On Chanukah, unlike all other Yamim Tovim, there are no specific obligations throughout the day, such as matanos la’evyonim on Purim or a seudah on the Shalosh Regalim. There’s also no constant
mitzvah like dwelling in the sukkah or refraining from chametz and no issur melachah like on Shavuos.1
To this point, Rav Moshe Feinstein remarkably writes that outside the moment of lighting, one may not recite the berachah of Shehecheyanu during Chanukah because “these days of Chanukah have no greater kedushah than any day of the year…this, as opposed to, say, Yom Kippur, when we can say this berachah unconnected to a specific act because the day itself has special kedushah.”2It is therefore all the more peculiar that the one and only act unique to Chanukah—the lighting of the menorah—does not seem to be per- formed in the way initially designed. Let’s start at the beginning. The Gemara teaches:
The Chanukah menorah is to be positioned by one’s doorway from the outside. If one lives on an upper floor, he should place it in a window that is adjacent to the public domain. In times of danger, it should be placed on his table and that is enough.3
This is also precisely how the Shulchan Aruch records the halachah,4 indicating that when not in times of danger, like in, arguably, today’s America, one must light outside. However, later the Rama makes it clear that already in his days the standard practice was still to light indoors.5 This is largely the accepted practice, at least among Ashkenazim living outside of Eretz Yisrael.6
Most Gedolim and their adherents still follow or followed this practice of lighting indoors. Is this still due to danger? And if so, would someone living in, say, Lakewood, with only frum neighbors, still have this same allowance? I cannot think of many other clear halachos found in Chazal for which our practice seems to veer from its basic structure.
Even more confounding is that in every other element of this mitzvah, we perform it mehadrin min ha’mehadrin, adding one extra candle for each night instead of the basic one per night and having others in the house light in addition to the father.7 Moreover, Chanukah was always set apart with this precise unique quality in that its pirsumei nisa was to be done outside and in public, as opposed to the “inside” pirsum ha’neis of Purim done in shul.8 Why, then, would we agree to take this distinctivenessaway? The Brisker Rav, for example, was very careful to light outside, considering that to be an essential part of the mitzvah.9 In fact, if ever he had to light inside due to a concern, he would relight outside if that risk went away; in this, he saw the din comparable to mitzvas sukkah.
Rav Elyashiv, too, strongly opposed the idea that nowadays, in locations where it is safe, we must still light indoors. For, if this is no longer the halachah, “for whom was that clear law in the Shulchan Aruch written? Even the Rama does not comment at that place.”10 Nevertheless, most poskim do not seem to take this strict approach, with Rav Moshe Feinstein even stating that today “it is not possible to light outdoors.”11
Why should this still hold true? Some early Rishonim mention this minhag of not lighting outdoors, yet they often also urge one to at least light inside the doorframe of their home, facing the street.12 Nevertheless, the basic halachah allows one to simply light anywhere visible in their home—on a dining room table, for instance. Many approaches have been offered throughout the centuries to this question.
Already in the twelfth century, the minhag among many was to light indoors, causing the Ohr Zarua to wonder, being that there are no longer any dangers, why should we not light outside?13 And this was nine hundred years ago. While he does not provide an answer, a few decades later, the Sefer Ha’itur does, writing, “U’meiachar she’nahagu al hasakanah, nahagu.”14 Meaning, seemingly, that although there may no longer be a danger, once we accepted this practice of lighting indoors, we retained it.15
The words of the holy Baal Ha’itur are difficult to fathom. To give an extreme example to make the point, would we say that someone who worked at a truck stop as a teenager when he received an allowance not to wear his yarmulke due to safety concerns, still need not wear one twenty years later as a doctor on Madison Ave? Chalilah! Rav Yerucham Olshin offers a way to understand this Sefer Ha’itur based on how Rav Meir Soloveitchik would quote his father, the Brisker Rav: “Once our leaders were mesaken a new din of lighting indoors due to danger, this new takanah stands even when its reason ceases to exist!”16
The Rama’s statement was based on the view of Rabbeinu Yerucham, who explained that the reason we light indoors is not just due to a physical sakanah but a monetary one as well, as thieves may steal one’s menorah.17 This concern would certainly still stand today. However, this reasoning would lead to an obvious question: Who said one must light with an expensive menorah? If indeed this is the reason for our present-day minhag, why not then light with Coke bottles (cleaned and stripped) so as to perform this mitzvah in its proper location?
One may be tempted to suggest that the Rama in Darkei Moshe was concerned for the view of the Raavad who posits that hiddur mitzvah (i.e., using a silver menorah) is a Torah law,18 which would then, indeed, require one to light indoors with a nice menorah instead of outside with a makeshift menorah. This is because the Torah law of beautification eclipses the Rabbinic placement of the menorah. However, this would be a stretch, for the very mitzvah one is beautifying is a Rabbinic one, so how could the commandment to beautify it be Biblical?19
Many others give a more technical approach to our still lighting indoors. While a sakanah may no longer exist, most Jews moved to northern countries where the weather during Chanukah is cold, windy, and wet. The Ritva quotes his rebbi as telling him that if it is windyoutside, one should light indoors;20 and the Ritva extends this to many other weather-based concerns.
Rav Amram Gaon states the same. This would explain why many of those outside Israel, who indeed light outdoors, purchase special glass containers to protect their lights from the elements. The reader should, however, note that not all poskim allow for such encasements.21
The Shu”t Imrei Noam22 finds an answer to our question from Chanukah’s original source: Megillas Taanis, a sefer written by the Tanna Rabbi Chananyah ben Chizkiyah, delineating more than thirty special dates and events we are to celebrate.23
Amazingly, it states there: “Should one fear from leitzim [ridiculers], then one may light by the door inside one’s home.” Meaning, aside from the issue of sakanah, wind, and robbers, there is another concern: scoffers.
From the B’nei Yissaschar,24 it would seem that these leitzim were cynical Jews who would challenge the propriety of either a public display of love for Hashem and for His Torah or, perhaps, our very fight against the Hellenistic forces. And so we light indoors. This is quite different from a concern for other nations.25
Rav Moshe Sternbuch offers another powerful approach: The fact that there have been times, like today, when we live in relative peace does not mean that we should abandon the protections needed by others today (e.g., Iran) or that we may need at some future time, lo alenu.26 He cites a number of proofs to such halachic thinking, and also reminds the reader of Rav Yisrael Salanter who, during a cholera outbreak on Yom Kippur, urged everyone to eat so that those sick would then certainly eat some- thing. We see from here that sometimes we all must sacrifice halachah’s
“best practices” so that it can be preserved for everyone’s future. For example, the Chanukah following the pogrom of Simchas Torah 5784, I was asked by many people if they may light on their kitchen table instead of by the window. In galus, we should never act with certainty.
A final approach is one that I have often suggested. In preparation for this chapter, I was delighted to discover that Rav Yeruchum Olshin suggests something similar.27, 28
This approach requires some brief context. Rashi gives an example of what Chazal mean by a sakanah that allows or forces our lighting indoors: when the Persians did not allow anyone to light candles outside the Persian batei avodah zarah. The Bach expresses amazement at this example. That decree applied equally to non-Jews, so it could not have been describing a time of shmad (when Jews must risk their lives for any mitzvah or social value). How, then, can this be Rashi’s paradigm case? For such a severe situation, we would be halachically dissuaded from even lighting indoors.
This Rashi also seems redundant. Do we even need an example of “a danger”? Why does Rashi feel he needs to share an example for some-
thing that we can all sense? I would therefore suggest that this Rashi is seeking to provide us with something far deeper than a simple example. Chazal share that following the Churban Bayis Sheini, we nullified the celebratory days found in Megillas Taanis, as we can’t be celebrating every other week while mourning our exile.
To this, the Gemara asks a stunning question: Why, then, do we still celebrate Chanukah? After all, Chanukah’s origin is found in this same text. The Gemara offers only one reason for keeping only Chanukah out of all the holidays in Megillas Taanis: the people have accepted Chanukah and its mitzvos.29
Perhaps what the Gemara is suggesting is that along with remembering the neis of Chanukah during these days, we also recall the affection and sacrifice that Klal Yisrael had for this mitzvah. And, for this same reason, we light even when in danger, albeit indoors. Rav Olshin takes this idea even further: Because the menorah represents the light of Torah (which is perhaps why the klal did not wish to forgo these days), we are obligatedto risk our lives for it. All of this would explain why Rashi chose Persian times as the example of sakanah rather than examples from the times of the Gemara or in his own lifetime, for example, the Crusades of 1096 that he composed Selichos for. Our still lighting the menorah indoors today is a surreptitious memorial of such “indoor lighting sacrifice” in times of historic danger. We are also commemorating lighting the Chanukah candles indoors in times of danger, even though that original sakanah allows us to forfeit lighting completely.
Our present lighting indoors represents not a leniency but a great act of stringency. Thus, our retaining the minhag of lighting indoors is not simply to avoid a danger that no longer exists; on the contrary, it is to recall such mesirus nefesh for this mitzvah in times of danger, when we lit inside even though we didn’t have to light at all.
The Gemara states that because Jews have always risked their lives for milah, it will always be observed.30 Indeed, even today, the not-yet-frum, as well as the frum, largely perform brissim. Perhaps the similar sacrifice for our past Chanukah lighting in times of danger (even if indoors) is why Chanukah, too, is kept by so many of the non-observant today.31 According to Pew Research, while 56 percent of all American Jews own a Seder plate, 81 percent own a menorah!32
The Minchas Elazar mentions that the B’nei Yissaschar had a glass encase- ment ready for when Mashiach will come and he can again light outside.33
May we see that day soon.
NOTES
Note that even on Purim, in addition to its many other obligations, they initially wished to restrict all melachah; see Megillah 5b.
Igros Moshe, Orach Chaim 5:43:2, confirmed firsthand with the original handwritten letter to Rav Levovitz, with whom I spoke. We should note that with this p’sak, Rav Moshe acknowledges that he disagrees with the Chafetz Chaim as recorded in Shaar Hatzion, siman 676:3. We should also point out that the Meiri to Shabbos 23b would seem to support the Chafetz Chaim. Meiri there records a view that if someone is without the ability to light a menorah, he may still make the She’asah Nissim and Shehecheyanu berachos during the days of Chanukah. Some readers may assume that having a Rishon say this would mean that Rav Moshe, had he been aware, would have acquiesced in his position. However, this is not so simple to suggest. For one, Meiri is simply recording what others have said, and perhaps even he disagreed. Second, just because one Rishon takes a view does not mean that other Rishonim would have consented. But number three is most crucial: Rav Moshe, in a separate teshuvah (coincidentally, also about something found in a newly discovered Meiri), makes clear that newly published Rishonim must be carefully considered before utilizing them for actual p’sak halachah. This is not due to these specific Rishonim themselves, of course, but rather to the lack of critical study of these manuscripts over generations, as well as uncertainty as to who the many copyists were for all these years.
Shabbos 21b.
Siman 671:5.
Siman 672:2. On the oddity of the Rama waiting until here to make this comment and his initial silence, see Rav Elyashiv, below.
Cf. Rav Ovadia Yosef in Chazon Ovadia, Chanukah, p. 37.
See Shabbos 21b.
See D’rashos Chasam Sofer, 5592, Chanukah; see also Rav Soloveitchik, as brought in V’DibartaBam, Chanukah, p. 113; Inside Chanukah, pp. 190–91.
See Kuntres Chanukah U’Purim 3:3; Yerech L’Moadim p. 107; see, however, his views as brought by others below.
Shu”t Kovetz Teshuvos 1:67, pp. 98–101.
Igros Moshe, Orach Chaim, 4:125.
The significance of a doorframe will be discussed below, in the chapter titled “Are Our Mezuzahs Kosher?,” page 134.
Ohr Zaruah 133:2.
Sefer Ha’itur, Aseres Hadibros, Chanukah 114:2.
See also Shu”t Minchas Yitzchak 6:67.
Kovetz Shulchan Melachim, Kislev, 5766; see Yerech L’Moadim, p. 112.
See Darkei Moshe, siman 671:9.
See Chidushei Anshei Shem to Berachos 38a.
See, however, Orech L’Neir to the first Mishnah in Makkos; see also Shabbos 23a that lighting neir Chanukah is a fulfillment of the verse “lo sassur,” which may mean that while the lighting is Rabbinic in nature, its beautification can still be a Biblical fulfillment.
Shabbos 21b.
See, e.g., Aruch Hashulchan 671:24 as well as Moadim U’Zemanim, vol. 2, siman 140, n. 1; Cf. Shu”t Yaavetz 149, who allows, although does not urge, such encasements.
Shu”t Imrei Noam 2:22.
This sefer will be discussed at length in the chapters that begin on pages 50, 82, and 106.
As brought in a footnote to Piskei Teshuvos, siman 671.
This is not a concern of the past. Indeed, one of the most celebrated public intellectuals of the twentieth century, Christopher Hitchens (who was a Jew who found out about his Jewish background at the age of forty, when his mother was lying on her deathbed), once horribly wrote against, of all holidays, Chanukah, based on this very cynical outlook of fighting the Hellenists: Jewish orthodoxy possesses the interesting feature of naming and combating the idea of the apikoros or “Epicurean”—the intellectual renegade who prefers Athens to Jerusalem and the schools of philosophy to the grim old routines of the Torah…the Greek or Epicurean style had begun to gain immense ground among the Jews of Syria and Palestine. The Seleucid Empire, an inheritance of Alexander the Great—Alexander still being a popular name among Jews—had weaned many people away from the sacrifices, the circumcisions, the belief in a special relation- ship with G-d…I quote (from a contemporary rabbi), “Along with Greek science and military prowess came a whole culture that celebrated beauty both in art and in the human body, presented the world with the triumph of rational thought in the works of Plato and Aristotle, and rejoiced in the complexities of life presented in the theater of Aeschylus, Euripides, and Aristophanes.” But away with all that. Let us instead celebrate the Maccabean peasants who wanted to destroy Hellenism and restore what they actually call “old-time religion.” Thus, to celebrate Hanukkah is to celebrate the triumph of tribal Jewish backwardness. A celebrated atheist, Mr. Hitchens would often debate faith and challenge his interlocutors, asking what possible virtue would be lost without religion or what could be gained with it that would not already be obvious to him. Aside from the false premise of this question—as his present morals were so obviously relying on the remnants of religious culture from whose crumbs America and the Magna Carta were formed—the above paragraph regarding Chanukah best displays the nakedness of his challenge. I refer to the bias of seeing inherent honor in the “new” versus the old, of allowing the nebulous winds of time and the capriciousness behind how “the vogue” takes hold and the arbitrary nature of who is given the power to introduce it, and the mysterious sociological quirks behind which fashions capture a time or place. Absent the safety net of a moral identity, to be untethered to a constitution, is precisely what leads to his article—of judging virtue on modern dress rather than thoughtful design, believing righteousness is found in the avant-garde rather than antiquity, and in the assumption that the peasantry must be as poor on the inside as they are on the outside. All this is anathema to Yiddishkeit. Yet, its pull becomes alluring to those unmoored from it. Truth is neither “old time” or “new”; it is unaffected by “tribal” acceptance or “tribal” neglect. Virtue is unbothered by new styles or last year’s fashion. Rather, truth is and will always remain simply that: truth. Judged not by time, unchanged by those who fail to embrace its legitimacy, it endures unperturbed by physical phenomena and social cues. Emes is emes.
Moadim U’Zemanim, vol. 2, siman 140, p. 79.
Ibid., p. 543.
We will quote his words below.
As explained by Rashi ad loc.
Shabbos 130a.
See chapter below, “Why Is There No Yom Tov Sheni on Chanukah Outside of Israel,” where the Pri Chadash draws an additional milah-Chanukah connection.
Pew Research Center, “Jewish Americans in 2020,” May 11, 2021, https://www.pewresearch. org/religion/2021/05/11/jewish-americans-in-2020/.
Including: Tevila for First-Time Use, Bakasha & Public Tehillim on Shabbos,
March, 2023
Compiling a list of popular halachic myths would compromise more than one full column, but a few examples will prove helpful.
Although giraffes have simanei kashrus, kosher signs, we don’t eat them because we don’t know where on the neck to shecht it.
Although certain utensils require tevilah, one may use them the first time without toiveling them.
Both statements are false.
A giraffe’s long neck would make shechitah easier, not harder! How did this ficticious halachic rumor come about? Well, the real reason we don’t eat this mammal is because we generally avoid eating any land or air creature that does not have a tradition of being eaten by Jews. (This is aside from the impracticality of its consumption due to their expense and difficulty of finding and raising them.)
Among many concerns, without a mesorah, we may not be aware of issues that are unique to the animal in question, such as whether it should be classified as a chayah or beheimah, how to treiber (devein) it, how to deal with its forbidden fats, and whether certain signs of diseases render it treif.
A rav who is asked this question may explain succinctly, “We simply wouldn’t know how to shecht it.” Hearing this, one may incorrectly assume that the rav is referring to the animal’s most notable feature—its neck.
As for tevilah, whether it’s a vessel’s first use or its 465th, the halachah is the same -tevilah is required before use. I understand how this myth is perpetuated because I once saw it develop in real time. I was once explaining during a shiur that disposable pans do not require tevilah as long as they will only be used once, and an attendee commented, “Do you mean to say that first-time use never requires tevilah?”
No! But now understood where the confusion comes from. There are a number of factors that warrant tevilah; the utensil must be one that will be used directly with ready-to-eat food, and it must be made out of certain materials, etc. But first and foremost, it must be classified as a kli, a vessel, something of significance. Many poskim therefore posit that a flimsy item that is intended for one-time use is not a kli to begin with and hence would not require tevilah. (Some poskim even allow these disposables to be used two or three times before requiring tevilah.)
This is as opposed to a fancy, expensive dish, which is automatically considered a kli. In any event, it is easy to mistake the “one-time” halachah for the “first-time” myth.
Another common halachic myth that is much more nuanced is connected to the subject of war, which we have been discussing these past few weeks.
If asked why we don’t daven the regular Shemoneh Esrei on Shabbos, many would respond, “Because we are not allowed to make personal requests on Shabbos.”
But this is not the reason Chazal give (cf. Yerushalmi, Shabbos, 15:3 and Brachos, 5:2). Nor is it so simple that bakashos are generally not allowed on Shabbos; after all, we say Sim Shalom, Yekum Purkan, and the Yehi Ratzon for cholim—not to mention bentching and many other tefillos that remain unchanged on Shabbos. Consider as well Birchas Hachodesh, which is only said on Shabbos and is full of personal requests!
The background for these halachos is fascinating, and it relates directly to the way we should respond to an eis tzarah on Shabbos and as a kehillah.
The Gemara states that the reason we shorten the Shemoneh Esrei from 19 brachos during the week to seven on Shabbos is in order not to burden people (Brachos, 21a). Although the intention seems to be that Chazal wanted to shorten davening, it is clear from the rest of our Shabbos liturgy and leining that this is not the case.
Instead, the poskim explain that Chazal were referring to emotional tirchah. Our prayers, when recited with conviction, should awaken painful realities, and on Shabbos we are given a break from some of them (see Tanchuma, beginning of Vayeira, and Sefer Hamanhig, Shabbos, siman 11).
Knowing this is not simply academic Torah l’shmah but also affects halachah. For example, if one accidentally says even the first word of a weekday Shemoneh Esrei blessing on Shabbos (for example, “Atah Chonein” or “Refa’einu”), he must finish that brachah and then return to the Shabbos Shemoneh Esrei (Shulchan Aruch, siman 268; this is true even if he realizes his error before uttering Hashem’s name). The reason for this is precisely due to the fact that one is technically allowed on Shabbos to make a bakashah that he recites consistently.
However, it is true that Chazal also say that we must avoid certain types of bakashos on Shabbos (e.g., Bava Basra, 91a). Clearly, the prayers that were composed just for Shabbos—such as the Yehi Ratzon after candle-lighting and Birchas Hachodesh—and those for Yomim Tovim that happen to fall on Shabbos, such as Rosh Hashanah, are allowed (see Shulchan Aruch Harav, siman 288:8; shu”t B’tzeil Hachamah, 5:41; Bnei Yissas’char, Shevat 2:2; and Magen Avraham, siman 128:70). Last week we mentioned a view that even allows Avinu Malkeinu to be said when Yom Kippur falls on Shabbos.
What emerges from all of this is that daily tefillos may be recited on Shabbos, except for the middle blessings of Shemoneh Esrei. All other constant prayers, such as Elokai Netzor, may be recited. Special tefillos, even if they are bakashos, may also be said, especially those such as Yekum Purkan and Mi Shebeirach, which many see as a brachah and not a tefillah (Ohr Zarua, 2:89, and Shulchan Aruch Harav, siman 284:14). All other unique personal tefillos should not be said (Shulchan Aruch, 288:9).
However, if there is a sakanah, even for one choleh, one may daven for that person on Shabbos as long as he does not do so in a public way (ibid. 8, with Acharonim; see also Piskei Teshuvos, p. 489).
Now we arrive at our main question. May a shul hold a public Tehillim recitation for the current crisis? On the one hand, it’s sakanas nefashos, but on the other hand, although unique prayers are allowed in a dangerous and time-sensitive situation, doing so with others in a public way is not.
The Steipler ruled that when Eretz Yisrael is at war, Tehillim should be recited just as on a weekday (Orchos Rabbeinu Vol. I, p. 124). Some have said that during World War II, the special Yehi Ratzons and Acheinu that are recited on Mondays and Thursdays were said publicly on Shabbos after leining (shu”t Tiferes Adam 3:18).
A few weeks ago, a friend sent a group an email with a list of the hostages, asking that each person he sent it to take one hostage’s name and dedicate a perek of Tehillim to that person. He ended, “Chazal share that when one saves a life, it is as if he has saved the world (Sanhedrin 37a).”
This is certainly true, and has practical application when it comes to a physical act of salvation. However, obviously, we would not be allowed to be michallel Shabbos so as to purchase a Tehillim from which to daven!
Rather, when it comes to divrei ruchniyus and tefillah, we must yield to the Torah and halachah and allow Hashem to do the rest.
