Hello, it's Me. I've been Living under a Rock

 Dear Henry,

      As an outreach, blogging, tweet'n, Facebookin, Insta-grammin, Insta-grannyin' Snoopifyin' rabbi with thousands upon thousands of readers across the vast expanse of the universe, I consider myself to be of the worldly type. Growing up more secular, I can quote you Snoop Dogg, Eminem, Dr. Dre, and 2pac by heart. I was therefore shocked when I discovered four days ago a new singer who apparently is very popular. Even more popular, claims a friend and colleague who we shall call Barbara, than Britney Spears herself. You see, oh Henry, every Jewish holiday presents an opportunity for spiritual growth and reflection. But now in the era of YouTube, it also provides an abundance of holiday music videos. Usually these videos include very catchy songs that I immediately take a liking to. And until about 6 months ago, I thought these songs were originals composed by the Jewish musicians singing them. But then, when I was at Top Golf a few months ago and one of the songs came on as I was preparing for a monster drive, I got extremely excited with the idea that a large venue like Top Golf plays the Maccabeats to the hundreds of people there, the vast majority of whom are not even Jewish. But then, as I returned to my table after my shot and began sipping my ice cold Blue Moon, I noticed that while the music was similar to the Maccabeats, the words were very, very, very different. It was then that someone explained to me that in fact, it was the Maccabeats who made a parody of this, the original song. The same thing happened to me this past Chanukah-I was enamored with the sheer brilliance of Six13's Watch me Spin my Drei Dei- only to realize that they too made a parody of a very, very different type song by a guy named Silento called "Watch me nay nay."
      With that rather lengthy introduction, I can tell you, my thousands upon thousands of readers world wide what happened last week. Last week I saw literally dozens of my friends posting an Aish.com video called " Adelle/Bieber Passover Mashup." People were literally going crazy over this video, so I thought I would give it a watch. The only thing I knew going into this was that I have a sweet, kind, enormously special relative named Adele who has been a grandmother figure for me throughout my whole life, and that Justin Bieber is a singer who looks like he's straight out of a boy band from the 1990s, who once humbly reflected that Anne Frank was a "great girl" who would have been a huge fan of his. So as I opened up the video I was greeted by the characters from Ten Commandments singing a slow ballad, in a tune that I had never heard in my life. Realizing how excited so many of my friends were getting, I decided to do a little research project, to see if in fact this Aish.com song was based on another song. What I discovered truly astonished me: While I did not identify if in fact Justin Bieber's song is parodied here, I did come to the conclusive conclusion that there is a singer named Adelle who has a song called "Hello" that is the basis for this new Passover video. Upon doing a little more research I landed on the original YouTube video which totally, completely blew my mind. The reason, oh Henry I was so stunned, was that I saw that on the You Tube page, around 1.5 BILLION people had viewed this very video. That is 1.5 BILLION people! And until last week, when aish.com brought it to my attention, I had never even heard of this singer, let alone her apparently, very, very, very popular song! I was stunned.
      After this crazy realization, I did a bit of self reflection: How is it that I had never heard of Adelle, or her song boasting 1.5 billion views? Do I live under a giant rock? Do I live on a remote island devoid of any form of modern technology or other human beings with whom to interact? Am I hermit living in an abandoned house on a prairie? Then I remembered the decision I made over nine years ago, as I prepared to get married to the Better Half. From the day I got married, I made a conscious decision to stop listening to secular non Jewish music, and I also made a decision to cold turkey, stop watching movies. The reason behind this seemingly archaic move on my part is really two fold: For one, the type of music I happened to like listening to was very often about not nice things. Violence, domestic abuse, and the objectification of women. As I began to embark upon my life building a home filled with kedusha, holiness, I realized it would be inappropriate to have these concepts and jingles anywhere in the vicinity of my head. I had to rid myself of it completely. That is why I traded in my Eminem CD for Yeshiva Boys Choir CDs. That's why I exchanged my Ludicrus CD for my Yaakov Shwekey and Simcha Leiner CDs.
        The second reason I abandoned secular music and movies is because as I prepared to start my life as a young husband, I understood that one of my primary job's in life is to take care of, honor, respect and revere my wife. She is my world-- and represents the paradigm of what it means to be a woman, a wife and a mother. As a matter of fact, the Sefer HaChinuch writes, in a phenomenally beautiful manner, how there is a mitzvah we call Shana Rishona. The basic premise behind this mitzah is that a newly married couple spends their entire first year together. The husband is not meant to go to the army, and they are not meant to take vacations apart from one another. The Sefer HaChinuch writes that the reason behind this is so that their natures become unified, and that the newly married husband becomes so used to his wife, that the ways of any other woman on the planet are foreign, and downright bizarre to him. His wife becomes the epitome of a woman. It is for this reason, Henry, that I stopped watching movies and listening to music. I don't need images in my head of other women. Many times Holywood actresses are pretty. I don't need them in my mind. I don't need to compare my wife- in my mind the essence of femininity- to them. Many times secular non Jewish singers like Adelle or Britney Spears or Jennifer Lopez have nice voices. I don't need to hear them, and to think of the nice looking person behind the voice. Don't need, or want that imagery in my head. That is why I proudly traded in my Spice Girls CD for my Chevra CD- My Britney CD for my Mordechai Shapiro CD- my Mariah CD for my Mesivta of Waterbury CD.
       I am not here to deny there is an abundance of phenomenal, inspiring music and movies out there-- there clearly is. To those millions of people who enjoy that, G-d bless you all, I bear no ill judgments against you. But for me, there is something so remarkably beautiful about my life underneath a giant rock.

