The Significance of the Census - Drawing Down the Light by Harking Back to Our Roots

תרל"א

ב"ה במדבר אא"ז מו"ר זצללה"ה הגיד מ"ש במדרש בני לוי שקרבו עצמם לי כו'. כי וודאי הי' בבני ישראל כמה שלא חטאו בעגל. אך לא בנקל להיות מובטח ולומר לה' אני. כשאלת משרע"ה מי לה' כו'. ובני לוי הי' להם חיזוק זה כו'. ובאמת כפי התחזקות אמונת האדם כן נעשה עמו. ובמדרש צדקתך כהררי כו' צדיקים בדירתן ע"י אמונה שמאמין במלכותו ית' שמשגיח על כל דבר גדול וקטן ומצפה שיתגלה נקודה פנימיות של חיות השי"ת שמהוה הכל. עי"ז זוכה לראות אור הגנוז באמת. ולהיפוך במחשך מעשיהם כו' נסתם יותר הפנימיות כמ"ש וימנע מרשעים אורם כו' שגנזו הקב"ה לצדיקים כו'. 

ובמדרש כל מי שמרבה כבוד שמים וממעט כבוד עצמו כבוד שמים מתרבה וכבודו מתרבה ומי שממעט כבוד שמים ומרבה כבוד עצמו כבוד שמים במקומו וכבודו מתמעט. ואין מובן הלשון ממעט כבוד שמים מאחר שכבוד שמים במקומו. אך הלא אמרו שמרבה כבוד שמים. והפירוש על ידי שממעט כבוד עצמו ורוצה להראות בכל דבר קטן וגדול ותנועה מועטת איך איננו ברשות עצמו כמ"ש מלכותך מלכות כל עולמים. פי' כל פעולה בחי' מלכות ומנהיג. שהרי ברשות העושה לעשות כרצונו. וצריך האדם לידע ולהאמין כי הוא רק כגרזן ביד החוצב. וע"י שממעט כבוד עצמו להרבות כבודו יתברך נתגלה מלכותו ית' שיהי' ניכר ומבורר שהכל מהשי"ת. וממילא גם כבודו מתרבה כי זכה להרבות כבוד שמים ע"י כבודו ומיעוט כבודו הוא הריבוי ע"י שנתרבה ממנו כבוד שמים. ולהיפוך ע"י שמרבה כבוד עצמו ומתגאה כאלו עע"ז היינו כשעושה פעולה בשכחת השגחת השי"ת הרי מסיר עול מלכות שמים ממנו וכבוד שמים במקומו עומד שנעלם ונכסה כמקודם. ומה שהי' ביד העושה להמשיך כבודו ית' להמעשה זה נחסר. וכמ"ש זוה"ק על שחת לו לא כו': ובמדרש צדקתך כהררי אל כו' שהצדיקים זוכין להמשיך כבוד שמים לעוה"ז והטבע ג"כ. וכמ"ש אא"ז מו"ר זצללה"ה על והי' מספר בנ"י כחול כו' אשר לא כו' יספר כו'. שעושין מבחי' מספר אין מספר כו' ע"ש. ולזה כתוב הזמן בתורה בחודש ושנה. אף כי התורה למעלה מן הזמן. אך זה עיקר עבודת בנ"י להמשיך אור התורה והקדושה לתוך הזמן והטבע כו'. וזה כל ענין הפקידה והמנין. שאו את ראש. שרצון השי"ת להיות בנ"י דביקין בכל מעשיהם בבחי' הראשית וההתחלה להיות דבוק בשורשם. וז"ש אא"ז מו"ר זצללה"ה פי' נשיאת ראש שבת שאותיות רא"ש מתנשאים כו' ע"ש. כי בשבת יש עלי' לכל דבר לשורשו. וז"ש ויתילדו על משפחותם. שאף שנתרבו ונתפשטו לבחי' ס' רבוא. אעפ"כ היו דביקים בשורש לידתם. וכמ"ש אם לא שויתי ודוממתי כו' כגמול עלי אמו כו'. להיות בטל לבחי' השורש. ששם רק נקודה. וזהו לבית אבותם. כמו ששמעתי מאא"ז מו"ר זצללה"ה בשם הרב הקדוש מפרשיסחא ז"ל עמ"ש לעולם יאמר אדם מתי יגיעו מעשי למעשה אבותי אברהם יצחק ויעקב. וכי איזה שוטה ידמה מעשיו למעשה אבות הקדושים. אך פי' יגיעו שיהי' למעשיו נגיעה ודביקות וחיבור במעשה אבות כו' ודפח"ח כי בוודאי אין מעשה הדורות שוין. אבל ע"י הביטול אל השורש והוא ע"י האבות יוכל להתקרב ולדבק כל מעשיו בשורש החיות. וזהו לבית אבותם. ובכל מעשה צריך אדם לומר מתי יגיעו כו':

במדרש ע"פ ויעשו כן בני ישראל כו' שריחקו ונתנו מקום ללוים. אף כי בוודאי הי' בתוך בני ישראל אנשים גדולים במעשיהם מקטנים שבלוים. אך צריך אדם לידע ולהאמין כי אין כל מעשיו יכולין להכריע נגד בחירת השי"ת. ולזאת יכול כל אדם להיבטל לכלל ישראל ע"י שיודע שעיקר כח ישראל שבחר השי"ת בנו. ואף כי בוודאי מה שאדם מכניע ועובד ביגיעה זהו עיקר רצונו ית'. אבל לא לחשוב שעי"ז יוכל להתקרב להשי"ת. וכל העבודות בטלים נגד בחי' הבחירה שבחר השי"ת בנו. ואיך יתגאה אף על הפחות שבישראל. ובאמת מה שריחקו הי' סיוע אל הלוים. הרי כתיב מתוך בני ישראל. שגם קרבת הלוים הי' בסיוע בנ"י. ע"י שנתנו להם מקום ובטלו רצונם לרצון השי"ת להיות עבודתם ע"י בחיריו:

In this week’s parsha a census is conducted that counts the entire nation of Israel. God tells Moshe Rabbeinu to count the Levites separately for, “... וְהָיוּ לִי הַלְוִיִּם/… the Levites shall be Mine.” (Bamidbar 3:12) Why did God single out the Levites? Why did He make them His? The Midrash, addressing this question, says that whoever brings God close, God, in turn, brings that person close to Him.[1] After the sin of the golden calf, the Levites brought God close to them. In response to Moshe Rabbeinu’s call, “Whoever is for God, come to me! All the children of Levi gathered around him.” (Shmos 32:26) God, in turn, brought the Levites close to Him.

The Chiddushei HaRim points out, though, that the Levites were not the only ones who resisted the temptation to sin. In fact, most of the nation did not participate in the idol worship. Why, then, did God bring particularly the Levites close to Him? The Chiddushei HaRim notes, that there is a big difference between passively not sinning and actively taking a stand. According to the Chiddushei HaRim, Chazal are teaching us this difference. The Levites, by gathering around Moshe made a clear declaration that they rejected the idol worship and were for God alone. They actively drew Him near to them. While it is certainly true that most of the rest of the nation did not participate in the idol worship, neither did they do the much more difficult thing and actively take a stand against it. Therefore, in response to the Levites coming close to God, God drew them near to Him as well.

The Sfas Emes takes this concept a step further. We should not infer from the Midrash and the Chiddushei HaRim’s interpretation that a relationship with God is binary – either one has a relationship with God or one does not. Rather, our relationship with God is a continuum. God relates to each of us according to the level of our faith in Him. The stronger our faith, the closer He draws us to Him. We find this concept in the first Midrash[2] of this week’s parsha. The Midrash quotes a pasuk in Tehillim (36:7), “צִדְקָתְךָ כְּהַרְרֵי־אֵל מִשְׁפָּטֶיךָ תִּהוֹם רַבָּה .../Your righteousness is like the mighty mountains; Your judgments are like the vast deep …” The Midrash says that the first part of the pasuk is an allusion to the righteous, whereas the second part of the pasuk alludes to the wicked. The righteous who believe that God rules over every aspect of Creation, large and small alike, merit seeing the hidden light in everything. The prophet Yeshaya (29:15) says that the wicked do their deeds in darkness and say, “... מִי רֹאֵנוּ וּמִי יֹדְעֵנוּ/Who sees us and who knows of us?” They do not believe that God sees their actions. Correspondingly, the truth is kept from them as we find in Iyov (38:15), “וְיִמָנַע מֵרְשָׁעִים אוֹרָם .../Light is withheld from the wicked.” And as the second part of the pasuk above states, “… Your judgments are like the vast deep …” We see, then, that whether God allows us to come close to Him, to feel His presence, depends upon our belief that His presence is with us. When we believe His presence is here in our lives, in everything, He allows us to experience it. If, on the other hand, we do not believe it, then God withholds His truth from us.

We find the same idea in a Midrash[3] from parshas Naso. The Midrash says that whoever increases the glory of Heaven, increases respect for himself as well. On the other hand, whoever decreases respect for Heaven by increasing is own honor, actually decreases his own honor while the honor of Heaven remains the same. What is the meaning of this Midrash? How does the honor of Heaven remain the same if, by our actions, we decrease it? 