May Hashem accept our tefillos, save us from michshol, and enable us to defer, always, to halachah. ●
The Hashgacha Pratis Seen When Starting a Chesed Organization
Below: An Image of the founder R’ Yakir Wachstock
Rabbi Moshe Taub
November, 2023
“Serendipity” may be my favorite word in the English language. In addition to its melodious sound, this word comes closest to the meaning of our colloquial use of the term “mazal” (for the accurate understanding of this term, see sefer Chemdah Genuza).
Many of us likely know people who are successful in their fields—including those in klei kodesh—yetwho were initially introduced to their work through obvious hashgachah pratis; cases where the ‘serendipity’ is clear.
A rebbi of mine offered a fascinating example of this phenomenon in regard to Rav Chaim Shmuelevitz.
Recognized as an iluy since his youth, Rav Chaim became a maggid shiur under the guidance of Rav Shimon Shkop when he was only 18 years old. A few years later, he moved to Mir and began his ascendency as perhaps the greatest galus rosh yeshivah, serving in this capacity across three continents— in Europe, then Kobe and Shanghai in Asia, and in New York in North America- all this before settling in his role at the Mir Yeshiva in Yerushalayim, which he would help nurture into what it is today: the largest yeshivah since the time of Rebbe Akiva.
His knowledge of Toras Chazal was so extensive that respected geonim visited him before giving their own shiurim. They would share which Gemara the shiur was to be on and he would immediately jot down a list of marei mekomos from across shas and the Rishonim and Acharonim.
On the boat to America after the war, he was studying the Shev Shmaatsa, a very complex sefer that discusses legal guidelines in Chazal. His war-torn volume was missing the last few pages…so he wrote them by heart! My rebbi– Rav Chaim’s nephew-Rav Refael Shmulevitz of Toronto, has seen this edition, as it is still kept, guarded, and treasured by the family.
So where does serendipity arise in his story? After the passing of Rav Chaim’s brother-in-law, the Mir needed someone to take over the weekly Chumash shmuess. Short of any obvious options, they asked Rav Chaim if he would deliver it until they found a proper replacement.
Until that moment, no one had associated Rav Chaim Shmuelevitz with mussar, drashos, and aggadah (see, e.g., Rav Chaim, CIS publishing, p. 170). So by the time he concluded his first substitute shiur, everyone in attendance sat with awestruck shock. It was decided that Rav Chaim should continue with these shmuessen, and soon his weekly audience would reach close to a thousand people.
Today, Sichos Mussar, a sefer based on these drashos, has been published many times, in many languages, and is studied in yeshivos, seminaries, and at Shabbos tables.
In fact, although until then he was most known for his piercing lomdus, drush and SichosMussar became Rav Chaim’s legacy (for the average Jew). He never sought such prominence; instead, it found him.
Hashem knew that this gadol had important messages to share and made sure that it happened.
Like most kehillos, our shul collected funds for the new yesomim, almanos and others affected by the horrendous Simchas Torah attacks in Eretz Yisrael on October 7. We did our part, and then we continued to daven for the hostages, to increase our Torah learning, and to beseech Hashem for an end to this crisis.
It was during this time when our Shul also witnessed something quite ‘serendipitous’, an episode of profound hashgachah.
On October 10, at two o’clock in the morning, my neighbor Yakir Wachstock – a dedicated Hatzolah volunteer – received a phone call from Brigadier General Daniel Jacobs. Why this general thought to call him is its own story of hashgachah.
Briefly, Yakir’s younger brother Oren attended dental school in Buffalo when I lived there. After graduating, Oren moved to Eretz Yisrael and opened an Amazon business. This general wanted to know if Oren, through his Amazon connections, or his brother, my neighbor Yakir, knew of any warehouse(s) in Queens that was stocking tactical boots. He explained that most of the men being called up to the army (miluim) did not have boots, and those who did had boots that were quite worn; some were in tatters and were being held together by duct tape!
Yakir quickly contacted another member of our shul, Avi Shakarov, who is a wholesale shoe distributor. Avi indeed had boots in his warehouse and was selling them for a nice profit online. He immediately pulled its listing and donated their first shipment to Eretz Yisrael.
He and Yakir packed duffle bags filled with these boots, contacted El Al, and were able to get the bags onto a flight.
Done…or so they thought.
The next day, Yakir received a message that concluded, “Thank you from the Yakir Battalion.” Although he was honored, he thought naming a battalion after him was a little over the top. The battalion members responded, “No! This is hashgachah pratis. Our battalion has always been named Yakir!”
Wild!
Word gets around fast. Soon, other soldiers in need of tactical boots learned about this shipment and contacted Yakir, asking for boots in specific sizes. Typically, these calls came/come from mothers whose sons aren’t able to call, and they are often accompanied by pictures of old sneakers, or worse.
So Yakir found volunteers, and our shul went to work, sending out another shipment. But it didn’t stop there.
This by-chance organization now sends more than 80 duffle bags every week.
Hashgacha stillis seen daily, always taking over at moments of frustration. The other day, for example, a plane that was supposed to carry a shipment of boots simply ran out of space. El Al quickly informed us that some American families of hostages would be delighted to take them for us on their El Al chartered flight!
Odd complexities have also arisen. Most of these boots are made in Italy with American hunters in mind. These customers rarely need a size nine, so sizes in that range are more expensive. Our younger soldiers however indeed need such sizes.
The other night, a man from New Jersey called and said, “I just wanted to contact you to make sure this is a legitimate tzedakah because I want to get my colleagues to give you a donation.”
I explained that every dollar goes to purchase boots. “What do you do, and who are your colleagues?” I asked him.
“I’m a podiatrist.”
I responded, half jokingly, “These are boots! The Podiatry Association of America should be sponsoring several orders!”
Over the past two weeks, our kehillah raised well over half a million dollars, bought out all of a particular size duffle bag from Amazing Savings, and sent more than 6,000 pairs of boots to our soldiers in Israel. Our coat room in the shul is now a warehouse, and minivans and SUVs line up daily so that volunteers can load the bags and take them to the airport.
Last Shabbos, Yakir came to my house after the seudah. He was justifiably nervous. “It’s tens of thousands of dollars each day. How can this work going forward?”
I don’t know…but it has…and it will. Hashem gave us this project, and He will continue to aid us.
Our shul never asked for this, and I am still not exactly sure how it came to us.
Serendipitous? Perhaps. As I mentioned to a volunteer, “Hashem’s hashgachah constantly brings us chesed opportunities; we just have to be open to sensing them and be quick to act.”
The word for boots in Hebrew is “magafayim.” It’s not found in Tanach and first appears in Chazal (see, for example, the Mishnah on Shabbos 6:2). The root is similar to “gafaf,” referring to a certain type of embrace (see, e.g., Rambam, avos hatumos, perek 13). However, its true shoresh seems to be “gaf,” which comes from the word for a type of limbed wing that fully surrounds its host (see, e.g., Mishlei 9:3). an example of this is a bat, whose wings fully surround its body when it is at rest. This explains why Chazal use this root for an embrace that fully surrounds and supports an entity.
This is klal Yisrael. We soar with our wings, or we use them to embrace the needs of others.
The serendipity of these events is still a mystery to me, and how we managed to raise all this money is not only a mystery but a neis. (To donate, go to THIS LINK)
One phone call “by chance,” and a neighbor who didn’t turn over to go back to sleep.
From ‘Hamakom Yinachem eschem…’, to ‘Devarim HaYotzim…’,
From ‘Ein Navi B’Iro’ to ‘Maaseh Avos…,‘
‘Kol Harodef...’, to’Kabdeihu V’Chadsheihu‘,
& More….
April, 2014
Rabbi Moshe Taub
“Don’t believe every quote you read on the internet”
Abraham Lincoln
This will hopefully be a fun, yet illuminating article in honor of Shavous.
“Ein navi b’iro”-It is hard to be a Navi in one’s hometown, is a common expression used to articulate the idea that it is hard to find honor among those who knew a person from back in their youth.
Where is the adage taken from?
One can search all the ‘Bar Ilan’ Torah software’s, as well as all the libraries of the world, yet come to one conclusion –it does not come from chazal, rather it comes from a book within a series of books that, lets just say, is often found in hotel room drawers.
This does not mean that it did not emanate first from within klal yisroel, rather that we do not find it written in toras chazal.
In past Shavous issues we discussed the idea of hufuch bu v’hufuch bu sh’kulu bu, that everything can be found within the Torah. Be it science or mathematics, we sought to demonstrate the inherent truth of this statement.
Ironically, this year, I wish to show saying that while people often assume come from the Torah or chazal in relaity are not found, at least not in the written form. Many gedolim and mechabrei sefarim have published their own lists of unsourced ‘chazals’ (see, for example, ‘OtzarHayedios’chelek 2 by Rav Yechiel Michel Stern, and, ‘MitzuvehV’Oseh’ ch. Talmud Torah by Rav Shmuel Freidman), and we will offer ours.
While many of the sayings we will mention may indeed be alluded to in chazal, they are either not said the way we same them, and sometimes not clearly even hinted at.
Some axioms have their provenance in early rishonim. For example, ‘Bo Shabbos, bo menuchah’ –with Shabbos’s arrival comes tranquility, is a Rashi, but not a chazal.
Others have their source in kabala. For example, “Ein davar omed b’fnei haratzon”-nothing can stand in the way of will, is stated, although in different terms, by the Zohar.
In fact, the latter category may help illume history. Rav Chaim Kinievsky writes (KriasMelec,h p.282, in the footnote) that the Rambam never saw or studied the Zohar. However, some disagree. Rav Reuvein Margolios wrote an article seeking to prove that the Rambam must have studied the Zohar. One of the famous examples is a ruling in Rambam (hilchosdeos 2:7) that has now become a famous Jewish proverb: ‘kol hakoes k’ilu oved avodah zara’- whoever loses their temper it is as if he served idolatry.
This statement can not be found anywhere in chazal, however it is stated by the Zohar several times.
While some indeed use this, among other statements of Rambam, as evidence that he had access to the Zohar, Rav Chaim (ad loc.) explains that such examples more likely came from the sefarim of the geonim or midrashim that Rambam had access to yet that are no longer today extant.
Indeed, this proverb is strongly alluded to by chazal themselves. The gemara (Shabbos 105) states, “Anyone who tears his clothing in anger, or breaks utensils, etc. is as if he served idolatry”.
A similar example of a famous proverb that likely came from an analogous chazal is ‘maaseh avos siman la’banim’-the actions and histories of our forefathers allude to the future history of klal yisroel. Although originated and mentioned by the Ramban several times in his peirush on chumash (see, e.g., 12:6), we have no chazal utilizing this phrase. However, chazal do say that Hashem told Avraham “Stay! –as you are a siman for your children” (BereishisRabba).
But there are still maxims for which we seemingly find no written source at all. One of the most famous examples of these may be, ‘Devarim hayotzim min halev nichnasim el halev’ –things said from the heart enter the hearts of others. Although a very popular expression, it is not found in any writing from chazal or kabala!
The well-known three volume encyclopedic work ‘Michlol Hamaamarim V’Pisgamim’, sources this adage to R’ Moshe Ibn Ezra (d.1066), while others (see the yarchon Nezer Hatorah, kislev 5769 p. 305, as well as Metzuveh V’oseh p.367) source this proverb to a gemara (Berachos 6) where we are taught that any person with yiras shomayim will find his words listened to.
Another, perhaps even more surprising, axiom that has no known source is ‘Yeshuos/Teshuos Hashem b/k’heref ayin’ –the salvations of Hashem can/will come in the blink of an eye. While certainly a statement in fact to any baal emunah, it is not a pasuk as some may asume, and in truth is not found even in chazal.
While some quote Rav Aryeh Levin as asserting that this came from a piyut said on the Yomin Noroim, in the Torah journal OhrYisroel, Rav Gedalia Oberlander offers other potential sources. He first brings from other sefarim and likkutim that sought to find its source, one even suggesting, incorrectly, that it came from a midrash Tanchuma. In the end he shows numerous piyuttim over the centuries that use this idiom.
This should not trouble is, for as a nation suffering through two-thousand years of galus we likely developed this phrase, as well as many others, as a response to amazingly swift salvations, as well as in the hope of future ones.
Moments before I sent this article in to the editor, I found one last amazing potential source for this most famous adage. In a Hebrew academic work on the siddur (‘Teffila L’yisroel Bihitpachusa Ha’historiot’) where the authors lay out every nusach of the siddur ever discovered, they show a nusach of Shemoneh Esreh from a geniza in Eretz Yisroel that reads as follows (ibid. p. 392): “…michalkel chaim b’chesed…m’chayei meisim k’heref ayin yeshuah lanu tatzmiach…”!
Another famous proverb goes, ‘mi sh’yeish lo manah ratzah ma’asaim’-when one acquires a hundred (he will not be satisfied, rather) he will then desire two hundred. No such chazal exists, although it is strongly alluded to in Koheles Rabbah (1:32).
There are so many more examples of proverbs from unknown sources.
‘Kol harodef achar hakavod, kavod baorech momenu’-whoever chases honor will find honor allude him (likely taken from the Shelah, korach).
‘Mitzvah habah l’yadecha al tachmitzenah’-when a mitzvah comes up do not push it off (mentioned by the Rama siman 625 and perhaps first formulated by Rashi to Megilla 6b)
‘Kabal es ha’emes m’mi sh’amro’-accept the truth from whoever says it
‘Kabdeihu V’Chadsheihu’-Honor (all) but remain suspectful. (In America there is a simaler saying, rooted in Reganism: ‘Trust but verify’)
‘B’yoser sh’yehudi shomer es hashabbos, hashabbos shomeres es hayehdui’-As much as the Jew kept Shabbos (throughout the generations), Shabbos has ‘kept’ us Jewish.
‘Osiyos machkimos’ –letters make us wise. This is a very common expression with a few meanings, yet that has no known provenance.
But perhaps the most famous example of this column’s topic is the one that will surprise the most.
‘Hamakom yenachem eschmen b’sochshaar avlei tzion v’yerushalim’. Although commonly said upon taking leave of an avel, its provenance is a mystery. Although the Tur and others give other sentences to say that strike some of the same themes, the hamakom we say must have developed over time.
In fact, even before shiva, by the levaya itself, there is a pasuk often quoted (Yeshayahu 25:8) that although exists, is so often misquoted. The famous niggun based on this pasuk goes, ‘umucha Hashem dima m’al kol panim’-Hashem (in the days of Moshiach) will erase the tears from upon our faces. Although popularized through this song, the actual pasuk reads ‘umucha Hashem Elokim dima m’al kol panim’.
All of this should only serve to galvanize ourselves this Shavous to study as much of the Torah Shb’ksav and Baal Peh for ourselves, thereby knowing what indeed stems from chazal and what does not, and by which will bring the merits to hasten the very day to which the Yeshayahu hanavi was reffering.
Recently, I was by a chuppah when everyone began to stand. The man to my left turned his head to see who was coming, krechtzed, and said, “It’s not the chosson, rather its his great-grandparents walking down”.
This was an ironic reaction, as the Torah directs us to stand for such elderly people. Yet many feel this does not reach the levels of standing for a chosson and kallah! Such is the power minhag has on us.
Why indeed is there a minhag to stand for a choson and kalla?
When I’ve asked others this question, the typical response is that it is due to their status as a melech and malka.
But if this is the case, wouldn’t we stand for them at all moments and not just the chuppah?
Nevertheless, their kingship is indeed one of the reasons brought to explain why we greet the chosson with ‘baruch habah’ (Shulchan Ha’Ezer, 7:4).
As for our standing, the Zohar states that its best if the guests stand for the entire ceremony (Tikunei Zohar, tikkun 10), which some commentators indeed explain as being indeed due to their kingly status (HaAleph Lchah Shlomo, 115). As to our question on this – why then do we only stand for them now? – because the chosson and kalla are standing at this moment, it would be unseemly for our king and queen to stand while we sit (Knesses HaGedolah, 2:2).
However, this reasoning wouldn’t explain why we only stand as they are walking toward the chuppah. (Perhaps this is similar to how we must stand when the sefer Torah is in movement (while just ‘standing’ in the open aron may not require our standing -see shu”t Chasam Sofer and shu”t Igros Moshe)
It seems, then, that this current minhag has another basis (as brought in Knesses HaGedolah, siman 265): We are showing honor to those on their way to perform a mitzvah.
Far from a time to gawk, we are rather showing respect to those in the midst of acting toward the continuance of am yisroel.
More, the Shiblei Haleket brings that the shechina arrives to a chuppah, and based on this the sefer Tivasheh Yehudah suggests we stand by His arrival.
Interestingly, some explain the reason why then we don’t stand for the entire chuppah as being due to the chuppah having its own physical dimensions, thereby creating a separation between this ‘abode’ and everyone else. For this reason we only stand before the chosson or the kallah enter this ‘home’ (Shaarim Metzuyanim B’Halacha, 147:13, back notes).
Round and Round
The chosson is the first to arrive at the chuppah. This is to make clear the kallah’s intent and desire to enter into this particle man’s domain (Igra D’Pirka,ois 67, based on Zohar to bereishis p. 49a; see Nachalas Shiva Hachodash, p. 281, note 465 for other explanations).
Once the kallah arrives under the chuppah, there is ancient minhag that she be directed around her chosson for a certain number of circles. This minhag is brought in many early sefarim, and may have its source in the Zohar (see ibid. p. 288, note 489).
I often tell kallos that women have always been the roshei yeshiva of the home, and indeed, many sefarim explain that this is the prruopse of this minhag -by surrounding the husband, she is acting her part as the wall, the chomah, for him, blocking out all surrounding pulls (see ad loc. where the Belzer rebbe expands on this.
Indeed, it was Sarah who begged that Yishmoel be thrown out, Rivkah who understood that it was Yaakov who was deserving of the berachos, Miriam who got Yocheved and Miriam back together, etc. This is not just to patronize, as it was Chava who caused Adam to sin. So that the kallah’s circling of her soon-to-be chosson is a gentle reminder that a women’s role in her marriage is one of the essential ingredients for the survival of our nation. It is, at times, the wife who pushes her husband to improve regarding minyan, to learn, to go to shiurim, to sing zemiros at the Shabbos table, etc.
If some lose count of the circles, know that you are not alone! It is brought that Rav Tzvi Hirsch M’Ziditzchuv would count each circle in the same careful and precise manner as we would the kohein gadol’s sprinkles during his yom kippur service –“Achas! Achas vachas…”!
Interestingly, while the number seven has much meaning -especially considering Yehoshua’s army’s seven circles around Yericho- some have the minhag that the kallah only encircles her chosson three times. Some suggest that this best represents marriage, as the verse ‘ki yikach ish ishah’ (the Torah source for marriage) is found three times (Siddur Derch Chaim), and to represent the three encampments of the midbar.
This was the minhag of the Chasam Sofer (Minhagim v’Halichos Chasam Sofer, p. 384).
Beracha/ Mitzvah
We now arrived at the eirusin, the first half of marriage. One would think that this opens with the chosson’s declaration of ‘hares at’, and the kallah’s acceptance. Surprisingly, the wedding does not begin with this.
Rather, the mesader will recite a beracha on wine, then make the special birchas eirusin, and only then, after the beracha is recited, call over the witnesses to inspect the ring etc. and only then to instruct the chosson to say ‘harei at’ (see Shulchan Aruch, 34:1).
But if this is a beracha on the kiddushin we just observed and accepted upon them, then shouldn’t the chosson first effect marriage and the berachos said after?
Also, why doesn’t the chosson make these berachos himself?
Can he?
Why do we make two hagafens under the chuppa? Cant we have in mind for the second one? Isn’t this an unneeded beracha;what we call in halacha, beracha sh’eino tzricha?
Should we use the same kos –and its leftover wine – for both the eirusin and the nissuin?
What is the purpose of bedekin?
These and more, next week iy”H, as we delve into many more wedding questions many have had in their heads, yet that we can now delve into together.
The mass institutionalization of deaf-education[1] and the relatively newly developed pedagogic skills of their instructors began to develop in the early half of the 17th century, and has revolutionized how the deaf and hard-of-hearing interrelate with the world.
It may shock some to discover that up until the mid 17th century deaf children were often institutionalized r’l (Encyclopedia Ivrit vol. 18, as quoted in Encyclopidia Rufuit, by Dr. Steinberg, vol. 2, column 535 ff # [22]).
In fact it did not take long until askanim began to open up chedarim specifically geared to the Jewish Deaf: in London[2], Vienna[3], Hungary[4]. In 1864 Rav Yehudah Leibish Broch published the above-mentioned 12 page sefer,Maaseh Cheresh, on this issue.
He explains the purpose for his work in his introduction:
“Although I have not published, as of yet, my writings… now is not the time to be silent, for this is a matter of importance, and indeed those who are asking these questions are from the chachmei yisroel [Here he inserts a wicked pun changing “askers” to “foxes” because some he felt –not the chochamim, of course – had an agenda. M.T.], all of whom wish to know if there is some change regarding the deaf people of our times who learn in special schools and who learn how to talk among people….even the Sanzer Rebbe congratulated me on this project….and aside for this my eyes have witnessed and my ears have heard regarding the ‘TaubStummerSchuall’ in Vienna which is run by Rav Yoel Deitch and who places his students on the wings of eagles…”
Rabbi Brach was not alone. The Shevet Sofer (eh’e 21) quotes from his father the Ksav Sofer who also felt that this matter needed to be addressed, and went to visit the special school in Vienna.
Although, of course, chochma b’goyim taamin, we should note that we find earlier indications of sign language and lip reading within yiddeshkeit and the Talmud: Gittin 59a in the mishneh and Yevamus 112b where we are taught regarding some form of hand signaling [“remiza”] by and to deaf individuals ; Chagiga 3a[5] we are taught regarding some form of lip reading. See also Tosephta Terumos 1:2 where it is taught that the deaf sons of the second generation tanna R. Yochanan Ben Gudgada were charged with all the taharos of Yerushalaim. Such responsibility could have only come about through some sort of communication and special education[6]. It should be of little surprise then that their father, R. Yochanan, is quoted as the disseminator of some of the laws of deafness (eg. mishneh Gitten 5:5; Chulin 55b). Famously, the gemera (Sota 13a) teaches us that Chushim the son of Dan was deaf (or “of heavy ears”), and yet, in that same gemera, we are taught he was able to talk to others and that the shevatim were able to convey to him the events that were unfolding.