Forever Yours,
Danny Wolfe

Rabbi D-Train's Dare

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Dear Henry,

     My name is Danny Wolfe, and I am extremely attached to my cellphone. I constantly am checking my email, regularly looking up useless articles on ESPN.com and spend way too much of my time staring robotically at my iPhone 6.0. 

      For people like me who are obsessively checking our phones, going to the grocery store can be a difficult chore. Because while we shop we are checking items off a grocery list, far removed from our email, Facebook or Twitter apps on our cell phones. That means that when we arrive at the counter, ready to check out, satisfied with our shopping experience, it doesn't take long until we realize that we have not actually checked our email in 25 minutes, or we haven't seen Facebook in that long. We might be thinking, "Oh golly, I haven't seen my email in the last half hour. Maybe someone emailed me telling me I won the lottery, or maybe I got a new 15 percent off coupon from Bed Bath and Beyond! I better check my email now to see if anything like that transpired. And, once I'm done I need to check Facebook because I am sure one of my 1600 "friends" has posted a new status update, and if I don't check now I might miss it! And while we are at it, I need to check Twitter. Adam Schefter might have a breaking update that the Broncos signed Adrian Peterson, or one of my friends may have tweeted about the beer they drank last night! And after that we might feel the need to check our Linked In app even though we don't know how to use it or why it always is sending us notifications. 

        Suddenly we wake up when the sweet cashier says,  "your total is $86.29. Will you be paying with cash or credit?" We then give a half smile and mumble "credit" as we pull out our American Express card which yields 6% cash back on groceries. We swipe the card, sign the receipt, and go on our merry way.

      I am embarrassed to admit it, but I am guilty of this on a regular basis. Let's dissect what happened here: While I was lost browsing useless information on my phone, a human being, created in none other than G-d's image was helping me by scanning and bagging my massive grocery order. And the whole time, rather than have the decency to engage them in conversation and acknowledge their humanity, I basically told them that I was waaaay too busy to acknowledge their existence with all the important business I had to take care of on my phone. And I ask, oh Henry, how would that make you feel, spending 40 hours a week scanning groceries, while hundreds of thankless people totally ignored you, taking your efforts for granted, not even bothering to lift their heads to speak to you?

