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The problem with ideas is that they do not relent. When someone comes up with an idea, lets just use the most common example, and idea with which one could make money. What happens is that the person who has the idea, naturally thinks its great, they have a great deal of enthusiasm. However, and this is a big however, in most cases the idea simply can not be put into effect alone, without someone else’s help or resources. Therein lies the rub!
Sales, the transfer of enthusiasm. The problem is that no one else is likely to share the same enthusiasm as the one who came up with the idea. Instead, you will get some version of what has commonly become known as the person who plays the role of devils advocate. This person will bring up no less than about dozen problems or issues which are significant to why the idea can not succeed. In some cases the person playing the role of devils advocate will know what he is talking, and in many cases, the critic will simply be shooting down the idea, because that is just what people do.
Now enter several classic spoilers, which the typical naysayer will have readily available. These spoilers will generally not even require any sort of prior knowledge of understanding of the idea which the dreamer has come up with. Perhaps the simplest and most obvious of these, actually gives a great deal of credit to the entire human race:
If the idea was any good, someone would have already thought of it.
The objection seemingly has some substance however if anyone really believed that this single idea is true, then one would have to simply wonder how did people ever come up with: Television, digital photography, and helicopters. The simple answer is sure, when the first guy said I am going to build a machine that flies, the answer from the naysayer of the day would have been, “If man were meant to fly, he would have wings.
Which brings me back to a central idea I have been working with for sometime now. I recently created a new page on Facebook called Seed. The seed concept is really very clever, however I simply can not say that it was my invention. I did have a a particularly gifted professor who explained the concept of automatic writing as follows :
When you first contemplate what you want to write about you allow your mind to go blank, the first idea that pops into your mind is the kernel or seed. Then you hand is a very slow scribe for the mind. Automatic writing is: The process by which you try to capture all the thoughts that develop issue forth from your mind that relate to that original thought.
Seed theory:The idea by which anything new be it a business, piece of artwork, elaborate speech, explanation or lesson plan, issues forth from ones owns mind, and manifests itself in the physical world, much in the same way as a seed landing in the soil becomes activated, sends out roots, and grows into a plant.
As far as I know, the above stated theory is my own.
Stephen C. (Aharon Moshe) Sanders
March 11, 2010 12:06AM Eastern Standard Time
Passaic, NJ.
If you like this essay, please join my page on facebook:
Seed
While the Jewish people requested gold from the Egyptians, Moshe was busy retrieving the bones of Joseph from the Nile, in preparation for the Exodus from Egypt. Rabbi Dr. Jonathan Rosenblatt, explained an idea from R’ Shmuel di Ozeida (16th century; author of Midrash Shmuel) on January 30, 2010 at Boca Raton Synagogue. During the third meal there is about a maximum of around 10-15 minutes available where typically a Rabbi would give over a concept from the Torah.
Rabbi Rosenblatt explained a very deep concept which helped to explain how that while the important thing the Jewish people as nation did as commanded by G-d was to “borrow” gold from the Egyptians, that Moshe was actually sacrificing his own spiritual development in order to carry out an equally important mission which was to bring out Joseph’s bones from Egypt. Rabbi Dr. Jonathan Rosenblatt invoked an image from modern technology to introduce a fine but very deep point about the only person who ever talked face to face with G-d, Moshe Rabbeinu.
Dr. R. Rosenblatt exlained how you would see the Jewish people gathering gold (which would later be used to make the golden calf) on one screen, while in a split screen we would see Moshe writing one of the Holy names of Hashem on a piece of parchment and bringing up the bones of Joseph from the bottom of the Nile river. The important point that R. Rosenblatt went on to make was that while it was actually a self sacrificing thing for Moshe to busy himself in this manner, that it was the most important thing for his spritual development to do so. In the great rabbinic tradition of giving over what previous rabbis have explained R. Rosenblatt was explaining the deep and mystical thoughts of Shmuel Uceda,(1538-1602) Student of Rabbis Yitschak Luria, Chaim Vital, and Elisha Gallico. Author of Midrash Shmuel.
