Skip to main content

Thought for the Day: Learning Spanish as Avodas HaShem

I am, Baruch HaShem, getting older. Besides physical exercise to keep my lifetime warranty in force, it is important to also engage in mental exercises. Now, you might think that learning gemara, mishayos, halacha, and chumush would be enough mental exercise. It certainly should be. After all, if I am not doing one of those things in my "free" time, then I should be sleeping... right?

 I strive to reach that level some time. In the meantime, though, there are times during the day when I am too tired or distracted to learn. What to do? Some options are:

  • watch pareve movie/YouTube -- about as passive as you can get. Not a great option. It's like being on a diet and eating lots of celery. Keeps you busy, but provides no nutrition and doesn't really address the root issue.
  • read a pareve book/article -- certainly better in terms of using your mind. But here's the thing... if it is intellectually stimulating, then it is likely more effort than I have to give. If it isn't, then it's not much better then gazing at pareve videos. Social media? Oh, no, I am a real ba'al t'shuva on that.
  • Play word/number games; do crossword puzzles. Games are engaging, so not a terrible option, but at the end of the day... also no real accomplishment.

So... I have always been jealous of people who could speak a second language. I tried for years to learn German and Hebrew well enough to speak, but was a dismal failure. Learning a new language with a focus on speaking, then, would be an interesting way to stretch my mind in a new direction. There are several good language apps that provide small, well defined lessons that allow one to learn at his own pace. Perfect! What language?

I have a pretty reasonable reading knowledge of Hebrew (not Modern Hebrew; a language in which I have less than zero interest, but that is another story) and Talmud Aramaic. Not a lot of native speakers. I'd like to learn Yiddish, but not many resources for that. So I settled on Spanish. I can do a short lesson in 10 to 15 minutes. There are lots of helpful resources. There is a very large shared vocabulary.

So far, so good; actually. Here's some ways that learning has improved my Avodas HaShem:

  • My davening is getting better. As I practice speaking a foreign language, it becomes easier for me to daven like I am speaking, and not just reading text.
  • Another benefit for davening: I am much more careful with my grammar and pronunciation. That happened when I discovered that "papá "(accent on last syllable) means "dad", but "papa" (accent on first syllable) means "potato"; more frightening: "mamá" means "mom", but the word "mama" means "mammary gland".
  • As the app is initializing, the splash screen often says, "You are using your time wisely." That one always forces me to ask myself, "am I really?"

Does all that sound a bit (or more) of a reach to classify learning Spanish as Avodas HaShem? Does it sound like a bit (or more) like rationalization? Am I just fooling myself? I'll answer that myself in order: Totalmente, absolutamente, אוודא נישט! Of course I don't use every moment as wisely as I could. Of course I waste and destroy precious moments that could be turned into infinite and eternal connection with the Creator of the World.  I am not fooling myself. But I also know that I shouldn't be wasting even a single precious moment. I know what I should be doing, and so I at least give lip service to the idea and frame my decisions by where I want to me in my Avodas HaShem. By keeping that in the front of my mind, there is at least a fighting chance that I'll actually achieve some measure of the perfection for which I strive.

¡Y eso puedo llevar al banco!

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