500th Post - Serenity, gladness, and joy

"It is not in sorrow and sadness, not in self-castigation and torture that Judaism reaches its highest level; its holiest goal is serenity, gladness, and joy."  R' Hirsch, Judaism Eternal, Vol. I, "Shebat," p. 39.

On every posting milestone, I provide a quote from R' Hirsch for he is the giant that gave us this holy derech of Torah Im Derech Eretz. Yes, of course, he relied on a mesorah, relied on his rebbes R' Yaakov Ettlinger and Chacham Bernays, as Rav Schwab beautifully described. But he sculpted it all for the modern era. To him we owe endless gratitude.

I'd like to add that I'm very proud of this blog. It's not because I do anything particularly skillful. I know fully well that my posts are very simple, mostly they consist of links to other sources of information, quotes from Rav Hirsch, etc. There are blogs out there that are just brilliant. Seforim blog, On the Main Line, Torah Musings. Alan Brill's blog is impressive. Then there are secular blogs like David Stockman's Contra Corner. Amazing stuff. I don't do anything resembling that.

But we do provide a lot of information on Rav Hirsch and Torah Im Derech Eretz here and feel that we make a contribution along with the KAJ WH and Jers. sites, the Machon Moreshes Ashkenaz, Treasures of Ashkenaz, Dr. Levine's site, and a few others. And I'm very proud that we are doing that, even if in my amateurish way. I know that my life isn't a life without this derech. It's my connection to God. And I hope that I have been able to help some others establish or maintain a better connection to the derech as well.