Category: Hashkafa

  • False Flag!

    False Flag!

    “Never Luz a Moment!”
    A Lesson From the Hawaii False Alarm

    January, 2018

    Enjoy yourself. It’s later than you think

    Chinese Proverb

    Several days ago, on the morning of January 13, it seemed as a real possibility that we were at risk of losing the 50th State of the Union – the island-state of Hawaii (it entered statehood in 1959).

    The terrifying warnings from the state went out to all of their citizens, residents and visitors:

    “BALLISTIC MISSLE THREAT INBOUND TO HAWAII. SEEK IMMIDEATE SHELTER. THIS IS NOT A DRILL”

    It is important to remind the reader that this warning did not come out of nowhere. People on the island had every reason to take it seriously North Korea has longed threatened this island-the closest landmass of the United States to their ‘Hermit Kingdom’.

    The North Korean leadership, to any objective observer, is mercurial, evil, and most critically, not in any way rational. Having been developing nuclear weapons of their own for some time, Hawaii in particular has felt some existential angst, to say the least, especially since our current president-for better or worse-has taken a more hawkish approach toward the North Koreans.

    Eventually it was revealed to the frightened denizens of the island that the ‘warning’ was sent in error. Someone apparently pressed the wrong button, we were told. Amazingly, it took thirty-eight minutes to correct this error –apparently because the governor forgot his password!

    Many stories came out from this event, but none of them struck me like how Mark Gardner responded to this false warning.

    He was playing golf on this Saturday morning. The weather was beautiful, the view stunning, and he was working on bettering his game. All of a sudden this warning blasted throughout the golf course.

    A nuclear weapon may be on its way!

    So what did he do? He took out his smart-phone (an oxymoron if ever there was one!) and recorded a video to his family and loved ones, to be discovered in case of his pending demise.

    Looking into the face of the camera, he began his short message, what he believed might be the last communication to his children:

     “If you are watching this video, that means I didn’t make it… because of the missile coming toward Hawaii…I just ‘par-ed’ the last whole…I love you all, but I am playing golf, and it’s the last thing I’m gonna do”

    Well, we all have our passions, I guess.

    The next morning, by our Sunday shiur I asked my balla battim what they would do if they thought they may have only five minutes left on earth.

    How would you respond, react, to such news?

    There is indeed much to be mined and learnt from this event.

    One’s most honest moments happen before an imminent departure. It is only at such a moment when all veneers are lifted, when we discover who we really are and what is most important to us, or should be.

    That morning, instead of learning meseches Shabbos like we usually do, we spent the first twenty minutes discussing this profound mussar we can uncover from this incident through the lens of chazal.

    The first thing that came to mind is a teaching of Rebbe Eliezar (Avos D’Rav Nosson 15:4) that a person should do teshuvah one day before they die.

    The gemara (Shabbos 153a) recounts how the talmidim of Rebbe Eliezar asked him how this is possible. “Does one know when he will die so as to do teshuvah the day before?”

    Their rebbe responded by explaining, “All the more so! This way (because we do not know our day of death) we will have to live each day as if it’s the last and this way spend all our days in teshuvah!”

    This gemara is sharing an open secret. To discover who we are and where we are holding, imagine a day as our last. At that moment we will recognize what we truly hold dear, what is b’emes important. And, if one does this every single day (no small feat!), imagine what a life he could live!

    Years ago a saw in a sefer in the name of Rav Yaakov Kamanetzky a story- a metaphor really- that can serve to awaken one from life’s monotonous slumber.

    We are all familiar with the city of Luz. While it is unclear if this is the same city mentioned in sefer Bereishis or in sefer Shoftim (see Sota 46 with Bereishis Rabba 69:8), there is one special feature found within this city that is most intriguing.

    Chazal (Sotah, ibid.) teach that due to their merits-largely the zechus of escorting guests-they were zocheh to many special things, like a stable economy due it being the main manufacture of techeiles, as well asNevuchadnetzar’s inability to capture this city, etc.

    But perhaps the greatest gift bestowed on the city of Luz was that anybody who lived in that city was incapable of dying.

    In order to die, the gemara explains, the very old would simply walk outside their city boundaries or walls and be niftar.

    Rav Yaakov wondered aloud a penetrating thought experiment:

    Imagine you are taking a stroll one day near the outskirts of the city of Luz. At that same time a man living inside who is, say, 800 years old, walks outside the city so that Hashem could take his neshama.

    You see this elderly man and give him a hearty ‘Shalom Aleichem!’

    You both begin to talk and it is revealed that he is close to a millennium in age!

    “That is amazing that you live so long” you stunningly react.

    Being that such long lives is all he knows, he earnestly asks “Why? For how long to people outside the city of Luz live?”

    You will likely respond by quoting the pasuk  (Tehillim 90:10) “The days of our years…are seventy years, and if with strength, eighty years; but their pride is toil and pain, for it passes quickly and we fly away”

    The elderly gentleman will look at you in disbelief and shock.

    “You mean to tell me that you, on average, only live several decades?!”

    You will nod your head confirming your words.

    The elderly man will excitedly reply, “Wow! With such a short amount of time that certainly means no one in your world wastes a single second! You all certainly chap every single second of the day! You must be osek in Torah and chesed every single waking moment. All so you can accomplish everything in your few short years!”

    Now that we reached mid-winter, as the days begin to get longer, we should rededicate ourselves to recall always what our true priorities are. 

    We do not need a five-minute-missile-arrival-warning to awaken ourselves toward what truly matters…and that ain’t golf!

    Chazal in (Bereishis Rabba) explain why by the time the dor of Avraham arrived the life span of Man was severely cut-from hundreds of years to into the one-hundreds. They explain that when one has hundreds and hundreds of years to live they would tend to procrastinate. “Oh, I will start working on shas in my 500’s. I have time!”, or,  “I will start being osek in chesed in a few hundred years” etc.

    The goal of our relative brief time is to light a fire beneath us, to awaken us every day to what really matters…and to get to it! Because we just never know.

    This false warning for Hawaii has become, at least for me, a wake-up call to be mekayeim the words of Rebbe Eliezar.

  • End-Of-Life Issues

    End-Of-Life Issues

    Difficult Conversations

    October, 2019

    Last week we shared a story about end-of-life issues and the need to have frum doctors as well as knowledgeable rabbanim with whom to advise. This week, we will continue on this theme while touching upon another end-of-life issue that we can and should deal with post-haste.

    The July 21, 2006 issue of the Wall Street Journal ran a column titled “How Faith Saved the Atheist”. In it, the writer tells the story of how when her father lay dying in a New York City hospital every doctor sought to convince them to let him “Die with dignity” and not seek to extend his time further. The writer, an unaffiliated Jew, came up with a ruse: she told the doctors that her father was an Orthodox Jew (he was not). According to her telling, this finally caused, in her words, “an invisible fence” to go up around their family, where no longer were the doctors and nurses asserting or hinting to a swifter demise. The writer remarks: “Though my father was born to an Orthodox Jewish family, he is an avowed atheist who long ago had rejected his parents’ ways. As I sat in the ICU, blips on the various screens the only proof that my father was alive, the irony struck me: My father, who had long ago rejected Orthodox Judaism, was now under its protection.”

    But such holy protection can come with complexity.

    Several years ago I was called down to a hospital. The elderly woman lay unconscious in her bed and her husband of over sixty years looked sad, tired and worn.

