Well over 100 in the last month BS"D. Please learn לעילוי נשמתי and לעילוי נשמתך!!!
I get paid per view.
[I really don't but working on it....😉].
Saturday, November 30, 2019
Negiya
The other day I started mincha in the Ezras Nashim. Then a woman showed up and the Gabbai asked me to leave.
I told him that it was OK - I am feeling gender fluid and at least until the end of mincha I am a female.
He the called the two biggest guys in shul who physically carried me out.
I screamed "NEGIYAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!"
Bein Adam La-chaveiro
"For transgressions between a person and God, Yom Kippur atones. However, for transgressions between a person and another, Yom Kippur does not atone until one appeases the other person AND accepts their Linkedin request."
Thursday, November 28, 2019
Did Yaakov Make A Mistake In Taking The Brachos?
Once I was already at R' Sacks' website, I read some other articles. He writes [Toldot 5755]:
If so then it is possible all four people acted rightly as they understood the situation, yet still tragedy occurred. Isaac was right to wish Esau blessed as Abraham sought for Ishmael. Esau acted honourably toward his father. Rivka sought to safeguard the future of the covenant. Jacob felt qualms but did what his mother said, knowing she would not have proposed deceit without a strong moral reason for doing so.
Do we have here one story with two possible interpretations? Perhaps, but that is not the best way of describing it. What we have here, and there are other examples in Genesis, is a story we understand one way the first time we hear it, and a different way once we have discovered and reflected on all that happened later. It is only after we have read about the fate of Jacob in Laban’s house, the tension between Leah and Rachel, and the animosity between Joseph and his brothers that we can go back and read Genesis 27, the chapter of the blessing, in a new light and with greater depth.
There is such a thing as an honest mistake, and it is a mark of Jacob’s greatness that he recognized it and made amends to Esau. In the great encounter twenty-two years later the estranged brothers meet, embrace, part as friends and go their separate ways. But first, Jacob had to wrestle with an angel.
That is how the moral life is. We learn by making mistakes. We live life forward, but we understand it only looking back. Only then do we see the wrong turns we inadvertently made. This discovery is sometimes our greatest moment of moral truth.
For each of us there is a blessing that is ours. That was true not just of Isaac but also Ishmael, not just Jacob but also Esau. The moral could not be more powerful. Never seek your brother’s blessing. Be content with your own.
In other words - Yaakov made a mistake when he took the Brachos. Where does the text say that? Where does any Medrash say that. Any commentator?? R' Sacks fails to enlighten us. But since in his world view Esav must be loved as well - Yaakov was wrong. When someone has a world view they often tend to interpret texts based on what they WANT it to say rather than on what it actually says. R' Sacks does this quite a bit. Brilliant? Yes. Knowledgeable in philosophy and the social sciences? Extremely. A riveting orator? Incredibly. But he twists and manipulates texts to fit with his Weltanschauung [say that on a date and impress the young lady!!] quite often - and THAT is dangerous. So I respectfully call him out for it. [I once wrote him an email pointing out one such infraction and received an automated response that the good rabbi's calender is full for the next year so he is not available to speak at any more events. Impressive. My calender is quite open actually. Bring me in as a scholar in residence and I promise to make people laugh interspersed with some Torah].
"The moral could not be more powerful. Never seek your brother’s blessing. Be content with your own."
Not. The blessing was intended for the Bechor and Yaakov bought the Bechora fair and square. We don't see Yitzchak retracting the Bracha and we don't see Yaakov expressing regret. Rivka told him to "deceive" his father into giving him the Bracha [as instructed by Nevuah as per Unkelos] and he did it. What happens with Lavan is no proof that he was mistaken. Ditto the battle with the angel [although I have a very good Hispanic friend named Angel and I would never wrestle with him - he would whoop me]. He final meeting with Esav did not make them friends and to illustrate this Esav's descendants have been killing Yaacov's for the last 5000 years.
Why Yitzchak Loved Esav
R' J. Sacks in his Parsha article [from a few years ago] wonders why Yitzchak loved Esav despite the fact that he was aware of his faults, as evidenced by the fact that he knew that Esav had taken idolatrous wives. He writes:
The sages gave an explanation. They interpreted
the phrase “skilful hunter” as meaning that Esau
trapped and deceived Isaac. He pretended to be more religious than he was. There is, though, quite a different explanation, closer to the plain sense of the text, and very moving. Isaac loved
Esau because Esau was his son, and that is what fathers do. They love their children
unconditionally.
Actually, the text says וַיֶּאֱהַב יִצְחָק אֶת עֵשָׂו כִּי צַיִד בְּפִיו - He loved Esav כי ציד בפיו [see the commentaries] and NOT because Esav was his son. It would MAKE SENSE that he loved Esav because he was his son, but that is NOT what the text says. [Maybe because the Avos were on the level that they weren't guided by their natural inclinations.]
In this years article he writes:
If this is so, then Isaac’s love for Esau is simply explained. It is as if Isaac had said: I know what Esau is. He is strong, wild, unpredictable, possibly violent. It is impossible that he should be the person entrusted with the covenant and its spiritual demands. But this is my child. I refuse to sacrifice him, as my father almost sacrificed me. I refuse to send him away, as my parents sent Hagar and Ishmael away. My love for my son is unconditional. I do not ignore who or what he is. But I will love him anyway, even if I do not love everything he does – because that is how God loves us, unconditionally, even if He does not love everything we do. I will bless him. I will hold him close. And I believe that one day that love may make him a better person than he might otherwise have been.
In this one act of loving Esau, Isaac redeemed the pain of two of the most difficult moments in his father Abraham’s life: the sending away of Hagar and Ishmael and the Binding of Isaac.
I believe that love helps heal both the lover and the loved.
There is some veiled criticism of Avraham here for sending away Yishmael. Actually, HASHEM COMMANDED HIM TO DO SO at the behest of Sarah.
Wednesday, November 27, 2019
The Long Lasting Impact Of Childhood
Rabbi Frand
When Eisav was 40 years old, he married two idolatrous Chitite women — which caused grief to Yitzchak and Rivka. They were upset at his choice of mates. The Medrash asks why Yitzchak is mentioned first in the pasuk, as it says, “And they caused bitterness of spirit to Yitzchak and to Rivka” [Bereshis 26:35]. The Medrash answers that this was because Rivka herself grew up in the home of idol worshippers, so she was not as concerned about such practices. Yitzchak, who grew up in the holy family of Avraham and Sarah, was more upset by the actions of his daughters-in-law.
Let us remember that at this point Rivka was over sixty years old. (Eisav was 40 and Rivka was childless for 20 years after she got married.) Rivka had been out of her childhood home for more than half a century. We would think that at this point in time, after being the wife of the righteous Yitzchak for so many years, the thought of idolatry must certainly have been abhorrent to her. And yet, it was less of an abomination to her than it was to Yitzchak, based on those childhood memories of Avodah Zarah practiced in her own home!
At one time Rivka her life, she witnessed Avodah Zarah. It is the nature of people that once they see something, they become accustomed to seeing it, developing a certain tolerance for it. A certain Gadol came to America from Europe in the 1920s. The first time in the Gadol’s life that he witnessed a Jew desecrating Shabbos, he fainted. We on the other hand, or even people of that era who were used to seeing desecration of Shabbos, are not moved by witnessing Chilul Shabbos. It is something we have become used accustomed, for better or worse.
The Medrash is saying a fantastic thing. Of course Rivka was upset by the Avodah Zarah. Of course it was an abomination. Of course it gave her grief. But it did not give her as much grief as it gave Yitzchak. Why? Yitzchak never witnessed Avodah Zarah. Therefore, the thought of his daughters-in-law worshipping Avodah Zarah was anathema to him.
The lesson of this Medrash is that after a while, whatever we are exposed to stops bothering us to the same degree. It is no wonder that in the United States of America, there is a certain tolerance for violence. The typical American kid who watches an average of 3 hours of television a day in the course of his youth sees thousands of murders. Granted, he only sees it on television rather than in “real life”. But it does not matter. The specter of murder is just not the same for such a child.
