http://beyondthenear.net/blog Mon, 18 Aug 2008 18:21:46 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en This past Tuesday morning at Moreshet Yisrael Nancy gave a dvar torah about v'ahavta, the first paragraph of the shema, and about loving God. I was suddenly reminded of the last time I had heard Parshat V'etchanan in which v'ahavta appears. On Shabbat Nachamu last year I took weekend trip ... http://beyondthenear.net/blog/2008/08/17/dvar-torah-on-vetchanan-and-shema/ Sometime before I came to Israel, I took on the custom of covering my head at, pretty much, all times. Sometimes I wear a kippah, sometimes a scarf wrapped in such a way that I hope it is obvious that what I am covering is the top of my head ... http://beyondthenear.net/blog/2008/08/03/covering-my-head/ Every Thursday during the school year, Reb Shmuel our Rosh Yeshiva has a sicha. Sicha means conversation. He starts with some thoughts of his own on some point of relevance to religious life... truthfulness, faith, tefilah, humor, study, it can be anything really. He shares with is his thoughts, looks ... http://beyondthenear.net/blog/2008/06/04/sichot-and-first-order-theology/ A couple of years ago I made a decision to work on watching my tongue. I decided to take on lashon hara as my project for the year and I became very aware of what I said and I also became very aware of what others said and what conversations ... http://beyondthenear.net/blog/2008/06/02/shmirat-halashon/ So I've been here at The Yeshiva for about a year. I'm going home for a couple of weeks in June and I'm starting to really worry about what it will be like in the "outside world." Here's the thing about the Yeshiva/Outside world dynamic: a couple of weeks ago, there ... http://beyondthenear.net/blog/2008/05/27/outside-the-cave/ Hevel wasn't really there. Please don't misunderstand, I'm not trying to make excuses. I did what I did, what was was as it had to be. Agency was mine, I bear the punishment and the mark of it, and God is the True Judge. But in the beginning was a word. And ... http://beyondthenear.net/blog/2008/05/25/cain-and-abel-midrash/ So, raise your pinky if you know what hagbah is. For the rest of you: Hagbah is when, after reading the Torah, the open scroll is lifted and turned so that the congregation can see the writing in the scroll. This is hagbah. When I was a kid, my dad would comment on the ... http://beyondthenear.net/blog/2008/04/27/judaism-and-feminism-and-ihagbah/ I spoke to Reb Shmuel, our rosh yeshiva, about some of the thoughts I had yesterday, about being troubled that the attack at the Yeshiva didn't hit me more immediately, that I was as blinded by our differences as I was and that my own mind was revealed to me ... http://beyondthenear.net/blog/2008/03/10/relating-just-thoughts/ Thursday evening I got home at maybe a quarter to ten. I put my stuff down in my room and proceeded to fold my dry laundry and hang up my wet laundry. I talked to my flatmate for a bit. I came back to my room and saw that I ... http://beyondthenear.net/blog/2008/03/09/terror-attacks-and-klal-yisrael/ There is a Ramah shabbaton happening this weekend in Jerusalem. The Ramah directors are all here, and they came to the Yeshiva the other day to talk to us. Rabbi Resnick was here... it was weird to see him again. It was 15 years ago that I was at Ramah ... http://beyondthenear.net/blog/2008/02/09/ramah/