We should note that in researching material for this article this writer observed that although there are sefarim available today on virtually every subject and focus imaginable in halacha[7], this writer has yet to find one dedicated specifically to this topic (save for the above brief Maaseh Cheresh and the pesicha to Pri Megadim). I hope that what is written here, while certainly not meant to be relied upon for final rulings, can galvanize someone to put together a much needed and more thorough sefer on this topic.
Indeed the Minchas Chinuch (21:10) says such a kuntrus is needed.
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About one in one thousand babies are born deaf. Infants and adults can also become deaf due to illness (e.g. mumps, meningitis, etc.). There is no halachic distinction between conductive deafness (where the inner ear works, yet, for a host of possible reasons, the sound is not able to travel through the ear canal) and sensorineural hearing loss (where the inner ear, the cochlea, is unable to perform its function of discerning sounds by sending messaging to the brain).
As for the role that genetics can play regarding deafness, and why it is crucial for rabbanim to understand it, see footnote[8].
The gemera (Chagiga 3a; Yevamus 113a) rules that a cheresh –which there, and almost everywhere else in the Talmud, refers to one who both cannot hear nor speak (Chagiga 2b) – is exempt from all mitzvos[9].
While the source for this ruling is unclear, the Chasam Sofer eh’e 2:2 posits that it is a halacha l’Moshe M’Sinai; see Minchas Shlomo 1:34 who also discusses what possible source chazal had for this law[10], and where he also seeks to explain how a halacha (that a deaf-mute is exempt from Mitzvos) could today go through such a radical change and if chazal were aware of our ability to train a deaf-mute so that they would be considered a baar-daas.
Deafness and muteness are not two separate maladies that have coincidently struck the same individual rather, at least in past generations, it is precisely because one is (born) deaf that he would never learn how to talk[11].
In fact the biblical term for deafness is the root CH’R’SH, and is often used to connote silence as well (e.g. Shmos 14:14, inter alia). The Radak (Sefer HaShrashim, column 239) explains that this word’s true meaning is in fact deaf(ness), rather one who is silent is acting as a deaf person would since, typically, they cannot speak.
According to a large consensus, this halacha applies equally to one born deaf (congenital) and one who devolved deafness and muteness later in life (Maseh Cheresh); others disagree[12] and are therefore more lenient regarding one who was at one time able to hear or speak[13].
From the straightforward reading of the gemera (Chagiga ad loc. Yevamus 113-114; Shavuos 42a) one can infer that this exemptive status of the archetypal deaf-mute is causative in nature and not intrinsic[14].
Meaning that it is precisely due to one’s deafness and their lack of communicational aptitude that causes their development to become arrested which then leads to a deficiency in the rational agility and mental maturity that would be necessary to bind one to the Torah’s many obligations (even its negative laws; see Yevamus 114b). Rabbi Moshe Feinstein[15] explains communication as being the key to intellectual growth and development, and a deaf/mute who, perforce, cannot communicate has to be viewed as unique within the confines of Halacha proper.
Having only the skill of writing would not transform one who is deaf into a medaber (Tur e’hez, siman 120:5, 121:6; see Gittin 71a with Rashash[16]). This is certainly true regarding one who was born deaf[17].
One modern expert on issues of medical halacha argues that the above laws not withstanding, one cannot feed a true cheresh non-kosher food or assist him in performing other sins[18][19].
A non-Jewish cheresh would be exempt from the sheva mitzvos bnei noach[20].
It is vital to point out that such a cheresh –which rarely, if at all, exists today- is still an equal member of klal yisroel – e.g. one desecrates Shabbos to save them,[21] – and the Torah[22] warns us to not curse them. Other such examples include the ruling by some[23] that a kohen who is a true cheresh is still privy to the special honors due to Kohanim; we do not stop a cheresh from donning teffilin[24].
Furthermore, one fulfils the mitzvah of procreation through a deaf child[25].
Sign Language
Regarding a deaf person who cannot be assisted with hearing aids and who never learned how to talk yet has the ability to converse in sign language, there is significant debate as to their status.
Rabbi Feinstein[26] in a teshuva first published in the back of the first volume of Rabbi Eider’s English work on the laws of nidda[27], rules that one who was born deaf and also cannot speak yet can converse in sign language still has the status of true cheresh[28]. He draws a comparison to writing, which as stated above in not a skill that transforms a born cheresh into a medaber[29]. Nevertheless, he rules in a later teshuva[30] that if a cheresh is unable to recite any words then it is better he daven in sign language that not to daven at all. This last point is consistent with his view stated above that even a true cheresh who is exempt from all mitzvos should still not abandon Torah.
Others disagree[31] and rule that a cheresh who has the ability to converse in sign language has the status of a pikeach.
A competent rav should be consulted, as each case must be judged independently[32].
As for using sign language during davening at times when talking would not be allowed a logical distinction must be made between the arbitrary motions we all make at times in order to communicate specific things (i.e. for silence, or for a pen) and an official, agreed upon, language of signs and gestures. The Shulchan Aruch rules (siman 63:6) that one can not even motion during the first chapter of krias shma. The Mishne Berura (siman 104:1) rules the same for shemoneh esreh)[33].Regarding birchas hamazon, the Shulchan Aruch rules (siman 183:8) that some say all the laws regarding tefilla apply to benching, which the Aruch Hashulchan teaches would mean that one cannot communicate through motion, like by teffila. These laws would all the more so apply to sign language. Regarding other points in davening where talking is not allowed, or is frowned upon,sign language, while certainly not viewed as talking[34], and certainly such communicating does not disturb others when compared to talking, nevertheless there is little doubt that it goes against the reverence we are to have toward tefilla and the synagogue (see Shulchan Aruchsiman 150; zohar, parshas Teruma) and will certainly weaken the atmosphere in shul and even cause the other misspalelim witnessing such open communication to view actual talking lightly.
Shomea, Medaber, and Grey Areas
A mute who is not deaf (shomea), or one who is deaf but can speak (medaber), is halachikly viewed as a pikayach (Shulchan Aruch 55:8) and therefore obligated in all mitzvos (mitzvos that are dependent on shmiah/listening, e.g. megilla, will be discussed below).
Communication being the reason for a cheresh’s unique status in halacha, one can make the cogent argument that in modern times when even the most severely deaf is taught some from of communiqué their status would be that of a medaber and they should then be viewed no different than the average Jew and be obligated in virtually all mitzvos[35]. This may be true whether or not their hearing devices give them perfect hearing, and even if they do not have perfect speech. Additionally, many questions arise regarding the hearing devices themselves and if they are viewed as affecting true shmia.
The major poskim of the late 20th century all discuss this issue: Rav Moshe Feinstein (ad loc.); Rav Shlomo Zalman Aurbach (Minchas Shlomo 1:34); Rav Eliezer Waldenberg (shu’t Tzitz Eliezer, 15:46); Rav Yitzchak Yaakov Weiss (Minchas Yitzchak 2:113). We shall first marshal their views and later seek to apply them to common cases.
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Hearing Aids vs. Choclear Implants
It is crucial for the reader to first note that the term “hearing aid” that will be perennially referenced when discussing the various responsa literature to follow is only a reflection of the words spoken by the above poskim. In this writers view Cochlear Implants (known in deaf culture, and referred to in this article as CI) would be no different from a Halachik standpoint than standard hearing aids.
Some do argue[36] that CI should be viewed more leniently than a standard hearing aid in two areas. 1) As we shall see below, because a standard hearing aid acts similar to a microphone (indeed it is in essence a mini-microphone) the same Shabbos concerns regarding the latter should also affect the former and therefore argue that at least concerning the issue of mashmia kol lrabim (see tractate Shabbos 18) which is one of the concerns regarding microphones (and hearing aids) on Shabbos, CI should not be effected, for CI works through sending audible pulses to the brain and not through a microphone 2) Regarding fulfilling a mitzvah dependent on shmiah (e.g. megilla) where, as we will discuss below, there is significant debate as to its value when heard through a microphone (and hearing aids), CI “might” be a non-issue due, again, to the fact that CI is not a microphone (see ad loc. footnote 25; he writes there that he will further explore this in another kuntrus).
It would seem, humbly, to this writer that both of these points are moot. As for his point regarding mashmia kol l’rabim, Rabbi Moshe Feinstein (oh’c Igros Moshe 2:85 s.v. vhenay hataam) already cogently argued that this is of no concern even for hearing aids because, although essentially a microphone, the sound produced by a hearing aid is not meant lrabim (public); furthermore, regarding both points 1 and 2, which seeks to differentiate between standard hearing aids and CI because the latter works without a microphone – this is a non-starter due to the fact that CI does work through a microphone! While it is true that hearing aids simply amplify sounds so as to be audible in a damaged ear, CI also begins its process with a microphone. It is only after the sound is first picked up by a microphone that the speech processor organizes the sounds, the transmitter and stimulator transforms these sounds to impulses, and finally the electric array gathers these and sends them to the various areas of the auditory nerve[37].
If anything, one could argue, CI would be a greater concern than hearing aids regarding mitzvos that rely on shmiah for while both begin as microphones (that convert sound into electric signals, see Minchas Shlomo 1:9[38]) only CI reverse engineers these signals and then rearranges them, which means that a CI takes sound one step further away than the original speaker when compared to a standard hearing aid.
Nevertheless, based on the leniency of the Har Tzvi regarding using microphones to fulfill a mitzvah of shmia (quoted below) that “all sounds are kosher” it would seem that all hearing devices be treated equally. Further study is required regarding this last point.
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With the above in mind, let us look to some of the responsa literature that discuss modern day deafness, both regarding in generalities and specific cases. We will further seek to apply them in the section that follows it.
Igros Moshe
Rabbi Moshe Feinstein[39] rules that someone who was born a cheresh but later had a hearing aid attached which permits him to hear and which allows him to communicate with others, would have the status of a pikeach and be obligated in mitzvos like any other Jew.
What makes this particular responsum so fascinating is that although he advances such a pragmatic halachik view when discussing modern-day cherashim, he nevertheless writes there that the ability to hear through an electrical device does not transform one into a shomea (one who can hear), rather one would be transformed into a medaber (one who can speak). Rabbi Feinstein draws a distinction between electronic hearing aids and the mechanical, crude hearing aid that the Pri Chodesh[40] rules would in fact transform a cheresh into a shomea, for the latter still allows one to hear the original voice or sound.
It would appear then that Rabbi Feinstein is suggesting a somewhat complicated Halachik structure: modern electrical devices allows one to ‘hear’ – although it will still not be viewed as “halachik hearing” – through which a cheresh would learn how to converse with others – the lack of which being at the heart of a cheresh’sHalachik disability – which, in turn, would make him a medaber.
This ruling applies even if his speech can be difficult, but not impossible, to understand[41].
Either way, such an individual would be viewed as no different than the average Jew[42].
This ruling of Rabbi Feinstein where he states that electrically amplified sounds are not viewed as shmia would seem to contradict an earlier teshuva of his[43] where Rabbi Feinstein was asked regarding hearing the megilla, or another obligation dependent on shmiah, through a microphone. There he argues that since even regarding regular speech the vibrating waves/air that enters the listeners’ ear is in fact different and unique than the vibrating waves/air than what was used when the words were first spoken, a microphone, like sound waves themselves, would be no different halachikly, and one can, then, fulfill such mitzvos through it.
Although he ends there by stating that while one should not protest those who follow this, he is reluctant to have this leniency acted upon. Why then years later[44] (in the teshuva we first mentioned)would he maintain an opposite approach, arguing strongly against a hearing aid being seen as halachikshmia with not even a hint of an allowance or mention of his previous lenient approach?
Stunningly, in 1980, Rabbi Feinstein was asked again[45] about hearing the megilla through a microphone and he reiterates his inclination to be lenient –although he is slightly more hesitant –and warns that it nevertheless should be avoided, even b’shas hadchak. He makes no reference to his earlier responsa regarding hearing aids where he completely rejected such manipulated sounds as true shmia.
While is tempting to suggest some dissimilarity between a microphone and hearing aids, such a distinction fails to come to mind, especially when we consider the virtually all scholars who discuss hearing aids connect it to their, or others’, view(s) regarding a microphone[46]. In fact Rabbi Feinstein himself draws such a comparison[47]!
When assessing Rabbi Feinstein’s view on the issue of microphones/hearing aids and mitzvosshmia some scholars look only to his microphone teshuvos[48] and therefore quote him as being lenient; while others[49] quote the hearing aid teshuva only and therefore cite him as being stringent in this matter[50].
Even the sefer Shmaitza D’Moshe, which seeks to gather all of Rabbi Feinstein’s rulings as a flowing commentary to the Shulchan Aruch, states in his name[51]: “One should not hear the megilla through a microphone, even in a shas hadchak…” In their commentary they seem to only focus on the latter two teshovos mentioned in this article (yet they still quote him as forbidding it under any circumstances).
Rav Frank and Chazon Ish
Relating specifically to the issue of hearing devices, Rabbi Tzvi Pesach Frank writing to Rabbi Yitzchak Yaakov Weiss[52] rules[53] differently. He argues that – with the exception of mitzvasshofar where the gemera explicitly rules (Rosh Hashana 27b) that one must hear the sound proper and not an echo (or a reverb) – a microphone is in fact viewed as halachik hearing[54]. The Chazon Ish also suggested such an approach verbally to Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Aurbach (Minchas Shlomo 1:9)[55]. As we will see in the next section, this debate between Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Aurbach and the Rabbi Frank (and possibly Rabbi Feinstein) colors how one approaches a slew of issues in halacha.[56]
Minchas Shlomo
Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Aurbach (Minchas Shlomo 1:34), writing to Rabbi Chaim Pinchas Sheinberg shlit’a, recalls a case where both he and Rabbi Elyashiv shlit’a were asked regarding a deaf boy who was taught to talk and even had a chavrusah, where they both ruled that this boy had the status of a pikeach and was obligated in mitzvos with the possible exception of an aliya l’Torah because of the fear that some will not understand his brachos (this last point will be explored further in a later section).
This seems to be in contrast to the view of the Igros Moshe (ad loc. s.v ‘V’hanochon’) who only speaks of a medaber who also has a functioning hearing aid or, if not, once had modest hearing whereas Rabbi Aurbach clearly rules that even one with no hearing can be viewed as a medaber.
Rabbi Aurbach ends with some discomfort toward disagreeing with earlier poskim[57]who had ruled that a cheresh who learns to talk is still considered a true cheresh and is simply viewed as if repeating words blindly. We all clearly see, Rabbi Aurbach asserts, that today this no longer holds true.
In a separate teshuva (1:9) Rabbi Aurbach discusses the issue of hearing mitzvos shel shmia through a microphone. He rules that one does not fulfill their obligation in such a manner. He then writes in parentheses: “In pains me that now deaf people, who can only hear by using a microphone-like device, would not be able to fulfill mitzvas shofar, megilla…at the very least they should not make a beracha on these mitzvos.”
Tzitz Eliezer
The Tzitz Eliezer (15:46:5) also rules that deaf people today, who go to special schools or can converse with others, have the status of pikchim and are obligated in all mitzvos. He also suggests that there is no difference between one who can only hear when spoken to in a loud voice[58] and one who can only hear through a hearing device, both of whom would be obligated in all mitzvos[59]. He therefore rules unlike Rabbi Aurbach and views such hearing as “halachik hearing”.
However, at the same time, in three other responsa[60] he argues against the possibility of fulfilling a mitzvah through a microphone, because a) he views such devices as not producing the original sound[61] and b) it takes away from the reverence we are to have in the synagogue and for davening[62]. He therefore, in the latter teshuvos mentioned, approaches the issue of mitzvos shel shmia through a hearing aid similar to the Minchas Shlomo and the more stringent teshuva from the Igros Moshe[63].
From the above we see that while there is much these poskim disagree about, in particular regarding how to view a hearing device, we nevertheless have a clear consensus[64] that obligates virtually all of today’s cherashim to mitzvos, and that rules that their status has (in most cases) changed to either that of a shomea or of a medaber, or both; any of which would be enough to take them out of the status of a true cheresh. There is, however, some disagreement regarding the peripherals, the application of which will be discussed in the penultimate section below.
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All of the above creates a most unique category of halachik status, for although such a class was discussed in the gemera, and at times in the Shulchan Aruch (e.g. siman 199:10 in rama with mishneh berrurah 28), the plausibility of such people who were deaf yet could talk or visa versa were at one time too rare[65] to be commonly discussed every time a true cheresh is mentioned in the codes.
What follows in an attempt to gather in one place the most common Halachik questions relating to deaf or hard-of-hearing pikchim today, specifically, the regarding commandments that rely on hearing (e.g. Shofar). Due to the vastness of this topic we will focus in particular regarding one who is a shomea-medaber or who has the ability to hear only through an electric hearing aid. Beyond this, some of the peripheral questions that relate to hearing aids (e.g. shabbos use) will be breifly discussed. It should be noted that many of these laws relate to more common issues such as fulfilling a mitzvah or beracha through a microphone. The reader is directed to Rabbi Chaim Jachter’s article on those issues in his ‘Grey Matter’ volume 1.
Tekias Shofar – Even according to the lenient opinions cited above that view assisted hearing through a hearing aid or CI as halachik hearing, tekias shofar would be different as the gemera (Rosh Hashana 27b) has already ruled that an echoed sound is not enough to fulfill this mitzvah as one must hear the original blast. Nevertheless a deaf person who hears through such a device should blow Shofar for themselves. If they have even faint hearing without a hearing aid they should take their hearing aid out before the blasts[66]. In any case, such a person may certainly not blow shofar for others.
However Rabbi Shturnbach[67] marshals the view of the early Rishon, Rabbi Yonasan M’Lunel (b. Provence 1135) who rules[68] that a cheresh who can talk is obligated in shofar. Rabbi Shturnbach therefore suggests that someone who could talk but cannot hear (or one with a hearing device, according to Rabbi Aurbach et al.), should learn to blow Shofar for themselves. This also seems to be the ruling of the Aruch HaShulchan[69].
Berachos, Krias Shma, Tephilla, Krias HaTorah – The Shulchan Aruch rules (62:3; 206:6) that although tephilla and berachos must be heard by the reciter, bdieved, if one says the words but did not say them loudly so as to hear them he stills fulfils his obligation (see Berachos 15a). A deaf person without a hearing device who can talk would then be obligated in all such Mitzvos and fulfills them although he cannot hear what he is saying, and certainly if he can hear with his hearing aid[70]. Although for a person with healthy hearing this would only be bdieved, for such a cheresh it would be his l’chatchila[71]. Another argument offered is based on the rule of “kol haroy lbila”, meaning since this cheresh-medaber is in fact speaking in a sound loud enough to be audible, it is irrelevant if he hears himself or not. Of course, according to the lenient views of the Har Tzvi and Chazon Ish one who hears is prayers through a hearing device is no different than anyone else.
The consensus is that a deaf person may recite the blessing “Hanosen L’Sechvy Bina” (…Who gives insight to the heart/rooster”). This is true even regarding a true cheresh[72].
Regarding a kohen who is a cheresh-medaber, the Mishne Berura (siman 128:49) rules that he obligated in birchas kohanim even though he cannot hear the chazzan’s call.
The general consensus, and minhag haolam, is to allows a cheresh-medaber to be called for an aliya[73]. Rabbi Feinstein also allows a true cheresh to receive an aliya for his bar-mitzvah or aufrof –so that he should not feel downgraded – and he should try to say the words as best he could; although it is best if such an aliya not be from the main seven aliyos.
Having a cheresh–medaber act as the shliach tzibbur is a subject of debate[74]. Therefore regarding saying kaddish, while it would seem that a cherash-medaber may certainly say it along with others, saying it alone, however, would be subject to the above dispute. However, according to both the Chazon Ish and the Har Tzvi (and perhaps Rabbi Feinstein) this dispute would not apply to one with a working hearing aid or CI who can, without equivocation, lead a tzibbur.
As for a cheresh-medaber acting as the baal koreh, this should be avoided yet can be done for cases of need[75], such as the bar-mitzvah of a cheresh-medaber[76]. Certainly regarding biblical readings (e.g. parshas Zachor) we should not rely on the lenient views. As we will point out below, there is a distinction between the reading of the Torah and the reading of Megillas Esther, the latter being more stringent regarding a cheresh-medaber.
As for hearing krias haTorah, Rabbi Moshe Shturnbach suggests[77] that even according to the views that rule that microphones/hearing devices are not considered true shmia, krias hatorah would be different. This is because krias hatorah may not be an obligation to hear a person read the Torah rather simply to hear words of Torah[78].
A cheresh-medaber is counted for a Minyan according to all views (Shulchan Aruchsiman 55:8). Regarding a minyan made up solely of such individuals, or even when they make up four or more of the ten, they must be informed or aware as to when to answer amen to chazaras hashatz, kedusha, and kaddish[79]. Again, according to both the Chazon Ish and the Har Tzvi (and perhaps Rabbi Feinstein) there would be no restrictions should they be equipped with a hearing device, even if they make up the entire Minyan (of course they too they must, like all of us, make sure to answer amen).
A cheresh-medaber is counted toward a zimun (Rama siman 199:8) of both three and ten. According to some (see Shulchan Aruch Harav) he cannot be counted in a Zimun of three, only of ten. If there is more than one such individual they must make sure to know when to answer. As for leading the zimun, see Biur Halacha ad loc. s.v. “meztarfin”who relates this question to the issue of a cheresh-medaber acting as the shliach tzibbur. He ends by suggesting that we could be more lenient by him leading a Zimun. Here too, the Har Tzvi and the Chazon Ish would view one equipped with a hearing device like anyone else.
Krias HaMegilla – A cheresh-medaber who can hear through the help of a hearing aid, according to the view of Rav Shlomo Zalman Aurbach (1:9), may have no way (see below) of fulfilling this mitzvah and is therefore is exempt from it (ones rachmana patrei –Gd does not hold us culpable for impossible actions[80]). As stated in a previous section, Rabbi Aurbach does imply that they should still listen to the reading while making sure not to say the berachos.
See Shulchan Aruch siman 689:2 with Mishne Berrura (5) regarding one that is completely deaf (Shaarei Teshuva) yet can speak that he cannot even read it for himself. Even though we mentioned above that regarding blessings and prayer which requires one to hear the words that they uttering that, nevertheless, a cheresh-medaber fulfills their obligation, krias ha’megilla is different. This is due to the special concept of pirsumei nissa that is activated on Purim and that obligates the reader to hear the words that he is saying (Beis Yoseph). Many achronim disagree with this ruling of the Shulchan Aruch (Gra, Shaages Aryeh, et al.) and allow for a cheresh-medaber (with no hearing aid) to read the megilla, even for others[81].
