Shiurim בנושא שירה נכונה Ashkenazi

 

לאור החשיבות הרבה של עבודת השירה והזמרה בתפילה,

אנו שמחים להודיע לציבור מתפללי קהילות אשכנז

על פתיחת סדרת שיעורי הדרכה

בנושא שירה נכונה

השיעורים יתקיימו בימי שלישי בערב בשעה 20:30

באולם ישורון בבני ברק (רח' בן יעקב 25)

ויועברו גם באמצעות זום

 

הסידרה תועבר על ידי

הרב שאול הלוי שנלר שליט"א

מנצח מקהלת קהילת אשכנז במודיעין עילית

(מיועד לכל הרמות)

 

כל שיעור יחולק לחמשה חלקים:

תיאוריה, קריאת תוים, פיתוח קול, מקהלה ושירה בפועל

 

השיעורים הם ללא עלות

ומיועדים עבור מתפללי קהילות אשכנז המובהק בלבד

 

לפרטים נוספים והרשמה

נא לפנות אלי

בהצלחה רבה

אברהם אומן

 

(via Google translate:)

 

In view of the great importance of the work of singing and chanting in prayer,

We are pleased to inform the public of worshipers of Ashkenazi communities

On opening a series of instructional classes

On the subject of proper poetry

Classes will be held on Tuesday evenings at 8:30 p.m.

In the Yeshurun Hall in Bnei Brak (25 Ben Yaakov St.)

And will also be transmitted via zoom

 

The series will be delivered by

Rabbi Shaul Halevi Schneller Shlita

Conductor of the Ashkenazi community choir in Modi'in Illit

(Designed for all levels)

 

Each lesson will be divided into five parts:

Theory, reading notes, voice development, choir and actual singing

 

Classes are free

And are intended for worshipers of the distinctly Ashkenazi communities only

 

For more details and registration

Please contact tidesociety@outlook.com

moral & religious people

 "Our Constitution was made only for a moral & religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." -John Adams.

Timely Advice from the Rebbe: Avoid Experimental Drugs!

2 Nissan 5712

Peace and blessing!

[This is] in response to your letter from 23 Adar, in which you wrote to me that you had read in the newspaper that a new medicine for paralysis has been developed in the United States, discovered by a certain doctor in St. Louis, and you asked my opinion about this.

According to what I was able to find out, this is not a tested or proven medicine. And in fact, it's not [really] a medicine, but only eases the symptoms. There is also room for concern since these are potent injections which carry possible risk of injury, etc.

Based on this, it is my opinion that it is not worthwhile to rely on the information we're hearing and take measures which entail the aforementioned concerns. 

G-d will send healing through another medium, and you'll soon be able to send me good tidings about this.

With blessings for the Passover holiday to be kosher and truly happy, both for you and for your whole family, especially your grandson and parents, may they all live [and be well].

M Schneerson (Source)

traveling on the train of Zionism

 “Many people speak about this [the ills of Zionism], and many people hear and understand, but in their hearts they still kiss the idol. Every small child cannot understand today how they made the Eigel and danced for it and how the Spies and Korach did what they did — and everyone wonders and is astounded and cannot understand the yetzer hara of those days. But so, too, this is how the yetzer hara [for Zionism] works today, as everyone dances with it. And when, someday, this ye- tzer hara will be replaced by a different one, people will then see that today as well, it was like the Eigel and the Meraglim ... this is blind- ness that causes people not to feel the evil in it.

"It has come to a point where you cannot even talk against today’s yetzer hara [for fear of reprisals]. There are only a few leftover groups that do not follow after the Eigel: In Brisk there are those; and among the Yerushalmis there are people who do not want anything to do with the Zionists and understand we need to distance ourselves from them; and so, too, did the Satmar Rav and his chassidim distance themselves from them. But the rest of the chareidim travel on the train of Zionism and are partners with them in all matters.”

Shiurei R. Dovid Soloveichik, pp. 517–518.

