Chodesh Tov!

“Ze hayom asah Hashem, nagilah v’nism’chah vo, This is the day that Hashem has made, let us rejoice and be glad on it.”!!!!! Ok, time for another rant - I LOVE Hallel!, but what I really love is when people daven Hallel with full kavanah , which to me speaks of signing and rejoicing on this "day that Hashem has made", not just trying to get thought it as fast as possible.

Yes, I work full time, and yes most people "have to get to work", but for the 4 or 5 extra minutes it would take to truly recite Hallel with some real feeling, would it be that horrible? So you get to work at 8:10 instead of 8:00 - stay 10 minutes later at the end of the day. Take the next train instead of your "normal" train.

I think that most of us have either lost the proper perspective of what is truly important in this life, or never really had the proper perspective (ok, MY view of "proper perspective") to begin with. We all chase after the almighty dollar, and are so focused on our jobs (yes, I know we have bills to pay...) that we so totally compartmentalize our lives such that we allocate x minutes for religion in the morning, x at night, Shabbos, and that's it. As I see it, we don't fully appreciate that we are "avde Hashem", and that while "working for a living" may be a necessary part of our lives, it should be viewed as a "means to an end", and not the end goal itself.

With this perspective, one should be able to more easily see that avodas hashem should really take priority and that spending 5 or 10 more minutes davening in the morning is not a "hardship", but a reward that we should take pleasure in.

Perhaps tomorrow we can spend a couple more minutes on Hallel.....????

If not now, when?

After hearing of the very sudden passing of a 41 yo women in my Shul, thoughts of mortality creep into one's head.

One never knows when Hashem will decide that your time in Olam Ha zeh should end, so one should always strive to make the most of every day as if it was your last- it just may be.

Somewhere I read the idea that each person is put on the earth to accomplish one specific task, sometimes it may be as small as bringing another person into the world, or as large as inventing the microprocessor, but whatever it is, once that "task" is complete, Hashem can take you from the world at any time.

So I often wonder - what is my role in this life? What was I meant to do, and have I done it yet? I don't think it is possible to really know the answer to that, at least in this world - may in the next, so my philosophy has been to constantly search out new things to do, hopefully along the lines of making this world a better place, no matter how small.

I don't really care so much that I be "remembered for doing X or Y", just that I feel as though I have made some positive impact on the world, and that when people do remember me, it is with positive thoughts.

Thoughts on "Speed Davening"

• Why do people daven so fast?
• How can one really communicate with Hashem, when all they are doing is trying to read the words as fast as humanly possible?
• It does not seem to me that when going 100 mph one has any concept of what one is saying - you are just "going through the motions" because "that's what I have been told to do" -you can not possibly be thinking about what you are saying
• This goes even more so when one is the "Shaliach Tzibur". In this capacity you are charged with the responsibility to daven for all those in the community, in particular for those who are unable to do so for themselves. To me, when a "Shaliach Tzibur" rushes through the davening, especially the Shmone Esrei, so quickly that the kehila can barely understand what he is saying, this is huge chillul Hashem.
• By the way, I come at this from the perspective of having "been there, done that". As a B.T. without a lot of formal schooling in this I very quickly fell into the trap of "gotta keep up", even if I had no clue what I was saying. This went on for many years. Then as my children grew and I watched them, and thought about the entire process of davening, my thoughts started to change. The watershed event was when I was saying kadish for my Father (obm). I started to take some time out to think about life, meaning, G-d, and lots of things. At some point I came to the realization that if I was going to daven, and have it have any meaning to me, much less Hashem, I needed to learn what I was saying, so I could think about what I was saying, EVERY time I davened. Only then did I feel that the actual act of davening would have any meaning or purpose.
• Having said this almost makes me sound hypocritical, but the vast majority of the people I see doing this (speed davening), are in fact FFB's, who should have a deep enough understanding of the function/purpose of davening to know better.

Beginnings

My first foray into blogging! For starters, I will just be putting some random thoughts here, more or less as a place to put them, and will expand on them later.