The Meiri (Megilla 19b)explicitly compares megilla to the case of being a shliach tzibbur and rules that by megilla too a cheresh-medaber can be motzi others.
The Shaarei Teshuva (ad loc. 2) posits that when dealing with one who could hear through a hearing aid even the Shulchan Aruch would agree that he could read the megilla (cf. shu’t Tzemech Tzedekeh’e 323). This last point, however, is difficult to rely upon due to the fact that the Shaarei Teshuva was speaking of non-electric, crude, hearing aids, which as pointed out by Rav Moshe Feinstein (oh’c 4:33) can be viewed more leniently than modern ones. The Har Tzvi and Chazon Ish would, again, see one equipped with a hearing device like anyone else regarding krias hamegilla.
Shabbos– Due to all that has been discussed thus far, a cheresh-medaber should make kiddush and havdala for themselves and should also not be motzi others. It would seem that a father of a household should be lenient in this matter and be motzi his wife and children. This is due to the many lenient approaches we have seen regarding modern day hearing devices, and, based on the many opinions mentioned in the biur Halacha (siman 55) that allow a cheresh who can speak (even without a hearing device) to be motzi others. While we would not typically rely on these views, in cases of need we would, and a father being seen as the head of the household is crucial for children, especially in our day. It is related[82] that Rav Yaakov Kamanetzky, when visiting his married children, would never sit at the head of the table, explaining that the role of the father, and his being seen as unimpeachable in his position as head of the house, is sacrosanct and should never be infringed upon when their children are present, even though he was thereby usurping his own children’s biblical obligation of kibud av (for him).
Hearing Aids on Shabbos –A week after Rabbi Feinstein received a query (Igros Moshe oh’c 4:84) regarding the use of microphones on Shabbos –which he forbids for four separate reasons –he received a query (ad loc. 85) relating to hearing aids on Shabbos, essentially a mini-microphone. In his brilliance he rules that while a hearing aid is indeed a mini-microphone and he had recently ruled that microphones are forbidden to be used on shabbos, one can still wear a hearing aid on shabbos. He goes on to lucidly demonstrate how all four of his reasons forbidding a microphone on Shabbos would not apply to hearing aids[83].
While Rabbi Feinstein suggests that it is better not for others to speak directly to the wearer on shabbos, according to Rav Shlomo Zalman Aurbach (Minchas Shlomo 1:9), this too is of no concern.
As for raising or lowering the volume of hearing aids on Shabbos, there are a number of views. Some, like Rav Shlomo Zalman Aurbach (Minchas Shlomo 1:9 anaf beis 1; shmerias Shabbos K’hilchasa 34:28; shu’t Beur Moshe 1:17) felt that the adjusting of the volume on electrical devices –so long as no new current is created, rather an existing one is being raised or lowered –is allowed. One’s personal rav should be consulted before acting on this last paragraph.
As far as going into a reshus harabim with a hearing aid or CI, in this writer’s humble view, because of issues of danger (going out in the street, etc.) this matter should not be publicly addressed only to say, “It is allowed”. The reader is directed to Rabbi Elysha Sandler’s excellent article in Journal of Halacha & Contemporary Society, XLI; Spring 2001 – Pesach 5761, “The Use of Hearing Aids on Shabbat”, as well as Toras HaCheresh, by Rabbi Shuchatowitz (NCSY, 2002) where this last issue, as well as several others that relate to Shabbos, are discussed in greater detail.
In this last section we covered only issues that relate to orach chaim that effect either a cheresh-medaber or a medaber with a working hearing device. There are as well a host of other concerns relating to marriage, gittin, and monetary law as they relate to today’s cheresh-medaber.
Conclusion: As can be seen by this short monograph the laws of a cheresh, cheresh-medaber, eleim-sh’shomea and all the cases in-between are vast, highly confounding, and touch upon virtually every siman in the Shulchan Aruch. Precisely because of developments in the field of deaf education and the advancement, b’chasdei Hashem, of the deaf and hard-of-hearing in daily life, we must work to discover greater tools to include them under the common wings of halacha whenever possible.
I would like to end this monograph with a most exquisite idea from Rav Chaim Shmuelevitz (Sichos Mussar 5731 #32). Although a disability, deafness does have advantages. The gemera (Sota 13a) teaches that when Eisav came to the maaros hamachpela during the burial of his brother Yaakov he claimed the right of the firstborn as still belonging to him. A quarrel ensued until Chushim Ben Dan beheaded his uncle Eisav. Rabbi Chaim Shmuelevitz asks: Where were the rest of the shevatim and their children? Why did only Chushim act? Rav Chaim explains that we all have a natural and surreptitious ability to slowly adapt to any situation; the ‘normative power of the actual’. Eisav came, the conversation progressed, and in time they found themselves arguing about something that was agreed upon decades ago. It became their new normal. But Chushim was deaf. He was therefore not privy to the goings on that led up to the heated argument. When he asked what was transpiring he was able to receive all the information in one fell swoop, with no time to slowly adapt to it. This is why only he had the moral clarity to do something.
Everyone in klal yisroel has their role and their deficiencies. Let us all come to terms with our own and use them to benefit others. May we soon be zocheh soon to the promise of Yishayahu (35:5-6): “The eyes of the blind shall be clear-sighted, and the ears of the deaf shall be opened…the lame shall leap as the hart, and the tongue of the dumb shall sing.”
This article is humbly dedicated to the bachurim and rebbeim of Yeshivas Nefesh Dovid – a yeshiva for the deaf and hard-of-hearing.
NOTES:
[1] Yeshivas Nefesh Dovid in Toronto is the first yeshiva geared solely to deaf and hard-of-hearing male students from around the globe. It was my shabbos spent with one their students that inspired this article. My wife told me that she witnessed our guest utilizing Skype (the teleconference program) by having an intense study session with his Rosh Yeshiva, Rabbi Kakon, in only sign language (the sound was broken on our computer). “There was no sound but the Kol Torah shook the house”, she said.
[2] “The Jews’ Deaf and Dumb Home” in London; opened in 1865.
[4] “Israel Deaf & Mute Institute”; opened in Budapest in 1876. Some 65% percent of their students were killed at the hands of the Nazis y’s (jdcc.org).
[5] See below for how this gemera relates to genetics and deafness.
[6] However, it can be argued (based on Gittin 71a) that in all these cases these deaf individuals once had the ability to hear, which allowed them to learn skills of writing and reading, and only subsequently became deaf.
[7] I was recently given a gift of a sefer dedicated to left-handedness in Halacha, Dinei Itur, a sefer which I very much enjoyed.
[8] I have heard from deaf parents that their non-deaf children are having a difficult time finding marriage partners due to the fear that their parents’ deafness is indicative of some familial genetic marker for deafness. This although, in many cases, the family has letters signed by doctors that the deafness of the parent(s) is not due to an underlying genetic factor. It is estimated that genetics plays a role in about 30%-50% of childhood deaf cases and it can be determined if one’s deafness is due to a genetic marker or not (“Understanding the Genetics of Deafness” by Harvard Medical School of Hereditary Deafness. Available online at: http://hearing.harvard.edu/info/GeneticDeafnessBookletV2.pdf.). Chazal allude to the role genetics can play in causing deafness in Chagiga 3a: “Two mutes living in Rebbe’s area who were either the sons of the daughter of Rabbi Yochanan Ben Gudgada (his grandchildren) or the sons of his sister (his nephews) would make sure to sit in front of Rebbe when he would enter the study-hall to lecture…”. This is the same Rabbi Yochanan Ben Gugada mentioned above (Tosephta Terumos, 1) whose sons were deaf, suggesting either remarkable coincidence or an allusion to genetics playing a role by deafness and muteness. Even more, it would seem that his nephews’ muteness was likely related to severe cases of hardness-of-hearing as the gemera itself seems to indicate when it informs us that his nephews would make sure to sit in from ofRebbewhen he would teach, which if they were simply mute would not be an understandable action, and certainly would not warrant being a detail mentioned in the gemera (cf. Ein Yaakov and B’Einei Yitzchak ad loc. and Maharsha to Eruvin 13a who offer different solutions to this problem). Indeed, many commentators wonder (e.g. Iyun Yaakov, see Schottensntein Talmud ad loc footnote 7) why the lineage of these two mutes had to have been mentioned at all, as it seems to add nothing to the events and the lesson to be derived from it. However, it can be suggested that the gemera went out of its way to mention their pedigree to allude to this issue of genetics and deafness. See also Yevamus 64b regarding Hemophilia and genetics. See as well the article, “Judaism, Genetic Screening and Genetic Therapy”, by Dr. Fred Rosner.
[9] See Igros Moshe y’d 4:49:2 where he briefly states that such a cheresh should nevertheless see to fulfill mtzvos for “it is not appropriate for one to permit action for themselves with the excuse that the Torah allows it”.
[10] That this law is a direct mesorah would be challenged by the views of R. Eliezer, and more so R. Yehudah, who argue on it, see TosephtaTerumos 1:1, 1:2.
[11]Rav Bartenurah; Rambam, peirush hamishnoyos, Terumos 1:2, something that today is possible through the relatively new, and still evolving field of ‘Oralism’.
[16] As quoted by Dr. Steinberg, ad loc. footnote [58].
[17] Based on Gittin 71a. See Encyclopidia Talmudis, erach Cheresh, column 496 and footnotes 30-37.
[18] Dr. Steinberg, ad loc. column 540 in the name of the Pri Megadim, Kolleles 2:1. See also Magid Mishneh,Hilchos Shabbos 20:7. It has been difficult for this writer to understand these arguments for the proofs brought (e.g. Shabbos 153a with Tosphos s.v. ‘Mi’) seem to either relate specifically to hilchos shabbos where there is a unique obligation of rest even for one’s animals (l’havdil), or, to a katan (see Rambam end of hilchos meachelos assuros as mentioned in Maggis Mishneh ad loc.) where there is a specific obligation of chinuch. The latter would seem to apply little to a cheresh. Indeed the Minchas Chinuch rules (5:2 s.v. V’henay) that there is no obligation of chinuch for a cheresh. It would then seem that the Beis Yoseph and the Pri Megadim, who rule that one cannot feed a cheresh treif would, perforce, need to disagree with the Minchas Chinuch and indeed obligate a father to be michanech a child who is a cheresh. I have since found that the Pri Megadim does in fact explicitly state that there is a chinuch obligation for a cheresh (ad loc 2:9). However while Dr. Steinberg brings both views regarding the chinuch of a cheresh (ad loc. column 542 with footnotes # [70], [71]), he brings only the negative view regarding feeding a cheresh prohibited matter, while as explained, these two issues should be seen as necessarily tied to one another.
[19] See also Igros Moshe 4:41:2 who writes that a true cheresh must still seek to abide by the Torah.
[20]Minchas Shlomo ad loc. based on the Rambam hilchos melachim 10:2.
[24]Misheneh Berrura,siman 37:12. See also shu’t Tzitz Eliezer 15:32:2.Cf. Magen Avraham,siman 282:6 and Hagoas Rav Akiva Eiger ad loc.
[25]Rama eh’e 1:6. In fact, One the purposes of this monograph is to allow modern-day cherashim to no longer be viewed (by some) – as one deaf person put it to me – like “specimens”, and instead as common members of the klal who happen to have, at times, unique halachos applied to them, just like we find by an onnein or a doctor.
(EDITORS, I CAN’T SEE TO REMOVE THIS THICK LINE UNDERNEATH, I Apologize)
[26]Igros Moshe y’d 4:1:25 and reiterated in 4:49:1.
[28] The question was in regard to the nidda inspections of a cheresh and if she is trusted to do it herself. On page 71 of the English section Rabbi Eider writes, quoting Rabbi Feinstein as his source, “There is a view that holds that a deaf-mute, although she is capable of communicating intelligently, may not perform her own examinations”. He could only be referring to sign language as indicated by his question posed to Rabbi Feinstein printed along with his response.
[29] Amazingly, in a later Teshuva (y’d 4:49:5) to his grandson, Rabbi Feinstein allows such a cherashah to do her own examinations so long as her husband trusts her; suggesting a pragmatic approach even to true cherashim.
[31] See Shevet Sefer eh’e 21 s.v. “vroesy” where he begins to say that sign language does not change the status of a cheresh but ends in doubt. His writes that his father too was not sure how to view them. He therefore suggests that they should be stringent in mitzvos. See also shu’t Beis Shlomo oh’c 95; Divrei Malkiel 6:35, both as brought in sefer Hilchos Gerim page 117 footnote 44, where, based on these sources, the author rules that such cherashim may be accepted as geirim. It is unclear if according to these views, as cited, one can lchatchila make a beracha or pray using sign language; or fulfill the obligation of another (who also understands it) through such communicative gestures. One is always advised to look up all such teshuvos brought down in likkutim; in this article as well, nothing should be relied upon until one goes through the material for themselves to see if this writer faithfully explained them.
[32] Rav Yechiel Yaakov Weinberg writing in Shana B’shana 5725 seems reluctant to rely on any scientific standards of assessing pikchus. See also shu’t Tzemech Tzedeck 77 and Nishmat Avraham Volume 1, page 27.However, a logical proof can be brought from chazal that would seem to indicate against both viewing sign language as a language (or talking) and against judging a true cheresh pragmatically: The mishneh (Yevamus 112a) rules that a cheresh may marry through remizah, which Rashi explains as hand motions. The gemera 112b explains that although biblically they are patur from all mitzvos and that in reality such a kinyan should be of no value, for the benefit of society it was allowed. This would mean, it would seem, that generally sign language is insignificant, and one’s ability to ‘understand’ is not judged on a case-by-case basis, otherwise we would not need this special takana for martial matters.
[33] See also Ben Ish Chay, Chukas #8 and the Chida as brought in the Shaarei Teshuva ad loc.
[34] e.g. see the birkei yosef (siman 104:2) who rules that although one cannot motion during shemoneh esreh, if children are disturbing one’s davening it is better to motion than to silence them verbally.See also shu’t Be’er Moshe 3:13.
[35] Lord Jakobowitz writes in his groundbreaking “Jewish Medical Ethics” (page 336, footnote 180): “ The legal disabilities of the deaf and dumb are entirely due to the mental dementia resulting from their inability to communicate audibly with their environment. But in view of the modern advancement in the treatment of such cases, it has been suggested that their religious and legal status may now be modified…”
[36] See Toras HaCheresh [a focus on hearing devices on shabbos], page 5, by R. Mordechai Shuchatowitz, published by NCSY in 2002 for their deaf youth division.
[37] See Tradition, Spring 2009, “Survey of Recent Halachik Literature”, by Rabbi Bleich where he briefly discusses the question of a Halachik distinction between CI and standard hearing aids. He quotes, and then disagrees with, the view of Dr. Israel Brema (found in Techumim 5764) who argues, like Rabbi Shucatowitz above, that because CI works without a microphone it should be more affective halachikly. Neither Dr. Brema in his argument nor Rabbi Bleich in his dissent mention that indeed CI begins its process with amplified sound. Indeed Rabbi Bleich himself writes, “The crucial Halachik difference between a hearing aid and a cochlear implant is that the latter does not transform electrical current into amplified sound waves”.
[38] It should be noted that, today, there are several different types of microphones, some of which, like fiber optic microphones, compare little to the classic devices. Research needs to be done to see if Rav Shlomo Zalman’s analysis is true by these as well.
[39]Eh’e, 3:33; written in 1971, a fact that will become important in the forthcoming paragraph.
[41] Ad loc., in the beginning where Rabbi Feinstein describes the case that was posed to him.
[42] Rabbi Feinstien however does rule, in accordance with Rambam (hilchos mechira 29:22), that although viewed as a medaber and obligated in mitzvos, he does not have the ability to sell land.
[43]Igros Moshe oh’c 2:108. See also Igros Moshe 4:91:4 where he permits listening to havdala over a telephone in cases of need.
[44] While the Teshuva in chelek 2 does not have a date one can assume, based on it being in an earlier book, and by the dates of the teshuvos before and after, that it was written around 1945. However, there are occasions in the Igros Moshe where earlier teshuvos are printed in later books and visa versa. See for instance his teshuvos on the temperature at which grape juice must be cooked in order to view it as mevushul. This writer was once in a Welch’s grape juice factory for a special kosher run for the Buffalo Vaad HaKashrus (BVK) when it was pointed out that their temperature gage on their pasteurizer was broken and would not go past 168 Fahrenheit. Having to choose between these differing teshuvos, it seemed to make sense to follow that “later” one, until it was determined that the Teshuva printed in the later volume was in fact the earlier one!
[46] E.g. Teshuvos Venhagos 1:101; Minchas Shlomo 1:9 brought below.
[47]Igros Moshe 2:85 after forbidding the use of microphones on Shabbos, was asked about hearing aids which he admits are the same thing –although he allows the latter for reasons that are specific to Shabbos law. See however Nishmat Shabbos 3:360, as mentioned in footnote 52 of Rabbi Elysah Sandler’s article in JHCS, where the Satmer Rebbe is quoted as making the distinction between the two by suggesting that the poskim who forbade microphones on shabbos and (to generally fulfill mitzvos through them) was a response, primarily, to the reform movement, therefore hearing aids would not be a concern. However, this would help little to answer the discrepancy in Rabbi Feinstein’s resposna 1) because, as pointed out in the beginning of this footnote, Rabbi Feinstein himself draws a parallel between hearing aids and microphones 2) the Satmer Rebbe’s theory would only be viable should we find one ruling less stringently by hearing aids, not more, which is what Rabbi Feinstein seems to do regarding fulfilling general mitzvos through them.
[48] See Rav Howard Shachter’s wonderful ‘Grey Matter’ and the chapter titled “Fulfilling Mitzvot Through Hearing Devices”; Rabbis Tendler and Rosner in The Journal Of Contemporary Halacha Fall 1991, “The Physically and Mentally Disabled”, footnote 17.
[49] See Encylopidia Refoit ad loc. footnote [386] who quotes the Teshuva regarding hearing aids (eh’e 3:33) as proof that Rabbi Feinstein would not accept them as vehicle through wich to hear the megilla. This although the two other teshuvos speak directly to that issue.
[50] In that footnote, Dr. Steinberg lists Rabbi Feinstein together with Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Aurbach (see next section) as being among those who do not perceive hearing devices as affecting Halachik shmia and that a modern-day cheresh would then not be able to listen to, say, megilla through it.
[52] See Rabbi Frank’s Mikroei Kodesh, purim #27 and Rabbi Weiss’s shu’t Minchas Yitzchak ad loc.
[53] Although assertive in his language, he ends the letter with “tzorech iyun b’zeh” (further study relating to this is required).
[54] However, see shu’t Halachos Ketanos 276 where no distinction is made between Shofar and other mitzvos, all requiring hearing the initial sound. See Tzitz Eliezer 8:11:7 where he explains the intent of this Teshuva of the Halachos Ketanos.
[55] Based on the logic that the sound being heard was generated first by the original speaker.
[56] See Igros Moshe oh’c 2:108, mentioned above, where he too flirts with viewing microphones the same way. See however Igros Moshe quoted above. See Rabbi Howard Jachter’s thorough article on this issue on his ‘Grey Matter’.
[63]Eh’e 3:33. Like with Rabbi Feinstein, it is possible to solve this contradiction if we can come up with some distinction between hearings aids and microphones. See above footnote 38.
[64] See also shu’t Divrei Chaim eh’e 72 and 73, where the Sanzerrav also views modern-day cherashim as pikchim.
[65] Specifically by one who was born deaf. When the Talmud discussed one who is deaf but could talk Rashi often makes the point that this is due to his becoming deaf later in life. See Rashi, Chagiga 2b.
[66] see Mishne Berura, siman 589:13 that, at least regarding a mechanical hearing aid, one still fulfills this mitzvah; see also the always extraordinary Piskei Teshuvos 489:3).
[68] Written in his commentary to the mishneh, Rosh Hashana 29a. His ruling is based on a novel reading of this mishneh which otherwise seems to clearly state that a cheresh has no mitzvah if shofar.
[71] See Rama in his introduction to Toras Chatas where he explains that when appropriately following a bdieved it is “Ki Heter Gamur Aliba D’Hilchasa”. The concept of bdieved can be, and often is, easily misunderstood and it might be worthwhile to point out its function: When something is allowed, or deemed mutar in a bdieved situation this does not mean that due to a tzorech godel or monetary loss we allow something that is essentially forbidden, due to its anyway being rabbinic in nature, or the like. Rather, by a rabbinical law (and even a biblical one together with other mitigating factors) if there is already a view that allows a certain action or inaction lchatchila yet, for whatever reason, this view is not seen as normative, then one can rely on this view in certain cases, like monetary loss – this is called bdieved (Marharsham, in Daas Torah, hilchos treifos 38 –see Taz 688:5; Shach y’d 54:9 and 242:5; Pri Megadim seder hanhagos oh’c 1:9 and klallim l’horoas #6; see Chayay Moshe on yoreh deah pages 266-274). The Rama states even further (ad loc.) that any time he writes “b’mokom hephsed” or “lkavod Shabbos” (to allow something bdeived) he means to say a) like we stated above, that such a view must already exist b) that we in fact follow this lenient opinion and are only stringent in most cases like the stricter views. This means that a bdeieved is simply a fallback to normative law. As the Rama writes, in such cases of need “Yesh Lehaamid Davar Al Dino”. Similar views are expressed by the Ralbach in Get Pashut, klallim 6, and the Aruch Hashulchany’d 242:64. For this reason some (e.g. the Chazon Ish) limit a bdieved and warn not to follow a singular opinion in times of dchak that goes against the Shulchan Aruch (y’d 150:4). Cf. shu’t Chasam Sofer oh’c 59, but see eh’e 2:71 s.v. ‘V’henay’. See also sefer Meishiv K’Halacha page 196 footnote 79 and Sdei Chemed 4:59-61; shu’t Rashba 253.
[72] Inferred from Rama siman 46:8; Magen Avraham ad loc.; Kaf Hachaim uses the same reasoning in the name of the Arizal; Shulchan Aruch HaRav; Mishneh Berura, who suggests, in the name of the Chayay Adam that he wait until sunrise to recite this beracha.