Rabbi Rosenblatt also shared his personal take about how it seemed that somehow it seemed like a negative view to see the Jewish people retrieving the gold that was left by the Egyptians that were drowned during the parting of the red sea. He also went on to explain that this was the proper thing to do for the Jewish people. However what about Moshe? Well it turns out that Moshe was doing the most important thing for his spiritual development at the time, and the explanation went as follows.
Yaakov, Joseph’s father, the third Patriarch from the line of Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov was on a very high spiritual level. His purpose would not have been better served to remain in Egypt, to watch over (so to speak) the Jewish people during their sojourn in Egypt. Joseph however while he was also a righteous person was also closer to the level of the real man in the street sort of Jew. In other words, while Yaakov was clearly a Tzadik close to Hashem, and was thus able to accomplish the will of G-d, Joseph however was closer to the real Jew, who ended up living in Egypt. Now, R. Rosenblatt continued in his explanation of Rabbi Shmuel di Ozeda’s idea, Moshe’s spirituality was closer to that of Yaakov’s in that he was in a sense removed from the every day sensibility of the common Jewish man. Indeed one could imagine (my own thought is being explained here) that in order to be so clause to the mind, thoughts and will of G-d, that it indeed must even on some level be a necessary qualification to be somewhat aloof from the mindset of even the most righteous of the common man.
On some level R. Rosenblatt explained that Moshe should have been busy doing the same thing as the other Jewish people, which was gathering gold. It was actually the best use of Moshe Rabbeinu’s time; and the greatest thing required for Moshe’s spiritual development, as the leader of the emerging Jewish nation, to accomplish the mitzvah of bringing up the bones of Joseph, to help bring Moshe (who spoke to G-d face to face) closer to spirituality of the rank and file Jewish people of the Exodus.
It case this sounds to be an elaborate treatment of a small point consider this idea. Moshe was chosen to lead the emerging Jewish nation out of Egypt (at least in part-according to chazal) for his humble nature. He still had the difficult task of interfacing with the Jewish people and leading them into a totally unfamiliar situation. Therefore his personal involvement in the retrieval of Joseph’s bones was something of special significance in that in brought him closer to the people that he was chosen by G-d to lead out of Egypt. Viewing Moshe from the point of view of a leader who had direct face to face contact with G-d; which on one hand may seem to be a huge advantage, still however Moshe had to the challenge to bring the soemtimes “unpopular” decrees, back to the Jewish people. Bringing ideas that originate from the highest level, down to the real world of the man in the street, simply is not an easy thing to do.
Aharon Moshe (Stephen C.) Sanders
February 15, 2010
In a shabbos drasha given on January 30, 2010 at Boca Raton Synagogue (15th of Teves 5770-Tu B’Shevat) Rabbi Dr. Jonathan Rosenblatt used two examples of from society today to illustrate some important lessons that he gleaned from the current portion of our Holy Torah. The State of the Union Speech by President Barack Obama and the latest high tech product the “Apple Tablet” which Dr. Jonathan Rosenblatt joked “received better press than Moses’ tablets.
It became clear during his drasha that at the very minimum Rabbi Dr Jonathan Rosenblatt held the speech given by President Barack Obama, in high esteem. However the Rabbi did not keep us dwelling on political events or high tech devices for too long with out quickly moving us into the direction of the lesson he was attempting to teach us as he had developed it from Parsha Beshalach, which contained details on the war against Amalek.
Rabbi Rosenblatt’s cited the pusek Exodus 17:9 and pointed out the in it Moshe told Joshua (who had not had any experience in battle) to choose people to go to war with Amalek while He (Moshe) would go up climb up the hill with the rod of G-d in his hand. The next pusek (sentence) tells us that Joshua did as Moshe had told him, however, Moshe did not go up alone but rather with Aharon and Hur. Rabbi Rosenblatt then brought in his next point that Moshe was supposed to be on the hill top alone and holding the great staff of G-d, the high tech device. However it turns out that Moshe was holding up his hands at the top of the hill, and then the Rabbi asked his audience, what don’t we see? Me being the kind of person never to assume that a question is rhetorical answered, the staff. Then, when he never said right, I said the rod. The Rabbi went on to say that the rod of G-d, that was used previously to part the Red Sea, and changed into a snake in front of Pharoh was not being used.
