Chabad Magazine for Wednesday, Shevat 8, 5775 · January 28, 2015

Chabad Magazine for Wednesday, Shevat 8, 5775 · January 28, 2015
Editor's Note:
Dear Friend,
I sported a light backpack and a classical guitar that summer night I first trudged up the hill to the yeshiva in Morristown. Once I decided I was staying, it didn’t take long to find other musicians and start up the first chassidic hard rock band, the Baal Shem Tov Band.
Recently, a friend reminded me of the time he caught us in a huddle just before a concert. He figured we were just reviewing our program. Coming closer, he realized it wasn’t that at all. We were studying Basi Legani, the classic final legacy work of Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak, of righteous memory, sixth rebbe of Chabad and father-in-law of the Rebbe, of righteous memory.
We were on chapter five, which discusses channeling the wildest and craziest energy of this world into the divine. Which is just what we understood we were doing.
This Friday is the 65th anniversary of the passing of Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak, and the day the Rebbe ascended to Rebbeship. So on Thursday night, I’m inviting you for an online huddle over that same chapter again. I won’t have my guitar, but It will be an interactive huddle—everyone will be able to type in a question or comment.
Partnering with JNet—the one-on-one, your-time-your-place Torah study program—we’ve produced a fresh, very readable translation, available both as a pdf booklet and on its own page. Michael Kigel, the newest member of our editorial team, discusses the theme of the chapter in his essay, “In Praise of Chassidic Folly.”
It’s a packed week. That’s the great thing about working for Chabad.org. It’s like I never left that yeshiva.
Tzvi Freeman
on behalf of the Chabad.org Editorial Team

Be Quiet

There are questions to which G-d says to be quiet, to be still, to cease to ask.

The quietness, the stillness, the abandonment of being, that itself is an answer.[Tetzeh 5725:4]

This Week's Features

The Seventh Generation: A Leader of Leaders
An overview of the events and significance of 10 Shevat
By Eli Rubin
1950-1951

Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak, the sixth rebbe of Chabad-Lubavitch, passed away on the 10th of Shevat, January 28th, 1950. The devastation experienced by his chassidim was starkly depicted in a drawing by the chassidic artist Hendel Lieberman: A desolate wilderness is scattered with bare, twisted trees. Chassidim sit on the ground, faces contorted in anguish and hands held aloft in grief. In the lofty firmament of the sky the sharp eyed visage of the departed Rebbe looms.

Initially the loss was too raw to come to terms with. But there were a few who did have the presence of mind to think of the movement’s future.1 First among them was Rabbi Yitzchak Dubov, a senior chassid who had first encountered Rabbi Menachem Mendel in Riga. Just three days after the Previous Rebbe’s passing, Dubov approached R. Menachem Mendel, urging him to accept the mantle of leadership.

R. Menachem Mendel responded by invoking a mystical principle articulated by Chabad’s founder, Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi, “the life of a tzaddik is not a life of flesh, but rather spiritual life – faith, fear and love [of G‑d]…”2 Accordingly, R. Menachem Mendel exclaimed, despite physically passing on, “the Rebbe yet lives.” This was a theme he would keep returning to over the coming months. But Dubov persisted. The spiritual lives of the previous five rebbes, he pointed out, had not ended The spiritual lives of the previous five rebbes had not ended with their passing, yet successors still emerged.with their passing, yet successors still emerged.3

It soon became clear that the great majority of chassidim were looking to Rabbi Menachem Mendel for leadership.4 But throughout the next year he steadfastly refused to acknowledge his candidacy. Two factors contributed to his unwillingness. 1) His personal reserve and practiced evasion of attention. 2) His sensitivity towards his older brother-in-law, Rabbi Shmaryahu Gurary, who, precisely due to R. Menachem Mendel’s general reticence, initially considered himself the more likely candidate.5

But the leading chassidim knew that Chabad’s future depended on visionary leadership. This was not a figurehead position that could be filled by default. Ultimately, R. Menachem Mendel’s uncontrived piety and authoritative erudition, combined with his breadth of mind and disciplined efficiency, would decide the course of history. His personal reluctance was only cause for greater esteem.6

As the first anniversary of R. Yosef Yitzchak’s passing approached, the campaign to crown R. Menachem Mendel as rebbe reached a crescendo. Leaders of the Chabad community in the Holy Land had already held two public gatherings declaring their allegiance to him.7 In New York their counterparts announced that they would formally accept his leadership on the 10th of Shevat, January 17th, 1951. R. Menachem Mendel initially intended to publish a denial, but was persuaded that he could not deny the facts: Whether he liked it or not, the chassidim considered him their leader.8

On the 10th of Shevat chassidim gathered from across North America to present R. Menachem Mendel with a communal “writ of adherence” (ktav hitkasharut), expressing their desire to bind themselves to him as chassidim to their rebbe.9

R. Menachem Mendel spent most of the day praying at the graveside of his father-in-law. There he read the “writ of adherence” and wept with emotion.10 When he returned, several hundred people had packed the synagogue, following him with their eyes as he took the seat prepared for him. He spoke first of the continuing influence of R. Yosef Yitzchak and, citing American custom, made an inaugural “statement” proclaiming that love of G‑d, love of the Torah and love of the Jewish people “are essentially one.”11

After about an hour, Rabbi Avrohom Sender Nemtzov, an elderly chassid living in London, stood up, and said in a voice that everyone could hear, “Talks are good, "Make no mistake! No one is relieving you of your missions… no one is relieving you of any work.” but the assemblage requests a chassidic discourse…”12

There was silence. An original chassidic discourse could only be imparted by the Rebbe. Then R. Menachem Mendel began to speak: “In the chassidic discourse published for the day of the [previous Rebbe’s] passing, the Rebbe begins with the verse, ‘I have come to my garden…’” Here the Rebbe paused for several seconds, then began again in the traditional sing-song in which such a discourse is delivered.13

In this first discourse the Rebbe spoke in a deeply personal way, at once invoking mystical themes, fighting back sobs, and articulating a very practical vision of the mission facing Chabad’s seventh generation. “Upon us rests the mission to draw from the loftiest heaven below… When you come to a place where they don’t know of G‑dliness, they don’t know of Judaism... you put yourself totally aside… and make sure that those who until now knew of nothing should go into the streets and shout… that G‑d and the world are one.”

When he had finished he turned directly to the subject of leadership. “The leaders of Chabad always demanded that chassidim must achieve things themselves… You think you have laid the burden on me… that you can have a peaceful life… Make no mistake! No one is relieving you of your missions… no one is relieving you of any work.” From the outset the Rebbe made it clear that he expected his chassidim to be leaders too.14

FOOTNOTES

1.See Shemuot veSippurim vol. 3, pages 135-146. Yoman Mi-michtavim, page 1.

2.Tanya, Igeret HaKodesh, ‘Explanation’ to Epistle 27.

3.See Dubov’s account as published in Kfar Chabad Magazine, Issue #176. See also Yemei Bereishit, page 84.

4.See sources cited in Rapoport, The Afterlife of Scholarship, pages 159-169. Two important sources providing detailed insight into the events of this period are Yemei Bereishit (Kehot Publication Society, Brooklyn 1993) and a series of letters written at the time by Rabbi Yoel Kahn to his father, collected and published as Yoman Mimichtavim (Buenos Aires, 1998).

5.Ibid., pages 153-154, and 170-173.

6.See the letter of Rabbi Shmuel Zalmanov, Yemei Bereishit, page 173. Kahan, Yoman Mimichtavim, pages 2-6.

7.See Levin, Introduction to Igrot Kodesh Vol. 3, page 22. Yemei Bereishit, page 202 and 338.

8.See Yemei Bereishit pages 348, and 350-351.

9.Yemei Bereishit, page 376-377.

10.Ibid., and Yoman Mimichtavim, page 11.

11.Torat Menachem Hitva’aduyot 5711 Vol. 2 (Kehot Publication Society: New York, 1992) page 210-211. A recording of this talk is available here .

12.Yemei Bereishit, page 381.

13.A recording of this inaugural discourse is avialable here .

14.A recording of these remarks is available here .

PARSHAH

Who Were the First Ones to See G-d?
Growing a family is no easy feat, and for the Jewish women in Egypt, it was especially difficult.
By Rochel Holzkenner

Growing a family is no easy feat, and for the Jewish women in Egypt, it was especially difficult. For one, they had to persuade their husbands to be on board. The menGrowing a family is no easy feat were putting in very long days of arduous labor, and when they finally made it back home, they were beat. The Talmud describes the unusual tactics that the women used to seduce their husbands:

They then set two pots on the fire, one for hot water and the other for the fish, which they carried to their husbands in the field, and washed, anointed, fed, gave them to drink and had intercourse with them among the low lands in the fields, as it is said: “When you lie among the low lands in the fields.”12

Even after they were successful in conceiving a child, there were other obstacles ahead of them. Pharaoh had ordered that all Jewish male infants be killed. Egyptian officers would keep an eye out for women who were pregnant. When they learned that she delivered the baby, they checked the gender, and if male, they forcefully snatched away the newborn. So, many women stayed under the radar once they conceived. The Talmud describes it as follows:

After the women had conceived, they returned to their homes, and when the time of childbirth arrived, they went and were delivered in the field beneath the apple tree, as it is said: “Under the apple tree I caused thee to come forth [from thy mother's womb], etc.” G‑d sent down someone from the high heavens, who washed and straightened the limbs [of the babes] in the same manner that a midwife straightens the limbs of a child . . . He also provided for them two cakes, one of oil and one of honey, as it is said: “And He made him to suck honey out of the rock, and oil, etc.”3

These kids didn’t grow up with regular family dinners and Sunday bike rides. These babies were on Pharaoh's wanted list. They were raised in the fields, supervised by mothers and relatives who visited daily. It was these children who grew to be the next generation of Jews, the ones who escaped Egypt, crossed the Reed Sea, and stood by Mt. Sinai to receive the Torah. These kids were accustomed to miracles, beginning with the heavenly midwife who washed them up and the two cakes G‑d sent that sustained them. They couldn’t help but see how much G‑d showed up in their lives, how tender His loving care could be.

Kids have a natural affinity towards seeing G‑d’s hand in nature. Recently, my children and I walked out to Collins Avenue, just as a line of cars with menorahs attached to their roofs paraded by, protected by patrol cars on either end. “What divine providence!” said my daughter earnestly. “If we would have left a bit earlier or a bit later, we would have missed seeing this.” She is sensitive to G‑d’s loving care. She notices the divine hand beneath the glove of coincidence.

Even before my kids could speak, I’d speak to them about G‑d. “Hashem (G‑d) gave Mommy a gift when you were born.” “Hashem is so proud of you for being nice to your friend.” “Look at that, Hashem opened up a parking spot for us so close to the entrance.” Some people accuse me of brainwashing them with religious rhetoric, but I look at it differently. I’m showing them the energy that’s beneath the veneer of nature. I want them to learn about it early on because it will impact their attitudes and make them resilient. I want them to start noticing that G‑d is stitching together the tapestry of their life.

When the sea split and the Jews walked through, the Torah describes the song the people sang to express their gratitude, “Az Yashir.” One verse of the song reads, “This is my G‑d and I will praise Him.” The words “my G‑d” imply that G‑d had been previously seen, and now they were recognizing Him again.4 The Talmud says that this sentiment of recognition was proclaimed by the kids! “That’s my G‑d!” they said. “I recognize Him. He’s done miracles in the past and He’s doing them again.” While the adults may have stood there on the bank, paralyzed with shock as the sea cleared a pathway for them to cross through, the kids took it in stride and called out, “This is my G‑d! He’s helping us again.”

The Rebbe infers from the Talmud that the children caused the sea to split. G‑d wanted to reward the children for recognizing Him, so he opened up a passageway right there in the middle of the sea. Everyone passed through, but it was the kids who inspired the miracle.

That sea was in the wrong place for the Jews on the run.It was the kids who inspired the miracle With Pharaoh on their tail, the Jews needed to keep on moving, not halt in despair. And then, ironically, that body of water that was so problematic became a wall of water, suspended vertically until the Jews passed through safely. The obstacle that threatened to bring inevitable doom became the doorway for their success. And it was inspired by the children.

When children can see G‑d in their lives, they become more resilient. When life sends them obstacles, resilient kids are less likely to buckle under the pressure. “Hey—if G‑d showed up in my life elsewhere, He’s probably here too, in this challenge. And if He’s the one presenting this challenge, then there has to be a growth opportunity here, too.”