"When during the reign of Hadrian, the uprising led by Bar Kokhba proved a disastrous error, it became essential that the Jewish people be reminded for all times of another important fact; namely, that Yisrael must never again attempt to restore its national independence by its own power; it was to entrust its future as a nation solely to Divine Providence… This fourth Blessing is an acknowledgement that it has always been God and God alone Who has given us, and still gives us to this very day, that good in which we have had cause to rejoice and that for future good too, we may look to none other but God, and none beside Him." Rav Samson Raphael Hirsch on Birchos HaMazon

It was not the land that Moses had been commanded to proclaim to his people at the outset of his mission as מורשה, as the inheritance they were to preserve (Ex. 6,8). The Law, to be translated into full reality upon that soil, was to be the true מורשה, the one true, everlasting inheritance, the one true center around which the nation and its leaders were to gather as one united community. Herein lay the goal and the destiny, the character and the significance of the people.

Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch "The Kehillah," Collected Writings, Vol. VI, p. 62

Israel was not given the Law so that it might win political independence and national prosperity; rather, Israel was given political independence and national prosperity so that it might be able to observe the Law. תורה, the Law, remains the eternal, unchanging goal, the purpose of the national existence of the Jew. This purpose does not vary with the degree of independence or prosperity that the Jewish nation enjoys at any given time. Freedom makes it easier for Israel to observe the Law; prosperity enables the people of Israel to accomplish its mission more fully. Political pressure will make observance of the Law more difficult, and lack of independence will leave the fulfillment of Israel's mission incomplete. But all of Israel's apparent fate signifies only a greater or smaller allotment of means for accomplishing the mission assigned to it by the Law of God. Israel's mission as such remains unchanged, and hence also remains the one unchanging bond that unites the larger Kehillath Ya'akov as a whole, as well as each small Kehillah that exists only as a daughter branch of the great, total Kehillah. 

Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch "The Kehillah," Collected Writings, Vol. VI, pp. 64-5

Collected Writings of R. S.R. Hirsch on the theory of evolution

 https://www.simpletoremember.com/vitals/Rabbi_Samson_Rafael_Hirsch_Evolution.htm

Collected Writings of R. S.R. Hirsch v. 7 (p. 257)

     Present-day natural science, in whose genuine advances our generation may justly take pride, has suggested the possibility that all the variegated forms of nature may be reduced to basic atomic elements, that the multitude of forces at work in nature may have originated from one primal force, and that all the laws of nature may, in fact, derive from one single law. This unification of the natural sciences is occurring despite the fact that the study of natural sciences is becoming increasingly sophisticated, the subject matter to be mastered requiring an increasingly complex division of labor among scientists. Now suppose that (please forgive an outsider’s comment) the proponents of this unification theory, overly excited by a few startling initial results that would seem to support their hypothesis, will proclaim this mere possibility – which may never be substantiated as fact – to be incontrovertible certainty and will use it as the basis for some hasty conclusions. Is Judaism not justified in welcoming the mere chance that the hunch pursued by these scientists will prove to be correct? Do the findings of all the natural sciences to date not show similarities that would suggest the existence of the very Oneness that is the foundation of Judaism? Is it not possible that the astronomer in his observatory, the mineralogist in the pit, the physiologist with his microscope, the anatomist with his scalpel and the chemist with his flask will be forced to conclude that all their studies actually center on one and the same work of creation in the heavens and on earth? Is it not possible that, with all their investigations, they find themselves on the track of one single Thought that inspires the creation of matter and energy, laws and forms, that even in the midst of the infinite variety presented by the universe there is an obvious single harmonious unity?

     In light of the foregoing, would Judaism not be justified in viewing this idea of a universal unity, which inquiring minds have already pieced together from the textbook of the universe and which man’s consciousness years to express, as nothing less than the long-awaited triumph of the truth of Judaism? This is the truth with which, thousands of years ago, Judaism first appeared in the midst of a chaotic multitude of gods, proclaiming that there is only one, sole God in heaven and on earth, and that all the phenomena of the universe are founded upon His Law. This idea, the concept of the Unity of God, is the truth for which Judaism has endured a course of martyrdom without parallel in world history.

