Missionary Renegade: Chabad Magazine – Thursday, 1 Tevet 5774

Thursday, January 2, 2014

Chabad Magazine – Thursday, 1 Tevet 5774 · 2 January 2014

Editor's Note:

Dear Friend,

Ah, the convenience of online application forms. Filling out forms by pen and paper is long a relic of the past. But can it get even easier? Enter Autofill, the little utility that fills in much of the info for you, saving you countless minutes and hours, until filling out a form is almost robotic.

Robotic, did I say? Since form builders wanted to make sure there is a human on the other end, they’ve invented the CAPTCHA: those little challenges to make sure your brain is made of cells, not silicon.

This week we conclude the retelling of the 10 plagues G-d unleashed against ancient Egypt. His back to the wall, Pharaoh calls on Moshe to pray to G-d to stop them.

We, too, pray daily regarding the issues that plague us. Our sages have prepared a standard siddur text with catchall requests prepared, all blanks autofilled. But is that alone an ideal prayer? Prayer is described as “service,” or work. It should be an active application, where we make meaningful and personal requests of G-d.

So, how do we find personal meaning in form-alized prayers? Start by becoming intimately familiar with the siddur, and you will discover personal significance with its deceptively generic-looking words. Also, there are specific places within the textwhere you can insert your own prayers. I also recommend our updated onlinesiddur with translations and commentaries, so you can discover more ways the prayers can have deeper meaning to you.

And remember, when you submit to the Creator, you can be sure your request will be processed immediately.

Moshe Rosenberg, on behalf of the Chabad.org Editorial Team

Daily Thought:

Complacent

The Rebbe spoke about the suffering in the world, and when he came to these words, began to choke and sob:

If He is truly capable of anything,

then why can’t He provide good without the bad?

And if His Torah contains the answers for all questions, why does it not answer this one?

There could be only one answer:

He does not wish us to know,

because if we knew

we might consent.

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This Week's Features:

The Month of Shevat

Drawing down a line of holiness by Shimona Tzukernik

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PARSHAH

Moses Believes in You

Pharaoh is the Torah’s paradigm for resistance to change. He was addicted to his status quo, even when his behavior became self-destructive. by Rochel Holzkenner

The worst part about not keeping a good resolution is not keeping a resolution. Each time I don’t follow through, I lose a little bit of faith in myself. And I’m a resolution junkie. My latest resolution was to not look at my phone while I’m writing. Whatever and whoever it is can wait. My flow is so much more effective without distraction. Wait, wait—my phone just whistled.

When I make resolutions, they make so much sense. I’m excited by them. They promise me more effective living, spirituality and self-discipline. However, when the time comes to implement my resolution, I have to fight my inner resistance. When I make resolutions, they make so much senseSo, while many of my resolutions have become second nature, some have yet to be woven into my lifestyle.

Pharaoh is the Torah’s paradigm for resistance to change. He was addicted to his status quo, even when his behavior became self-destructive.

Parshat Bo opens with G‑d’s instruction to Moses:

Come to Pharaoh, for I have hardened his heart and the heart of his servants, in order that I may place these signs of Mine in his midst, and in order that you tell into the ears of your son and your son’s son how I made a mockery of the Egyptians, and [that you tell of] My signs that I placed in them, and you will know that I am the L‑rd.1

Moses went to Pharaoh with the following message:

So said the L‑rd, the G‑d of the Hebrews, “How long will you refuse to humble yourself before Me? Let My people go, and they will worship Me. For if you refuse to let [them] go, behold, tomorrow I am going to bring locusts into your borders. They will obscure the view of the earth, and no one will be able to see the earth; they will eat the surviving remnant which remains for you from the hail, and they will eat all your trees that grow out of the field.”2

Pharaoh’s servants dreaded yet another destructive plague. They pleaded with Pharaoh, “How long will this one be a stumbling block to us? Let the people go, and they will worship their G‑d. Don’t you yet know that Egypt is lost?”3

Ultimately, Pharaoh was not willing to let the men, women and children leave, and the plague of locusts ensued. I’d imagine that the servants of Pharaoh were quite annoyed that he didn’t listen to them. They had a perfectly logical argument: Egypt was lost! The plague was not worth the extra national revenue from Jewish labor.

Pharoh initially conceded. He told Moses and Aaron, “Go, worship the L‑rd your G‑d. Who and who are going?”4 But when the negotiations unfolded, Pharaoh was only willing to let the men leave. Moses had made it clear that he wanted everyone to be freed, and he wasn’t interested in Pharaoh’s lame offer. Pharaoh didn’t budge, and he suffered the consequences.

Don’t judge Pharaoh so quickly. True, his decision was irrational and insensitive. But did Pharaoh have the ability to choose sensibly? Could he have decided to free the Jews and avoid this destructive Don’t judge Pharaoh so quickly!plague of locusts?

After all, G‑d told Moses, “Come to Pharaoh, for I have hardened his heart and the heart of his servants.” If G‑d hardened Pharaoh’s heart, did he choose freely, or was his course of action predestined?

It’s hard to believe that G‑d did take away Pharaoh’s ability to choose. If Pharaoh didn’t choose to further enslave the Jews, why was he punished? Why was the entire country punished? How could Pharaoh be held accountable for something that was out of his control?

Seemingly, Moses believed that Pharaoh could let the Jews go, if he desired as much. He warned Pharaoh, “For if you refuse to let [them] go, behold, tomorrow I am going to bring locusts into your borders.” Why would he warn a man who was predestined to reject his warning? He could have just presented the plague as a consequence: “Your country will suffer from an infestation of locusts because you refused to free the Jewish folk!”

And there was another curious dynamic that played out before the plague of locusts. Although G‑d told Moses that He had “hardened Pharaoh’s heart and the hearts of his servants,” this was the first conversation where the servants were visibly moved by Moses’s warning. They pleaded with Pharaoh to reconsider. Even Pharaoh himself began to shift and negotiate a deal for the Jews’ release. If G‑d said He would harden Pharaoh’s heart and the hearts of his servants, why did they ask that the Jews be released?

Pharaoh made many selfish, cruel choices—certainly cruel to the defenseless family of Jacob, and even cruel to his own subjects. Moses begged him and warned him. The plagues traumatized Pharaoh’s nation. Yet he wouldn’t let go; he was the king, and he wasn’t going to change his mind. So, after seven plagues, G‑d punished Pharaoh by hardening his heart. A soft heart is sensitive, in sync with other people’s needs. For a soft-hearted person decisions are not ego-driven, but conscience-driven. Now that G‑d hardened Pharaoh’s heart, he would find it even more difficult to concede his mistake and let go. “Don’t confuse me with logic,” he told his advisers. “It’s my way or the highway.”

Pharaoh was headed for a train wreck.

When we compromise our integrity, we cause something to shut down inside. When we hurt someone, our sensitivity wanes a little bit. This creates a vicious cycle of dysfunction. The Talmud says it succinctly in Ethics of our Fathers:5 “One mitzvah leads to another mitzvah, and one sin leads to another sin.” Repetitive behaviors happen because our heart is naturally hardened with each bad choice we make. The first time we are destructive to ourselves or to others, we may feel sick with guilt. The second time it happens, instead of feeling worse, ironically we feel less guilty. The conscience is muffled.

In the When we hurt someone, our sensitivity wanes a little bitthird section of the Tanya, Iggeret ha-Teshuvah, there is discussion about a person who is so far gone that it’s almost impossible for him to make amends with his Creator. He’s crossed a line that’s stripped him of his sensitivity, and it’s as if G‑d Himself doesn’t want his repentance. Of course, G‑d does want repentance, even from someone who’s violated his relationship with his Creator in the most severe manner. But G‑d makes it more challenging for him to return. He seemingly rejects the gesture of return. The returnee will have to work a little harder to restore his compromised relationship. But no one is too far gone. Not even Pharaoh.

Moses tried to pull Pharaoh out of the mire. He warned him to reconsider the Jewish plight, because he believed that Pharaoh could change. But Pharaoh chose not to push himself, and fell back to the status quo.

A Jewish leader, a Moses, believes firmly in human choice. And all humans are not created equal; we don’t have the same choices to make. Some of us feel compelled to self-destruct, and will in all likelihood do it over and over again. Some of us get in the habit of feeling superior to other people, and that arrogance only grows with us. Some of us have been alienated from our Jewish identity for so long that it doesn’t mean that much anymore. Moses finds the kernel of free choice inside of everyone, the place of strength. Even if we don’t believe in ourselves, Moses believes in us and cajoles us to rethink our choices.6

Perhaps this explains how the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, of righteous memory, was able to bring about a Jewish revolution in this post-Holocaust era. That shouldn’t have happened—Jewish identity should have waned. Assimilation breeds more assimilation, and Torah observance could have become more and more irrelevant. Yet I am a living product of the Rebbe’s revolution. My parents were non-observant college students when they met the Chabad emissaries at their respective universities. Eventually, they both became Torah-observant Jews. Hundreds of thousands of young Jews have had the same experience. The Rebbe’s impact on Jewish society is exponential and explosive.

The Rebbe believed that even if a Jew felt that Judaism was irrelevant, there was always a place inside where he or she cared very deeply about being Jewish. He spoke to that sensitive place, and slowly the layers of indifference peeled away. “I didn’t want to marry him”The Rebbe took hardened hearts and made them tender. And he led by example. He taught his students to look out for the sacred space in every Jew that can never be repressed.

When I was in the NICU with my daughter, I met a wonderful speech therapist. “Do you know Rabbi Lieberman?” she asked me.

“Of course I do!” I said.

“He saved me from marrying a non-Jew.”

“Really?” I asked. “How did he do that?”

“Well, we were dating, and it was getting serious. My parents forced me to speak to Rabbi Lieberman. I told the rabbi that my parents, my grandparents and my aunt were all pressuring me to break up with him. He looked at me with intensity and said, ‘Lauren, forget about what your parents want and what your grandparents want. What do you really want?’ At that moment, I realized that I wanted to marry a Jewish man and have a Jewish family. I didn’t want to marry him.”

Trust is a gift. It is more empowering than a thousand lessons of instruction. I’m grateful to the Rebbe for trusting that every Jew has radiant potential.

Rochel is a mother of four children and the co-director of Chabad of Las Olas, FL serving the community of young professionals. She is a high school teacher and a freelance writer—and a frequent contributor to Chabad.org. She lectures extensively on topics of Kabbalah and feminism, and their application to everyday life. Rochel holds an MS in Brain Research from Nova SE University.

FOOTNOTES

1.Exodus 10:1–2.

2.Ibid. 10:3–5.

3.Ibid. 10:7.

4.Ibid. 10:8.

5.4:2.

6.Likkutei Sichot, vol. 6, p. 58.

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Burning Night

How do you prepare your daily fare—boiled, baked, stewed or grilled? Fervid with desire, or sodden with contentment? Whichever way you ingest your life, on Passover there’s only one dish on the menu.

Based on the teachings of the Lubavitcher Rebbe

They shall eat the flesh [of the Passover offering] on that night, roasted in fire, with matzot and bitter herbs. Do not eat of it half-done, or cooked or boiled in water; only roasted in fire

Exodus 12:8–9

We experience life as an endless chain of urges and strivings. We desire something, agonize over our lack of it, and expend our energies and resources in pursuit of it. And when our goal is actually attained, our pleasure and satisfaction are short-lived: already the next striving is forming in our hearts, already the fire of desire is consuming our lives.

We might, at times, envy the tranquility of those who are free of ambition, but it is the relentless seekers whom we admire and emulate. In our own experience, we look upon our periods of agitated quest as the high points of our lives. For we sense that while the tranquil person is at peace with himself, the striving person is relating to something greater than the self, something more than the here and now.

Three Offerings

In the twelfth chapter of Exodus, G‑d communicates to Moses the laws of the korban pesach, the Passover offering.

On the whole, the Torah is a pragmatic document. The events it describes are almost always physical events, and the mitzvot it commands are for the most part physical actions. But the Kabbalists and the chassidic masters insist that the Torah’s every word also relates to the spiritual dynamics of our lives. Each law of Torah—each organ and limb of its body—has its corresponding element in the soul of Torah.