The more that kids can see G‑d in their lives, the more they will feel more comfortable being Jewish, even when their Jewishness is not particularly appreciated. They will care more about what G‑d thinks about them than about what others think of them. With enough faith and perseverance, any obstacles in their path will become protective walls that invite them to move forward.

(Based on Likutei Sichot, vol. 2, pg 523.)

FOOTNOTES

1.Psalms 68:14.

2.Tractate Sotah 11:2.

3.Ibid.

4.Rashi on Sotah 11b.

More in Parshah:

• The Bones of Joseph (By Yossy Goldman)

They say adapt or die. But must we jettison the old to embrace the new? Is the choice limited to modern or antiquated, or can one be a contemporary traditionalist? Do the past and present ever co-exist?

At the beginning of this week's Parshah we read that Moses himself was occupied with a special mission as the Jews were leaving Egypt. Moses took the bones of Joseph with him.1 Over a hundred years before the great Exodus, Joseph made the Children of Israel swear that they would take him along when they would eventually leave Egypt. As viceroy of Egypt, Joseph could not hope to be buried in Israel when he died, as his father Jacob was. The Egyptians would never tolerate their political leader being buried in a foreign land. But he did make his brethren give him their solemn undertaking that when the time would come and all the Israelites would depart they would take his remains along with them.

And so it was that while everyone else was busy packing up, loading their donkeys, and getting ready for the Great Trek into the Wilderness, Moses himself was busy with this mission, fulfilling the sacred promise made to Joseph generations ago.

Now Joseph was not the only one to be re-interred in the holy land. His brothers, too, were accorded the very same honor and last respects. Yet, it is only Joseph whom the Torah finds it necessary to mention explicitly. Why?

The answer is that Joseph was unique. While his brothers were simple shepherds tending to their flocks, Joseph was running the affairs of state of the mightiest superpower of the day. To be a practicing Jew while blissfully strolling through the meadows is not that complicated. Alone in the fields, communing with nature, and away from the hustle and bustle of city life, one can more easily be a man of faith. But to run a massive government infrastructure as the most high-profile statesman in the land and still remain faithful to one's traditions -- this is not only a novelty, this is absolute inspiration.

Thrust as he was from the simple life of a young shepherd boy into the hub of the nation's capital to juggle the roles of viceroy and Jew, Joseph represented tradition amidst transition. It was possible, he taught the world, to be a contemporary traditionalist. One could successfully straddle both worlds.

Now that they were about to leave Egypt, the Jews were facing a new world order. Gone were slavery and oppression, and in their place were freedom and liberty. During this time of transition, only Joseph could be their role model. They would need his example to show them the way forward into uncharted territory, the new frontier.

That is why the Torah mentions only Joseph as the one whose remains went along with the people. They needed to take Joseph with them so that, like him, they too would make their own transition successfully.

Ever since leaving Egypt, we've been wandering. And every move has brought with it its own challenges. Whether from Poland to America or Lithuania to South Africa, every transition has come with culture shocks to our spiritual psyche. How do you make a living and still keep the Shabbat you kept in theshtetl when the factory boss says "Cohen, if you don't come in on Saturday, don't bother coming in on Monday either!" It was a test of faith that wasn't at all easy. Many succumbed. But many others stood fast and survived, even flourished. It was the test of transition -- and those who modeled themselves on Joseph were able to make the transition while remaining committed to tradition.

Democracy and a human-rights culture have made that part of Jewish life somewhat easier, but challenges still abound. In all our own transitions today, may we continue to learn from Joseph.

FOOTNOTES
1.	Exodus 13:19.

• Learn the Parshah In Depth
Exodus 13:17-17:16
Parshah Summary

The Jews are out of Egypt, but their redemption is not yet complete. Pharaoh and his armies still pose a tangible threat to their freedom; more subtle is the slave mentality that still gnaws at their souls. In Beshalach, the process of their liberation from Egypt continues, as the children of Israel battle external and internal threats to their freedom and advance toward the raison d'etre of the Exodus -- to receive the Torah at Mount Sinai.

It came to pass when Pharaoh had let the people go, that G-d led them not through the way of the land of the Philistines, because it was near; for G-d said: Lest the people repent when they see war, and they return to Egypt.

Instead, G-d leads them along a more roundabout route, which takes them through "the desert by the Sea of Reeds" (Red Sea).

Moses takes along Joseph's bones for burial in the Holy Land, in fulfillment of the oath made by the Children of Israel at the beginning of their Egyptian exile.

And G-d went before them by day in a pillar of a cloud, to lead them the way; and by night in a pillar of fire, to give them light...

Soon, however, their newly-gained freedom is under attack.

It was told the king of Egypt that the people had fled. The heart of Pharaoh and of his servants was turned against the people, and they said: "Why have we done this, that we have let Israel go from serving us?" ...

G-d hardened the heart of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and he pursued after the children of Israel... all the horses and chariots of Pharaoh, and his horsemen, and his army; and they overtook them encamping by the sea...

Even more devastating is the Israelites' reaction:

Pharaoh drew near. The children of Israel lifted up their eyes, and, behold, Egypt marched after them. They were very much afraid; and the children of Israel cried out to G-d.

They said to Moses: "Are there no graves in Egypt, that you have taken us away to die in the wilderness? Why have you done this to us, to carry us out of Egypt?

"Is not this the word that we did tell you in Egypt, saying: Let us alone, that we may serve Egypt? For it would have been better for us to serve Egypt, than to die in the wilderness."

Moses says to the people:

"Fear not; stand by and see the salvation of G-d, which He will show you today. For as you have seen Egypt this day, you shall not see them again any more forever.

"G-d shall fight for you, and you shall be silent."

The Sea Splits

G-d said to Moses: "Why do you cry out to Me? Speak to the children of Israel, that they go forward.

"And you, lift up your rod, and stretch out your hand over the sea, and divide it; and the children of Israel shall go on dry ground through the midst of the sea."

As the children of Israel march forward, the divine cloud which had been leading them moves to their rear, interposing between them and the Egyptians. "There was the cloud and darkness, and it illuminated the night; and these did not come near these all night."

All night, "a mighty east wind" blows over the sea; at dawn, its waters split in two.

The children of Israel went into the midst of the sea on the dry ground; and the waters were a wall to them on their right hand and on their left.

The Egyptians give chase, following the Israelites into the divided sea. G-d commands Moses to again raise his hand over the sea,

And the sea returned to its strength... The waters returned, and covered the chariots, and the horsemen, and all the host of Pharaoh that came into the sea after them; there remained not so much as one of them.

Upon beholding the great miracle, "The people feared G-d, and they believed in G-d and in Moses His servant."

The Song at the Sea

Then sang Moses and the children of Israel this song to G-d, and spoke, saying:

I will sing to G-d, for He has triumphed gloriously 

The horse and his rider has He thrown into the sea 

G-d is my strength and song, He is become my salvation 

This is my G-d, and I will praise him 

My father's G-d, and I will exalt him 

G-d is the Master of war; G-d is his name...

With the blast of Your nostrils the waters were piled up 

The floods stood upright like a heap 

The depths were congealed in the heart of the sea...

Who is like You among the mighty, O G-d 

Who is like You, glorious in holiness 

Awesome in praises, doing wonders ...

Nations heard and shuddered 

Terror seized the inhabitants of Philistia 

Then panicked the chiefs of Edom 

The mighty men of Moab, trembling took hold of them 

All the inhabitants of Canaan melted away 

Fear and dread shall fall upon them 

By the greatness of Your arm they shall be as still as a stone 

Till your people pass over, O G-d 

Till they pass over, this people whom You have acquired

Bring them, and plant them in the mountain of Your inheritance 

In the seat of Your dwelling, O G-d, which You have made 

In the sanctuary, O G-d, which Your hands have established

G-d shall reign for ever and ever!

Also the women sang:

Miriam the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took a timbrel in her hand; and all the women went out after her with timbrels and with dances.

And Miriam called to them: "Sing to G-d, for He has triumphed gloriously; the horse and his rider has He thrown into the sea."

In Marah

Moses takes the Children of Israel from the shores of the Red Sea to the Wilderness of Shur, where they travel for three days without finding water. They then arrive in Marah, but "they could not drink of the waters of Marah, for they were bitter."

"What shall we drink?" complain the people. G-d shows Moses a certain tree to throw into the water, and the water becomes sweet.

In Marah, the Children of Israel are given "statutes and laws." They also receive the divine promise: "If you will diligently hearken to the voice of G-d... all the diseases which I have brought upon Egypt, I shall not bring upon you, for I am G-d your healer."

Bread from Heaven

At Eilim, they find "twelve springs of water and seventy date palms"; but in the Sin Desert they lack for food. Again, the people complain, crying to Moses and Aaron:

"Would we had died by the hand of G-d in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the flesh pots, and when we ate our fill of bread; for you have brought us out into this wilderness, to kill this whole community with hunger."

G-d says to Moses:

"I have heard the murmurings of the children of Israel. Speak to them, saying: At evening you shall eat meat, and in the morning you shall be sated with bread; and you shall know that I am G-d."

Each morning, "I shall rain down bread from the heavens... each day's allotment on its day." Meat will be provided in the form of quails which will come up about the Israelite camp each evening.

In the morning the dew lay round about the camp. And when the layer of dew was gone up, behold, upon the face of the wilderness there lay a fine flaky substance, as fine as the hoar frost on the ground.

When the children of Israel saw it, they said one to another, "Man hu?" ("What is it?"); for they knew not what it was. And Moses said to them: "This is the bread which G-d has given you to eat."

G-d explains that the manna will be supplied each morning to provide food for that day; it is forbidden to save one day's manna for the next. Indeed, no matter how much manna the people gather, they each end up with exactly one day's ration of an omer for each member of their household.

There are those who nevertheless try to set aside some of the heavenly food for the next day; the left-over manna "bred worms and spoiled."

But on the sixth day, each ends up with a double portion. Moses says to the people:

"This is what G-d has spoken: Tomorrow is the resting of the holy Sabbath to G-d. Bake that which you will bake today, and what you will cook, cook today; that which remains over, lay up for you to be kept until the morning... [On the seventh day] you will not find it in the field."

Again, some Jews disobey and go looking for manna on the seventh day. They find nothing. "How long will you refuse to keep my commandments and my instructions?" says G-d to Moses. "G-d has given you the Sabbath... remain every man in his place; let no man go out of his place on the seventh day."

G-d instructs Moses to take a jar and "fill an omer of [manna] to be kept for your generations; that they may see the bread with which I fed you in the wilderness, when I brought you out from the land of Egypt."

Doubt

The Children of Israel travel on to Rephidim, where there's no water. "The people strove with Moses, and said: 'Give us water to drink.'"

"What shall I do with this people!" cries Moses to G-d. "Just a while longer, and they will stone me!"

"Pass before the people," says G-d to Moses, "and take with you of the elders of Israel; and your rod, with which you smote the river [Nile], take in your hand, and go.

"Behold, I will stand before you there upon the rock in Horeb; and you shall smite the rock, and there shall come water out of it, that the people may drink."

Moses did so in the sight of the elders of Israel.

He called the name of the place Massah U'Merivah ("Test and Strife"), because of the strife of the children of Israel, and because they tested G-d, saying: "Is G-d among us,or not?"

War

Then came Amalek, and waged war with Israel in Rephidim.

Moses said to Joshua: "Choose us out men, and go out, fight with Amalek; tomorrow I will stand on the top of the hill, with the rod of G-d in my hand."

Joshua goes out to battle, while Moses ascends a hilltop with Aaron and Hur (Miriam's son).

And it came to pass, when Moses held up his hand, that Israel prevailed: and when he let down his hand, Amalek prevailed.

But Moses' hands were heavy; and they took a stone, and put it under him, and he sat on it. Aaron and Hur supported his hands, the one on the one side, and the other on the other side; and his hands were steady until the going down of the sun.

So Joshua weakened Amalek and his people with the edge of the sword.

G-d said to Moses: "Write this for a memorial in a book, and rehearse it in the ears of Joshua: that I will utterly blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under the heaven."

"G-d has sworn by His throne," proclaims Moses: "G-d is at war with Amalek for all generations."