“Yosef Meshisa Moments”
The flip side of this Medrash is another Medrash, which I have spoken about previously, but which I would like to share with you again, coupled with two different stories.
Towards the end of the Parsha, the pasuk says “and he smelled the aroma of his clothes (rayach begadav)” [Bereshis 27:27]. The Medrash makes a play on words and says there is an allusion here to “rayach bogdav” — the aroma of his traitors. Yitzchak sensed people in future generations of Klal Yisrael who were traitors to the faith and yet Yitzchak received satisfaction of spirit (nachas ruach) from them. Although this seems paradoxical, the Medrash gives two examples of such individuals: Yosef Meshisa and Yokam Ish Tzeroros.
Yosef Meshisa was a wicked Jew. When the Roman enemies came into Yerushalayim and were about to enter the Holy Beis HaMikdash, they were afraid to enter. They asked for a Jewish volunteer to enter first, to prove that no harm would befall them. Yosef Meshisa volunteered. They told him, “You go in first and whatever you want take for yourself.” Yosef Meshisa went in and came out with the Golden Menorah. When they saw what he took, they told him, “It is not proper for a commoner to use such a utensil. This is over the line. Such a magnificent artifact is fit for a king, not a simple person.”
The Romans told him to go back and chose something else. However Yosef Meshisa refused. He said “I cannot go back in.” They offered him the income for 3 years of tax revenue collection if he went back in, but he still refused. He said, “Is it not enough that I angered my G-d once, you want me to anger Him a second time?” The Romans enslaved him as punishment for his disobedience to them.
What happened to Yosef Meshisa? He abandoned his people. He was a traitor. So then what happened to him that caused him to be able to defy the Romans? He had an epiphany of sorts. He realized that he had gone too far, that he had sunk too low. When even a Gentile told him “You have taken something that is inappropriate for you to have,” he realized that the Gentile was right. He realized that he went too far and had crossed the line.
So often in life, something happens to people that becomes a “wake-up call.” The people suddenly realize how far they have gone.
I would like to share with you two examples I have collected this past year of what I like to call “Yosef Meshisa moments,” – when someone realizes “look how far I have sunk.”
This is a story about a Jew named Shlomo Mordechai Sobol, who died about two years ago. He was born and raised in Russia. He was orphaned at the age of 7. He was raised in a religious home, but being orphaned and being drafted into the Russian army pulled him away from Yiddishkeit.
During the war, food was very hard to come by. He was in the Russian army. The Russian soldiers had it relatively good because when they would invade a town, they would have free reign of the town and could seize whatever they wanted in terms of food and provisions. Mr. Sobol, who by then was not very religious, walked into a bakery and took two loaves of bread.
Shortly afterwards, he was walking in the town and he saw a Mezuza on the door of a little house. He knocked on the door. The woman, seeing a Russian soldier at the door, did not want to answer the door. He kept knocking. Finally she answered the door. Seeing the Jewish woman, the soldier offered her one of his loaves of bread. She refused to take it. He persisted in his request that she take the loaf from him to feed her family during this time of famine. She refused again. Finally, he told her in Yiddish “I am a Jew. I want to do a mitzvah. Please take this loaf of bread.”
The woman looked at him again and said, “It is Pessach!” Mr. Sobol was astonished. “It’s Pessach?” That very day, Shlomo Mordechai Sobol, realizing how far he had drifted made a vow to the Almighty. “G-d, if you get me out of this war alive, I promise You I will return to the ways of my parents. I will become religious again, I will raise my family religious and I will remain a religious Jew until the day I die.” And so it was. Mr. Sobol lived in West Hartford, Connecticut. He lived and died a religious Jew.
The next story is an essay written by a Mr. Brian Silvy. He was raised in a totally nonobservant home. He was brought up in a Reconstructionist Temple. He knew very little about Judaism. He knew that his family had a mezuzah on their door. He went to Hebrew school and could recite Shma Yisrael. That was about the extent of his Yiddishkeit. Obviously, he was one who did not leave Yiddishkeit — he never had it in the first place.
He writes:
When I was in college, I joined a fraternity. I quickly became engaged in a typical fraternity lifestyle including many self-destructive activities and forms of self-gratification — alcohol, drugs, gambling, and licentiousness. The college I was in had fraternity houses located in Jewish neighborhoods.
One night, I was extremely intoxicated at a fraternity party held in an apartment with mezuzas on every doorpost. I became alarmed when I noticed two fraternity members prying mezuzas off the doorposts. I followed them around the house and I realized that they were collecting the mezuzas as they moved from doorpost to doorpost. I followed them to a room where they tried to remove the housing and take out the scrolls. They tried to read the writing on the scrolls and then crumpled them up and tore them in half when they were unable to do so.
I felt indignant and obligated perhaps by the small spark of Judaism within me to try to stop them. I confronted them with calmness and sensitivity. “What did you do with those things?”, I asked them. “I don’t know. It’s none of your business.” was the response. “You should have left them there. You are not supposed to take them down” I responded.
“Well what are they?” I was asked. “It’s called a mezuzah and they go on the doorposts of Jewish houses.”
“Why?” they wanted to know. I realized that I did not know the answer to their question. I could feel the strength of my position weakening. “Well, what is inside them?” they asked me. Again I could not answer. I could not answer any of their questions. They were looking at me with scorn. One of the collectors asked, “Well, if you are a Jew and you do not know the answer to these questions then why should we care?” They went ahead, took all the mezuzas they had collected and threw them into the fireplace where the fire was burning.
Perhaps it was because I was so drunk, but I walked out of the room dejected and heart-broken. I walked out of the house, found a remote place, and sat down on the snow. I began crying. I replayed the incident in my mind over and over, each time coming back to the same painful question: If you are a Jew and cannot answer these questions, why should we care? That was the catalyst that began my search for Torah Judaism.
This event occurred more than 10 years ago. Now, he writes, he has been learning in Ohr Somayach Yeshiva for the past two years. He is married to his wife Elisheva Rachel. They have a young daughter. They are raising a Torah observant family… all because of a “Yosef Meshisa moment” …because someone said “If you are a Jew and you do not even know, then why should we care?”
This is all the same concept. Someone slaps you in the face and says “Look how far you have gone!” A person then has the realization “I have gone too far.” Yosef Meshisa realized it. Shlomo Mordechai Sobol realized it. Brian Silvy realized it as well.
The Search For Blessings
Rabbi Mordechai Kaminetzky
This week’s parsha begins the saga of the long, almost endless struggle between Yaakov and Esav. Yaakov buys the birthright from a hungry Esav and then, coached by his mother, Rivka, he dresses like Esav and receives blessings from his father Isaac.
I have received numerous letters throughout the years pondering those actions. Indeed, Yaakov himself is wary of acting in a seemingly devious manner and is reassured by his righteous mother who accepts full responsibility for his actions.
When Esav arrives for the blessings, his father tells him that his younger brother cleverly took all the blessings, but Esav, despondent as he may be declares to his father, “He (Jacob) took away my birthright and see, now he took away my blessing!” He adds, “Have you not reserved a blessing for me? Isaac answered, and said to Esau, “Behold, a lord have I made him over you, and all his kin have I given him as servants; with grain and wine have I supported him, and for you, where — what can I do, my son?”. And Esau said to his father, “Have you but one blessing, Father? Bless me too, Father!” And Esau raised his voice and wept. (Genesis 27:36-38).
I often wondered about the lesson of this repartee. Esav, clearly angered by Yaakov’s cunning, still has clarity of mind to ask for a blessing. Yitzchak seems to demur, inferring that there is nothing left. But Esav prevails by pleading, even crying for a blessing. And only then does his father acquiesce and bless him as well.
Was there a blessing left or not? Can pleading with the saintly patriarch produce a previously non-extant blessing? Maybe Esav’s tears taught a lesson even for the children of Yaakov?