The same is true of the laws of the Passover offering. In addition to their practical observance, they also instruct and address the inner life of our soul. But before we can discuss some of the spiritual applications of the korban pesach, we need to take a more detailed look at its practical laws.

When the Holy Temple stood in Jerusalem, every Jewish household, or group of smaller households, would bring a lamb or kid to the Temple on the fourteenth of Nissan, the day preceding the festival of Passover. The lamb would be slaughtered in the Temple courtyard, its blood would be sprinkled on the altar, and certain portions of it would be burned atop the altar. It would then be roasted on a spit over a fire. That night—the first night of Passover—its meat would be eaten with matzah and maror (bitter herbs), which together constitute the three staples of the Seder. (Today the meat of the Passover offering is represented at the Seder by the afikoman, a piece of matzah eaten at the end of the meal.)

Various types of korbanot were offered in the Holy Temple, but the Passover offering was unique in many ways, for it was governed by a set of laws that applied to no other offering. Some of these differences are specified in the fifth chapter of the Talmudic tractate of Zevachim, where the Talmud contrasts the Passover offering with two other korbanot—the firstborn offering (bechor) and the tithe offering (maaser):

The firstborn, tithe and Passover offerings are kodashim kallim. They can be slaughtered anywhere in the Temple courtyard, and their blood requires only one sprinkling, as long as it is directed toward the foundation of the altar. They differ, however, in how they are to be eaten. The firstborn offering is eaten by the priests, the tithe offering by anyone; both can be eaten throughout the city [of Jerusalem], in any form of food preparation, for two days and one night. The Passover offering can be eaten only at night, and only up to midnight, and only by those registered for it, and only roasted by fire. (Talmud, Zevachim 56b)

To briefly explain: The Torah commands the Jew to bring the firstborn of his cattle or sheep as an offering to G‑d. Also to be offered is a tithe of the animals born in the herd or flock (once a year, the year’s yield was herded into a pen, and the animals let out one at a time; every tenth animal to emerge was marked and pronounced holy to G‑d, and brought as an offering). The firstborn, tithe and Passover offerings all belong to a class of korbanot called kodashim kallim, and they resemble each other in the procedures of their offering upon the altar; but the rules pertaining to the eating of the Passover offering differ from those relating to the first two.

The firstborn and the tithe offerings can be eaten for two days and a night (on the day it was offered, on the following night, and on the following day until sunset), while the Passover offering can be eaten only on the night following its offering, and only until midnight. Another difference is that the firstborn and the tithe offerings can be prepared in any way the eater desires—boiled, stewed, baked, roasted, etc.—while the Passover offering has to be roasted on a spit over the fire, and cannot be prepared in any other way (not even as a pot roast cooked in its own juices with no other liquid added).

All these details—the laws of the firstborn, tithe and Passover offerings, and the differences between them—have their counterparts in the inner life of the soul.

First, Last and Over

The teachings of Kabbalah describe our world as founded upon ten divine attributes (sefirot) from which derive the spiritual form and substance of reality. Thus, the number ten represents the seder hishtalshelut (literally, “order of evolution”)—the spiritual order of things that G‑d instituted in His creation. “Firstborn” represents chochmah, the first and loftiest phase of the seder hishtalshelut; “tithe” refers to malchut, the last and lowest of the order. (Accordingly, the firstborn offering was eaten by the kohanim, who represent the higher, more spiritual callings of life, while the tithe offering was eaten by the farmer who brought it, representing the lowest, or most material, stratum of creation.) Together, the first and the tenth embrace the totality of the created reality.

Passover, as its name indicates, relates to that which transcends seder hishtalshelut, that which overleaps the standard processes of creation. The Passover offering is so named in attestation of the fact that G‑d leaped over the homes of the Jewish firstborn when He killed all Egyptian firstborn on the night of the Exodus, despite the fact that by all standard criteria the Jews were no more deserving of life than the Egyptians. Passover is G‑d’s disregarding of the very rules by which He ordered His world, and our reciprocation of His deed by rising above the dictates of nature and normalcy in our devotion to Him.

This explains the difference in how the Passover offering is eaten, as opposed to the firstborn and tithe offerings.

As we noted in the opening lines of this essay, life can be viewed as a cycle of striving and realization, yearning and gratification. The common metaphors for these two states are fire and water. Fire connotes thirst and upward striving; water suggests settling down and satiation.

A normal life—life as defined by the “order of evolution” from chochmah to malchut—is nourished by both fire and water. Some meals are cooked steeped in the water of contentment; others have lesser degrees of liquid to temper the fire of life; occasionally, one even partakes of a roast—a spurt of utter striving, of desire unsatiated by a single drop of gratification.

The Passover offering, however, can be experienced only one way—roasted on the fire. When a soul reaches for G‑d—not for the glimmers of divinity to be found within creation and experienced by conventional spiritual endeavor, but for G‑d Himself, as He transcends existence and reality—it is utterly consumed by an unceasing desire. For man can never capture anything of the divine essence. He can only strive for it, his soul a pure fire, with nary a drop of water to slake his thirst, without even a pot to contain his fervor.

Nighttime Meal

The firstborn and tithe offerings were eaten for two days and a night. The Passover offering was eaten only at night.

In the course of our history we have experienced days of divine light, as well as nights of spiritual darkness. Generally speaking, there were two daytime eras—the periods in which the first, and then the second, Beit Hamikdash manifested the divine presence in our world. Between these two days was a brief night—the seventy-year Babylonian galut, when the Holy Temple lay in ruins and the people of Israel were exiled from the Holy Land.1 Following the sunset of the second day, we were plunged into the blackest of nights—into our current centuries-long galut, rife with suffering and persecution, confounded by doubt and spiritual dissonance, and marked by the near-total concealment of the face of G‑d.

A normal relationship with G‑d could be had only in the “two days and a night” that preceded our present galut. These were times in which G‑d showed Himself to man—even in Babylon we had prophets and other expressions of divine immanence. But when the sun set on the second day, the flesh of the firstborn and tithe offerings could no longer be eaten. No longer could the divine truth be experienced within the workings of nature or accessed by the conventional processes of spiritual endeavor. No longer could man experience gratification in his spiritual life, for a glimpse of the divine had become an elusive dream.

In this night of nights, man’s striving for the divine is an unquenchable fire, an unrealizable yearning, an unconsummatable love. But for that very reason, it is deeper and truer than the fire-and-water concoctions of the past. In this night of nights, our yearning for G‑d is not focused upon first or tenth attributes, or filtered through orders of evolution. In this night of nights, our yearning for G‑d is not mitigated by plateaus of gratification. It passes over all systems and processes, to strive for the very essence of G‑d—an endless striving for the most endless of objectives.

Based on the teachings of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson; adapted by Yanki Tauber.

Originally published in Week in Review.

Republished with the permission of MeaningfulLife.com. If you wish to republish this article in a periodical, book, or website, please email permissions@meaningfullife.com.

FOOTNOTES

1.The First Temple stood for 410 years, from the year 2928 from creation (833 BCE) to 3338 (423 BCE). The Second Temple stood for 420 years, from 3408 (353 BCE) to 3829 (69 CE).

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The Far Horizon

Judaism became the religion whose heroes were teachers and whose passion was study. by Rabbi Jonathan Sacks

To gain insight into the unique leadership lesson of this week’s Parshah, I often ask an audience to perform a thought experiment. Imagine you are the leader of a people that has suffered exile for more than two centuries, and has been enslaved and oppressed. Now, after a series of miracles, it is about to go free. You assemble them and rise to address them. They are waiting expectantly for your words. This is a defining moment they will never forget. What will you speak about?

Most people answer: freedom. That was Abraham Lincoln’s decision in the Gettysburg Address, when he invoked the memory of “a new nation, conceived in liberty,” and looked forward to “a new birth of freedom.” Some suggest that they would inspire the people by talking about the destination that lay ahead, the “land flowing with milk and honey.” Yet others say they would warn the people of the dangers and What will you speak about?challenges that they would encounter on what Nelson Mandela called “the long walk to freedom.”

Any of these would have been the great speech of a great leader. Guided by G‑d, Moses did none of these things. That is what made him a unique leader. If you examine the text in Parshat Bo, you will see that three times he reverted to the same theme: children, education, and the distant future.

When your children ask you, “What do you mean by this rite?” you shall say, “It is the Passover sacrifice to the L‑rd, because He passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt when he smote the Egyptians, but saved our houses.”1

You shall explain to your child on that day, “It is because of what the L‑rd did for me when I went free from Egypt.”2

When in time to come your child asks you, saying, “What does this mean?” you shall say to him, “It was with a mighty hand that the L‑rd brought us out from Egypt, the house of bondage.”3

It is one of the most counterintuitive acts in the history of leadership. Moses did not speak about today or tomorrow. He spoke about the distant future and the duty of parents to educate their children. He even hinted—as Jewish tradition understood—that we should encourage our children to ask questions, so that the handing down of the Jewish heritage would be not a matter of rote learning but of active dialogue between parents and children.

So, Jews became the only people in history to predicate their very survival on education. The most sacred duty of parents was to teach their children. Pesach itself became an ongoing seminar in the handing on of memory. Judaism became the religion whose heroes were teachers and whose passion was study and the life of the mind. The Mesopotamians built ziggurats. The Egyptians built pyramids. The Greeks built the Parthenon. The Romans built the Coliseum. Jews built schools. That is why they alone, of all the civilizations of the ancient world, are still alive and strong, still continuing their ancestors’ vocation, their heritage intact and undiminished.

Moses’ insight was profound. He knew that you cannot change the world by externalities alone, by monumental architecture, or armies and empires, or the use of force and power. How many You cannot change the world by externalities aloneempires have come and gone while the human condition remains untransformed and unredeemed?

There is only one way to change the world, and that is by education. You have to teach children the importance of justice, righteousness, kindness and compassion. You have to teach them that freedom can be sustained only by the laws and habits of self-restraint. You have continually to remind them of the lessons of history, “We were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt,” because those who forget the bitterness of slavery eventually lose the commitment and courage to fight for freedom. And you have to empower children to ask, challenge and argue. You have to respect them, if they are to respect the values you wish them to embrace.

This is a lesson most cultures still have not learned after more than three thousand years. Revolutions, protests and civil wars still take place, encouraging people to think that removing a tyrant or having a democratic election will end corruption, create freedom, and lead to justice and the rule of law—and still people are surprised and disappointed when it does not happen. All that happens is a change of faces in the corridors of power.

In one of the great speeches of the twentieth century, a distinguished American justice, Judge Learned Hand, said:

I often wonder whether we do not rest our hopes too much upon constitutions, upon laws and upon courts. These are false hopes; believe me, these are false hopes. Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it; no constitution, no law, no court can even do much to help it.4

What G‑d taught Moses was that the real challenge does not lie in gaining freedom; it lies in sustaining it, keeping the spirit of liberty alive in the hearts of successive generations. That can be done only through a sustained process of education. Nor is this something that can be delegated away to teachers and schools. Some of it has to take place within the family, at home, and with the sacred obligation that comes from religious duty. No one ever saw this more clearly than Moses, and only because of his teachings have Jews and Judaism survived.

What makes leaders great is that they think ahead, worrying not about tomorrow but about next year, or the next decade, or the next generation. In one of his finest speeches, Robert F. Kennedy spoke of the power of leaders to transform the world when they have a clear vision of a possible future:

Some believe there is nothing one man or one woman can do against the enormous array of the world’s ills—against misery, against ignorance, or injustice and violence. Yet many of the world’s great movements, of thought and action, have flowed from the work of a single person. A young monk began the Protestant reformation, a young general extended an empire from Macedonia to the borders of the earth, and a young woman reclaimed the territory of France. It was a young Italian explorer who discovered the New World, and 32-year-old Thomas Jefferson who proclaimed that all men are created equal. “Give me a place to stand,” said Archimedes, “and I will move the world.” These men moved the world, and so can we all.5

Visionary leadership forms the text and texture of Judaism. It was the book of Proverbs Visionary leadership forms the text and texture of Judaismthat said, “Without a vision [chazon], the people perish.”6 That vision in the minds of the prophets was always of a long-term future. G‑d told Ezekiel that a prophet is a watchman, one who climbs to a high vantage point and so can see the danger in the distance, before anyone else is aware of it at ground level.7 The sages said, “Who is wise? One who sees the long-term consequences [ha-nolad].”8 Two of the greatest leaders of the twentieth century, Churchill and Ben Gurion, were also distinguished historians. Knowing the past, they could anticipate the future. They were like chess masters who, because they have studied thousands of games, recognize almost immediately the dangers and possibilities in any configuration of the pieces on the board. They know what will happen if you make this move or that.