From Our Sages

G-d led them not through the way of the land of the Philistines (13:17)

The tribe of Ephraim had erred and departed from Egypt 30 years before the destined time, with the result that three hundred thousand of them were slain by the Philistines... and their bones lay in heaps on the road... G-d therefore said: If Israel behold the bones of the sons of Ephraim strewn in the road, they will return to Egypt...

Thus the verse says, v'lo nacham Elokim ("G-d did not lead them," which can also be translated as "G-d was not comforted"). This is comparable to a king whose sons were carried off as captives, and some of them died in captivity. The king afterwards came and saved those that were left. While he rejoiced over those that survived, he was never comforted for those that had died.

(Midrash Rabbah)

G-d led the people about, by way of the desert (13:18)

This is comparable to a king who had a son to whom he wished to bequeath an inheritance, but he argued: "If I give it to him now that he is small, he will not know how to take care of it. I will therefore wait until my son studies the writings and comprehends the value [of the property], then I will bequeath it unto him." This is what G-d said: I shall first give them the Torah, and then bring them into the Land.

(Midrash Rabbah)

G-d said: If I bring Israel into the land now, each will immediately take possession of his field or vineyard, and they will neglect the Torah. Rather, I shall take them round the desert for forty years, so that they should eat manna and drink the water of [Miriam's miracle] well, and the Torah will be absorbed in their bodies. Thus Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai would say: The Torah was given to be expounded only to the eaters of manna.

(Mechilta)

And the children of Israel went out chamushim from the land of Egypt (13:18)

Chamushim means "armed"... Another interpretation: one in five (chamesh) among the children of Israel came out of Egypt; four-fifths died during the three days of darkness [because they did not want to leave Egypt].

(Rashi)

Rabbi Joshua interpreted it thus: fivefold they came out of Egypt, for five times their number in converts were gathered into the people of Israel upon their departure from Egypt.

(Midrash Tanchuma)

Moses took the bones of Joseph with him. For he had laid an oath on the children of Israel, saying, "G-d will surely remember you; and you shall carry up my bones away from here with you." (13:19)

How did Moses know the place where Joseph was buried? Serach the daughter of Asher remained of that generation. Moses went to her and asked: "Do you know where Joseph was buried?" She answered him: "The Egyptians made an iron coffin for him, which they sunk in the Nile so that its waters should be blessed."

Moses went and stood on the bank of the Nile and called out: "Joseph! Joseph! The time has arrived regarding which G-d swore, 'I will deliver you,' and the oath which you imposed upon the Israelites has reached the time of fulfillment. If you show yourself, well and good; otherwise, behold, we are absolved of your oath." Immediately Joseph's coffin floated on the surface of the water...

Rabbi Nathan says: He was buried in the sepulchre of the kings. Moses went and stood by the sepulchre of the kings and exclaimed, "Joseph! The time has arrived regarding which G-d swore, 'I will deliver you,' and the oath which you imposed upon the Israelites has reached the time of fulfillment. If you show yourself, well and good; otherwise, behold, we are absolved of your oath." At that moment, Joseph's coffin trembled, and Moses took it and carried it with him.

(Talmud, Sotah 13a)

G-d said to Moses: "Why do you cry out to Me? Speak to the children of Israel, that they go forward" (14:15)

As they stood at the shore of the sea, the people of Israel split into four factions.

One faction said: "Let us cast ourselves into the sea." A second faction said, "Let us return to Egypt." A third said, "Let us wage war against the Egyptians." A fourth said, "Let us cry out to G-d."

Thus Moses said to the people: "Fear not; stand by and see the salvation of G-d, which He will show you today. For as you have seen Egypt this day, you shall not see them again any more for ever. G-d shall fight for you, and you shall be silent" (14:13-14).

To those who said, "Let us cast ourselves into the sea," he said: "Fear not; stand by and see the salvation of G-d." To those who said, "Let us return to Egypt," he said: "As you have seen Egypt this day, you shall not see them again any more forever." To those who said, "Let us wage war against them," he said: "G-d shall fight for you." And to those who said, "Let us cry out to G-d," he said: "And you shall be silent."

(Mechilta)

These "four factions" represent four possible reactions to a situation in which one's divinely ordained mission in life is challenged by the prevalent reality.

One possible reaction is: "Let us cast ourselves into the sea." Let us submerge ourselves within the living waters of Torah; let us plunge into the "sea of the Talmud," the sea of piety, the sea of religious life. Let us create our own insular communities, protecting us and ours from the G-dless world out there.

At the other extreme is the reaction, "Let us return to Egypt." Let us accept "reality," recognizing that it is the Pharaohs who wield the power in the real world. We'll do whatever we can under the circumstances to do what G-d expects from us, but it is futile to imagine that we can resist, much less change, the way things are.

A third reaction is to "wage war against them" -- to assume a confrontational stance against the hostile reality, battling the "unG-dly" world despite all odds.

A fourth reaction is to say: It's wrong to abandon the world, it's wrong to succumb to it, and it's wrong to fight it. The answer lies in dealing with it on a wholly spiritual level. A single prayer can achieve more than the most secure fortress, the most flattering diplomat, or the most powerful army.

G-d rejected all four approaches. While each of them has their time and place (it's important to create inviolable sancta of holiness in a mundane world; it's also necessary to appreciate the nature of the prevalent reality and deal with it on its own terms; it's also necessary to wage an all-out war against evil; and it's always important to recognize that one cannot do it on one's own and appeal to G-d for help) -- none of them is the vision to guide our lives and define our relationship with the world we inhabit.

Rather, when the Jew is headed toward Sinai and is confronted with a hostile or indifferent world, his most basic response must be to go forward.

Not to escape reality, not to submit to it, not to wage war on it, not to deal with it only on a spiritual level, but to go forward. Do another mitzvah, ignite another soul, take one more step toward your goal.

And when you move forward, you will see that insurmountable barrier yield and that ominous threat fade away. You will see that the prevalent "reality" is not so real after all, and that you have it within your power to reach your goal. Even if you have to split some seas to get there.

(The Lubavitcher Rebbe)

"Why do you cry to Me?" (14:15)

"When Pharaoh drew near... the children of Israel cried out to G-d" (14:10). Upon which Moses also began to pray to G-d. Said G-d to Moses: "Why do you cry to Me?" My children have already prayed and I have heard their prayer.

(Midrash Rabbah)

G-d said to Moses: "Moses! My children are in dire straits, the sea is closing in on them and the enemy pursues, and you stand and pray at length? Why do you cry to Me? There are times that call for lengthy prayers, and times when one must pray briefly..."

(Mechilta; Rashi)

And it came between the camp of Egypt and the camp of Israel (14:20)

A shepherd was leading his sheep across a river when a wolf came to attack the sheep. What did the shepherd do? He took a large ram and threw it to the wolf, saying to himself, "Let him struggle with this till we cross the river, and then I will return to bring it back."

So, too, when Israel departed from Egypt, the Angel Samael (Satan) arose to accuse them, arguing before G-d: "Master of the Universe! Till now they have been worshipping idols, and now You divide the sea for them?" What did G-d do? He delivered into his hands Job, one of the counselors of Pharaoh, of whom it is written (Job 1:1), "That man was wholehearted and upright," and said: "Behold, he is in your hands" (ibid., 2:6). Said G-d: While he is busily occupied with Job, Israel will go through the sea; afterwards, I will deliver Job...

(Midrash Rabbah)

There was the cloud and darkness, and it illuminated the night (14:20)

The column, which traveled before the Israelite camp as a pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night, moved to interpose between the two camps and protect the Israelites from the Egyptians. It now was a "cloud and darkness" for the Egyptians while "illuminating the night" for the Israelites.

(Rashi)

According to the natural order of the world, can a person who lights a candle say, "So-and-so, who is my friend, may use the light, while so-and-so, who is my enemy, may not"? But G-d is not so confined... His cloud produced light for Israel and darkness for Egypt.

(Midrash Tehillim)

Moses stretched his hand over the sea (14:21)

Moses went to divide the sea as G-d had commanded, but the sea refused to comply, exclaiming: "What, before you shall I divide? Am I not greater than you? For I was created in the third day and you on the sixth." When Moses heard this, he went and reported to G-d, "The sea refuses to be divided." What did G-d do? He placed His right hand upon the right hand of Moses.

(Midrash Rabbah)

And the waters were divided (14:21)

All the water in the world divided, even the waters in cisterns and ditches, in jars, cups, casks, and bowls, as it is written, "And the waters were divided" -- it doesn't say "and the water was divided," but "and the waters were divided." The supernal waters divided, as well as the terrestrial...

(Mechilta; Rashi)

The children of Israel went into the midst of the sea on the dry ground (14:22)

Each tribe was unwilling to be the first to enter the sea. Then sprang forward Nachshon the son of Aminadav and descended first into the sea [and they all followed him]...

Why does it say, "The children of Israel went into the midst of the sea on the dry ground"? If they went into the sea, then why does it say "on the dry ground"; and if they went on the dry ground, then why does it say that they went "into the midst of the sea"? This is to teach that the sea was divided only after Israel had stepped into it and the waters had reached their noses -- only then did it become dry land.

The daughters of Israel passed through the sea holding their children with their hands; and when these cried, they would stretch out their hands and pluck an apple or a pomegranate from the sea and give it to them.

(Talmud, Sotah 37a; Midrash Rabbah)

And the sea returned to its strength (14:27)

On the third day of creation, when G-d made the dry land emerge from the waters and caused the waters to be gathered together into one place, forming from them the sea, He stipulated with the sea that it should split to allow the Israelites to pass through it on dry land and then overwhelm the Egyptians. Thus it is written, "and the sea returned to its strength (l'eitano) when the morning appeared." The word l'eitano ("to its strength"), by a transposition of letters, can be read litna'o ("to its stipulation").

(Zohar; Mechilta)

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The waters returned, and covered the chariots, and the horsemen, and all the host of Pharaoh that came into the sea after them (14:28)

The Egyptians are likened to foxes, because they were cunning... What did they say? "Come, let us deal wisely with them" (Exodus 1:10): let us deal cunningly with Israel, and plan such a persecution for them that their G-d will not be able to punish us in the same coin. For if we persecute them with the sword, He can visit us with the sword; and if with fire, He can bring fire upon us. But we know that He swore that He would no longer bring a flood on the world (Genesis 9:11); let us, therefore, persecute them with water, which He cannot bring upon us. G-d then said to them: "Wretches! True I have sworn that I will not bring a flood into the world, but I will do this to you: I will drag each one of you to his own flood." This is what David said (Psalm 63:11): "They shall be dragged to the seabed; they shall be a portion for foxes."

(Midrash Rabbah)

In that hour, the ministering angels wished to sing songs of praise before G-d, but He rebuked them, saying: "My handiwork is drowning in the sea, and you wish to sing before me?!"

(Talmud, Sanhedrin 39b)

They believed in G-d and in Moses His servant (14:31)

One who believes in Moses, believes in G-d.

(Mechilta)

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Then sang Moses and the children of Israel this song to G-d, and they spoke, saying... (15:1)

How did they render the song? Rabbi Akiva says: Moses said, "I will sing to G-d," and they responded, "I will sing to G-d"; Moses said, "For He has triumphed gloriously" and they responded, "I will sing to G-d" (and so on with each verse -- Moses would sing the verse, and they would respond with the refrain, "I will sing to G-d").

Rabbi Eliezer says: Moses said, "I will sing to G-d," and they responded, "I will sing to G-d"; Moses said, "For He has triumphed gloriously," and they responded, "For He has triumphed gloriously" (and so on -- they repeated each verse after Moses).

Rabbi Nechemiah says: Moses sang the opening words of the song, after which they each sang it on their own.

(Talmud and Rashi, Sotah 30b)

These three opinions represent three levels of leadership.

Rabbi Akiva describes an ideal in which a people completely abnegate their individuality to the collective identity embodied by the leader. Moses alone sang the nation's gratitude to G-d, their experience of redemption, and their vision of their future as G-d's people. The people had nothing further to say as individuals, other than to affirm their unanimous assent to what Moses was expressing.

