A new name for an old blog

It's not uncommon that when you eat a shabbos meal at someone's house, you're asked to give a dvar Torah. My Rebbe Rav Blachman does not suffice with asking for just any dvar Torah. He says, "Tell me something new, true, and interesting." It's always a bit of a challenge - with someone like Rav Blachman, you can't get away with just telling over a Ramban as he knows right away that's not new. Many of the vortlech floating around while cute, simply can not stand up to any kind of scrutiny, if you try to figure out what they're actually trying to say. (Not that I'm against vortlech in general, I'm just against the ones with no substance behind them.) And as for interesting - who knows what someone else will find interesting?

Well, this is the task I'd like to challenge myself with on this blog. I need to make sure I don't get intimidated by the name, and hesitate to post things because I'm not sure if they're new, true, or interesting enough, but I hope that this name change will do something to frame (in my mind, at least) what this blog is supposed to be.

Shma Koleinu

In the bracha of sh'ma koleinu, we start out with 3 requests:

• שמע קולינו
• חוס ורחם עלינו
• קבל ברחמים וברצון את תפילתנו

We often think that sh'ma koleinu is about HKBH hearing our tefillos, but I think there's more to it than that. Even aside from our articulated תפילות, we each have our own קולות, be they voices of happiness or sadness, accomplishment or despair, exhiliration or frustration. Even when we don't succeed at transforming those inner voices into articulated prayer, the שומע תפילות still hears them, ומלפניו ריקם לא ישיבנו.