     It is true, of course, that most natural scientists today are satisfied to stop at the point where they have surmised some sort of unity at the foundation of all nature. They do not attempt to proceed upward from there to one, sole Creator and Composer of that unity. They do not even suspect that, with every step they take toward the discovery of unity in nature, they add another step to the universal throne of the one, sole God. Without knowing it, and perhaps even against their will, they confirm the sole sovereignty of the One to Whom, as Judaism firmly believes, all mankind will ultimately do homage, even though at present these scientists narrow-mindedly seek to eliminate this though from the minds of their own generation and from those of generations to come.

Collected Writings of R. S. R. Hirsch v. 7 (p. 263)

     Whether or not man is able to find an adequate or correct explanation for the natural laws governing any phenomenon of nature does not alter his moral calling. What Judaism does consider vitally important is the acceptance of the premise that all the hosts of heaven move only in accordance with the laws of the one, sole God. But (whether we view these laws from the Ptolemaic or Copernican vantage point is a matter of total indifference to the purely moral objectives of Judaism, Judaism has never made a credo of these or similar notions.) (See our graduation day essay for the year 1868*.) This volume, p. 47 (ed.)

     This will never change, not even if the latest scientific notion that the genesis of all the multitude of organic forms on earth can be traced back to one single, mot primitive, primeval form of life should ever appear to be anything more than what it is today, a vague hypothesis still unsupported by fact. Even if this notion were ever to gain complete acceptance by the scientific world, Jewish thought, unlike the reasoning of the high priest of that notion, would nonetheless never summon us to revere a still extant representative of this primal form as the supposed ancestor of us all. Rather, Judaism in that case would call upon its adherents to give even greater reverence than ever before to the one, sole God Who, in His boundless creative wisdom and eternal omnipotence, needed to bring into existence no more than one single, amorphous nucleus and one single law of “adaptation and heredity” in order to bring forth, from what seemed chaos but was in fact a very definite order, the infinite variety of species we know today, each with its unique characteristics that sets it apart from all other creatures.) This would be nothing else but the actualization of the law of le-mino, the “law of species” with which God began His work of creation. This law of le-mino, upon which Judaism places such great emphasis in order to impress upon its adherents that all of organic life is subject to Divine laws, can accommodate even this “theory of the origin of species”. After all, the principle of heredity set forth in this theory is only a paraphrase of the ancient Jewish law of le-mino, according to which, normally, each member of a species transmits its distinguishing traits to its descendants. This law of creation wields such power over the organic world that even seeds discovered in ancient Egyptian sarcophagi were found to have remained so potent after thousands of years that, when they were placed into the soil, they produced plants similar to those that grew in the immediate vicinity of the tombs in which the seeds had lain unsown for so long. Nowhere in all recorded history do we learn of a farmer who harvested, say, barley after he planted wheat.

     Jewish law is very much aware that outside interference could cause deviations from this normal development of species. That is why, out of ethical considerations and in order to keep its adherents loyal to the Lawgiver of the universe and ever mindful of His world order, Jewish law forbids Jews to interfere with the normal development of the organic world or to cross-breed different organic species with one another. And these prohibitions will remain in force even if the scientific theory to which we have referred above should someday turn out to be more than a speculative illusion.

Rav Avigdor Miller on Yom Hashoah

Q:

I have a question about Yom Hashoah, that's the Holocaust day.  Where did it originate and should we observe it?

A:

It originated from people who are atheists – in the Knesses most of them are atheists.  So when people like that get together, a ‘Sanhedrin of great sages’ who go bareheaded and they sit together and they decide to decree a national day of observance for all Jews, you understand already the kedushah that lies in it.  

