If You Like To Read Jewish Blogs

Another Sunday, another Haveil Havalim

The weekly Haveil Havalim roundup of the Jewish blogs is hosted this week by Ima on and off the Bima.

You can find a tremendous number of blogs and articles from this past week. Certainly there is more than enough reading material for a little while.

My post about the plight of Mideastern Jewry that was written the morning of the Holocaust Museum Shooting is mentioned.

Thank you to “Ima” for including me, hosting the round up and doing all the work to sort through all the Jewish blogs!

Click below to see the “round up”.

Filed under: All Posts, My Links, Best-Of, social-networking

Take A Smile Break | Another Cute Baby Post

After yesterdays disturbing news and my sobering blog post about mid-eastern Jewry I thought something lighter would be appropriate for today.

Our son Ozzie, will be 7 months old in a couple of weeks.

There is nothing quite like the experience of observing a baby grow. They are completely helpless when they are born and they gain mobility, instinct and personality before your very eyes.

Filed under: All Posts, My Links, family, fun, parents, youtube

Where Is The Outrage? | The Plight of Middle Eastern Jewry

This post has been cross posted to DovBear – great discussion there.

Do Anglo/American Jews care enough about our middle-eastern Jewish brothers and sisters?

Yesterday DovBear posted a really great Op-Ed piece from the NY Times.

In fact. before checking his blog I even emailed the article to him as I assumed he would find it interesting.

Of course, I was too late as it had already been posted!

What occurred subsequent to his posting of the article was even more interesting.

Filed under: All Posts, Musings & Observations, My Links, anti-semitism, Herman Neuberger, iran, iranian, Ner Israel, New York Times, persian, politics, tolerance, twitter

Honor Thy Father & Mother | Connections 6/8/09

Another beautiful evening in Venice CA was highlighted by a wonderful Connections.

Everyone was all smiles and we had a great time socializing and learning.

Our Torah topic was the philosophy and moral implications of honoring one’s parents.

We discussed various theories and we ended with the Torah approach.

I recommend listening to this class as the questions and discussion were very interesting and thought provoking.

Click through to listen.

Filed under: All Posts, Classes, Connections, Classes, Pacific Jewish Center, parents, respect, Shiur, Torah, Venice

Men (Learning) at Work

This blog post is about men learning at work. By learning, I mean studying Torah.

I taught a class today at Teichman Enterprises.

It was a really great experience and I was inspired and I want to share my feelings with you.

If you are looking for the Australian musical artists known as Men at Work who sing that great song called “Down Under” (the one the “Piamentas” ripped off and sing to the words “Asher Bara”) click here for Men at Work.

If you don’t know what I am talking about watch these two videos…

Filed under: All Posts, Classes, My Links, charity, Classes, down under, fun, iphone, iphone app, Men at Work, Piamentas, Ramchal, Shiur, technology, Torah, tzedaka, youtube

Happy Birthday Tetris

June 6th. An auspicious date in history.

For most it a day known as D-Day. The day the Allies invaded Normandy.

I have the greatest respect and appreciation for the massive Ally effort to maintain freedom in our world. Thank you.

If you want to see more about that click here.

For others, it is also T-Day. What is T-Day? Nothing, I just made it up.

But it is the birthday of perhaps the greatest video game of all time.

Filed under: All Posts, My Links, fun, history, technology, tetris, video games, youtube

Jewish Blog Roundup

The weekly Haveil Havalim roundup of the Jewish blogs is hosted this week by Esser Agaroth.

You can find a truly astounding number of blogs and articles from the week that was. Certainly enough reading material for a little while.

My recent post on LeBron James, his bad sportsmanship and why I athletes are not role models is linked. The Sportsmanship post has now surpassed “The Speed of History” as the most popular post on this blog.

I will not be changing the link on the right hand side of the blog because those are only posts from the First 100. When I get to the next milestone I will do a new “Favorites Post” and add new links.

Filed under: All Posts, My Links, Best-Of, haveil havalim

Messilas Yesharim 6/6/09

We began Chapter 5 of Messilas Yesharim.

Ramchal begins to define for us the word “Zrizus”.

The basic idea we learned this week was the parallel from Zehirus to Zrizus.