    “Rabbi, I am glad that you are here. There are so many decisions that need to be made, and I have no idea what is wrong or right, what is moral or amoral. My wife knew that I would not be able to handle such momentous choices, and so a few years back she put you down as her health care proxy.”

    A ‘Health Care Proxy’ is a document that names an individual who would have the power over all medical decisions should one, Rachmanah l’tzlan, be incapacitated.  The Health Care Proxy is distinct from a ‘Living Will’. A Living Will’s job is to pick up where the health care proxy left off by explaining in it as much detail as is desired in regards to specific directives to the proxy such as which rabbanim to ask shailos to (more than one should be offered as not always can a rav be contacted), and what the patient would want in any number of scenarios.

    The man then said something to me that stopped me cold in my tracks. “She was so happy to put you down as her health care proxy because she knew how you believe in the halachic concept of ‘brain-death’”

    However, nothing could be further from the truth. Although I am certainly not near being a bar plugta in such devarim sh’omdim b’romo shel olam, I certainly follow the mainstream view –as articulate clearly by the major poskim of the last generation, and their students – that ‘brain death’ (defined as such only in specific scenarios and criteria) should not be deemed halachic death.

    While this is not the place to go into the details, certain matters are important for readers to know, so as to be aware how doctors think and so that the proper paperwork is filled in.

    In the the 1960’s doctors began to succeed in transplantation of major organs. But there was a paradox. On the one hand, one can not murder someone, yet on the other hand, for some transplantations they would need a ‘live’ organ. Let us quote from the National Center of Biotechnology:

    “This, in turn, generated demand for increasing numbers of organs, especially from dead individuals, producing a paradox: “the need for both a living body and a dead donor.” The groundwork required to resolve this paradox had been laid in 1968 by Henry Beecher and the Harvard Ad Hoc Committee’s proposal that a person could be diagnosed as dead when there was irreversible cessation of the function of the entire brain”.

    This became known as “The Harvard Criteria”, (and is not referring to a vegetative state). It was largely dismissed by the major poskim, with Rav Elyashiv and others signing a letter against our acceptance of such a protocol not found in chazal.

    Yet there are some rabbis and vocal figures (including Dr. Steinberg, the editor of the ongoing Encylopidia Talmudis) who, although a minority, support certain types of brain death in halacha based on their personal communication with some of the great sages who in the past publicly rejected it.

    I share this with the reader because it is crucial information, and choices can be made on one’s behalf. Everyone should make sure to compose a health care proxy and a living will. One can easily find the Agudah’s version of a living will to be appended to one’s will. And, one should meet with their morah horah to discuss these issues so that they know what to do in case the worst happen, challila.

    Here I was in a hospital having to decide between what I believed to be daas Torah, and what this patient had articulated to her husband. Of course, I knew what I felt was right, but I was in a situation where I would have to either reject involvement or explain to the husband why I was not able to follow his wife’s clear ratzon. With clear planning, this could have been avoided.

    In 1772 the Duke of Mecklenburg demanded that all bodies remain unburied for three days to assure death actually took place. Some scholars, including the maskilim, supported this decree while the Chasam Sofer (Yoreh Deah 338) and major poskim did not, demanding instead that we rely on halacha and mesorah and not fear or personal whims. This is true whether it is about pronouncing death earlier than culture would, or later.

    This story is highly illustrative, for while many believe that halacha is always stringent when it comes to these issues the truth is that the only concern in hashkofos haTorah is for Tores Emes to be reached, whether its a leniency or stringency.

    Write a Living Will, talk to your rav, and in the zechus it should never be needed.

  • Speeches & Surprises

    It usually takes a good two or three weeks to prepare a really good impromptu speech.

    Mark Twain

    I use that line to open a speech whenever I was not told before hand that I would be addressing the crowd.

    It is the one thing I always have at-the-ready!

    As someone in a position where one never knows when they may have to speak, always having a speech prepared is wise counsel.

    In fact, it is solid advice for anyone attending an event, and certainly for a rav.

    The classic suggestion is that every rav should have a vort in his back pocket for every occasion –a classic idea for a bar mitzvah, a wonderful thought for a sheva brachos and, divrei hesped and nechama for a levaya. Then, should he be surprised with a request to speak he has, at least, a starting point.

    Several weeks ago a member of my shul’s brother sadly passed away. Now, shuls have different types of membership, and this person who was sitting shivah is what is called an ‘associate member’. An associate member could mean many things, often it refers to someone or a family that while they don’t usually daven in the shul-nor sometimes live nearby-they still wish to show their support.

    In any event, because of my loose connection with this family, I missed the news that he was sitting shiva.

    It was the last day of shiva when I discovered his loss and I immediately darted into my car and headed over to his home where I assumed he was sitting shiva.

    When no one answered the door, I called the home. My cell connection was bad. What I did make out from his wife is that he has a large family and thery were sitting shiva in their sefardi (bukkarian) shul. “We should have called you to come to this evening, but please come”.

    I thought I misheard this last line. “We should have called…” Why should they have called me? To invite me to the last opportunity to pay a shiva call? But as I said, the connection was bad and I attributed my mishearing her words to that.

    In any event, that evening when we finished the late maariv in my shul, I shot into my car and quickly made my way over to this sefardi shul.

    Walking in, the building was silent.

    Not a sound.

    I looked inside the beis haknesses-the lights were off.

    Maybe I misheard which shul the family is sitting in, I thought.

    I made my way downstairs, and saw that the lights in the ballroom were on.

    I quickly, and without giving it too much thought, walked in to the ballroom, with its heavy door quickly, and loudly, closing behind me.

    To my shock, at least three-hundred people were in this room, eating a catered meal. Before I came into the room, all were silent as they were listening to divrei hesped from their rav, and with the slam of the door, one could hear the heads of three-hundred peple all at once turn to look at me.

    The whole moment was awkward, but also incongruous. Could this really be a shiva?

    Maybe I was in the wrong shul and this was a sheva brachos, or the like.

    But it was a shiva. I then recalled how many groups within sefard have a fascinating minhag for some type of public gathering for the last night of shiva, where friends and family and rabbanim join the family for their last night of halchic mourning.

    In fact, at the back of the room, behind all the guests and tables, I was able to make-out the aveilim sitting near the floor.

    Now I understood what she meant when she said, “We should have called you…”

    All of this happened very quickly. The slamming of the door behind me, the turning of the heads to look at who made this ruckus during the rav’s speech, and my remembering this minhag.

    The rav stopped his speech, and kindly invited me to sit with him and the other sefardi rabbanim at the head table. This was not the time to argue-all eyes were on this red-headed ashkanazi who just walked in-so I quickly and as quietly as possible made may way to an empty chair at their table.

    In truth, I was now deeply curious. I have never attended an event like this, and wanted to know what type of speeches were made, what was done at this type of event. It was a chance to witness a beautiful mesorah that was new to me.

    How does a rav mesh the wonderful food and large unified gathering with the deep mourning of the family?

    As these thoughts were going through my head, the rav was finishing his speech.

    In Hebrew, he concluded, “And now we have Rabbi Taub joining us.” Directing the microphone toward me, he then concluded “We now ask him to speak.”

    While trying to keep a straight face, I was panicking inside!

    Thirty seconds ago I thought I walked into the wrong building, fifteen seconds ago I noisily made my ‘grand’ entrance, ten seconds ago I put it all together and recalled this wonderful sefardi minhag, five seconds ago I wondered what a rav would speak about at such an event, and now I am being asked to speak!?

    ‘I guess I was about to find out what a rav says by such events!’, I jokingly thought to myself.