Rabbi Dr. Jonathan Rosenblatt then went on to drive home his point, using some fairly well known commentaries, as well as possibly some lesser known midrashim on the Torah. The Rabbi explained that, as the Torah tells us, it was when Moshe’s hands were raised (without the high tech device) the rod of G-d, that Joshua and the Israelites were winning the war. When Moshe’s hands were down, that the Israelites were losing the war against Amalek. Rabbi Rosenblatt further explained that when Moshe’s hands were down it was because he was reaching down for the staff, the rod of G-d. However this is when the Israelites were losing because they were standing and waiting to be saved by the power from above, rather than relying on their own abilities.
Therefore the answer and key to redemption of the Israel nation were individual people, as opposed to some sort of technological advance. Additionally the Rabbi pointed out that it was not one all powerful leader who was expected to bring about the saving of the Jewish people, but rather it was the team, in this case it was Aharon and Hur who went to the top of the hill along with Moshe. The Rabbi pointed out that we see the human side of Moshe, who’s arms hands began to tire and that Aharon and Hur were helpful in holding up Moshe’s hands, so that the Jewish nation would not be defeated by Amalek.
Rabbi Dr. Jonathan Rosenblatt finished his drasha by suggesting some practical things that we as observant Jews could do. The Rabbi explained that the changes needed to help speed up the final redemption should begin at home. That while sometimes we might get caught up in the performance of the technical requirements dictated by halacha (Jewish law) that we also need to express our joy and our love particularly for shabbos. The Rabbi modeled his practical suggestion by telling us that right after we make kiddush that we should throw up our arms in appreciation and say “ah shabbos” just to reinforce what a great joy we partake of when we sit down with our families to enjoy our shabbos meal.
This week’s Supreme Court ruling removing limits from corporate spending on political advertising means that campaign finance reform is dead.
McCain: Campaign Finance Reform Is Dead
Sen. Who Co-Wrote Finance Laws Not Surprised by Court Ruling Given “Skeptical, Sarcastic Comments” by Justices
By Michelle Levi
President Barack Obama, criticized by campaign finance reform advocates for not living up to his repeated pledges to reduce the role of special interests in elections, plans an aggressive push-back to last week’s Supreme Court decision overturning restrictions on political spending by corporations, unions and other organizations.
Monday, January 25, 2010 · Last updated 6:58 a.m. PT
W.H. hopes to blunt court decision
By
POLITICO
The essential question here is how will the Supreme decision, which was rendered last week, help the economy? The answer is obvious, the new growing sector of the US economy it the highly lucrative field political lobbying!
How to become a Lobbyist
Lobbyists perform a unique, and sometimes controversial, role in our society. First, determine what type of lobbying you want to perform. Do you want to work for a lobbying firm and take on whatever work is assigned to you?
How to become a Lobbyist
Okay, so it seems the politicians really need to answer to one particular group more tham anyone else. They need to answer to the group of people who help them purchase the kind of advertising which will be required in order to get them re-elected.
Lobbying firms can’t hire people fast enough. Starting salaries have risen to about $300,000 a year for the best-connected aides eager to “move downtown” from Capitol Hill.
The Road to Riches Is Called K Street by By Jeffrey H. Birnbaum
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, June 22, 2005>
The intelligent answer is to bypass the whole political game and get right to the heart of the matter. The thing that really matters is to try to appease the largest and most powerful group? Perhaps all the lobby groups could be combined into one or two extremely powerful lobbies.