In the summer of 2001 30,000 Boy Scouts joined together in Virginia for a national Boy Scout Jamboree. Among the myriad groups of scouts who attend this event that occurs every four years are many Jewish Scouts as well. Mike Paretsky, a Vice Chairman of the GNYC Jewish Committee on scouting, was the kosher food liaison to the jamboree. Special food was ordered from O’Fishel caterers of Baltimore, so that the Jewish scouts would be able to nourish their bodies as well.
One of the scoutmasters, a Jewish man caught a glimpse of the kosher offerings. He had never eaten a kosher meal in his life, yet when he saw the special meals, something stirred. He and his troops were being served pork-this and bacon-that for breakfast, lunch and supper, and all of a sudden this man decided he was sick of the monotonous treif stuff. He wanted to eat kosher. Scoutmaster Paretsky gladly let him partake in a meal, but that was not enough for the fellow. The man decided to keep kosher during the entire jamboree!
Mr. Paretsky agreed to accommodate the neophyte kosherphile, but a skeptic approached him. “Mike,” he said, “why are you wasting your kosher food on this fellow? He is not going to eat kosher after this is over, and he observes absolutely nothing! Why waste the food on him?”
Mike answered with an amazing story of the Chofetz Chaim. When Russian soldiers entered the town of Radin, Jewish townsfolk prepared kosher meals for the Jewish soldiers in the Czar’s army. Soon their acts of charity seemed to fly in their face as they saw the soldiers devour the food and then stand on line to receive the forbidden Russian rations.
When they complained to the Chofetz Chaim and threatened to stop preparing kosher food, he reflected with an insight that must be passed on to generations.
“Every mitzvah that a Jew does, every good deed and every bit of kosher that he eats is not a fleeting act. It is an eternity. No matter what precedes or ensues, we must cherish each proper action of a Jew.”
The wayward son, Esav is at first told by his father that there are no blessings. But he cries bitterly and cannot fathom that fact. “Is there nothing left?” He asks. It cannot be. And he was right. There is always some blessing left to be found. No matter how far one has strayed, no matter how bleak a situation looks. There is always blessing. We must pursue it, even cry for it, and when we receive the tiniest blessing it may seem trivial, even fleeting, but it is with us for eternity.
Death Wish
Esav. He represents so much evil. We know him as the hunter, the ruthless marauder, murderer of Nimrod and stalker of Yaakov. Yet, believe it or not, he had some saving grace. He is even considered a paradigm of virtuous character at least in one aspect of his life honoring parents. The Torah tells us that Yitzchak loved Esav. And Esav loved him back. He respected his father and served him faithfully. In fact, the Medrash and Zohar talk favorably about the power of Esav’s kibud av, honor of his father. They even deem it greater than that of his brother Yaakov’s. And so Yitzchak requested Esav to “go out to the field and hunt game for me, then make me delicacies such as I love, and I will eat, so that my soul may bless you before I die” (Genesis 27:3-4). Yitzchak wanted to confer the blessings to him. Esav won his father’s regard. And even when Esav found out that his brother, Yaakov beat him to the blessings, he did not yell at his father, in the method of modern filial impugnation, “How did you let him do that?!” All he did was “cry out an exceedingly great and bitter cry, and said to his father, “Bless me too, Father!” (ibid v.34). Yitzchak finds some remaining blessing to bestow upon his older son, but the grudge does not evaporate. What troubles me is not the anger of defeat or the desire for revenge, rather the way Esav expressed it. “Now Esau harbored hatred toward Jacob because of the blessing with which his father had blessed him; and Esau thought, “May the days of mourning for my father draw near, then I will kill my brother Jacob.”
“May the days of mourning for my father draw near” Think about it. How did the love for a father turn into the eager anticipation of his death?
The seventh grade class of the posh Harrington Boy’s School, nestled in the luxurious rolling hills of suburbia, was teeming with excitement. The winter had begun, and they were rapidly approaching the beginning of the holiday season. The children had been talking about their wishes and expectations for holiday presents and were telling the class what they were going to get.
Johnny had been promised that if he finished his piano lessons, he’d get a new 800-megahertz computer. Arthur had asked for a real drum set and was promised it on the condition he gets grades of 100 on two consecutive math tests.
Billy had not been so lucky. He had begged his dad for a Harley-Davidson motorcycle, to which his father replied, “Over my dead body!” He settled. If he would write a weekly letter to his uncle in Wichita, he would get a motorized scooter.
The day came and all the kids had the chance to share their expectations with their peers.
“When I get two hundreds in a row, I’m getting a real drum set!” shouted Arthur.
“When I finish piano lessons, I’m getting the latest computer!” exclaimed Johnny. And so it went. Each child announced his goal and the prize that awaited him upon accomplishment.
Finally Billy swaggered up to the front of the class. “If I write my uncle I’m gonna get a scooter.” He quickly continued, “but that’s nothing! ‘Cause when my daddy dies, I’m getting a Harley-Davidson motorcycle!”
Passions overrule sanity. They even overtake years of love and commitment. When one is enraged, he can turn against his best friend, his closest ally, and even his own parents! Esav, who spent his first 63 years in undying adulation of his father, changed his focus in a burst of emotion. Now, instead of worrying about his father’s fare, he awaited the day of his farewell. All in anticipation of the revenge he would take on Yaakov.
When passions perverse our priorities, and obsessions skew our vision, friends become foes and alliance becomes defiance. In the quest for paranoiac revenge, everyone is an enemy even your own parents. But mostly your own self.
New Sfarim
Minor Issues In Halacha: Dinei Bittul Birov and Dinei Kotton
An Idiots Guide To Dinei Shoteh
Available on @amazon!!
An Idiots Guide To Dinei Shoteh
Available on @amazon!!
Men Making Dinner
The first Thursday in November is "National Men Make Dinner Day". In other words "National Eat Cold Pizza From The Fridge Day".
If you are lucky. Otherwise it is "National Go Hungry Day".
"Black Friday"
The day when the Shana Bet guys finally take the plunge, go to Geulah, and buy themselves a hat.
New Halachic Booklet
"Please Save The Date - What To Do When Your Shidduch Meeting Turns Into Pikuach Nefesh"
Two New Booklets Out!!
"Jews For Cheeses - The Laws Of Cholov Yisrael"
"Cheeses Priced - A Guide To Finding Inexpensive Cheeses In Non Jewish Neighborhoods"
Two Gurs
In this weeks parsha, Hashem tells Yitzchak "גור בארץ הזאת".
GREAT!
.... But which Gur???
#RavShaul
#RavYaakovAryeh
Power
“As a teacher, I possess a tremendous power to make a child’s life miserable or joyous. I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration.”
~ Haim Ginott
Tuesday, November 26, 2019
Head Start
I wanted to get a head start on the next cycle of daf yomi. So I bought an Artscroll Brachos and I do one page a day. I am up to page 28 and am almost done with the dedications.
Don't Just Bless - Reverse the Curse
Rabbi Dovid Schwartz z"l
Why didn’t Avraham bless Yitzchak?
Why was Yitzchak unaware of whom he was actually blessing?
Neither Yaakov nor Moshe required savory dishes before offering their respective blessings.Why did Yitzchak require a savory dish before blessing his son?
Yitzchak, who dined on Esavs game, loved him while Rivkah loved Yaakov.
— Bereishis 25:28
And it was as Yitzchak aged and his eyes grew too weak to see that he summoned his older son Esav and said “My son” and he [Esav] responded “I am here.” … “go out in the field and trap me some game and make me a flavorful dish the way I love it and bring it to me to eat, so that my soul will bless you before I die.”
— Bereishis 27:1,3-4
And Elokim said “the earth should issue forth flora; seedbearing grasses and trees that are fruits that produce seed infused fruits along species lines upon the earth.” and it (almost) happened. The earth issued forth flora, plants bearing their seedbearing own species and trees [that are wooden] producing seed infused fruits …
— Bereishis 1:11-12
and trees that are fruits [The Divine Creative Will was] that the taste of the tree should be identical to the taste of the fruit. However, it [the earth was insubordinate and] did not do so but “the earth issued … trees [that are wooden] producing seed infused fruits,” but the trees themselves were not fruit. Therefore, when man was cursed because of his Original Sin, it [the earth] too was punished for its sin (and was cursed.)