Should we observe it?  We should ignore it altogether. What should we do?  We'll leave that to the chachmei haTorah. We don't hurry to make days of observances. The chachmei haTorah will do in good time what has to be done but never should we recognize any kind of pronouncements by atheists.

TAPE # 361 (May 1981)

opinion as a statesman and politician

 The Lubavitcher Rebbe explained (Lekkutey Sichos vol. 15 pp 489-490):

“The main point (or in a different style): The understanding of the doctor decides – according to halacha – when he is talking as a doctor (for reasons of healing and saving lives), but if he is giving his opinion as a statesman and politician (for political reasons), that his opinion they decide and nullify the medical reasoning – this is the opposite of the decision of the Shulchan Aruch.”

Saw this today

You might not want to inject an experimental, non-FDA approved substance into your body, that is pushed by people known to want to reduce the global population, made by manufacturers who have no liability whatsoever for injury, for a virus with a 99.7% survival rate. Just sayin.

raising your children

 Jackie Kennedy once said, “If you bungle raising your children, I don't think whatever else you do matters very much.”

IDF does it again

For those who claim to be followers of Torah Im Derech Eretz, you are required to read the following story and feel pain for this boy, an innocent bystander, who lost an eye to an IDF bullet.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/palestinian-bystander-14-loses-eye-from-rubber-bullet-allegedly-fired-by-idf/

Palestinian bystander, 14, loses eye from rubber bullet allegedly fired by IDF

Izz al-Din, 14, was in a vegetable shop Friday when Israeli soldiers used rubber bullets against protesters nearby; IDF neither confirms nor denies Israeli fire led to injury

"In a security camera video widely shared on social media, the boy can be seen standing in a vegetable shop when he is hit. Al-Batsh’s family claimed the clashes were not taking place next to the shop, but rather down the road. The young teenager does not seem to be participating in any demonstration, merely looking out into the street."

Sadly, the IDF did not take responsibility for this even though it's almost certain that the rubber bullet came from one of their guns. They were the ones doing the shooting. Is anybody else shooting rubber bullets besides them? If there were, you know they'd tell us so because already they magnify every action of protesters in order to attempt to justify the IDF or police response. We often say in the Jewish community that when the IDF makes a mistake, they own up to it. I believe we are lying to ourselves. 

"The land of the Law of God exists for the sake of human beings. Its most precious product, the purpose and goal of all the blessings bestowed upon it by God is every human soul that it nurtures and thus consecrates for the realization of God's law. The land is given to all the people only under the condition that they will regard every human life, which is sacred to the Law, as sacred and inviolable. Even one drop of innocent blood spilled unnoticed will drop a stitch form the bond that binds the land to the nation and both the land and the nation to God."

R' Samson Raphael Hirsch, Bamidbar 35:10, parshas Masse

Preparing to learn with yiras shemayim

Nefesh HaChaim 4:6: “Whenever one prepares himself to learn, it is proper for him to spend at least a small amount of time contemplating a pure fear of G-d with a pure heart.”

Rav Chaim says also that one should take a small break during study to rekindle his yiras Hashem. This helps one to prepare for the rest of  learning time.

 

loaves and fishes

"There were a king with a large jaw and a queen with a plain face, on the throne of England; there were a king with a large jaw and a queen with a fair face, on the throne of France. In both countries it was clearer than crystal to the lords of the State preserves of loaves and fishes, that things in general were settled for ever."  Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

Yahrzeit of Rav Avigdor Miller zt'l.

Thursday night and Friday day, the 27 Nisan, will be the yahrzeit of Rav Avigdor Miller zt'l.

The Toras Avigdor Rabbi Miller Remembrance Event will take place at 8 PM tonight in Boro Park at Beis Medrash Birkas Avrohom 1319 50th Street. Speeches will be given by Rav Eliyohu Brog Shlita (Rav Miller's grandson who now leads his Shul) and Rav Yitzchok Zalman Gips Shlita (A talmid of Rav Miller).