We will definitely need names for these two new Super-Lobbies. I would like to call one of these lobbies, the CASH lobby. I think the new name should also somehow serve as an acronym. So far I gave come up with Conservatives Against Spending-How? I could not seem to come up with any meaning to the last letter. Which really does not matter because the idea I came up with for behind this group, is that it really does not matter how the spending gets cut mainly that it does get cut, except for the military, of course.
Now I have not yet figured out a really good acronym for the other Super-Lobby because it stands for so many different things. I could propose something like HUMAN or PEOPLE but these two words have two many letters, and a corporation is a person in the eyes of the law. I just came up with one, but it really does not fit, but we need one to fill in for the time being until minds that are greater than my own can come up with something more indicative of what the other Super-Lobby is really all about. So how about we come up something which is specifically devoted to dispel some great myth that currently i being hoisted onto the American people. Lets call the other Super-Lobby CARED. The letters would stand for Conservatives Against Ridiculous Economic Decisions.
Now I suppose my readers, all eleven of them. might be scratching their heads and wondering, hey what about, Abortions, Stem cell research, Gay marriage, Global Warming and all that other stuff that seems to be so hotly debated in so many political arenas? The answer is that they would have to be integrated into the CARED Super-Lobby because the people who were at one time concerned about such things, are now no longer able to show up at the rallies for these causes because they are too worried that maybe they would lose their jobs. The other ones who happen to be unemployed anyway just figured while it still may be okay to talk and be concerned about such things, they know nothing really is going to change regarding these matters hence the past tense sound of the name of the other Super-Lobby- Cared.
Stay tuned next week for the details regarding paradigms which have been known for some time, but seldom explained. These paradigms were, the Art Laffer Curve:
Income Tax Theories – The Laffer Curve – Who pays how much?
The Laffer Curve is aptly named after Professor Art Laffer. He was an advisor to President Reagan in the early 1980s, but, despite that, he has become quite well known through his ‘curve’! He suggested that, as taxes increased from fairly low levels, tax revenue received by the government would also increase. However, as tax rates rose, there would come a point where people would not regard it as worth working so hard.
Above courtesy of: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laffer_curve
The idea of the Art Laffer curve worked really well for Ronald Reagan. Later this was called Reagan nomics by the both friend and foe of the Republican Party. Walter Mondale, remember him, made a failed bid for the Presidency and had referred to this pseudo-scientific economic concept as voodoo economics, when he realized this was giving him enough traction he came up with one of the great campaign slogans of the day which was actually borrowed from the advertising agency world, “Where’s the Beef?” The advertising image was of this little old lady who bought a hamburger from a competing fast food chain, lifted up the bun and loudly exclaimed, “Where’s the Beef”. I guess it was a great and memorable slogan but not enough to get Mondale elected.
What really should have been grabbing our attention is how Reganomics or the trickle down theory as originalyl invented by Art Laffer, and cleverly exploited by Reagan and the Republican Party to create sweeping tax cuts, later required some entirely new terminology of it’s own, namely deficit spending. The hugest deficits the nation has ever seen came about as a direct result of the trickle down theory, failing to produce any significant trickle.
The entire concept seems like such a flawed theory in practice that one wonders if the entire idea was ever really supposed to be taken seriously and applied to the real world of supply and demand, or what later became know as supply side economics. The political pundits of the day probably realized that these textbook theories would never really work in the real world, so they figured it would be wise to keep changing the name of the thing that they actually were doing.
If I was hard pressed to come up with some sort of descriptive terminology for the entire Laffer/Reagan/Bush/G.W.Bush idea I would simply call it: The Art of Laughing all the Way to the Bank.
Rabbi Zev Leff shared an experience from his life when he watched a woman who won a 15 minute shopping spree, collect her prize.
“The woman had a a map of the store, where she would be able to find the most expensive things, hooked up in front of her eyes with a special rig. The woman had special sneakers, and two shopping carts. The rules were simple, what ever she could put into her carts in 15 minutes was hers to keep.”
