who Emphasize "Repairing the Covenant"? & Beyond BT "Torah As Tool" Posting

I have two guest posts that were posted today. The first is from A Simple Jew, where he asked about why people deride Breslov Chassidus for its emphasis on repairing sins of an illicit nature, in the area of shmiras Habris. Here is his question, followed by a link to my answer:

A Simple Jew asks:

I have often heard people criticize Breslov Chassidus because they perceive it to have an overemphasis on the concept of shemiras habris. Given the fact that this concept pertains to overcoming one of a person's strongest and most powerful desires, would you attribute the criticism of shemiras habris to a critic's conscious or unconscious realization that they have great difficulties living up to the ideal? To what do you attribute Western society's derision of shemiras habris in general?

Dixie Yid Answers...

P.S. Two points to anyone who can guess why I chose the picture above...

Also, Beyond BT has reposted my post from a while back about whether those of us who come closer to Torah later in life should focus on Torah's practical benefits or its spiritual benefits when trying to fight out yetzer hara. Beyond BT: Should We Teach That Torah is the Best Worldly Tool?

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My Answer to Q&A at A Simple Jew About Seeing the Goodness in Suffering

Please click on over to A Simple Jew. This morning, he posted a Q&A session with me on a topic related to something I've been posting about earlier in the week, but from a somewhat different angle. I was writing about questions relating to how one views others' suffering. As you will see, ASJ's question is about how to view own own suffering from the perspective of Emunah. The following was A Simple Jews Question, and you can click here for my answer!

A Simple Jew asks:

The Me'or Einayim taught that if a person can truthfully view the suffering he is undergoing as being ultimately for his own good, he will immediately experience relief from his suffering.

We may fully understand that taking a bitter-tasting medicine can help us feel better in the long run, yet this knowledge still doesn't change the fact that the medicine does not taste sweet to us. How are we, on our lowly level, supposed to honestly regard the suffering and difficulties we experience in a positive light and experience them as such?

Dixie Yid Answers...

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Serene Trust in G-d? Or blissfully oblivious?

I have answered a Q&A with A Simple Jew, where he asks me about how to stay happy in life. My problem is that althogh I am generally happy, this is accomplished through indifference. I am not sure to what extent this is a good trait, so I posed that as a question to ASJ's readers. Pleae chime in!

A Simple Jew asks:

The Degel Machaneh Ephraim stressed the importance of constantly thinking happy thoughts by noting that the letters of the word מחשבה (thought) are identical to the phrase בשמחה (in joy). Rebbe Nachman of Breslov taught that being b'simcha is one of the most difficult things, and said, "It is harder than all spiritual tasks."

Have you found that there are times that you must literally force yourself to be happy? To what degree have you focused on this issue of being b'simcha in your avodas Hashem?

Dixie Yid Answers...

-Dixie Yid

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Coffee Before Davening: Artificial Stimulation Or Necessary Kavannah-Enabler?

A Simple Jew has posted our latest question and answer session here. You can see his question below. My answer related to the idea of whether it's a good idea to be dependent on a chemichal for one's mental alacrity and other ideas related to the spirituality of coffee in the morning!

A Simple Jew Asks:

Do you think there is anything wrong with drinking a cup of coffee before davening Shachris to attempt to improve kavana, or would you consider the use of an artificial stimulant to be less than ideal?

Dixie Yid Answers...

-Dixie Yid

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"Klipas Izbitz" - It's All G-d or It's All Up to Me?

A Simple Jew has posted a Question and Answer session. His question is below, and in my answer, I addressed an approach for how to understand the tension between when to realize that "It's All G-d" and when to realize that "It's all up to me." CLICK HERE for my answer to his question.

A Simple Jew asks:

As someone who has been greatly influenced by Mei HaShiloach, how have you been able to find the right balance between engaging in your own hishtadlus (efforts) and seeing the world through the Ishbitzer lens that "It's all Hashem"?

Dixie Yid Answers....

-Dixie Yid

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The Role of Minhagim for Me in Avodas Hashem - Q&A at ASJ

A Simple Jew has posted a Q&A session over at ASJ, wondering whether I have considered adopting the minhagim of the Chassidus'n that derive from Chernobyl, due to my interest in the Meor Einayim of Chernobyl. Click on Over! His question is copy/pasted below:

A Simple Jew asks:

Aside from regularly learning his sefer, to what degree do you feel drawn to follow the derech of the Me'or Einayim? Have you ever contemplated attaching yourself to one of the Chernobyl dynasties, adopting Chernobyl minhagim, or even attempting to follow some of the Hanhagos Yesharos that are recorded and appended to the back of Rebbe Menachem Nachum of Chernobyl's sefer?

