I was telling my wife about an interesting story about R' Yonason Eibschutz (great story, for another time). The story involves a man who was sincerely pious, but then got upset when he got r'vi'i (the fourth aliyah) on Yom Kippur. At that point my wife stopped me and asked, in all innocence and sincerity, "What's is there to get upset about? Any aliyah is chashuv! Every word of Torah is chashuv." (That's the problem with my wife, she listens to what I say and reminds me at the most inopportune times...) I started to explain how some aliyahs are considered more chashuv than others, and how he felt slighted, and... and.... My voice sort of trailed off as I realized she was absolutely right. I couldn't explain why the man got upset precisely because there was no cause at all for him to be upset. In fact, he should have been thrilled beyond words to have been called up the to torah on Yom Kippur for any aliyah. In fact, we Jewish men should be thrilled beyond words just because we can get aliyos, daven from the amud, and even be counted in the requisite quorum to allow the recital of d'varim sh'b'k'dusha! It took my wife, who does not have those opportunities (she has others, of course), to remind me of what I can be. Thank you, honey; I'll daven a little better tomorrow because of you.
My granddaughter came home with a list the girls and phone numbers in her first grade class. It was cute because they had made it an arts and crafts project by pasting the list to piece of construction paper cut out to look like an old desk phone and a receiver attached by a pipe cleaner. I realized, though, that the cuteness was entirely lost on her. She, of course, has never seen a desk phone with a receiver. When they pretend to talk on the phone, it is on any relatively flat, rectangular object they find. (In fact, her 18 month old brother turns every relatively flat, rectangular object into a phone and walks around babbling into it. Not much different than the rest of us, except his train of thought is not interrupted by someone else babbling into his ear.) I was reminded of that when my chavrusa (who has children my grandchildrens age) and I were learning about אוושא מילתא. It came up because of a quote from the Shulchan Aruch HaRav that referred to the noise of תקתוק
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