— Rashi Ibid from Bereishis Rabbah 5:9
HaShem Elokim said to Adam “Because you hearkened to your wife’s voice and ate of the Tree regarding which I specifically commanded you ‘Do not eat from it’ the earth will be cursed on account of you. All the days of your life you will eat of it [the earth’s produce] with sorrow. It will sprout thorns and thistles for you … “
— Bereishis 3:17,18
HaShem Elokim commanded the man saying: “Eat from all the trees of the garden. And from the Tree of Knowledge /Union of Good and Evil do not eat from it. For on the day that you it from it you will definitely die.”
— Bereishis 2:16,17
The woman saw that the Tree was good to eat, desirable to the eyes and attractive as a means to gain intelligence. She took from its fruits and ate and also gave some to her husband with her — and he ate.
— Bereishis 3:6
… but you shall not sever it; for man is a tree of the field
— Devarim 20:19
The Biskovitzer poses several pointed questions about the brachos-blessings; that Yitzchak bestowed on Yaakov, while under the impression that he was Esav:
Why, in fact, did Yitzchak deliver his brachos erroneously and unconsciously? Why was Yaakov’s worthiness for benediction concealed from Yitzchak, the conduit of blessing? Even with his physical vision impairment and the willful blindness caused by his love for his eldest son, as a prophet, Yitzchak could easily have been informed by HaShem that Yaakov is the son deserving of blessing.
We find two other great figures in Tanach who bestowed brachos; Yaakov — first on his grandchildren Ephraim and Menashe — and then later, on his deathbed, on his sons. Immediately preceding his death Moshe blessed the Tribes of Israel as well. Yet neither Yaakov nor Moshe requested mataamim-a flavorful dish; in order to elicit their brachos; so why did Yitzchok?
In order to appreciate the Biskovitzer’s approach to resolving these questions we must first examine how some of the great Torah thinkers understood the roots of blessing and curse.
The Original Sin of the first human beings was not merely the first in a long unbroken chain of transgression on the part of humanity; it was qualitatively different from almost all subsequent sins. The magihah-writer of the annotations; in Nefesh haChaim explains that while the original humans were endowed with bechirah chofshis-free will; there was still a paradigm-shifting difference between their bechirah chofshis and ours.
While our yetzer hara-inclination to evil; is internal and presumes to be, at minimum, a component of our essential identities, the yetzer hara of Adam and Chavah was extrinsic to their beings and distilled, clarified, unadulterated evil. Our yetzer hara’s “pitch” to us is: “here’s what I want to do.” Whereas the nachash hakadmoni-the primordial snake; said “here’s what I think you ought to do.” The nachash hakadmonis powers of seduction and persuasion were delivered in the second person. Like a presidential candidate from the opposition party trying to unseat the Incumbent kivyachol-as it were; the nachash hakadmonis exhorted Adam and Chavah to vote for the yetzer and against the Yotzer-the Creator; yet the “voters” never conflated the identity of the opposition candidate with their own. When they exercised their bechirah chofshis to sin they understood that they were submitting to the will of the nachash hakadmoni — not acting on their own initiative.
However, as the Original Sin was the ingestion of the fruits of the Tree of Union of Good and Evil the first humans incorporated evil into their very beings. It is not merely that the Original Sin was qualitatively different from all subsequent sins; it was that, by its very nature, it effected that transformation. Man became what he ate, a tangled amalgam of good and evil. For the remainder of their lives Adam and Chavah, and all subsequent generations of human beings (until our patriarchs blazed the trail and the nation of Israel stood at the foot of Mt. Sinai) have been conflicted and ambivalent. Even when humans use, rather than abuse, their bechirah chofshis by choosing to do good and shunning evil they are often convinced that they have gone against their own desires. Once internalized, the yetzer hara becomes as inextricably linked with all human thought, speech and deed as a conjoined twin.
Rav Chaim Volozhiner taught that the meaning of the passuk (Koheles 7:20) “For there is not a righteous man on earth, that does good, and doesn’t sin,” is that even the greatest of tzaddikim-righteous people; do good with “something lacking.” There good is not clarified, distilled unadulterated good. It may be miniscule, but on some deeply concealed subconscious level there is an admixture of self-interest — of a tad less than lishmah-for its own sake; — in even the noblest persons Torah learning and mitzvah performance.
Conversely, Rav Chaim and some other thinkers have argued that there is no evil perpetrated by even the wickedest people that does not incorporate some tiny smidgen of goodness. This is the meaning of the passuk (Iyov 7:20) “If there will be even one angel among a thousand, an advocate, to vouch for a man’s uprightness.” The better angels of our nature may be testifying to a 1 tenth of one percent amount of noble intentions against 99.9% of evil drives and motivations, nonetheless, it is there.
As man is a microcosm, or more accurately as the cosmos is a macro-man, the Original Sin brought about a merging and mixture of good and evil on a cosmic level. An overt manifestation of this effect on the cosmos are the presence of weeds, thorns and thistles growing in the same fields that grow the good, delicious and nourishing produce. The earth cursed through the Original Sin brings forth a jumble of good/nutritious and evil/noxious.
The Biskovitzers approach is predicated on the concept that, after the Original Sin, merely choosing good and rejecting evil is insufficient. To effect a genuine tikun-repair; of the Original Sin birurim-sifting and selections; must take place. The hodgepodge of good and evil in both the microcosm and the macrocosm must be untangled and clarified. Until and unless evil is distilled and expunged from the muddled fusion, man and the cosmos will not have been rectified. It is not enough to bestow blessing on man still conflicted and ambivalent and on an earth still cursed and pregnant with the thorns and thistles of evil.
When Chavah was first tempted to commit the Original Sin she made three observations: that the Tree was “good to eat, desirable to the eyes and attractive as a means to gain intelligence.” The Midrash (Bereishis Rabbah 65:13) says that while Chavah yearned for gratification of the palate, visual stimulation and intellectual satisfaction, Yitzchak declared that he would derive pleasure from taste alone. As he commanded his son “make me a flavorful dish the way I love it and bring it to me to eat.” Yitzchak was blind and he was ignorant i.e. he lacked knowledge of the factual events surrounding his bestowing of blessing. The Biskovitzer asserts that eliminating the elements of attractiveness to the eyes and the mind that initiated the Original Sin was indispensable to the tikun process.
It is striking and noteworthy that while the Divine Creative Will was that trees and their fruits should share an identical flavor, there was never an expression of the Divine Creative Will that trees and their fruits should share the same qualities of visual attractiveness or extend the same benefit to cognition. Yitzchaks blindness and ignorance of the facts removed two of the three factors of Original Sin. This cut things to the chase by leaving only the element that had been corrupted and broken even before the creation of the human beings; the dissonance in flavor between tree and fruit, between producer and product.
Paradoxically the earth’s anticipatory, pre-Original Sin contained within it the seeds of tikun at the very moment of kilkul-deficiency and ruination; for the Tikunei Zohar (99B) reveals that the Tree of Knowledge itself was entirely good. It was only in the fruits of this tree in which good and evil merged together. The Tree was created as clarified, 100% pure good while its fruits required birurim. While Adam became what he ate, the Biskovitzer understood the Midrash to be teaching us that Yitzchak became what Adam had never ingested or tasted; the Tree itself. Yitzchak, the bark of the Tree of Knowledge itself, avoided the ill effects of the bite of its fruit. But like the Tree of Knowledge itself, Yitzchak the man-tree bore fruits of good and evil united in utero. These human fruits of the Tree of Union of Good and Evil required birurim.
