An Open Letter to Teachers before School Starts

Dear Rabbi and Morah, Hi and thank you for taking on the challenge of teaching my child this year. I am entrusting you with a precious gift that Hashem gave given my family and I know that you will do your best to help my child grow and reach his/her potential. I know that your [...]

Filters and Upgrades

Rabbi Moshe Weinbeger, of Congregation AishKodesh in Woodmere, NY recently gave shiur on an essay of Rav Kook’s titled “Al pnimiushaTorah” and spent a few minutes discussing the issue of the internet and filters. One of the many things that Rav Weinberger mentioned which I found to be meaningful was that while filters are extremely [...]

High School Life

Recently we had two freshman boys join us for Shabbos lunch. They attend are both “out of towners” who attend a boy’s yeshiva in the area. I listened to my 6th grade son ask them questions about dorm life, the daily schedule, what’s expected of them with school work, and what they do in their [...]

Shabbos Gets Better and Better Because…

Shabbos Gets Better and Better Because… …it starts earlier. I know that some of us think this, but I’m saying it. Hear me out, it’s the same 25+hours. While I am all for a long afternoon in the “Shabbos” park and playdates that seem to go on for hours, I like the winter months. I [...]

NCSY and the Sweet Sounds of Gratitude

It always happens to me during mussaf of Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur. On a good morning it will hit me during Hallel. On a recent Shabbos, I thought about it while an excellent baal tefillah was davening the kedusha of mussaf. What plagues my mind at these odd times? Basically that I am thankful [...]

Do I Really Have to Wake Up?

Do I really have to wake up? I like to sleep, but I always got up for school without too much prodding (until college). However, like I wrote, I like to sleep. So, I get it when the Rambam writes that hearing the shofar relays the message: “Wake up you sleepy ones from your sleep [...]

Expanding the Backyard

One of the things that initially excited me about find beyondbt.com was that the website/community allows me to interact with fellow Jews who are growth-oriented and get advice from others. As a parent of a boy entering 6th grade, a daughter entering 4th grade, and a daughter entering kindergarten I am always looking for eitzos [...]

The Value of Vignettes

Ron Coleman recently wrote about Gedolim biographies and their place within our “literature”. While some of the stories or vignettes that we read about a tzeddaikus (holy woman), an adam gadol (great person), or a baal mussar (ethical leader) might seem somewhat hard to believe and might even fall under the secular label of an [...]

As Rosh Hashana approaches…

As a sometime contributor to BeyondBT, I’ll let you in on a little secret. From time to time the administrators send out emails with suggestions for written submissions. Usually these suggestions are great springboards for someone with the patience and time to write to actually come up with something meaning, relative, and thought-provoking. And then, [...]

Do We Show Enough Respect to Secular Jews?

Like most really good questions, the typical answer would be, “It depends.” It depends on the basis for the respect towards a Jew and how we personally define a “secular” Jew. The following few lines are my personal thoughts on the above question. When I think about ways or reasons to respect another Jew, my [...]

Holden Caulfield and the Lack of Observance

Note: A few of the thoughts and ideas that make up this post have been sitting in my Blogger Dashboard since 08/09/06, after I sent an email to someone regarding banned seforim and authors. I heard on CBS radio that J.D. Salinger had died. As a former fan of fiction, avid reader of THE NEW [...]

Soul Movements

In the sefer Da Et Atzmecha (Getting to Know Yourself) the author describes something amazing, the movement of the soul: In physical movement, we are familiar with six directions: the four sides, and up and down. Our teachers have taught that the soul moves in only two directions: expansion and contraction. Every movement must either [...]

Some Thoughts On Kiruv By Non-Kiruv Professionals

I was recently asked how likely it is that a non-Kiruv professional will help a non-observant person become observant?. Well, after a Shabbos afternoon (3 hours) of watching my 6 yr old daughter and her friend at the park, I have a few thoughts. My view is that helping a ‘person become more observant’ doesn’t [...]

The Other Type of Assimilation

Several months ago I joined an online “social-networking site”. For a while it served as a great way to reconnect with old friends that I hadn’t contacted in years. In fact, may of them were involved in NCSY when I was becoming frum and many others were participants in NCSY when I was working for [...]

Perspective

As I was making pizza the other night, I was listening to A CLASSIC CASE: The London Symphony Orchestra Plays The Music Of Jethro Tull. My son (7 years old) runs into the kitchen as Ian Anderson is going crazy on the flute and says, “Whoa! Abba, is that a new Piamenta album?” “No, I [...]

Chesed as a Source for Life

In my wife’s pre-school class last year there was an amazing girl, who happens to have Down Syndrome. This girl is currently in her third year in the pre-school. Each year she has a college-aged girl in class with her, as a ‘shadow’ to help her throughout the day. My wife told me that this [...]

If I Were Addressing the AJOP Convention

The 20th Annual AJOP Convention is scheduled to take place January 18-22, 2008. The Convention 2008 Theme is: “The Future of Judaism: Setting the Course – A Conference Examining the Relationship of Jews to Judaism”. We asked our regular contributors what they would say if they could address the convention. Here is Neil Harris’ response. [...]

BT 2.0

One summer, 20 years ago, I became Torah Observant. The decision and commitment took place while on an NCSY summer tour right before my junior year of high school. My growth as a Jew after that point was fairly text book, I suppose. Strong participation in NCSY, several years learning in Eretz Yisrael, combined with [...]

Are We Too Obsessed With Integration?

If you look at a person’s music collection or someone’s seforim collection, you can get an idea of what they enjoy listening to or learning. A quick glance at the “Topics Discussed” section of BeyondBT will show that aside from “Project Notes” the topic with the largest number of postings is “Integration”. It’s an issue [...]

Kiruv Models

I look at the different kiruv (bringing one close to Torah Judaism) groups and organizations around I often find that while each has their own derech of outreach methods and techniques there are some striking similarities between different organizations and several successful businesses. Each kiruv group is a kli (vessel) for Hashem to bring others [...]

Popular Posts

• Financial Realities in the Frum World
• Looking at Intermarriage
• How Can We Avoid Alienating our Families and Breaching Our Values?
• Healing the Rift within Orthodoxy
• Using the G-word in Reference to Non-Jews
• A Case for Modern Orthodox Kiruv
• UnInspired
• Are BTs Treated as Second Class Citizens?