    There are two things that are true across all languages and cultures. Honesty and ahavah. I began by saying over the story that brought me there-what I just shared with you above-and then I admitted my own curiosity at what a rav would say before I myself was called up to the podium.

    I then spoke about the love that the Torah describes between fathers, mothers and children (the niftar’s mother was still alive) and the bond between a husband and his wife, trying to tie it to that week’s parshas Vayeitzei which happened to cover many of those topics.

    It was not, perhaps, a great speech, but it was an honest one, and a heartfelt one at that. When I finished, I turned to the rabbanim and asked,  “How did I do?”

    “Rabbanim usually speak for at least twenty minutes at these events” one responded, before another added, “But I am surprised you were able to muster even three minutes!”

    It was a unique event, and it trained me for yet another situation for which to always have a vort close by.

    But it also taught me another lesson.

    No matter what our customs, or how we mourn, at the end of the day family is family and words of comfort can come in all shapes, sizes, and levels of surprise.

  • Reciting Tehillim & Tanach as ‘Medicine’

    December, 2019

    Several years ago, a member of my previous shul was in a horrible accident. Although she was not frum, she was a modestly wealthy woman who paid dues to many of the shuls in our small community, including the Conservative and Reform temples, and divided her time among all of them. So when the news of her misfortune spread, the entire Jewish community was deeply distraught.

    My shul decided to invite everyone in town to our beis haknesses for a night of Tehillim. In addition to Chabad and the other Orthodox shuls, we invited the non-frum denominations to announce the program. We would come together as Jews and pray for this woman’s recovery ina respectful manner. That night was a tremendous kiddush Hashem.

    In anticipation of the evening, I prepared what I hoped would be a short and inspiring introductory drashah about the power of tefillah in general and Tehillim in particular. I asked my wife for advice about what I could share that would speak to Jews of such differing backgrounds and levels of observance.

    Her response was magnificent!

    She reminded me that everyone in attendance used a specific siddur and nusach, and it was likely that with Sefardim, Ashkenazim, and Chabad—not to mention, l’havdil, the altered prayer books of the other denominations—in the room, there would be few people, if any, who recited the same Shemoneh Esrei.

    In addition, she continued, few shared the same minhagim for Kiddush,forthe type of matzahor Haggadah they used on Pesach or the daled minim they used on Sukkos. However, the one thing they all shared—and that all Jews share—was an identical Sefer Tehillim.

    A mystic in eighteenth-century Egypt and a child in the Warsaw Ghetto recited the same Tehillim. The Psalms have never changed; they have been the same for all people throughout the ages, the tears shed over their pages inestimable.

    What a wonderful way to preface that evening’s tefillos and to remind people of the power and unifying force of Tehillim.

    (See the new addition to Emes L’Yaakov on the second half of nach regaring why it is not called ‘Tehillos’; see however Malbim inter alia who indeed call it by that feminine name)

    I open with this story so that reader knows where I stand, and that the forthcoming is only l’hagdil Torah u’l’haadirah.

    A few months ago, someone in my shul shared with me an article he had read online, a well-researched halachah paper discussing the efficacy, and even the permissibility, of reciting Tehillim for those who are ill, limiting it to very specific times. He was shocked by the article’s strict conclusions and asked for my opinion.

    This touches on last week’s column as well, which mentioned some interesting segulos related to Chanukah and other occasions when reciting certain kapitlach of Tehillim are said to ward off tragedy. In fact, there are many references to special perakim of Tehillim that one can recite for a variety of situations and times.

    While this is a minhag Yisrael, it is not an easy one to understand. The Gemarateaches that it is forbidden to use pesukim to heal oneself, and that at times, doing so can diminish one’s share in Olam Haba (Shavuos 15b).

    While the Gemara concludes that one may recite pesukim to prevent danger or tragedy, our common practice is to say Tehillim for a refuah or yeshuah for something that already exists.

    How is this allowed?

    The same could be asked regarding the famous segula of reciting parshas haMann on the Tuesday before parshas Beshalach.

    The Rambam writes, “Should someone recite a pasuk as an incantation for a wound, or so that a child should stop crying, or he places tefillin next to a child so that he will sleep, not only is he in violation of the [prohibition against] forbidden incantations, but he is a denier of the Torah, for he makes the Torah into a healer of bodies when it is there to mend souls… However, a healthy person may recite pesukim or Tehillim to protect against future sufferings and prevent them from arising” (Hilchos Ovdei Kochavim 11:12).

    Rav Moshe Sternbuch posits that the answer must be that when we recite Tehillim for someone who is ill, we are asking Hashem to heal that person in the zechus of our Torah study, not simply because of the power of the pesukim (Shu”t Teshuvos V’hanhagos 1:121). For this reason, he explains, one should omit the line in the Yehi Ratzon stating, “In the merit of Tehillim, of the verses, words and letters” and say instead, “In the zechus of our davening to You through Tehillim, its pesukim, words and letters”; this way, we clarify that our intent is not to use the pesukim as a “magic potion.”

    Similarly, the Tzitz Eliezer (17:30) writes that one may learn Torah or daven for the benefit of his soul, even if he also wishes to heal a physical condition.

    We can add that the Midrash Tehillim famously teaches that Dovid Hamelechprayed that the recital of Tehillim should be equal to learning nega’im v’ohalos—the most difficult portions of Shas! Perhaps he too was concerned that people might use Tehillim as a type of “magical” segulah and he wanted to emphasize that we recite Tehillim as Torah study—and in that merit people would be healed.

    The last line in the Tzitz Eliezer is the one that is most critical. “Hanach lahen l’Yisrael, im ein nev’iim heim, bnei nevi’im heim—leave bnei Yisrael as they are, for if they are not prophets, then they are at least the children of prophets.”

    As I explained to the congregant who showed me the online halachah article about Tehillim, this line from the Tzitz Eliezer is the key. Mesorah is our greatest value, and we rarely question a mesorah of our gedolim,including a practice that they did not protest. This includes the practice of reciting Tehillim for an existing situation of need.

    The Debrecziner Rav was once asked if it is permissible to make eggs and onions on Shabbos, a common staple in my and many others’ homes, (Shu”t Be’er Moshe 5:44). The shoel’s concern was one of lush. His answer is illustrative of the way psak halachah often works.

    “It is mutar, and we may ignore the agitation raised by some who claim that making this dish violates the melachah of lush [kneading]. For have our forefathers not told us how they used to make this dish in front of gedoleiolam [on Shabbos]? And indeed, that was the custom of my sainted father and grandfather. Therefore, the matter is simple; it is allowed without any reservation.”

    Only after saying this did he go into the halachic particulars.

    If a practice was sanctioned by gedolim before us and is now widespread, it is rarely our place to call it into question. (For example, see a letter from Rav Gifter to Rav Henkin – in the recently published first volume of Rav Henkin’s teshuvos -questioning how the latter could forbid making Kiddush before tekias shofar when so many yeshivos did just that. See ibid. Rav Henkin’s response.)

    While the question of the recital of Tehillim is a fascinating one, we walk on dangerous ground should we even consider doing away with a practice that has been in use for generations.

    For further research on this topic, see also the yarchon ‘Ohr Yisroel’ #15, Rav Greenwald, for how long the Jewish people have been reciting Tehillim for the sick and as a zechus.

    May the zechus of abiding by our mesorah bring refuos and yeshuos to all in need.

