Rabbi’s Musings & Amusings

Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach z”l related that when he was still living in his parents’ home, he had a nephew who stayed there for Chanukah. The night after Chanukah ended, they told his nephew that Chanukah was over, and they wouldn’t be lighting the menorah again. His nephew asked him to dial his mother’s number so he could speak to her. When his mother got on the phone, his nephew began crying, “Please come bring me home! Bubby and Zeidy don’t want to have Chanukah anymore. But I want to have it again!”

I have had the z’chus to be a rebbe and guidance counselor in a few wonderful yeshivos during my career in chinuch. One of my talmidim, Yossi Glanz, was a student in my shiur when I was a seventh grade rebbe in Ashar and then again when I was one of his tenth grade rebbeim in Heichal HaTorah. I had, and have, a close connection with Yossi.

In the introduction to his book, The Gates of the Forest, Elie Wiesel wrote that “G-d created the world because He loves stories.”

In celebration of her bas mitzvah last week, my daughter Chayala and I went on a father-daughter outing. No, we didn’t go to Eretz Yisrael, LA, or Miami. Far more exciting than that, we went to visit the land of my youth: Manhattan’s Lower East Side. For me it was a walk down memory lane; for Chayala it was a glimpse into a strange and unfamiliar world.

At the beginning of Sh’moneh Esrei, we praise Hashem as “gomeil chasadim tovim – grants good kindness.”

It seems like strange vernacular. Is there kindness that isn’t good?

Mr. Yossi Grunwald, a friend of my father, related to me a powerful personal story.

It’s fascinating how something can be so exciting for one person and so anxiety-provoking and upsetting to another person.