If you want to be a great leader in any field, from prime minister to parent, it is essential to think long-term. Never choose the easy option because it is simple or fast or yields immediate satisfaction. You will pay a high price in the end.

Moses was the greatest leader because he thought further ahead than anyone else. He knew that real change in human behavior is the work of many generations. Therefore we must place as our highest priority educating our children in our ideals, so that what we begin they will continue, until the world changes because we have changed. He knew that if you plan for a year, plant rice. If you plan for a decade, plant a tree. If you plan for posterity, educate a child.9 Moses’ lesson, thirty-three centuries old, is still compelling today.

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks is the former Chief Rabbi of Great Britain and the British Commonwealth. To read more writings and teachings by Lord Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, or to join his e‑mail list, please visit www.rabbisacks.org.

Photo by Oneinfocus. Oneinfocus is committed to educating and inspiring people on a global scale, using photography and other forms of visual technology to spread Torah, Chassidus and positive life values.

FOOTNOTES

1.Exodus 12:26–27.

2.Exodus 13:8.

3.Exodus 13:14.

4.“The Spirit of Liberty”—speech at “I Am an American Day” ceremony, Central Park, New York City (21 May 1944).

5.The Kennedys: America’s Front-Page Family, p. 112.

6.Proverbs 29:18.

7.Ezekiel 33:1–6.

8.Talmud, Tamid 32a.

9.A statement attributed to Confucius.

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No Children Allowed

A debate between Moses and Pharaoh on the topic of: Do children and prayer go together? by Mendel Kalmenson

It was late Simchat Torah night, 3:00 AM to be exact, and everyone in the central Lubavitch synagogue was engrossed in the concluding prayers following the Hakafot ceremony.

A young boy stood near the Rebbe. He did not have a prayerbook—the synagogue was crowded, and there were none available. The Rebbe took notice, and motioned for the boy to approach him. He lowered his prayerbook so that the child could look in with him. Sharing pages, together they swayed and prayed . . .

Child-Pray

Pharaoh, it seemed, was finally coming around.

The latest threat from G‑d had just come in: “If you refuse to let My people go, behold, tomorrow I am going to bring locusts into your borders . . . and they will eat all your trees that grow out of the field.”

The people at the palace weren’t pleased.

“Pharaoh’s servants said to him, ‘How long will this people be a stumbling-block to us? Let them go and they will worship their G‑d! Don’t you know that Egypt is lost?’”

Perhaps it was the fear of economic ruin or civil unrest that brought Pharaoh to the negotiating table, or maybe it was the creepy thought of a locust invasion; either way, it appeared that he was ready to do business at last.

“Moses and Aaron were brought back to Pharaoh, and he said to them, ‘Go, worship the L‑rd your G‑d . . .’”

Free at last.

Well, almost. While looking over the discharge papers, something caught Pharaoh’s eye. “Who exactly is going?” he asked.

“With our youth and with our elders we will go, with our sons and with our daughters . . . for it is a festival to the L‑rd for us,” was the response.

Pharaoh said, “May the L‑rd be with you just as I will let you and your young children out [the ancient way of saying: not in a million years!]. Not so; let the men go now and worship the L‑rd, for that is what you request.”

A Battle of Wits

On the surface, this fruitless exchange seems identical to previous ones; just another ploy plucked from Pharaoh’s bottomless bag of gimmicks.

Perhaps, though, we can also see in it the origins of a contemporary debate.

Note: the following dialogue was not found recorded in ancient Jewish manuscripts, or transcribed in Egyptian hieroglyphs, but emerges from the author’s imagination alone.

On the basic level, Pharaoh argues, “If it’s truly a prayer experience and environment you seek, leave the kids behind. How can you achieve transcendence with a screaming child tugging at your sleeve? Prayers and Pampers don’t go together.”

Moses’ response is equally convincing: “The children must come, despite the challenge you present. For if synagogue life is devoid of children today, tomorrow it will be devoid of adults. The institution of prayer is better maintained, or only maintained, when youth are involved. After all, they are the link to the future . . .”

Not one to buckle easily, Pharaoh persists. In an inadvertent prophetic nod to a new-age line of reasoning, he declares:

“But encouraging children to pray and follow ritual is a form of brainwashing! It’s unethical to impose religious beliefs and a particular lifestyle on children too young to choose for themselves.”

Ahead of his time, he stumbles onto a modern-day trap. Old-school education surely equals indoctrination. Teaching children to believe in G‑d, or in anything absolute for that matter, is denying them their “G‑d-given” right to explore things on their own.

“To bring up children in a distinct way, especially in a particularistic way, is to do them irreversible and lifelong damage,” asserts Pharaoh. “They will be haunted by their rigid and restrictive past, and forever held captive to the belief system of their childhood . . .”

Counters Moses: “While you’ve aptly pointed out that children are most impressionable, that’s actually a reason for, not against, teaching them about such valuable things as faith, prayer and community at such a young age. If they learn right from wrong in their formative years, if they are instilled with religious teachings like ‘Love your neighbor like yourself’ from childhood, these good traits and impulses will be ingrained in them, not superimposed onto them, as is the case with much of what is learnt in adulthood.

“Besides”—and here Moses calls Pharaoh on his bluff—“it’s not as if you walk your own talk . . .”

Brainwash or Brain Freeze?

If there was one individual in ancient Egypt who knew and practiced indoctrination in the extreme, it was Pharaoh.

His horrific decree to drown all males at birth overshadowed a different, equally sinister, plot pertaining to Jewish females.

On the verse, “Pharaoh commanded all his people, saying, ‘Every son who is born you shall cast into the Nile, and every daughter you shall allow to live,’” the sages wonder at the redundancy of Pharaoh’s words: “and every daughter you shall allow to live.” If the drowning decree didn’t apply to them, isn’t it obvious that they would live?

But Pharaoh’s evil plans included girls as well, whom he wanted “drowned” in Egyptian religion and culture. The boys he sought to eliminate; the girls, to indoctrinate.

In today’s world, Moses would surely call a different but prevalent bluff: “You can unhesitatingly enroll your children in the School of Television, where they are taught the Art of Obscenity by such expert professors as the Simpsons or the faculty of Glee; in their free time they take music at MTV, and if they excel at their studies, they are rewarded with time to play Grand Theft Auto or surf (really, drown in) the ’Net—yet you are opposed to the ominous indoctrination practiced at Hebrew school?”

The Damage of Sophistication

The debate gets more serious.

The issue of continuity aside, Pharaoh argues that children are unfit to pray. They lack the maturity and sensitivity to appreciate matters of the spirit. While the words of prayer these youngsters are expected to chant are pretty, moving and soulful, their meaning is lost on children. Their childish perception of G‑d is probably insulting to Him.

Moses is secretly thrilled to address this last point. Here is his chance to bust a myth.

That Jewish continuity is a big factor in Judaism’s emphasis on the involvement of children in things Jewish1 is a given.2

Its recognition of the power of one’s formative years, and the lifelong effects of childhood upbringing, is also commonly emphasized. (Think of the Mishnaic statement,3 “He who learns as a child may be compared to ink written on new paper.”)

That there is another, entirely non-utilitarian factor, however, is much less known.

Consider the following Talmudic passage:

“Rabbi Yehudah said in the name of Rav: What is meant by the verse, ‘Do not touch my anointed ones’?4 ‘My anointed ones’ refers to tinokot shel beit raban—schoolchildren.”

“Reish Lakish said in the name of R. Yehudah the Prince: The world endures only for the sake of the breath of schoolchildren [emitted during Torah study]. Said R. Papa to Abaye: What about mine and yours [i.e., is our Torah study chopped liver]? He replied: Breath in which there is sin is not like breath in which there is no sin.”

Abaye makes clear that the value placed on the Torah study of children is not related to their future status as adults. Childhood Judaism is not just a means to an end. On the contrary, there is something pure and innocent about the divine service of a child—“breath without sin”—that is lost in adulthood, even for such legendary Talmudic sages as Abaye and R. Papa!

In all likelihood, it’s the same radical notion that led some of the great masters of Jewish spirituality and meditation to offer the following humble and breathtaking prayer to G‑d: “Ani mitpallel le-daat zeh ha-tinok—G‑d, please give me the ability to address You with the innocence of a child . . .”

In other words, in Jewish tradition the spiritually sophisticated and mature view their sophistication and maturity as a vice to be overcome, to the point of asking G‑d: “Please undo the damage of sophistication. Help me to grow out of adulthood . . .”

Talk about religious sophistication.

To the Kabbalist, the child is the grownup. Their innocence is not something to grow out of, but something to grow into.

Moreover, it is this purity that renders the child’s prayer more effective than an adult’s.

As we know from the Purim story,5 when the Jews were in a bind, Mordechai gathered 22,000 children for a prayer session. Apparently, these youngsters held G‑d’s ear even more than the sages and saints of Israel, not to mention their parents and grandparents!

The Psalmist,6 too, says as much: “Out of the mouth of the babes and sucklings You have established strength, in order to put an end to all enemies and adversaries.”

(The Lubavitcher Rebbe often quoted this verse in the months leading up to the Yom Kippur War, in the context of his intensified efforts to create children’s gatherings of study and prayer.)

Finally, in addition to their advantage over adults in terms of spiritual innocence and purity, and the resulting added power of their prayer, in Jewish tradition children are seen to have a greater spiritual sensitivity as well. It was this sensitivity that allowed “the children to recognize G‑d first”7 at the splitting of the sea, even before Moses, Aaron and the elders!

This leads us to the concluding words of Moses’ (imaginary) exhaustive rebuttal: “With our youth and with our elders we will go, with our sons and with our daughters . . . for it is a festival to G‑d for us.”

These words, with their intentional placement of children before adults in the context of “a festival before G‑d,” could not sum up any better the position of Moses and the G‑d he represented.

P.S.

On a personal note, I’d like to relate a relevant memory that my wife has shared with me from her childhood.

As a result of the Moshiach campaign that the Lubavitcher Rebbe initiated in the nineties, in which he urged all men, women and children to increase in acts of goodness because “Moshiach is on his way” and every act, big or small, “can tip the scale towards world redemption,” my wife’s early childhood was Moshiach-centric.

Having heard from the Rebbe on many occasions that children play a special role in bringing Moshiach,8 she, along with many of her young peers, felt an extraordinary sense of mission and urgency.

My wife took her unique childhood role so seriously that when she turned bat mitzvah—a time when most kids are exhilarated to be called a teen at last, and look back on their childhood years with a sense of disdain—she felt a deep sense of loss. She no longer belonged to the exclusive group that would usher in an era of world peace . . .

While she knew she could still contribute to Moshiach’s coming as a teenager, she felt she had lost something irretrievable: the role that only a child can play in bettering the world, and the ability that only a child has to reach out and touch G‑d in that pure and tender childlike way . . .

(Inspired by a letter of the Rebbe printed in Likkutei Sichot, vol. 26, p. 400)

Rabbi Mendel Kalmenson has traveled Europe, Asia and South America, reaching out to Jews in the remotest areas. He now resides in London with his wife Chanale, daughter Geulah, and son Dov.

Mendel is an editor at the Judaism Website—Chabad.org.

FOOTNOTES

1.Consider R. Hamnuna’s statement in the Talmud (Shabbat 119b): “Jerusalem was destroyed only because they neglected [the education of] schoolchildren, for it is said (Jeremiah 6:11), ‘Pour [G‑d’s wrath] out because of the children in the street,’ [meaning:] Why is it poured out? Because the child is in the street.”

See there also for statements made by Reish Lakish in the name of R. Judah the Prince: “Schoolchildren may not be made to neglect [their studies] even for the building of the Temple.” And: “I have this tradition from my fathers: Every town in which there are no schoolchildren shall be destroyed. Ravina said: It shall be laid waste.” See also the commentary of Maharal, who expounds on this passage in his Netivot Olam, Netiv ha-Torah, ch. 10.