    The Mystery of the ‘Forty Day’ Segula
  • A Dog Eat Dog World Pets in Halacha, Part 2

    A Dog Eat Dog World Pets in Halacha, Part 2

    Further Rabbinical Pet Dilemmas

    Jan, 2019

    As we know –and we discussed last week in some detail-people become very attached to their pets, and sometimes rabbanim are approached with issues relating to pets in ways both fascinating and unusual.

    My kids have always wanted a pet. I always answer them in the negative, explaining that there are just too many halachik issues in owning a dog or other animal –from feeding it before we eat, to complicated shailos of muktzah, and beyond. However, privately I explain to my wife that aside for those concerns, I have another: having a pet is an invitation to tragedy. The kids will fall in love with their pet, and yet the pet is destined to die in a matter of a few short years. I just do not wish to deal with that trauma and drama!

    Rabbi Shalom Hochberg, the wonderful rav of the neighboring shul of mine, shared with me the following story.

    A family in his shul had a pet dog for a number of years. This dog was a part of their family life. They took it on walks every day, the kids played with it when home for school, and went along on family trips.

    After close to a decade of having their wonderful dog, its time came and it passed away.

    Not knowing how to deal with this loss –and in particular, how to inform their children when they arrived home soon after school –they called their rav for an eitzah.

    Rabbi Hochberg, a sweet, sincere and caring man, said he will come over and speak to the children.

    As he was repeating this story to me, I wondered what he would say to the kids, what role could a rabbi possibly have in this case?

    What he decided upon doing was nothing short of brilliant.

    After hugging the children, he took out a perek shirah, which describes the assorted pesukim and praises that various entities and animals sing and praise to Hashem.

    He slowly explained each one, with the knowledge that he was building up to the final entry in perek shirah –the kelav/dog.

    “kelavim omrim, ‘bo’u nishtachaveh v’nichra’ah nivrichah lifnei Hashem oseinu’” “The dogs say ‘Come, let us prostrate ourselves and bow down; let us kneel before Hashem, our Maker.’”

    He then asked that the each of the children separately read that entry. One after the other, each child read from that segment of perek shira through some tears. Rabbi Hochberg then embraced each child once more and left.

    The children, now grown up, have never forgotten that special moment with their rav, and how Torah and mesorah helped comfort them.

    Pet dogs may have a most ancient history in yiddeshkeit.

    The pasuk tells us that after Kayin killed his brother Hevel Hashem placed a sign or mark upon him (Bereishis 4:15). The Midrash cites a number of views as to what this ‘sign’ was. Rashi, for example, quotes the view that Hashem etched His name unto the forehead of Kayin. The Midrash (Berishis Rabba 22) lists many other opinions as to what precisely was this sign. One of the views brought there is curious, to say the least.

     “Rav said: Hashem gave Kayin a (pet) dog”.

    What an astounding midrash! How would this be a punishment for the killing of his brother?!

    I heard a wonderful original idea in the name of the famed orator Rav Yissachar Frand, which I later discovered was also offered by the Choftez Chaim. There is no animal as loyal as a dog. As the saying goes, “Dogs are man’s best friend”. Kayin should have been by his brother’s side always, fighting for him, defending him, and certainly not harming him. The greatest constant reminder of what he should have been for his brother was to have the loyal dog next to him for the rest of his life. It was as if he had a constant rebuke by his side, “this is what type of brother you should have been!”

    I have on more than one occasion been approached couples debating if they should buy a dog. “Does hashkafa or halacha have anything to add to our discussion?” they ask.

    I share with them that, in fact, the gemara itself discusses the idea of owning a dog (Bava Kama 83) and warns against owing an evil dog, that could potentially cause damage and scare-off people, and even cause a miscarriage, R’l.

    As a side point, I have always felt that gemara may be the source of the mingag that some have of pregnant women not visiting the zoo.

    While Rav Yaakov Emden (Sheilas Yaavetz) discourages ever owning a pet dog unless it serves a very specific purpose, the Shulchan Aruch (c’m 409:3) and most others only warn against dangerous or evil dogs.

    Each spouse walks away hearing from my response what they wish to hear.

    But we live in strange times, and its one thing to believe that we have what to learn from all of Hashem’s creations, and another to turn pets into a member of the family. According to a Harris poll, 95% of pet owners view their dog as a member of their family! Even more disturbing, is a poll recorded several years ago in The Wall Street Journal:

    “A recent paper by Richard Topolski at George Regents University and colleagues, published in the journal Anthrozoos, demonstrates this human involvement with pets to a startling extent. Participants in the study were told a hypothetical scenario in which a bus is hurtling out of control, bearing down on a dog and a human. Which do you save? With responses from more than 500 people, the answer was that it depended: What kind of human and what kind of dog? Everyone would save a sibling, grandparent or close friend rather than a strange dog. But when people considered their own dog versus people less connected with them — a distant cousin or a hometown stranger — votes in favor of saving the dog came rolling in. And an astonishing 40 percent of respondents, including 46 percent of women, voted to save their dog over a foreign tourist.”

    Whoa!

    We saw the seeds of this shift in culture about twenty-years ago when The New York Times published an article that could only be classified as Purim Torah. Instead of copying here what they reported, I will instead include a response to that article that they received:


    To the Editor:

    I was surprised that The Times would publish an article about a woman who arranges parties known as ”bark mitzvahs” (On the Map, Jan. 5). She indicates that she provides everything, including a tallis, or prayer shawl, which I assume is draped over the dog.

    This is nothing less than a desecration of a cherished Jewish tradition and degrades some of the central principles of Jewish life. I urge readers to reject such practices.

    I enjoy a good time as much as the next person. But not at the expense of religious traditions that need strengthening, not desecrating.

    This letter was signed by a Reform rabbi. Sadly, now twenty-years later, and as the earlier poll indicated, I am not convinced that a reform Jew–always moving in whatever direction the winds of culture happen to be blowing – will still recognize the sheer ridiculousness, and even disgusting nature of such a ceremony.

    Indeed, it is the dog itself that reminds us of this lesson. Chazal teach (Sanhedrin 97) that “U’pnei Hador K’pnei Ha’kelev –the face of the generation (before Moshiach’s arrival) will be like the face of a dog”

    Rav Yitzchok Volozion explained that just like a dog will loyally chase after a stick that is thrown, so too will some Jews chase after whatever culture throws their way.

    Let us instead always use the Torah alone as our yardstick of morality.

  • My Rabbi, My Candyman

    My Rabbi, My Candyman

    The Job of a Rav is more than Derashos


    I am my shul’s Candyman. Throughout davening, kids will take the
    few steps up the podium to my seat and, depending on their age, will
    either stick out their hand or request a candy.
    If it is leining or kaddish I have them wait along with me, and read
    along with me, teaching them the seriousness of talking at certain times.
    But this is not why I embrace this role.
    Once a child is of speaking age, they know that they will only get a
    candy if they name the parshah, leading to some tots yelling out
    ‘T’tzaveh!’ before they even say ‘Good Shabbos’!
    As they get older, my candy-questions become age-appropriate. “What
    is the parshah about?”, “What came first the mishkan or chet ha’egel?”,
    etc.
    While a great way to get to know the kids, this too is not why I chose
    this role.
    Rather, the two main reasons are to create a girsa d’yankusah.
    For one, these are dangerous times in which these same kids will soon
    grow into teenagers. The day may come when they will be tested, when
    two paths will appear before them. Friends, temptation, or technology
    may provide enticement to one path, with no fair competition against its
    luring pull.
    At such moments of trial, almost no teenager will be thinking of a
    drasha, of some distant words of inspiration once shared by their rav.
    However, maybe -just maybe -their mind will allow for an image of their
    Candyman. In our generation, true feelings of chibuv/love and an earnest
    sense of affection toward a the rav of your youth is essential.
    Well over a decade ago, I met an old friend who left yeshiva during
    high school and who had been MIA for a long time. His exact living
    situation and state of religiosity was a mystery whenever his name came
    up among friends. He wasn’t wearing a yarmulka, and the rest of his
    look seemed to confirm my worst fears.
    We spoke about his childhood -which suffered from severe trauma. It
    went unspoken, but this no-doubt best explained his pained spirit.