When the 15 minutes started, Rabbi Zev Leff explained “the woman took off like a mashugana, five minutes into the spree, she started to perspire. If you would have seen this woman and said, hey take it easy. sit down for a few minutes, she would have said, what are you crazy, I only 15 minutes to take what I can get. After the 15 minutes, give me a chair and I’ll sit down for five hours straight.
Rabbi Zev Leff had his audience, at his Motzei Shabbos shiur at Adas Israel Passaic New Jersey, smiling form ear to ear. The shiur was sponsored by -Somaich Achim and was enitiled ”Joy and Happiness in your Torah Life”.
“Somaich Achim, “Neighbors Helping Neighbors,” was started at the behest of the Rosh HaYeshiva and local Rabbanim of Clifton and Passaic. It is a case management program designed to help individuals and families in crisis withstand extreme difficulty, tragedy or illness.”
Jewish Family Services/Somaich Achim
Rabbi Zev Leff, had several different speaking engagements throughout the Passaic Clifton community this Rosh Chodesh Vayera, Shabbos, Jan 15th/Jan 16 2010, 1 Shevat, 5770. I had the opportunity to hear Rabbi Zev Leff, in three different shuls this Shabbos on three different topics.
The announcement from our Shul gave the following information about Rabbi Zev Leff:
“JFS/Somaich Achim invites the community to an inspiring Shabbos with Rav Zev Leff. Rav Leff is one of Israel’s most popular Torah educators who has the rare ability to bring across a subtle point of Torah learning with humor and analytical brilliance.”
Rabbi Leff definitely lived up to his press release. I first had the opportunity to hear him speak on Friday Night, 8:30 PM @ Bais Torah U’Tefilah (BTU) on the topic of “The Jewish Home”. He introduced important topics, with a great deal of humor. As much as I definitely appreciate good humor, I would say I appreciate analytical brilliance, more.
The Shabbos Morning Drasha he gave at Ahavas Israel on “The Concept of Avos and Blessing our Children” is something worth trying to give over here on this site. However, it seems only fair to at least take some to finish talking about ”Joy Happiness in your Torah Life” and why life is like a 15 minute shopping spree.
As much as Rabbi Leff had painted this humorous picture of a woman who was very serious in her pursuit of the all the things that she would get during here allotted 15 minutes, it was clear that he was drawing on this analogy to explain a concept that people of our orthodox Jewish community of Passaic NJ, could definitely relate to and appreciate.
Rabbi Zev Leff shlita, is one of Israel’s most popular English-speaking Torah educators. For 25 years, Rav Leff has served as the Rav and Mara D’asra of Moshav Matityahu, in the center of Israel.
Moshav Matityahu,
Rabbi Leff mentioned that our constitution guarantees the pursuit of happiness which he then compared to a specific activity which is unique to Florida. Rabbi Leff compared horse racing to dog racing although he was quick to point out that he never went to either one while he lived and worked in Miami Florida. In horse racing there is a live human riding on the horse who can come up with various motivations to urge his horse to finish first; he can hit the horse with a stick or whisper in the horses ear.
Rabbi Zev Leff’s Website
Moshav Matityahu American-style Orthodox/Yeshivish community
However in dog racing there is no such motivation. The only way to can urge the dogs to race is with a mechanical rabbit which looks, smells and runs like a rabbit. However, the dog can never catch the rabbit, because the rabbit is programmed to run faster than the fastest dog. The pursuit of happiness is like the dog race, it is something that is pursued but never obtained.
A lecture given in the yeshivish town of Passaic NJ to the frum crowd, even if it is on Motzei Shabbos, must have a least a couple of references to various Torah ideals. This indeed did take place.
Amongst the Torah observant crowd there is often a reference to the 613 Mitzvot. Rabbi Zev Leff did refer to these on several occassions.
Explanation:
The idea here is that within the details written in our Torah there are various rules, regulations, and standards of ethical conduct which are is mandated by the Torah. It turns out that there are 613 of these regulations.