2.Consider the oft-quoted assurance of our ancestors to G‑d when He demanded a guarantor for Jewish continuity before giving the Torah to Israel: “Our children will be our guarantors!”

3.Avot 4:25.

4.I Chronicles 16:22.

5.See Esther Rabbah 7:13.

6.Psalm 8:3.

7.Talmud, Sotah 11b.

8.As one favored children’s ditty has it (lyrics by singer Country Yossi), “It’s gonna be the little, little kinderlach who’ll make Moshiach come!”

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Bo in a Nutshell

G-d commands the first mitzvah: the calendar. The final three plagues are visited about the Egyptians: locusts, darkness and death of the firstborn. Pharaoh finally cracks and sends the Jewish people running. The holiday of Passover and the Passover offering are introduced.

The last three of the Ten Plagues are visited on Egypt: a swarm of locusts devours all the crops and greenery; a thick, palpable darkness envelops the land; and all the firstborn of Egypt are killed at the stroke of midnight of the 15th of the month of Nissan.

G‑d commands the first mitzvah to be given to the people of Israel: to establish a calendar based on the monthly rebirth of the moon. The Israelites are also instructed to bring a “Passover offering” to G‑d: a lamb or kid is to be slaughtered, and its blood sprinkled on the doorposts and lintel of every Israelite home, so that G‑d should pass over these homes when He comes to kill the Egyptian firstborn. The roasted meat of the offering is to be eaten that night together with matzah (unleavened bread) and bitter herbs.

The death of the firstborn finally breaks Pharaoh’s resistance, and he literally drives the children of Israel from his land. So hastily do they depart that there is no time for their dough to rise, and the only provisions they take along are unleavened. Before they go, they ask their Egyptian neighbors for gold, silver and garments—fulfilling the promise made to Abraham that his descendants would leave Egypt with great wealth.

The children of Israel are commanded to consecrate all firstborn, and to observe the anniversary of the Exodus each year by removing all leaven from their possession for seven days, eating matzah, and telling the story of their redemption to their children. They are also commanded to wear tefillin on the arm and head as a reminder of the Exodus and their resultant commitment to G‑d.

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WOMEN

When Life Hands Us Lemons

What do we do when our efforts to change our circumstances don’t succeed? by Rochmy Ollech

A Man and His Gem

A poor Russian man had a job loading and unloading ships at the docks. He complained incessantly about his meager lot in life.

One day, he found a diamond in the sand! He was suddenly filled with happiness at the thought of the fortune that awaited him. At the end of the workday, he visited a diamond dealer, who told him, “I’ll be honest with you. This diamond is worth a small fortune. No one in this country will pay you its true worth. Go to London, where there are diamond dealers who will pay you its true value.”

He didn’t have money to pay for the ship’s journey. But as soon as he showed the captain his precious gem, explaining that he was on the way to sell it, the captain allowed him to sail first class.

The captain allowed him to sail first class

The captain came to visit him in his cabin, and enjoyed conversing with him on many philosophical topics. The rest of the time, the man spent his days learning and enjoying his ride to financial freedom.

One day, he fell asleep over his books. The table was cluttered with the remains of his dinner. Between the napkins and food lay the precious diamond. The loyal waiter, wanting to return the room to order, shook out the tablecloth into the sea. And along with the dirt went the precious gem and the man’s dreams for a more secure future.

When he awoke and saw his misfortune, his first reaction was to cry over the disaster. How could he have been so foolish as to leave the precious gem on the table? But then he decided to view the situation differently. This was obviously a test from G‑d. He could choose to cry over the figurative “spilled milk,” or he could choose to accept his situation as a challenge from the One Above. He chose the latter. Although he had no idea how he would pay for the ship’s voyage now that he had lost his only form of payment, he strengthened his belief that his Creator would not leave him stranded, and that this too was for the best.

When the ship docked, the captain came to his cabin with a huge wad of cash and an offer: “I have a large amount of merchandise that I need to buy from some far-flung place here in England. I don’t have the time and patience to go get it. I have seen during this journey that you are a trustworthy person. Would you be willing to get the merchandise for me, and I will pay you a percentage for your time and effort? Through buying the merchandise, you will also be able to pay off your journey.”

Of course, this man agreed to the request and started to make the journey. He hadn’t gone far when he heard a ruckus from the ship’s direction. It turned out that some enemies of the captain had killed him.

He hadn't gone far when he heard a ruckus from the ship’s direction

Since the captain had left no heirs, the money he had given the poor Russian man now belonged to him. The story goes that the money in the wallet was a lot more than the money he would have received for the diamond.

Rabbi Nachman of Breslov explained the story this way: The first time this Russian fellow became wealthy, he hadn’t yet accepted his lot of poverty. He wasn’t meant to become wealthy then, so he lost the money. The second time, however, the fortune came after he had strengthened his faith, so his wealth lasted forever.

Embracing Acceptance

Many of us may identify with the above story. We attempt to change a situation we are unhappy with, but we can’t seem to crawl out of the figurative hole. We keep facing one setback after another.

So, what do we do when our efforts to change our circumstances don’t succeed?

When we see that we are trying and trying without tangible results, the wisest option is to accept the situation with love, and make the best of it. Very often, once we come to terms with our situation, we’ll start to see positive changes.

For example, I know a woman who was single for many years. She put a lot of effort into actively finding “the one,” but somehow, everyone that she dated was wrong for her. Finally she decided to embrace her life as a single person, instead of living with a sense of lack. Soon after, she met her soulmate.

When we are faced with the “lemons” of our lives, we can try to make lemonade. But before we do, let’s first focus on the beauty of a lemon! And then, yes, we may find that we can create lemonade, or perhaps an entirely different substance. Like a fine wine.

Rochmy Ollech lives in Israel with her husband and family. She runs TAKE OFF, a self-discovery time management program which helps women find balance and inner peace in daily life. Contact her or sign up for her weekly e-newsletter here.

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Jewish Month of Shevat

The high point of the month is Tu B’Shevat—the New Year for trees. This month also contains two important dates on the chassidic calendar.

Shevat is the 11th month on the Jewish calendar counting from Nissan. The high point of the month is the holiday of Tu B’Shevat, known as the “New Year for Trees.” This is the day when the sap begins to rise in the fruit trees in Israel—the start of a new growing season.

Tu B’Shevat holds legal significance in Jewish law with regards to the tithing of fruit in Israel, but it’s also celebrated with joy as we look forward to the sweet bounty of the coming year. We mark the day by eating fruit, particularly from the ”Seven Kinds” that are singled out by the Torah in its praise of the Holy Land (wheat, barley, grapes, figs, pomegranates, olives and dates). On this day we remember that “Man is a tree of the field,” and reflect on the lessons we can derive from our botanical analogue.

Shevat contains two important dates on the chassidic calendar. The 10th of Shevat marks the anniversary of the passing, in 1950, of the sixth Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn of righteous memory. On the same date, exactly one year later, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, of righteous memory, assumed the mantle of leadership and became the seventh Lubavitcher Rebbe. The 22nd of Shevat is the anniversary of the passing, in 1988, of Rebbetzin Chaya Mushka Schneerson.

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FEATURE ARTICLE

Midrash and Reality

Which world is more real? The world of action, or the world where we perceive the effects of our actions? by Tzvi Freeman and Yehuda Shurpin

In the last installment we heard from R. Saadia Gaon in the Department of Simple Meanings (peshat) and from Maimonides in the Department of Deeper Meanings (derush)—and the folly of confusing the two. We left off with a promise to hear from Maharal of Prague, who would apply Maimonides’ principles to Midrash in a way that would open up a whole new understanding of Torah and reality.

The Limits of Midrash

But before we get to Prague, we need to discuss some of the wrong turns and dead ends that were taken post-Maimonides—mainly so that we don’t take those routes again.

After Maimonides’ Guide for the Perplexed was translated from Arabic into Hebrew, many more students of Torah began applying Aristotelian philosophy to their studies. Sometimes the marriage was quite elegant. Often, it was the ugliest form of syncretism. Any suggestion of a miracle had always irked the classical philosopher, but now he felt he had the permission of the great Maimonides to reinterpret these allegorically. Anecdotes of historical significance were also reinterpreted, thereby dismissing any historicity of the Talmudic sages.

By the end of the 13th Rashba attempted to ban the study of philosophy and natural sciences until the age of 25.century, many of the leading rabbis in Provence and Spain were fed up enough with these teachers and preachers that they felt drastic action was needed. At the urging of a respected Provencal sage, many of the leading rabbis of the time, led by Rabbi Shlomo ben Aderet of Barcelona (known as Rashba), instituted a ban prohibiting anyone from studying philosophy and natural sciences until the age of 25 (with the exception of one who was studying medicine for a profession).

Many of the Jews of Provence were outraged. They deeply respected Rashba as an outstanding scholar and leader to whom they would address the most difficult questions both in Jewish practice and in theology. But they could not imagine abandoning their study of the Greek-Arabic philosophy that had become a regular part of their curriculum.

Rabbi Yedayah Bedersi was one such Jew. Bedersi was fluent not only in all areas of Torah scholarship but, like many of his era, in Aristotle and Avoerres as well. He was also a master of letters, having published his first poem at age fifteen. He composed several commentaries on Midrash. His ethical work Examination of the World is oft-quoted. He is also known for his long poem-parable in defense of women.

But, most of all, R. Yedayah Bedersi is known for his respectful but forceful retort to Rashba concerning his ban. He denies the accusations that the schools in Provence had been twisting the meaning of scripture and midrashim through their Aristotelian contortions. In the process, he lays down more clearly than anyone before exactly what the rules of Midrashic interpretation must be—using brilliant yet simple rules of reason.

To begin, he writes, simply because a story clashes with the natural order is not sufficient reason to reject it. An absurdity must be interpreted allegorically, but there is nothing absurd about the Creator of the natural order breaking that order with a miracle.

An absurdity, Bedersi writes, must be interpreted allegorically, but there is nothing absurd about the Creator of the natural order making a miracle.

He then divides the midrashic stories into four categories, explaining how we must deal with each one:

Unlikely stories told by the sages.

Although a story is extremely unlikely, and although it neither strengthens nor weakens our faith, we nevertheless accept it, since it comes to us from a reliable source.1

Miraculous stories.

We do not reject a story simply because it includes a miracle. The Creator of the world has no problem performing miracles. But if a miraculous story clashes with a general principle, we must reinterpret. We can imagine loaves of bread and fine clothing miraculously growing on trees, but we have a general principle told to us that clashes with this: “There is no difference between this world and the world to come other than the subjection to foreign rule.”2

Similarly, we can imagine tzaddikim after their passing reinvested in fine new bodies, enjoying another world, as described by Rabbi Benaah, etc. But this clashes with a general principle that in that world “there is no sitting or standing . . .”

Apparent exaggerations.

If the story describes a world where miracles abound, and these miracles are not of the sort that strengthen our faith or provide any other apparent benefit, we must reinterpret—for three reasons:

It’s not honorable to the Torah and its sages to believe this.

This diminishes the significance of those miracles mentioned in the Torah, which the Torah itself treats as rare instances.

G‑d does not make miracles without necessity, and neither do His prophets.

The Talmudic tales of Rabbah bar bar Chanah are a good example. In them you’ll hear of an antelope the size of Mount Tabor whose dung dammed up the Jordan River; a frog the size of sixty houses swallowed by a yet more monstrous sea creature—which was then plucked out of the ocean by a giant raven. Then there was the fish so big that when it was cast ashore it destroyed 60 towns and fed another 60. A year later, people were cutting rafters from the fishes’ ribs for the homes of the towns they had rebuilt to replace those that had been destroyed. Another fish was so large that it took three days and nights for Rabbah bar bar Chanah’s ship to sail from one end to the other—and it was a ship so fast that if you shot an arrow, the ship would pass it. There was even one fish that had sand and grass growing on its back. The sailors innocently set ashore on what they presumed was an island, and set up a barbecue—only to have to rush back to ship in the nick of time as the annoyed fish began to turn over.The sailors innocently set ashore on what they presumed was an island, and set up a barbecue—only to have to rush back to ship in the nick of time as the annoyed fish began to turn over.3

The consensus among all Talmudic scholars is that these tales of Rabbah bar bar Chanah are not all necessarily meant to be taken at face value.4 Within the phantasmagorical imagery of these tales whispers a story from a world beyond ours, tightly encoded within complex metaphor. Indeed, from the Zohar5 it appears that the sea of which he is talking is the sea of Torah, the birds and fish are allusions to particular angelic beings and souls—every detail with layers of meaning, but certainly not for the sports-fishing buff.