At first glance, this seems the ultimate in unity: hundreds of thousands of hearts and minds yielding to a single program and vision. Rabbi Eliezer, however, argues that this is but a superficial unity -- an externally imposed unity of the moment, rather than an inner, enduring unity. When people set aside their own thoughts and feelings to accept what is dictated to them by a higher authority, they are united only in word and deed; their inner selves remain different and distinct. Such a unity is inevitably short-lived: sooner or later their intrinsic differences and counter-aims will assert themselves, and fissures will begin to appear also in their unanimous exterior. So Rabbi Eliezer interprets the Torah's description of Israel's song to say that they did not merely affirm Moses' song with a refrain, but repeated his words themselves. Each individual Jew internalized Moses' words, so that they became the expression of his own understanding and feelings. The very same words assumed hundreds of thousands of nuances of meaning, as they were absorbed by each of the minds, and articulated by each of the mouths, of the people of Israel.

Rabbi Nechemiah, however, is still not satisfied. If Israel repeated these verses after Moses, this would imply that their song did not stem from the very deepest part of themselves. For if the people were truly one with Moses and his articulation of the quintessence of Israel, why would they need to hear their song from his lips before they could sing it themselves? It was enough, says Rabbi Nechemiah, that Moses started them off with the first words of the song, so as to stimulate their deepest experience of the miracle, with the result that each of them sang the entire song on their own.

(The Lubavitcher Rebbe)

This is my G-d (15:2)

At the time the Israelites ascended from the Red Sea... the babe sat upon his mother's knee and the suckling sucked at his mother's breast; when they beheld the Divine Presence, the babe raised his neck and the suckling released the nipple from his mouth, and they exclaimed: "This is my G-d and I will praise Him" ... Even the embryos in their mothers' wombs uttered a song...

(Talmud, Sotah 30b)

A servant girl saw at the sea what Isaiah, Ezekiel, and all other prophets did not behold.

(Mechilta)

In the seat of Your dwelling, O G-d, which You have made; in the sanctuary, O G-d, which Your hands have established (15:17)

The work of the righteous is greater than the work of heaven and earth. For in regard to the creation of heaven and earth it is written (Isaiah 48:13): "My hand has laid the foundation of the earth, and My right hand has spread out the heavens" ("My hand," in the singular). But in regard to the work of the hands of the righteous it is written, "In the sanctuary, O G-d, which Your hands have established" ("Your hands," in the plural).

(Talmud, Ketubot 5a)

Miriam the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took a timbrel in her hand; and all the women went out after her with timbrels and with dances (15:20)

How did the Israelites have tambourines in the desert? But the righteous women of that generation were certain that G-d would perform miracles for them, and they prepared tambourines and dances while still in Egypt.

(Mechilta; Rashi)

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They could not drink of the waters of Marah, because they were bitter (15:23)

Because they -- the Children of Israel -- were bitter, everything they tasted was bitter to them.

(Chassidic saying)

There He made for them a statute and a law (15:25)

The Israelites were given ten precepts at Marah: the seven which had already been accepted by the children of Noah, to which were added at Marah social laws, the Sabbath, and honoring one's parents.

(Talmud, Sanhedrin 56b)

All the diseases which I have brought upon Egypt, I shall not bring upon you, for I am G-d your healer (15:26)

I shall never afflict you with the intent to merely punish, as I did the Egyptians. Rather, "I am G-d your healer" -- if I do cause you suffering, it is only to a positive end, like a doctor who may, at times, cause pain to his patient in order to heal him.

(Malbim)

They shall gather each day's allotment on its day (16:5)

Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai was asked by his disciples: Why did not the manna come down for Israel once a year?

He replied: I shall give a parable. This may be compared to a king of flesh and blood who had an only son, whom he provided with maintenance once a year, so that he would visit his father once a year only. Thereupon he provided for his maintenance every day, so that he called on him every day. The same with Israel. One who had four or five children would worry, saying: Perhaps no manna will come down tomorrow, and all will die of hunger? Thus they would turn their attention to their Father in Heaven.

(Talmud, Yoma 76a)

Fill an omer of it to he kept for your generations; that they may see the bread with which I fed you in the wilderness (16:32)

For forty years the Children of Israel were sustained by "bread from heaven," instilling in them the recognition that sustenance comes entirely from G-d; that no matter how much one toils to earn his livelihood, he receives no more, and no less, than what has been allotted him from Above.

The challenge is to retain this recognition also after entering the land and making the transition to "bread from the earth." Even when we are nourished by bread which we earn by "the sweat of our brow," we must remember that, in truth, our sustenance comes from G-d, and that we never receive an iota more or an iota less than what is allotted us from Above.

Hence the connection between the manna and the mitzvah of Shabbat. Shabbat, too, carries this lesson, serving as a weekly reminder that our sustenance comes from G-d. On the face of it, it might seem that ceasing work one day a week would lessen one's income; but the Jew knows that his earthly labor is only the channel through which G-d chooses to supply him what is essentially "bread from heaven," and that the best and most efficient conduit is one that conforms to the will of Him who supplies sustenance to all His creatures.

(The Lubavitcher Rebbe)

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...Because they tested G-d, saying: "Is G-d among us, or not?" Then came Amalek, and waged war with Israel in Rephidim (17:7-8)

After all that they had seen G-d do on their behalf -- the Ten Plagues brought upon Egypt to free them, the splitting of the sea, the "bread from heaven" that descended each morning to nourish them -- how could the people of Israel possibly question, "Is G-d amongst us or not"?

But such is the nature of doubt. There is doubt that is based on a rational query. There is doubt that rises from the doubter's subjective motives and desires. But then there is doubt pure and simple: doubt that neutralizes the most compelling evidence and the most inspiring experience with nothing more than a cynical shrug.

Amalek is the essence of doubt, of irrational challenge to truth. (Thus the Hebrew word Amalek has a numerical value of 240 -- the same as the word safek, "doubt"). Because the people of Israel had succumbed to the Amalek within their own souls, they became vulnerable to attack by Amalek the nation.

(The Chassidic Masters)

What is the incident (of Amalek) comparable to? To a boiling tub of water which no creature was able to enter. Along came one evil-doer and jumped into it. Although he was burned, he cooled it for the others.

So, too, when Israel came out of Egypt, and G-d split the sea before them and drowned the Egyptians within it, the fear of Israel fell upon all the nations. But when Amalek came and challenged them, although he received his due from them, he cooled the awe of the nations of the world for them.

(Midrash Tanchuma)

It came to pass, when Moses held up his hand, that Israel prevailed; and when he let down his hand, Amalek prevailed (17:11)

Did then the hands of Moses wage war or break war? Not so; but so long as Israel looked upwards and subjected their hearts to their Father in Heaven, they prevailed; and when they did not, they fell.

(Talmud, Rosh Hashanah 29a)

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In Praise of Chassidic Folly
Reb Shmuel Munkis was the Alter Rebbe’s jester. Unlike King Lear’s fool, he was not the wisest man in the court. But at least he was the second wisest.
By Michael Kigel

Reb Shmuel Munkis was the Alter Rebbe’s jester. Unlike King Lear’s fool, he was not the wisest man in the court. But at least he was the second wisest.

After a long farbrengen in Liozna where Chassidim stoked their souls with flammable spirits, fanned them with high-oxygen melodies, and then searched among the flames for one another and for themselves, all the while iron-branding their Rebbe’s words upon their wet hearts, they once found the jester upside-down, dangling by his feet from the gate to the Rebbe’s school. He had preempted their return. ‘What now, Reb Shmuel?’ asked the Chassidim, holding their sides from laughter. Shmuel answered, ‘Well, what else should hang here? A tailor hangs a pair of scissors above his door. A cobbler hangs a boot.’1

If Reb Shmuel Munkis was not just the Alter Rebbe’s all-licensed fool but also one of his best Chassidim—and there is certainly good reason to think he was just that—then it stands to reason that Chassidic wisdom itself is on not unfriendly terms with folly. Which would mean that there must be some kind of reasonable explanation for this folly.

There must be some kind of reasonable explanation for this folly.

And if Reb Shmuel Munkis was not just one of the Alter Rebbe’s best Chassidim but also a good Jew—and there is very good reason to think he was just that—then a reasonable explanation of his foolish prank above the gate of the Alter Rebbe’s school would have to suggest how the folly at play here must signify something about what it means to be a Jew.

Higher Than the Mind's Eye

Where is such an explanation to be looked for? According to Chassidic teaching, in a type of higher vision, a vision, to be more precise, yet higher than that of the mind’s eye.

What is the significance of such a vision? According to Chassidic teaching, it must be deciphered in the innermost identity of the one who, were he a legible sign dangling from a gate, would read something like, “Fools by Heavenly Compulsion Made Here.”

“The wisdom of the prudent is to understand his way; but the folly of fools is deceit.” (Proverbs 14:8) By a necessity so deeply entrenched in common experience and in language itself, not as a matter of truth but, on the contrary, as a necessity oozing from the sticky mendacity of the human condition itself, Chassidic teaching has found it pedagogically indispensable2 to make “folly,” shtus, the key term for referring to the positive value of becoming a fool for G‑d. The folly of the fool for G‑d is not a matter of deceit. But this world in which deception and obfuscation (h’elem) holds so much sway is still too heavily populated by the kind of fool about whom King David says, “The fool has said in his heart: There is no G‑d.” (Psalms 14:1, 53:1); and about whom King Solomon says, “The way of a fool is right in his own eyes.” (Proverbs 12:15) It is this population problem that makes it necessary to explain the positive significance of being the kind of fool who is not right in his own eyes, whose folly is right in G‑d’s eyes alone.

This explanation appears, significantly enough, in the seminal Chassidic discourse by the Previous Rebbe, Basi LeGani 5710 (1950), which the Rebbe elevated to a kind of manifesto of Chabad Chassidism upon his assumption of the Rebbeship in 1951, and to which he added upward of four dozen elaborations under the same title.3 It also appears as the guiding question of an affiliated treatise by the Rebbe Rashab, the Kuntres Umaayan (1903).

In these discourses, under the pedagogic necessity to “answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own conceit” (Proverbs 26:5), we find contrasted with a folly that is nothing but a brew of mindless conformity to the status quo, neurotic self-deception, bad faith, and bursts of irresponsible pleasure-mongering, a very different kind of folly, namely a folly of purely positive value called shtus dikdushah, “holy folly.” This kind of folly is not only praised, it is emphatically placed in the first order of business for the contemporary Jew. If there ever existed a time in which holy folly was a second-order issue, ours is not such a time, according to the Previous Rebbe. But was there ever such a time?—

If there ever existed a time in which holy folly was a second-order issue, ours is not such a time.

The discourse recalls a classic example of holy folly. It cites the talmudic account of the curious behavior displayed by another Shmuel, the talmudic sage Rabbi Shmuel bar Rav Yitzchak. At weddings, Rabbi Shmuel had the custom of dancing before the bride in a highly animated fashion while juggling sprigs of myrtle.4 “This venerable Sage is embarrassing us,” a colleague was heard saying about the Sage. Eventually, however, the colleague recanted his criticism when a wondrous pillar of fire appeared after Rabbi Shmuel’s passing to distinguish him from his peers. In other words, Heaven gave a sign that, yes, true religiosity is occasionally marked by displays of folly that are unseemly, undignified, even embarrassing, precisely un-sage-like, beyond sagacity.

Wherein lies the need on such a happy social occasion to overstep social norms and to transcend the etiquette of sagacity? As the discourse goes on to say, marriage, while it may be a “normal” phenomenon within the social dimension, is in essence a metaphysical pleat in the fabric of the cosmos which harbours the potential for the most apogeic, exquisite revelation of the Divine presence, the Shechinah, which can take place in the “cherubic” space between two human beings. For the roots extending their tendrils upward, as it were, into the supernal source of Divine benediction which send vital waters into the sap of marital bliss transcend the entire cascading chain of metaphysical causality whereby the world was created and is re-created from breath to breath.5

This potential revelation is encoded into the very etymology of the words “man” (איש) and “woman” (אשה), each of which is composed of the elemental word “fire” (אש) plus one soft consonant (י and ה respectively). When a man and a woman are fused in holy matrimony in a meritorious manner, these two soft consonants unite to form G‑d’s Holy Name.6 Rabbi Shmuel’s mystical vision7 of the Divine Name at the heart of a happy marriage and his ecstatic performance dramatizing this vision was perhaps the most encouraging, joy-infusing spectacle a bride and groom could hope for, the spectacle of the cheerful certainty of an ecstatic Sage who is evidently able to leap above the usual constraints of the spatiotemporal continuum, by virtue of his light-footed “dance,” from which elevated vantage he could see this future blessedness of theirs as a fait accompli—right there before his eyes. From this height, above time, Rabbi Shmuel could see their very house, built above time itself, “an everlasting edifice.”8

Such a vision would have to be a little prophetic. And, in fact, as the discourse goes on to point out, it belongs together with the prophetic powers that we find at work in the “crazy” behaviour of some of the biblical prophets who “cast off their clothes” in moments of divine inspiration (e.g. I Samuel 19:24). What this gesture represented is a divestment of their corporeal existence.9 After all, how could a prophet attain the necessary altitude for his far-reaching vision, his higher sight, were his eye tethered to his cumbrous natural body with its five viscous senses? To attain a supernatural view he must have an “uncovered eye”.10

Can We Believe In Reason?