/www.jewfaq.org aka Judaism 101
The link above is to an online source that contains “…a list of the 613 mitzvot (commandments). It is based primarily on the list compiled by Rambam in the Mishneh Torah.”
365 of these regulations are said to be negative commandments, in other words these are things you should not do, like steal, or kill.
There are 365 negative commandments, corresponding to the number of days in a solar year, and 248 positive commandments, ascribed to the number of bones and significant organs in thehuman body.
en.wikipedia.org-613 Mitzvot
I have two more points to bring out on this matter and then i will try to connect them to the discussion of the Rabbi Leff’s presentation. Not all of the to do, and not to do Mitzvot are even possible to do, or not to do today because of the destruction of the Holy Temple. Additionally some of the mitzvot are only done one time per year and some mitzvot can only be done in the land (Eretz) of Israel. This significantly decreases the number of do’s and don’ts.
The second idea about the mitzvot is that there are many more regulations which have been enacted by our Rabbi’s over the generations. Which brings us back to the presentation.
Rabbi Zev Leff pointed out the importance of “Joy and Happiness in your Torah Life” when he discussed the generation of Torah observant Jews who came to the United States, and were faced with the problem of keeping their faith, or keeping their jobs. The narrative is all to familiar regarding how a father would come home for shabbos and know full well that he would lose the job he just got because the rule was clear: If one did not show up for work on Saturday, he have to look for a new job on Sunday or Monday.
So therefore there were many fathers who entered into any given shabbos not with the joy and glee which is what we do today, but with sadness and depression. Somehow these parents and role models for the future generation could not manage to overcome their own depression and place a good spin on their problems for the sake of their family.
Therefore Rabbi Zev Leff concluded, it is no wonder that their children to maintain the mitzvot of keeping shabbos when it was their turn to go out on on their own. With this Rabbi Leff managed to drive home some important issues which we face as orthodox Jews. Mainly that even though the performance of the mitzvot and being Torah observant Jews is not easy, we are still expected to live the frum lifestyle in a state of simcha or happiness.
So should we look at the whole idea of being Torah observant as being fun?
Rabbi Zev Leff drove home the point by asking if this generation should have simply let this whole matter of losing job after job because of being Torah observant roll off their backs and say, oh no don’t worry its fun, to have to find a new job every week. Clearly, Rabbi Leff was not telling us that this was the answer. He did however continue to pose some thought provoking questions that sought to tie together some of the different examples, stories and analogies that were given throughout his shiur.
Rabbi Leff made the point that being a Torah observant Jew is not particularly fun. When he explained this idea, he framed it as how to explain things so that the children, of the generation where their parent’s would lose their jobs every week, could understand the relative importance of keeping the frum lifestyle. However he was also trying to explain the value and importance of Joy and Happiness in your Torah Life.
There are many various concepts, ideas, thoughts, or words that could be used to describe Torah observance, however the word fun, does not seem to be particularly well suited for the task. The analogy of the woman in the grocery store who only had 15 minutes to keep what ever she could get, was probably more to the point. Certainly no one would imagine that this woman in this particular setting had the idea of doing something fun, for those 15 minutes. However was this moment, these 15 minutes, in the plain meaning from the point of view of the woman who could only be gaining something of tangible value, a rewarding moment for this woman? One would have to answer in the affirmative, yes, this activity was a valuable and rewarding experience.
Of course the analogy does fall apart on some level, as would any analogy because it would be difficult to explain, either qualitatively or quantitatively, the value of taking on the Torah observant lifestyle. I imagine it would be equally difficult to explain the value of keeping the Torah observant lifestyle to someone who has never known any other way to live.
By also sharing with us the analogy of the dogs, at the dog races, Rabbi Leff also provided another important insight into the topic at hand. From a gross materialistic point of view the pursuit of happiness could be explained as something which is never truly accomplished. It is the nature of life itself, that gives us a narrow perspective at times, like when we are children, as to what is the thing that will make us happy. Children will tend to focus on what can be done right now. Or they might prefer to eat something like candy at all times because it tastes so great. As adults we understand the concept of delayed gratification, or working hard for something who’s fruits we will not enjoy until later.