       Pirkei Avos, the Jewish Talmudical tractate on ethics enjoins us to greet every person "with a kind countenance." The Talmud elsewhere instructs that it is better to give a poor person the white of their teeth (a smile) than white milk to drink. If we are going to reluctantly give a poor person a few coins with a scour on our face, we would be much better off smiling at them and saying "hello," even if we didn't end up giving them any money.  A great rabbi once said that a persons face is like public property; just like if I leave out any harmful objects extending from my property into public property I am liable to pay for the damages, so too a person's face is public property that hundreds of people encounter every day. If the frown on my face damages people, the damage is my responsibility. I will never forget how utterly depressed I felt when I used to take a train to work every day; everyone in the train appeared absolutely miserable, as if they dreaded going to work. How very sad, thought I, that by the looks on their faces, these people spend most of their lives doing something that makes them depressed.
      Thankfully my wife recently listened to a class online from her favorite rebbetzin, who discussed this at length, and mentioned how she is taking it upon herself to not use her phone in public. Hearing this inspired me tremendously, and I sadly realized how guilty I am of overusing my phone in public, particularly while checking out of grocery stores. I decided on that spot that I would take a sort of pledge to cold turkey, stop using my phone in the checkout line. If I would be offended as the oft-ignored cashier, odds are the guy behind the counter also might take offense. Let us try to make the world a better, happier, more meaningful place. I hereby dare all of my thousands upon thousands upon thousands of devoted readers across the vast expanse of the universe to make a commitment to stop using your phones in grocery stores. Heck, I triple dogg dare you. Whose down?

Forever yours,
Danny Wolfe

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An Open Thank You Letter to the Dude who Taught me about Relationships

Dear Dude who lives on Manning Street who who I see outside every morning at 7:15 AM,

      You do not know who I am, and I don't know you; but you inspire me greatly. You don't know me, and likely have never seen me, but I feel like I have known you for years. I, like many other passengers in automotive vehicles frequent the street in which you live. Your street helps me get from one point to the next. And by passing your house every morning, I have observed you do one thing for which you have become a profound role model: You spend time time with your daughter. In the freezing winter, this meant simply waiting with her in the bitter cold, as she awaited her school bus. In the spring it has meant playing catch with a baseball in front of your house, awaiting the bus. But you don't just spend time with her, playing catch when you know it will only be for a short time before her bus comes. Because I have also seen you outside on the weekend with her, with no place to go, tossing a ball back and forth with lacrosse sticks.

      At first I was unsure why exactly watching you had been so inspiring to me. And then I recalled my own youth, where my parents did the exact same thing: My pops played catch with me, coached my baseball teams, and hit my groundballs. And my momma was cheering me on in the bleachers. And perhaps without even consciously realizing it at the time, the love that they were showing me seeped into my bones, enabling me to feel secure, confident, happy, and beloved. 

     One of the three things the Torah contractually requires a man to provide for his wife is "onah." There are different understandings as to what exactly this word means, but I have heard quoted in the name if a tremendously brilliant and righteous rabbi, that in its most simple form, "onah" means time. In modern hebrew, "onah" means "season." Thus, according to this most literal understanding of the verse describing a man's legal obligations to his wife is that he must give her time. Perhaps this means that they have dinner together. And during dinner, the TV is off, the cell phone is charging in the other room, and the newspapers (if the couple is archaic and still gets newspapers) are put away. It is just one-on-one time-- an opportunity for the couple to connect and to convey the feeling of how they thoroughly enjoy being in the presence of their beloved. 

      This idea is a secret for success in any relationship today in which we find ourselves: with a friend, a spouse, or a child. We need to give one another time. Sometimes it is hard, in a world with so many distractions: we could be checking our email on our iphones, or speaking to Siri, or avoid spending time  with someone by emailing or texting them. Yet it is obvious that the most cherished, scarce, fleeting gift we have is time. What possible better way to show you love someone, than by investing your precious time in them. 

     For this profound lesson, Dude who Lives on Manning, I thank you.