And reason—what of reason? Does the Chassidic advocacy of holy folly entail an hysterical leap into the irrational? Far from it. “Make me not the reproach of fools!” (Psalms 39:8)

Now this is not the place to summarize, much less give an account, of what Western philosophers since Immanuel Kant have developed from various angles as the critique of reason. Suffice it to say that, since the sun of the Enlightenment began to set at the end of the 19th century, when the application of reason in the sciences was just beginning to pick up speed, reason in its broadest parameters has no longer been regarded as the only, or even the exemplary, means of access to the truth. As Hamlet warns his best friend: “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” This “more” embodies the critical point of the Chassidic critique of reason, namely that reason is not wrong—reason is just not enough. There is more.

Like the Maccabee resistance to the spiritual empire that Alexander built on Aristotle’s ideals,11 what the Chassidic doctrine of holy folly is suspicious of, in other words, is the hegemony of reason, reason as a totalitarian intellectual regime, wherein the Torah is submitted to a reductionism in which only the rational and sensible precepts of the Torah pass muster, and everything else must be discarded as nonsense. In this regime, by the same token, the temperature of a Jew’s passionate love for G‑d’s Torah is humbled by reason’s supercilious gaze, lowered to a cool, dispassionate, scientific, all-too-sensible approach to truth.

What the Chassidic doctrine of holy folly is suspicious of, in other words, is the hegemony of reason.

If the nostalgic reluctance to loosen the hegemony of reason, which still holds some Western academic minds enshackled, has been thrown off by the best Western philosophers of the last century, the academic training of the mind’s eye,12 the discipline that trains the mind to see with its own intellectual vision, holds it back from practising a certain self-nullification that would allow it to share, periscopically, as it were, in the vision of an eye above the mind. The latter praxis belongs to the discipline of Chassidic thought.

Practical Unreasonableness

We have noted the holy folly of Rabbi Shmuel at weddings. But the range of holy folly is wide. Thus the Rebbe Rashab gives an example that displays none of the wild exuberance of Rabbi Shmuel’s ecstatic dance but, on the contrary, embodies the painfully monotonous virtue of the busy businessman who, despite the enormous pressures placed on his time by his business affairs and the need for his play-by-play attentiveness and availability to the constantly shifting floor of his game, nevertheless obstinately sticks to his schedule of praying three times a day and studying Torah on a daily basis. The obstinacy is an old inheritance. “For they are a stiff-necked people” (Exodus 34:9). “The fact that they are stiff-necked is a virtue … namely the resoluteness that inheres in souls to turn away from evil and do good without any rationalization and without any excuses or explanations.”13 Such stubbornness too is a species of holy folly. As the more prudent business associates of such a man will say, only a fool can devote himself in such a way to an invisible God when the color of money is right there before his eyes.

—Unless this stubborn fool sees something they don’t …. But what would constitute such seeing, this “higher” seeing? Is it another type of thinking? Is that how we are to understand its “height”?

Since its presentation by Alter Rebbe, the test case, admittedly an extreme one, the most extreme, in which something of the nature of this higher seeing is revealed is the case of the martyr. The Jews who climbed into the flames of an auto-da-fé upon being solicited to betray the G‑d of their fathers, “even when they were boors and ignoramuses and did not know of the greatness of the Lord,” suffered martyrdom “simply as if it this is something that is altogether impossible, namely to forsake the one Lord.”14

As during the Maccabee resistance to the regime of totalitarian reason, this extreme folly, folly unto self-sacrifice (mesirus nefesh), “comes from the perspective of the soul’s essence being bound up with G‑d, notably the category of yechidah. For what is at stake in this essential bond is that it is altogether impossible for the soul of the Jew to be in another manner, Heaven forbid.”15 It is impossible for the soul of the Jew to do otherwise, in other words, because it is impossible for this soul to be otherwise, to be other than what it is.

Being a Jew is something that is “too much reality” for reason. It transcends reason; more, it even transcends the transcendence of reason that takes place through the critique of reason.16 It is the quintessential identity of the self which Chassidic teaching calls yechidah, the point of absolute “onlyness” where the soul is at one with G‑d.17

But this peculiar situation regarding being is bound up with the special type of seeing that takes place above reason. In the technical vernacular of professional philosophers, we would say that the ontology here is an epistemology, or:— This being is a type of seeing.18

To have some idea, at least an inkling, of what this equation means, we might imagine ourselves taking a stroll in the Garden of Eden in the course of which we chance upon Adam and we decide to challenge him to produce a rational demonstration for the existence of his beloved Eve. Imagine how hard the man would laugh.

But even such an encounter with Adam, even if we fully got the joke on us, would only illuminate that type of knowledge (daat) that belongs to perfectly indubitable and undemonstrable, which is to say, perfect, intimacy. In order to reach the still higher ontology of yecḥidah, where the soul is not just perfectly intimate with G‑d but participates in the core-essence of G‑d, we must avail ourselves of the joke of someone like the Alter Rebbe’s fool.

Shmuel Munkis swayed in the breeze under the gate of the Alter Rebbe’s yeshivah. During that era, presumably, the shoe that a cobbler would suspend from a wall-mounted bracket above his storefront was a sample of his work. Whence Reb Shmuel’s profound point seems to have been that the Alter Rebbe’s yeshivah needed to be seen as a manufactory of sorts, and that he himself wished to provide a sample of the merchandise manufactured on the premises. This prank could no longer have the same effect during a later era when hanging signs were no longer samples but were instead exaggerated replicas or just painted representations of the product.

And yet perhaps it is possible to read another significance into Shmuel Munkis’s performance which remains of enduring validity and relevance. Perhaps this holy prank was also a kind of critique of signs—of signification. Perhaps what should make us laugh today is the lesson that a Jew cannot be, strictly speaking, signified. That a definition of a Jew, strictly speaking, and not for lack of eloquence, cannot be formulated. And this simply because the soul is not an “image” of something, not even an “image of G‑d,” at least not just that. Because, beyond all imagery, the soul is a part of G‑d. A sample of G‑dliness.

Or as Reb Shmuel’s explained to his audience in response to their amused consternation: “Above a Rebbe’s door there should hang a chassid !”

FOOTNOTES

1.R. Y. Y. Schneersohn, Likutei Diburim, Vol. 4 (Brooklyn: Kehot, 1957), p. 1521f.

2.The Rebbe explains this pedagogic necessity in terms of the Maimonidean therapy (Hilkhot Deot 2:2) for straightening a bent soul (שטות דלעו״ז ושקר העולם) by over-bending it the other way (Basi LeGani 5724, Sefer HaMaamarim Basi LeGani, Vol. 1 [Brooklyn: Kehot, 1991], p. 173).

3.Basi LeGani 5710 (1950) of the Frierdiker Rebbe is based on (his father’s) the Rebbe Rashab’s prototype, Basi LeGani 5658 (1898). Our citations of the various versions/elaborations (המשכים) of this discourse, denoted by the Hebrew year, are all from the two volume compilation cited in the previous note. The Rebbe delivered at least one maamar elaborating on one of the twenty chapters of Basi LeGani for thirty-eight consecutive years, some years delivering two—the second expanding on the first.

4.Ketubot 17a.

5.Basi LeGani 5715, p. 65. ששרש ההמשכה הוא למעלה מהשתל׳ ולמעלה מהבריאה.

6.Sotah 17a, Yevamot 63a.

7.Basi LeGani 5715, p. 64: ראי׳ ממש ׳בחי.

8.Basi LeGani 5715, p. 65. The expression בנין עדי עד is from the Shevah Brakhot liturgy (see Ketubot 8a).

9.R. Shalom DovBer Schneersohn, Kuntres Umaayan (Brooklyn: Kehot, 1943), p. 131f..

10.Numbers 22:31, 24:3-4, 15-16. Cf. 2 Kings 6:17. See Ramban re Numbers 24:4.

11.See R. Y. Y. Schneersohn, Mai Chanukah, Sefer HaMaamarim 5701 (Brooklyn: Kehot, 1996), pp. 58-63.; R. M. M. Schneersohn, Tannu Rabbanan Mitzvat Ner Chanukah 5728, in Sefer HaMaamarim Melukat, Vol. 2 (Brooklyn: Kehot, 2002), pp. 162-68.

12.The ocular model of thinking begins with Plato’s neologistic use of the Greek word idea, which prior to him simply meant “the look” of something. See e.g. Republic 508e-511e. Plato’s school was known as the Akademeia. And although contemporary academic thinking may have gone beyond its Platonic origins in many significant respects, it is far from overcoming its reliance on ideas.

13.Kuntres Umaayan, p. 133.

14.R. Shneor Zalman of Liadi, Tanya (editio princeps: Slavuta, 1796), Ch. 18, p. 24.

15.Tannu Rabbanan Mitzvat Ner Chanukah 5728, p. 166..

16.והוא שלילה מוחלטת שלילת השלילה (Basi LeGani 5715, p. 67). See R. Shalom DovBer Schneersohn, Sefer HaMaamarim 5668, (Brooklyn: Kehot,1981) p. 211f. Cf. Tannu Rabbanan Mitzvat Ner Chanukah 5728, p. 164, n. 34; & Likutei Sichot, Vol. 3, p. 815, cited there. And cf. the discourse from later in the same year (5738/1978) Ki Yishalchah Vinchah, Sefer HaMaamarim Melukat, Vol. 3 (Brooklyn: Kehot, 2002), pp. 141-45.

17.The notion of yechidah is presented by the Rebbe as nothing less than the notion (ענינה) of Chassidic teaching in his treatise, Inyanah shel Torat HaChassidut (5726/1965).

18.Just to note that such a notion is not altogether foreign to Western thought, the student of Greek philosophy might recall Parmenides’ statement: “For it is the same thing to think and to be” (τὸ γὰρ αὐτὸ νοεῖν ἐστίν τε καὶ εἶναι); H. Diels & W. Kranz, Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, Vol. 1 (Zürich: Weidman, 19516), fr. B. 3, p. 231. It should go without saying, nonetheless, that this statement by a pre-Socratic physikos, which pertains to physis, i.e. nature (and to seeing with the mind’s eye: noein) must in the final analysis be understood very differently from a teaching that reaches beyond nature, למעלה מן הטבע (for a “seeing” with an “eye” above the head).

More in 10 Shevat:
• Being Brainwashed (By Lieba Rudolph)

I remember hearing the word when I was young, and it terrified me. I imagined an actual brain being scrubbed down on a washboard. That's what I thought of when I heard the word "brainwashed." But I also remember thinking that it probably wasn't so bad once they put the clean brain back in your skull.

No, I was told clearly that "brainwashing" is a bad thing done by bad people. There is nothing worse than being told what to think and what not to think.

So you can imagine what I thought every time I went into the homes of my new friends, the Lubavitchers. There wasn't one house that didn't have a large, prominently displayed picture of the Rebbe.

I know about people like you, I thought. You've been brainwashed.

Then there were other people I spoke to who only confirmed my suspicion. They would say, "We really like Lubavitch. We just have a problem with . . . the Rebbe."

I knew what they meant. I had never seen a leader so totally revered by his followers. Americans didn't put up pictures of the president, and I had never seen a rabbi’s picture anywhere in a Jewish home.

I liked their pride in being Jewish

There was only one problem: I really liked the Rebbe's followers, and they seemed to really like me. And I knew it wasn't because they wanted to brainwash me.

I liked their pride in being Jewish, the way they helped people, the fact that they talked about G‑d and the meaning of life. I understood that this was all inspired by the Rebbe, but it still seemed strange that their religious observance was so connected to a human being.

It didn't take me long to see that the Rebbe was someone people turned to when they wanted or needed something. What could be wrong with getting little help? Besides, the Rebbe didn't demand loyalty or any commitments in return. What did I have to lose, especially if I could get some help in the blessings department?