Even now as I write this I recall the other important analogy which Rabbi Zev Leff shared with us all at his shiur.
A company is spending millions of dollar to develop the Jaffa orange, grown in Israel to have no pits, and a thin skin. The importance of this is that people want to be able to get at their orange with little effort, and that they do not want to put up with, having to spit out or otherwise remove the seeds. In reality people, want to do things which require little effort, and not have to do tasks which are considered mundane.
This is by way of explanation to give the company producing this “new” thin skin Jaffa oranges a competitive position in the marketplace. However once again we can understand the analogy, however we also need to understand that it is a concept to apply to the mass market. We as Torah observant Jews will not be breaking any speed records when it comes to how long it takes us to complete our prayer services during Shabbos for example. Or when if we choose to compare the intricacy of completing our daily morning prayer service, to perhaps something which does not even exist in other religions.
I would attempt to conclude this account of Rabbi Zev Leff’s shiur on: Joy and Happiness in your Torah Life, by stating that I feel that everyone who was in attendance that Saturday night was uplifted as a result of their hearing the words of Rabbi Leff, and most likely believed that their time was well spent.
Aharon Moshe (Stephen) Sanders, completed- Wednesday, January 20, 2010.
There are many things we can learn from the Torah when we study it in a serious manner. Unfortunately there are many trends which shut down some of the various paths of understanding. When I began writing a job description, in an earlier Post, AharonMosheNow:
Most humble man on earth urgently needed to save an entire nation.
Experience Required: None
Some Heavy Lifting. Long Hours, nights and weekends. Must be able to follow directions. Deal with people. Conflict resolution. Work under close supervision. Salary: TBD
I was obviously was using humor to attempt to reveal some of the subtle irony which we can glean by understanding even just the simple meaning of the the Torah portion of the week. In attempting to write such things I am faced with a significant amount of cognitive dissonance. On one hand we are expected to understand the importance of humility specifically in context with Moshe Rabbeinu. Then again how do we then explain the dialogue that Moshe has with Hashem where he tells G-d, in Parshas Shemos, all the reasons why he is not the man for the job, the reluctant messiah. By the end of Parshas Shemos, Moshe is complaining to G-d about the mission:
…”My Lord, why have you done evil to this people, why have you sent me?”"-Exodus 5:22, Artscroll, The Chumash, The Stone Edition, pg 317.
Now we could say many things at this point to explain that from Moshe’s point of view, he came to Egypt in order to save the Jewish people from bondage, and now after her first meeting with Pharoh not only did things not get better for the Jewish people, but indeed they got worse. As the story line goes, Pharoh’s knee jerk response to Moshe’s request to allow the Jewish people to;
“…go for a three day journey in the Wilderness {to bring} offerings to Hashem” Exodus 5:3 The Stone Edition, pg 313,
was to make the work of the Jewish people (slaves) even more difficult by requiring the same quota of bricks without providing them with the straw which was the material which was needed to make the bricks. Now we can certainly understand that Moshe would clearly not be popular with the Jewish people for making their labor even more difficult then it already was. The other significant fact was that it was Pharoh’s reaction to Moshe’s request that made life in Egypt even more difficult than it already was.
It would be a grievous error to think that Moshe was put in charge of the redemption of the Jewish people, because he would be popular with his constituents and well liked.
However while Hashem did not provide Moshe with a detailed explanation of exactly what would happen during the process of freeing the Jewish people from their bondage in Egypt, he did tell Moshe, that Pharoh would not simply acquiesce to Moshe’s request but that G-d almighty would have to bring out a strong hand, and that he would have to strike Egypt.-Exodus 3:20.
Most humble man on earth urgently needed to save an entire nation.
Experience Required: None
Some Heavy Lifting. Long Hours, nights and weekends. Must be able to follow directions. Deal with people. Conflict resolution. Work under close supervision. Salary: TBD
Hm, what’s this? A bush is burning, but not being consumed? Wow, I am going to check this out!