[73]Igros Moshe y’d 4:41:6; Shu’t Teshuvos V’Hanhogos 1:155; Siddur Beis Yaakov; Pri Megadim, siman 139 M.Z. 2; Cf. Minchas Shlomo 1:34, although being that the latter’s concern was about understanding his words, even he would agree that in cases where this is not a fear that there is no concern.
[78] See also Shulchan Aruch HaRav hilchos talmud Torah, 2 that one does not even have to understand Torah Sh’bKsav to warrant reward; see Gevura Yitzchak from Rabbi Yitzchak Sorotzkin where he draws a distinction between krias haTorah which one fulfills even if they do not understand it and mitzvos Hakhel where there is an obligation to hear and understand based on the verse (Devarim 31:12) “…so that they will hear and so that they will learn” and therefore excludes a cheresh. This view is strengthened by the view that Moshe Rabbeinu’stakana for thrice weekly Torah readings is not an obligation on each individual, rather on the tzibbur, which would mean that the halachik rules of shomea k’oneh are not activated. For this reason even hearing krias haTorah through a microphone would not be a concern either, see Piskei Teshuvos 135; shu’t Teshuvos V’Hanhagos 1:55.
[80] See Avnei Nezer oh’c 439 and Kovetz HaOros 48:14 if an onness can still be viewed as bar-chayuva in order to be motzi others. See Chavtzalus HaShurin, Shmos, page 93-95; Shalmei Toda, Purim page 164.
[81] Although even these opinions do not recommend doing this.
[83] Rav Levi Yizchak Halperin of the Institute of Science and Halacha, in a statement issued in 1996 and quoted in Toras Hacheresh footnote #5, posits that cochlear implants are no different than hearing aids as they relate to Shabbos.
This year during the week leading into Rosh Chodesh Iyar, we had a wedding every night. On the night of 2 Iyar—a night of Sefirah thateveryone keeps whether they observe the first or second half—we had to rush because the rosh yeshivah who was the mesader kiddushin had said it was important that the chuppah be completed before shekiah.
As we were parking, my wife asked, “Do you remember chasunos taking place during the first half of Sefirah when we were growing up?”
I had to admit that I did not. In fact, most readers will remember that it was unusual for weddings to take place from Pesach to Lag BaOmer.
“The reason for this change seems obvious,” my wife continued thoughtfully. “We simply no longer have a choice! BaruchHashem, the klal has grown so much that wedding halls aren’t easily available. That’s probably the reason people make weddings now on dates that are technically muttar, although we avoided it in the past.” (See shu”t Chasam Sofer 142, shu”t Igros Moshe 1:159, Halichos Shlomo 11:19, inter alia, regarding this issue and whether guests may attend such a wedding when their minhag is different.)
Before Pesach, a member of my shul was preparing for his daughter’s chasunah, which was to take place on the last day of Nisan leading into the first night of Rosh Chodesh Iyar. The chasan’s rosh yeshivah advised that since both sides customarily kept the first half of Sefirah, everyone in the immediate family should do hataras nedarim so that this year they could keep the second half. My congregant wanted to know if I agreed with this psak. (For all the rabbanim out there, there is no reason to give an opinion in such a case when a psak has already been issued, and there is already enough stress among families making a wedding—so just agree!)
Halves?
Aside from all the sh’eilos that arise over the observance of Sefirah, there is an even more basic question—why is Sefirah divided into “halves” to begin with? Just imagine how you would react if a friend asked you, “Are you keeping the first or second half of Pesach?” Ridiculous!
There are those whose custom it is to observe the entire period of aveilus, from Pesach until Shavuos (excepting some dates; see Bein Pesach L’Shavuos, p. 231, with footnotes #29-31). But most of us keep one half or the other. How did the concept of halves come about?
As the era of the Geonim was ending and that of the Rishonim was about to begin, Rav Hai Gaon (d. 1038) was asked why the community did not make weddings at some points between Pesach and Shavuos. He responded that this was an accepted minhag based on Chazal (Yevamos 62b), who teach that all of Rabi Akiva’s students died then, and because of this tragedy, we do not hold joyous events during this period (Teshuvos Hageonim, Otzar Hageonim, Yevamos, chelek teshuvos; see also OtzarHageonim, Yevamos ad loc., siman 327, and Hilchos Sefiras HaOmerMaharitz Giyos, Tzember Ed., p. 26, et al.; see Bein Pesach L’Shavuos, p. 219, note #7).
Later, people adopted other customs related to mourning, such as not having one’s hair cut, during this time (see Tur, siman 493, “yesh mekomos shanahagu lo l’histaper”; see Bachand Beis Yosef ad loc., explaining that everyone eventually accepted this chumrah).
The Shulchan Aruch tells us that these customs of mourning are observed from Pesach through the beginning of the 34th day of the Omer. The Rema disagrees, ruling that the mourning period lasts only through the 33rd of the Omer.
The Chofetz Chaim explains the history of this debate, as well as the history of the two halves of Sefirah (BiurHalachah,s.v. “yeish nohagim”).
The Shulchan Aruch and the Rema agree with the view of a midrash that Rabi Akiva’s students died for either 33 or 34 days straight. For this mourning period, we apply the concept of miktzas yom k’kulo, shortening the last day of the period. This is the same principle that allows us to end a shivah on the morning of the seventh day.
Based on this Rema, the idea of Lag BaOmer now makes perfect sense. Since the deaths continued through the 33rd day, we mourn during these days, which constitute the first half of Sefirah, and on the last day we end the mourning early.
However, continues the Biur Halachah, there is another view—that of Tosfos. They argue that these students did not die for 33 or 34 days in a row but that they died sporadically during Sefirah on days when Tachanun would have been recited. In fact, if one subtracts every Shabbos, Rosh Chodesh, and the days of Chol Hamoed from the 49 days of Sefirah—days when Tachanun would be omitted—we are left with exactly 33 days when the talmidim died.
Based on this, some accepted a consecutive period of 33 days of mourning during Sefirah, commonly observed from Rosh Chodesh Iyar until before Shavuos. This is what is called the “second half” of Sefirah.
Based on this second view, the Chofetz Chaim is mystified about what special quality Lag BaOmer holds. He concludes, “Perhaps, for whatever reason, [for those who keep the second half] they choose the 33rd day as their miktzas yom day.”
With these two views before us, there is some ambiguity about how to commemorate the mourning period for the talmidim of Rabi Akiva.
What to Do?
Even according to the first view, it is hard to understand the simchah of Lag BaOmer. Although it is true according to this view that it is the date when the mageifah ended, why celebrate when there were no students left to die? (See Pri Chadash.)
Others explain the day’s uniqueness differently—especially because, according to the second view, the talmidim continued to die after Lag BaOmer. They say the celebration is based on a mesorah that Rabi Shimon bar Yochai died on this date, or that he revealed the Zohar on that day.
In response to this, the Chasam Sofer famously asks why we celebrate on the yahrtzeit of a leader (shu”t 232). What about 7 Adar, when Moshe died, and when the Torah was written (see Gittin 60)? (Of course, many answers have been offered to the questions of both the Pri Chadash and the Chasam Sofer).
Ten years ago in this space, I offered my own approach to this special day, no matter which half of Sefirah one keeps. It starts with the fact that Lag BaOmer always falls on the 18th of Iyar.
Chazal state that the first day of the mabul in the time of Noach was the 17th of Iyar (RoshHashanah 11, opinion of Rav Yehoshua). According to many (see Sefer Hayashar, cf. Ibn Ezra) the flood waters killed everyone on the first day, meaning that the deaths had concluded by the 18th. Therefore, the 18th of Iyar is both the time when Noach saw his world destroyed and when Rabi Akiva saw his world and his yeshivah destroyed.
This date, then, represents forging ahead and creating a new world after destruction. That’s what Noach had to do, and that’s what Rabi Akiva had to do as well.
It is a date that symbolizes rising from the ashes and rebuilding, carrying on after loss.
Each Yom Kippur, As neilah draws near, the kehilla is made up of those both tired and exhilarated, hopeful and hungry.
A rav’s words leading into this moment – this days’ crescendo – will often be swift, to the point. His goal is to give but an extra assist, a sprinkle of ruach, and a boost of energy so we can make it to the finish line feeling that we made the most out of the now-waning Day.
For those rabbanim with an audience of mixed backgrounds, this task becomes more challenging. Perhaps its a story, a lesson, or a quick-yet-powerful vort.
Rav Yisroel Salanter once said that it is worth the hours of the rav’s time preparing short devar Torah…even if the only result will be that just this next teffila will be said with more kavana…even if only one member davens just this one teffila better…even if that one member is the rav himself!
Indeed, as I share with younger rabbanim: the person you must be seeking to enthuse is yourself so taht your words will be devarim hayotzim min halev.
Below are a sampling of just a few most recent pre-neilah thoughts; perhaps they will inspire the reader as much as they dis this writer.
Two Minutes
My first year as a rav, I was invited to speak at a 9/11 memorial. This was just a few years from that horrific day, and they excepted a crowd of about ten-thousand. I had an event prior, and by the time I arrived they needed a golfcart to assist me through a back alley and away from the crowd so I could quickly get to the dais. When I finally arrived to my seat, I noted the many leaders and politicians seated to my right and left, clearly indicating the many speaches to come or already missed. The organizer ran up to me, looked at his chart, and whisprered: “Ok, rabbi. You’re speaking…say, two minutes. Is that ok?”.
I panicked. “In ‘Two minutes’!I haven’t yet had the chance to gather my thoughts. Perhaps someone who arrived earlier can go before me?” I requested.
“You misunderstood,” he explained, “you are on in a half an hour. I only meant that you have two minutes allotted for you speech.”
When I did get up to speak, I shared this exchange with the audience. “What could I possibly say or accomplish in two minutes? How can one encapsulate the pain and suffering that this day wrought on individuals, families and the world in a mere one-hundred-and twenty seconds?!
“However, if 9/11 has imparted to us but one message, it should be just that:, In ‘Two Minutes’ we can witness the world we knew crumble before us, changed forever.‘Two Minutes’ was all it took to observe the worst of humanity, and in those same ‘Two Minutes’ we saw humanity at its best -such as the last ‘Two Minute’ heroics of Flight 93, or in witnessing emergency service men and women choosing to rush toward danger whilst all others ran from it.
“All it takes is ‘Two Minutes’.
Neilah, is our ‘Two Minutes’, our kinyan olam habah b’shah achas, acquisition of the World to Come in one moment. What can be accomplished now, in these sacred, waning moments of rachamim shall not be lost in hunger nor abandoned in weakness. Chizku V’imtzu!
II. When To Scream
The Strikover rebbe shared the following story with Rav Shach, who would later often recount it to his students (source: Rav Schach on Chumash, p. 264-265).
A karliner chossid approached his rebbe and asked, “I will be in Vienna on business and will be davening with the Chorktover rebbe. Their minhag is to shout when they daven. Since I will be with them, should I daven in that same way?”
(The halachos of ‘makom shenohagu’-to not veer from local custom-is strict, and must be at least outwardly observed, unless, of course, it conflicts with more serious matters)
The Karlnier rebbe responded sharply: “This is no way to daven to the King of all kings! One should only have awe and speak with gentility when approaching Hashem! Such is our minhag, and so you should act even when among chorktoverchasidim.
That Shabbos in Vienna, he arrived to the Chorktovor shulprepared to followhis rebbe’s direction, and althoughtheir davening was beautiful, this chossid still maintained his custom and softer method of davening. But then came the striking teffila of nishmas. Its lofty meaning fused with the loud voices surrounding him pierced his soul. Without thinking he began to cry-out along with them.
He was shocked at himself for disobeying his rebbe, and upon his return begged him forgiveness.
“Why are you apologizing? Don’t chazal share (see, e.g. Devarim Rabba, V’eschanan) that ‘tze’aka-crying out’ is one of the ten forms of teffila!”
The chossid was confused by these mixed messages. “But the rebbe told me when I initially approached him not to daven in such a way…”
The rebbe smiled and explained: “When a yid approaches me in the middle of the week sharing his ‘plan’ to cry to Hashem on Shabbos, I then share that this is not the most appropriate way to daven. However, it is when one is so cut-up in emotion, tefilah, ruach, and dveykus -when the damn of one’s heart naturally breaks on its own accord -when one can’t help but cry –that is when it is worthy!”
The nimshal to neilah is clear.
III. Leaps and Bounds
On the morning of July 16, 1969, three astronauts sat atop Saturn V at Launch Complex 39A at the Kennedy Space Center, where 7.5 million pounds of thrust would soon propel them ‘upward’. Four days later, at 10:56 p.m. EDT, Neil Armstrong stepped on the moon and says what may be the famous quote ever spoken in human history:
“That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”
While a well-known quote, it is also inaccurate!
The audio had cut out, and what he actually said became slightly altered:
“That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.”
He was not talking about all of humanity his statement. Rather, he was declaring to the world that an action of but one person can influence all of society.
(Many sefarim and Torah articles were published after the moon landing, discussing its many halachic, hashkafic, and kabbalastic ramifications. The interested reader should see, specifically, Rav Manecham Kasher’s ‘Adam al HaYareiach’)
Most of us will not become astronauts, not in the physical sense at least. Yetour sefarim so often talk about how those who struggle-and-nevertheless succeed in our present dor are as holy as was Avraham. We can pierce the heavens in one step.
And not just for that individual.
Each step, even one, and even if small, and even if only by one person, is a giant leap for Klal Yisroel.
Chazal share the mashal of the capsizing boat. The captain searches and finally discovers the source of the breach, coming from a passenger drilling a hole in his room. “What are you doing! You will sink us all!” the captain yells.
Perplexed, the guest responds, “What are you talking about? I paid for this room! What’s it your business what I do therein?”
Every step that each individual takes effects all of us. Let’s us make those steps, however small, toward sheleimus.
IV. Space and Time
The Chofetz Chaim once shared how life is akin to a post card.
He explained –and anyone who is have written a post card will relate –that when one begins to write on the back he opens with BIG LETTERS. “Hi! HOW ARE YOU! PARIS IS GREAT…” But as they go on, they realize they have more and more to say.
The letters therefore get smaller and smaller, until by the end one can hardly make-out the words, they are so tiny.
Such is life, explained the Chofetz Chaim. We often spend our youth thinking that we have all the time in the world. We may waste whole days, blocks of weeks, and even entire seasons of our lives – hitting the proverbial ‘snooze button’ over and over again. But then, in time, we will begin to feel the full weight of the sands of time lost, as well as the steady rush of its still-falling grains. We anxiously react by playing catchup, fitting in as much as we can in the short time left.
Perhaps the same concept is fitting for this time of year as well. We all know we have to improve our ways-to Gd, to people, to family. We push it off, getting to it ‘later’. Before we know it, elul rolls around and we realize how much time had been wasted how little time we have left to make up out lost learning, lost relationships. So, we begin to repent, change and plead to Hashem.
Time marches on, getting shorter and shorter still, and we still have so much to improve- after all, how much can we change in a month, or the week of aseres yimei teshuva?
Neila, then, is the last line we have left our post cards.
We have one line left, one hour, lets make the best of it!
V. Sometimes. Maybe.
One of the most published talmideichachamim today is Rav Zilberstein. A gaon, he is also most original with his sources and ideas. His talmidim have put together his shiurim in any number of sefarim.
A few years ago ago I was in Monsey for Shabbos when I decided after the morning seudah to go to an early mincha in someone’s home. On their table was Artscroll’s ‘Aleinu L’Shabeach’, a translated set of Rav Zilberstein’s ideas, arranged on each parsha. I opened to a random page and read the following short story:
When Rav Zilberstin was a little boy, he and all of his friends would marvel at all the tzadikim in Yerushalim (imagine growing up there, then!).
However, there was one tzadik in particular that he and his friends were particularly obsessed with: The great Rav Aryeh Levin, known as the tzadik of Yerushalim.
One day, he and his friends ran over to Rav Levin and bravely asked him. “Are you from the lamed vav tzadikim” (while the idea of thirty-six tzadikim in each generation is from chazal –the notion they are or must be hidden doesn’t not have a source known to me).
Most would assume that a tzadik like Rav Levin would shudder at just the mere suggestion of these children.
Instead, Rav Levin stopped in his tracks, looked at the children, closed his eyes, and thought for a long moment.
They waited with anticipation, until he looked up and replied to these youngsters:
“Maybe”.
Then he paused, thought some more and said:
“Sometimes”.
I was struck by this story.
‘Maybe. Sometimes’
This mix of modesty and honesty, of motivation and sincerity, is indeed what made him a tzadik, and the ingredients for which we must all strive.
He recognized that maybe, just maybe, he too was meant to be great! More, he knew that this does not mean had never fallen down, or will again.
For us to become tzadikim, to chap the power of neilah, we too need these two elements, of ‘Maybe. Sometimes’.
We CAN do it, and, that mistakes/slips do not negate that.
When I learn with bar mitzvah boys I always stress the importance of teffila. “Never miss the three teffilos a day”.
Always adding: “However, and more importantly, if you do miss a teffila, or even more than one, don’t let the yetzterhara tell you to throw it all away. Get back on track again, pick yourself off the ground.
We slip, we fall – sometimes.
But we get back up, because we are all meant to be great – maybe.
Maybe I can change.
Sometimes I will slip –but that does not change how special we can still become.
Austrian physicist Wolfgang Pauli, one of the pioneers of Quantum Physics, was famous for his lack of patience for any bad ideas.
Some students once approached Pauli with a paper written by a young physicist that was so awful that they was curious how the abrasive Pauli would respond.
Pauli read it and then looked up and said in his native German: “Das ist nicht nur nicht richtig; es ist nicht einmal falsch!“.
“That is not only not right; it is not even wrong”
That is not even wrong! Amazing!
When we think negatively about ourselves, when we consider we are not meant to be a gadol, even if just sometimes, or we consider ourselves unworthy of improving in awesome ways -we are so off the mark that we are not even wrong!
I will bl”n share some other pre-Neila drashos in a part 2, iy”H.
When I was growing up, my family would bake our own hand matzos at the Shatzer matzo bakery in Kensington, NY. Because of this, the sight of machine matzos seemed foreign to my young eyes.
If this was true about little me, imagine the reaction 150 years ago–when machine-matzos were first introduced and how alien they appeared to the Jews of that era.
Add to this the fact that the introduction of machine-matzos came at a precarious time, both socially and religiously. The aftereffects of the Industrial Revolution were still being felt all over the world and, for the Jews, there was another revolution brewing: the Haskala and, to a greater extent, ‘Reformation’
There was ample reason for many to be suspicious of most innovation. The winds of change caused many Jews of that time to secure themselves with, and warm themselves in, the traditions of our past, even those with no clear basis in halacha.
Summing up the ethos of the time succinctly, the Chasam Sofer famously coined the well-known pun, “Chodash assur min haTorah” – innovation [a play on the prohibition of ‘chadash’] is biblically forbidden.
But what were the limits of innovation? Was anysocietal or technological innovation to be shunned? As Rav Eliezer Halevi Hurwitz rhetorically pondered (in the seferBitul Moda’ah):
“Should we, too, ban the new innovation for printing sefarim (i.e. the Gutenberg press)?!”
Yet, we indeed witnessed other small steps and minor innovations that gave birth to movements that led away from Torah. Reform, at first, desired certain changes, some of which seemed relatively not too controversial, yet the gedolim smelled danger as well as the certain encroachment on more serious halachah to come.
With this backdrop in mind, let us discover the story behind machine matzos and the resulting controversy.
I. The Birth and the Demand
(Most of the facts stated below without a given source are taken from the sefer Bitul Moda’ah by Rav Yosef Shaul Nathanson z’l, known as the Shoel U’Meishiv)
Although the heated controversy was 20 years away, this story really begins in Ribeauvillé, France in 1838 when the first matzo baking machine was invented by a Frenchman named Isaac Singer and approved by his local rabbis as well as rabbanim in Furth, then a major yeshiva center. By 1845 the new invention was in use in Germany (Frankfurt). Seven years later, in 1852, there was a machine matzo factory in Poland, in the city of Poznan (Posen). This is an important place and time, for the famed Rav Shlomo Eiger (son of Rav Akiva Eiger) was the rav in Posen until his death that same year. The Shoel U’Meishiv asserts that Rav Eiger was alive at the time and had authorized its kashrus for baking matzos.
By 1857 many of the major Jewish cities in Europe had adapted to machine-matzos. From London to Breslov to Pressberg (home of the Ksav Sofer) this innovation began to spread like wildfire. The main reason for the contagion is easy today to recognize: cost. The average hand matzo factory demanded twice the workers as a machine matzo facility would. The owners of these hand matzo bakeries explained to the Ksav Sofer that after recouping the money from their initial
investment in this new “machine”, the savings would be enormous, and the price of matzo would go down significantly. This would allow not only for cheaper matzos for the hamon am (average person) but would also help bring dignity to those who, up till now, had to rely upon kimcha d’pischa (moas chitim) in order to feed their families for Pesach; should he allow machine-matzos, they argued, then even the very poor would afford matzos! Beyond the economic concerns was –at least in Pressberg (see shu”t Ksav Sofer for further details) – a shortage of frum laborers, which in turn resulted in the hiring of non-Jewish workers. If this was not cause enough for concern, there were reports by the Krakow beis din that on occasion some workers were so tired that they only pantomimed the act of working the dough. But it gets even worse, as the working-hours at these bakeries were so exhausting that the Krakow beis din reported that there had been occasions where workers were caught sneaking bread sandwiches and the like into their mouths as they worked on the matzos!
As those familiar with geography can see from the above, this new innovation was spreading in an eastern direction. On this journey, in the years 1857 and 1858 it moved from Krakow 350 km east and entered Galicia, and the town of Lvov (Lemberg). It arrived with the haskamah from none other than Rav Yaakov Ettlinger – the Aruch L’ner- one of the leading lamdanim and rabbanim of his age.
This is when the main story begins.
II.Lvov & Krakow: The Birth of a Machlokes
The town of Lvov was lead for many years by Rav Ettinger (not to be confused with Rav Ettlinger, the Aruch L’ner). In that town lived a learnt a young man by the name of Yosef Shaul Nathanson. Together with the rav’s son, Mordechai Zev Ettinger, they studied the entirety of the yam shel talmud. They both went on to receive semicha, all the while learning with each other. They even published important sefarim together, including the oft-quoted Magen Gibburim (my colleague Rav Yirmiyah Milevsky pointed out that the Mishnah Berura quotes this sefer over 200 times!).