Dixie Yid Answers...

-Dixie Yid

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Being Happy When Bad Things Happen to You - Q&A at ASJ

A Simple Jew has posted an answer that I wrote to the question that I'm quoting below. I discussed a personal experience that's relevant to the question and a couple of insights that I was thinking about into some relevant gemaras. Here's his question:

A Simple Jew asks:

It has been taught that sincerely thanking Hashem for the obstacles and the daily problems we encounter helps to sweeten the harsh judgements against us.
Has there ever been an occasion in your life where you felt as if you were caught in the middle of a storm and instead of despairing you stopped and thanked Hashem for that very storm?

Dixie Yid Answers...

-Dixie Yid

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My Favorite Pasuk - A Guest Posting by Me at ASJ

Click on over to A Simple Jew, where he put up my answer to the following question:

A Simple Jew asks:

ודובר אמת בלבבו ("...and speak the truth within his heart")
Seeing these words in the siddur each morning reminds me of this and this. I am grateful that these words confront me before I start the day and help keep my thoughts, speech, and actions in check. Without them, I would be more prone to following the illogical logic and rationalizations of my mind.

Is there a verse in the siddur or in sefer you learn regularly that serves a similar function for you?

Dixie Yid Answers...

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Big Life Changes As Distraction From the Real Avodah of the Moment

Check out my answer to the following question posed to me by A Simple Jew.

A Simple Jew asks:

Rabbi Tzadok HaKohen of Lublin once wrote, "We humans chase over the world to find things: We climb high mountains; we descend to the nethermost depths of the sea; we trek to the wilderness and to the desert. There is one place where we neglect to search - our heart. But it is there we will find Hashem."

Similarly, in an e-mail conversation on the topic of making changes in our lives you wrote, "In my experience, often making big external changes are often just a way of distracting one's self from the point of the inner work…"

Could you elaborate on this point a bit further and describe an experience or experiences that led you to this conclusion?

Dixie Yid Answers:

-Dixie Yid

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My Guest Post at Beyond Teshuva on Leading the Seder as a BT

Beyond Teshuva has reposted my Q&A session from A Simple Jew on leading the Pesach Seder as a Baal Teshuva who was not able to observe FFB seders in his early years. You can read/comment on that posting here:

Beyond BT: Passing It On When You Were Almost Passed Over

-Dixie Yid

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My Question & Answer Session With ASJ on Pesach

My answer to a Q&A at A Simple Jew is up and available for your reading pleasure. In it, I discuss some of the issues of leading a Pesach seder and keeping the minhagim of Pesach as a Baal Teshuva. So click on over!

A Simple Jew asks:

Do you have an easy time relating to Pesach? How has your understanding and appreciation of this yom tov evolved over time?

Dixie Yid Answers...

-Dixie Yid

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What to Do When You Lose Your "Self-Motivation"

Click on over to A Simple Jew for our latest Q&A session. Here's ASJ's question and you can follow the link to see my answer.

A Simple Jew asks:

In our e-mail correspondence you indicated that you too have experienced the "lego castle phenomenon" in regards to your learning. After the thrill of starting something new slowly wears off have you found it to be difficult to maintain a daily learning regimen?

Dixie Yid Answers...

-Dixie Yid

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Ought We Withhold Support from Poor Kollel Yungerleit?

A Simple Jew has posted the question that I have copy/pasted below on his site, along with my answer to the question. Click on over to read the answer...

A Simple Jew asks:

It seems that sometimes there is a misperception that a person who is paid to learn full-time in kollel is living a parasitic existence. A person who is antagonistic to the kollel system faults the system and the person learning in kollel for having a large family. This antagonistic person may even unmercifully turn down requests for financial assistance from these families who are suffering from poverty because it goes against his principles.

The Shulchan Aruch, Yoreh Deah 251:10 states that if a person approaches us asking for clothing we must investigate whether he is truly in need, however, if a person comes to us and ask for food we should simply give it to him without investigating.

What are your thoughts about the mindset that prevents a person from helping a hungry person because intellectually he has a problem with how that needy person is living his life?

Dixie Yid Answers...

-Dixie Yid

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Where is Hashem in the Bathroom?

Check out MY ANSWER to the following question from A Simple Jew:

A Simple Jew asks:

Upon hearing my son's question, I immediately thought about this story regarding the Shapira brothers sitting in a prison cell next unable to daven since they were sitting next to pail full of human waste.

