Michael el Chayil

Baruch HaShem, I merited being able to begin my retirement this year. After just over a half century in the workforce, my employment was terminated as of Friday, April 19, 2024. That "just happened" to be the Friday before Pesach this year. זמן חירותנו/the season of our freedom took on a whole new meaning to me. I had a question, though: Was Shabbos or Monday the first day of my retirement? Certainly, my employment ended on Friday. Just for grins, I tried checking my work email on Sunday and was greeted with "this account has been locked" message. Still, I never went to work on Shabbos (in fact, they were very accommodating about my leaving early on Friday afternoons -- especially during the winter). That being the case, this Shabbos was not materially different than any other Shabbos. Monday, on the other hand, was the first day that I didn't go into work; so perhaps that was the first day of my retirement. Let's make this about a bigger issue. We have a mi...

I heard this from R' Biderman and it now ranks as one of the most powerful, life changing ideas/perspectives that I have heard.   To set the scene a bit, just yesterday I met a colleague at work with a very thick Russian accent. He first introduced himself, then said, "If  you were in Russia, you wouldn't be sitting there wearing a yarmulke. That's why I escaped as a refugee 30 years ago." He was  not frum -- I hadn't even known he was Jewish. That's a taste of how bad things were for Jews in Russia.   Two chasidim of the Yesod Ha'Avodah were at the train station in Baranovich. (I don't know why that is relevant to the point about to be made, but R' Biderman included those facts; who am I to argue?) They saw a Russian soldier and recognized him as a kollel yungerman who had been conscripted into the Russian army. The two chasidim knew that yungerman also had a family. They could not even imagine the pain he must be feeling to be se...