Rabbi Nathanson was so prodigious that he went on to marry the rav’s daughter, and when the rav passed away, his son, R’ Mordechai Zev, did not get the position; it went instead to Rabbi Nathanson, the rav’s son-in-law. Soon, Rav Nathanson had become one of the poskei hador. A prolific author, he is most known for his shu”t Shoel U’Meishiv. We will refer to him by that name for the remainder of this story.
This background will become important later in our story, but for now, notice that the year this new machine arrived in Lvov was the Shoel U’Meishiv’s first year into his tenure – 1857.
So back to the story…
Eruption
The machine arrived in Lvov in 1857. At first they tried to test the machine, but it was too cold. On the second try it worked. In addition to the many advantages to machine-matzos in the eyes of some – and listed above – some claimed that there was another advantage. There was another rav in Lvov by the name of Rabbi Simon Aryeh Schwabacher. Coming from Germany that same year and already used to machine-matzos he argued to the Shoel U’Meishiv that hand-matzos are dirty, as the workers do not wash their hands; therefore such matzos are ‘muktza machmas mius (forbidden to touch due to disgust)”!
We should point out that at this point in his life this Rabbi Schwabacher may have been reform, and he was likely a maskil, and indeed the Shoel U’Meishiv had to explain why he mentioned the points of this rabbi in his own defense of his psak.
(Rabbi Shwabacher left Lvov just three years after his arrival, in 1860, and assumed a rabbinic position in Odessa, Russia [now Ukraine] after once giving a Chanukah speech there in 1859 where he enthralled the audience. He died in Odessa 28 years later. Even during his tenure there, the progressives and conservatives, the frum and the reform were confused regarding whose side he most stood most for, although it
seems hard to argue that he was a reformer in the classic sense. He also corresponded with the Netziv and other great rabbanim. See ‘The Jews of Odessa: 1794-1881’, Steven Zipperstein, Stanford University Press)
In any event, for reasons known and unknown, the Shoel U’Meishiv approved the new adaption to machine-matzos.
That same year in Krakow their beis din also ruled to allow machine- made matzos.
Now is when things begin to get interesting.
There was a man in Krakow by the name of R. Chaim Dembitzer who was not at all happy about this new development of machine-matzos. While questions would soon surface whether he was really a rav –or a dayan, as he referred to himself – that reality is of no real consequence for he set out to gather letters from the great rabbanim of the time showing that the leaders of the Torah veldt forbade such matzo. Regardless of Dembitzer’s standing or goals, the facts remain that he did receive many responses from some of the great poskim of the time prohibiting machine-matzo.
In fact, R. Dembitzer published a book in Breslov in 1859 titled ‘Moda’ah L’Beis Yisroel’ (‘A Warning to the Jewish People’) where he records all of the responses he received.
Who were some of the gedolim who responded banning machine matzo? None other than the Gerrer rebbe (Chidushei HaRim), the Sanzer rebbe (Divrei Chaim), as well as one of the leading halachic authorities of the time, Rav Shlomo Kluger, the great rav of Brody.
There was also another rav who wrote a letter prohibiting machine matzo. In fact, this letter came from a posek living in the town of Lvov –where the Shoel U’Meishiv’s original allowance came from!
Who was this man? None other than Rav Mordechai Zev Ettinger, the Shoel U’Meishiv’s old chavrusa and brother-in-law!
While we do not know what went on in the Shoel U’Meishiv’s personal life, we could only imagine how uncomfortable his time in Lvov was becoming. There is strong evidence that a few years later (1862) he sought to leave Lvov, and accepted the position of rav in the town of Brisk – it was even made public. For reasons that are still unclear he never did take that position choosing instead to stay on in Lvov.
III. ‘Moda’ah L’Beis Yisroel’ The First Pamphlet:
What was the reasoning of these great men who disagreed with the Shoel U’Meishiv and prohibited machine matzo?
The arguments found in that pamphlet, written by Rav Kluger and others, ran the gamut from the intriguing to the very convincing. For instance, one of the fears (incidentally indicating that the old machine-matzos were once circular in shape and not square as they are today) was due to the following protocol: after the machine shaped the matzo into a square-shape, a worker would round it off so that it would be circular, taking the excess dough back and adding it to the other dough so it could be used in the next batch of matzos.
The fear was that in the meantime, the extra dough would have time to turn into chametz! Indeed, it is for this reason that machine matzos are all square today (so as to avoid cutting off extra dough), for even those who allowed machine-matzos accepted this argument.
However some now argued that the custom among klal yisroel for millennia was to have round matzo, and to change the shape to square was a problem onto itself!
Some went even further and challenged creating such an innovation in making matzos simply because it differed so radically from how we had been making matzos for thousands of years. Some went so far as asserting that this innovation came from German Jews who are known to appreciate innovation more so than their Galiztianer brethren.
That was not to be taken as a compliment to German Jews!
Some important rabbanim even suggested that the introduction of this machine was a surreptitious way to bring innovation among the charedim, for the reformers to get their foot in the door, as it were.
In addition, they pointed to serious questions relating to kavana (intent). The Shulchan Aruch (siman 460) rules that matzos have to be made by an adult, and that matzos for the seder must have specific intent. The Mishnah Berurah, for instance, rules (ad loc. # 3) that even to watch over a non-Jew would not help in this regard. This being the case, how could a machine have kavana?!
There were also concerns regarding the ability to clean the machine from all the dough that would become stuck in crevices, as well as other similar concerns.
Furthermore, as the matzos moved toward the oven there was a fear that the heat escaping would speed-up the chimutz process before the matzos are placed inside the oven.
A separate issue raised was the concern for all of the people who would lose their jobs making hand-matzos. One of the reasons, points out Rav Kluger, that the gemara gives for postponing the reading of the Megilla when Purim falls out on Shabbos is the concern that the poor people will not receive their matanos l’evyonim.
So we see, he argued, that we must be mindful of the poor when making community policy, and the fact that many would lose their parnassa (sustenance) with the advent of machine matzo factories is reason enough to ban them.
IV. The Shoel U’Meishiv Responds: The Second Pamphlet
That same year (1859), in response to ‘Moda’ah L’Beis Yisroel’, the Shoel U’Meishiv put out his own pamphlet, titled ‘Bitul Moda’ah’ (‘Nullifying the Warning’).
In it he responded to all the arguments against machine-matzos – pointing out that most of the gedolim who were recorded in the previous pamphlet never even saw these machines, rather they relied on testimony, and often this testimony concerned antiquated machines that didn’t represent the hiddurim made to them since their inception. As the Aruch L’ner, in reference to this debate, put it, “seeing is better than hearing”.
The Shoel U’Meishiv, together with the Krakow beis din, also demonstrated that R. Dembitzer might not have been who he claimed he was.
In fact, the Shoel U’Meishiv unflatteringly refers to him as ‘sheker haCheyN’ (false is grace), a play on the verse in mishlei and R. Dembitzer’s name, Chaim Nossan.
He also compiled letters from across Europe seeking support for his position. They included: the Ksav Sofer (see his teshuvos, Orach Chaim, hosofos 12), the Aruch L’ner, and the rav of Danzig, Rav Yisroel Lipshutz – the baal Tiferes Yisroel. The latter not only supported machine-matzos but wrote that it was he who requested such a machine be brought to Danzig, and that when he saw it he proclaimed the beracha ‘m’chadesh chadashim- bless be He who creates new things’!
As to the issue of the workers who would lose jobs, the Shoel U’Meishiv argued that there were other ways to help those individuals, and that this innovation would help far more people.
As for the issue of intent, he argued in strong words that the machine does not work on its own (comparing it to rolling pins, which, of course, don’t work on their own either) and since a Jewish adult is operating it there is no issue.
(Today these machines are far more advanced, see section below – Manischewitz, for instance, owns dozens of patents –and in addition they are not mechanical in nature but rather electrical, leading to issues beyond the scope of this brief monograph)
Regarding the issue of innovation, the Shoel U’Meishiv rhetorically asked whether it would also then be forbidden to ride a train.
The Aruch L’Ner also wrote in defense of innovation, as well as a vindication of German Jewry who are “upright” while also accepting “the innovations of men of science…for the purpose of observing mitzvos”.
Regarding the issue of requiring circular matzos, the Shoel U’Meishiv and others dismiss this out of hand. In fact some even suggest (based on beitza 22b, menachos 57a) that since many of the laws of matzo are learned from the lechem hapanim, which were square, square matzos are preferred!
IV. ‘The Shape’ Of Matzos –A Brief Aside
A) The Ibn Ezra (vayikra 2:4) and other rishonim debate the shape of the matzah used for some Korbanei Mincha; some say they were circular, while others say, square. I would posit that this would be a stronger comparison to our matzah than the Lechem HaPanim –as these minchas were non-chometzmatzos . Yet, as we see, even their shape remains an unsettled debate. (See Shaarei Aaron ad loc.)
B)U’Maivy Geulah L’Olam: On Parsha Bo 5786 (2026), we were vacationing in Miami. I brought the always fantastic Otzar Plios HaTorah which, sadly, I otherwise haven’t the time to peruse. To my sheer delight, on page 294, he offers a short treatment on why matzos have been round for centuries. We will bring down, in order, what he shares:
C) The term ‘Ugos‘ used by the initial matzah command (“…ugos matzos…”, shemos 12:39) is derived from the fact that these loaves were ‘Ugulos-Round’ (shu”t Yehuda Ya’aleh 1:157). This etymology is based on a Rashi to taanis (23a), menachos (94b), and moed kattan (4b). This same idea is found in the Ran (end of 3rd perek of taanis regarding Choni Ha’magel; HaRav Bartunera (taanis 3:8) and Tosfos Yom Tov (ad loc.). See also Rashi, chullin 41a in the mishneh.
D) After proving from this term its shape, Rav Asad explaining why this was to be its shape: Since matzah is to representlechem oni (the poor mans’ bread – devarim 16:3), roundness is symbolic of poverty, as alluded to by chazal (shabbos 151b) who describe poverty as a circle, or ball, that goes-and-returns to this world/family (based on devarim 15:1).
E) Another purpose behind the round shape, offers Rav Asad, is based on a midresh (Eicha Rabbah, pesichta #18) and a halacha (Shulchan Aruch, oh”ch 428:3), the first night of Pesach will fall on the same day of the week of that year’s Tisha B’Av. This is the source for the minhag brought in the Rema (ad loc.) to eat an egg by the Seder’s meal. Why an egg? When Avraham died, and Yaakov made – and then fed Eisav – ‘adashim‘, Rashi shares (bereishis 25:30) how eggs and certain legumes are symbolic of mourning – as they are round, without a ‘mouth’ (perhaps alluding to our muted response to tragedy), and, because they are circular. This shape alludes to death’s circular/repeated/always returning nature (ad bias goel) [this is similar to how chazal explained ‘aniyos-poverty’ above]. More, according to many, Avraham’s death and Yaakov’s meal in response was on erev Pesach. Since this is Avraham’s yartzeit, it becomes an additional intent when eating an egg by the seder (Pri Megadim 476, msh”z 3). For these reasons do we also round the seder’s matzah: to remind us of both our mournful state in galus, and, to commemorate a nation still in mourning since the death of its founder, Avraham.
F) The Mahari Asad further suggests a reason for our round matzos [already proved from his understanding of ‘Ugos’] by reminding us how the mitzrim would bake their bread either square-shaped or triangle-shaped, to allude to the duality in their godly beliefs R”l (I am unsure of his source for this -although it does give new insight into Hamantashen!). To counter this,bnei yisroel made their bread in Egypt circular -one entity, without a beginning or end, best representing the yichud (oneness) of Hashem!
G) The HaDarash V’Ha’Iyun, by Rav Aahron Levin, hy”d, proves from the same Ibn Ezra we brought above that our matzos are to be round.
H)In another of his sefarim (shu”t Avnei Cheifetz 34:4), Rav Levin offers an additional reason for round matzos: ‘Roundness’ is beloved by Hashem, which is why He fashioned the sun, earth, moon, inter alia in that shape. To celebrate this, we are to make our matzos round.
The Ksav Sofer also dismissed the square matzo concern by stating, “In the merit of the four-cornered matzos, may Hashem redeem us from the four corners of the earth”!
The Shoel U’Meishiv also expressed disappointment in the perceived motive behind his brother-in-law’s attack against his psak. However, from what I have seen, his brother-in-law’s letter was first written in 1856, several months before Lvov welcomed their new machine.
While the Shoel U’Meishiv wanted to avoid this issue turning into a Chasidim vs. Misnagdim debate, in many ways that is precisely what happened, largely due to the letters from the Sanzer and Gerrer rebbes. To this day almost no chasideshe branch uses machine-made matzo. However, whereas during the early days of this machlokes many did write of their concern that machine-matzo may contain real chometz, this is no longer a concern today even among chasidim (Nitei Gavriel in the name of the Klausenberger rebbe. See also shu”t Mishne Halachos 1:114).
Sadly the Jewish journalists of the 19th century got wind of this debate and began to pick sides as well as go beyond their breadth of ken by placing themselves between the heads of giants. Most notably was the Jewish newspaper ‘Hamagid’ –a largely haskalah leaning paper – who published derogatory articles about those who wanted to prohibit machine-matzos.
Due to their clear bias it is hard to know if some of the facts they cite are true. For instance, on March 9, 1859 Hamagid reported that the Shoel U’Meishiv was taken to court in Lvov where he had to prove that his pamphlet was not filled with lies, as was told to the censor by the advocates of the first pamphlet against machine-matzos. The Shoel U’Meishiv was able to convince the judge that nothing wrong or untrue was to be found in his book, reported Hamagid. A fantastic account…if proven true. Perhaps I am being too cynical.
There was also another individual who took to writing into various journals and newspapers in support of machine-matzos whilst attacking –in very strong words- Rav Shlomo Kluger. This fellow, R. Chaim Kara, would later write to the Gerrer rebbe explaining that at the time he had no idea who Rav Shlomo Kluger was (!) and had he known he would have spoken with more respect.
As we can see from all the above, the new innovation of machine- matzos led to a heated machlokes that shook the Torah world of its time.
So what do we take from all of this? On the one hand neither the Mishnah Berura nor the Aruch HaShulchan ever even mentioned machine matzo, on the other hand great poskim like Rav Shlomo Zalman Aurbach ate only machine-made matzo.
Well, the truth is we only told the first half of this story. Machine matzo continued to spread throughout the second half of the 19th century and into the 20th.
This innovation travelled south to Eretz Yisroel, and west to America, changing in design and concern with each passing decade.
That is a story unto itself, and just as fascinating.
Alas, it will have to wait till next year (see next section), when iy’H I will write a sequel to this article, and when Ami will hopefully be headquartered in Yerushalim Habenuyah, where we can all witness as Rav Shlmo Kluger and the holy rebbes of Europe sit together with the Shoel U’Meishiv and the Ksav Sofer as they argue their respective cases in front of Moshe rabbeinu, Rebbe Akiva, and Rav Yehudah HaNasi.
V. Where ‘Time Magazine’ Got it Wrong
Before we describe what happened next, let me share a recent discovery that highlights the sad reality of the initial machlokos and what was left in its wake.
In April of 2009 Time Magazine published a brief history of the ‘machine matzo debate’. They write:
“In 1959, a well-known Ukrainian rabbi named Solomon Kluger published an angry manifesto against machine-made matzo, while his brother-in-law, Rabbi Joseph Saul Nathenson, published a defense.”
In just this one sentence we find three major inaccuracies. (a) Their date is off by a hundred years (b) although quoted in it, Rav Kluger was not the one who published this sefer (c) they mistook Rav Kluger and Rav Nathenson as brother-in-laws!
How could they err so?
Perhaps this was due to the fact that there was a brother-in-law element to the story. In his younger days Rav Nathenson would study with his brother-in-law Rav Mordechai Zev Ettinger (not Rav Kluger!). The
two soon became a world-renown Torah-force to be reckoned with. They even published very popular sefarim together, including the important work ‘Magen Gibburim’, one of the most oft quoted sefarim in the Mishnah Berrura.
It was therefore a shock to many to discover that in ‘Moda’ah L’Beis Yisroel’ one of the rabbis who had written strongly against machine matzos and the ruling of Rav Nathenson was none other than Rav Ettinger!
Time Magazine was right that a brother-in-law was involved, they just got the wrong name.
But that is not even the central discovery I want to share; that was just its introduction.
A few moths ago I was looking something up in one of Rav Nathenson’s works (‘Divrei Shaul’, Bereishis/Shmos, vol. 2) when I noticed that near the end of the sefer a relative of his offers a brief biography of its author. He mentions that the family once wrote to Rav Nathenson asking if the rumors were true – that he and his brother-in- law, Rav Ettinger, had written a monumental work of responsa based on the questions they received while sitting together in the beis medresh.
This would indeed be an epic work, as I am unaware offhand of any sefer of shailos v’teshuvos written by a set of chavrusos!
Moreover, the book was to be called, ‘shu”t Sheves Achim’ (‘Responsa: Unity of Brothers’), a most appropriate title for such a unified holy venture.
Rav Nathenson responded to this query with a melancholy and revealing play-on-words, by stating that the ‘sheves achim’, the peace among brothers, no longer exists.
Machlokos does not just harm our relationships with each other, but has the power to even conceal Torah!1
1 One last point regarding the 19th century debate. Rav Shlomo Ahron Wertheimer of Yerushalaim (d. 1935) discovered that the 13th century rishon Meiri (in his ‘Magen Avos’) seemed to have described a process of matzo baking in his time that seems to portray a very crude type of matzo machine. He therefore posits that had gedolim against machine matzos been aware of this precedent they would have yielded to the Shoel U’Meishiv.
We should note however that many of the Meiri’s works were only discovered recently, and indeed Rav Wertheimer was a celebrated researcher of kisvei yad (manuscripts). While I have not yet been able to discover if this particular source in the Meiri was also a modern discovery, it should mentioned that if it was many would not feel obligated to it as Rav Moshe Feinstein and the Chazon Ish were very weary of modern finds –even from rishonim –influencing halacha. See this author’s forthcoming sefer on Chanukah (Chanukah: Mysteries and Histories -Mosaica Press) where this issue will be discussed at length, iy”H.
Rabbi Tzvi Yechezkel Michelson (hy’d; d. 1944), in a discussion about this machlokos, decides to end his treatment “…on a humorous note”.
He reports that Rav Shlomo Kluger and Rav Nathenson had many other communal needs to work on together. They had no choice but to move- on from the harsh arguments and words regarding machine matzos. It would seem they developed a positive attitude toward this once vitriolic debate. Once, Rav Kluger and Rav Nathenson came together to Vienna to meet with the Kaiser regarding a matter of communal import. Rav Kluger sent a request to an officer asking if they could meet that day, instead of waiting till the morning. The official explained that whatever they came for would have to wait till their scheduled meeting the next day with the Kaiser, as he is very busy and “not a machine”.
Rav Kluger smiled, turned to Rav Nathenson and said, “You see! Even in Vienne they stay away from machines!” (Shu”t ‘Tirosh VeYitzhar’, 1:188, end)
A similar story of humor being shared between disputants is told about Rav Moshe Feinstein and the Satmar rebbe. They famously debated on several sensitive matters of halacha. One of the more prominent issues that they disagreed upon was the purpose of a mechitza in a shul. The outcome of Rav Moshe’s understanding was that a valid mechitza need not be as high as what many may assume. The Satmar rebbe strongly disagreed.
It once happened that Rav Moshe and the Satmar rebbe were at a shiva house together. Sitting in front of the avel the Satmar rebbe leaned-in toward Rav Moshe and started to speak to him in learning. Rav Moshe was surprised and, glancing at the avel, hinted to the rebbe that perhaps now was not the time to learn Torah. The rebbe pointed to an ottoman next to the avel’s feet and replied, “No, we can talk in Torah in front of the avel because according to you that stool is a mechitza!”
VI. The Waters Cool…Briefly
From the 1870s until the turn of the century things slowly started to die down in Europe. While there were still people – and their respective rabbanim –on both sides of the fence, it became clear that machine matzos were (a) here to stay and that (b) those supporting it were not out to harm Torah or mesorah.
By the 1890’s, and in many ways still true today, the question of the permissibility of machine matzos became divided along chassidim/misnagdim lines (something that Rav Nathenson was very disturbed by).
For instance, in the city of Dvinsk Rav Meir Simcha, author of the Meshech Chochma and Ohr Sameach3, who was the rav of the non- chassidim of the city, allowed machine matzos and wrote a letter to his community stating such, while the Rogatchever Gaon, Rav Rosen, who was the rav of the chasideshe shul in Dvinsk, did not approve of them.4 (Footnotes start here, with #4, as I incorporated the prior ones into the main text. Upon uploading this file, I was unable to renumber them. I apologize for any confusion)
It should then be of no surprise that Rav Moshe Mordechai Epstien of the famed (non-chasidesh) Slabodka yeshiva also allowed machine matzos, even when the machine is run on electricity (shu”t Levush Mordechai).5
However there were exceptions to these dividing lines, on both sides.
For instance while the Chafetz Chaim does not mention this raging debate in his halachik works like the Mishnah Berrura (for reasons unknown), he does state in a letter his strong suspicions relating to machine matzos 6.
So too do we find some in the chasideshe veldt who seemed to have broken ranks. The maggid of Yerushalaim R’Shalom Schwadron’s grandfather, the great chasideshe posek Rav Shalom Mordechai Schwadron –known as the Maharsham –wrote a number of teshuvos on the topic of machine matzos. While it is difficult to know precisely where he stood on the issue, it is safe to say that he leaned toward permissibility. He even stated that the suggestion that something should be presumed guilty simply because it is an innovation to how we had performed it in the past is a very weak argument.8
Another great chassideshe posek was none-to-thrilled with this disruption in chassidehshe practice. The holy rebbe of Sochatchav, Rav Avraham Borenstein, known as the Avnei Nezer, responded in a short but sharp letter regarding this psak of the Marharsham (who he does not mention by name), comparing those who would allow machine matzos in the face of the great rebbes who had already banned it as “a fly facing lions”.9
The Avnei Nezer further argues that nothing is added by having new people enter this debate. “Who is greater than Rav Nathenson who already allowed it?” asks the Avnei Nezer, “[Y]et the holy rebbes have already rejected his view…”
This is a fascinating argument. The Avnei Nezer seems to be saying that once the first generation of a holy debate closes we must assume that all the points on both sides have been exhausted. Our job then is simply to follow how our parents and teachers guided us.