    He then shared something unbelievable: “While I would not say I am
    still frum, however, you should know that in all these years, I’ve never
    once been michalel Shabbos”.
    I had the very same questions running through my head as the reader
    does right now, however, I’ve learned, in these situations one keeps
    quiet and let’s the speaker speak.
    He went on to explain by sharing that when he was a little boy, and his
    private trauma (non-abuse) was unfolding, a rav was asked to consult,
    Rav Gedalia Felder, tz”l.
    He was so little at the time, and so in awe of the rav, that as he began to
    share his pain he started to cry. “I then noticed the rav crying in reaction
    to my pain. This only made me cry more. This in turn made the rav cry
    more. At the end of the meeting all that was gained was two people
    crying – a child in agony, and a rav in aching from that child’s pain.
    “No matter what I’ve done, no matter where I’ve been, no matter how
    much I’ve fallen, whenever I am about to break Shabbos I think of Rav
    Felder’s tears. I don’t know if I still believe in Yiddishkeit, but I still
    believe in him because he believed in me”.
    This leads to my second reason for serving as the Candyman.
    Not only do I want the children to feel I care about them, I also want
    them to know I am accessible. If they learn to approach me when they
    are young, it will be far easier when they grow up.
    For this same reason, on my halacha exams at Shevach High School in
    Queens, I offer an extra credit at the end of every exam -told to them in
    advance: that each share a shailah they asked their rav, or any rav who
    is not related to them and who does not work at the school. I urge this
    because, Sadly, too often, people are too shy or afraid it is not important
    enough to call a rabbi.
    I often share with my wife, “I’ve rarely been called on a taanis by
    someone who feels sick yet for whom the psak is that they still need to
    Fast. This is because most people are too shy, afraid, embarrassed, or
    reticent for a host of reasons, to even ask the shailah, and those that are
    sick enough to actually pick up the phone probably should have done so
    hours ago!”.
    In our generation especially, being aloof can be risky.

    There is an old saying that as much as a rav is annoyed by getting a
    call during dinner, he is more annoyed not getting a call during dinner.
    If one wishes to enjoy the rewards that come with rabbanus, he must
    make the sacrifices too -and let people know he is accessible.
    Such is our task in this role.
    It is little sacrifice if done out of love, and doesn’t hold a candle to
    what true gedolim must endure.
    As the Rambam expressed to his student:
    Now G-d knows that in order to write this to you I have escaped to a
    secluded spot, where people would not think to find me, sometimes
    leaning for support against the wall, sometimes lying down on account
    of my excessive weakness, for I have grown old and feeble. With regard
    to your wish to come here to me, I cannot but say how greatly your visit
    would delight me, for I truly long to commune with you, and would
    anticipate our meeting with even greater joy than you. Yet …Do not
    expect to be able to confer with me…for even one hour either by day or
    by night, for the following is my daily occupation. I dwell at Misr
    [Fostat] and the Sultan resides at Kahira [Cairo]; these two places are
    two Shabbath days’ journey [about one mile and a half] distant from
    each other. My duties to the Sultan are very heavy. I am obliged to visit
    him every day, early in the morning; and when he or any of his children,
    or any of the inmates of his harem, are indisposed, I dare not quit
    Kahira, but must stay during the greater part of the day in the palace. It
    also frequently happens that one or two of the royal officers fall sick,
    and I must attend to their healing. Hence, as a rule, I repair to Kahira
    very early in the day, and even if nothing unusual happens I do not
    return to Misr until the afternoon. Then I am almost dying with hunger.
    I find the antechamber filled with people, both Jews and Gentiles,
    nobles and common people, judges and bailiffs, friends and foes — a
    mixed multitude, who await the time of my return. I dismount from my
    animal, wash my hands, go forth to my patients, and entreat them to
    bear with me while I partake of some slight refreshment, the only meal
    I take in the twenty-four hours. Then I attend to my patients, write
    prescriptions for their various ailments. Patients go in and out until
    nightfall, and sometimes even, I solemnly assure you, until two hours and more in the night. I converse and prescribe for them while lying
    down from sheer fatigue, and when night falls, I am so exhausted that
    I can scarcely speak.
    In consequence of this, no Israelite can have any private interview
    with me, except on the Shabbath. On that day the whole congregation,
    or at least the majority of the members, come unto me after the
    morning service, when I instruct them as to their proceedings during
    the whole week; we study together a little until noon, when they depart.
    Some of them return, and read with me after the afternoon service until
    evening prayers. In this manner I spend that day. I have here related to
    you only a part of what you would see if you were to visit me…I beg that
    you will come to me but not with the hope of deriving any advantage
    from your visit as regards your studies; for my time is, as I have shown
    you, excessively occupied.
    (Translation by Isadore Twersky)

  • Dikduk & the Rabbinate

    July, 2017

    When it comes to dikduk I have found two groups –those fastidious about getting it right, and, those that have little patience of the first group.

    As a rav I have to make both groups happy while always with the goal toward the correct pronunciations.

    This is not always a simple task.

    My first years in rabbanus I soon came to recognize how important proper dikduk was to many members, and how deeply some were offended when I would slip. Some delighted in informing me how my errors were signs, in their eyes, of a lack of focus on these matters in traditional chinuch. They were wrong, I would explain, as many of our gedolim are/were masters of dikduk, rather I was just a poor student.

    Several years ago I mentioned in this space something-or-other to do with the dor haflaga in parshas noach. A few weeks later I received a letter in the mail from a reader. He informed me, nicely and with wonderful research, that it is not pronounced haflaga, but rather hapalga.

    “It couldn’t be!’ I thought to myself, “Doesn’t everyone say haflaga?”

    It turns out that not only was he correct, but after checking chumashim which have nekudos placed in Rashi (where this phrase is used -see Artscroll, Rashi 10:28 and 10:8, and their Midrash Rabba ad loc. 32) the talmidei chachamim editors often pronounce it hapalga –like this writer insisted!

    But here is the rabbinic conundrum –

    The other week I was delivering a derasha on parshas noach.

    Always being mindful to use proper didkuk, I remembered that letter and referred to the generation of the dispersion not as the dor haflaga –but rather the correct, although rarely used pronunciation hapalga (as the hei is not a part of the root; hap’laga would also be correct).

    Thinking that this will make the ballei didkuk happy, it instead only confused the masses.

    I’ve had the same result when I tried to pronounce the daughter of Pharoah correctly as Bisya and not Basya. While correct (see Divrei Hayamim 1:4), it causes everyone’s focus away from the real topic and only fetches confusion and murmuring. (Bisya is the biblical name for this princess, however when naming a baby with this same root today we doindeed pronounce itBasya, as explained by Rav Chaim Kinievsky. See also Vayikarei Shemo B’Yisroel).

    So what is a rav to do?

