Open Letter to the Yeshivah Community

I usually post about Yeshivah on my personal blog because the messages about governance and leadership have broader applications. This is posted on this blog because it's directed specifically at Anash and won't be shared through social media. It's not 'confidential' - just meant for a narrower audience.

This past year, 5776, has been another tough one for our community. Looking back at where things were a year ago and what we could reasonably expect to happen in the year to come, I throw my hands in the air and say "oy, vey". Every few weeks there has been another eruption or mini-scandal, more airing of our dirty laundry, more factional in-fighting than the Labor party, more meaningless communication from the trustees and/or ICOM-5 (can't remember what sequel we are on). This is the definition of a farshlepter krank.

New ohros and matching keilim

Someone bought me a new pair of shoes the other day. I put them on and they looked fantastic, but then I noticed that my pants looked somewhat scruffy next to the shiny new shoes. So I went out and bought some new pants. They looked great with the new shoes, but wouldn't you know it - my shirt really didn't do the new shoes and pants justice. There was only one option - to go get a new shirt.

Was this a case of the cart leading the horse? Perhaps. So what really happened here? I was actually fine with the old shoes. But getting a new pair disrupted things, and made everything else I was wearing suddenly look relatively bad. The other new items were 'required' to restore the equilibrium and consistency of my clothes.

Ohr Chodosh 5774

Chassidus describes the truly amazing process that happens each Rosh Hashanah. On the first night Hashem’s desire to continue the existence of the world is ‘paused’ k’viyachol, and then renewed through our blowing of the shofar, at which time an ‘ohr chodosh’ comes into the world.

How can we understand this ‘ohr chodosh’ – this new spiritual energy that has until now never manifested in the world?

A Brave New post-Gimmel Tammuz World

It's a bit of a cliche - the youngsters gathering around an alter chossid at a farbrengen hearing stories of how things were in the "olden days". These recollections become all the more precious as the older people in the community move on from this world, which is why projects that collect this history are so important. As the older generation pass on, the role of alter chossid also shifts forward a generation, which sometimes seems odd to people of my vintage.

What was even more strange was the discussion that came up last Simchas Torah at the kiddush/farbrengen we traditionally hold in our home.