Sincerely,

Danny Wolfe

Native Americans and Twitter and Rockies, Oh My.

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Dear Henry,
      One thing that I am darn proud about, is being from Colorado. Colorado is hands down the best state in this beautiful country of ours. Growing up, I would ski to school, tip over cows on Saturday nights, and during the cow-tippin offseason, I would spend my Saturday nights hanging out at Super Walmart. Life was chilled out and simple. When one needs to shift lanes, the person behind him allows the other car to go ahead, in front of him. People do not cut one another off. People are very polite. When the speed limit is 55 MPH people go 45-50 MPH.  On one occasion, when we were visiting Denver after spending a magical year living in the Holiest city on the planet- Jerusalem aka the City of Gold aka the Holy City-- My wife and I and two children were walking in the King Soopers (the local grocery store), taking up the entire aisle, making the aisle as impassible as a fallen tree makes a creaky bridge in a wooded mountainy meadow in Finland.  Suddenly, we heard a very polite request, "Excuse me...I am so sorry, but would you mind if I could please get through? So sorry to inconvenience you!!" The good folks out west are VERY friendly.
      To top it off, we had the Broncos and Avalanche to root for growing up, both winning two championships during my youth. The Nuggets made many playoff runs, only to routinely fall in the first round-- year after bloody year. The Rockies, however, have made a habit of finishing rock bottom basically every year.  I put up with it though, during my 18 years living in Denver, because we have season tickets, and I would routinely go with my father. I was an extraordinarily cute little boy--not much has changed--  and I would often leave games with balls the players tossed up to me.  Those games are undoubtedly among the highlights of my youth. One specific ritual we had, was that my father would pull us from school to take us to Opening Day. I will never forget the time he totally surprised us, and took me in 1995 to the first ever game at Coors Field, against the New York Mets (remember them-- they will come in to play later).
       The game went quite long. The 6th inning became the 7th inning. We did the 7th inning stretch. The 7th inning became the 8th inning. the 8th inning became the 9th inning. The 9th inning became the 10th inning. People were sissies, so they started leaving. I moved down to the first row behind the Mets dugout. Bret Butler tosses us up a ball. The 10th inning became the 11th inning. The 11th inning became the 12th inning. You get the idea, but I'ma keep going, because this is my blogg, and I can. The 12th inning became the 13th inning. The 13th inning became the 14th inning. We did the 7th inning stretch, which I thought was strange, inasmuch as it was the 14th inning, and not the 7th inning.
      Then, Dante Bichette steps up to the plate. I swore to myself when I got older, I would grow a mullet like him. In fact, one of my favorite websites of my childhood was ratemymullet.com. At the time, I didn't realize how hard it is to grow a mullet when you are rapidly balding faster than Husein Bolt runs the 100 meter race.  In the bottom of the 14th, Dante took one mighty swing of the bat, hit the ball with a thunderous roar, raised his fat arm to make a fiery fist pump, and he trotted around the bases in glory, as he hit a walk off shot to end the game. (http://wapc.mlb.com/col/play/?content_id=7667603&topic_id=33627488&c_id=col&tcid=vpp_copy_7667603&v=3)
I still get the chills watching that.
     But Henry, 1995 was a very long time ago. Since then, they have stunk it up worse than a shvitzy four year old coming inside after playing in the humid sun all day, and worse than a 2 year old girl potty training, and accidentally missing the potty when she tried to relieve herself. They had a fluke season in 2007 where they got swept out of the World Series in 2007 by the Smelly Sox from Boston. They have made the playoffs three lousy times in their pathetic 20 years of existence.
   And now, lets fast forward, from their opening game in Shea Stadium, in 1993, to August 8th, 2013. On  August 8th, I quit being a Rockies fan. They just ended their season by finishing their road-trip with a 1-9 record. But whats worse, oh Henry, is how they lost, and to whom they lost. The trip started against the Braves with 9-8, 11-3, 9-0, 11-2 losses to the Braves. And it ended by being swept by the Mets- arguably the only team in the MLB who has been more pathetic than the Rockies in the last 20 years. That loss in August 8th to the Mets, completing the sweep-- was it for me. I was checking out.
   But, this was mainly just a big, fat, unnecessary, digression. Let me get to the point.
   Let me first introduce my main point by just informing my thousands of readers, from Canada to Mexico, to Israel, France, Russia, and now, most recently, Australia of a new up and coming website about which you might not have heard, but which will play a critical role in my overly-over-drawnout story. I am extraordinarily tech-savvy, so you might not be aware of this, dear readers, but there is a new website called www.twitter.com that is a new type of facebook. Famous rabbis, like  myself have accounts, with myriads of followers. We can tweet (ie. write) very short messages including 120 characters to our devoted followers. This is the newest trend nowadays, so naturally, I have a blossoming account. Check me out at @dannywolfe1. When I resigned from being a Rockies fan, I became a Cleveland Indians fan. The logic was as follows. My Better half is from Cleveland. The Indians are from Cleveland. Therefore, I should love the Cleveland Indians. And I do. So I thought that my hundreds of Twitter followers would want to know about my not-so-sudden change of allegiance. So I sent a Tweet,  (ie. a message) that in addition to going to my hundreds of followers, also went to the Rockies, and the Indians. It said as follows:

Danny Wolfe ‏@DannyWolfe18 Aug

@Rockies swept to the @Mets ? You mean nothing to me. We are done. Its been a depressing 20 years. Bye. I am now an @Indians fan.

The Cleveland Indians liked these chain of events, so they wrote back to me as follows:

Cleveland Indians ‏@Indians8 Aug

@DannyWolfe1 @Rockies @Mets welcome to #TribeTown!

 Retweeted by Danny Wolfe

       The Indians thus officially welcomed me to being a fan of the Tribe. And this point is exactly what I wanted to discuss with you on this chilly 65 degree evening in Ohio. Someone, who works for the Cleveland Indians marketing department, wrote me a tweet, giving me a warm welcome. They said something kind to me. And, Henry, it made me feel good. Someone said something nice to me, and it felt great. And this is a profound lesson that you, Henry, and my thousands upon thousands upon thousands of readers should take to heart. People like when you say kind things to them. People like when you compliment them. It can completely change someone's day--heck, it might even completely change someone's life.
     Think for a moment, the last time you were told a compliment. What was it? How did it feel? Sometimes we (especially those of us of the male persuasion) feel like its unnecessary to compliment because something is so obvious. For example suppose our spouse is wearing a pretty outfit, we feel like we don't need to compliment, because obviously she looks beautiful. But how many times does this spouse then change her outfit, and then when we look at her in astonishment, she explains she changed because she knows we didn't like it?  How often do we feel under appreciated, or stressed out, and one little compliment is all it would take to turn around our entire mood?
     The Torah teaches us that we need to have an "ayin tova-" a good eye. This doesn't mean to make sure not to swing at balls when you are batting at home plate.  It means that you have to train yourself to see the good in everyone around you. It will change your life. You wont be focussing on the negativity any more, and you will only see the good. For homework, dear henry, please compliment one person every single day.  As much as this will impact and empower those around you-- it will reshape how you yourself view the world.

  @Indians-- it feels darn good to be part of the Tribe. Thank you.

  Your biggest fan,
  Danny Wolfe

 

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Wrapped up Challah and a Mezuza--Profound Life Lessons from a Holocaust Survivor