"Why can't Hashem go into our bathroom?",

my three year-old asked me as I tucked him into bed.
He was obviously thinking about why I stopped him from saying brochos and singing other tefillos while sitting in the bathtub earlier that night. At that time, I explained to him that we don't say brochos or say Hashem's name in the bathroom because there is a toilet in this room it is not a clean place. Obviously he misconstrued my explanation to mean that Hashem was prevented from entering a bathroom.

While Halacha instructs us not to even think about Hashem or His Torah in a bathroom, if "Hashem is truly everywhere" as Uncle Moishy sings, is He still present but heavily concealed in a bathroom, brothel, or a place of idolatry?

Dixie Yid answers...

-Dixie Yid

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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

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Teaching Sensative Topics in Chumash With Children

A Simple Jew has posted his question and my answer to it. So click on over!

A Simple Jew asks:

How would you advise that sensitive topics in the Chumash be taught to small children?

Dixie Yid Answers...

-Dixie Yid

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Cyber-Derech Eretz - Q&A at A Simple Jew

Click here to read my response to A Simple Jew's question to me about "derech eretz in the cyber age." It also includes a partial list of suggested rules for cyber derech eretz. Enjoy!

A Simple Jew asks:

If a person is where his thoughts are, in this cyber age have cellular phones and wireless communication devices prevented us from being where we are and living in the present?

Dixie Yid Answers:

-Dixie Yid

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The Story Behind Why Meor Einayim is My Favorite Sefer

Pleae CLICK OVER to read my response to a Q and A with A Simple Jew. I'm pasting his question here below. My answer goes into what my favorite sefer is and the reason why.

A Simple Jew asks:

More than a year before I returned to my family's shtetl, I called a seforim store in Brooklyn and ordered a copy of the sefer. The sefer sat on my bookshelf untouched for a long period of time until one day I sat down with a local rabbi and we began to learn it a little bit here and a little bit there. Later, at the tzaddik's kever, I left a kvittel requesting assistance learning this sefer.

I tried to learn it by myself when I came home and unfortunately was quickly discouraged. The sefer returned to my shelf once again until one day I decided that I would go through every page. And that is exactly what I did; never letting a day go by without learning from it. Day after day, month after month, year after year, I return to it and bring a copy of it along with me wherever I go.

With the determination of a miner who is convinced that he will discover gold, I seek to deepen my understanding of this sefer. I continually search for locksmiths who can teach me how to unlock this tzaddik's teachings.

Sometimes a locksmith may become discouraged at the daunting task and suggest we work on a lock he has previously picked. However, I have no interest in the locks that he is overly familiar with. They are his locks and not mine.

Do you have a sefer that you consider to be your sefer? If so, which sefer is it and why do feel such a personal attachment to it?

Dixie Yid Answers:

-Dixie Yid

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Showing Emotion or Not When Grieving

Click over to read my responsd to A Simple Jew's question to me about some aveilim who seem to show emotion and others who do not. Here is ASJ's question to me...

A Simple Jew asks:

After returning from a shiva house, you wrote to me that you found it remarkable that the widow had a tremendous sense of composure and did not show any outward signs of sadness.

Firstly, please do not misinterpret my words or think me to be insensitive. I understand that people express grief in different ways. In our era, indeed there have even been great tzaddikim who have grieved privately in the manner you described. Yet, not crying seems completely foreign to me. At the funeral of my grandmother in 1999, I asked Mr. J why it seemed like no one else was crying and I, on the other hand, was bawling my eyes out. Mr. J turned to me and said, "You have to realize, you have a different kind of heart."

The Sudilkover Rebbe, though also seems to share my type of heart. When I spoke to him on the phone as he sat shiva, he told me that he would find himself breaking out crying at times as he thought about his father.To me, crying is giving a true expression to your inner self and not crying is attempting to put on a façade of composure; attempting to fool others into believing that you are really an emotionally strong person. When a person grieves inside but not externally, he is not exemplifying the principle of tocho kebaro; he is lacking the quality of simplicity.

As much as I can respect the fact that others may have a differing viewpoint, I cannot change my own on this topic. So, my friend, could you please share with me your thoughts on what I wrote above?

Dixie Yid Answers...

-Dixie Yid

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My Answer to the Q&A at ASJ on Hashgacha Pratis

Please click on over to read my answer to A Simple Jew's question over at his site. It relates to recent examples of how I'm trying to see Hashgacha Pratis in everyday life, and how that relates to my law school studies and to the audio I heard of R' Tzvi Mayer's drasha in New York which I am also posting today.

Here's ASJ's acutal question to me...

A Simple Jew asks:

In many of my recent postings, I have attempted to uncover the hand of Hashem in events significant, and seemingly insignificant in my life. Can you think of something significant that happened to you this past year which you clearly believe is an example of hasgocha pratis?

Dixie Yid answers:


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