This Midrash is based on the same concept that we’ve explained. Whether God’s presence is revealed or hidden is dependent on the intent we imbue in our actions. If we know and believe that we are a tool, an agent of God in this world, that we are not our own masters but rather, are doing the will of God, then God’s kingdom becomes more manifest; it becomes clearer that everything is from God. By striving to fulfill God’s will through our actions, by believing that God is with us, we increase the honor of Heaven and as a result our own esteem increases as well. This is the meaning of the Midrash mentioned earlier on the pasuk, “צִדְקָתְךָ כְּהַרְרֵי־אֵל .../Your righteousness is like the mighty mountains …” The righteous see God in everything. They draw the honor of Heaven into this world, into nature.

On the other hand, a person who believes that he is the master of all his actions, who acts to increase his own honor, is akin to an idol worshipper since he removes God from the equation. In this case, the glory of Heaven remains as it was – hidden. The Zohar[4] mentions the exact same idea on the pasuk, “שִׁחֵת לוֹ לֹא בָּנָיו מוּמָם .../Corruption is not His; it is His children’s flaw …” (Devarim 32:5) The Zohar explains that our corruption prevents blessing from reaching us. Since blessing does not reach us, we are flawed. God remains hidden.

The notion that we have the power to draw God’s glory into the finite, that God becomes revealed in this world as a result of our actions and thoughts is mentioned by the Chiddushei HaRim. In the first pasuk of this week’s Haftara, God told the prophet Hoshea (2:1), “וְהָיָה מִסְפַּר בְּנֵי־יִשְׂרָאֵל כְחוֹל הַיָּם אֲשֶׁר לֹא־יִמַּד וְלֹא יִסָּפֵר .../The number of the children of Israel will be like the sand of the sea which cannot be measured nor counted.” The Midrash[5] points out the contradiction in this pasuk. The pasuk starts by relating to “the number of the children of Israel” and ends by asserting that “it cannot be measured nor counted.” The Midrash answers that first God showed Hoshea the Jewish nation through their significant numbers until finally He showed the prophet that we will reach astronomical proportions. First there was only one Jew – Avraham Aveinu. Then there were two, Avraham and Yitzhak. Then there were the three Avos followed by twelve tribes, seventy souls who went down to Egypt, 600,000 males who left Egypt and finally, he compared them to the sand and the stars which effectively have no number. 

This resolves the contradiction but what is the point of it? What is the Midrash teaching us? The Chiddushei HaRim[6] explains that “no number” represents the infinite. It represents God’s presence. Numbers represent the finite, nature. God told Hoshea that the nation of Israel has the ability to reveal the level of “no number” of the infinite within the level of “number” within the finite; we can elevate the physical, the finite to a higher level, to a level on which God is revealed in nature. 

For this reason, the beginning of this week’s parsha records the date on which God commanded Moshe Rabbeinu to take a census of the nation. Why is the date of God’s instruction mentioned specifically by the mitzvah of the census? We live in the physical which is governed by time. Numbers, as we have seen connotes the physical. The Torah is teaching us that our main mission is to draw the light of the Torah and holiness into time, into the physical.

This Midrash teaches us how. We do it by harking back to our roots, to our forefathers. This is the reason for the census. It highlights the fact that although we are many, we come from one. The census reminds us of our roots. This is why God tells Moshe Rabbeinu, “שְׂאוּ אֶת־רֹאשׁ כָּל־עֲדַת בְּנֵי־יִשְׂרָאֵל .../Take a census of the entire community of the children of Israel …” (Bamidbar 1:2) The literal translation is, “Take the heads of the entire …” רֹאשׁ/Head connotes רֵאשִׁית/first. It indicates that although we are many, we must connect to those who came before us. This is hinted at, also, by the way the census was conducted. The pasuk[7] tells us that they declared their lineage according to their families and their paternal houses. This was not a simple head count. Each Jew is part of a family, a paternal house. Each one of us has a father who has a father who has a father in an unbroken chain leading back to our first father Avraham Avinu. This is the meaning of the pasuk in Tehillim (131:2), “אִם־לֹא שִׁוִּיתִי וְדוֹמַמְתִּי נַפְשִׁי כְגָמֻל עֲלֵי אִמּוֹ .../I swear I compared my soul to a just weaned baby next to his mother …” We need to relate to our forebears like a just weaned baby relates to his mother. A just weaned baby yearns for his mother and understands intuitively that she is his source. So too, must we relate to our ancestors in this way. We need to feel, just like the baby, that we stem from our forebears.

The holy Rav of Parshischa explains that we connect to our roots, to our forefathers, to our heritage, through our actions. When our actions relate back to our roots, back to our forefathers, we merit infinite blessing. We find this concept in Tana D’vei Eliyahu Raba (25). The prophet Eliyahu teaches us that each Jew must say, “מָתַי יַגִיעוּ מַעֲשַׂי לְמַעֲשֵׂי אֲבוֹתַי אַבְרָהָם יִצְחָק וְיַעֲקֹב/When will my actions reach the level of the actions of my forefathers Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov.” Does Eliyahu HaNaviactually expect us to reach the level of the Avos? The Rav of Parshischa answers that the word יַגִיעוּ/reach has the same root as נְגִיעָה, the Hebrew word for “connection” or “touch.” The prophet is not teaching us that we should aspire to reach the level of our forefathers. Each generation is different and we cannot compare the actions of one generation to the actions of another. Rather, he is teaching us that our actions must connect with and relate to the actions of our forefathers. We’ve connected with the Avos when we strive to emulate them. By connecting to our forefathers through our actions, we ultimately connect to the Source of life and draw God’s light into the physical world.

[1]Bamidbar R. 1:12

[2]Bamidbar R. 1:1

[3]Bamidbar R. 4:20

[4]Zohar 3:297b

[5]Bamidbar R. 2:14

[6]Chidushei HaRim Shmos

[7]Bamidbar 1:18

Sfas Emes Blog 

Halacha Li-Moshe Mi-Sinai - Part 1

In the zchus of my beloved friend R' Jeremy Wernick and family for bracha and hatzlacha in EVERYTHING!!!

The Rambam [בהקדמה לפירוש המשניות] writes that any law derived from the Middos with which we expound the Torah is not considered Halacha Li-Moshe Mi-Sinai [from here on in "HL"M"]. He learns this from the Gemara that says that "Shiurim" [halachic amounts] are HL"M. The Gemara then asks that you can't say that they are HL"M  because they are in fact מדאורייתא?! So we see that HL"M has a unique status different than regular דיני דאורייתא that are derived from psukim.

Here are the words of the Rambam [I translated from the original Arabic....] 

וזה עניין מה שאמרו, כללותיה ופרטותיה. רצו לומר, העניינים שנוכל להוציאם בכלל ופרט ובשאר י"ג מידות, והם מקובלים מפי משה מסיני, וכולם אע"פ שהם מקובלים מפי משה, לא נאמר בהם הלכה למשה מסיני, שאין לומר פרי עץ הדר, הוא אתרוג, הלכה למשה מסיני, או חובל בחברו משלם ממון, הלכה למשה מסיני, שכבר נתברר לנו, שאלו הפירושים כולם מפי משה, ויש להם רמזים במקרא, או יוציאו אותם בדרך מדרכי הסברה, כמו שאמרנו.

ועל כן כל דבר שאין לו רמז במקרא, ואינו נקשר בו, ואי אפשר להוציאו בדרך מדרכי הסברה, עליו לבדו נאמר, הלכה למשה מסיני. 

ובשביל זה כשאמרנו, שיעוריו הלכה למשה מסיני -
הקשו עלינו ואמרו, מפני מה אתם אומרים שהם הלכה למשה מסיני, והנה שיעורין נרמז עליהם בפסוק, באומרו, ארץ חטה ושעורה (דברים ח).
תהיה התשובה, שהיא הלכה למשה מסיני, ואין לשיעורין עיקר להוציא אותם ממנו בדרך סברה, ואין להם רמז בכל התורה, אבל נסמכה זאת המצווה לזה הפסוק, לסימן, כדי שיהא נודע ונזכר, ואינו מעניין הכתוב. וזה עניין מה שאמרו, קרא אסמכתא בעלמא, בכל מקום שיזכרוהו.

 And so is the implication from numerous Rishonim that HL"M has a special status. It is not Torah Shebial Peh that comes to explain the Torah but rather Torah that was transmitted to Moshe independently and it relationship to Torah Shebichtav is not one of logical and scholastic derivations.  

Rebbe Tzadol Mi-Lublinin a number of places says that HL"M is what Moshe was מחדש on his own [!!]. In other words, whatever was given from Hashem is Torah Shebichtav. From then on it is considered Torah Shebial Peh which is how the traditions were understood by those who received them. The fashion in which Moshe understood is called HL"M. The way Moshe understood is distinct from all other תורה שבעל פה which is understood logically by regular human minds. The way Moshe understands is unique to him and nobody else has a portion in that. THAT is called  הלכה למשה מסיני. 

According to the understanding of R' Tzadok, the words "הלכה למשה מסיני" make a LOT of sense. It is not a Halacha that Moshe learned from Hashem as the Rishonim understood but rather the portion of Moshe himself in the Torah, that is his portion from SINAI. Sinai is the צורת קבלת התורה  - a unique form of receiving the Torah to which only Moshe was privy and no other נביאים were.