Although the Marharsham’s ruling caused quite a stir, it may have been for naught. Even till today, what the Marharsham’s position regarding machine matzos really was remains hotly debated. In some letters (like the one written to St. Louise) seems to allow it, in others he even seems to prefer it, and still others where he says that he ‘never allowed it’.
So much confusion surrounds the Marharsham’s opinion that twenty years ago a great grandson of his wrote a long treatise on the matter for a Torah journal of Karlin.10
VII.The Machine Makes ‘Aliya’
The short but sharp letter of the Avnei Nezer quoted above was written in 1909. That letter, along with several others from Europe, made its way to eretz yisroel.
Already in 1873 the first matzo-baking machine was brought to Israel, however, likely due to the fact that it never became popular, it did not cause a stir.
But by 1908 and 1909 things the winds changed. Six years earlier the Cohen/Halperin machine matzo plant was founded and their matzos became prevalent among many of the non-chassidic charedim at the time (then called perushim). This was not by chance, as this factory was given hashgacha by none other than Rav Shmuel Salant! Rav Yosef Chaim Sonnenfeld also gave his hashkama –in theory –to machine matzos.11
The chassideshe charedim however truly believed these matzos to be a major violation of law.
In fact, the very same Marharsham who caused a stir in Europe because he allowed machine matzos was now being quoted as one of the main sources of the chassidim disallowing them!
Anyone who might be confused as to the give-and-take to this debate need look only to the pashkivillim (posters) that painted the walls of Yerushalaim in 1908-1909 where every opinion regarding machine matzos, every argument, is quoted, debunked, and quoted anew. As the Jewish Observer once put it, it was an all-out ‘pashkavillim war’.12
The machine matzo debate has now arrived in our holiest city.
In one of the pashkivillim citizens of Yerushalaim are invited to see the matzo baking of Rav Shmuel Salant himself!
While it comes as no surprise that some wanted machine matzos banned, it may however surprise readers to learn that the pendulum swung both ways. Rav Shlomo Zalman Aurbach reported how he remembered 13 that the situation with handmade matzos was so bad 14 that many rabbanim wanted to ban hand-made matzos!15
This may sound odd to our ears (and mouths) but keep in mind that this debate –going all the way back to Rav Nathenson – was not just about if machine matzos were kosher for Pesach, but if they were superior to hand matzos.
Rav Shlomo Zalman himself would only eat machine matzos on Pesach. However by the seder, he would also try to find mehadrin hand matzos to fulfill all opinions.16
As Rav Tzvi Pesach Frank explained 17 a machine has no concept of daas (knowledge) so the ‘wrong’ type of intent is impossible to place on it. All that matters is that we are able to establish that a machine is the extension of the person who turned it on. In the view of these poskim once we eliminate such concerns then a machine is not just permissible to be used for the baking of matzos, but recommended. This is because by having a machine designed for this purpose one thereby eliminates human error. In addition, the custom, based on the Chasam Sofer 18 , is to go from dough to oven in just a few minutes, something which a machine makes far more plausible. 19
We should point out that although we have written in the past of the dangers of innovation in halacha, these poskim would point out an obvious distinction: it is only innovation that could have easily have been done in the past yet, for whatever unknown reason, was ignored or bypassed that we mustn’t now ignore the mysterious concerns of old and act differently for ourselves.
In other words, it is irrelevant that until 1838 Jews only ate handmade matzos, for they had no other choice! Who is to say the rishonim would have also rejected machine matzos had these machines been invented earlier? That is the crux of mattirim’s argument as it pertains to innovation.
While this debate in Israel has cooled, we can still find allusions to it. For instance Dayan Fisher (d. 2003) writes20 that while both types of matzo are acceptable, should be stringent and eat only machine matzos!
On the other hand, when the Chazon Ish saw that his brother-in-law, the Steipler Geon, had machine matzos for his children to eat on Pesach he promptly informed him that it was chametz!21
So, we began in Lvov and ended in Yerushalaim. In both Europe and Israel what began as a heated debate ended in mutual respect.22
But this machine still has one more stop to make: America.
VII.‘Only In America’
NPR’s ‘Planet Money” recently had a report on matzo in general, focusing on Manischewitz. 24
“’My guide through the factory is one of the world’s leading authorities on making matzo. He’s not a rabbi, or even a Jew. I was raised Southern Baptist and my wife is Roman Catholic and I’m running operations for the country’s largest Jewish food company,’ says Randall Copeland. Only in America.”
According to the April 10, 2012 edition of the New York Times, each year about 130 million dollars is spent on matzo. Manischewitz alone – according to a recent story in the New Yorker –produces over 76,000,000 individual pieces of matzo annually!
While most of these sales take place on or before Pesach, there is also a not-insignificant percentage that is bought throughout the year. In fact, former president Bill Clinton has a famous friend who often makes him matzo-brei when he comes over to visit!
The story of how machine matzo in America came to be, and came to be accepted by many, is a notable one.
One of the main supporters of machine matzos in Israel was Rav Nafatlai Amsterdam. Born in Salant in 1832, he would later become one of the most famous disciples of Rav Yisroel Salanter. Often supporting himself with a bakery owned and operated by his wife, he settled in Israel in 1906, three year before the eruption of the ‘matzo storm’ examined in the last chapter.
Some thirty years after the birth of Rav Naftali another baby boy was born in Salant. Born to R’ Yechiel Michael Manischewitz, they named their new son Dov Ber. He too would go on to study with Rav Yisroel Salanter (in the town of Memel), and, as we could guess from his last name, he too would support himself with a bakery of some type.
Indeed, this family was not just close with Rav Yisroel Salanter, but truly desired to follow in his ways. Soon after Manischewitz Matzo was founded in Cincinnati in 1888 a friend of Rav Ber opened up a competing matzo business. Writing to his father in Europe in search of a letter from a respected rav disallowing this competition, the son received a reply letter of harsher tone, beseeching him to follow the ways of the recently deceased Rav Salanter and seek only peace.
Matzo had been baked in America since its infancy; there is even documentation of Jewish soldiers during the civil war –on both sides – receiving rations of matzo during Pesach.
However, machine matzos were still largely unheard of in America. In the above referenced New Yorker piece Rav Ber is likened to Steve Jobs (the creator of Apple Computers) whose genius was not based on problem –making the matzo even more removed from the hand of its creator(s).25
The reader should note that at this time in American history there were very few chasideshe rebbes in the country, and the absence of these, the strongest opponents of machine matzo, allowed Manischewitz’s successes to grow exponentially. To illustrate, Rav Eliyahu Yosef Rabinowitz, often cited as the first rebbe in America, emigrated in 1899 and passed away in Buffalo, New York just eleven years later (where he is buried and visited by many each year. He is the subject of this author’s 2023 Summer Series in Ami Magazine. Others may posit that Rav Avraham Ash was in fact chassidesh and therefore should be considered as the first rebbe in America).
Although the opposition to machine matzos in America was minimal, and even Rav Yaakov Yosef26 (also a student of Rav Yisroel Salanter,invention per se, rather in taking that which already exists and perfecting and streamlining it.
R’ Ber Manischewitz not only accepted machine matzos as kosher for Pesach, he perfected its process, and even advertised them as ‘square’, something which some rabbanim in Europe had taken issue with (as discussed last year in Part 1).
It should also be pointed out that, in time, the matzos that Manischewitz was producing were not exactly like the machine matzos of Europe. Manischewitz owned tens of patents making not just their matzos ahead of their time, but even their factory. Much of their innovations were adopted by other companies of the time and are still in use –although modernized –today, such as ‘electric eyes’ that count how many units are being produced during production.
Whereas initially a ‘machine’ matzo was but rolled mechanically, now they were rolled, shaped, pulled, and marked all by a machine. The oven too was far more modern than what was being used in Europe, and was gas fueled.
While some would argue that these made the process less problematic from a halachic perspective, others saw this as only adding to the problem –making the matzo even more removed from the hand of its creator(s).25
The reader should note that at this time in American history there were very few chasideshe rebbes in the country, and the absence of these, the strongest opponents of machine matzo, allowed Manischewitz’s successes to grow exponentially. To illustrate, Rav Eliyahu Yosef Rabinowitz, often cited as the first rebbe in America, emigrated in 1899 and passed away in Buffalo, New York just eleven years later (where he is buried and visited by many each year. He is the subject of this author’s 2023 Summer Series in Ami Magazine. Others may posit that Rav Avraham Ash was in fact chassidesh and therefore should be considered as the first rebbe in America).
Although the opposition to machine matzos in America was minimal, and even Rav Yaakov Yosef 26 (also a student of Rav Yisroel Salanter, interestingly) supported their use on Pesach,27 there remained some doubt in the hearts of some.
Enter Rav Zecharyeh Yosef Rosenfeld. Rav Rosenfeld was already a distinguished rav in Europe when he fled to America in 1893. By 1894 he was elected rav of one of the shuls in St. Louise.
Although few recognize his name, Rav Rosenfeld was one of the most important rabbanim to the history of America. To understand his sacrifice in taking a stand regarding machine matzos at the turn of the century, one needs to be aware of the bristly decade leading up to it.
In the late 1890’s Rav Rosenfeld designed and constructed the very first city eruv in America. This was no small feat, as even before his St. Louise eruv was built it drew heavy criticism from another gaon who also served as rav in that same city, Rav Shalom Elchanan Jaffe. Rav Jaffe published a sefer, ‘Shoel K’Inyan’, a treatise seeking to show that the (proposed) eruv would be unacceptable.
Looking at the dates it is apparent that the very same year Rav Rosenfeld arrived in St. Louise he announced his plans to build an eruv! Like many rabbanim, he felt it was his duty to protect Shabbos by building a city eruv.28 In 1896 he published a defense of his planned eruv, in a sefer titled, ‘Tikvas Zecharyah’. Utilizing telegraph wires and the Mississippi River, the first city eruv in America was built.
Although he was viscously attacked for his eruv –and both sides sought haskamos from around the world (an article for a different time) – Rav Rosenfeld somehow found the strength to write another sefer, on yet another controversial topic.
In 1905 29 he published ‘Tikvas Yosef’ where he demonstrates why machine matzos, and specifically those, like Manischewitz, being produced in America, are kosher for Pesach. Like with his sefer defending his eruv, he sought letters from distinguished rabbanim. Once again, the Marharsham is quoted as allowing machine matzos, with certain conditions,30 and once again his true position remains unclear.
Many supported Rav Rosenfeld arguments, however there were exceptions. The author of the Darkei Teshuvah, for instance, wrote that he simply could not offer a haskama after the holy Divrei Chaim banned machine matzos.31
Manischewitz for their part opened their doors to any and all rabbanim to see and inspect the process for themsleves. In the late 1930’s they even published a book listing over one hundred rabbanim who supported their venture. They even assert that Rav Meir Shapiro ate Manischewitz matzo the entire year, knowing that there would never be any kashrus concern with their product (i.e. hafrashas challa)!
In the March 1938 edition of the prestigious Torah journal ‘HaPardes’ a 25-page supplement was published celebrating the yovel (jubilee) of Manischewitz machine matzo (ending right before the yiddish advertisement for Dr. Pepper!). There one finds letters from the most eminent litvehse poskim of the time.
One will also discover something else, something fascinating. The Manischewitz family had opened a yeshivah in Yerushalaim, becoming quite close with many of the poskim of the city. It is unclear when this small yeshiva was dissolved, but from the information provided in HaPardes it was clearly a serious place. Indeed, already as young boys, Rav Ber Manischewitz sent his two sons to Yerushalaim to learn at the famous Yeshivas Etz Chaim, something that few families in Ohio of the time did! Rav Ber was serious about Torah and, in addition, these connections to great leaders of Israel allowed him ‘in the door’ so that he could better articulate how his machine matzo process worked. So that the reader does not misunderstand this last point, it is not to suggest that friendship changes a psak, challila, rather that a posek needs to know that the man seeking to innovate is not after a more perverse prize or heading toward a more rash progression.
Knowing Rav Ber as a man of Torah, a family with deep roots in the classical Torah world, evidenced character and helped soothe any question of a ‘greater agenda’, which if the reader recalls from Part 1 was no small part of the concern of those who wanted machine matzos banned when they were first introduced.
[See Sidebar for a picture that Rav Tzvi Pesach Frank and others had sent to HaPardes in celebration of Manischewitz’s jubilee].
IX. Epilogue?
Many people see machine matzos as a b’dieved, something only allowed on Pesach ex post facto, at best. The information we have provided shows that, at least among the non-chasidim, it is far more complicated than that, with some gedolim even preferring machine over hand matzos.
In addition, no one would argue that machine matzo factories are anything but vigilant in controlling their environment. So intense is the kosher for Pesach supervision at Manischewitz, Streits, Yehudah, etc. that it caused NPR to state, “The matzo business may be the most heavily regulated business in the world.”32
Aside for gaining an understanding of the effort and Torah that goes into so much of what we enjoy, we can learn another valuable lesson from what we have learned: not every machlokos in Torah and halacha must end in bitterness. When there are legitimate poskim on either side of an issue, and after all the points have been made and all the ink spilled, each family can follow the views of their particular leaders while at the same time recognizing that eilu v’eilu (the principle that two incompatible views in halacha can each retain an inherent truth) did not perish with the closing of the Gemara.
However, our story has one last chapter…
X. “Are These Also ‘Machine Matzos’?” A New Company Breaths New Life Into An Old Debate
When it comes to Pesach, the ‘new’ is always, and should always be, suspect.
We all saw, for example, how something as innocuous as
quinoa has divided poskim and even families over the past decade. When my in-laws come for Pesach we actually make two cholents –one for my family with quinoa and one for them, without.
This is more so true when it comes to innovations in matzah production.
Over the past two years (this was written in 2018) ‘Birchas HaPesach’ in eretz yisroel has been producing a new kind of matzah. This new matzah is described by some as handmade matzah, and by others as no better, or different, than machine matzas. Still others, unconcerned how they are described, are ambivalent toward them simply because they are ‘new’.
What is this new machine?
First , imagine a pasta machine.
One places their prepared pasta dough into the tiny space
between two pins/rollers and he begins to crank with his hand, causing the pins/rollers to pull, press, stretch and roll out your dough in seconds. He does this a few times and his dough will become thinner and thinner, ready to be cut and shaped into fresh lasagna noodles.
Now imagine this same type of metal pins/roller-crank used for making and shaping matzas.
The dough starts off the same as any handmade matzah, however, once made and cut into balls, instead of handing each ball to someone to roll
out and shape with a rolling pin, it is handed to a man who places it into a ‘pasta-maker-like’ contraption. It is simultaneously cranked as it is placed between the metal pins which then quickly pulls it through, coming out longer and thinner.
Immediately, someone then takes this-now flatter- dough and passes it on to the next, similar crank device, which thins it out even more. All in all, it passes through five such hand-cranked devices and goes from there immediately to the oven.
Amazingly, from dough to matzah takes about two minutes! From the above description these matzas would seem not only kosher, but mehudar.
The Rema rules that matzah dough should not rest before its baking. Although the Mishneh Berrura points out that it would still be kosher if it rested a little bit, we should try to have it not rest at all, he writes.
In addition, the custom, based on the Chasam Sofer 33 , is to go from dough to oven in just a few minutes, something which until now was only feasible with a machine. 34 With these new matzos, it can now be done with this new ‘hand’ method where almost all waiting periods in matzah production are eliminated.
However, one crucial question remains: while perhaps mehudar in some ways, are these new matzas considered to be machine made thereby prohibiting chassidim and many others from eating them on Pesach, or should they be seen as handmade?
Although these matzas are kosher l’pesach under the hashagacha of Rav Mordechai Gross shlita, Rav Moshe Brandsdorfer wrote a letter expressing his support for these ‘new’ matzas even for chassidim.
The other day – together with Rav Chaim Schwartz, rav hamachshir of the Vaad Harrabanim of Queens -I spoke with Rav Moshe Brandsdorfer over the telephone. He explained his position as well as answered some of the detractors’?
Rav Moshe Brandsdorfer comes from chashuv chassidishe yichus. His father was Hagaon Harav Meir Brandsdorfer (d. 2009), one of the gedolei haposekim in Yerushalaim of the last generation. Rav Moshe himself is a highly respected posek and av beis din.
This yichus is important because, as pointed out before, chassideshe poskim are generally weary of machine innovation in matzah. Therefore, Rav Moshe’s approval is very substantial and significant.
The salient question I posed to him was the following: at what point is a matzah handmade and at what point does it cross the line into something else and become ‘machine’ made? As the Shoel U’Meishiv put it –does even using a simple rolling pin make matzas machine made?
Rav Moshe explained that he believes that any concern the great poskim of the past had with machines used for making matzah simply does not exist by these new matzas.
Before quoting from our conversation, in his teshuva (responsum) written in support of these matzas he explains why these are hand matzas and not machine. Even though in the early days of the debate of machine matzas they were also not using electricity and yet were banned by chassideshe poskim –so that one can claim that the fact that these new matzas use no electricity does not prove that they are not machines- there is still a vital distinction bwteen those initial machine matzas and these new ones. Those early ‘machines’ were using rollers that rolled the rollers. Meaning, a ‘machine’ by definition is not the use
of one man and one tool-like a kneading pin-rather the use of a system, a processing of many actions.
In other words, these crank rollers are indeed no different –halachickly- from regular rolling pins.
After reading this teshuva, and after listening to him express these same thoughts in our phone conversation, I asked him another crucial question. It is one thing to say that these too are handmade and not machine made, but is there a maaleh with these new matzas even above and beyond regular handmade matzah?
He replied by making a fascinating point: With regular rolling pins, they and one’s hands get warm/hot from
the constant non-stop action of rolling matzah after matzah after matzah. This heat can lead to issues of possible chimutz. So that this new method is not only matzas yad (handmade) but is better than typical rolling-pin- made hand matzah!
He then shared a personal matter.
“My family has the minhag of not only avoiding-of course-all machine matzah, but we do not even use matzah where regular rolling pins are used in shaping the matzah. So of course, if someone has this family chumrah then indeed they should avoid
these new matzas –as well, for that matter, even many traditional hand matzas.
“However, this is not so common, and so long as someone does not have such a minhag, even among chassidem, this matzah is kosher and considered hand matzah, no different than hand matzah made with regular rolling pins”
He added the following caveat:
“Of course, when it comes to Pesach every family has personal and familial chumros…” but when it halachikly these matzas are indeed handmade.
His point was clear. If one eats hand matzah rolled with regular rolling pins then this matzah is not only the same thing, but perhaps even better (due to avoiding any idle resting and warmed rolling pins and hands).
As to the arguments that even if these are not ‘machine matzas’ per se, they are still utilizing a new and unique method, he explained both on the phone and in his letter. “The concerns of Rav Shlomo Kluger and the other great poskim do not exist here. The simple fact is that these matzas are made with a koach rishon (a person is churning the crank)
no different than rolling pins, this is as opposed to a machine where the major concern was koach kocho (a secondary force; a person only presses a button-or the like- which then causes a whole chad gadya to take place beyond his input).”
With this he also explained why the kavana issue which was at the heart of many of the concerns of the past simply do not not exist here.
This is a significant distinction, as the rav pointed out, for even teffilin made and advertised as avodas hayad (handmade) often use various koach rishon mechanisms and tools.
In addition, he pointed out that such ‘new’ rollers are not that new at all.
Furthermore, concerns of excess dough that was cut away from the molding and shaping of the matzah is unique as well to (certain older, crude) matzah machines, whereas in this case the matzas are simply formed from the pressure –no different than a rolling pin-leaving no excess matzah behind.
The rav explained that he does not typically provide hashgachos, and even here it is under the hashgacha of Rav Gross, rather he wanted to show his support to a matzah that he felt was very lichatchila.
Are there any detractors to this view?
Initially I could not find any posek on the record who disagreed with this psak. However, a couple of weeks before Pesach this year, a series of letters were distributed purported to assur these matzas for those who do not eat machine matzah. In particular, there was a letter signed by none other than Rav Shmuel Vosner zt’l.
However, upon closer examination of this letter, it turns out that if read carefully (which we should always do when reading letters of gedolim) it says no such thing.
For instance, looking at the date of the letter one notices that it is from ten years ago [2014].
Rav Mordechai Gross –a close disciple of Rav Wosner- explained that this was written regarding a new type of machine that was devolved a decade ago and which has no bearing to these new matzas. I contacted Rav Moshe Refoel Laufer, one of Rav Brandsdorfer’s gabbeim who not only agreed, but told me that Rav Moshe Brandsdorfer also believes that this ten-year old idea would have been considered machine matzah.
As for the few letters that were signed this year by some chassidesheh rabbanim, some make mention of the psak of Rav Vosner, and others mention the ruling of Rav Shlomo Kluger, which calls into question if they were given an accurate description of these particular matzas, which indeed are very different than machines and seem not different than stam rolling pins.
In the end, chassidesheh readers, as well as others who only eat handmade matzah will have to ask their personal morah horah if they are to consider these new matzas machine made or hand made, as we have entered uncharted waters in this one-hundred and fifty year-old debate.
“Ki Lo V’Chipazon Teitzu…- You Shall Not Go Out In Haste…” (Yeshayahu 52:12).
The navi teaches us that whereas we left mitzraim in a hurry and therefore our dough did not have time to rise, when moshiach comes we will leave with calmness.35
Perhaps the navi is issuing a challenge to us, that when great poskim share their holy views, we should not automatically attack and question it, rather, and with a sense of calm and with a feeling of being unrushed, we shall discuss it dispassionately.
Perhaps, if we can allow for an eilu v’eilu and a peaceful machlokos l’shem shomyaim, this alone can be a zechus for bias goel.
May this Pesach bring about a new geulah and a new calm. May we soon join to share in matzas together with the korban pesach in Yerushalaim.
———————————————————
NOTES:
Due to a glitch, notes start at number 4:
4. Both of their respective views are expressed in letters: Rav Meir Simcha to his surrounding areas, and the Rogatcahver in a 1909 letter to Yerushalaim. It is interesting that the latter seemed to have kept his opinion to himself in his own city, likely to avoid machlokos, or, perhaps R’ Meir Simcha was viewed more as the rav ha’ir. See also shu”t Tzphanos Paneach 2:39.