Zehirus helps us avoid morally harmful activity. Zrizus helps us take action to do morally good activity.

We also discussed Sotah and some of the ideas that were mentioned in my Monday Lunch N Learn.

Click through to listen.

Filed under: All Posts, Classes, Messilas Yesharim, Classes, Luzzatto, Messilas Yesharim, Pacific Jewish Center, Ramchal, Shiur, Torah, Venice

Human Beings Are Social Beings

I have had my critiques of David Brooks from the NY Times.

But today,  I think he got it right. Really right. Like, 100% right.

He was asked about the “Big Three”. No, not GM, Ford, Chrysler. No, not Harvard, Yale, Princeton. Not, Clemenceau, Wilson, George either.

The new Big Three is Guns, Gays and Abortion.

Filed under: All Posts, Musings & Observations, My Links, history, New York Times, Pacific Jewish Center, politics, social-networking, Venice

Athletes as Role Models?

A few months back I hinted at a future post about athletes and their role in our society as role models.

This past weekend I was reminded about my feelings on the subject. What I feel is what I believe to be the Torah approach but is of consequence and significance to anyone and everyone.

Over the weekend the NBA Conference Finals were settled. Something that happened after one team was eliminated has caused a media frenzy.

Filed under: All Posts, Musings & Observations, My Links, Disney, espn, Kobe, LeBron James, NBA, parents, sports, Sportsmanship

Bar Mitzva DIscussion

What do you think about the Bar Mitzva celebration?

Too much pressure on a young man?

Too much money spent on a party?

What about the girls?

Head over to DovBear where I guest posted.

The post is all about Bar Mitzvas.

It’s always a party over there. The link is at the bottom of this post.

Filed under: All Posts, My Links, bar mitzva, dovbear, Torah

Great Shavuos Turnout Renders Previous Post Moot

Last week I blogged about my bond of kinship with a pastor in Ocean City Maryland.

We both are clergy working on beaches with fickle crowds. Sometimes we are packed and sometimes we are not…

The post generated a bit of a response from some of our Community Members as well as some other blog readers. We had one commenter wonder if anyone reads this blog. (Yes, a lot of people do read this blog.)

We had another commenter offer to walk from Youngstown PA. (It takes 33 days by foot according to Google, click if you need directions.)

So, how did our Shavuos go?

Filed under: All Posts, Musings & Observations, clothes, gemara, Pacific Jewish Center, Ruth, Shabbat, Shabbos, Shavuos, Torah, Venice

Mesillas Yesharim 05/24/09

You may recall that last week we did not get any further in the Messilas Yesharim text.

Oh yes, we had a great discussion about getting serious about life. We devoted much of our discussion to clothes.

Clothes has been a hot topic at the Pacific Jewish Center lately.

Yesterday, we supposed to talk about the number 50 in Judaism and why Shavuos is the only Jewish holiday with no set date. Instead, we talked more about clothes. Unbelievable.

This week we got back on track.

We completed Chapter 5 in Messilas Yesharim and learned about the 3rd and final detriment to “Watchfulness”. Do you want to know what it is?

Click through to listen.

Filed under: All Posts, Classes, Messilas Yesharim, Classes, Luzzatto, Messilas Yesharim, Pacific Jewish Center, Shiur, Torah, Venice

Do You Like Reading Blogs?

A great weekly Jewish (mostly) blog roundup called Haveil Havalim has been going strong for 219 rounds.

I just heard of it this week.

That is pretty lame, I am well aware

Anyway, I heard of it thanks to DovBear of http://dovbear.blogspot.com fame.

I got a couple mentions in the post and I do appreciate that.

Read on for the link.

Filed under: All Posts, My Links, Best-Of, dovbear, haveil havalim

Too Many Questions

I read a really interesting column this week.

Whenever I find a convergence of ideas between the Legal field and Torah I get excited.

This time I found a divergence. Not quite as exciting, but very interesting.

The NY Times followed up on a study conducted a few years ago by a 2nd year Georgetown Law School Student.

The study was groundbreaking. It focused on the amount of questions from the Judges to lawyers and its effect on the outcome of cases.

Filed under: All Posts, Musings & Observations, My Links, ask the rabbi, law, law school, lawyers, Shavuos, supreme court, talmud