JT – maybe he wanted the people to learn hebrew?
(which IS indeed important in my opinion).

Git Shabbes,
Shosha

Steve Brizel, thanks.

David Schalheim, thanks for the translating offer and info finding.I don’t understand why he doesn’t want it translated.
Is it possible that at that time, he didn’t want dim individuals with a poor command of the English language(most jewish religious authors, not all ) translating stuff using words with the wrong undertones and connotations?

A walk through a judaica bookstore sometimes would give anyone a headache.

I’m not sure who owns the rights to Alei Shur and any translating options, but I don’t understand why they wouldn’t want a guy like you doing the translating.

I don’t think your asking the right individuals. Talmid muvhak or not.

Ron,

That gets me thinking that maybe we can include competitiveness under the umbrella of chesed (or should I say the “tent o’ Torah”?).

I have to do the necessary hishtadlus for parnassah (according to my degree of bitachon). Insomuch as I need to sell myself and be competitive as an element of that necessary hishtadlus, it’s a part of the chesed I’m doing for my family and for myself (in terms of a sense of self esteem in being gainfully employed).

Sort of like running in a marathon (the rat race?) and competing for first place on behalf of charity.

I asked a talmid muvhak of Rav Wolbe in shul this morning if anyone has ever translated Alei Shur (I’d love to do it myself) and he told me that Rav Wolbe did not want it to be translated (although his book on parenting was translated). His family continues to respect his wishes in this.

Adaraba. But even if one doesn’t see the spiritual beauty in it, he still has to take care of his kids without expecting a yashar koiach.

No, it’s not incidental. Perhaps that really is the point.

*Why* do you perform those tasks for remuneration?

Is supporting your family “incidental”?

Sure, work is our hishtadlus for parnassah, but what’s the point of having the parnassah? Isn’t it purely to do chesed, especially for our family?

If someone dropped a sufficient amount of cash on my lap, believe you me, I’d cease all those “tasks in exchange for compensation” I have to do and learn and teach Torah!

To be sure, Rav Wolbe was speaking about the worth of taking off time from learning to do a chesed. He was explaining that all our involvement in mundane affairs should be in a larger spiritual context.

Mostly, however, it is about hishtadlus. I don’t even think Rabbi Wolpe was trying to address this question.

Your point is an interesting one. I know of a woman whose husband purposely violates Shabbos and threatens to “convert to Christianity” in front of their children because he is mad that he never had a “born again” moment when he started taking on more mitzvot. So I guess some people need to be told that much of Judaism is practiced by doing the ordinary day-to-day stuff, but my heart kind of went out to that woman’s husband because he so desperately wanted to have a bit of “head in the clouds” spirituality, but for whatever reason has never felt that way. Of course, I don’t condone his little temper tantrums for not experiencing deep spirituality, but it seems to me that the guy is in a lot of spiritual pain.

JT, hmm, you’ve given me a great idea. Let’s see if we can do something about that.

But you left out a somewhat more challenging formulation: … We have to compete in the harsh marketplace and even, such as in my line of work, actually do some things that don’t look so kind on the other end

Ron,

That is a really tough challenge. Perhaps it would be comparable to a dayan, who is going to have to make one litigant obligated to pay and the other exempt. That’s din, judgment, and not chesed, but it’s a part of Torah. So too, in parnassah, classroom chinuch, or child-rearing, which is all in the “world of chesed,” we’re going to have to temper the chesed with din or gevurah (which you actually elude to in your next comment #5).

So we could say that when you’re walking in the world of chesed it has to be tempered with din.

Competition, though, is tougher to understand within the framework of chesed. צ”ע

He should be told “who told you that life is supposed to feel so spiritual all the time?” Keeping Torah is about acharayus, meeting one’s responsibilites. And then, consequentially, there is a spiritual sensation. But the spiritual high is not the goal.

Michoel,

I agree, and you made the point very well. I was writing about the “inspiration” in daily affairs. Going beyond the basic function as a dutiful human being.

Rav Dessler, in Kuntras HaChesed writes about how a person that has kavanah he’s doing his parnassah as a chesed, be he a taxi driver or plumber, elevates his life and increases his enjoyment of what he’s doing. He can take the job he has to do and make it a spiritual endeavor of the highest order.

Fact is, on the other hand, most talmidim don’t feel a spiritual high when they learn Gemara. Rav Chaim of Volozhin writes (Nefesh HaChaim, perek 4) that learning Torah lishmah is not about deveikus (cleaving to Hashem) but rather about understanding the content in the clearest way possible. Learning to understand the content of Hashem’s message to man is the greatest way to get close to Him, but it’s not the same feeling as Neilah on Yom Kippur.

In NY Try Chovevei Torah http://www.yctorah.org/
and Drisha http://www.drisha.org/

There is also an online Yeshiva started by Rabbi Brovender http://www.webyeshiva.org/

Good luck.