‘ Take your shoes off.
Once we get past the difficulties presented by this amazing and unprecedented meeting, it becomes even harder to understand that Moshe actually did not want the job.
Aharon Moshe Sanders
Yud Beis Teves 5770, January 8, 2010
(To be completed, G-d willing)
Ideas are valuable, only when put into action. The above statement may seem painfully obvious however from my perspective, it is not. It is difficult for me to expound on my point of view on this matter without at least sharing some of my relevant experiences.
I used to work for a social service organization that (amongst many other things) was involved in helping people obtain jobs. My function at the company was to help individuals who were trained in our training program to obtain jobs. There were numerous obstacles to the accomplishment of this goal, however this would be the topic of a much different essay.
The time period was in the early 90’s when networked PC’s were rapidly becoming the more the preferred method of sharing information throughout different divisions of a multifaceted organization such as the one I was working for. Indeed the internet or what was then called the information superhighway, was still in its development phase.
October 26, 1993 issue of the New York Times: “One of the technologies Vice President Al Gore is pushing is the information superhighway, which will link everyone at home or office to everything else—movies and television shows, shopping services, electronic mail and huge collections of data.”
I remember a particular article, issue, and picture in The Science Times. For now here is a valid source and link.
In 1994: Yahoo!, which stands for “Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle” is founded by two PhD students from Stanford, Jerry Yang and David Filo
Source of quote above
However getting back to the reality of my day job of the day, I was selected by one of my supervisors to serve on the community that would be developing our computer based job placement system. Naturally I was more familiar with Personal Computers (PC’s) so I had actually looked into some of the PC based systems of the time that were being used by executive search firms. As a matter of fact the relevant experience I had for the job was that I had worked at Vintage Personnel as a recruiter. So there was a really excellent program which helped you search through a list of qualified applicant.
Well, I had some great ideas, some of which were well received, and then the old guard ( the company in charge of implementing this new computer system) chimed in about how they could not get the existing platform (mainframe) to possibly conduct any of the searches, or matches, which I was stating were essential for the system to function adequately. There was some accommodation made on the part of the company, by this one fellow in the MIS department who’s name I am only witholding at the moment for his benefit because he was a pretty sharp guy with a sense of humor who knew his stuff, and for all I know he still works there.
However, I somehow thought that writing some real long in depth memo about the whole project was in order. I am going to say here that I do recall that my supervisor was trying to either get me to sign off on the entire project, or was asking for my written recommendations prior to the final specification list being submitted to the 3rd party vendor that would be responsible for implementing the system.
Well thought out optimistic ideas that are clearly elucidated are good. Scathing memos targeting existing committee members, or 3rd party vendors and their shortcomings are bad.
There are important differences in operating within a corporate framework with ideas and how they may get implemented versus implementing ideas on an entrepreneurial level. The great thing about an idea that gets developed by a company, is that people get to earn their hourly wages, or regular salary, while creating and implementing a plan that had already been approved. When somebody comes up with an idea, no matter how great that idea may be, there will always be some element of risk involved in putting that idea into action.
Additionally if the idea has any significant value to commerce or society as a whole there will always some element of cost to develop and implement the idea. Within the normal pursuit of investors to cover the cost (as opposed to dipping into one’s own savings) comes the concept of thoroughly explaining the idea in all its detail to a second and third party lenders, investment bankers, brokers, or venture capitalists.
It is precisely at the stage of finding investors, where an idea (even if its time has come) gets exposed to its highest degree of stress. The reason is people who invest, want a high return on investment. Also it is in their best interests as an investor to know as much as possible about an idea, before they actually invest any amount of money,
After wasting another hour with this interface, I decide to at least write these few words. If the video makes it to the virtual world, then it might be worth my comments.Unil then, please excuse me if I do not have a perfect understanding of all things be they technical or metaphysical, or chronological.
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