#goldahawn

[wenevergotusedtoegypt]

Wait, so what's the difference between ספרד and תהילת ה'?

The latter is a subset of the former. The only time I’ve ever davened Sefard was on a Shabbos when I wasn’t home and forgot my siddur, and my hosts (who themselves davened Ashkenaz) randomly had a nusach Sefard siddur in their house. But based on that experience, they’re really not that different, just minor things here and there.

[wenevergotusedtoegypt]

The difference between ספרד (used by Chassidim) and עדות מזרח (used by Sephardim and Mizrachim).

I’ve only davened ספרד once (the nusach Chabad uses is closely related but not the standard ספרד) and I’ve never davened the other, so I can’t really pinpoint for you exactly where all the differences are, but I do know that at least bensching is significantly different between the two.

[wenevergotusedtoegypt]

What is the difference between davening nusach Sfard and Edut Mizrach? I've noticed they're really similar.

Just to verify - do you mean SEFARD or SEFARDI? (Similar names, totally separate nusachim.)

[wenevergotusedtoegypt]

Why did you choose Chabad?

There wasn’t any one point at which I made a choice.

At first, it was the default. I started becoming observant after meeting people at a Chabad house - who had a Chabad perspective. So obviously that’s what I was first introduced to - the outlook and the minhagim and so on. But I didn’t have any real point of comparison at that point to make any kind of “choice.”

About 6 months into the teshuva process I got introduced into the nearby Litvish community by a friend. Other than the campus Chabad house, most frum people I knew were actually Litvish from that point until…well…probably when I moved here, actually, if we really counted up the exact numbers - including my beis din, sponsoring rabbi, and official geirus teachers (though I would argue that despite the numbers the influence continued to stem more from the Lubavitch side). From that point onwards the default would actually have been Litvish. That’s how I ended up at a Litvish seminary to start off. But once I had a point of comparision, I found myself more drawn to Lubavitch minhagim and more in agreement with the Lubavitch outlook than their Litvish counterparts. 

By the end of college, if you asked my friends what my hashkafa was, my Litvish friends would tell you I was Chabad and my Lubavitcher friends would tell you I was Litvish. I identified closer to Chabad but didn’t feel I could quite claim the label. So I was just me.

As soon as I got thrown into a Litvish seminary environment, though, it was clear I was the token chosid. I got asked to teach people Tanya multiple times; I just didn’t connect with the mussardik aspects of the learning at all, and got frustrated with the dryness of chumash without the added life of chasidus. Weirdly enough going to a Litvish seminary brought me much closer to Chabad than before - basically, being so immersed in that environment made me see all the things I didn’t like about it in contrast to the way they are in Chabad.

What it ultimately comes down to is that Chabad chasidus and the Rebbe’s vision of what it is to be a Jew are what speak to me more than any other outlook on yiddishkeit I’ve encountered (whether Litvish, MO/Dati Leumi, or chagas chasidus).

See also this post from a while back.

[wenevergotusedtoegypt]

Hi, you post a lot of Chabad sources, which are wonderfully detailed, but do you know of any good Sephardi sources I could use? For example I want to learn more about how Sephardim do berachot hashachar (where washing cup is placed, etc.)?

Unfortunately, being that I’m through-and-through Ashkie, I don’t. :(

Varying Sefardi halachic opinions/minhagim have come up in halacha classes I’ve been in, but I don’t know of a particular comprehensive source to recommend for studying on your own. (That’s not to say it’s not out there. I just don’t know about it.)

[wenevergotusedtoegypt]

Hi! Could you tell me about your year learning in Israel? I'm spending one or two months there this summer studying at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, and I'm so excited! Do you have any advice for me?

I’m not sure there’s much that I could say that would be useful to you. Attending university is a lot different from seminary.

[ploni-ben-nistar]

You should make a frum Jewish ask prompt :)

[Re: Jewish ask prompt]

Ha. Maybe I should… But what kind of questions should be in it?

[geshertzarmeod]

Who sings your favorite version of כל העולם כולו גשר צר מעוד?

Honestly, I don’t really have a favorite. There are some here and I probably like the lubavitch one the most although I’m not really sure why. But it’s not really the kind of song I think of as like, having versions? I like singing it, I like listening to it, I relate to it, I feel it. But it’s in its essence a folk song and I think it should stay that way, with lots of different elements depending on who is singing it where.