There is more depth here.... ועוד חזון למועד!       

Links

Two UNBELIEVABLE shiurim on the CROWN of Torah!! BS"D!!!!!

Here and here!😊😊😊

בריאות בעין יהודית:על בטן מלאה - הרב אשרוב

Theology And The Libido

Today is the 41st day of the Omer. יסוד שביסוד!!! A day to focus on fixing all sexual sins!!

A new book just came about about "the meaning of life". It was written by a famous journalist and will doubtless be a best seller. The author argues that life on the “first mountain”—the mountain of personal goals, worldly success, career ambitions, and traveling in the right social circles—is transitory and ultimately unsatisfying. Eventually, though, if you’re fortunate, you find yourself on the “second mountain,” one characterized by other-centeredness and self-giving. (Often, though not always, the path to the second mountain is marked by hardships and failures.)

Men and women who live on the first mountain may find happiness, but people living on the second mountain find something deeper—joy. (He defines happiness as the victory and expansion of the self, while joy is found in transcending the self and serving others.)

When he was young, life was “a very intellectual thing, a material thing, and I just never had any sensation of anything that spiritual.” It was not that he was hostile to religion, he said, “but I grew up in a more or less secular world and its categories were my assumptions.”

As he got older, he experienced more of the vicissitudes of life. And the more attention he paid to people, the more he wrote about them, he realized “it didn’t make sense to me that they were just sacks of genetic material. It only made sense to me that they had souls. That some piece of them that had no material dimension, no size or shape but gave them infinite dignity, every single one of them. Once you start with the idea that each person has a soul, it’s an easy leap to [conclude] that there’s some connection there, there’s some flowing force.”

Once he came to believe people had souls, “it definitely changed the human anthropology.” He began to see “various glimpses of another layer of life”—and among those layers he began to see and take seriously is religious faith.

He spent his childhood “in the crossroads between two great moral ecologies [? funny word to use],” he writes. “But I didn’t grow up in a theology book; I grew up in the late-twentieth-century American version of Judaism, and the late-twentieth-century version of Christianity.” He adds, “I grew up either the most Christiany Jew on earth or the most Jewy Christian [because he went to non-Jewish schools], a plight made survivable by the fact that I was certain God did not exist.”

He describes himself these days as “a wandering Jew and a confused Christian.” He told me “Judaism seems more real to me than it ever did. On the other hand, celestial grandeur is found in the Beatitudes. The Beatitudes seem like a moral system that is pure goodness.” As he puts it in the book, “I can’t unread Matthew.” [Based a review of the book]

However, there is something the author doesn't share which sheds a lot of light on his present beliefs. A number of years ago, he wrote a book on "Character". What moral character is and examples of people who displayed moral character and courage. During the course of writing this book he fell in love with his research assistant, a Christian woman over 20 years his junior. One can see his infatuation for her in his introduction to that book. He then divorced his wife of 27 years [who converted to Judaism for him!! They also had a number of children, one of whom served in the Israeli Army] and ultimately married his assistant. A true act of character! So his flirtation with Christianity is also rooted [besides having been denied a proper Jewish education] in his flirtation with his assistant. [Also a warning to all those who have close working relationships with woman that it could end not well...].

The Torah is quite clear what happens when one goes after non-Jewish women - he will come to go after their Avoda Zara as well. It goes together. You want the girl - you will go to her church too ח"ו.    

וְלֹא תִתְחַתֵּן בָּם בִּתְּךָ לֹא תִתֵּן לִבְנוֹ וּבִתּוֹ לֹא תִקַּח לִבְנֶךָ
כִּי יָסִיר אֶת בִּנְךָ מֵאַחֲרַי וְעָבְדוּ אֱלֹהִים אֲחֵרִים וְחָרָה אַף יְהוָה בָּכֶם וְהִשְׁמִידְךָ מַהֵר

This is sad because society isn't bothered when somebody who displays such a lack of character writes a best seller pontificating about good character. Shouldn't people be expected to practice what they preach??

It is also sad because this has as much to do with sex as it does to do with religion. It is intellectually and spiritually untenable to be both a Jew and a Christian at the same time. Both religions can't be true. [One well known Modern Orthodox "thinker" who also writes popular books and makes loads of money and receives endless kavod, already made that absurd claim that we addressed on these pages]. But he is choosing that path for himself, probably in no small part because the woman he is presently in love with is a devout Christian [but not devout enough to prevent her from marrying a Jew with whom she started a relationship while he was already married and had no problem with a man leaving his wife and children to marry her]. Of course, maybe the next woman he falls for will be a Buddhist and then he will then say that he can't "unwrite the Sutras" [the Buddhist bible].

The Rambam says ['איסורי ביאה י"ב ו - always hard to post anything without quoting a Rambam😊😊. My autobiography - From Central Park To Brisk: A Journey That Always Had Two Paths]:  

לא פגעו בו קנאים ולא הלקוהו ב"ד הרי עונשו מפורש בדברי קבלה שהוא בכרת שנאמר כי חלל יהודה קדש י"י אשר אהב ובעל בת אל נכר יכרת י"י לאיש אשר יעשנה ער ועונה אם ישראל הוא לא יהיה לו ער בחכמים ולא עונה בתלמידים ואם כהן הוא לא יהיה לו מגיש מנחה לי"י צבאות הנה למדת שהבועל כותית כאילו נתחתן לעכו"ם שנאמר ובעל בת אל נכר ונקרא מחלל קדש ה':

If the zealous did not strike him [who slept with a non-Jewish woman], nor did he receive lashes from the court, his punishment is explicitly stated in the words of the prophetic tradition. He is liable for karet, as [Malachi 2:11-12] states: "Judah desecrated that which is sacred to God, [by] loving and engaging in relations with the daughter of a foreign god. May God cut off from a man who does this any progeny and descendant." [Implied is] that if he is an Israelite, he will not have progeny among the wise who will raise issues, nor a descendant among the scholars who will respond. If he is a priest, he will not have [a descendant] who "presents an offering to the Lord of Hosts." Thus you have learned that a person who shares intimacy with a gentile woman is considered as if he married a false deity, as the verse states: "engaging in relations with the daughter of a foreign god." And he is called one who "desecrated that which is sacred to God."

Powerful!! Marrying a Christian is like marrying Yoshke himself!!!

That is the [sad] story behind the story.

What is our takeaway? 

1] 70 percent of all Jews are intermarrying in America. What are we doing to stop it?

2] A tfilla that his confused and tormented soul returns to its roots. ולא ידח ממנו נידח!! 

3] The power of love!! On the good side, Yael Kushner goes to shul on Shabbos and davens because she fell in love with a Yid named Jared and that has literally, in a very concrete non-mystical way, impacted the entire world political scene for the benefit of Am Yisrael. May all people fall in love with people with whom a relationship will result in more כבוד שמים!!    

Links

Sefira Ha-omer, Days And Weeks, Torah and Tefilla, Olam Hazeh And Olam Haba, Shmitta and Yovel.

Here and here. 

Five Lies The Culture Tells Us

From the NYT:

1. Career success is fulfilling.

This is the lie society foists on the young. In their tender years the most privileged of them are locked in a college admissions process that puts achievement and status anxiety at the center of their lives. That begins advertising’s lifelong mantra — if you make it, life will be good.

Everybody who has actually tasted success can tell you that’s not true. …The truth is, success spares you from the shame you might experience if you feel yourself a failure, but career success alone does not provide positive peace or fulfillment. If you build your life around it, your ambitions will always race out in front of what you’ve achieved, leaving you anxious and dissatisfied.

2. I can make myself happy.

This is the lie of self-sufficiency. This is the lie that happiness is an individual accomplishment. If I can have just one more victory, lose 15 pounds or get better at meditation, then I will be happy.

But people looking back on their lives from their deathbeds tell us that happiness is found amid thick and loving relationships. It is found by defeating self-sufficiency for a state of mutual dependence. It is found in the giving and receiving of care. It’s easy to say you live for relationships, but it’s very hard to do that. It’s hard to see other people in all their complexity. It’s hard to communicate from your depths, not your shallows. It’s hard to stop performing! The world does not teach us these skills.

3. Life is an individual journey.

This is the lie books like Dr. Seuss’ “Oh, the Places You’ll Go” tell. In adulthood, each person goes on a personal trip and racks up a bunch of experiences, and whoever has the most experiences wins. This lie encourages people to believe freedom is the absence of restraint. Be unattached. Stay on the move. Keep your options open.

In reality, the people who live best tie themselves down. They don’t ask: What cool thing can I do next? They ask: What is my responsibility here? They respond to some problem or get called out of themselves by a deep love. By planting themselves in one neighborhood, one organization or one mission, they earn trust. They have the freedom to make a lasting difference. It’s the chains we choose that set us free.

4. You have to find your own truth.

This is the privatization of meaning. It’s not up to the schools to teach a coherent set of moral values, or a society. Everybody chooses his or her own values. Come up with your own answers to life’s ultimate questions! You do you! 

