Skip to main content

Thought for the Day: From Secular Scientist to Orthodox Rabbi

Well... ahem... I am now an international speaker! I spoke over a teleconference for Aneinu. The topic was: From Secular Scientist to Orthodox Rabbi -or- There and Not Back Again. I thought it was cute to have a subtle (or not so subtle, depending on your background) Tolkien reference. I also thought everyone else would think it was cute as well.  As it turned out, I quickly sized up the situation and realized that no one noticed. In the interest of time, therefore, I elided all the cute stuff I had planned to say in the introduction.

But, hey... I can record it here, just to prove that I really have a very eclectic background. I had planned to lead with:
If this were a Quentin Tarantino motif, the narrative would begin with with the motzei Shabbos, 9 Shvat, 5777 when I showed my wife the document I had prepared for R' Fuerst to sign, conferring my smicha as an Orthodox rabbi. My wife and I then walked over to the rav's house, so we could both be present when he signed it. However, since this is a Tolkien motif, we'll start with an expected party (our first Passover seder as a married couple) with an unexpected outcome (hey... no plagues!!)
But I didn't.

One thing I noticed was the very different way that I view my Ph. D. from the way this group of FFB ladies viewed it. To me, my Ph. D. was nothing more than a step along my lifetime work of searching for the truth. I had thought that my search for Truth would culminate in my understanding physics. The Ph. D. was just a way to be sure that I really, really understood physics, as evidenced by a group of my peers giving my knowledge of the topic their imprimatur. As such, when I realized that I now had discovered that, in fact, my journey needed to take a quite different turn; the Ph. D. became nothing more to me than a high school diploma. I needed it to go further, but it was only a step. I therefore now prefer -- when forced to use a title -- to use only "Rabbi".

For the audience, though, the Dr. added something important to the discussion.  As the organizer told me, "When I say that I don't believe in evolution, I don't really know what evolution means. When you say that you don't believe in evolution, though... that's different!" That was an interesting perspective for me to hear. (I'll still prefer to drop the Dr., however.)

You are welcome to listen to the shiur. I have written up several incidents when I first starting this blog, but never posted them under the "Thought for the Day" venue. I have plans (that may be a bit strong... hopes) to one day write everything up in a coherent narrative. In the meantime, you are welcome to read the scattered notes I have written. Links here, for convenience:
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Thought for the Day: Pizza, Uncrustables, and Stuff -- What Bracha?

Many years ago (in fact, more than two decades ago), I called R' Fuerst from my desk at work as I sat down to lunch.  I had a piece of (quite delicious) homemade pizza for lunch.  I nearly always eat at my desk as I am working (or writing TftD...), so my lunch at work cannot in any way be considered as sitting down to a formal meal; aka קביעת סעודה.  That being the case, I wasn't sure whether to wash, say ha'motzi, and bentch; or was the pizza downgraded to a m'zonos.  He told if it was a snack, then it's m'zonos; if a meal the ha'motzi.  Which what I have always done since then.  I recently found out how/why that works. The Shulchan Aruch, 168:17 discusses פשטיד''א, which is describes as a baked dough with meat or fish or cheese.  In other words: pizza.  Note: while the dough doesn't not need to be baked together with the meat/fish/cheese, it is  required that they dough was baked with the intention of making this concoction. ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Thought for the Day: What Category of Muktzeh are Our Candles?

As discussed in a recent TftD , a p'sak halacha quite surprising to many, that one may -- even לכתחילה -- decorate a birthday cake with (unlit, obviously) birthday candles on Shabbos. That p'sak is predicated on another p'sak halacha; namely, that our candles are muktzeh because they are a כלי שמלאכתו לאיסור and not  מוקצה מחמת גופו/intrinsically set aside from any use on Shabbos. They point there was that using the candle as a decoration qualifies as a need that allows one to utilize a כלי שמלאכתו לאיסור. Today we will discuss the issue of concluding that our candles are , in fact, a כלי שמלאכתו לאיסור and not מוקצה מחמת גופו. Along the way we'll also (again) how important it is to have personal relationship with your rav/posek, the importance of precision in vocabulary, and how to interpret the Mishna Brura.  Buckle up. After reviewing siman 308 and the Mishna Brura there, I concluded that it should be permissible to use birthday candles to decorate a cake on Sha...
Post a Comment
Read more

Thought for the Day: אוושא מילתא Debases Yours Shabbos

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 Aru...
Post a Comment
Read more