The Midrash (Bereishis Rabbah 61:6) teaches that Avraham abstained from from blessing Yitzchak because, as both evil Esav and good Yaakov existed within him in potentia, blessing him would have been comparable to cultivating a “tree of life attached to a tree of lethal poison.” Now, in Yitzchak’s advanced age, maintains the Biskovitzer, the time had come for the tikun of the Original Sin by threshing away evil from good and bestowing blessing exclusively on distilled goodness and life. As the Zohar (Volume I, 143A ) reveals, when Yaakov received the blessings the earth finally emerged from its curse. The blessed Yaakov manifests man restored to his pre-Sin state. As death is the wage of Original Sin this is why, per our sages (Taanis 5B) our patriarch Yaakov never died. Adam is rectified and restored through Yaakov and — as teshuvah and tikun always reach back into the past and modify it — we now have, as the Izhbitzer taught, an alternate narrative and a new reading of HaShem’s command to Adam: “HaShem Elokim commanded the man saying: ‘Eat from all the trees of the garden and [also eat] from the Tree of Knowledge of Good … (And) [But] Evil do not eat from it.’” Yaakov is that clarified-by-birurim soul of man that reveals retroactively that Adam was nourished exclusively by the good of the Tree.
Only those who are purely good, with no admixture of even the slightest trace of evil, can be safely and truly blessed. To do otherwise is to irrigate and fertilize a field of weeds, thorns and thistles. This is why Yitzchak bestowed a blessing while Avraham did not. When Yitzchak tasted the savory dish that Yaakov and Rivkah had prepared for him he discovered his own fruit with no difference in flavors, the taste of the bark and the taste of the fruit were identical. Yitzchak, needed to be blind to, and ignorant of, the fruit of evil and to discern the uniformity of flavors, and the blessing worthiness of his “fruit” only through his palate. This is one of the meanings of the gemara (Taanis 8B) that teaches that “blessing is not to be found other than in a thing hidden from sight.”
~adapted from Mei Hashiloach Bereishis D”H Vayetzav
Triggers and Responsibility
Colin Ferguson is a Black man accused of killing white commuters cowering on the floor on the Long Island railroad. Ferguson looks down at his victims and picks seven white people whom he indiscriminately murders in cold blood. His attorney defends him claiming that he is the victim of society discrimination against blacks which created the “Black Rage” which is the truly responsible party in the killings. Ferguson is not responsible. He is a victim. Black rage is to blame. Ferguson’s attorney claimed that fully 2/3 of Blacks surveyed and fully half of whites supported the Black Rage defense! The fallacy in this defense is of course obvious. The vast majority of blacks who have suffered real discrimination do not become mass murders. Indeed the vast majority of people who have suffered abuse actually do not commit violent crimes. Some do however. But they did not have to. They were not merely a victim of circumstance.
Ask someone – why do you answer the phone? They will usually tell you – Because it rings. This however is already the first sign of victim consciousness. Someone who answers the phone because it rings is a victim. The ringing of the phone is a stimulus. The response to the ringing is a human choice. It is indeed precisely what makes us human. Mother asks son why did you hit your sister. Son’s first answer may be “because she screamed at me”. Mother’s teaching must then be to show son his misperception. Your sister yelling at you was a stimulus. Your response to that stimulus by hitting was a choice for which you are responsible.
Monday, November 25, 2019
Sunday, November 24, 2019
The Hazards Of Being In A Rush
Rightattitudes.com
Princeton social psychologists John Darley and Dan Batson conducted a remarkable experiment in the 1970s on time pressure and helpful behavior. They studied how students of the Princeton Theological Seminary conducted themselves when asked to deliver a sermon on the parable of the Good Samaritan.
The students would were to give the sermon in a studio a building across campus and would be evaluated by their supervisors. The researchers were curious about whether time pressure would affect the seminary students’ helpful nature. After all, the students were being trained to become ordained priests; they are presumably inclined to help others.
As each student finalized his preparation in a classroom, the researchers inflicted an element of time constraint upon them by giving them one of three instructions:
“You’re late. They were expecting you a few minutes ago…You’d better hurry. It shouldn’t take but just a minute.” This was the high-hurry condition.
“The (studio) assistant is ready for you, so please go right over.” This was the intermediate-hurry condition.
“It’ll be a few minutes before they’re ready for you, but you might as well head on over. If you have to wait over there, it shouldn’t be long.” This was the low-hurry condition.
As each student walked by himself from the preparation classroom to the studio, he encountered a ‘victim’ in a deserted alleyway just like the wounded traveler in the parable of the Good Samaritan. This victim (actually an associate of the experimenters) appeared destitute, was slouched and coughing and clearly in need of assistance. The seminarians were thus offered a chance to apply what they were about to preach.
“Conflict, rather than callousness, can explain their failure to stop.”
Researchers were interested in determining if their imposed time pressure affected the seminarians’ response to a distressed stranger. Remarkably, only 10% of the students in the high-hurry situation stopped to help the victim. 45% of the students in the intermediate-hurry and 63% of the students in the low-hurry situations helped the victim.
The researchers concluded, “A person not in a hurry may stop and offer help to a person in distress. A person in a hurry is likely to keep going. Ironically, he is likely to keep going even if he is hurrying to speak on the parable of the Good Samaritan, thus inadvertently confirming the point of the parable… Thinking about the Good Samaritan did not increase helping behavior, but being in a hurry decreased it.”
In light of their training and calling, the seminarians’ failure of bystander intervention is probably not due to indifference, self-centeredness, or contempt. (Compare with the plot of the series finale of American sitcom Seinfeld, where Jerry and friends are prosecuted for failure of duty to rescue.) The dominant cause is time pressure. Most of the students who believed they had enough time to stop did so. In contrast, the vast majority of those who thought they were late did not stop to help. In other words, the perception of time pressure or “having limited time” resulted in behaviors incongruent to their education and career: the devotion to help others. Time pressure triggered these well-intentioned students to behave in ways that, upon reflection, they would find disgraceful. The weight of a time constraint caused the students to put their immediate concern of being on time before the wellbeing of someone in need.
We’re in such hurry that we don’t stop to help ourselves
“I’m Late, I’m Late for a very important date,
No time to say hello. Goodbye.
I’m late, I’m late, I’m late, and when I wave,
I lose the time I save.”
— White Rabbit in the Disney musical “Alice in Wonderland” (1951)
The Princeton Seminary Experiment offers an even more personal lesson. As the researchers in this experiment expound, when we speed up and feel rushed, we experience a phenomenon known as “narrowing of the cognitive map.” That is, we miss details, we are not present enough in the moment to notice what is really important and we do not make the most beneficial choices for ourselves.
As we make our way through life, not only do we not stop to help others—we also do not stop to help ourselves. We neglect our own needs. We fail to nurture ourselves. We surrender, we settle, we lose hope. We compromise ourselves and become what we often settle for.
Our noisy world and busy lives constantly make us hurry as somebody always depends on us being somewhere. We constantly rush from place to place as if our lives depended upon it. We rush while doing just about everything. We are at the mercy of commitments often imposed by others.
Life moves quickly. And we’ll have missed it.
We’re too busy, we’re too hurried and we’re too rushed. When people place demands on our time, our first resort is to cut out that which is most valuable. We are so busy meeting deadlines that we cannot make time for our loved ones. We abandon physical exercise to get to meetings on time. We avoid medical checkups critical to our well-being. We engage in behaviors that can put ourselves at risk for negative consequences in the future.
As our world continues to accelerate and our pace of life picks up speed, the clock’s finger turns inescapably. Life moves on by quickly, and soon enough we’ll have missed it entirely.
Idea for Impact: Be ever-conscious of the fact that time is the currency of your life
The German theologian and anti-Nazi descendent Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) wrote in his “Letters and Papers from Prison”, “As time is the most valuable thing that we have, because it is the most irrevocable, the thought of any lost time troubles us whenever we look back. Time lost is time in which we have failed to live a full human life, gain experience, learn, create, enjoy, and suffer; it is time that has not been filled up, but left empty.”
Make the best use of your time. Interrupt your busy life to help yourself by living more fully in the present. Nurture yourself.
Answering The Missionaries
Christian missionary: Do you know what it says in Isaiah Chapter 53?
Jew: Not really! During the Haftorah the Kiddush Club meets....
New Yeshiva
There is a rumor circulating that a new Yeshiva is opening up in Ramallah, called "Ner Yishmael".