Dear Henry,
       As you may have, or perhaps, may have not noticed, I am trying to write to you once a week, usually on any given Sunday, (at least until football season starts, when I will be obsessing over the pending Denver Broncos Superbowl championship season for the ages.) As Shabbos rolled around, I was still unsure as to what to write about for this week. The only real excitement that happened was a) I went golfing and B) I learned there is a very popular song called "Gangnam Style," and I learned some of the sweet dance moves-- but not even yours truly was able to figure out the deep inner meaning of that song. And inasmuch as I like writing only about the deep inner meaning of life on this blogg, I wasn't about to write a whole blogg post about any gangnam style, or lack thereof. So, I was stuck going into Shabbos not even really sure about what I was going to write about for this week. That feeling of not knowing what I was going to write about was probably not quite as frustrating as being a Cleveland sports fan felt when Bron Bron took his talents to South Beach.
       Shabbos was beautiful-- but nothing all that exciting happened, and as of 8:30 PM last night, I didn't even have anything to write about. But then, during the rabbis shalosh seudos speech- everything changed. Before he began speaking, I heard an incredibly sweet Holocaust survivor mention that he and his wife really liked the challah that was being served, and he would try to get the recipe for her. (For a story about a different survivor, check out http://rabbidannywolfe.blogspot.com/2013/07/my-new-hero.html). Then the rabbi began speaking, and I was admittedly daydreaming. Rabbi-- if you are reading this blogg- and I'm sure you are reading this blogg inasmuch as thousands of people read this blogg, across the vast globe-- even in places like Canada, Spain, and Russia--please don't be offended. Don't be offended because the only Rabbi for whom I don't day dream while he speaks, is a guy named Rabbi Daniel Martin Wolfe- he speaks very nicely, so it's hard to day dream during his brilliant talks. Anyways, my day dream was abruptly ended when this adorable aforementioned Holocaust survivor raised his hand and told us that every night before he goes to sleep, he goes to kiss his mezuzah, and he feels as if he is giving G-d a kiss, so to speak. I thought this was incredibly touching and beautiful- here is a man who lives with the reality that the Almighty is in his home. A man who saw the most horrific sights imaginable during his lifetime, a man who saw humanity at its worse. This same man did not give up on G-d-- he embraced Him, he lives with Him.
       After the Rabbi was done speaking, and everyone had thanked The Lord for their food and bentsched, (aka recited Birkas HaMazon aka recited Grace after the meal) I noticed this same sweet man setting aside two challos, and wrapping them ever so lovingly for his adoring wife, who was anxiously awaiting to greet him back home. He was doing it discreetly, as if no one would see. But I saw, and I was extraordinarily moved. Here is a man, that has been married at least fifty years putting on a little demonstration- a clinic of sorts- illustrating to anyone who would watch, the secret to a loving and successful marriage. I often find myself in situations where I could grab some leftovers for my wife, that I know she would like. But I usually tell myself, "Danny, its too much of a shlep (inconvenience) to wrap it up, put it away, and bring it home for her. Maybe it would make more sense if I just eat an extra portion, and tell her I had her in mind." But this was not the approach of this man-- this man who has been happily married for several decades understood very well that it was darn well worth the inconvenience of shlepping around some extra challah, if it meant making his wife happy, if it meant showing his wife his love through the act of giving.
      And then I thought about the two different observations I made that evening of this man: A) He told us that he gives the mezuza a kiss every night before bed and B) he packed away some challah to bring home to his wife. I realized that these two items are not at all random occurrences- but they go together hand in hand. The Torah teaches us that it is our job to build a Mishkan- a dwelling place for the Almighty. We assume that this applies to us nowadays as well, as we can all build a 'mishkan me'at' -- in our homes-- so that the point of a Jewish marriage is to build a dwelling place for the Almighty. And its only fitting for G-d to dwell in a place of complete serenity and peace-- a loving environment where the love between husband and wife is palpable. An environment devoid of yelling and arguing and negativity. With this understanding, the way this sweet man behaved last night was entirely consistent. Him and his wife have an incredible relationship. He constantly thinks of new ways to make her happy, even 50+ years into their marriage on a late Saturday night. Therefore, G-d is resting in their glorious home.
   Once a week I will wrap up some challah and bring it home to my prettier, better half.
   Will you?

   My name is Danny Wolfe, and I approve this message.

   Sincerely,
   Danny Wolfe