    Well, just this week, the gemara in daf yomi was discussing issues surrounding the dor haflaga/hapalga. I mentioned to the shiur all of the above and was then excitedly shown by several in the group how the Artscroll gemara (Sanhedrin 107a note 50) struggled with these same questions. They there write that although the likely pronunciation is in fact hapalga (or hap’laga), so as not to confuse the reader away from the popular pronunciation, they made the editorial decision to use haflaga.

    As a point of related interest, and so as to remind them that no particular group should be falsely defined as having little lashon kodesh expertise, I then shared with my group that as the Modern-Hebrew language was being formed, Eliezar Ben Yehudah and the other acutely educated secularists charged with its formation, often turned to the extraordinary gedolim living in Yerushalaim at the time to help with certain words and phrases found in chazal (see “Guardian of Jerusalem” Artscroll, pages -322-330).

     Because a language was being partly invented, the endorsed linguists had no choice but to be precise in their word choices and meanings as they are found in chazal and tanach, and who better to turn to than the men who devoted their lives to studying those very words.

    The famous leader of the Agudah in Israel (pre-state) Rav Moshe Blau recorded in his memoirs how his father-in-law once stopped in the middle of a shiur to step outside because he heard that Ben Yehudah was waiting with a question as to the proper translation of the word amim found in a gemara zevachim. He explained to his students –who were no doubt shocked at his interrupting his shiur for this man –that “It is a Kiddush hashem for a Yiddish speaking rav to explain to Ben Yehudah the meaning of a Hebrew word that he, the famous Hebrew lexicographer, could not fathom” (ibid.  p.323, footnote).

    But as complex as translations are, dikduk is a far more intricate arena.

    Like the English words address, contrast, present and project, lashon kodesh has many, many words who’s meaning utterly changes upon where one places the accent, where one stresses the syllable.

    The story goes that a mechanech complained to Rav Moshe Feinstein regarding why, as this mechanech saw it, yeshivos are not focusing more on proper dikduk. This concerned him, he explained, because parts of teffila and tanach can potentially be misread if one misunderstands proper pronunciation.

    Rav Moshe is purported to have humorously responded, “Dikduk? Don’t you mean, dikDUK!” By correctly stressing and accenting the last syllable, Rav Moshe was showing that even those passionate about this subject often misunderstand their intense rules.

    This story is similar to another. Rav Yosef Chaim Sonnenfeld, the rav of Yerushalim during the critical pre-State years, also had many dealings with Ben Yehudah. An amusing tale is recorded (ibid.)  where Ben Yehudah directly challenged the chinuch among chareidim being delivered in Yiddish and not Modern Hebrew.

    “Is there not a promise, recorded in the Talmud Yerushalmi, that anyone who lives in eretz yisroel” and speaks lashon kodesh is guaranteed a share in olam habah?” asked Ben Yehudah.

    Although on friendly terms, Rav Sonnenfeld responded sharply.

    Ben Yehudah countered to the sharp retort by saying in Yiddish “What kind of shtussim are you saying?!”

    Rav Sonnenfeld smiled and said, “You mean, ‘shduyot’!”

    Even how to pronounce a yeshiva’s name has entered into the fray. The online encyclopedia Wikipidia keeps on record not just the finished edit of each page, but one can also discover the dialogue and discussions that went into each choice and omission.

    The page on the Lakewood Yeshiva – Beth Medrash Govoha –has a most telling back-and-forth between a few lay-editors.

    It begins calmly enough discussing the transliteration of the term ‘gevoah’:

     -The grammatically-correct transliteration of the Hebrew גָּבוֹהַּ is GOVOAH. NOT GOVOHA. (Just like נֹחַ is Noach, not Nocha)

     -You’re right about the grammar, but the {English transliteration is not meant to reflect the Hebrew, per se, and therefore the} name of the school is ‘Govoha’.

    -I’m not so sure you are right, as Noach has no nekudah in the Ches while Govoha does have a nekudah in the Heh.

    But this dialogue soon turns back into that unfortunate myth about bnei hayeshiva:

     -But while we’re on the subject of Hebrew grammar, the correct Hebrew word for study group is ‘chavurah’, not ‘chaburah’ as it is called many times in the article. The latter term (“chaburah”) means injury or wound. Well, the yeshivah world tends to be rather ignorant of and oblivious to Hebrew grammar, in general, and here you have just one more telling example

    -It’s Aramic not Hebrew.

    -Mmmm… seems unlikely. Could you cite a source for that, or an example from a recognized (pointed) Aramaic text, please?

     -I did take the time to search for one, Pasachim 86b.

    – clearly you were offended by something I wrote. So sorry, I sincerely ask your mechilah.

    Seems the bnei hayeshiva did have it right all along!

    We all must be careful with how we pronounce certain words-especially by laining and davening, and, we all could use a little improvement. However, let not our fidelity to dikduk cause hurtful words and broad characterization of certain groups either. That type of error in speech is far worse than a mistaken accent.

  • Ashes and Invocations: A Speech in Albany

    Ashes and Invocations: A Speech in Albany

    June 2016

    “On a daily basis, Shul Rabbonim listen and see families living paycheck to paycheck and struggling with the high costs of tuition”, explains Yehuda Friedman, Associate Director of Synagogue services for Long Island and Queens for the Orthodox Union.

    This is why, he explains, the idea percolated to have “Rabbonim from across New York State travel to Albany to share the stories with legislators about the tuition burden facing their community”.

    This past March Ami reported extensively on this OU mission to Albany in support for additional yeshiva funding. Jake Adler, director of government affairs for Teach NYS, explains further. “The teach NYS mission to Albany this past March was a classic example of what our community can accomplish together. This was the largest mission to Albany that our community has ever undertaken and it made waves. When the community mobilizes -together, for a common cause, elected officials and policy makers notice and our families benefit”

    They could not have said it better. While rabbanim are offered to go on many missions and to untold conferences, there is simply not enough time to attend many. However, for this trip a significant number of rabbanim from Queens felt that this was a cause worthy of showing support for not just from the pulpit but in person as well.

    And indeed, the mission was met with some successes; an additional five-million dollars in funding in yeshiva STEM funding.

    I mention the above so as to give what comes next some context.

    A week before the trip, one of the members of my community, David Weprin, himself an Assemblyman in Albany, approached me with an interesting opportunity.

    “I hear you will be going to Albany on this mission. How would you like to do the invocation?” He was referring to the speech the opens the session in the New York Assembly.

    If the reader is wondering what exactly an ‘invocation’ is, here is the definition as given in the Merriam-Webster dictionary:

    1a :the act or process of petitioning for help or support; specifically,  often capitalized :a prayer of entreaty (as at the beginning of a service of worship)

    1b :a calling upon for authority or justification

    2a formula for conjuring

    In short, an invocation is when a person-often a member of the clergy-opens up an otherwise non-religious event with a prayer and a focus on grander priorities.

    While I have had the opportunity to present invocations in the past (at secular dinners, etc.)  I have never done so in such an official and important setting.

    In preparation, I spent a little time reading a few invocations of others, and realized that I would have to actually read my speech –something that I was not used to doing. To be clear, one does not have to read their speech, rather that to be presented in the most respectfully prepared and clear manner, this is what almost all before had done.

    That morning in Albany, I quietly left the other rabbanim and schools that came to the State capitol to be taken to the actual chambers.

    Just the walking to get there was an experience, what with underground tunnels and elevators and even more security than I was expecting.

    On the final elevator ride down to the bowels of the capitol building, I saw another state legislator who seemed to have dirt on his forehead. Being a kind gentleman, I was just about to inform him of the stain on his head. Thankfully I realized in the nick of time that this was far from an accidental stain –rather that day happened to be ‘Ash Wednesday’, when religious Christians have ashes placed on their forehead.