Or "Ner Yish" for the cool Yeshivish guys.
Please donate.
Ukraine Scandal
In a startling new development in the Ukraine scandal with the President, it was revealed that he went on a secret tour to Kivrei Tzadikim in the Ukraine with members of the wealthy "Aish Kodesh" congregation of Woodmere and their Hasidic Master. They prayed at the graves of the Baal Shem Tov, Rabbi Elimelech of Lizhensk and many others. On this tour, he apparently secured for himself millions of dollars of campaign donations. The Democrats are claiming that this is illegal pandering to Orthodox Jews who, as their coreligionists in Israel, are expansionist in outlook and action, taking over neighborhoods, building Eruv's and Mikva's and turning them into Ultra Orthodox strongholds. Trump, true to his Pro-Israel Pro-Jewish bias, promised them his support in their endeavors.
Prosecutor Adam Schiff is furious that he didn't stop at the grave of Schiff's ancestor, Rabbi Moshe Schiff, known as the "Maharam Schiff". "So he wasn't Chasidic, so WHAT?" Said Schiff.
Trump tweeted in response: "Zchus Hatzadikim Yaazor Vi-yagein Vi-yoshea. Schiff is a Kalta Litvak".
Saturday, November 23, 2019
Don't Over Do It With Yirah
לפעמים ע"י העמסת יראת יתירה על נפשו יותר מכוחותיו, בא לידי שנאת התורה. וצריך כל אדם למדוד את כוחו, וגם כששטף המחשבות המוסריות מתגבר עליו, וכל הטוב שבו מתעלם ממנו, ומוצא הוא בעצמו כל הדופי וכל החסרונות שבעולם, לא ירף ידו ולא יבהל, וידע שבכל זאת הרבה טוב צפון בו. וידע גם כן, שבכל התוכחות הרבות שבספרים, שעל פיהם מוצא אדם עצמו אומלל מאוד, בתוכם מוסתר וגנוז אור חיים וישועה, חסד גדול ואומץ לבב. ודוקא מתוך עומק של נפילה באים לעומק קימה, ומתוך ריקניות התורה שבקרבו יבוא לאהבתה, ולהתאמץ בגדלה ותפארתה. ונתיקת הרצון בכל דהו לצד המעלה, מרים הכל לטוב. וישכיל ויבין שמצב שהעולם ההרוס גם הוא לטובה ולברכה, ולמחיה עשהו ד', וסוף הכל לתיקון גמור.
WOW!!!😊
Thursday, November 21, 2019
The Power Of Words
Dr. Bernie Siegel
Many years ago one of our children brought home a canvas he had decorated in his school art class. He had filled the entire canvas with the word words. As a surgeon what immediately struck me was that you can kill or cure with a sword, or scalpel. But that you could also kill or cure with words when wordswordswords become swordswordswords. Physicians are not taught how to communicate with patients and due to their fear of being sued tell people all of the adverse side effects of therapy and never mention the benefits. Every time I hear a TV commercial mentioning how the pill being advertised can kill you I wonder why anyone would try it.
I began to realize how important a patient’s beliefs were from my experience and their experience and not their diagnosis. In a sense it is summed up by Dr. Milton Erickson writing in a patient’s chart and then excusing himself and stepping out of the office for a minute. When the patient peeked at the chart she saw, “Doing well” written there. How therapeutic.
I also learned to ask people how they would describe what they were experiencing versus their diagnosis. Then I would ask how and what in their lives fit those words if they were negative words. The words they would share, like pressure describing her pain, or feeling like a failure due to her cancer experience led me to helping them eliminate the pressure in their life and what made them feel like a failure.
One day, prior to performing minor surgery in my office, the patient and I got into an intense and interesting discussion. I picked up the scalpel while we were talking and made an incision. I noticed my nurse waving frantically at me. When she caught my attention she pointed at the syringe containing the local anesthetic which I had not used. I asked the patient how he was feeling and he was fine so I completed the surgery and then told him we were both hypnotized and that I had not used any local anesthetic to numb the area of surgery. Major surgery has been done under hypnosis and I have used hypnotherapists in the operating room too.
As I learned the power of words I began to pay more attention to what was said in the operating room. Simple things like changing an injection from feeling like a bee sting to a mosquito bite. When an anesthesiologist talked to the patient about their “going out” I would ask the patient, “When was the last time you went out on a date.” I also played music in the O.R. decades ago and was considered an explosion hazard but when everyone felt better the staff stopped complaining. Today we have studies verifying the benefits of music in shortening the time of the surgery, requiring fewer drugs and patients experiencing less pain.
During surgery I would ask my patients not to bleed and divert the blood away from the area of surgery. I was not a normal surgeon but no one is against success so if it worked it became hospital policy for which I received no credit. Before they awakened from surgery I would say, “You will wake up comfortable, thirsty and hungry.” I had to change that to “but you won’t finish what is on your plate” when my patients all began to gain weight.
But what really opened my mind to the power of words was my experience as a pediatric surgeon. To reassure children that they would not be in pain while they were undergoing surgery I would tell them while in the emergency room, “You will go to sleep when you go into the operating room.” I was shocked to have children fall asleep while they were being wheeled into the O.R. on their stretcher. One boy flipped over and went to sleep as we entered the O.R. When I turned him over for his appendectomy he awakened and said, “You told me I would go to sleep and I sleep on my stomach.” We reached a compromise.
Then I began deceiving more kids into health by rubbing them with an alcohol sponge, prior to drawing blood, and saying this will numb your skin. A third had total anesthesia while the others all had a less emotional experience and told me it didn’t work. I apologized and blamed the defective alcohol sponge.
Labeling vitamin pills, with the parent’s cooperation, reduced side effects of chemotherapy and other treatments. We relabeled the vitamins as anti-nausea, or hair growing or pain pills and the kids responded because of the faith they had in their authority figures. One woman I know was feeling nauseated after her chemo. She asked her daughter to get her a Compazine pill since she wasn’t wearing her glasses. Her daughter gave her the pill and she felt fine. Hours later, while wearing her glasses, she asked for another pill. When she saw it she told her daughter, “That’s not my Compazine that’s my anti-coagulant Coumadin.” “Well Mom it worked fine the last time I gave it you.” They both were impressed and enjoyed the experience.
The most dramatic experience I learned about came from my experience as well as medical errors due to technical mistakes. One of my patients had no side effects to radiation and the radiation therapist thought his machine was malfunctioning until he saw my name in her chart and then realized, “This is one of Siegel’s crazy patients.” When he asked her why she had no side effects she said, “I get out of the way and let it go to my tumor.”
The examples which I found to be more impressive were when people who thought they were receiving chemotherapy were not due to an error preparing the medication and people who thought they were being radiated were not due to no radioactive material being replaced after the machine was repaired. The doctors involved felt terrible. The radiation therapy doctor said to me he had not treated anyone for a month and just discovered the problem when the radiation therapy machine underwent its monthly inspection.
I told him he didn’t realize what he was telling me. He repeated how terrible he felt. I said, “You’d have to be an idiot to not know you weren’t treating anyone. So you obviously had people experiencing side effects and shrinking tumors.” His eyes bulged and he said, “Oh my God you’re right.”
So believe in the mind-body unity and words. Our body responds to our beliefs and I’d rather lie therapeutically to a patient than give them a list of side effects of a treatment and induce all of them because of what they hear from an authority figure. When I did have to share some negative side effects I would add that they don’t happen to everyone; like everyone isn’t allergic to peanuts.
Let me close with some of my favorite stories and I don’t make any of them up.
The cousin of my father in law’s nurse’s aide was told she was terminal with leukemia and it was a waste of time to go to receive chemotherapy which would only make her feel worse. When the aide heard this she called her cousin in North Carolina and told her to come up here because, “Doctor Siegel makes people well all the time.” She arrives and I am told about it so I admitted her to the hospital. I sat on her bed and explained leukemia was not something I could treat but that I would ask an oncologist friend to come and see her. Then I gave her a big hug and went to call the oncologist. The oncologists I used had learned about Siegel’s crazy patients and had no problem working with them.