5. For a full list of those who discuss electricity as it pertains to machine matzos, see shu”t Vayevarech Dovid 1:91.
6. I would venture to suggest that he did not mention the issue because this debate was still ongoing, and, because there were respected and trustworthy views on both sides, the Chofetz Chaim may have wisely surmised that adding one more name to either the ‘approve’ column or the ‘disapprove’ one would accomplish but one thing: cut the number of those who would study his monumental work in half, as theones whom he offended would avoid his work. Even more surprising than the Mishnah Berrura’s omission of this debate is the Aruch Hashulchan’s. He as well fails to mention machine matzos. The difference between the M.B. and the Aruch Hashulchan, it seems to me, is that M.B. comes to explain the Shulchan Aruch, as a collected commentary, and it is not always its goal to share customs unless directly reflecting on a point being discussed. The Aruch Hashulchan however is meant not as a commentary to the Shulchan Aruch per se but rather a research tool to be used instead of or in concert to the Shulchan Aruch (for those who desire more background material, etc.). Accordingly, the Aruch Hashulchan oftenbrings the minhagim from across Europe. Nevertheless, regarding machine matzos, he may have had the same fears which I suggested above that the Chofetz Chaim may have had.
7. See ‘Chafetz Chaim –Chayav U’Poelo’ vol. 3
8. Shu”t Marhasham 5:82, as quoted by Hildesheir and Lieberman.
9. 2:537 (may not be found in some volumes). See also siman 372 where the Avnei Nezer expresses his displeasure even regarding the mass production of matzo, of even handmade. He felt that this too wasnot just a new development, but should concern us because when one makes matzo for themselves they are far more particular than one making it for unknown and unseen people.
10. ‘Kovetz Beis Ahron V’Yisroel’, vol. 3:51
11. To a plant in Haifa. This was later rescinded due to concerns unrelated to this discussion
12. Jewish Observer, April 2004. Much work on this topic proceeded my own and whose research benefited me greatly. Shu”t VaYevarech Dovid 1:88; R. D. Schwartz, Sinai, issue 64; J. Sarna’s written remarks on this subject based on a lecture given at Touro College and found at Brandies.edu, Jewish Observer ibid., Hildesheimer and Leiberman’s ‘The Controversy Surrounding Machine Made Matzot’, inter alai.
13. Although born the year following this debate -1910 –this was still a controversial issue for at least a decade after. It is more likely that he was referring to a later time
14. See part 1 for what these problems might have been
15. Halichos Shlomo, Pesach, 157-158 #46
16. While everyone agrees that he ate machine matzo for the remaining days of Pesach, what he did by the seder is a matter of dispute. Based on the two sources I found that discuss his custom (Halacha Shel Pesach (Freidman) p. 481 and Halichos Shlomo ad loc. what is written above seems to be the most accurate
21. Maaseh Ish vol. 5; see also Shaarei Ish p. 44 that the Chazon Ish said that as a matter of law one mustn’t eat machine matzos; Cf. Chazon Ish O’C 6
22. See Nittei Gavriel who quotes from the Klausenberger rebbe z’l that even those against machine matzos would no longer call such matzo ‘chometz’
23 .See ‘Sarna’ mentioned in a footnote above. Much of the material found in this section would not be possible without his investigations into this subject
24. April 10, 2012
25. The Satmar rebbe –in Divrei Yoel 1:35 –makes just that argument, suggesting that the early mattirim of machine matzos are poor evidence to the allowance of the more modern ones.
26. Incidentally, this writer published the following last year (2024): “If asked to name a yeshiva in America that was founded by a ‘Rav Kotler’, the inevitable response would be: Beth Medrash Govoha, known colloquially as ‘Lakewood’.While a correct answer, it is not the only one, as we will briefly explain: The famous Malbim was initially hired to fill the position as the first ‘Chief Rabbi of New York’. However, he sadly passed away before his departure to America.It would be several years later when the city would choose the incomparable RJJ, Rav Yaakov Yosef to lead them, and soon, Rav Shlomo Nosson Kotler moved from Lita to New York to serve as his sgan.Rav S.N. Kotler was not simply an assistant, rather was an accomplished gaon in his own right. Telz’s Rav Eliezar Gordon described this Rav Kotler as ‘The Ketzos of the generation”! Incidentally, Rav Kotler may aid in resolving a question I’ve had for years: what was RJJ’s last name? Writing in a haskama to a sefer published in Buffalo, NY in the 1880’s (!) Rav Kotler shares (translation): “Behold, I come as the messenger for the great gaon, Rav Yaakov ‘Yozuhf’, the rav hakollel…”Here, Rav Kotler’s spelled ‘Yosef’ as:זיעאף : yud, aleph, zayin, ayin, pehThis may demonstrate that ‘Yosef/Yozuhf was his last name!”
27. See ‘Tikvas Yosef’ at length; See also ‘Hapardes’ March 1938 in the supplement (mentioned in more detail below) for a complete list of the many chashuvim who gave their haskama to the Manischewitz Co.
28. Refer to shu”t Ro’sh, klal 21
29. Although the book states that it was published in 1903, this was impossible
30. His letter to Rav Rosenfeld can be found in shu”t Marharsham 2:15
31. Found in the back to the Darkei Teshuvah’s sefer on Chumash, ‘Tiferes Banim’. His words echo the argument made by the Avnei Nezer
It Has Become More Common For ‘Normal’ Children From ‘Average’ Homes To Be Rejected From Their Local Torah Centers and Bais Yaakovs. Have We Honestly Assessed the Risk/Reward of the Current System — For the Children and For the Klal? Does Mesorah Offer Guidance? Of Course It Does.
By Rabbi Moshe Taub | Ami Magazine, September 2023 (abridged)
I. Another September
– “When something needs to be said, silence becomes a lie.”
September carries the scent of new backpacks for most families. But there’s a parallel ‘September Universe’ — where supplies go un-ordered, and fresh tears replace new school styles. So many children — Hashem yerachem! — are rejected from elementary school after elementary school, from their local Bais Yaakovs. Some find placement before the year begins, but only after severe, irrevocable disenchantment with the klal, her Torah, and its leadership, R”l.
II. The Birth of Bais Yaakov
In Fall 1917, with twenty-five students and a two-room apartment, Sara Schenirer opened the first Bais Yaakov. Fifteen years later, over forty thousand girls were enrolled in umbrella Bais Yaakovs in Poland alone. The irony is that Bais Yaakov was founded to pull bnos Yisroel lacking a full chinuch at home off the ‘streets.’ Now those very girls — most desirous of direction — are often locked out, forced back onto the streets. If rudderlessness was dangerous in the 1920s, allowing it today is quasi-infanticide.[1] • Even if 99% of modern rejections are warranted, bitul b’rov doesn’t apply to pikuach nefesh. We will still answer for every one of that 1% of neshamos thrown to today’s wolves.
III. The Common Excuses — And What We Are Not Discussing
Before this discussion is derailed: • Yes, each yeshiva must weed out certain students. • Yes, competition and tuition are real factors. • Yes, some students genuinely fit better elsewhere. • No, we are not discussing children who refuse a school’s rules. • No, we are not discussing seminary or beis medrash admission. • Yes, Lakewood and Brooklyn face unique challenges unrelated to what follows. We are discussing the average, normally-challenged children of acheinu beis Yisroel — and whether our mesorah ever sanctioned what’s being done to them.
IV. A Sea Change
Over twenty years, American chinuch has undergone a paradigm shift. Gone is the era of the American rabbi convincing a newly frum or growing family to send a boy to yeshiva, a girl to Beis Yaakov — and with it, many future gedolim. The Netziv, at a seudas hodah for his newest sefer, recalled overhearing his parents as a child: his father comforted his mother, “Not everyone is destined to be a talmid chacham. He can still become a simple shoemaker.” He posed a thought experiment: “Imagine if I hadn’t overheard my parents that night. I would have become Naftilka the shoemaker — frum, a good husband, a giver of tzedaka. But at my din, Hashem would ask: Netziv! Where are your sheilos v’teshuvos, your commentary to the Sheiltot, your peirushim on the Torah? I would answer: Who is this ‘Netziv’? I was shomer Torah u’mitzvos…” Will we not be tasked with presenting the erased gedolim — and sefarim — stolen from our kehillos?[2] A personal story: a present-day gadolb’Torah in Eretz Yisroel attended a co-ed elementary school, majority not shomer Shabbos. He wished to attend Ner Yisroel Toronto for 9th grade and spent the summer learning with my older brothers. The yeshiva had conditions, but his past wasn’t one of them. He became an incomparable masmid, married into Torah royalty, and now has talmidim worldwide.
Could that happen today?
V. The Response
Some object, arguing, won’t we also be judged for failing to protect our children from bad influences? Is every wild-child destined to become a Netziv? However, severely troubled or harmful children aren’t this monograph’s focus and shouldn’t scapegoat what we’re discussing: the “sin” of being average, or not yet connected to one’s studies — children who need mechanchim more than others. Walking into a local girls’ high school recently to give a talk, I saw anxious parents waiting with their daughters for interviews. Two mothers were reciting Tehillim. Zu Torah v’zu schorah?
VI. R.I.P. Communal Schools?
One cause for this shift is the death of the communal day school. Places like Lakewood and the Five Towns grew rapidly, demanding new schools — which bred distinctions, then competition, then more schools. With each iteration: Who is now oirev for the city’s children? What are the rules of acceptance? Should any kehilla exist without at least one communal mesorah day school? Large towns now resemble the proverbial island of ten Jewish men who never missed a minyan — until an eleventh arrived. After that, no one had a secure minyan; each depended on the other. That sense of personal achrayos was lost.
VII. A Bnei Brak Miracle
A now-famous video shows Rav Steinman incredulous at mechanchim seeking his haskama to reject elementary school children. After dismissing their arguments, they played their trump card: the mother is “open-minded,” re-married. Rav Steinman: “So she shouldn’t have remarried? Not want the best cheder for her kids?” They added that chashuveh, frummer parents were concerned the family wasn’t their “type.” Rav Steinman banged the table: “There is always that person… It’s coming from their gayvah.” Mechanchim: “But these are bnei Torah, talmidei chachamim…” Rav Steinman, louder: “Yes. Especially from such people! It’s all gayvah… Gayvah! Gayvah! Gayvah!” He recalled his cheder in Brisk, where children of Communist and Bund Party members sat beside the Brisker Rav’s children — and some of the simplest children became leading roshei yeshiva. “Did Rav Dovid Soloveitchik turn out ok?” I spent two years learning under Rav Dovid Soloveitchik. He’d be aghast at what some balla batim do to our children today. Summation of Our mesorah: • If a school believes its chinuch carries the torch of mesorah, any parent/child who wants that mesorah — and will follow the rules — should be accepted, if on trial. • In mid-size cities: a parent sincerely seeking a Torah U’Mesorah day school, willing to follow the rules, should be accepted immediately, if on trial. • This is how it has always been. I know of no daas Torah demanding we abandon this winning strategy. • “Just as I [Moshe] learned Torah for free, so too you must teach for free.” (Nedarim 37a) • “Do not read it as engraved (charus) but as freedom for all (chierus).” (Avos 6:2) • Chazal explain not every gadol’s son becomes a gadol — to remind the klal that Torah isn’t a yerusha; it can come from anyone. (Nedarim 81a) • “Be careful lest you undervalue teaching Torah to the sons of paupers, as from them will Torah spring.” (Nedarim 81a; Rashi: because these children are humble) • The Chasam Sofer, on “negative influences” from less-privileged students: we’re discussing the Heavenly Torah, whose zechus protects. (Chiddushei Chasam Sofer, Nedarim ad loc.) • “Anyone who teaches Torah to the son of an am ha’aretz — even if Hashem issued a harsh decree, He may nullify it for his sake.” (Bava Metziah 85a).
VIII. The Reality of ‘Rejection Letters’
“Helplessly seeing my young child go through this is more excruciating than my disease.”
— A dying mother to my wife. She passed before finding comfort. Her daughter — a tznius Beis Yaakov girl with perfect grades and middos — was rejected because her parents were ill.
Whatever one feels about this monograph’s suggestions, one thing is certain: twelve-year-old girls should never receive a “rejection” letter from their community. Calling it “not a communal school” won’t soften a child’s reaction and a possible aversion to Torah thus caused. The die is cast by then.
If such letters must be sent, local rabbanim must work with schools to secure placement first. Every January, every yeshiva should partner with local mechanchim, askanim, and rabbanim toward that end. Many Bais Yaakovs already do this for seminary placement — staff work tirelessly by mid-year in 12th grade to place every girl, purely to avoid shame. Apply that same effort here.[3]
It boggles the mind, that the same Torah that invented a law of ridding the army from its strongest men -of marriage and new house age -just to save the embarrassment of the baalei aveira (Sota 44), is now being ‘protected’ on the backs of the tears of little boys and girls.
IX. Not Just the Child
This fallout spreads. Parents feel ostracized by their community, leaders, even friends.
“My parents haven’t talked to me since we became frum. All that sacrifice, for what? To be told I’m not a real bas Sarah imeinu? So my daughter winds up on the very streets I ran from?”
Some parents changed shuls or moved cities over this — painfully leaving the already-humiliated children feeling responsible for their parents’ shame. As my wife observed: we have groups for every issue affecting our youth. But the child who is neither brilliant nor severely troubled has no advocate, no club. Who can blame such a child for aligning with someone, anyone? That’s more likely the result of rejection than proof it was warranted. Chazal teach the only way to verify a questionable letter in a Sefer Torah is through an “average child” (Mishnah Berurah 143:25) — perhaps hinting that it’s often the average child who carries Torah’s future.[4]. Hameivin yavin.
X. Advocacy
“It was behind closed doors. It was quiet — under the table.” — Mrs. Jenine Shwekey and Mrs. Chaya Bender, founders of The Special Children’s Center, on a not-too-distant past when such needs were hidden from view.
Our grandchildren, iy”H, will be shocked this issue was ever hidden. Before any mechanech invokes the “heter” to opt out of being a communal Bais Yaakov, read this diary entry, shared with the girl’s permission:
…By 8th grade I was applying to high school. January 11 was acceptance-letter night. I expected the best day of my life. 6:01 PM: “Wait listed.” Then again: “Wait listed.” Again: “Wait listed.” School X — the one that mattered most: not accepted. I ran to my room and skipped dinner. The next day was worse — I walked in with shame, while everyone else who’d applied got in. Why doesn’t anyone want me? Am I that unlikeable?
Whenever helping a family through this, I first investigate -speaking to teachers, looking at report cards. I’ve worked with B and A students alike, all with good middos. So why the “no”? A rav’s exchange with a principal, re: a “C” student:
“She’s not academically up to par, though she’s sincere and frum.” “Don’t you tell your 12th graders not to attend college?” “Yes, what’s that got to do with it?”
“And to marry a yungerman, become a ballabusta, have bitachon rather than worry about parnassa?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Beautiful — so you’ll reject a thirteen-year-old over academics?!”
Another case: a Beis Yaakov alumna, living in a shelter for abused women, called me. Her twelve-year-old had stellar grades, exemplary middos, was popular — and her local Beis Yaakov still refused her. I offered to cover therapy and tuition, and begged the school president, a real-estate developer worried the girl might one day display emotional needs, “like a ben sorrer,” the school wasn’t equipped for. I responded: could there be a better role model for your students? And to claim concern for her mental health while sealing her into another existential rejection?
Worse, I was the only one who called her teachers and her therapist. Those who called me an interloper hadn’t.
XI. ‘Communal’ Opt Out
No person or group may unilaterally declare a school no longer “communal” without presenting both sides to daas Torah. When Rav Chaim Volozhiner founded the first modern yeshiva independent of the local community: (A) it wasn’t for girls — our mesorah never sent girls away from home for school; (B) it wasn’t for elementary schools; (C) most crucially, Rav Chaim waited for — and delayed the yeshiva over — the Gra’s haskama.
Chazal (Nedarim 81a) teach that not every gadol’s son becomes a gadol so connected families don’t “lord over their kehilla” -Mar Zutra says they’d call ordinary people donkeys. Rashi notes it’s natural for such people (myself included, perhaps) to breed condescension.
I’ll close with something a rebbe recently shared: his 8th-grade daughter begged him not to quit his parsha shiur until after her entrance exam. Whether her fear was warranted is beside the point – is that the message, and the chinuch, we are giving our children?!
XII. Reasons vs. Solutions
Yagati b’anchasi, aschcha b’chol Layla mitasi, b’dimusi arsi amseh // I am spent from sighing; nightly, I soak my bed with tears. — Daily Tachanun
The most common reasons given for rejecting an otherwise worthy 12-13-year-old girl are: • Space • Not a frum enough home • Lack of resources for an emotional issue at home • Competition with other schools • Grades • Middos/Tznius/Hashkafa
Space: No school short an algebra teacher would say, “we’ll start without algebra.” Torah chinuch matters more — “no solution” isn’t accepted there either. Chazal (Sanhedrin 20) teach that six people pushing a tallis toward each other can cover all six; it fails only when each grabs for himself. Rav Moshe Feinstein similarly taught in Darash Moshe: do right by yeshivos, and money and space follow. Isn’t this what we teach our girls — marry a learning boy, trust b’bitachon, don’t obsess over space and money? I can’t reconcile that with our actions here. More: many large shuls sit empty all week, near schools, while we’re talking twenty to thirty rejected girls per school. If space were the real concern, where are the parlor meetings warning, “We may have a space issue next year”? Chazal (Bava Basra 21a) remind us klal Yisroel invented the classroom and the communal duty to educate every city’s children. Home Environment: A girl who’s proven she can follow rules despite a hard home life benefits most from Bais Yaakov — and is a positive influence on girls from good homes who struggle too. Worse, voicing this concern to young girls creates a self-fulfilling prophecy and teaches them to resent their parents. My mother-in-law, Mrs. Linda Levin, attended a modern Orthodox high school – her single mother didn’t cover her hair, and there was a TV in every room. On graduation day, she nervously explained her background to Rebbetzin Vichna Kaplan, founder of the American Beis Yaakov movement, and was accepted immediately for her earnest desire to learn. She became a mechaneches to thousands. Rav Nota Greenblatt was stunned by the one-directional worry:
“They’re afraid the bad girls will influence the good ones? When will the good girls influence the bad ones? Keep the mevakshos away, and it never happens!”
Rav Aaron Levine once shared his bechina for Telshe Cleveland in the late 1950s. He was asked whether Noach was a tzadik or rasha and, lacking much Jewish education, he answered, “I don’t know.” The rosh yeshiva smiled: “Exactly right — Rashi brings both opinions.” Doing right al pi daas Torah for the tekufa doesn’t harm the institution; Torah’s survival is itself a ness. Grades and Tznius: I agree! Only girls who agree, m’kaan u’l’habah, to follow a school’s rules should be accepted, sometimes on trial. Full stop. But dismissing a girl’s future out of hand over twelve-year-old mistakes? She’s a child! That such judgment falls around Elul is beyond ironic. We’re mechanchim — teach her, inspire her. Competition: Each city should have a vaad hachinuch of local rabbanim/roshei yeshiva. Come January, the private list of unplaced students goes to this group for placement — no reputation suffers if every yeshiva accepts the framework. We read of guards at the beis medrash door, of Hillel on the snow-covered roof, and are shocked such systems existed. Is today so different? Rav Elya Svei taught that Rabbi Akiva’s students erred not by disrespecting each other, but by forgetting to respect each other’s potential. Teach them, don’t judge them. Inspire, don’t dismiss.
XIII. Conclusion
• If our local elementary schools and Bais Yaakovs aren’t oreivin for these girls, who is? This is not meant rhetorically. • Can anyone claim hefker on local children by declaring the one local Bais Yaakov no longer “communal”? Also not rhetorical. • No institution should carry this alone. Our mechanchim are among the holiest — this isn’t an attack on them.
I’ll close with what I share each Tisha B’av before our shul’s kinnah for churban Europe: beyond the six million, and beyond the Torah lost, who knows what cures for cancer went up in smoke in the crematoria — the death of Jewish potential buried on those grounds. It forces me in life to focus not only on my mistakes, but on the fruits I’ve let be sullied along the way. It’s what I think of every time an unfamiliar mother calls mid-day: this child may be the next gadol, or produce one. I must act as a member of Hatzalah. And so should you. May HKBH save us all from michshol.
Notes [1] See the Chofetz Chaim’s description of Bais Yaakov’s founding and purpose in Likkutei Halachos, Sota, p. 21 (Zacks ed.), note 3. [2] Sefarim teach (Rav Chaim Kanievsky, Derech Sicha) that our yom din tribunal includes gedolim from our time and place who understood our challenges. Lulei demistafina, I wonder if Hashem will also summon the “would-be” gedolim we’ve snuffed out. [3] Years ago, at an Agudah Convention round-table, Rav Yaakov Weinberg of Ner Yisroel objected to camps running “Color War,” pitting children against each other — a daas yachid. Imagine his reaction to rejection letters sent to a newly-minted bas mitzvah. [4] A related yesod from Rav Moshe Feinstein (new Artscroll Reb Moshe, pp. 121-122): our mesorah begins gemara with Bava Metzia, not Brachos, precisely so children aren’t forced to choose between rebbe and parents. Short of a serious halacha or hashkafa issue, a child must never face divided loyalty between the two. Bonafides: While an unworthy messenger, my chinuch experience spans co-ed schools to top-tier yeshivos, out-of-town Jewish Community Day Schools to Chabad chederim, Yeshivas Novominsk and Yeshivas R’ Chaim Berlin, Shevach Bais Yaakov and Central Yeshiva University High School for Girls. Executive roles: Menahel at Telshe Yeshiva and YTT in Queens.
Bonafides: While an unworthy messenger, my chinuch experience extends beyond the rabbinate, having had the zechus to teach in schools of every stripe — from co-ed schools to top-tier yeshivos; classic out-of-town Jewish Community Day Schools to Chabad chederim; Yeshivas Novominsk and Yeshivas R’ Chaim Berlin; Shevach Bais Yaakov and Central Yeshiva University High School for Girls. Executive Chinuch Roles: Menahel at Telshe Yeshiva and YTT in Queens.