I took full advantage of the Rebbe's ability to look out for me when my husband Zev and I had a yechidut, a private audience, with the Rebbe in 1989. I was expecting a child, so naturally I wanted to ask the Rebbe for a blessing for a healthy baby. But my wish list kept getting bigger as I realized I should cover all my bases, grandchildren and great grandchildren included. You have to ask for what you want, right?

It's hard to remember when exactly it occurred to me that if I really wanted to be covered forever and ever, I needed to ask the Rebbe to bring Moshiach, the Messiah. But that's exactly what I did.

I said to the Rebbe, "If you would bring Moshiach, all of our prayers would be answered." The Rebbe answered that he was ready, but that he needed the cooperation of all the Jews around him.

I then asked the Rebbe for a blessing to work harder to bring the Moshiach as soon as possible. The Rebbe answered, "Yes, and as soon as possible, because Moshiach is ready to come tomorrow . . . or maybe the day after tomorrow."

Now, 25 years later, I am starting to understand that I got my personal charge from the Rebbe on that day.

We saw the Rebbe many times before he passed away in 1994 on the third day of Tammuz. Together with thousands of others, our family would line up for hours outside the Rebbe's office so that each of us could receive a blessing from the Rebbe, along with a dollar that we would then exchange for another dollar to give to tzedakah. Little by little, I realized that the Rebbe was more than a holy intervenor, that he was also a spiritual guide whose teachings could help me clean out not just my brain, but my soul.

I only have one real recollection of hearing the Rebbe speak from his headquarters in 770 Eastern Parkway in Brooklyn. The women were standing on benches, pressed together, with only our heads facing forward. It was so crowded that your feet didn't have to touch the floor for you to be held up. I couldn't see the Rebbe, and he spoke in Yiddish, so I couldn't understand, but none of that mattered. I knew that it was good for me to be there.

I knew that it was good for me to be there

I remember asking the woman next to me what the Rebbe was saying. She answered, "When you give something to someone else, it should be better than what you keep for yourself." So this was how the Rebbe was trying to brainwash me. If I want to get clean, "good enough" is not good enough when it comes to doing for others.

You can imagine how often I hear those words resonating in me, how many times over the years I have deliberated over my two bags of mandel bread, forcing my hand to give away the bigger one because I know that this is what the Rebbe wants me to do.

And that's just for starters. I don't always do what the Rebbe wants. I know that, but I'm committed to trying.

And I know one other thing: I haven't been sorry yet.

STORY

Why the Rabbi Didn’t Need Anesthesia
"If I don’t open my eyes after the operation’s over, don’t disturb me. I may lie on the operating table for a few more hours. But promise me that you won’t disturb me.”
By Yitzchak Buxbaum

Rebbe Hayim of Tzanz suffered greatly from a foot problem. Finally, he needed an operation. Since the operation was very painful, the doctor wanted to give him an injection and put him to sleep. The doctor said, “I have to give you an injection; the operation's very painful.”

“I’ll make a deal with you,” said Rebbe Hayim. “You don’t have to give me an injection. Just do what you have to do, and let me do what I have to do. But I have to ask one favor. If I don’t open my eyes after the operation’s over, don’t disturb me. I may lie on the operating table for a few more hours. But promise me that you won’t disturb me.”

The doctor promised him.

Then Rebbe Hayim closed his eyes and looked as if he were not in this world. After the operation was over, the doctor said, “There are hardly any signs of life in his body. I’m afraid he’s close to death.”

Rebbe Hayim’s children said, “Don’t worry. If our father said everything will be fine, it will be; trust him.”

For the next four hours, Rebbe Hayim lay on the operating table, seemingly lifeless. Then he opened his eyes and said, “Was the operation successful?”

After telling him, the doctor said, “I hope you don’t mind my asking you, but what did you do?”—because the doctor was amazed that during the operation, Rebbe Hayim showed no signs of pain at all.

Rebbe Hayim replied, “I have to tell you something that my holy master, Rebbe Naftali of Ropshitz, taught me. We all know how to feel joy on a worldly level. We need a reason to feel joy. If something very good happens, we’re joyful. My master, the Ropshitzer, taught me that I can be joyful for no reason. He said that one cannot always be in that place, but when you’re there, you must really be there. So when I knew that I was going to have a lot of pain, I simply elevated myself to a state of pure joy. But because I had to be there fully, I couldn’t come back right away.”

Reprinted with permission from Jewish Tales of Mystic Joy, by Yitzhak Buxbaum.

REMEMBERING THE HOLOCAUST

11 Images that Tell of Jewish Empowerment in the Holocaust
By Mordechai Lightstone

This week marks the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp in Oświęcim, Poland.

Often in our reflections on the Holocaust, the imagery we focus on is the dread, and human suffering, gas chambers, mass graves and human skeletons.

While the horror of the Nazi’s deeds can never be forgotten, there is a different side of the Holocaust narrative that is often overlooked: The resilience of the Jewish soul and the Jews’ commitment to sanctify their lives. The following photos testify to the tenacity of the Jews in the ghettos and the camps, who, rather than allow their lives be dictated by their Nazi oppressors, continued to follow the precepts of the Torah despite the constant horror, degradation and fear.

The silent sage

(Photo: Yad Vashem archives)

A man studies from a Torah scroll in the Łódź Ghetto.

2. Freedom from Egypt ...

(Photo: Yad Vashem archives)

Jews in the Warsaw ghetto bake matzah for Passover.

3. ... in the heart of darkness

(Photo: Yad Vashem archives)

Jews baking matzah in hiding. Łódź, 1943.

4. “Every resident among the Israelites shall live in booths.”

(Photo: Yad Vashem archives)

Despite already being forced from their homes, Jews in the Łódź Ghetto builtsukkahs for the holiday.

5. “And you shall celebrate it as a festival to the L-rd for seven days in the year.”

(Photo: Yad Vashem archives)

Jews were even able to secure a lulav and etrog in the ghetto as well.

6. Sadness and rejoicing in the same heart.

(Photo: Yad Vashem archives)

Children during a Purim celebration in Wieliczka, Poland, in 1942.

7. A small light dispels a lot of darkness

(Photo: Yad Vashem archives)

Jews in the Westerbork transit camp in Holland light candles for the seventh night of Chanukah. Some 106,000 Jews, including Anne Frank and her family, were deported from Holland to death camps in Poland through Westerbork.

8. Day by day

(Photo: Yad Vashem archives)

Jewish prisoners praying outside a barrack in a camp in Gurs, France.

9. Into a new generation

(Photo: Yad Vashem archives)

A boy wears tefillin in the Łódź ghetto, probably at the children's commune in Marysin.

10. The tradition lives on . . .

(Photo: Yad Vashem archives)

Jewish survivors from Buchenwald and servicemen gather before Shavuot to celebrate the holiday shortly after liberation. American chaplain Rabbi Herschel Schacter is seen conducting services. Future Israeli Chief Rabbi Israel Meir Lau is pictured sitting third from left, in the first row, between two American soldiers.

11. … and on, and on

A Jew from Białystok, Poland dons tefillin with Chabad yeshivah students in Warsaw.

Too often when we think of the narrative of Polish Jews, we view their story as one that ends in the smokestacks of Auschwitz. Their story, however, and that of world Jewry, is one of continuity - of continued struggles and glories, changes and traditions, and a powerful connection to the Jewish people and the Torah.

---

We would like to thank our friend Elad Nehorai for his very moving piece that helped inspire this list.

More in Remembering the Holocaust:
• Q&A: Auschwitz—70 Years After Liberation, the Strongest Revenge (By Mendy Kaminker)
Near a place that signified death, a rabbi talks about flourishing Jewish life in Krakow

A return to Torah study in Krakow, Poland. Rabbi Eliezer Gurary, center, chief rabbi and Chabad representative to Krakow, sits with students in the Kupa Schul, founded in the 17th century. (Photo: Clifford Lester)

Auschwitz. The very name is carved into Jewish history forever. The word evokes national memories of death, genocide, millions of lives destroyed by a heartless enemy. It’s become the best-known example of the unthinkable horrors of the Holocaust.

On January 27, 1945 (12 Shevat 5705), the Red Army liberated the Auschwitz concentration camp. More accurately, they liberated the pitifully few survivors who miraculously evaded the death machine that was Auschwitz.

Seventy years later, Rabbi Eliezer Gurary, chief rabbi and Chabadrepresentative to the city of Krakow—the closest vibrant Jewish community to Auschwitz-Birkenau—takes time to answer a few questions about the intermingling of past and present.

A: The Jewish community here is very diverse. Of course, there is a significant group of local survivors and their children, who’ve chosen to remain here after the Holocaust. There are many others who came later, including many Israelis—many of whom are studying medicine in local Polish universities—and Americans.Q: Rabbi Gurary, tell us about contemporary Jewish life in Krakow.

We try to serve every segment of the community, young and old. We have a preschool, synagogue services, kosher food for sale, a beautifulmikvah, and everything else you expect in a Jewish community.

There are prayer services throughout the week, and on Shabbat, many of the synagogues open to accommodate the numerous visitors. There are also Shabbat meals for locals and visitors. In short, we are a community that lives and thrives throughout the year.

Auschwitz (Photo: Clifford Lester)

Q: Krakow has a very famous synagogue. What can you tell us about it?

A: That’s right. It’s called the Rema Synagogue, named for Rabbi MosheIsserles, the famous codifier of Jewish law who lived here, who is commonly known as “the Rema,” an acronym of his name. It was actually built by his father. In the courtyard of the ancient synagogue is a cemetery, where many of our nation’s foremost Torah teachers who flourished in Krakow during the renaissance period are buried, including the Rema himself.

The synagogue is currently undergoing massive renovations in a wide-reaching effort to restore it to its original glory. For the time being, many activities are being held in the Izaak Synagogue, which the Nazis desecrated but did not demolish.

Q: What is it like to be the closest rabbi to Auschwitz?

A: It’s not easy.

On one hand, the Holocaust is never far from your mind. Just realizing how fragile life is and how much we depend on G‑d’s mercy is a very humbling—perhaps depressing—thought. On the other hand, when I read and hear about Jews who gave their very lives in the darkest moments just to do one moremitzvah, I feel a deep inspiration. Even when every effort was made to dehumanize them, they scrupulously laid tefillin, light the Chanukah menorahand baked matzah. Realizing the pains they took to do mitzvahs, tells us how we—who are, thank G‑d, not in such a situation—must do our utmost to live Jewishly.

Q: Who visits Krakow?

A: Almost everyone who visits Auschwitz visits Krakow. Many Jews come here to find their roots—their ancestors who lived in the area. Then there are those who don’t have a strong overt connection to Judaism but are curious about Jewish life in the past. It’s heartwarming to see Jews in full Chassidic garb praying in the synagogue alongside their brothers and sisters who are just seeing Jewish prayer services for the first time.

I like to tell people the legend that surrounds the Izaak Synagogue. There was once a Jewish person named Isaac who dreamt that there is treasure buried under a bridge in the city of Prague. He travels to Prague, only to be told by a cynical policeman that he had dreamed about treasure buried under the hearth of a Jew in Krakow named Isaac. Isaac returned home as fast as he could. Sure enough, he found treasure under his home, and he used that money to build the synagogue that bears his name. People come here expecting to unearth hidden treasure, to experience the past and feel the echoes of their forbearers. But we all discover that our true treasure—our Jewish identities—is buried under our own homes. When we return home and live Jewish lives, that’s the real treasure.

At prayer in the Kupa Schul, founded in the 17th century in Krakow. (Photo: Clifford Lester)

Q: You meet people who come to visit one of the most horrible places on Earth. What do they tell you? And what do you tell them?

A: No one visits Auschwitz and leaves exactly as he or she came in. Everyone’s heart is touched when they visit. People want to speak to a rabbi. They have questions about Judaism, questions about G‑d. They want to know how He let it happen, where was G‑d during the Holocaust? The experience unearths deep questions, but it also uncovers a very strong connection—the Jewish spark that dwells within each and every one of us.

I tell them about Jewish life today, about the revival of our community and our growing array of activities. People want to know how we manage. I tell them about shlichus, how the Rebbe—Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of righteous memory—sent emissaries to every corner of the world, and Krakow is our corner.

I find these encounters inspiring for me as well as for them.