My oncologist friend told me he agreed with her doctor about the likely outcome but would give her treatment to make her feel there was hope. His letters to me began with, doing well, and ended with, in complete remission. She went home to drive her doctor nuts. What I heard later was that she told her cousin, “When Doctor Siegel hugged me I knew I would get well.” I also know patients who left their troubles to God and had their cancer disappear. That is called self-induced healing and not a spontaneous remission. So learn from exceptional patients about survival behavior. Ask them why they didn’t die rather than saying what doctors tend to say, “You are doing very well. Whatever you’re doing keep it up.” Then they learn nothing from their patient. Personality characteristics and survival are inseparable.
You are vomiting after chemotherapy and your husband puts bags in the car so that you can throw up into the bag on the way home. One day you are feeling nauseated and ask your husband for a bag. He hands it to you; you open it and find a dozen roses from your husband. You never vomit again after receiving chemotherapy.
Last but not least remind patients of their potential. Our Creator has built survival mechanisms into all living things so we can heal wounds, alter our genes and overcome various diseases. Love your life and your body and amazing things can happen.
As I learned about the power of words they became my therapeutic tools. With paradox and humor I was able to readjust people’s thoughts and feelings.
A woman I was about to operate on was in total panic before her surgery. I spent a long time trying to calm her down but nothing I said or did made a difference. So I stopped trying and wheeled her into the operating room where with a look of fear on her face she said, “Thank God all these wonderful people will be taking care of me.” I knew agreeing with her wouldn’t accomplish anything so I said, “I know these people. I have worked with them for years. They are not wonderful people.” For a second she looked bewildered but then burst out laughing as did everyone in the O.R. and we all became family and fear cannot exist in the presence of love and laughter
I was the police surgeon in New Haven, Connecticut for many years. One day a policeman I knew called my office. When I picked up the phone he said, “Doctor Siegel I am going to commit suicide.”
I answered, “Jimmy if you commit suicide I will never talk to you again.” He hung up the phone and 15 minutes later was in my office mad as hell, shouting that he was holding a gun in his mouth and how insensitive and uncaring I was.
I said, “Jimmy did you notice you’re not dead.”
Then he laughed and realized I had decided to say that and it had worked. We became buddies after that.
Handling Stress
Rabbi Frand
“And Sarah died in Kiryat Arba, which is Chevron in the land of Canaan; and Avraham came to cry for her and mourn her.” [Bereshis 23:2]
Rashi quotes a very famous Rabbinic tradition that explains the juxtaposition of the Binding of Yitzchak with the death of Sarah, by teaching that Sarah in fact died from the shock of hearing that her son was almost slaughtered.
How did Avraham and Yitzchak, who themselves were physically involved in the actual trauma of the Binding of Yitzchak, manage to survive the trauma? The drama must have been more vivid and frightening for them than for Sarah. Yet, they apparently were none the worse for the experience. Sarah on the other hand, only heard about the events by word of mouth — after she already heard that Yitzchak was safe — and yet she died of fright. She could not handle it. Why?
The question is even magnified in light of the fact that we are told by our Sages that Sarah’s level of prophecy exceeded that of her husband. Certainly her inability to handle the relatively mild trauma cannot be explained by minimizing the personage of Sarah relative to Avraham.
Rav Chaim Shmuelevitz suggests that the distinction is based on a Talmudic passage in tractate Avodah Zarah. The Gemara there says [3a] “Ain HaKadosh Baruch Hu ba b’Trunya im beriyosav” [G-d does not give his creations anything that they cannot handle]. A person has the potential to withstand any stress, trial, or tribulation that he faces in his life. Whether the person does or does not withstand the test is a different story; but by definition it is not beyond the person’s capabilities. Implicit in the fact that G-d gives us a difficult task is the fact that He also gives us the ability to deal with that task. Two people may face the same trying circumstances and react differently — because one of them met the challenge and one — although he had the potential to meet the challenge — did not!
Rav Chaim Shmuelevitz explains that the test of the Akeida was a trial for Avraham and Yitzchak, but it was never intended to be a test for Sarah. By virtue of the fact that Avraham and Yitzchak had to endure this test, G-d gave them the ability to handle it. Sarah was not given this test and therefore — despite the fact that she may have been superior in prophecy to her husband — she was likewise not granted the special Divine Aid (Siyata D’Shmaya) and inner fortitude that were necessary to handle this trauma. Indeed she was not able to handle it.
This teaches us that even though one person is greater than another in certain areas, he may in fact not be able to endure something that a spiritually inferior person is able to endure — because he was never given the Divine Aid necessary to meet that challenge. The test was not his, so he may not have been granted the requisite spiritual powers that are necessary to pass the test.
Great Jewish Leaders: “Larger Family” Has Priority Over “Immediate Family”
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Near the beginning this week’s parsha, the pasuk [verse] says, “And Avraham was elderly, advanced in days, and G-d blessed him with everything” [24:1]. Immediately thereafter, Avraham summoned Eliezer, asked him to take an oath, and charged him with finding a wife for Yitzchak. The balance of this rather long chapter (67 pasukim) is the narration of Eliezer’s journey to carry out this mission.
We can understand Avraham’s concern with the importance of the mission. We can understand why he made Eliezer swear. We can understand the concern for all the slightest details that are covered in the chapter. The only verse that does not really seem to fit into the narration is the first one. Why does this fact that Avraham was elderly and that G-d blessed him with everything serve as the introduction to this whole section?
The Netziv provides two answers to this question. The first answer is that the pasuk was trying to explain why Avraham did not go on the mission himself. After all, if this was such a crucial mission, if the entire future of the Jewish people hung in the balance — as it did — why did Avraham entrust it to a servant? The answer is that Avraham was too old to go on the mission himself.
The Netziv’s second explanation is a tremendously novel insight. The Netziv explains that the reason Avraham could not go on the mission was because the demands of nation-building that were upon him were so great, that he simply could not get away. The work he was doing was so pressing that he could not take the time to personally go back to the land of his birthplace.
Avraham was the beacon of spirituality in the world. On a regular basis, he met people who traveled from near and far to speak with him. He was constantly being sought out for his advice, for his prayers, and for his guidance. Avraham could not pick up and leave for weeks or months, despite the importance of the mission.
Eliezer could accomplish the mission of finding a match for Yitzchak; but the task that Avraham was performing could not be delegated to anyone else. The community (‘tzibbur’) needed him.
This is a startling idea. Even though Yitzchak was Avraham’s own son and the issue concerned an urgent family matter on which the future was riding — nevertheless, Avraham had to give it second priority to his communal responsibilities.
This is really the story of all Gedolei Yisroel [great Jewish leaders]. They are often willing to put their personal and family concerns second to the needs of the community at large. It is a very altruistic type of life.
I mentioned this insight from the Netziv to Rabbi Yoseph Tendler (Headmaster of Ner Israel High School). Rabbi Tendler told me an incident regarding his father-in-law, Rabbi Menachem Perr, of Blessed Memory.
Rabbi Perr had a congregation in South Ozone Park, New York (near JFK airport). South Ozone Park did not have a large community. When Rabbi Tendler made a Bris for one of his sons on a Shabbos, he naturally invited the baby’s grandfather. However, Rabbi Perr did not attend. At the time, Rabbi Perr’s congregation no longer even had a regular minyan on Shabbos. Only 7, 8, or 9 people attended the services. Nonetheless, Rabbi Perr argued, “If I go away for Shabbos – these 7 or 8 people will not come to shul on Shabbos. At least while they are in shul for those 3 hours, they are not desecrating the Sabbath. If I leave town and they do not come to the synagogue, they will certainly be engaged in activities which violate the Sabbath during those 3 hours.” Rabbi Perr felt that his responsibility to not abandon 8 people on a Shabbos morning, so that they would not desecrate Shabbos for those 3 hours, prevented him from attending his own grandson’s Bris. And he did not attend.