Absurdities.

If the story presents an absurdity, we must reinterpret. Bedersi here seems principally concerned with cases of anthropomorphism. That the Creator of Heaven and Earth could have physical form he considers irresolutely absurd.

As we said, Bedersi wrote all this in a letter to Rashba. Rashba himself discussed the interpretation of fantastic midrashic tales, also taking the approach of Maimonides. He provides several reasons why the sages might conceal their wisdom within enigma and fantasy. One very revealing episode:

Rabbi Yehudah ha-Nasi was sermonizing, and the assembly was dozing off. He watned to wake them up. So he said, “There was one woman in Egypt who gave birth to six hundred thousand at once!”

There was one student there—Rabbi Yishmael ben Yosei was his name—who asked, “Who was that?”

So he told him, “It was Yocheved, who gave birth to Moses! He was balanced against the entire nation of six hundred thousand—as we see in the text:6 ‘Then sang Moses and the children of Israel.’”7

How more explicit a demonstration do you need, writes Rashba, that the words of the sages are not always to be taken literally? He then proceeds to interpret the meaning of a ten-cubit Moses taking a ten-cubit axe and jumping ten cubits into the air to whack the giant Og on the ankle—just as Og was attempting to throw a mountain on the Israelite camp. All of it has meaning, but none of it at face value.

The Wrong Way to Learn Midrash

Bedersi set down clear boundaries, but the rules of interpretation were still unclear. There was still no clear definition for Midrash. That left room for some to believe that midrash and aggadah are not really true—they are just parables or fables to make a point. They said, “The simple meaning of the text is true. The halachah is an obligation—so it’s certainly true. But these tales are just homiletics.”8

Fundamentally, these people understood the tales of the rabbis much as we understand good fiction: stories to make a point. Fiction is not a lie—the author has a real point to make, and that point may be true. It’s only that he uses the medium of a story to make his point, and the story—the packaging for the point—is not true. So, too, these people understood the stories of the Talmud and Midrash to be making true points—but dressed in packaging that was very distant from reality.

Rabbi Yehuda Loewe of Prague (known as the “Maharal of Prague”) was adamant: Torah is not fiction. Maharal was adamant: Torah is not fiction. Anything the Creator of the universe tells is real.Jews consider the words of their sages that have been recorded in the Talmud and Midrash to be Torah, no less divine than the Five Books of Moses. Once they were accepted by the general community of observant Jews as works to be studied and revered as Torah, they attain a status of G‑d’s own thoughts, arguments He has with Himself and stories He tells Himself. And if the Creator of the universe is telling it, it’s real.9

A case in point is the following story of Titus, after he had destroyed the Temple and laid waste to Jerusalem:

When Titus was traveling back to Rome on a ship with the Jewish captives and the vessels of the Holy Temple, a storm at sea threatened to drown him. He said: “It seems that the G‑d of these people has power only over water. When Pharaoh came, He drowned him in water. When Sisera came, He drowned him in water. Now, He is about to drown me in water. If He wants to show His strength, let Him come onto dry land and fight with me there!”

A divine voice came forth and said to him: “Wicked one, the son of a wicked one, descendant of Esau the wicked! I have an insignificant creature in My world called a gnat. Come ashore and do battle with it!”

Titus went ashore, and a gnat came and entered his nostril. It pecked at his brain for seven years.

One day, Titus was walking past a blacksmith’s shop. The gnat heard the noise of the sledgehammer and became silent. Titus said: “There is a remedy!”

Every day they brought a blacksmith, and he hammered in Titus’s presence. To a gentile blacksmith he would give a handsome stipend, but to a Jew he would say: “It is sufficient that you see your enemy suffering!”

For thirty days they brought smiths to hammer in Titus’s presence. Then the gnat adjusted to the noise of the hammer, and continued pecking at Titus’s brain even when the hammers were struck.

Rabbi Pinchas ben Arova said: “I was with the great men of Rome at the time when Titus died. They examined his brain, and what they found in it was the size of a small bird!”

In the Mishnah we learned: It was like a year-old pigeon, weighing two liters.

Said Abaye, “We have a tradition that its mouth was of bronze and its claws of iron.”

As Titus lay dying, he instructed his servants: “Burn me and scatter my ashes over the seven seas, so that the G‑d of the Jews cannot find me and bring me to judgment.”

Now, reading the chronicles of Roman historians, you won’t find anything about this gnat. Titus, they tell you, died of a fever. At any rate, metal claws on a big bug is a tad outrageous.

So, one scholarly Italian Jew named Azariah dei Rossi explained, “This is just aggadah.” It didn’t really happen. It’s just that the sages wanted to impress on people that G‑d can always find a way to punish the wicked, so they told this story.

The same Azariah dei Rossi approached other teachings in a similar vein. Rabbi Eliezer taught that the northern side of the world was never completed. G‑d says, “Whoever believes he is a god, let him come and complete the northern side.” From this and other similar statements, dei Rossi derived that the Talmudic sages believed the world was flat.

This was just the sort of thing that ruffled Maharal’s feathers much too much. This man, he said, has no idea what the sages are talking about.

Truth Is Stranger than Non-Fiction

So, Maharal of Prague further defined the ways of Midrash, with two signposts on two sides of the road:

On the one hand, you have to know that every story told and recorded by the rabbis of the Talmud is true. They are Torah, just as much as a verse from scripture or a halachah kept by all Jews is Torah.10

On the other hand, you must know that these stories are not concerned with physical reality at all. Rather, they are speaking of the essential reality.

What’s the “essential reality”? Here’s a classic treatment of the essential reality of midrash from Maharal:

The Talmud tells us that Moses was ten cubits tall.11 A cubit is the distance from your outstretched big finger to your elbow—averaging about one and a half feet. That would put Moses at fifteen feet.

Strange thing, no one inside the story seems to notice—not Pharaoh, not the Jewish people, not even the daughters of Jethro, who tell their father, “An Egyptian saved us from the shepherds!” The fact that he was a giant about three times their size seems to totally pass them by.12

So, Maharal tells us that the real Maharal tells us that the real Moses truly was fifteen feet tall. Just not the Moses that Pharaoh saw.Moses truly was fifteen feet tall. Not the one that Pharaoh saw, or that the fleeing shepherds saw. They saw only the physical shell of Moses, as he is invested in a body within our physical world—a world that for several reasons can’t manage a ten-cubit human form. But Moses is a complete person, and ten is the number of completeness. He should have been ten cubits tall—would the physical world be capable of such a thing. Certainly, writes Maharal, whatever could be reflected in the physical world was reflected, and Moses was likely taller than the average human being. But not as tall as he really was.13

Which Moses is more pertinent to our understanding? If we want to understand the simple meaning of the text, a giant Moses will just confuse matters—as we’ve seen. If we want to have an idea of the soul-power of Moses, his impact on the crowd when he walked in the room, his true height as a spiritual giant—he was as big as they get, not missing a finger’s breadth of the ten cubits of perfection.

We’re used to considering the precise measurements of our world as the final arbiter of all truth. It might help to jump to an event in Mezhibuzh, Ukraine, a century or two after Maharal:

One of the homeowners of Mezhibuzh was involved in a nasty dispute with another resident of the town. It happened that while in the Baal Shem Tov’s presence, in his shul, he yelled that he was going to rip the other guy apart like a fish.

The Baal Shem Tov told his pupils to hold one another’s hand, and to stand near him with their eyes tightly closed.

He then placed his holy hands on the shoulders of the two disciples next to him. Suddenly the disciples began shouting in great terror: They had seen how that fellow had actually ripped his disputant apart like a fish.14

Now, what if I ask you, “Did a resident of Mezhibuzh tear apart his disputant like a fish?”

You might answer, “Well, not really.” Problem is, I have witnesses. Very reliable ones. And they all saw exactly the same thing.

But can the perpetrator be charged in court for bodily harm? Problem is, his disputant is still walking around without a scratch.

So, which world is real? One world can Which world is real? The world of action, or the world where we perceive the effects of our actions?be perceived by anyone with ears for hearing. The other requires senses of a higher grade than most of us will ever achieve. But does that make it less real? On the contrary, perhaps the higher reality is the truer one. There, after all, is where we can perceive the real effects of our actions and words.

Maharal takes the same approach to the gnat in Titus’ brain. The sages are not concerned with telling us a story for the medical annals. Their concern is to present to us the real Titus and his true destiny. Did a physical gnat enter his brain? Perhaps not, writes the Maharal. But the story is still true, because the gnat got in there anyways. Every living creature has its essential quality that makes it uniquely what it is—and the essential quality of the gnat made its way in.15 This essential quality, if it could be seen, would appear in its most intense state with a mouth of bronze and iron claws.

The same applies to Rabbi Yehudah’s description of the universe with an open north end. The purpose of this description was not for astronomical predictions, or to send a man to the moon. Rabbi Yehudah was telling us what the world is all about: that it was not created as a perfect place. As Maharal writes, the world is not a cause, it is an effect, and an effect can never be perfect. Only the original cause, the ultimate Creator, can be complete. Our world reflects this, to some degree, through the effects of the north wind. But again, in an incomplete way.16

Maharal sums up his approach in Maharal sums up his approach: “The sages do not speak of the physical at all; they speak of a world stripped of physicality.”one simple line: “The sages do not speak of the physical at all; they speak of a world stripped of physicality.”17 Every midrashic teaching is a peek behind the veil, dressing deep truths in language that is meant to reveal an inner world. If that language seems foolish to us, it is only because we have not yet cracked the code. We are grabbing the clothes, the words, as though they themselves were their own meaning.

On the other hand . . .

Maharal wrote many volumes of commentary on Midrash, perhaps more than any other Torah giant, all following these same principles. Reading them, we often sense a modern mind, and indeed his writings are more popular today than they were in the 16th century, when he was perhaps less understood.

Rabbi Shmuel Eidels, whose mother was a cousin of Maharal, composed what is likely the most popular work on almost all the aggadah of the Talmud. It is included in the standard editions of the Talmud under the title Chiddushei Aggadot Maharsha. He follows a similar approach, using principles of both philosophy and Kabbalah.

Now a systematic approach to midrash had been laid out clearly by Maimonides and Maharal. But that raises a new question, perhaps a more difficult one: If the point of midrash is not the story itself, but that which it contains, not the foreground but the background, and if anyone who understands these stories literally is a fool—then how is it that we tell these stories to children and simple folk, who certainly take them at face value? Are we to hide all of these tales from them? Have we been doing things wrong all these centuries?

Maharal himself provided the key to answering this crucial question. It becomes clearer when we examine the works of his contemporaries, and of those who followed in his footsteps. Which is what we will discuss in the next installment.

Rabbi Tzvi Freeman, a senior editor at Chabad.org, also heads our Ask The Rabbi team. He is the author of Bringing Heaven Down to Earth. To subscribe to regular updates of Rabbi Freeman's writing, visit Freeman Files subscription.

Rabbi Yehuda Shurpin responds to questions for Chabad.org's Ask the Rabbi service.

Acknowledgment: The authors would like to acknowledge the assistance of the staff of the Jewish Learning Institute (JLI) in preparing this essay. The JLI course Curious Tales of the Talmud is an excellent introduction to interpretation of aggadah.

Chaim Leib (Leon) Zernitsky has created fine art and illustrations for international magazines, book publishers and major corporations for over 25 years. He has published over 30 books for children and young adults and won numerous awards. Chaim Leib feels that creating Jewish art is an important part of being a Jewish artist, and his paintings can be found in private collections worldwide.