    I was not nervous yet for my speech, but that was about to change. I was brought not just inside the chamber –a room with what seems like a 500 foot ceiling – but placed on the dais, seated together with two other high officials about twenty feet above-and facing-the other legislators.

    This I was not expecting. Nor was I anticipating an official introduction to who I was etc.

     By the time it was my turn to open the session I was very, very, nervous.

    Walking up to the mike, I needed to break the tense feeling (that only I felt).

    Although I was not planning on opening with a joke (obviously) I said:

    “Only in New York would our greatest house allow a rabbi to perform the invocation on what happens to be Ash Wednesday –what a diverse and free state!”.

    This got a wonderful laugh and applause.

    With that I was able to read my invocation with ease, presented below:

    “A-might Gd, Creator of heaven and earth. We open today with profound gratitude from our hearts and the deep thanksgiving of our souls, for our democracy.

    “We beseech You, Oh Gd, that we as a people, and we here today as leaders of peoples, shall never tire nor take for granted this gift and blessing of our Freedoms and Democracy, the gift of this Country, these United States of America, and its state, the greatest and most diverse of all in the Union, The Great State of New York!

    “We entreat You, Oh Lord, that You protect her and guide her. We plead with You, the One and Only Gd, to bring peace of mind, health and clarity of vision to:

    “Our Speaker, Carl Heastie; Majority Leader, Joseph Morelle; Minroty Leader Brian Kolb. And special mention to my own Representative, Assemblyman David Weprin.

    “For our dear Governor Andrew Cuomo, we pray for Gd’s Grace to shine through him, for, as our Talmud teaches, You, Gd, lend from your mighty throne cherished charm and potential power to our leaders.

    “May Gov. Cuomo continue to use these gifts for the betterment of all denizens of this state. May You shine unto Gv. Cuomo only good health, strength of spirit and the continued ability to be guided by Your Light.

    “May these hallowed halls, and all of its duly elected members, be protected always, be a lighthouse to all citizens of this State.

    “As someone who has been blessed with the good fortune to serve as a rabbi upstate in Buffalo, and now Downstate in Queens, and to have traveled and traversed her valleys and mountains in my field of Kashruth, from its farmlands to the metal jungles of her glorious cities,

    May we so find:

    “That from southern corner Richmond County to the northern tip of Clinton County, From Chitaqua to the West and Saratoga and Washington Counties to the East, and all of her counties in between, only unity where there is unholy divide, fine commonality from within our differences, and our shared humanity in our various backgrounds.

    “May your decisions here today be wise and guided by the values of those that came before us, so that we may bequeath to those that come after the same bounty we received.

    “May we always remember that we are all living in some distant futures past.

    “May Gd protect this great state, and bless us all, forever and always Amen!

    And then, my biggest surprise came two weeks later, when I received a check in the mail from the Assembly paying me for my speech! What a great State indeed!

    I handed the check to my wife and jokingly said, “We better declare this in our taxes, I fear it may be a trap!”

    May HKBH indeed bless our state and our country so that we may continue to thrive here in Torah in peace until moshiach’s arrival.

  • Rabbis and Their Discontents

    Rabbis and Their Discontents

    The Rabbinate, Its Stress, & Its Reasons

    In a 1985 article, Commentary Magazine wished to tackle the subject of Rabbinic Stress. Stumbling this week upon this thirty-year old column, I laughed aloud upon reading the following:

    “Leslie R. Freedman, a clinical psychologist who had recently completed a nationwide study…Basing himself on interviews as well as on answers he had received from 1,342 rabbis to a questionnaire containing over 220 items, Dr. Freedman concluded that rabbis suffer from unusually high levels of stress. Whereas, for example, men living within a twenty-mile radius of Three Mile Island during the month following the accident at the nuclear reactor there scored an anxiety level of 0.983, and the general male population at the time scored 0.915, rabbis scored 1.104. What was more, they seemed to score that level of stress continuously (the level at Three Mile Island dropped off shortly to that of the general population). What was still more, Dr. Freedman revealed in a minor but significant finding, 30 percent of the rabbis he studied felt that their wives would prefer them to be in another profession.”

    More stress than workers at a nuclear plant?! More stress than workers at a nuclear plant immediately following the worst nuclear-reactor meltdown in the history of the United States?! How can this be true?

    In a couple of weeks, we will be returning to our summer series on the early history of rabbanus in America. Last year we saw the early stages of the American-made Conservative movement, and those that saw early the movement for what it was, and how valiantly they fought against it. Sadly, its creators did not see what these gedolim saw: an unsustainable future.

    The above Commentary article, and the poll it quoted, was targeting a different type of ‘rabbi’ –those outside of the daled amos shel halacha, now 100 years since their American birth (Reform Judaism, of course, began earlier in Germany). However, even they, at least thirty-years ago, felt that culture was getting ahead of faith. The thesis of the article is that rabbis were becoming victims of the age they lived in, their temples so poisoned by a pervasive culture that the rabbi could not even recognize their jobs anymore, or even themselves. Hence the stress.

    In one telling the story, the writer records an event he witnessed. Soviet Jews wished to celebrate on Simchas Torah and, of course, the police in Moscow declined their request.

    A Jewish Federation president in a New England town somehow convinced the the local television station to film Jews freely celebrating Simchas Torah in the United States, even dancing in the streets, contrasted with their brethren behind the Iron Curtain.

    There was one hiccup, the news division was booked solid the week of the yom tov and requested that they ‘stage’ this event instead, about two weeks before.

    The Federation president quickly and enthusiastically calls the local conservative rabbi sharing with him this wonderful opportunity for exposure, and the ability to shine a light on what is going on in the Soviet Union for the average American gentile.

    The rabbi, to his great credit, was aghast. Torah scrolls are not props! We do not take them out of the Ark unless there is a true need. Besides, he opined, this will not even have a marginal effect on the circumstances upon which we are seeking to shine a light!

    He also, wisely, argued that far from a positive message to his congregants, this would send the wrong message to the young generation, “reinforcing their belief, already too strong, that TV was more powerful than anything else, including the ancient proprieties of the synagogue”.

    Enter the ‘stress’ factor. The Federation head was none-to-pleased. He went behind the rabbi’s back and called the president of the synagogue. The next day the rabbi’s president called him into a meeting. “Listen, rabbi. I already called the young men of the shul and arranged for them to meet me with the Torah scrolls, all you have to do is show up.” He went on to say how awful it would look should the rabbi refuse to involve himself with a community project such as this, which was apparently happening with or without him.

    The rabbi got the message, which could not have been made clearer: if you want to keep your job, you will show up to this staged event.

    The story, and the article, ends with the sad yet perfectly expected result, encapsulating so much of what has happened to modern American Jewry:

    “The rabbi showed up, and performed on cue for the cameras, capering about with a Torah scroll on the wrong night of the week. Several days later, on the real night of the holiday, he looked in vain around the synagogue for the young people; they were at home, waiting to catch a glimpse of themselves in five seconds of film on the local news.”

    Are we impervious to these challenges? In talking with colleagues, we often discuss rabbinic battles lost, or those not waged. Their frustration, or ‘stress’, does not come from the battle itself –after all, if it was a halachik matter then they would speak to poskim before agreeing to acquiesce.