The problem is that unless your name is Aristotle, you probably can’t do it. Most of us wind up with a few vague moral feelings but no moral clarity or sense of purpose. The reality is that values are created and passed down by strong, self-confident communities and institutions. People absorb their values by submitting to communities and institutions and taking part in the conversations that take place within them. It’s a group process.

5. Rich and successful people are worth more than poorer and less successful people. 

We pretend we don’t tell this lie, but our whole meritocracy points to it. In fact, the meritocracy contains a skein of lies.

The message of the meritocracy is that you are what you accomplish. The false promise of the meritocracy is that you can earn dignity by attaching yourself to prestigious brands. The emotion of the meritocracy is conditional love — that if you perform well, people will love you. The sociology of the meritocracy is that society is organized around a set of inner rings with the high achievers inside and everyone else further out. The anthropology of the meritocracy is that you are not a soul to be saved but a set of skills to be maximized.

Crazy Rich Jews - Blessing Or Curse?

“Compared with their grandparents, today’s young adults have grown up with much more affluence, but less happiness, and much greater risk of depression and assorted social pathology… Divorce rates doubled. Teen suicide tripled. Depression rates have soared, especially among teens and young adults. I call this conjunction of material prosperity and social recession the American paradox. The more people strive for extrinsic goals such as money, the more numerous their problems and the less robust their well being."

David G. Myers, The American Paradox: Spiritual Hunger in an Age of Plenty

GREAT post, here.

"In G-d we trust. 

In Money we lust."  

Egalitarianism

I watched a panel that gathered in memory of the yahrtzeit of a certain Rosh Yeshiva. The topic was a woman's place in Judaism and halacha. The theme of almost every speaker [that I saw] was basically that halacha must change, there is no limit to what changes we can make and the reason we can make these changes is because this is the way we [i.e. the ladies who spoke] feel or the way we twist the sources to say what we want them to say. As if they were the first ones to come up with the idea that Judaism must be egalitarian.  

In other words, classic Reform Judaism. ברוך שכיוונתן לדעת סטיפן וייז ואבא הלל סילבר!! 

I am CERTAIN that this late Rosh Yeshiva who was passionate about the integrity of the halachic process would not have been pleased hearing these woman preach the undermining of thousands of years of  our hallowed tradition - in his memory. HASHEM YERACHEM!!

One important point [made by a Rabbi who was on the panel] is that if you go to shul on a daily basis there is something you see very little of - women. Even though davening is a central part of Avodas Hashem and davening bi-tzibbur is far more powerful than davening alone at home - the vast majority of women go to shul at most once a week. The average frum man goes 21 times a week.... This is not a criticism of women. They are doing something faaaaar more important than davening bi-tzibbur. Namely, raising the next generation of Jews. They are not required to be in shul. So all the power to all the mothers out there!! But what about girls in the pre-motherhood stage or bubbies whose kids are already out of the house?? It is just not done. Again - no criticism. It is not an obligation and women do plenty of other mitzvos like the countless chasodim that they do.

But it is hard to accept that women really want halacha to be egalitarian. Women don't want to have to daven with a minyan 3 times a day. They also don't want the obligation of Talmud Torah to apply equally to men and women. If they did  - they would also spend at least an hour a day learning, as most frum men do. How many women do THAT?  

The point is [that is missed by the card carrying, flag waving feminists] that the Torah is not bound by contemporary feminist rhetoric and that the point of keeping mitzvos is NOT to satisfy our spiritual and emotional wants and needs but to serve the מלך מלכי המלכים הקדוש ברוך הוא. It is NOT about ME and my feelings of inferiority or superiority.   

It is about AVODAS HASHEM!!!😊😊  

The Power Of A Good Chazan

A story floating around the Internet. A woman was considering converting and then she went to shul and heard Simcha Leiner davening. The tfilla was so moving she cried. At that point she decided that she DEFINITELY wants to be Jewish. 

The lesson: Besides the Yomim Noraim [maybe...], how many shuls have real Chazanim who have the voice, talent and regesh to help the congregation soar?? Recently the legend Cantor Sherwood Goffin was niftar. He was a true chazan who took his job very seriously. He didn't view himself as a performer but someone who himself wanted to get close to Hashem and take everyone in shul with him. When people would "shkoyach" him after davening, he would respond "I hope Hashem accepted our tfillos". It wasn't about him but about our relationship wth Hashem. 

When I was a child, my family would often come to Israel [thank G-d I have been there a few times since:-)] and we davened in the local shul. One of the Baalei Tefila was a young man who had one of the most incredible voices I ever heard. To this day I can't forget how amazing the davening was. Today he is a real estate tycoon with tens, if not hundreds, of millions of dollars. I hope he is still davening before the amud. That is worth more than all of his money [although I am sure he does great things with his wealth].  

Unfortunately, it is often hard to feel inspired when davening and having Baalei Tefilla who are also not inspired doesn't help things. So a call for more serious, talented, knowledgeable Baalei Tefilla and Chazanim.      

Inspired!

I just saw a recipe [I usually don't read recipes but the magazine was on the table....] for "Hawaiian Inspired Fish with Mango sauce". 

An "Inspired Fish!!!" And inspired by Hawaii! 

Wowww!!!!

Which Country?

I saw an article that mentioned "ארצות הבריץ". I wasn't sure if it was talking about the USA or England... 

#lovethosebrits

Persistence To Get Her Man

One of the greatest students to come out of Europe was Rebbi Abba Berman. They used to call him "Einstein", ostensibly because the only person they could think of who was nearly as smart as Rebbi Abba was Albert Einstein. Rav Chaim Shmuelevitz once remarked "I hear that a bochur came to the yeshiva with a really strange name - "Einstein". After they got to know each other, Rav Chaim would say "the goyim have Einstein. We have Abba Berman". He had many intellectual capabilities except for one - he didn't know how to forget. He knew every Rabbeinu Chananel in the masechtos yeshivos would customarily learn, by heart. It was only after he became sick that he started to forget so he had to review his learning more. 

He was once on the train in New York [where he spent most of the years from after the war until 1979 when he permanently moved to Israel] with his student Rav Peretz Disson and a Korean man stood up and started BUGGIN' OUT. He was going nuts and people were afraid. Rav Abba calmly rose and whispered something in his ear at which point the man calmed down and sat down. R' Disson asked what he said?? How did he perform this miracle?? Rebbe Abba explained that it was no miracle at all. The man was screaming in Korean that he didn't know where to get off and nobody understood what he was saying. Even the Chinese people on the train couldn't understand him because they spoke Chinese but not Korean. I, explained Rebbe Abba, merely told him in Korean when to get off. 

His student was stunned. How does Rebbe know KOREAN?? He explained that he had a special knack for languages so he picked up Korean from people who used to work around the Yeshiva. Their screaming to each other in Korean disturbed his learning but at least he learned the language. In fact, he knew 22 languages. [He was also was very good at physics and had to overcome his love of physics with his much greater love of Torah. Had he made a different decision then he doubtless would have been a world class physicist.] 

He was in the Mir in Brooklyn and he was 30 years old bochur. A 16 year old girl named Itka Greenberg whose father was a simple man [either a plumber or shoemaker] inquired who the top boy in Yeshiva was and heard that it as Abba Berman. She was a good Beis Yaakov girl and said that he is the boy she wants to marry [back then girls weren't generally going for yeshiva bochrim who wanted to spend their lives learning]. People tried to dissuade her that she has no chance. He is the top boy from the top Yeshiva in Europe and loads of very prominent people would LOVE to get him for their daughters. She didn't relent. She was told that he is a European boy with a completely different mentality who lost his entire family in the war and went through tremendous suffering in Shanghai while she was an American born, English speaking girl. Too different. It won't work. Plus, he is 14 years older!! She wouldn't back down. She got a meeting with him and promised him that her entire life will be devoted to helping him grow in Torah and raising the family. She had no interest in asking anything for herself. All she wants is for him to grow. He saw that she was sincere and married her. 

During the sheva brachos there was a misunderstanding. He thought that she wanted him to spend time with her so that is what she did. In fact, she was in crisis because she just wanted him to learn and couldn't understand how her prize chosson was not learning. After the sheva brachos, she later related with a twinkle in her eye, he opened up the Gemara and never closed it again...

They were zocheh to raise six daughters, all of whom married great Talmidei Chachomim [one of them was HaRav Moshe Twersky Hy"d who was killed in the terrorist attack in Har Nof a number of years go].     

He was niftar gimmel iyar 14 years ago. זכותו יגן עלינו.  

No Guilt Trips

“There is surely no reason for Western civilization to have guilt trips laid on it by champions of cultures based on despotism, superstition, tribalism, and fanaticism. In this regard the Afrocentrists are especially absurd. The West needs no lectures on the superior virtue of those "sun people" who sustained slavery until Western imperialism abolished it (and sustain it to this day in Mauritania and the Sudan), who keep women in subjection, marry several at once, and mutilate their genitals, who carry out racial persecutions not only against Indians and other Asians but against fellow Africans from the wrong tribes, who show themselves either incapable of operating a democracy or ideologically hostile to the democratic idea, and who in their tyrannies and massacres, their Idi Amins and Boukassas, have stamped with utmost brutality on human rights. Keith B. Richburg, a black newspaperman who served for three years as the Washington Post's bureau chief in Africa, saw bloated bodies floating down a river in Tanzania from the insanity that was Rwanda and thought: "There but for the grace of God go I . . . Thank God my nameless ancestor, brought across the ocean in chains and leg irons, made it out alive . . . Thank God I am an American".” 

― Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., The Disuniting of America: Reflections on a Multicultural Society

Boundaries

One of the great rules of life is the creation and honor of boundaries. In all of our relationships we need to know what the proper boundaries are. We want to be close to our spouses but everybody needs space. On the other hand, allowing for too much space creates an unnecessary distance. We want to be good parents but we have to know that children ALSO need space. The older they get, the more space they need. On the other hand, having a lassiez faire attitude and letting everything go and letting the child live as he or she pleases is also harmful. Boundaries are crucial.

Goyim are not allowed to keep Shabbos. If they do then they are חייב מיתה!! Why? If Shabbos is so good then why don't we allow the Goyim to enjoy it also?? All they have is Sunday which is a pathetic day of watching ballgames and engaging in other leisure activities. Doesn't compare to Shabbos - not even close. 

The answer the Maharal gives is that we have borders and when a Goy keeps Shabbos he enters into our domain. As the sign goes "Trespassers will be shot upon sight....".

Boundaries.

Here is an article written by a non-Jewish woman who appreciates this idea.



From the blog First Things

It has been some time since I gave thought to the day my soon-to-be husband and I bought our wedding rings.....

Our wedding date was set. It was time to pick a ring. But where to look for one? How to shop? The two of us were young, broke, and scrappy. It would be some years yet before we could afford to pay retail. Besides, my intended was a combative shopper, born to hondel. He did not believe in fixed prices. There were only asking prices begging to be negotiated.

We started in Manhattan’s diamond district in the west Forties. No diamonds were on our shopping list. But 47th Street was a place to haggle, draw swords, dicker away until the doomed asking price dropped in exhaustion. His ring was easy. A plain gold band was all. It was mine that took hunting for. I wanted something chaste and spare, low keyed but rich with symbolism. No glitz. Modest but not severe. It had to be unembellished but eloquent.

I had no idea what my adjectives might look like in the concrete. So we trooped from stall to stall in the Exchange scouting for . . . what, exactly? Then, finally, there it was. In the showcase of an older jeweler, forearm tattooed with his identification number from a concentration camp, were simple gold bands embossed with phrases from the Tanach.

The graphic beauty of the Hebrew characters—heightened by our inability to read them—seemed a visible link to Him with whom we would connect when we marry. One square letter followed another, spacing calculated to encircle the band with no marked beginning or end. The indissolubility of marriage seemed imprinted in the very design. Add the romance of indecipherability. This was my ring!

Next came the contest over cost. The groom-to-be went into gladiatorial mode. The seller was good at the game. It was a lengthy, spirited match. Eventually the two settled on a price. All that was left was to decide on the phrase from a sheet of suggested lines. My heart set on a passage from the Book of Ruth that reads in full:


Ruth said: “Entreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee; for whither thou goest I will go, where thou lodgest, I will lodge; thy people shall be my people and thy God my God. Only the central portion (“whither thou goest . . .”) could fit around the ring but the entire antiphon is implicit in the fragment. Ruth’s pledge to Naomi is the purest and most stirring statement of friendship I have ever known. I ached to claim it for myself and wear it for the rest of my life.
Was one of us Jewish? The jeweler wanted to know. Was either of us leaving another religion to become Jewish? No, we were not. Well then, he was sorry but he would not give us that particular quotation. The point was non-negotiable. [See Rashi and Malbim on the pasuk - E.E.].

The rebuff was a sore let-down but we did not press. We deferred to his prohibition because, in some unspoken way, we understood. The story of Ruth is one of conversion that affirms the Jewish nation. It testifies to peoplehood. The intensity of this man’s concern to honor the sacred core of the text moved us. Here was a man who had suffered the unspeakable for no other reason than he was part of the people Ruth pledged herself to.

There was grace in his refusal. Had he granted me the words I craved, he would, in conscience, have violated the grandeur of them. Ruth’s commitment was not simply to another person but to a covenanted community bound together since the call of Abraham. Her words were his inheritance; he was not free to extend them to us.

Disappointed, I settled for words from the Song of Songs: “I found him whom my soul loveth.” Over the years, my second choice proved to be the better one. The ring is dearer to me than anything else I possess. But I did not feel that then.

What innocents we were. It never entered our minds to challenge the denial. We took for granted the man’s moral right to refuse us; any legal issue, then, was irrelevant. But by today’s lights, we gave in too readily. We could have raised a stink. Demanded our rights as consumers. Bullied the vendor with accusations of anti-Christian bigotry. We did not have to submit to the discomfort of being told we were ineligible for what we desired.

“Something there is that does not love a wall, / That wants it down.” Pace Frost, not every barrier should be cleared away. Not everything is permeable. A nation cannot survive without borders; no culture endures without limits. Walls provide a bulwark against chaos and dissolution. That day in the Diamond Exchange, we stumbled against the very wall a man had clung to in the camps. It was the same one that had kept Jewry from disappearing centuries before modern nation states existed.
Had we been noisy enough, I might have gotten the thing I wanted at the time. But at what price to the commonweal?
------------

What this Gentile woman understands - many Jews, sadly, do not...

Seeing And Hearing -Torah Shebichtav And Shebial Peh

The difference between written Torah and oral Torah is that written Torah is ALL THERE AT ONCE, while Torah transmitted orally is given over piecemeal, little by little, detail by detail and only at the end everything comes together to form a cohesive whole. 

Rav Chaim Volozhiner used to say that the difference between his brother R' Zelma'le and his Rebbi the Vilna Gaon, was that his brother knew the Torah like a Jews know "Ashrei" but only forwards from beginning to end. The Vilna Gaon knew Torah forwards AND backwards equally. The Brisker Rov explained that that there is  דין of כתבם על לוח לבך [Mishlei 3-3] which means that the Torah must be written on a person heart as it is on a board. When it is written before a person, it can be read forwards and backwards equally. The Torah should ideally be perceived by a person in the form of the written word. 

This is also the difference between seeing and hearing. When you see something it is always as a whole. You what in the foreground is together with what is in the background. That is comparable to כתב - the written word which is all there at once. Hearing is only received detail by detail, point by point. You hear one sound, combined with another few sounds which you [MIRACULOUSLY] combine in your mind to form a word which you instantaneously identify and translate into what you understand these sounds=word mean. Then another word which you first once again combine the sounds in your mind to form a word you can identify. Then you combine the second word with the first word and are able [again, miraculously - we just take it for granted] make meaning from these two words in sequence. Then a third word, a sentence, a paragraph, an entire lecture. Your mind combines all the sounds together to form perceptible meaning. It is impossible to hear everything at once. But we do see everything at one.

Seeing is the vehicle to understand writing. Listening is the vehicle to understand speech. That is the nature of תורה שבכתב and תורה שבעל פה. Torah Shebial Peh is the step by step understanding. Torah Shebichtav is where everything is there in toto. [If one letter is missing the entire sefer Torah is pasul. That is because כתב must be a שלימות. The same law doesn't apply to תורה שבעל פה where there are many many separate details that WE must connect with our שכל]. 

Our seeing today and our perception of תורה שבכתב is really "Shmiya-dik" and Torah Shebial Peh-dik. The writing per se has a שלימות but our perception is limited to the details. THAT is the root of all sin - ראייה חלקית. Seeing only partially when you think you have the whole picture. ותרא האשה - Chava saw but it was only part of the picture and that is what led to the sin. 

Much more here. 

   

Biological Determinism

“[U]nless one is to yield to biological determinism and accept that the possession of black skin creates a unique black mentality and character, it is hard to see what living connection exists between American blacks today and their heterogeneous West African ancestors three centuries ago. And biological determinism--the theory that race determines mentality--is of course just another word for racism. Biological determinism is exactly the theory apologists for slavery used in the American South before the Civil War. It is bizarre to hear blacks invoking the same theory today.” 

― Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., The Disuniting of America: Reflections on a Multicultural Society

An Argument Against Atheism

Charles Krauthammer

March 15, 1985

Washington Post

There have been many arguments made against atheism. The medieval philosophers divined a variety of proofs of God's existence. Aquinas had five. But the argument from Motion or the argument from Contingency is not the kind of thing we moderns talk about anymore. So for the definitive modern case against atheism, I suggest a radically modern experience: watch a Soviet funeral.

I do it all the time. As Soviet state funerals have become regular events -- Chernenko's was the third revival in 28 months of Death of a Helmsman -- I have become a regular viewer. They mesmerize me, in a horrible sort of way. It is not just the music, the numbing repetition of Chopin's funeral march, but the massive, stone- cold setting. The Lenin Mausoleum, the focus of the ceremony, is a model of socialist brutalist architecture. Cathedrals also remind us of the smallness of man, but poignantly, by comparing him to God. The Lenin Mausoleum has nothing to compare man to but its own squat vastness. The comparison is mocking.