Q: What’s your message as we prepare to commemorate the 70th year since liberation?

A: Decades ago, when the war was still recent, there were those who spoke about taking revenge. Today, there are very few Nazis still alive, and this “revenge” has become something spiritual. The strongest revenge we can take is when just miles from Auschwitz, where they planned to carry out the “Final Solution,” there is a living and growing Jewish community. The flame of Judaism has not been extinguished; it will continue to burn and even grow. It’s my hope and prayer that we merit the immediate redemption, when we will experience the revival of the dead. May it happen very soon.

Rabbi Eliezer Gurary helps a visitor wrap tefillin.

PERSPECTIVES

Why I Slept on the Living Room Floor for 5 Weeks

I think at last, a week later, I’ve caught up on my sleep. Five weeks was a long time to sleep on the floor of my dining room, which also happens to be my kitchen and the central room of our home.

What happened? My 88-year-old father-in-law (may he live long and be well) came to visit us, and my husband and I gave him our room. To have him—a man with poor eyesight, poor hearing, and who doesn’t always walk so well—stay some place on his own was out of the question. It was obvious that he would stay with us. To me and my husband it was also obvious where he would sleep. We have two bedrooms, one for the kids and one for us. Yes, it was obvious to us that he would sleep in our room. What surprised me was that many people I told about this visit didn’t understand why my father in-law couldn’t stay in my kids’ room while they slept on the floor.

It was obvious that he would stay with us

The other day I went with my kids and a close friend of mine and her kids to a community center near our home. Downstairs, there were big trampolines for the kids to jump on, and upstairs is the neighborhood library. I told my daughter, who is about six and a half years old, to take our friend down to the trampolines with all the little kids while I returned books and picked out new ones. After I finished, I went down to the trampolines and walked up to my friend who was sitting nearby. She turned to me and asked, “What’s your secret?”

“What do you mean?”

“You have such considerate kids! As soon as we entered the activities room, Frida Tamar (my daughter) went over and got me a chair to sit on. How do you teach them to do things like that?!!”

To me, the answer was obvious. My daughter got her the chair because there is no doubt that I would have done the same thing. How do I teach them to be considerate? Certainly not by telling them. I teach them consideration by being considerate. I teach them to do acts of chesed (loving kindness) by doing acts of chesed myself.

In the book of Samuel, the prophet relates how David was running away from King Saul, who wanted to kill him. David arrived near the home of a very wealthy man named Nabal, whom David had helped in the past. Nabal was a greedy man who, as the prophet describes him, was “difficult and an evildoer.” David sent his attendants to ask Nabal for food and he refused. When David’s attendants reported Nabal’s refusal to David, David was infuriated and wanted to destroy Nabal for his insolence.

Upon hearing about what happened, Nabal’s wife, Abigail, “hurried and took two hundred breads, two containers of wine, five cooked sheep, five se’ahs (a measurement) of toasted grain, a hundred raisin-clusters, and two hundred cakes of pressed figs, and she put them on donkeys.”1 In other words, she took a lot of food, and she took it; she didn’t order anyone else to do it. This wealthy woman who had five personal maidservants and many attendants put the food on the donkeys herself, saddled her donkey and rode to David. “When Abigail saw David she hurried and dismounted from the donkey, and fell on her face before David, and prostrated herself to the ground.”2

You know what happened then? David calmed down. Abigail saved not only her entire household, but she also saved David from becoming too angry. In his words:

Blessed be you, who has restrained me this day from coming to bloodshed and avenging myself by my own hand. Truly as the L‑rd G‑d of Israel lives, Who has prevented me from harming you, hadyou not hurried and come to meet me, by morning’s light there would not have remained to Nabal as much as a dog . . . Go in peace to your house. See, I have heeded your advice, and have shown you grace.3

Ten days later Nabal was struck with an illness and died. When David heard about his death, he sent for Abigail and married her. Abigail thus become one of the queens of Israel and is counted by our Sages as one of the seven prophetesses of Israel.4

What made Abigail a queen? It wasn’t her wealth or beauty (though they were so great that the prophet describes both of them); it was her wisdom and her act of chesed (kindness). It was her act of gathering the food and bringing it to David herself.

Back to my father-in-law and the five weeks of sleeping, or not sleeping, in my living room. It was an honor to host my father-in-law. It was a privilege to have him in our home, and, yes, it was a chesed. However, it wouldn’t have been a chesed to host him at the expense of my kids. When we have guests for Shabbat, I always ask my children before I have the guests sleep in their room. They know that they can say no, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But you know what? They always say yes. Why? First, because we make it fun by turning it into a slumber party, but most importantly, because children learn kindness from their environment. By seeing it.

Was it hard, hosting my father-in-law?

So you ask me, was it hard, hosting my father-in-law? Honestly, yes. It was. For many reasons. Being responsible for the physical and emotional needs of another human being is always hard. Having someone stay in your home and take over your space is always hard. But was it worth it? Was it beautiful? Was it an honor and a privilege? Was it a wonderful opportunity to really teach my children the mitzvahs of honoring your parents and doing chesed? YES! Yes, yes and yes. This is the answer to my friend who asks me, “How do you have such considerate kids?”

FOOTNOTES

1.I Samuel 25:18.

2.Ibid. 25:23.

3.Ibid. 25:33-5.

4.Talmud Megillah 14a.

More in Perspectives:

• Are You a Fallen Heiress? (By Shimona Tzukernik)

My friend Sandy is the founder and sole member of The Fallen Heiress Club. The child of a wealthy businessman and a mother who was a movie star—or at least looked like one—she grew up in silence and boarding homes with the richest kids in the neighborhood. Today, she wears the remnants of their wealth around her neck in the form of antique pearls. They are apricot-colored and, in places, chipped. Her other necklace is strung with aquamarine fish, which move on her neck as if floating in sleep.

I once asked Sandy if I could join her club

After her folks died within weeks of each other, the lawyer who handled their estate took the money and left her to her bereavement and a 60s-era search for meaning. She arrived in New York wearing a floor-length yellow sari and couldn’t care less about what she no longer had. She feels differently today.

I once asked Sandy if I could join her club.

“No,” she said emphatically. “You were never rich enough, and you’re not poor enough now.”

She’s right.

I’ve thought of myself as having plenty, and I’ve experienced myself as being without. But, truth be told, neither of those two perceptions has much to do with the external reality of my life. Most often, it’s emotions, not facts, that drive our responses to money, and our assessment of our personal financial situation often reveals little of what the facts on the ground are. Instead, they reveal much about our inner state and way of relating to the world. Sandy hit the nail on the head. I might feel as if I fit the criteria to join her club, but the facts belie the feeling.

A while ago, my friend Ru sent me a great excerpt from “Hand to Mouth: A Chronicle of Early Failure,” by Paul Auster. He captures the notion that money is always more than it appears:

My father was tight; my mother was extravagant. She spent; he didn’t. The memory of poverty had not loosened its hold on his spirit, and even though his circumstances had changed, he could never quite bring himself to believe it. She, on the other hand, took great pleasure in those altered circumstances. She enjoyed the rituals of consumerism, and like so many Americans before her and since, she cultivated shopping as a means of self-expression, at times raising it to the level of an art form. To enter a store was to engage in an alchemical process that imbued the cash register with magical, transformative properties. Inexpressible desires, intangible needs, and unarticulated longings all passed through the money box and came out as real things, palpable objects you could hold in your hand. My mother never tired of re-enacting this miracle, and the bills that resulted became a bone of contention between her and my father. She felt that we could afford them; he didn’t. Two styles, two worldviews, two moral philosophies were in eternal conflict with each other, and in the end it broke their marriage apart . . . For the life of me, I could never understand how such a relatively unimportant issue could cause so much trouble between them. Money, of course, is never just money. It’s always something else, and it’s always something more, and it always has the last word.

This association between money and feelings is captured in an ancient teaching. “Who is wealthy?” the sages ask, and answer, “One who is happy with his portion.”1 I can hear the groan—not that line again! But it’s a cliché because it’s true. Despite our delusions, having more doesn’t equal being more content. It’s learning to live life on G‑d’s terms, which brings both inner peace and happiness. And once we’ve got that down, we feel wealthy; we experience a real sense of abundance. Wealth happens on the inside.

Wealth happens on the inside

This truth is communicated in an abundantly clear way in a commentary on the biblical story of the Golden Calf. It’s the archetypical symbol of making an idol (out) of gold. If only for a moment, the Jews in the desert bought in to the “fact” that money is love—or meaning, or happiness, or whatever. The delusion constituted a prime failure of being. So big was the fall that it took something cosmic on our part to heal. As part of the restoration, the People of Israel had to build a sanctuary; an embassy for the Divine, one might call it. The project was funded by the people themselves. Twice they donated a half coin of the standard currency towards its construction (which came to ten ge’ira each time), and once they gave a varying gift of any amount they chose.

The reasoning behind this is profound. The people were spiritually, mentally and emotionally engaged in the process of creating and worshiping the calf. They gathered around the idol as they danced and laughed, ate and drank in celebration. And each individual (excluding the women and Levites) gave of their money to its construction. In other words, they served the calf with their souls, their bodies and their wealth. The donation of the two coins and the personally designated gift-offering were each an act of repair targeting these three dimensions which needed fixing.

Start with the spiritual component. Your soul has ten innate abilities—three ways of thinking and seven emotional capacities. That goes for every one of us, whether intelligent or dull, loving or strict. It makes no difference at a soul level if you’ve got a genius IQ or can’t wrap your head around numbers, or whether you’re a visionary dreamer or a meat-and-potatoes kind of guy. Your soul comes from G‑d. And so does your neighbor’s. At our core, we’re the same. As such, to repair the damage done by serving the calf with their souls, each person had to give ten ge’ira, corresponding to the ten universal powers of every human being’s soul. A uniform amount for the entire nation.

Their service of the idol was physical too. The people got up and laughed and danced and celebrated. Regarding our bodies, the sages of the Talmud teach that “there are three partners in a person—the Holy Blessed One, the father and the mother.”2 As mentioned, G‑d gives us the ten soul powers. In addition to that, each parent contributes five physical components: the white of the child’s bones, sinews and nails, for example, from the father; and the red of the flesh and blood, and the black of the eye, from the mother. Every person’s body is formed in the same way. Each human body, athletic or clumsy, strong or weak, has uniformity to it. It makes no difference whether you’re male or female, a newborn or aging, a triathlete or confined to a wheelchair. Thus, just as with the atonement at a spiritual level, the atonement for the physical component was the same for everyone—ten ge’ira, corresponding to the ten building blocks we each inherit from our parents.

However, when it came to rectifying worshiping the calf with their wealth, the course of action changed. “Donate whatever you’d like,” they were told. Why not a third half-shekel? Because this time they were rectifying having served the idol with their wealth, and wealth is a subjective reality. It would be meaningless to say, “Let the rich give more and the poor less.” Who’s to say whether someone’s rich or poor? By definition, that’s determined on the inside! And so G‑d invited the people to give whatever they desired—in accordance with their subjective experience of their own financial status.

Who’s to say whether someone’s rich or poor?

On the one hand, Sandy’s right. When it comes to the facts, I was never rich enough and, thank G‑d, never that poor. On the other hand, doesn’t what we’re saying mean that membership in Sandy’s club is open to all of us? If you ever felt like a million bucks and then plunged into despair about how much you lack, then it’s my guess that you qualify. If in your own head you’re down-and-out, a fallen heiress, a nouveau riche, a millionaire, then in some respect, you probably are.

The remarkable thing about which club you belong to is that the one you belong to in your head can have a whole lot to do with the one you connect with in the physical world. But that’s another topic altogether.

Based on the Maharal, in his commentary Gur Aryeh, on Exodus 25:2.

FOOTNOTES

1.Ethics of Our Fathers 4:1.

2.Talmud, Kidushin 30b.

• Let Him In (By Tzvi Freeman)
Based on letters and talks of the Rebbe, Rabbi M. M. Schneerson

So strange.

We trust that He is good, and that all He does is good.

Yet we pray. Because to us things don’t look so good. After all, His goodness is so distant from us. Beyond our understanding. Far beyond.

If so, shouldn’t we simply continue to trust? To surrender to a higher understanding?

Yet He asks us to pray. To complain and to kvetch. And He listens. And He answers our prayers.