Those who cannot make it to the event will be able to watch it live on this link (https://vimeo.com/event/874250) or listen on the phone via the Kol Haloshon telephone system. Call in to Kol Halashon and press star for live events. Kol Halashon phone numbers:

Main USA number: (718) 906-6400, 

Monsey: (845) 678-3337, 

Monroe: (845) 751-9640, 

Lakewood: (732) 806-8199, 

Los Angeles: (310) 659-8000, 

Montreal: (514) 667-3599, 

Toronto: (416) 800-2146, 

Eretz Yisroel: (03) 929-0709

People can subscribe for free to a weekly email of his life-changing derashos on the parsha at https://torasavigdor.org/

A War on God and Creation by Chananya Weissman

 

A War on God and Creation

With the constant barrage of headlines and social media posts – most of which are unimportant and quickly forgotten – it's easy to lose sight of the big picture. The people in power are not fighting a pandemic, or racism, or inequality, or climate change, or any other supposed threats to the human race. They are fighting God.

By “those in power” I refer not only to elected officials (assuming they were truly elected by those they are meant to serve), for they are often nothing more than mascots. The people with the greatest power were elected by no one, even for pretend, and are often unknown to the general public. The “elected officials” work for them, not for us. We cannot fire them or vote them out of power – only their mascots. There are no “free elections”; they are all bought and paid for.

Their media shills (a redundant phrase) spread disinformation with the pretense of respectability and accountability. They have none of the former, and are accountable only to those who grant them access in exchange for spreading their propaganda. There is no such thing as unbiased news reporting; every aspect of what they report and how they report it is by design, with a subliminal agenda. Their goal is not to inform their audience, but to manipulate it. They have a casual relationship with the truth, at best.

It is no coincidence that those in power are waging these fictitious fights for humanity and our morality simultaneously, with the greatest of urgency and highfalutin catchphrases. If we do not stop the pandemic, most of us will die. If we do not stamp out racism and inequality (the definitions of which change daily) we will lose our democracy. If we do not fight climate change, all of us will die. We must not question “the narrative”. We must make “painful sacrifices” (always us, never them). We must “reimagine” everything that makes sense so that it can be transformed into something that doesn't. Don't ask questions; we're facing existential threats and don't have time for questions.

All of this is a fig leaf for reimagining a world without God and His pesky objective morality, a world in which the rich and well-connected displace God as rulers of the world. Underneath all the headlines, hysteria, and noise, that's what this is really all about.

It is no coincidence that those waging fictitious battles for humanity and morality, both of which they abhor, are godless people. If they ever mention God, it is only to paint lipstick on their anti-God agenda. If they ever quote some moral lesson from the Torah – always without context – it is only to justify violating the Torah. They bend the Torah to serve their will, not the reverse. They blaspheme God by pretending to care what God has to say about anything.

It is easy to demonstrate that their fictitious battles are really a war against God by simply reading the beginning of the Torah. God's first comment about the human race is “It is not good for man to be alone; I will make for him a helpmate opposite him.” God then blesses this first couple to be fruitful, multiply, and fill up the earth.

The anti-God establishment has been waging war against the nuclear family for generations. From women's rights, to gay rights, now to fabricated “trans” rights, the “progress” has reached the point where stating the most basic biological and Torah truths is considered an act of great courage. In many parts of the self-proclaimed “enlightened” world, one literally risks everything by advocating for God's plainly stated, immutable truth about gender, gender roles, and the only acceptable combination of men and women to create a family, which is one of each, after they commit to marriage.

It should not need to be debated that unborn children have the right to be born, and the lives of the elderly and infirm are no less precious than the lives of society's most fortunate. The rich and powerful do not have the right to decide the value of anyone's life, nor when someone has “already lived their life” and it's time for them to go. That is strictly the purview of God, who forbids us to make such distinctions or calculations, even for the alleged “greater good”. It's always for the greater evil. It's always to displace God.