Then there are the speeches, a jangle of empty phrases. Chernenko was eulogized for his "links to the masses," his "party principledness," his achievements in the fields of "ideology and propaganda." Was there a man behind -- underneath -- all this socialist realism? If so, not a word about him. The utter effacement of the person by the party reminded me of a response spokesman Vladimir Posner gave a few weeks ago to an American's question about Chernenko's health. "In this country," he said, annoyed, "the private lives of the leadership . . . are not subject to discussion." It was as if he had been asked to confirm Chernenko's sexual preferences, not his existence.

Finally, and to me most chilling, was the open casket displaying Chernenko's (and Andropov's and Brezhnev's) powdered body drowning in a sea of fresh flowers. The open bier is a mere variation on a communist theme: the mummification of the great leader. In believing cultures, where there is some sense of a surviving soul, this pathetic attachment to the body is unnecessary. In fact, it is discouraged. In the great monotheistic religions, the redeemer -- Moses, [li-havdil] Jesus, Mohammed -- has no earthly resting place at all. In the great materialist religions, Soviet and Chinese communism, the resting place of the redeemer, indeed his frozen body, becomes a shrine. The result is the ultimate grotesquerie: after death, a fantastic assertion of the final primacy of man, even after he has become nothing more than embalmer's clay.

It turns out I'm not the only one to have been chilled by the barrenness of the Soviet way of death. Shortly after his return from Brezhnev's funeral, George Bush talked about what had struck him the most. He mentioned the austere pageantry, the goose-stepping soldiers, the music, "the body being drawn through Red Square -- not, incidentally, by horses, but behind an armored personnel carrier. But what struck me most . . . was the fact that from start to finish there was not one mention of -- God."

Why should that matter? you ask. After all, many of us are as tepid in our belief as the proverbial Unitarian who believes that there is, at most, one God. What is wrong with a society that believes in none? The usual answer follows the lines of an observation by Arthur Schlesinger (and many others) that "the declining faith in the supernatural has been accompanied by the rise of the monstrous totalitarian creeds of the 20th century." Or as Chesterton put it, "The trouble when people stop believing in God is not that they thereafter believe in nothing; it is that they thereafter believe in anything." In this century, "anything" has included Hitler, Stalin and Mao, authors of the great genocidal madnesses of our time. [And see here].

However, as the robotic orderliness of Chernenko's funeral demonstrates, the Soviet system is now anything but mad. The "monstrous creeds" have changed. Totalitarianism was once a truly crusading faith: messianic, hopeful, mobilized and marching. Now it is dead, burnt out. Classical totalitarianism has been replaced by what philosopher Michael Walzer calls "failed totalitarianism," the cold empty shell of the old madness: the zeal, the energy, the purpose are gone; only bureaucracy and cynicism remain. Today the Soviet system, the greatest of all the failed totalitarianisms, no longer believes in "anything." It now believes in nothing. A nothing on eerie display at Wednesday's funeral.

Chesterton's case against atheism is that even if it is (God forbid) true, it is dangerous. Three hours of watching Chernenko placed in the Kremlin wall convinces me otherwise. The case against a public life bereft of all spirituality rests less on its danger than on its utter desolation.

Individuality And Individualism

" ..... The answer to this apparent contradiction lies in the phrase the Torah uses to describe the act of counting: se’u es rosh, literally, “lift the head.” This is a strange, circumlocutory expression. Biblical Hebrew contains many verbs meaning “to count”: limnot, lifkod, lispor, lachshov. Why does the Torah not use these simple words, choosing instead the roundabout expression, “lift the heads” of the people?

The short answer is this: In any census, count or roll-call there is a tendency to focus on the total: the crowd, the multitude, the mass. Here is a nation of 60 million people, or a company with 100,000 employees or a sports crowd of 60,000. Any total tends to value the group or nation as a whole. The larger the total, the stronger is the army, the more popular the team, and the more successful the company.

Counting devalues the individual, and tends to make him or her replaceable. If one soldier dies in battle, another will take his place. If one person leaves the organisation, someone else can be hired to do his or her job.

Notoriously, too, crowds have the effect of tending to make the individual lose his or her independent judgment and follow what others are doing. We call this “herd behavior,” and it sometimes leads to collective madness. In 1841 Charles Mackay published his classic study, Extraordinary Popular Delusions And The Madness Of Crowds, which tells of the South Sea Bubble that cost thousands their money in the 1720s, and the tulip mania in Holland when fortunes were spent on single tulip bulbs. The Great Crashes of 1929 and 2008 had the same crowd psychology.

Another great work, Gustav Le Bon’s The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind (1895) showed how crowds exercise a “magnetic influence” that transmutes the behavior of individuals into a collective “group mind.” As he put it, “An individual in a crowd is a grain of sand amid other grains of sand, which the wind stirs up at will.” People in a crowd become anonymous. Their conscience is silenced. They lose a sense of personal responsibility. Crowds are peculiarly prone to regressive behavior, primitive reactions and instinctual behavior. They are easily led by figures who are demagogues, playing on people’s fears and sense of victimhood. Such leaders, he said, are “especially recruited from the ranks of those morbidly nervous excitable half-deranged persons who are bordering on madness”, a remarkable anticipation of Hitler. It is no accident that Le Bon’s work was published in France at a time of rising antisemitism and the Dreyfus trial.

Hence the significance of one remarkable feature of Judaism: its principled insistence – like no other civilization before – on the dignity and integrity of the individual. We believe that every human being is in the image and likeness of God. The Sages said that every life is like an entire universe. Maimonides says that each of us should see ourselves as if our next act could change the fate of the world. Every dissenting view is carefully recorded in the Mishnah, even if the law is otherwise. Every verse of the Torah is capable, said the Sages, of seventy interpretations. No voice, no view, is silenced. Judaism never allows us to lose our individuality in the mass.

There is a wonderful blessing mentioned in the Talmud to be said on seeing 600,000 Israelites together in one place. It is: “Blessed are You, Lord … who discerns secrets.” The Talmud explains that every person is different. We each have different attributes. We all think our own thoughts. Only God can enter the minds of each of us and know what we are thinking, and this is what the blessing refers to. In other words, even in a massive crowd where, to human eyes, faces blur into a mass, God still relates to us as individuals, not as members of a crowd.

That is the meaning of the phrase, “lift the head,” used in the context of a census. God tells Moshe that there is a danger, when counting a nation, that each individual will feel insignificant. “What am I? What difference can I make? I am only one of millions, a mere wave in the ocean, a grain of sand on the sea-shore, dust on the surface of infinity.”

Against that, Hashem tells Moshe to lift people’s heads by showing that they each count; they matter as individuals. Indeed in Jewish law a davar she-be-minyan, something that is counted, sold individually rather than by weight, is never nullified even in a mixture of a thousand or a million others. In Judaism taking a census must always be done in such a way as to signal that we are valued as individuals. We each have unique gifts. There is a contribution only I can bring. To lift someone’s head means to show them favor, to recognize them. It is a gesture of love.

There is, however, all the difference in the world between individuality and individualism. Individuality means that I am a unique and valued member of a team. Individualism means that I am not a team player at all. I am interested in myself alone, not the group. Harvard sociologist Robert Putnam gave this a famous name, noting that more people than ever in the United States are going ten-pin bowling but fewer than ever are joining teams. He called it “Bowling alone.” MIT professor Sherry Turkle calls our age of Twitter, Facebook, and online (rather than face-to-face) friendships, “Alone together.” Judaism values individuality, not individualism. As Hillel said, “If I am only for myself, what am I?”

All this has implications for Jewish leadership. We are not in the business of counting numbers. The Jewish people always was small and yet achieved great things. Judaism has a profound mistrust of demagogic leaders who manipulate the emotions of crowds. Moses at the burning bush spoke of his inability to be eloquent. “I am not a man of words.” He thought this was a failing in a leader. In fact it was the opposite. Moshe did not sway people by his oratory. Rather, he lifted them by his teaching.

A Jewish leader has to respect individuals. He or she must “lift their heads.” However large the group you lead, you must always communicate the value you place on everyone. You must never attempt to sway a crowd by appealing to the primitive emotions of fear or hate. You must never ride roughshod over the opinions of others.

It is hard to lead a nation of individuals, but this is the most challenging, empowering, inspiring leadership of all."

Accepting Rebuke

לרפואת ר' מרדכי בן שרה בתוך שח"י

We know that the beginning of the transmission [sounds more like a "car" word than a Torah word] of the Torah was from Moshe to Yehoshua. How is Torah transmitted from Rebbe to Talmid?

Chazal say that the Sefer Devarim was tailor made for Yehoshua. What is the special relationship between Yehoshua and Sefer Devarim?

We learned in Parshas Lech Lecha that Sara afflicted Hagar and compelled her to flee. Why did Sara act in this way? Much ink has been spilled in an attempt to explain her behavior. One explanation offered is based on a gemara in Brachos [דף ח] that one should only live near his Rebbe if he is able to accept rebuke, otherwise he should distance himself. The gemara's language is כייף ליה - subordinate himself. A student must be willing to subordinate himself and accept rebuke from his Rebbe. Hagar wasn't willing to subordinate herself to Sara so Sara had to separate her from the aveira of not being receptive to her teacher and afflicted her until she fled [but see the explanation of the Ramban].

