New Hisbodedus Web Page
Rabbi Dovid Sears and I are pleased to announce that we have created a "sister website" dedicated to the theme of Solitude / Hisbodedus in Jewish spirituality. Please visit our new site from time to time, as we add more scans of essays, teachings, and stories. To the best of our knowledge, this is the only site of its kind on the internet in English. May it be of tangible help in avodas Hashem to all sincere mevakshim and spiritual seekers.
16 Comments:
What a great idea. It will be a wonderful resource for a new generation of Bnei Aliyah and a tremendous zechus for you and all the teachers on it.
A greysen yasher keyach.
I was happy to see that there was at least a small segment for Litvaks!
I wanted to leave some comments there, but it seems that the site was set up to not allow such. Why would that be? Can that be adjusted?
I didn't figure out how to leave comments there. Is it still in "beta" stage?
Sorry, it is just a web page, not a blog.
But comments could be left here.
Kol tuv
Beautiful. I'm linking it!
*Wonderful* idea, and the site already looks very useful. Thank you for doing this!
Sorry, it is just a web page, not a blog. But comments could be left here.
That's fine, it's just easier to comment in connection to some specific post/subject.
May be you can open a Google group for that? http://groups.google.com/
The Litvishe hisbodedus tradition doesn't start and end with Novhardok. The GR"A expressed himself on the matter as well, for one example. See Igeres HaGR"A for starters.
Look in Kav haYoshor for example. He also lived in Vilno for quite a while, and can be considered a part of "Litvisher hisboydedus", if you like to coin it that way.
Yasher keyach bahalatener. Hopefully there will be added a broader, more general Litvishe section to the page, beyond the Novhardok mussar one that is there now.
Bichlal, an important point that needs to be addressed (not saying that it hasn't been addressed or touched on before, just that I think it perhaps needs a separate section or more thought) is the great difficulty many Yidden today have with hisbodedus and similar/related practices due to their living in very urbanized environments - so many live in and around giant cities - which was not the case in der alter heim in the past. 'Urban hisbodedus' is more challenging and sometimes requires different techniques and more ingenuity. Not everyone lives near fields, forests, and mountains these days.
Snag: Do you have any suggestions for sucessful urban hisbodedus? Would you be willing to write something on this topic for a guest posting?
This is wonderful news, I look forward to seeing the new site develop.
I also would love to see items regarding "urban hisbodedus" included. I've spoken with people who feel that if they don't have a field to go to, they can't do it 'correctly'.
ASJ - Thanks for the invitation.
Let me think about it, collect my thoughts, etc.
Even if not much, if anything is totally/truly original in such a posting, it still may be of value just to collect thoughts related to it 'under one roof' and make them more easily accessible.
I see that Yehudis is interested too, nice to know that my idea resonates in others too.
Another thought - there is a spiritual practice of 'going into golus', that gedolim of the past practiced, e.g. the Vilna Gaon hit the road and traveled through other parts of Europe in his younger years, passing incognito through places where he was not known. Have you written about that in the past? That could overlap with hisbodedus at times.
Gut voch!
Snag: That sounds great :) Please send me an e-mail when you get a chance.
I'm sure if you look you can find a good place outdoors for hisbodedus even in a big city. In Brooklyn, believe it or not, there is a great Nature Reserve (on Ave U, across from Marine Park), where many Breslovers go for Hisbodedus. It feels like you're in the country there. Hisbodedus outdoors among the trees and grasses has an entirely different feeling. I didn't realize this till I tried it after doing hisbodedus indoors for a while. Great new site ASJ and Rabbi Sears.
Rebbe Nachman said hitbodedus indoors works too
@ASJ/R'DovidSears,
All the ALL-CAPITALS over at SOLITUDE is a bit much, was this done on purpose? It sticks out more (and is more disruptive to the eye) in the site's rss/atom feed. There is a relatively simple way to type in normal caps and then display all caps on the web page itself. (it's a minor css tweak)
Post a Comment
<< Home