FOOTNOTES

1.If a “reliable source” is not provided—for example, names are not provided—that may be considered evidence that the anecdote need not be taken literally. See Rabbi Avraham ben ha-Rambam in his treatise on Midrash (printed in the preface of Ein Yaakov):

We found a place in the Talmud (Eruvin 63a) where it is openly admitted that the sages spoke in parabolic style, and that their words should not always be taken literally: “A disciple of R. Eliezer decided a question of Torah law in the latter’s presence. R. Eliezer said to his wife, Ima Shalom, ‘I wonder if he will live through this year?’ And he died during that year. ‘Are you a prophet?’ his wife asked him . . .” [The student is then identified by name.] “The disciple’s name and his father’s name,” continues the Talmud, “were purposely mentioned so that we should not construe it as a parable, but as a true fact.” From this is clear that in many instances their words were not taken literally, but in the form of a parable. Put this proof in your heart and let your eyes watch it, for it is a wonderful thing as well as important evidence.

See also Maharal, Chiddushei Aggadot 1:28; Rabbi Yosef Chaim of Baghdad, Ben Yehoyada, Eruvin loc. cit.

2.On this topic, see Will the Moshiach Usher In a Miraculous Era? Alternatively, one could easily imagine the sages viewing today’s post-industrialization wardrobes and refrigerator stockpiles as “bread and fine clothes growing on trees.”

3.Talmud, Bava Batra 73b.

4.Some have pointed to an exception: Rashbam to Bava Batra 73a, s.v. אמר רבה אשתעו לי כו׳. The authors, however, are not convinced that Rashbam is insisting on a literal understanding of every story that follows. Ritva and Maharsha maintain that at least some of these events actually occurred.

5.Zohar 3:223b (Raya Mehemna).

6.Exodus 15:1.

7.Shir ha-Shirim Rabbah 1:65.

8.Indeed, many passages of the Talmud seem to imply just that. The intent of these passages, however, is generally rather opaque, and their meaning is disputed. Many of these statements appear in the Jerusalem Talmud, which despite its terser style is far more dense with aggadah than the Babylonian Talmud. See the following examples from that Talmud: Shabbat 16:1, Maaserot 3:4 and Nazir 7:2.

9.In retort to this opinion of Maharal, some cite a statement of Rabbi Moshe ben Nachman (Ramban) in the midst of a staged dispute with a representative of the Church. See, however, Haim Maccoby, Judaism On Trial, pp. 44–49. According to his explanation, Ramban does not necessarily differ from Maharal’s opinion that these tales are all true, only that they are not (necessarily) discussing the physical or historical reality.

10.Rabbi Yehuda Loewe, Be’er ha-Golah, Be’er Shishi (p. 135 in the standard edition).

11.Talmud, Shabbat 92a.

12.See Sichot Kodesh 5730, vol. 1, p. 564.

13.Chiddushei Aggadot, vol. 3, p. 33 (on Talmud, Bava Metzia 84a).

14.Hayom Yom, 29 Tishrei.

15.It seems difficult to understand the report of a tumor in his brain at death as purely allegorical. The language in which it is stated seems factual: “I was with the great men of Rome at the time when Titus died.” But then, such a size for a brain tumor is not so unbelievable. The largest brain tumor removed from a living person on record to date was 72 cubic inches—the size of a small pigeon.

16.Be’er ha-Golah, Be’er Shishi (p. 129 in the standard edition).

17.Ibid., p. 128.

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VIDEO

What Jews Believe About Redemption

In this final class in a six-part series, we reach the culminating and most essential concept of Jewish belief—the belief in the perfection of this world. What is universal redemption? How does it come about? How is it connected to—and the fulfillment of—all of the other concepts we have learned about so far? by Manis Friedman

Watch (18:14)

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Understanding the 39 Prohibitions of Shabbat

An introduction, and the melachot of sowing, plowing, reaping, binding sheaves. by Mendel Dubov

Watch (45:14)

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STORY

The Rabbi’s Motorcycle Accident

Katia’s voice became choked with emotion as she continued, “I became very angry at Jews and at Judaism. I decided that it was not for me. ‘If Jews behave like this,’ I thought to myself, ‘it’s better for me to be among non-Jews.’” by Hershy Drukman

It’s Friday afternoon in central Paris.

It’s close to Shabbat, so I get on my motorcycle and head home.

I live in France, serving as a Chabad emissary in S.-Maur-des-Fossés, a small city south of Paris.

It’s raining heavily, and the pavement is slippery. I slow down, adjusting my helmet.

Suddenly I notice a sports car entering the intersection. The driver hasn’t noticed me approaching at high speed.

The situation is dangerous, and my heart races. What to do? Brake on wet pavement at 80 km/h? I am in danger of rolling over. To continue? A collision is unavoidable.

I brake quickly. The motorcycle skids, and I fall to the ground. I am waiting for the approaching cars. Are these my last moments?

Silence. One car stops and blocks the road. I check myself for injuries. Thank G‑d, I’m fine. I try to get out the street.

A woman runs toward me. “Are you all right?” she asks in French. “Can I help you?”

“I think I’m all right,” I answer, removing my helmet. She looks surprised—perhaps not expecting a bearded man. There are not many in Paris.

“Is everything all right?” she asks again, this time in Hebrew. Now I am taken aback.

She introduces herself as Madame Katia Dahaan. “I live nearby, and happened to be passing,” she says. “I didn’t expect to see a Jew, never mind a rabbi.”

“And the Hebrew?” I ask.

“Oh, that’s from trips to Israel years ago,” she says.

Katia wants to talk, but I apologize and explain, “It’s almost Shabbat, and I need to get home.”

Katia is surprised to hear Shabbat is coming. Her reaction puzzles me. Almost 400,000 Jews live in that neighborhood; it’s hard not to know today is Shabbat eve.

“Do you light Shabbat candles?” I ask.

Katia gives me another strange look. She mutters, “No, I don’t.”

“Can I invite you to our home for Shabbat?” I offer.

“Which Shabbat?” she asks with surprise.

“Tonight,” I answer.

A smile emerges. “I don’t think I can come tonight, but I will be happy to come another Shabbat,” she says. We exchange phone numbers, and part.

Katia didn’t come that evening, nor the next Shabbat. And I couldn’t find her number, though I tried hard to locate her.

Four months pass. One morning I received a text message from an unfamiliar number.

Moments later, my phone rang.

“Rabbi? It’s Katia Dahaan. Do you remember me?”

“Of course! We are still waiting for you to come for Shabbat.”

“When can I come?”

“Please, this coming Shabbat!”

That Friday night Katia was one of our guests. She was very emotional throughout.

Others asked me who she was. I told them the story about the accident. I said, “You can say that she was a messenger from Above to help me during those scary moments.”

Katia looked at us with a smile and said, “I think it’s time for you to hear my version . . .

“I am forty-five years old and live alone. I have a sister and mother, but I haven’t spoken to them for over twenty years.

“It’s hard to be single, especially for a Jewish woman. My parents were traditional; we made kiddush, celebrated holidays and fasted on Yom Kippur. But since I’ve been living alone, I stopped observing.

“When you live alone, it’s hard to make kiddush, because there is no family to have a meal together. It’s hard to go to synagogue alone. I didn’t even have Jewish girlfriends.

“About two years ago, after years of being disconnected from Judaism, I wanted to come back to my religion. I decided to find a job in a Jewish environment. This way I’d make friends, and maybe get invited for Shabbat and holidays.

“I found a job in a shoe store in the Pletzel. All the local workers were Jewish, and I made friends.

“But there was one problem—Shabbat. On Fridays they would wish one another ‘Good Shabbat,’ and on Mondays, ask each other how Shabbat went. But no one paid attention to me. Every week I hoped for an invitation, but every week brought more disappointment.

“Almost a year passed . . . ‘Can it be that Jews don’t accept you anymore?’ I asked myself. ‘How can they be so inconsiderate?’”

Katia’s voice became choked with emotion. “I became very angry with Jews and Judaism. I decided it wasn’t for me. I left that store and found another job.

“But there still was one problem—Shabbat. Every Friday night I would remember the Shabbat of my childhood—the candles, kiddush. I thought, ‘How can I stop these memories?’

“I decided to find something to do on Friday nights. I found an advertisement for a church choir looking for singers on Friday nights.”

Silence prevailed around the table. “I was accepted into the choir, and it’s been a year that I’m singing in church on Friday nights. With a sad smile she added, “I come home so tired that I don’t have time to think about Shabbat.

“Everything went smoothly until that Friday,” continued Katia, “when I saw the motorcycle rolling over on the road. I ran to help the rider, and was shocked when he reminded me that it was Shabbat eve and invited me! And he didn’t even know me!

“You think that I was sent to you?” Katia concluded. “I think it was you who was sent to bring back my soul.”

Katia doesn’t sing in the church anymore. She spends every Friday night with us or other Chabad families.

So, it wasn’t just a motorcycle accident after all.

Rabbi Hershy Drukman serves as the Chabad emissary in S.-Maur-des-Fossés, a small city about 20 kilometers to the south of Paris.

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QUESTION

Help! I Broke Shabbat!

I noticed that the stove was on a setting too high for the soup. I stopped for a split second—and quickly reduced the flame. Just minutes later, I realized what a mistake I had made . . . by Yisroel Cotlar

Question:

I am still in shock over something I did last week as Shabbat was coming in. I was running late, and lit my candles a few minutes later than usual. So it was already Shabbat for me, right? I then noticed that the stove was on a setting too high for the soup. I stopped for a split second—and quickly reduced the flame. Just minutes later, I realized what a mistake I had made—you can’t do anything with fire on Shabbat unless there’s a real danger! My spirit was crushed and, needless to say, I had the worst Shabbat of my life.

Response:

Wanting to make up for a mistake is a good thing. Getting depressed about it is not. After all, mistakes, like everything else in the world, present crossroads in life—and you can take them up or down.

Let me explain: Serious regret is the first component of teshuvah, repentance. But there’s a dark force inside each of us that tries to use this to his advantage. It will shrewdly convince you to spend the entire Shabbat in misery. Stay at home instead of going to shul. Pray without your usual passion. Get angry at the kids. I think we’ve all been fooled by these tactics at one time or another.

The Torah’s approach to regret—teshuvah—is to immediately channel those strong feelings into something positive. That way, proper teshuvah not only erases what happened, but actually uses the accident as a springboard to propel you even higher.

Let’s discuss your particular situation. You already regret what happened, and you’ve pledged to never do it again. Now, think of what you can do to grow from this experience:

Be careful about lighting before the latest “candle-lighting time.” This might require some advanced planning—getting the Shabbat preparations done earlier in the day.

Review the laws of cooking on Shabbat.

(Giving some extra charity is always a good thing to do after a messup of this sort. Giving charity is like bringing a sacrifice: you give away something precious to you, taking with it those things you don’t want to be part of.)

See what you’ve done: You have now taken an incident where Shabbat was weakened, and created a reality where it is actually strengthened. And why did all this happen? Because of an incident that was originally a failure. But now, that incident becomes a positive force in your life. It’s because it happened that your commitment to Shabbat is actually stronger. And most likely, your Shabbat will be all the more beautiful.

Yours truly,

Rabbi Yisroel Cotlar

Rabbi Yisroel Cotlar is a Chabad rabbi in Cary, North Carolina. He is also a member of the Chabad.org Ask the Rabbi team.

All names of persons and locations or other identifying features referenced in these questions have been omitted or changed to preserve the anonymity of the questioners.

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THE REBBE

Rabbi for Life

The Rebbe responded, “What?! What right do you have to have such ideas? I am older than you are, and I’m taking on additional burdens!” Rabbi David Hollander

I was born in Hungary, but I came to America as a youngster, before my bar mitzvah. My father was already here—he was a rabbi in upstate New York—and he enrolled me in Yeshiva Torah Vodaas in Williamsburg. From there I went to Yeshiva University (known today as RIETS), and to Brooklyn Law School.

In 1942 I received my rabbinic ordination, and shortly thereafter became the rabbi of Mount Eden Jewish Center, which was considered one of the largest congregations in America. It was located in the Bronx, not far from Yankee Stadium. I was the rabbi there for 36 years, during which time I was also elected as the president of the Rabbinical Council of America, and subsequently of the Hebrew Alliance of America.