The explanation is as follows: The Mishna says that one must make sure that his deeds are greater than his wisdom. This law is extended to a Talmid-Rebbe relationship. There must be a complete willingness to accept rebuke from one's Rebbe in order that his good deeds should exceed his wisdom. If he is primarily interested in receiving his Rebbe's wisdom but not his rebuke he will be ignoring the teaching of the Mishna that one's deeds must exceed his wisdom. Such a person is interested in wisdom but not good deeds [which are a result of rebuke]. In such an instance there is a serious defect in the student's Kabbalas Hatorah.

We can find a source for this in the gemara in Brachos ['דף ה] that teaches that part of the Torah that Moshe gave us is the words of the Neviim. Rashi [towards the end of the first perek of Megilla] teaches that the purpose of the Neviim was to give the Jews rebuke. So we see that part and parcel of Kabbalas Hatorah was the concept of giving and receiving rebuke as illustrated by the giving of neviim which is essentially rebuke.

Now we can understand what is special about Sefer Devarim. The Sefer begins אלה הדברים אשר דיבר משה and Rashi says that Sefer Devarim is a book of rebuke given by Moshe to the Jewish people.

That explains the special relationship of Yehoshua to Sefer Devarim. He is the first in the link of the chain passing the Torah from Rebbe to Talmid. Therefore it was critical that he receive words of rebuke which really defines the way in which Torah is passed on. Without it there is no true Kabbalas Hatorah.

[Maran ztz"l Pachad Yitzchak Shvuos Maamar 45]

In our generation it is very hard for people to receive rebuke. Usually people get defensive and deflect it. A favorite pasuk of mine [Mishlei 15-31]:

אֹ֗זֶן שֹׁ֖מַעַת תּוֹכַ֣חַת חַיִּ֑ים בְּקֶ֖רֶב חֲכָמִ֣ים תָּלִֽין:

The ear that listens to reproof of life shall lodge among the wise.

And then:

פּוֹרֵ֣עַ מ֖וּסָר מוֹאֵ֣ס נַפְשׁ֑וֹ וְשׁוֹמֵ֥עַ תּ֜וֹכַ֗חַת ק֣וֹנֶה לֵּֽב:

He who rejects discipline despises his life, but he who hearkens to reproof acquires sense.

Rebuke hurts - but it's worth it!!😊😊

-------------

שלש הערות בדברי מרן

א - רש"י כותב שאם לא כייף לרבו לא ידור במקומו לפי שעדיף שיהיו שוגגין ולא יהיו מזידין. לפי מרן זצ"ל אולי יש דרך אחרת בהסברת דברי הגמרא, דאם לא כייף לרבו לא ידור במקומו כי כל עצמו של קבלתו ממנו לקויה ופגומה ומעוותת. וכדי למנוע זאת עדיף שיתרחק ממנו. עי' בס' טוב רואי על מסכת ברכות כאן שהגראי"ה קוק מציע אף הוא פירוש חילופי בגמרא מתוך קושי שמצא בדברי רש"י.

ב - הגמרא נקטה דוגמה של שלמה שכל עוד שחי רבו, שמעי בן גרא, לא נשא את בת פרעה. הדוגמה של שלמה מלמדנו שאין המדובר כאן בקבלת חכמה כי שלמה היה חכם מכל אדם ומן הסתם לא היה זקוק לשמעי כדי לקבל את חכמתו אלא שעדיין היה זקוק לו לקבל תוכחתו.

ג- הרמב"ם והשו"ע לא הביאו חילוק זה של הגמרא בין כייף ליה ללא כייף ליה וצ"ע למה. עי' שו"ת דברי יציב או"ח סי' רכח.

Toras Harogochover - Protection From Danger

לזכות אבי מורי ואמי מורתי שיחיו

A person should always act within the framework of nature. If he does so then he will be protected. As the Gemara [Yevamot 12b]:

תני רב ביבי קמיה דרב נחמן שלש נשים משמשות במוך קטנה מעוברת ומניקה קטנה שמא תתעבר ושמא תמות מעוברת שמא תעשה עוברה סנדל מניקה שמא תגמול בנה וימות

 Rav Beivai taught a braisa before Rav Nachman: Three women may engage in relations with a contraceptive resorbent, a soft fabric placed at the entrance to their wombs to prevent conception, despite the fact that this practice is generally prohibited. They are as follows: A minor, a woman who is already pregnant, and a nursing woman. The braisa specifies the reason for each exception: A minor may do so lest she become pregnant and perhaps die; a pregnant woman, lest she be impregnated a second time and her previous fetus becomes deformed into the shape of a sandal fish by being squashed by the pressure of the second fetus. As for a nursing woman, she does so lest she become pregnant and her milk dry up, in which case she will wean her son too early, thereby endangering him, and he will die.

ואיזו היא קטנה מבת י"א שנה ויום אחד עד י"ב שנה ויום אחד פחות מכאן ויתר על כן משמשת כדרכה והולכת דברי ר"מ וחכ"א אחת זו ואחת זו משמשת כדרכה והולכת ומן השמים ירחמו משום שנאמר (תהלים קטז, ו) שומר פתאים ה'

Who is considered a minor? It is a girl from the age of eleven years and one day until the age of twelve years and one day. If she was younger than this or older than this, she may go ahead and engage in relations in her usual manner. This is the statement of Rabbi Meir. Since it is assumed that a minor who is less than eleven years old cannot become pregnant, she is considered to be in no danger. And the Rabbis say: Both this one and that one, i.e., in all these cases, she may go ahead and engage in relations in her usual manner, and Heaven will have mercy upon her and prevent any mishap, since it is stated: “The Lord preserves the simple”(Psalms 116:2).

Explains the Rogochover that this rule that people are guarded when they follow the natural course of events only applies when the danger is a natural one. But when the danger is not natural, he [or she] will not be protected. In the words of Rabbeinu:  

"רק בדבר דכן מציאות התולדה אמרינן גדר מן השמים ירחמו וגדר שומר פתאים ה' .... אבל כל דבר שאין זה גדר הטבע רק סיבה בודאי חילוק ואסור".

Therefore, when a woman is ill and getting pregnant will constitute a danger for her, she may not have relations because she won't be protected. ['שו"ת שלמת יוסף ל]

Torah Mi-Sinai - Part 3

In the entire Chumash, the word "מוסר" - "Mussar" appears one time [Devarim 11-2]. 

 וִֽידַעְתֶּם֮ הַיּוֹם֒ כִּ֣י׀ לֹ֣א אֶת־בְּנֵיכֶ֗ם אֲשֶׁ֤ר לֹֽא־יָדְעוּ֙ וַאֲשֶׁ֣ר לֹא־רָא֔וּ אֶת־מוּסַ֖ר יְהֹוָ֣ה אֱלֹהֵיכֶ֑ם אֶת־גׇּדְל֕וֹ אֶת־יָדוֹ֙ הַחֲזָקָ֔ה וּזְרֹע֖וֹ הַנְּטוּיָֽה׃

Know this day: for I don’t speak with your children who have not known, and who have not seen the chastisement of Hashem your God, his greatness, his mighty hand, and his outstretched arm. 

Unkelos renders the word "אולפנא" - teaching, and in Targum Yerushalmi "אולפן אורייתא", teaching of the Torah. We see that מוסר means the Torah as Hashem teaches it, as the pasuk there says further [י"א ז] 

"כי עיניכם הרואות"

"Because your eyes saw". 

In other words, Torah as Hashem taught it - מוסר ה' א-להיכם. Mussar means understanding reality as it is and Torah is the perception of "עיניכם הרואות". [That is what Chazal mean when they say that at Sinai "שומעים את הנראה ורואים את הנשמע" as the Nefesh Hachaim (ש"ג פי"א) explains: ראייה - Perceiving reality as it is. שמיעה - perceiving the MEANING [משמעות] of reality. If so, רואים את הנשמע - what until then was just an idea, a concept, an understanding, they saw with their own eyes, as it was, with complete clarity. שומעין את הנראה  - they heard what was normally seen, what they usually saw with clarity they now understood, with all its depth.] 

The Rambam [ספר המצוות שורש ג] writes:

שאין ראוי למנות מצוות שאין נוהגות לדורות, דע, כי אומרם "תרי"ג מצוות נאמרו לו למשה בסיני" מורה שהמספר הוא מספר המצוות הנוהגות לדורות. כי מצוות שאין נוהגות לדורות, אין קשר להן בסיני, אם נאמרו בסיני או לא. ואמנם כוונו באומרם "בסיני" - לפי שעיקר התורה שניתנה היה בסיני. 

It is not fitting to count mitzvos that are not kept for all the generations. When Chazal say that "613 mitzvos were said to Moshe at Sinai" that is the number of mitzvos kept for all the generations. Because mitzvos that are not kept for the generations have no connection to Sinai. "At Sinai" because the עיקר of the Torah was given at Sinai. 

We see from the Rambam that everything that happened at Sinai was for all the generations. This fits with what we explained earlier: At Sinai, as we explained, all of existence was transformed by the Torah. So of course Sinai relates to mitzvos that will apply for ALL the generations. Reality is a constant and thus what created that reality also relates to the constant i.e. mitzvos for all the generations and not the temporary ones.