The community precedes the family. This is a legacy that started with Avraham, and has been the approach of great Jewish leaders ever since
Making Your Days Count
Rabbi Frand
A Medrash in this week’s Parsha relates the following story: Rabbi Akiva was once delivering a lesson to his students and noticed that his audience was dozing off. He wanted to wake them up (with a seemingly far-out teaching) and expounded as follows: How was it — (i.e. in what merit was it) that Esther was able to rule over 127 provinces [Esther 9:30]? It was because she was a direct descendant of the matriarch Sarah, who lived to be 127 years old. The great grand-daughter therefore ruled over 127 provinces!
The Chiddushei HaRim explains the connection. Sarah’s accomplishments in each year of her life were so magnificent that for each year she lived, Esther ruled over one additional province. Carrying this analogy one-step further, we can say that if each year of Sarah’s life brought another province into Esther’s empire, logically, it would follow (since each province contained dozens of cities) that each week of Sarah’s life brought another city into her empire. Likewise, it can be said that what Sarah did each day of her life brought another village to her great granddaughter and what she did each hour brought another neighborhood to her great granddaughter.
This Medrash teaches us what a person can accomplish with each day of his life.
A different Medrash teaches a similar thought. The Medrash (on the pasuk “And Abraham was old, coming in days” [Bereshis 24:1]) teaches that some people reach “old age” and some people reach “many days”. There are people who are “old” but are not “coming in days” and conversely there are people who are not “old” but they are “coming in days”. In the case of Avraham, he was both old (zaken) and coming in days (bah, b’yamim).
The Ostrofser Rebbe comments that a person can live 80 years, but out of those 80 years, how many days did he waste? A person who wastes most of his days may in fact be old but he is not one who has “come in days”. A person could live to a ripe old age but if we add up only the productive days that he lived, he unfortunately may have lived a very short life!
I tell this to my students in Yeshiva. Boys study in Yeshiva for a limited number of years. Students come to the Yeshiva when they are 14 or 15 years old. They think they will be there forever. The typical “Yeshiva career” – even for someone who will learn later in Kollel is not forever. What is it? Five years? Ten years? Twelve years? It is not open ended. It is finite. I encourage them to make the most of their time. If one is going to spend ten years in Yeshiva, maybe not every single day can be productive, but at least 80% of the days should be days when we accomplish something towards the goal we set out for ourselves to accomplish in this limited period.
This applies to all of us. Man’s life is but 70 years in length [Tehillim 90:10], but how many days do we REALLY live? This is what the Medrash means. There can be people who are old but have not “piled up” many days of accomplishment.
In Europe, there was a rather common custom that when a noteworthy person was ill, others might “donate” years of their life for the merit of his recovery. Communities actually would hold appeals – not for money but appeals which asked people to “donate years from their life” to the life of the person who now appeared to be on the verge of death.
There was a young single fellow who was very sick in the Yeshiva of Radin. The Yeshiva made an appeal among the other students that they should donate years of their life to this young man who was deathly ill. Different students pledged various numbers of years to the student. The Chofetz Chaim was asked how many of his years he was willing to donate to the cause. He thought awhile and responded that he would “donate a minute”.
The Chofetz Chaim knew what a minute could do. He knew what he could accomplish with a minute of his own life. He felt he could not give up a year of his life based on the principle of charitable distribution: “The poor of your own city take precedence” (aniyay ircha kodmin).
I recently saw that the Chofetz Chaim did not wear shoes with laces. He made the calculation that it would take him approximately one minute a day to tie his shoes. In a year, that would come out to 360 minutes – 6 hours! In the course of a lifetime that would be 420 hours. The thought of wasting 420 hours of his life tying his shoes, prompted him to wear shoes without laces. He was not willing to give up 420 hours of his life on a “non-productive” activity. He had an appreciation of what one can do with a small amount of time.
That is why – among all his other accomplishments – he was such a prolific writer. The Mishna Berurah (written just over 100 years ago) is quoted countless times throughout Klal Yisrael every single day. Add to that the Sefer Shmiras HaLashon and all the other Seforim that the Chofetz Chaim wrote. He was a Rosh Yeshiva, he had children, he spoke for communities. When did the man do it all? The answer is that when one calculates how many minutes one would be “wasting” tying one’s shoes, one finds time in the day to accomplish a lot more than the average person does.
What Remains Is Not My Teacher’s Torah, It Is How He Acted
The story of Eliezer finding a shidduch [marriage partner] for Yitzchak is one of the longest narratives in the entire Torah. Rashi cites a Rabbinic teaching: Despite the fact the Torah is normally very ‘stingy’ in its language and we often derive new laws from just the inclusion of an extra letter vov in a pasuk, here the Torah elaborates in great, repetitious, detail the events surrounding Eliezer’s mission because “the conversation of the servants of the Patriarchs is dearer even than the Torah of the children.” In other words, we can learn more about the manners and personalities of the founders of our religion – the “Avos” – by contemplating the actions and conversational nuance of their servants than we can even from delving into the Torah of their descendants.
Rav Aharon Kotler, zt”l, once commented about this teaching of Chazal: “Torah may be expounded, but personality traits must be learned”. (Torah ken mir darshenen, ober midos tovos daf men oys lernen.) It is much more difficult to inculcate someone with proper behavior (middos tovos) than it is to teach them a piece of Talmud.
The reason the Torah goes to such lengths describing this narrative is because Eliezer was a reflection of Avraham Avinu. When we want to know what proper behavior and integrity is — this is our paradigm. This is what the Book of Bereishis is all about! It is called the Book of the Upright (Sefer haYashar) because it teaches us the ways of the upright (Yashrus).
Many Gedolei Yisrael [great men of Israel] are such geniuses that we can never aspire to their level of Torah study. We have neither the talents nor the perseverance to reach their level of intellectual accomplishment and mastery of Torah knowledge. But something we can aspire to is to try to learn from their “menshlichkeit” and their “midos” [their pristinely ethical personalities].
I would venture to say that for most people who learned in Yeshivos and who were exposed to great Torah personalities, they do not remember so much of the “Torah” of their teachers but they certainly remember how their teachers acted. That is what remains. What remains is not the “Torah”; what remains is “how my Rebbe used to act”.
Someone recently told me that Rav Pam, zt”l, was walking down the street and an obviously non-religious person came over to him. The person recognized Rav Pam but Rav Pam did not recognize him. He told Rav Pam, “You were my Rebbe in fifth grade.”
The fellow is today not observant. He told Rav Pam “Do you know what I remember about you? When I was in fifth grade, I was taking a test and you caught me cheating.” Anyone who knew Rav Pam knows that cheating and falsehood were an anathema to him. The student went on, “Do you know what you told me? You told me ‘If you need any help, I can help you.'”
This fellow probably does not remember even one interpretation or insight that Rav Pam ever said, but that is how he remembered him. He remembered that Rav Pam told him “I can help you.”
This past Shabbos, I happened to be at a retreat and I was sitting at the Shabbos table together with Rav Dovid Feinstein. Another Rabbi brought over a fellow (who again was not religious) and introduced him to Rav Dovid Feinstein. While he was talking with Rav Dovid I asked the Rabbi who brought him over, who the fellow was. He told me that he used to live on the Lower East Side in the same neighborhood as the Feinstein family. I asked him, “Does this guy remember anything about Rav Moshe Feinstein?” He told me, “Yes. He remembers one thing about Rav Moshe Feinstein. When they used to play hop scotch on the street of the Lower East Side and Rav Moshe would walk down the street, Rav Moshe would wait until the kids finished hopping before he would walk through.”
This made a tremendous impression on him. Forty or fifty years later, he still remembers the hop scotch that Rav Moshe refused to interrupt. Picture the scene: Rav Moshe Feinstein, the Posek of the Jewish people, the Gadol Hador, waiting on the street for these kids to finish jumping before he continues walking to his apartment building.
This is what people remember. This is the idea that “superior is the casual conversation of the servants of the Patriarchs to the intensive Torah study of their children.” That is why the Torah spends so many pasukim retelling the story because “Torah can be expounded, but good manners have to be learned
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