By the late 1970s the Mount Eden neighborhood had begun to change, and my congregation dwindled away. I no longer even had a minyan, and I felt that the time had come for me to retire. Why I didn’t do it has everything to do with the Rebbe.

I had known the Rebbe since 1950, when he recommended that I travel to the Soviet Union, where Jews were being persecuted. I began to visit the Soviet Union, and I did this many times. On many occasions I spoke with the Rebbe in preparation for these trips, and I’d also brief him upon my return.

Every year, on the day before Yom Kippur, I’d visit the Rebbe to get a piece of lekach, the honey cake which he handed out on that day, and also to get his blessing for the new year. But one year—it was 1985—instead of going to Brooklyn to see the Rebbe, I had to take my wife to a doctor’s appointment in Manhattan, and as a result I almost missed him. By the time I got to Crown Heights, the Rebbe had finished receiving people, and everyone had gone . . . This was an inauspicious start to my year, and I was upset.

Rabbi Yehuda Krinsky, the Rebbe’s secretary, was still there, so I told him how I felt, and he said to me, “You know, the Rebbe is due back in half an hour. Wait here. I’m sure that when he sees you, he will invite you in.” And that’s what happened.

The Rebbe came, and he asked me, “What are you doing here at this hour on Erev Yom Kippur?” I told him what happened, and he said to me, “If you are worried about the blessing, don’t be—that you have already. If you’re worried about the lekach, come inside and I’ll give you a piece.”

Once inside his room, the Rebbe said to me, “I give you a blessing that you should be successful as a rabbi and as a private citizen.” When I heard that, I latched onto the words “private citizen,” and I said to the Rebbe, “Your blessing for me as a private citizen interests me, because I’m just on the verge of doing that very thing . . . of becoming a private citizen.”

The Rebbe responded, “What?! What right do you have to have such ideas? I am older than you are, and I’m taking on additional burdens!”

He didn’t leave it at that.

Later that month, I was standing in line after havdalah when the Rebbe was handing out wine from his cup. As I reached him, he reached across the table and poured some wine into my cup, and in a loud and clear voice he called out, in real Brooklynese English, “Remember—rabbonus (the rabbinate) for life!”

http://www.chabad.org/408965

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COOKING

Very Healthy Zucchini Soup

A warm winter favorite. by Miriam Szokovski

Zucchini soup is an excellent healthy alternative to warm winter comfort foods. I like to throw in some quinoa to make it more filling, but you can eat it plain or with toast, too.

This recipe is very simple, and the soup is really all about the delicate zucchini flavor, so if you’re used to cooking with lots of strong spices or artificial soup mixes, you might find this soup bland.

You’ll need onions, zucchini, water and salt. That’s it. Quinoa is optional.

Roughly chop the onions and place them in the bottom of a strong pot with 2 cups of water and 2 tablespoons of salt. Cover the pot and cook on a low heat for approximately 45 minutes, until the onions are translucent.

Wash the zucchinis well, and chop in large chunks, leaving the peels on. Put the zucchini in the post and add 3 cups of water. It’s ok if the water isn’t completely covering the zucchini. Bring the soup to a boil, then turn down to a simmer for approximately 30 minutes. You want the zucchini to be tender but still a nice green color. If you overcook it, the soup will not taste as good.

Remove the pot from the stove, take off the cover and blend it until smooth. You can use a stick-blender, a standing blender or even a food processor.

If you’d like to add in some quinoa, cook it up in a separate pot. In a fine mesh strainer rinse 1 cup of quinoa very well. Transfer the quinoa into a pot with 2 cups of water. Cover. Bring to a boil, then turn down to a simmer for approximately 20 minutes (until all the water has been absorbed). Fluff with a fork. Add to soup.

This soup reheats very well. So keep it in the fridge for a few days, or freeze it and reheat it later on, it’s all good!

Ingredients

3 large Spanish onions

6 medium zucchinis

2 Tbsp. salt

4 cups water

1 cup quinoa, cooked in 2 cups water (optional)

Directions

Roughly chop onions. Place them in the bottom of the pot with 2 cups water and 2 tbsp. salt. Cover and cook on a low flame for approximately 45 minutes, until translucent.

Add in chunks of zucchini (unpeeled) and 3 more cups of water. Cover and bring to a boil. Then simmer for approximately 30 minutes, until Zucchini is tender but not mushy.

Blend and serve.

Optional: Add in 1 cup cooked quinoa for a more filling soup.

Yield: 6 servings

What’s your favorite healthy winter soup?

Miriam Szokovski is the author of historical novel Exiled Down Under, and a member of the Chabad.org editorial team. She enjoys tinkering with recipes, and teaches cooking classes to young children. Miriam shares her love of cooking, baking and food photography on Chabad.org’s food blog, Cook It Kosher and in the N'shei Chabad Newsletter.

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ART

Mazal Tov

Mazal determines personality, circumstances and potential . . . our destiny. by Marlene Burns

Mixed Media on Stretched Canvas

Artist’s Statement: Most often used when offering congratulations or wishing good luck, “Mazal Tov” has a deeper message.

Mazal means an “alignment of stars.” Each of us is born under an astrological field. Mazal determines personality, circumstances and potential . . . our destiny. The Jewish people believe that we have the ability to transcend our destiny, as referenced in the Torah, when G‑d lifted Abraham above the stars.

Mazal also means a “drip from above.” Our tradition sees our mazal as the influence of the stars trickling down on us. The mystics believe that our soul, our mazal, shines like a brilliant star from above, with only one ray inhabiting our bodies.

In this visual expression, the top of the painting shows the heavens filled with shining stars trickling downward. The main orb, symbolizing our soul, emits an orange ray into the largest circle, representing our physical body. Destiny is represented by the silver bar traveling through the stars; the upward movement expresses the concept of transcending one’s destiny. The juxtaposition of the up and down movements is a key element of the design.

When we offer a “Mazal Tov,” we evoke the energy of the cosmic field to channel blessings. When heaven and earth meet and blessings abound, our destinies can be transcended.

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JEWISH NEWS

Rare Bar Mitzvah in Small English City Makes a Lasting Impression

It’s been years—a decade, at least—since anyone can remember a bar mitzvah celebration in the port city of Southampton, United Kingdom. Thanks to one traveling campus rabbi, many there now have new moments of discovery to share. by Dovid Margolin, Chabad.edu

It’s been years—a decade, at least—since anyone can remember a bar mitzvah celebration in Southampton, United Kingdom, a southern port city famous for being the launching point of the ill-fated maiden voyage of the Titanic in 1912. Yet on Thursday morning Dec. 12, Sam Rachman put on tefillin and read from the Torah for the first time at the Southampton Hebrew Congregation, an event that may not have occurred if not for a few chance meetings.

Ten years ago, Rabbi Zalman and Shterna Lewis moved to the city of Brighton to serve as Chabad on Campus representatives at the University of Brighton and the University of Sussex. In that capacity, the rabbi also began visiting nearby universities in cities such as Southampton and Canterbury—campuses with smaller Jewish student populations. Today, in addition to his positions in Brighton, Lewis serves as the Jewish faith advisor at the University of Southampton.

“Every Tuesday, I travel to Canterbury, which hasn’t had a shul in around 100 years, and I host a lunch-and-learn Torah class,” he said, joking that he is sometimes referred to as the “Arch-Rabbi of Canterbury.” And “every Thursday, I have a lunch-and-learn at the University of Southampton.”

Lewis travels more than 300 miles each week reaching out to these smaller communities.

From Campus to Community

Describing how his relationship with the Southampton community evolved, Lewis explained that initially, he was making the hour-and-a-half trip there only for Jewish holidays and other special events, when a post-graduate student at the university asked him to give a weekly Torah class. Lewis responded that if even one Jew showed up, he would make the trip.

“We had a few people each week, and then, one of the first weeks, nobody showed up!”

Still, the class continued, and Lewis’ ties with the community strengthened. In addition to his weekly trip, the rabbi, his wife and their six children spend a Shabbat during each university semester in Southampton, staying at the home of the Southampton Hebrew Congregation’s secretary, university math professor Tim Sluckin.

When Southampton was left without a chazzan for the High Holy Days of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, Lewis connected his brother-in-law and sister—Rabbi Dov Katzel, an ordained rabbi who works as an accountant in London, and his wife, Aidel Brocha—with the community. The Katzels have joined Southampton for the High Holy Days for each of the last four years.

“I also put up a sukkah in Southampton every year, and we host a Sukkos party,” said Lewis. “Last year, a woman came up to me together with her son and asked if I might be able to give him bar mitzvah lessons.”

The woman, Sharon Rachman, and her husband, Jon Rachman, are both originally from South Africa and live with their sons, Sam, now 13, and his younger brother, Joe, in Winchester, about an hour’s drive from Southampton. Jon, having been raised with a Jewish education he found to be lacking, said at the outset that he was not overly excited by the prospect of Sam just going through the motions of a bar mitzvah. But as the year progressed—and Jon witnessed the depth and meaning of his son’s classes with Lewis—he noted that his reaction changed.

An Event to Remember

Sam prepared by taking a year of classes, most held following Lewis’ weekly lunch-and-learn at the university and some via Skype. On the big day, more than 70 family, friends and local community members filled the Southampton Hebrew Congregation, celebrating both the personal Jewish milestone of Sam’s 13th birthday and the small community’s first bar mitzvah in almost as many years.

Sam Rachman's younger brother Joe, center, helps with the mitzvah of gelilah, dressing the Torah scroll before it is returned to the ark, as their father Jon Rachman, center right, looks on.

“We set out as a family on a journey into the unknown,” said Jon Rachman. “We do not live in the midst of a Jewish community, yet the Southampton congregation treated us as if we had lived amongst them all of our lives. The congregation is too small to support a rabbi, yet we were blessed by a chance meeting with Rabbi Zalman, who took Samuel and, by extension, the rest of the family, on a journey of rediscovery and strengthening of our Jewish roots.”

At the celebration, Sam was presented with a siddur by the congregation’s president, Martyn Rose. There to witness the event were relatives who traveled all the way from Canada, Israel and South Africa

Both Lewis and the Rachmans describe the bar mitzvah as having made a significant impact on all who attended. “The celebration was marked by an amazing sense—felt and commented on by all—of community, continuity, warmth and spirituality,” said Jon, who would like Lewis to prepare his younger son for his bar mitzvah as well.

Two of the party-goers were Jon’s business partners, one a Jew and the other a non-Jew. The Jewish partner shared with Lewis that his mother had just passed away a short while earlier.

“He told me that when his mother was laying on her deathbed, he told her he would be attending a bar mitzvah,” related Lewis. “When she heard that, she opened her eyes.”

The second partner, who identifies himself as a non-Jew, told Sharon Rachman that he had some Jewish heritage in the form of one Jewish grandmother.

“I asked him which grandmother,” said the rabbi, “and he replied that it was his mother’s mother. I told him right there and then that he was a full-fledged Jew!

“All of this started with what was basically a series of coincidences,” concluded Lewis. “You never know what such small interactions can build up to.”

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Enriching Jewish Lives in Delaware—and Tossing Pizza, Too!

For some, winter is a time to hunker down and huddle at home. Not so for the Chabad emissaries in Wilmington, Del. For them, winter is busy, busy, busy—chock full of events like the ones that just took place over the last few weeks. by Faygie Levy

Not so for the Chabad emissaries in Wilmington, Del. For them, winter is busy, busy, busy—chock full of events like the ones that just took place over the last few weeks.

There was the annual “Legos & Latkes” Chanukah party, which is always sold out; a Saturday-night café and movie night; and a weekend Shabbaton. Add to that a full slate of Torah classes, Hebrew school, teen events, Sunday pizza sales and more.

If it sounds exciting—and perhaps, exhausting—then that’s music to the ears of Rabbi Chuni and Oryah Vogel, who came to the country’s first state almost three decades ago and found it severely lacking in Jewish amenities.

“People gave us six months,” Oryah Vogel recalls. “They didn’t expect us to stay longer.”

Says her husband: “I gave the Rebbe—Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of righteous memory—the report on the area, and it was not a very glowing one. The reality of Jewish life then was that there was no kosher food to be had, there was no mikvah,” and hardly anyone kept Shabbat. “I wrote that to the Rebbe, but obviously, I was willing to go.”