    Rather, their frustration comes from the fact that not everyone is aware of the rabbi’s discomfort. By the next generation, or sooner, what was once a painful choice becomes status quo, and sometimes, virtuous. Some will point to the past and say, “It must be fine, even good, for Rabbi X allowed it!” The same applies to not only what the rabbi allowed, but with what he chose not to speak out against.

    Stress, indeed.

    In fact, this concern is alluded to in the words of the Mishnah in Pirkei Avos (1:11), “Chachamim Hizaharu Bidvareichem!” Be careful with your words – For you may be exiled to a place inhabited by evil waters; The disciples who come after you will then drink of these evil waters and be destroyed”

    The rishonim understand this Mishneh to be referring to issuing rulings in either education, halacha or hashkafa. Upon hearing a ruling –sometimes necessary –that was designed for a particular group, others may soon assume that it is lichatchila.

    While we are already ‘exiled’, we must be carful to bequeath to the next generation a lichatchila system, and by expressing clearly when a descion made was temporary in nature.

    Former Chief Rabbi Lau in his brilliant six-volume work on pirkei avos brings a wonderful insight: The opening Mishanh teaches us that Moshe kebel Torah from Sinai. Moshe in turn transmitted it (mussar) to Yehoshua, and Yehoshua mussar to the Zekainim, etc.

    There is difference between giving someone something (nossan) and lending someone something (mesira/pikadon). Moshe was given a gift from Hashem, a gift for all of Israel that he was to transmit.

    But we do not own it.

    It is given to each generation on loan (mussar). And like any pikadon, we can do with it as needed-within the confines of Halacha –but on one condition:  we must make sure that it is returned in the exact same state in which it was received.

    This is no small challenge.

  • One Story – -Two Versions

    The following story is famous. In the 1700’s in Vilna, rumors began to spread about one of the chashuvim in town. Although he pleaded his innocence, he was up against witnesses who supported the story’s veracity.

    Somehow, the Vilna Gaon became involved and asked to meet the eidim.

    The witnesses sat before the Gaon and each began to retell the events in question.

    The Vilna Gaon was silent throughout, until both witnesses completed their respective telling.

    Once done, the Vilna Gaon stood up and exclaimed, “Liars!”.

    Having the Vilna Gaon himself making such a declaration was enough to scare the witnesses into admitting the truth –they had in fact been paid a large sum to fabricate their story.

    Knowing that ruach hakodesh has no place in a din Torah (as ‘Torah Lo Bashamayim Hi’), some time later the Gaon’s students asked their rebbe how he knew that these were false witnesses.

    The Gaon explained his rational based on a Mishnah (Sanhedrin 5:4). In discussing the procedure of testimony in a beis din, the Mishnah teaches, “After, they bring in the second witness and examine him. If they find that their words are aligned, they then open the arguments for a possible acquittal…”

    The language of “im nimtziu devarim mechuvanim –if they find their words to be aligned” are peculiar. Either the testimonies of the two witnesses match, or they do not. What does the Mishnah mean by saying “if the court ‘finds’ them to match”?

    Explained the Gaon, the Mishnah is teaching us an essential reality of the human condition. No two people see and repeat the same events the same way.

    A beis din therefore must ‘find’ the commonality between the witnesses. However, if eidim come in and their words are aligned to such an exactitude that the beis din need not ‘find’ the matching parts of their testimony then we may suspect that they are lying.

    The witnesses that came before him, the Gaon explained, had just such an exactly harmonized testimony, and that is why he alleged foul play.

    This story came to mind the other week.

    Before orientation at Shevach High School where I teach halacha, one of the teachers approached me and asked if I could stay behind at the end. She explained that she needs to bentch gomel and her rav told her to gather ten women and one man to allow her to make the beracha. Would I mind, she asked, to stay and to explain at the end of the conference what she was about to do.

    I would be remiss not to quickly add here, and without getting into the detailed specifics, that women, for a number of reasons, should always speak to their morah horah before saying this beracha. Not the least of which being that there is significant debate if women should even bentch gomel at all. In any event, this particular teacher’s rav was following the view brought in the Mishnah Berrura 219:3 (cf. Aruch Hashulchan ad loc.; see Teshuvot V’Hanhagot 1:195 for the view of the Chazon Ish).

    When the meeting was over, the men, who were mostly rabbanim, quickly piled out, with the women, largely staying behind to catch up.

    I stood by the door awaiting the beracha to commence when this teacher stood up and first explained the story behind her beracha.

    Over the summer she was having an issue with the family van. Bringing it to the mechanic she was told that there was some type of hole on the carriage. Several days later she was not feeling well and, in the early months of a pregnancy, she rushed to her doctor.

    She was quickly rushed to the hospital where it was determined, R’l, that the baby was no longer viable.

    That evening her condition grew worse and worse and she davened to Hashem that her pain go away, and it did.

    I was listening to this story and feeling both awful for what she had gone through, but also desperate to understand just why she was bentching gomel. First she had the frustration in spending thousands of dollars on her minivan, and then, nebech, the unspeakable happened.

    But then she recapped the events, “So, first Hashem saves my family from a car problem. The mechanic explained that this hole could cause a huge fire. Imagine! We drove the family around in that van the entire summer without knowledge of this danger and nothing bad happened. And then, after Hashem decided that I was not to have this baby, I was able to get to the hospital in time, and He took away my tzar when I davened.”

    I could not believe my ears! Had these events happened to most other people rather wish to offer a toda to the Riboneh Shel Olam, they might wonder what they did wrong to deserve this.

    How many of us would have even trusted what the mechanic was telling us about the danger? Instead, many of us would have cynicly focused on the high price of fixing it, ignoring his dire warnings as simple alarmism.

    A few days later a close friend of mine who dedicates his life to chinuch and Torah – a young man with a large family – woke up on Shabbos morning without the ability to speak, and largely paralyzed.

    He had suffered a shocking and major stroke.

    Boruch Hashem, he arrived in the hospital in time for life saving and stroke-reversing procedures.

    As I was wondering why Hashem would bring such tzar on such a tzadik, my wife saw this story differently.

    She commented to me, “I always wondered where all the zechusim go for people who dedicate their lives for the tzibur, if it is reserved just for acharei meah v’esrim…”

    As she was speaking, I nodded my head in agreement, thinking that she too was wondering why Hakadosh Baruch Hu would bring such a shock on such a special person and family.

    But I was wrong. She was, rightly, praising Hashem. She continued, “…but now I see that even in this life too does Hashem give so many gifts to such people. Shabbos morning at 5am he could not move or talk, and now just three days later he was back in shul! Amazing! Chasdei Hashem!”

    Who knows the cheshbonos of Hashem-but would not life be more enjoyable if we could see the positive in everything?

    With yom tov season over, and we return to our regular lives, we have a choice to make. How will we recount the stories of our day, our lives?

    We all davened for a sweet new year on Rosh Hashana; we begged for our lives and for parnassa and nachas on Yom Kippur; we strived for simcha as the touchstone of Sukkos.

    However, even should Hashem grant us all of this this coming year, that would not be enough to collect it – unless we must create in ourselves a keli, a receptacle to collect this shefa!

    Hashem may grant us much nachas from our children, but if we do not see their positive features, what use is Hashem’s gift?

    Hashem may indeed grant us parnassa, but if we focus only on others and on what we do not have, we indeed will still feel poor.

    He may grant us beracha and gezunt, and cause for simcha, but if we close our eyes or look in another direction we may just miss it. We may feel down when we should be dancing in the streets!

     Let us see this year through the eyes of the grateful, and maybe, just maybe, we will discover that all of our teffilos had been answered.