The Rambam also says when listing his 13 principles of faith:

היסוד התשיעי - ההעתק, והוא כי התורה הזאת מועתקת מאת הבורא השם יתברך לא מזולתו. ועליה אין להוסיף וממנה אין לגרוע לא בתורה שבכתב ולא בתורה שבעל פה. שנאמר "לא תוסיף עליו ולא תגרע ממנו".

This is the principle that Torah is eternal, it won't change and will last forever. The Rambam uses the terminology "העתקה" - copy. Since when the Torah is transmitted, it must be transmitted with "Sinai", therefore the transmission is a "העתקה" - a copy of Sinai. Thus, the Torah cannot be changed. 

Therefore, the day we celebrate מתן תורה is the 6th of Sivan and not Yom Kippur when we received the second Luchos. Since we still relate to Har Sinai and our learning is with the experience of Sinai, we also celebrate the giving of the Torah at Sinai. 

Rashi says on the pasuk ויהי ערב ויהי בוקר יום הששי:

יום הששי – כולכם תלוים ועומדים עד יום הששי בסיון המוכן למתן תורה.

THE SIXTH DAY — The whole Creation  stood in a state of suspense until the sixth day — that is, the sixth day of Sivan which was destined to be the day when the Torah would be given to Israel.

All of creation was in suspense because the giving of the Torah was the completion of the world. The revelation of the Torah is the final revelation of all reality.  

["זה השער"]

Torah Mi-Sinai - Part 2

The Gemara in Horiyos [14a] says as follows: 

רב יוסף סיני רבה עוקר הרים שלחו לתמן איזה מהם קודם שלחו להו סיני עדיף דאמר מר הכל צריכין למרי חטיא

Rav Yosef was Sinai; Rabba was one who uproots mountains. They sent a message from Babylonia to there, Eretz Yisrael: Which takes precedence? They sent in response: Sinai is preferable, as the Master said: Everyone requires the owner of the wheat, i.e., one who is expert in the sources.

Rashi explains:

רב יוסף קרו ליה סיני לפי שהיו משניות וברייתות סדורות לו כנתינתן מהר סיני

Rav Yosef as called Sinai because all the Mishnayos and Braisos were in order before him as they were given at Har Sinai. 

הכל צריכין למרי חטיא - כלומר רב יוסף הוא מרי חטיא שמשנה וברייתא סדורין לו מפי השמועה כנתינתן מהר סיני דמשנה וברייתא אבוהון דהלכתא:

Everyone requires the owner of the wheat - In other words, Rav Yosef was the owner of the wheat that the Mishna and Braisa were in order for him according to tradition as they were given at Har Sinai because Mishna and Braisa are the sources [literally "fathers"] of halacha. 

"Sinai" - means that the whole Torah will be found with a person and therefore one can draw Torah from him ["הכל צריכין למרי חטיא"], and it is axiomatic that the this is not talking about a "walking computer" but someone who carries in his Torah, the experience of Sinai. 

At מעמד הר סיני there was a revelation that the entire reality of existence was transformed to become Torah. That is the meaning of the מדרש [Shmos Rabba 29-9]:

א"ר אבהו בשם רבי יוחנן כשנתן הקדוש ברוך הוא את התורה צפור לא צווח עוף לא פרח שור לא געה אופנים לא עפו 

שרפים לא אמרו קדוש קדוש הים לא נזדעזע הבריות לא דברו אלא העולם שותק ומחריש ויצא הקול אנכי ה' אלהיך

When Hashem gave the Torah, a bird didn't chirp etc. and all the animals and angels and nature remained perfectly still and the voice emerged and said "אנכי ה' א-להיך" -  I am the Lord your G-d. 

Meaning, the entire creation joined in the words of אנכי ה' א-להיך and completely assimilated the message into their essence. If they would have been busy doing anything else, that would have been impossible. 

ישראל אעפ"י שחטא ישראל הוא!!!

Torah Mi-Sinai - Part 1

לזכות ידיד נפשי הרב ר' חיים לאופר שליט"א לברכה והצלחה בכל מעשי ידיו!!!

לזכות רפואת הרב חיים יצחק יחיאל בן אסתר בתוך שח"י!!!

Pirkei Avos begins: 

"משה קיבל תורה מסיני ומסרה ליהושע ויהושע לזקנים וזקנים לנביאים".

"Moshe received the Torah from Sinai and passed it on it to Yehoshua and Yehoshua to the elders".

Why does it say that Moshe received the Torah from Sinai instead of "Moshe received the Torah from Hashem"? Sinai didn't give Moshe the Torah - Hashem did! [The Maharal and others discuss this]. 

First we have to understand that "מסרה ליהושע" does not mean that Moshe gave to Yehoshua everything he received but rather that he gave to Yehoshua the "צורת הקבלה" - the form in which he received the Torah. 

Within the framework of receiving the Torah there is also מעמד הר סיני - which is part and parcel of the Torah. The form in which Torah was given is a condition in its learning [see later]. 

The Ramban [ספר המצות שכחת הלאוין ב] explains the mitzva of remembering מעמד הר סיני:

"המצוה השניה שנמנענו שלא נשכח מעמד הר סיני ולא נסיר אותו מדעתנו אבל יהיו עינינו ולבנו שם כל הימים, והוא אמרו יתעלה: "השמר לך ושמור נפשך מאד פן תשכח את הדברים אשר ראו עיניך ופן יסורו מלבבך כל ימי חייך והודעתם לבניך ולבני בניך יום אשר עמדת לפני י"י אלהיך בחורב וגו'". והכונה בזה גדולה מאד. שאם היו דברי תורה באים אצלנו מפי הנביא עליו השלום בלבד אף על פי שנתאמת אצלנו ענין נבואתו באותות ומופתים אם יקום בקרבנו נביא או חולם חלום בזמן מן הזמנים ויצונו בשום הפך מן התורה ונתן אלינו אות או מופת תהיה התורה נסוחה על יד השני או יכנס בלבנו ספק על זה, אבל כשהגיענו ביאור התורה מפי הגבורה לאזנינו ועינינו רואות אין שם אמצעי נכחיש כל חולק וכל מספק ונשקר אותו ולא יועילהו אות ולא יצילהו מידינו מופת. שאנחנו היודעים ועדים בשקרותו ובפחזותו. זה הוא שנאמר במעמד ההוא (יתרו יט) וגם בך יאמינו לעולם, והוא הענין הבא בפרשת 'כי יקום ברבך נביא או חולם חלום'".

The Ramban says that we must remember מעמד הר סיני so that no false prophet comes around afterwards and denies it. This is difficult to comprehend. If the whole idea of remembering מעמד הר סיני is so that we can prevent a false prophet from denying the veracity of the Torah, then it is not about remembering the event per se but rather about something else - preventing false prophets from denying it. But the pasuk seems to be saying that there is an inherent mitzva to remember the actual מעמד?

It MUST be then that what the Ramban means is that the Torah must be passed on in such a way that makes it impossible to deny. That is what the pasuk means when it says [Devarim 4-9/10]

"השמר לך ושמור נפשך מאד פן תשכח את הדברים אשר ראו עיניך ופן יסורו מלבבך כל ימי חייך והודעתם לבניך ולבני בניך יום אשר עמדת לפני י"י אלהיך בחורב". 

"But beware and watch yourself very well, lest you forget the things that your eyes saw, and lest these things depart from your heart, all the days of your life, and you shall make them known to your children and to your children's children, the day you stood before the Lord your God at Chorev."

Besides merely giving over the Torah, it must be given over as it was received at Sinai, as we listened to the words from the mouth of Hashem, in a way that can't be denied. 

"Moshe received the Torah from Sinai and passed it on to Yehoshua" means that not only did Moshe give over the Torah itself, but also gave over the FORM on which is was given! That is the passing over of "יום אשר עמדת לפני ה' א-להיך בחורב" - "the day in which you stood before Hashem at Chorev". 

The Mishna doesn't say that "Moshe received the Torah from Hashem" because it is focused on the nature of transmitting the Torah and actually learning from Hashem [as Moshe did] is something that cannot be transmitted. Moshe Rabbeinu learned Torah from Hashem and that means that as far as he is concerned the Torah is always in a state that it came from the source  - in a completely different form than it was when it was passed on. 

We see that there us a special form in which the Torah must be transmitted, namely, as it was given over to us at Sinai. This is expressed in a halacha:

והודעתם לבניך ולבני בניך וכתיב בתריה יום אשר עמדת לפני ה׳ אלהיך בחורב מה להלן באימה וביראה וברתת ובזיע אף כאן באימה וביראה וברתת ובזיע

As it was taught in a braisa: It is written: “And you shall impart them to your children and your children’s children” (Deuteronomy 4:9), and it is written thereafter: “The day that you stood before the Lord your God at Horeb” (Deuteronomy 4:10). Just as below, the Revelation at Sinai was in reverence, fear, quaking, and trembling, so too here, in every generation, Torah must be studied with a sense of reverence, fear, quaking, and trembling.

The Torah must be learned and taught as it was given.

[זה השער]