After the Rebbe gave the Vogels a blessing for their work as Chabad shluchim, or emissaries—provided they build a mikvah as soon as possible—the couple relocated with their baby son and began looking for Delaware’s Jews.

‘Doing a Little Bit of Everything’

Fast-forward 27 years and the Jewish community of Wilmington—not to mention Chabad of Delaware—is thriving.

“Can I say things have changed? Absolutely!” declares Rabbi Vogel. “We have a community that has developed around our facility, our Chabad center. Many families have become shomer Shabbat, and have sold their houses and moved closer to be within walking distance to the shul. There’s clearly an awareness of Yiddishkeit that one feels in the community.

“Today, when one is seen with a yarmulke, it’s no longer assumed that he’s Rabbi Vogel’s brother. Thank G‑d, there have been great strides.”

But keeping up with the changes and providing programming for Jews of all ages throughout the state can be challenging for just two people. In addition to the Chabad Center in Wilmington, the Vogels run occasional summer programs in Bethany Beach, a popular tourist resort. Many years ago, they oversaw activities at the University of Delaware in Newark; today, the Chabad Center for Jewish Life at the University of Delaware is run by Rabbi Eliezer and Roni Sara Sneiderman.

According to the American Jewish Year Book, some 15,000 Jews live in Delaware. Overall, the U.S. Census Bureau estimates the population of Delaware at nearly 920,000 people.

“When you are the only shaliach in town, you do a little bit of everything,” says Vogel. “You really are not able to give full focus to anything. Then comes a point when you realize that you can use extra help; that the focus can be much sharper when you have” someone of a different generation.

So when Rabbi Motti and Rochel Flikshtein, a newly married couple, mentioned that they were interested in serving as Chabad emissaries, the Vogels figured it might be a good fit, especially given that Rochel is from Wilmington, and had herself become more religious because of her interactions with the Vogels.

“The Vogels are amazing,” says Rabbi Flikshtein, who was raised as a non-observant Jew by his Russian immigrant parents before he began his path to Chabad and the rabbinate. “And they have the whole state on their shoulders, so we thought maybe we could divide and conquer. … Maybe help build the community [even more] and bring in younger people.”

As Mrs. Vogel recounts, before they announced that the Flikshteins would be joining Chabad of Delaware nearly four years ago, the two rabbis and Rochel Flikshtein went to the Ohel, the resting place of the sixth and seventh Lubavitcher Rebbes—Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneerson and his son-in-law, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson—to pray and ask for success with their endeavor. While there, her husband ran into Rabbi Moshe Kotlarsky, vice chairman of Merkos L’Inyonei Chinuch, the educational arm of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement. The two men greeted each other, and Kotlarsky told her husband: “You will never believe what I just found—the Rebbe’s bracha [blessing] to you when you went out 23 years ago.

“My husband was in shock,” recalls Oryah Vogel. “And says to him: ‘Rabbi Kotlarsky, do you know why we are here? To get a bracha for new shluchim we want to bring down—and it’s like we got an answer on the spot.’

“It was really amazing; we were so blessed. There’s no doubt this was so meant to be.”

‘Searching for Diamonds’

The Flikshteins serve as the Youth and Family Program directors and work to offer a host of new programming for this age group.

“Coming back to Delaware,” Rochel Flikshtein begins, “there are a lot of kids I was in preschool or elementary school with, and have a connection with. It’s fun to have them over for Shabbos.”

One popular program she runs is a monthly family challah bake, where mothers and their children make challah together for Shabbat. An annual “Mega Challah Bake,” now in its fourth year, will be held on Jan. 12 at the Siegel JCC in Wilmington, and is co-hosted by other Jewish organizations and synagogues in Delaware. More than 130 women and girls are expected to attend.

“There are plenty of young families who are unaffiliated, and it’s just a matter of digging them up. That’s our goal,” says Rabbi Flikshtein. “One of the nicknames of Delaware is the diamond state, and we like to say we are searching for diamonds. There are so many young diamonds who don’t even know it. We are here to find them and tell them why they are so valuable.”

Young families mean kids, and that has led to the creation of JKidz, a weekly Hebrew school. The two-year-old school is housed in lower level of the Chabad Center, which was recently renovated to accommodate classrooms. Ten children comprised the first class; enrollment has more than doubled this year.

Offerings for teenagers are also being expanded. Every other week, they gather for CTeen, an international program that includes a social-action and learning component.

“It’s phenomenally successful,” says Rabbi Vogel. “Every session, we have new kids coming on board.”

For Rabbi Flikshtein, working with teens allows an old passion comes in handy. “I used to be a big-time rapper before I became frum. I was into hip-hop and rap; I performed and had an album,” he says, declining to reveal his old musical moniker. “But after I became observant, I stopped rapping for a while.”

At the urging of his rabbi, who told Flikshtein to use his musical talents for the positive, the rapping rabbi has a new stage name—“Mor-to-Life”—as well as a new album, Coming Home. “When I meet young kids, I will give them an album and kids can connect to that. The kids say, ‘Oh, this guy is so cool and not judging me.’ ”

The opening of the Hebrew school has led to another program: “Heavenly Pizza.” With no kosher food outlets in the state—the only kosher eatery closed up several years ago—the sale of kosher pizza every Sunday afternoon provides some people with a meal they don’t have to cook. Proceeds go to the JKidz’s tuition fund.

“We have a [number] of kids whose families can’t afford to pay but want to learn,” says Oryah Vogel, “so they come, and we have to offset the costs. The pizza sales help us do that.”

“Most of the people who come for pizza are not parents of the school,” says Rabbi Flikshtein, adding that they even have some non-Jews who stop in for a slice.

But it was only Rabbi Vogel’s foresight that made the pizza option possible.

“When we completed our building in 2007, I included a pizza oven in the kitchen because I had a vision of providing kosher food in a community where it is nonexistent. You can’t get kosher pizza in Delaware, so I thought we’d have the oven, and eventually, we’ll have the pizza.”

Making and serving it “brings families in, and educates children and adults” about kosher food,” he says. “It also builds a certain awareness that if you want cooked pizza, go for kosher pizza. It’s an educational process, and it provides a service to the community.”

Characterized by Growth

The growth in Chabad comes as the city of Wilmington—home to Vice President Joe Biden when he’s not in Washington, D.C.—has been revitalizing and redeveloping miles of land along the city’s riverfront. Long-empty warehouses have been converted into storefronts; restaurants and parks have been built; and companies are choosing to open offices in the once-dilapidated area.

“Wilmington has had its challenges,” acknowledges Rabbi Vogel. “When I first came here, the commerce of the City of Wilmington was dominated by pharmaceutical and chemical companies. … They employed a significant percentage of the workforce. It was a stable economy that attracted professionals of a high caliber.”

In the early 1990s, the financial sector grew with the establishment of major banks in the city. “But about 10 to 12 years later, things started to change,” the rabbi recalls.

The big chemical companies downsized. The economy took a downturn.

“It used to be, for a long time, a transient community,” says Oryah Vogel. “Because of the businesses, people used to come here for a couple of years and then leave. It’s more stable now.”

And with a stable population, the sky’s the limit for what Chabad of Delaware can accomplish.

Says Rabbi Vogel: “We have the core elements of a viable community that supports Jewish life. We have a beautiful center where people can connect with daily classes, a Hebrew school, holiday programs—all these are opportunities.

“All will, please G‑d, grow, and people will take more advantage of them and grow more,” the shaliach says. “We have programs most nights and some people will, after morning prayers, sit and learn for a bit before going off to work. I would love to see that expand.”

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Campus Rabbis Deliver Soup for Students, Edibles for Exams

It’s cold. It’s been snowing off and on for the past week. Flu season has started. Right about now, wouldn’t some hot soup sound really good? Campus rabbis deliver the goods to students, whether cramming for finals or just in need of some piping hot signs of care. by Carin M. Smilk, Chabad.edu

It’s cold. It’s been snowing off and on for the past week. Flu season has started. Right about now, wouldn’t some hot soup sound really good?

Rabbi Shaul Wertheimer thinks so. That’s why he and his wife, Tzipah, co-directors of Chabad on Campus at Queens College in New York, run a program where they deliver free homemade chicken soup to students on campus. Of late, they include a matzah ball in it, too.

“They love it!” says the rabbi of the students receiving the soup when they are under the weather, or studying and need a boost. “I’ll deliver it around Queens, or they can come and get it.”

At least 4,000 Jewish students attend Queens College, according to Wertheimer, and most of them live at home; it’s a commuter campus. Being New York City, it’s not as if kosher food is hard to find; still, there’s something about the idea of this that makes it quite appealing.

“It feels good. It’s so personal. It’s so Chabad to do such a thing,” says the rabbi. “It says: ‘We’re on the ground, we’re right here—we’re always here.’ ”

The project started a couple of years ago, and Wertheimer is the first to acknowledge that the idea was not original; other Chabad campus rabbis deliver food to students for all kinds of reasons. But he thinks he was the first to really brand and market it.

Two years ago, he posted “TXT4SOUP” on Facebook after finding himself with a surplus of chicken soup after a Shabbat meal. He placed the soup in plastic containers he got from a local deli and froze them, then announced online that if students wanted soup, they should text him and he’ll be there.

It garnered a decent response. But last year, a designer created a postcard with the logo “TXT4SOUP,” and the rabbi handed them out on campus and at the Chabad House. “That made an enormous difference,” says Wertheimer. “Students loved the graphic; they took pictures of it and posted it on Facebook, and word spread that way.”

Yoni Skurowitz, for example, posted “Sick in bed. Can anyone bring me chicken soup” on his Facebook page last February, and sure enough, Shayna Sara Rosenblatt responded with: “Chabad of Queens” and gave him the texting info. “They’ll bring me soup?” he replied. “Yup!! Rabbi & Tzipah are the best!” she answered. The next posting was from Tzipah, asking where to deliver the soup, and that it will be there in five minutes. To which Skurowitz declared: “Thank you so much … you guys are awesome!”

“You don’t have to be sick,” adds the rabbi. “It’s not limited to that. It can be a pick-me-up,” he says of the generously sized single serving.

The father of four says he once delivered soup to the AEPi fraternity house and brought his 5-year-old son with him, who held it in the car on the way over. Both he and his wife take turns making it; the project has become something of a family affair.

And what happens after the students return next semester and start flocking to him in droves?

“That should be my biggest problem,” he quips.

‘Keep Calm and Study On’

Across the continent in British Columbia, Canada, Rabbi Chalom Loeub handed out care packages this month for students taking finals. In them were a granola bar, a homemade muffin, a can of soda and a sign that read: “Keep Calm and Study On.” He put together 18 and gave out all but three.

“It was very positively accepted; people loved it. They know Chabad is here for them, even in the middle of exams,” affirms Loeub.

He, too, notes that he’s among many rabbis who support students in this way. (Speaking of other rabbis, Wertheimer of Chabad of Queens College just so happens to have been born in Vancouver, and his mother attended the University of British Columbia.)

Loueb, co-director of Chabad Jewish Student Center-Vancouver with his wife, Esti, says in this case, his wife thought up the idea. “It helps you meet people,” he says, “and it shows that we’re not just trying to get you to Jewish events, but that we’re here for you in other ways.”

Audrey Abergel, a second-year student political science and international relations major at the University of British Columbia, says she got a care package a the Student Union Building a few days before an exam—a chocolate muffin, granola bar and Diet Coke.

“I thought it was incredibly sweet, and I really appreciated the gesture,” says the native of Valencia, Calif. “I love, love, love Chabad! They have been such a big and influential part of my semester. I know I always have a place to go with them and will always enjoy a wonderful time. I frequently go to their Shabbat dinners and almost every program event.”

The Louebs—with one child and one on the way—serve roughly 3,000 Jewish students at the University of British Columbia, Simon Fraser University and other local Canadian colleges.

When asked if the rabbi plans to hand-deliver similar packages in the future, he replied immediately: “Yes, we’ll do it again for spring exams.”

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Missionary Renegade

Thursday, January 2, 2014

Chabad Magazine – Thursday, 1 Tevet 5774 · 2 January 2014

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