Cherry Coke And Nestle Crunch
From a parsha email from my friend Eytan Menachem Hakohen Austein:
I was sitting in seder today, minding my own business, trying to learn with my chavrusah, when all the sudden, one of my shana alef friends walks over to our table and starts singing. He asked me join in...why not? So we start dancing and singing to that song everyone knows; the tune of Adon Olam, with the lyrics of "I don't know why i share my lunch, with cherry coke and nestle crunch..." Fun for the whole family. Right? Wrong! In the middle of our little party, one of my rabbeim from last year sees me and yells across the entire beis medrash, "Austein! Stop singing and start learning!" I immediately smiled, assuming that he was joking. As I waited for his smile, it didn't come. Picture this scene; its embarrassing as anything. And so as everyone in the beis medrash stopped learning and looked right at me, I suddenly began to feel as small as an ant. It's no coincidence that this week's parsha shows the exact mussar that my rebbe was trying to teach me. He wanted to convey the message that learning time is for learning, and it should be done whole-heartedly and with a passion, or if you're yeshivish, with "a bren". Bnei Yisrael accepted the Torah ki'ish ecad, bi'lev echad, together, but they also accepted it under circumstances that are described as loud and noisy: the intense thunder, lightening, Hashem's voice...every time we learn, we are supposed to learn "Ki'nisi'nasam" as it [the torah] was given to us: with noise, excitement, enthusiasm!
This weeks sicha.
I was sitting in seder today, minding my own business, trying to learn with my chavrusah, when all the sudden, one of my shana alef friends walks over to our table and starts singing. He asked me join in...why not? So we start dancing and singing to that song everyone knows; the tune of Adon Olam, with the lyrics of "I don't know why i share my lunch, with cherry coke and nestle crunch..." Fun for the whole family. Right? Wrong! In the middle of our little party, one of my rabbeim from last year sees me and yells across the entire beis medrash, "Austein! Stop singing and start learning!" I immediately smiled, assuming that he was joking. As I waited for his smile, it didn't come. Picture this scene; its embarrassing as anything. And so as everyone in the beis medrash stopped learning and looked right at me, I suddenly began to feel as small as an ant. It's no coincidence that this week's parsha shows the exact mussar that my rebbe was trying to teach me. He wanted to convey the message that learning time is for learning, and it should be done whole-heartedly and with a passion, or if you're yeshivish, with "a bren". Bnei Yisrael accepted the Torah ki'ish ecad, bi'lev echad, together, but they also accepted it under circumstances that are described as loud and noisy: the intense thunder, lightening, Hashem's voice...every time we learn, we are supposed to learn "Ki'nisi'nasam" as it [the torah] was given to us: with noise, excitement, enthusiasm!
This weeks sicha.
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