Monkeys

Rabbi Dude says:

There is a story of a visitor to a certain synagogue in Israel who noted with amusement that, on Simhat Tora, each person would bow as he passed a certain point in the hakafot. Curious as to the meaning behind this foreign-to-him custom, he inquired of one of the regular congregants, who was quite unable to answer the question.
"I don’t know; that’s just the way it’s always been done here."
The visitor and regular together went around asking the other regulars whether they knew the significance behind the custom.
"I don’t know; I just remember that it’s always been that way. That’s just what we do."
Until one regular suggested they speak to the oldest member of the congregation who might have an idea.
"Did you always used to bow during hakafot?"
"Yes."
"Do you know how the practice originated?"
"Sure."
Finally! A breakthrough! And the chance to glimpse into the minds of the great rabbis who instituted such a deep and meaningful custom....
"How?"
"In the original building back in the Old Country there was a low beam in the ceiling."

There are those who do what they do only because it’s what they’ve always seen done. Or what they’ve always been told was right. No-one can come up with a fresh idea or start a new practice or be in any way the slightest bit different for fear of disturbing the status in quo. No-one thinks for himself....
Have you ever heard the expression "Monkey see, monkey do"?

Storks

Rabbi Dude says:

A stork is listed in the Tora as one of the species of bird whose consumption is prohibited. The gemara explains that the stork is called a hasida in Hebrew because hasida comes from the word hesed, meaning kindness, and a stork shares its food with others of its kind. So why should the Tora prohibit the stork? It seems just the sort of attitude we should want to emulate, doesn't it?
The answer lies in a careful reading of what the gemara says: it shares its food with others of its kind. Those not of its kind, however, can fend for themselves.

How often do we see people following just that trait today?

Ostriches

Rabbi Dude says:

The ostrich is always depicted as sticking its hand in the sand when threatened, the rationale being that if it can't see the threat, then the threat no longer exists (ostriches, it must be remembered, have very little brains).
So too are people within the Jewish world who refuse to acknowledge the existence of anything outside the four walls of the study hall. They believe everything they are taught and never doubt anything, and are so sure of what they have always known to be true they will brand a heretic anyone who dares to question their beliefs.

This is not the way of the Tora.
The way of the Tora is intellect coupled with faith: you must--of course--try to understand the depths of the Tora and to gain insight into God's mind (so to speak), and we do this by questioning. However, in the mean-time, you must understand that God knows a lot better than you do, and you must follow what the Tora says even though you do not understand.
It would seem the Ostriches of the Jewish world understand the latter part--just follow--quite well, but are missing out on the former--question and learn.
Anyone who refuses to allow questioning cannot be said to be truly following the way of the Tora.

Interestingly enough, a bird's wings are used as a metaphor for the Tora--it enables a person's soul to fly to ever-higher levels of spirituality. An ostrich has very small wings and is incapable of flight; instead, it spends its life trying to hide from anything which may threaten its existence. And it usually gets very badly hurt by those threats as it makes itself a very easy target and destroys any chance of self-defence by its inability to see the threat. Just as a dove can escape from its predators only by its wings, so too are Yisraél saved from their persecutors through our adherence to the Tora.

Customs

Rabbi Dude says:

We are Jews, and we have a Tora. Anything the Tora says is obligatory is for all Jews.
Then there are sages, to whom we were commanded to listen by the Tora. Anything the sages say is obligatory and their authority is divinely granted.
Then there are practices instituted within religious matters. For example: observing a period of mourning during the three weeks between 17 Tamuz and 9 Av. These are called minhagim, which means "customs." Minhagim are obligatory.
Then there are customs. Customs are anything you do regularly. They are not obligatory.
Even minhagim vary from community to community, although there are some that are universal amongst Jews.
The requirements of the sages are universal, although there is dispute as to whether their words apply to certain cases.
The Tora is absolutely universal and is of divine authorship, although there is dispute as to how exactly to interpret it.

It's a fact of the modern Jewish world that many hold their minhagim, and even their customs, to be as absolute as the Tora itself. If you don't do things exactly the way I do, you're as good as a heretic.
We have the Tora, and we keep it. We have rabbinic laws, and we keep them. We have national minhagim, and we keep them. We have minhagim within our own community, and we keep them. Anything else is optional, and if it helps you grow in your service of God, then go for it! But if it doesn't, then it's probably hurting you....
But there is this unfortunate tendency to cling to one's customs almost to the point of blindness.

A friend of mine--who wasn't even Jewish--summed up my thoughts better than I ever could have: a minhag is what you do. It isn't who you are.

The Sexes

Rabbi Dude says:

Men and women are different. Anyone who says otherwise is crazy. The attempt, in today's modern world, to equate the two sexes is nothing short of ludicrous. Men and women were created differently, so a man should not try to be a woman and a woman should never try to be a man.
Originally, both sexes were created together as one entity. The existence of the two as independent beings was then instituted when God removed the female half from this strange creature and made it into its own person. As such, there is nothing in the female psyche which is shared by the male, as it was removed entirely from the original joined entity and given to the female.
Men and women, in many ways, have diffculty relating. This is, in effect, a manifestation of the fact that men and women are practically speaking two different languages.* The way one's mind works is as dissimilar to the other's thought process as possible. What to a woman is cold and distant is to a man comfortable, and what a man considers excessively emotional is natural to a woman. So, too, what a man calls well thought-out a woman calls overly calculating, while a woman's idea of instinct is seen as impulse by a man.
Women tend to follow their heart and men tend to follow their head. Neither approach is right, nor wrong. Nor more right, nor more wrong. They are merely two different ways of looking at the same situation from different points of view and acting upon that perception by the method one understands best.
If only we could realise that this is the way we act--and react--then maybe the two sexes might relate to each other a bit better.
Then again, maybe if we realised that everyone has a slightly different point of view, we might all relate to each other a lot better.


* Interesting side point: some aboriginal Australian tribes had three languages: one spoken by the men, one spoken by the women, and a third spoken when members of the opposite sex needed to converse.

The Source of Most Problems

Rabbi Dude Says:

There's far too much trouble going on in the world today, and, by far, most of it is due either to people's simply not paying attention, or to people's not thinking.