The Torah teaches that every life is a unique world, and every moment of every life is infused with the potential to achieve great spiritual heights. One can achieve a share in the world to come with a single heroic act (Avoda Zara 17A and 18A), and one can repent his sins in a quiet moment of reflection (Kiddushin 49B). That “unresponsive” hospital patient may well be engaged in powerful repentance right before an “enlightened” doctor pulls the plug on his life.

Cheating anyone out of a single moment of life robs them of this great potential, reduces human life to nothing more than another commodity in a marketplace, and wages war on God. One who shortens a dying person's life by a single moment is a murderer according to the Torah the same as one who murders anyone else.

God's first instruction to Adam and Eve was to fill up the earth, without limit. Procreation is an obligation, not a “lifestyle choice”. Children are a blessing, not a burden, and certainly not the property of the government. Those who speak of “overpopulation” and “depopulation” deny God's power to sustain humanity and wage war against His will. They want to take over God's business.

The anti-God establishment further claims that the world will be destroyed by “climate change”, due to which they must control everyone and everything. Of course, they deny that man's behavior (especially their own) has any spiritual importance that will impact the world around them.

This contradicts the Torah's emphasis on a spiritual cause and effect for everything that happens in this world, including the destruction in the time of Noah due to widespread immorality and corruption. It is no coincidence that what we witness today might make Noah's contemporaries blush with shame. The anti-God folks refer to it as “progress”, as if they invented perversity.

Immediately following the flood, God makes an oath to Noah that the seasons will never again be stopped as they were during the year of destruction. God controls the climate, not evildoers who wish to usurp Him.

God makes this oath in recognition of the fact that Man by nature is evil, and therefore requires more grace. This contradicts the view of many people who deny the existence of evil, or dismiss the notion of widespread, coordinated evil as a ridiculous “conspiracy theory”, or believe that most people are good.

The default state of a human being is evil until he learns how to be good and puts his learning into practice. This is not something we can figure out on our own, or decide upon by a popular vote, or have decided for us by “ethicists”, or have imposed upon us by “elitist” thought police. Only God can decide what is good and what is evil. No one who tried to improve on God's morality ever produced a favorable result. God created the world, and He wrote the instruction manual.

It is critical for us to recognize that we are living through biblical times. It is the ultimate battle between good and evil, between those who side with God and those who wish to replace Him. I don't know how long it will take for God to destroy the evildoers or how bad it will get until then, but I know this for certain: God today is no different than He was in ancient times, He cares about His world the same as always, and He is not going to let anyone take over His business.

Our job is to turn to God, strengthen ourselves and others, and seek His redemption.

After that, sit back and enjoy the show.

__________________________

https://chananyaweissman.com/

If you received this from someone else and want to receive future articles directly, please send a request to endthemadness@gmail.com.

after marriage

 However important it is that love shall precede marriage, it is far more important that it shall continue after marriage.

• Rav SR Hirsch, Commentary on Genesis XXIV, 67 quoted by Joseph H. Hertz, Pentateuch, p. 87

Protecting animals

Rav Samson Raphael Hirsch

There are probably no creatures that require more the protective Divine word against the presumption of man than the animals, which, like man, have sensations and instincts, but whose body and powers are nevertheless subservient to man. In relation to them man so easily forgets that injured animal muscle twitches just like human muscle, that the maltreated nerves of an animal sicken like human nerves, that the animal being is just as sensitive to cuts, blows and beating as man. Thus man becomes the torturer of the animal soul, which has been subjected to him only for the fulfilment of humane and wise purposes; sometimes out of self-interest, at other times in order to satisfy a whim, sometimes out of thoughtlessness—yes, even for the satisfaction of crude satanic desire.

• Horeb: A Philosophy of Jewish Laws and Observances, translated by Isidor Grunfeld, London: Soncino Press, 1968, vol. II, p. 292, sec. 415.

Please daven

Please daven for a refuah sheleimah for ירמיהו אהרן בן שרה