Year: 2021

Part One:

From Mar 18, 2020 here.

Part Two:

From Mar 30, 2020, here.

So, Chassidim ignore Zeman Tefillah. Ho-hum. What else is new?

But I noticed something even worse. I sat near a Shabbos minyan in a massive Chassidic denomination. I saw they were barely missing the halachic time. This wasn’t Chabad which studies their works before prayer (those who show up early, anyway!), and officially begins at 10:00 AM.

The minyan was just missing the time for Shmoneh Esrei. (Mussaf was fine, of course.) A smaller Chassidic Shtiebel nearby was just missing the time for Kri’as Shema.

And these hours by the more lenient standard of both “the Gra and Ba’al Hatanya”, as people like to say!

So, this isn’t about added concentration even as sheer excuse (אין אדם חוטא ולא לו), but pure impurity and “Kelipah” driving them to sin against Hashem.

As the Nefesh Hachaim (‘שער ג’ פרק ח) testifies:

…

ואתה הקורא, אל תדמה שמלבי הוצאתי הדברים, כי את כל זאת בחנתי ונסיתי, כאשר נתתי לבי לדרוש ולתור, ועיני ראו רבים אשר יחפצו קרבת אלקים, ונכשלים במו אלה הדברים הנ”ל אשר מפיהם אלי נאמרו מלבם, ובעיני ראיתי במקום אחד איזה אנשים שהורגלו בזה זמן כביר עד שכמעט נשכח מהם זמן תפלת המנחה שקבעו לנו רז”ל, ואדרבה נקבע בלבם מרוב ההרגל כמו דין והלכה שתפלת המנחה עיקרה אחר צאת הכוכבים, וכשאדם אומר לחברו נתפלל תפלת מנחה, הוא משיבו נראה ונעיין אם כבר נראו הכוכבים ברקיע, וה’ יסלח להם, ויכפר לשוגה ופתי.

אבל לבך תשית לדעת חכמים בעלי תורה אשר כבר הורונו חז”ל שהעיקר הוא עשיית המצוה בזמנה בכל פרטיה ודקדוקיה חק ולא יעבור, וטהרת המחשבה טובה תצרף למעשה, אז תלך לבטח, וזה וזה יתקיימו בידיך…

The known Sha’arei Teshuvah 1:2 quoting Chazal (where?) applies well:

משל לכת של לסטים שחבשם המלך בבית האסורים, וחתרו מחתרת, פרצו ויעבורו ונשאר אחד מהם. בא שר בית הסוהר וראה מחתרת חתורה והאיש ההוא עודנו עצור, ויך אותו במטהו. אמר לו: קשה יום! הלא המחתרת חתורה לפניך ואיך לא מהרת המלט על נפשך?

(Weekdays are different, for some reason.)

Let Jews not be influenced by the “Chassidim” and their evil ways. Keep your children away.

Doctor Goldsmith

by James Baldwin

There was once a kind man whose name was Oliver Goldsmith. He wrote many delightful books, some of which you will read when you are older.

He had a gentle heart. He was always ready to help others and to share with them anything that he had. He gave away so much to the poor that he was always poor himself.

He was sometimes called Doctor Goldsmith; for he had studied to be a physician.

One day a poor woman asked Doctor Goldsmith to go and see her husband, who was sick and could not eat.

Goldsmith did so. He found that the family was in great need. The man had not had work for a long time. He was not sick, but in distress; and, as for eating, there was no food in the house.

“Call at my room this evening,” said Goldsmith to the woman, “and I will give you some medicine for your husband.”

In the evening the woman called. Goldsmith gave her a little paper box that was very heavy.

“Here is the medicine,” he said. “Use it faithfully, and I think it will do your husband a great deal of good. But don’t open the box until you reach home.”

“What are the directions for taking it?” asked the woman.

“You will find them inside of the box,” he answered.

When the woman reached her home, she sat down by her husband’s side, and they opened the box; What do you think they found in it?

It was full of pieces of money. And on the top were the directions:

—

“TO BE TAKEN AS OFTEN AS NECESSITY REQUIRES.”

Goldsmith had given them all the ready money that he had.

From American Literature, here.

ב”ה, שוב בחירות, כן ירבו!

מודעת נדל”ן בבדיחותא (מפי השמועה):

דירה להשכרה: 3 חדרים ומרפסת, מממוזגת, עם חניון, במיקום מרכזי קרוב לקלפי…