Because this is what He most desires from us: that we make room for Him in our lives. Meaning: in all that matters to us as flesh and blood human beings. And that begins when we share with Him those things that touch us most deeply. Deep within our hearts.

“Serve G‑d, your G‑d, with all your heart,” the Torah says. Ask the sages, “What kind of service do you do with your heart?”

And they answer, “This is prayer.”

Pour out your heart to Him. It is the one place He can only enter once you let Him in.

YOUR QUESTIONS

Should I Publicize My Newly Kosher Kitchen?
Would it not be better for me to keep this mitzvah between me and 

G‑d? by Levi Greenberg

Question

I recently kashered my kitchen. My rabbi is encouraging me to publicize this new development in my social circles. Would it not be better for me to keep thismitzvah between me and G‑d?

-Discreet Jew

Response

Mazel tov on your new kosherkitchen! It is a beautiful mitzvah to be involved with.

Indeed, Judaism considers discretion to be a positive virtue. There are plenty of sources that suggest that it is not proper to parade mitzvahs for all to see.Maimonides writes that one of the highest forms of charity is giving to the poor without knowing who will be the receiver, and the poor person not knowing who the benefactor was. Quiet, anonymous giving is best.

However, there is also an advantage to publicity. When others see the good deeds of another, it encourages and motivates them to do the same. Your isolated deed can cause a ripple effect and be the catalyst for many more mitzvahs.

So, what to do?

Over 800 years ago, a community was faced with the following predicament: A certain member of the community who lived adjacent to the synagogue had graciously donated his property to allow for the expansion of the synagogue, and had also paid for the construction. After the project’s completion, the benefactor wished to have his name inscribed upon the building as its patron. The community members felt this to be ostentatious and sent a lengthy letter with their objections to Rabbi Shlomo Ben Aderet, one of the great 13^th century authorities of Jewish law, commonly known as the Rashba.

In his landmark response to the community,1 the Rashba rejected their concerns and unequivocally wrote: “It is the Torah way to record and publicize those who perform mitzvahs.” He then brought several sources from the Torah and Jewish tradition to support this.

Is there the concern that one’s ego will be inflated as a result? Possibly. However, the upside to modest, tasteful publicity is far greater. Creating a trend in the right direction is of primary importance, and its effects, immeasurable.

FOOTNOTES
1.	Shut HaRashba 1:581, cited by Rama to Yoreh De’ah 249:13.

LIFESTYLE

Kids in the Kitchen: Pomegranate Honey Parfait
Get ready for Tu B'Shevat with this pomegranate tre

Ingredients

• 4 tbsp. honey
• 2 cups plain or vanilla yogurt
• 1 pomegranate

Directions

1. De-seed the pomegranate. Set the seeds aside.
2. Take out four small glasses.
3. Pour 1 tbsp. of honey into the bottom of each glass.
4. Add 4 tbsp. of yogurt in each glass.
5. Top with fresh pomegranate seeds.

NOTE: Tip for deseeding a pomegranate: Do it under water! Cut the pomegranate into quarters and put them into a bowl of water. Use your hands to pop out the seeds and discard the shell. In the bowl, the seeds will sink and the white part will float. Remove the white, drain the water, and you have beautiful, clean seeds. This method also prevents mess and staining.

More in Lifestyle:
• Tu BiShevat Craft: Tree Collage (By Mirel Goldwasser)

Take your camera on a beautiful journey surrounded by nature. This project will keep you in touch with the life cycle of the trees and the changing seasons.

You Will Need:

• A tree (select a tree with a simple background)
• A good quality camera

Photograph your tree in the winter. At this time of year your subject, a big tree, will have a very few of its leaves remaining. Photograph your tree on a clear but snowy day to get the perfect picture of your tree with snow-capped branches. Alternatively, opt for a clear sunny day where the tree stands bereft of its leaves.

Next, photograph your tree in the springtime as it begins to blossom. The spring portrait may be more difficult, but spring offers many opportunities to go out and experiment.

When summer is in full swing, catch the tree at the height of its glory. The green leaves and bright scenery bring out its true beauty. This photo will provide a stark contrast to its winter counterpart.

The fall photo brings us full circle. As school starts and the leaves begin to change colors, the beautiful foliage is an opportunity to capture the art in nature and appreciate the miracle of the seasons.

Print your four photos and display them side by side. Printing on canvas is a great way to decorate any space in an artsy, upscale and decorative way.

Your one-of-a-kind tree collage will be cherished for many years to come.

• Photo of the Week: A Splash of Torah (Photo by Oneinfocus)
Oneinfocus HQ's

Torah is compared to water that descends from Above to below.

Add to it a splash of Kabbalah - the inner dimension of Torah,

and G-d's wisdom is flavored with your passion and awe!

Learn more about this photo

JEWISH NEWS

Two IDF Troops Killed, 7 Wounded as Conflict Escalates in North
Communities and troops on high alert
Chabad.org Staff

A wounded IDF soldier is evacuated after his patrol came under attack. (Basal Awadat/Flash90)

Two Israel Defense Forces troops were killed and seven soldiers wounded after an Israeli army patrol came under anti-tank fire from Hezbollah operatives in the northern Mount Dov region, along the border with Lebanon, according to an IDF spokesman.

Communities and IDF troops in the north of Israel were on high alert following the attack.

Speaking from a Chabad center located only steps away from an IDF base in Metulla, Israel’s northernmost town, Brocha Leah Sasonkin, who co-directs the center with her husband, Rabbi Moshe Sasonkin, spoke about the latest outbreak of violence: “When it happened, they told us to go home and close the doors and windows for an hour. But now they say it’s OK to go outside.”

Sasonkin said she was particularly concerned about reported casualties among IDF troops stationed in the area. “We go on mivtzoyim all the time, helping the soldiers with their spiritual and material needs, and have soldiers over for meals everyShabbat. We have soldiers coming to our shul because we live right near the base, right above our home.”The attack happened 20 minutes away from the Chabad center.

The soldiers killed were identified as Maj. Yohai Kalangel, 25, from Har Gilo, a company commander, and Staff Sgt. Dor Haim Nini, 20, from Shtulim. They served together in the Givati brigade.

Expressing her pain at learning of those killed and injured, Sasonkin also urged both “prayer for the welfare of the troops and residents, may G-d protect every one of them,” as well as “faith in G-d’s biblical declaration that the Land of Israel remains the safest place in the world, and G-d will protect us.”

Hezbollah acknowledged that it carried out the attack on the convoy, as well as launching mortar attacks from Syria on Tuesday. Israel fired shells into southern Lebanon after today’s attack, while Israeli air-force jets struck Syrian-army artillery positions in retaliation for rockets launched in the area.

All this comes amid heightened tension, 10 days after an Israeli airstrike in Syria killed an Iranian general and several Lebanese Hezbollah fighters who were reportedly planning large-scale attacks on Israel.

Since then, troops and civilians in northern Israel and the Golan Heights have been on alert. The Israeli military has also deployed an Iron Dome rocket interceptor near the Syrian border.

Maj. Yochai Kalangel, 25, left, and Staff Sgt. Dor Haim Nini, 20 (Photo: Facebook)

More in Jewish News:
• Rocket Attack in Mariupol, Ukraine, Leaves Jewish Community on Edge (By Dovid Margolin)

Many make plans to leave for good; others adopt ‘wait-and-see’ approach, with foreboding for future

Mariupol, Ukraine, was hit by a massive rocket attack in the Vastochni neighborhood of the city on Shabbat morning. It was the most violent day the city's seen in the past six months. (Photo: City of Mariupol Web Site)

Shabbat-morning prayers were about to start at the synagogue in Mariupol, Ukraine, when the rocket barrage came.

“The whole synagogue was shaking; we knew right away this was very serious,” says Rabbi Mendel Cohen, the seaside city’s rabbi and Chabad-Lubavitchemissary.

Moments after it ended, the synagogue’s security guard, Vlad, came running in with the news: Mariupol had been hit by a massive and sustained rocket attack in the Vastochni neighborhood of the city. When the dust had settled, the attack left 30 civilians dead and more than 100 wounded, marking Mariupol’s bloodiest day since last May and a significant escalation in the war in eastern Ukraine.

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) has since said the rockets came from pro-Russian separatist positions east of Mariupol.Fired from multiple-rocket launchers, the Grad rockets landed on a large neighborhood that includes a bazaar and marketplace, schools, apartment blocks and a bus station, located only some three kilometers away from the synagogue.

“Many people in synagogue on Shabbat were from that neighborhood,” states Cohen. “You can imagine what it sounded like here; there were screams, we had to calm people down.”

While there have been reports that a Jewish woman was among the victims of the attack, Cohen says they are still trying to ascertain whether or not that’s true. “There is a woman with a Jewish-sounding name on the list of victims, but she is not in our database or in that of Chesed [the social-services organization of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee]. We are still trying to find out who she was.”

Grad rockets landed on a large neighborhood that includes a bazaar and marketplace, schools, apartment blocks and a bus station, and shook the synagogue not far away. (Photo: City of Mariupol Web Site)

‘People Are Tired’

The city has been on the brink of war since a combination of Russian forces and pro-Russian separatists invaded across the Russian border in September, advancing down the road along the Azov Sea before halting on the outskirts of Mariupol. That attack took Ukraine by surprise; in the months since, Ukrainian troops have used the relative quiet to fortify the city—now on the frontlines—ahead of what many feel is an inevitable Russian offensive. Tired of being shuttled around the country, citizens wait with bated breath for the moment the onslaught finally comes. Many thought Saturday’s attack was it, but the subsequent days of calm have worked to push away thoughts of imminent invasion, if only on the surface.

Cohen—whose family is currently in Israel, and who travels frequently between the two countries—has been assisted in day-to-day operations in Mariupol by Rabbi Aaron Kaganovsky. Both leaders say that although leaving the city was the topic of discussion on Saturday, come Sunday morning, such talk already began to recede into the background.

Chabad Rabbi Mendel Cohen, the city's rabbi, reads Torah in Mariupol's synagogue. Rabbi Aaron Kaganovsky, who has taken over some of the shul's daily operations, is to his right.

“Right away, there were a lot of people who wanted to leave, and we began making plans to help them do that,” says Kaganovsky by phone from Mariupol. “If you saw pictures of the attack, you would understand; it was awful, and people were scared.”

Through funds allocated by the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, one bus of Jewish community members left Mariupol on Monday night, arriving early on Tuesday in Zhitomer in western Ukraine. But because of the lull, most have chosen to hold off for now.

“They don’t want to go until they feel they have no choice,” says Kaganovsky. “They say, ‘Look, we’re going to leave, it’s going to be quiet, and then when we return, it’ll start up again.’ People are so tired of picking up and going; if they leave, it’s to leave for good.”

Cohen agrees, saying that in the immediate aftermath of Saturday’s attack, most of those who left have gone to Dnepropetrovsk with an eye towards immigrating to Israel. “Many people here don’t want to get on a bus and go for 13 hours just to make a return trip of 13 hours. They’ve done it two or three times already,” he explains. “Now it’s cold, and that’s difficult. But people are taking this very seriously. I think more people are drawing up permanent moving plans, but they’re saying they won’t leave until it is really bad.”

Cohen, who travels back and forth from Ukraine to Israel, where his family resides right now, teaches a class to Jewish residents dealing with volatile living conditions.

Classes Still in Session

Meanwhile, Jewish life in Mariupol continues.

Kaganovsky leads youth classes and regular prayers. While there, Cohen was able to give two adult-education classes on the Rohr Jewish Learning Institute’sCurious Tales of the Talmud. “The first class was before the attack, and the second was on Sunday, right after it. We had half of the crowd on Sunday, but it still continued.”

Ultimately, nobody in Mariupol knows what will happen next.

“We hope such an attack doesn’t happen again, and this was just a one-time flare-up,” says Cohen. “But the situation is extremely serious, and there’s no guarantee that’s the case.”

Eastern Ukraine (Map: Google maps)

On Sunday, the day after the attack, Cohen taught a course to a smaller group than usual.

Learning helps distract residents from the recent spate of violence, at least temporarily.

Class in Mariupol, a city on the frontlines, where many Jews have either left or are considering a move before the situation worsens.

  • Women Support Women Battling Breast Cancer on Long Island (By Faygie Levy)

A group affiliated with Chabad in Merrick, N.Y., makes concrete efforts to boost health and hope

The “Circle of Hope” support group in Merrick, N.Y., held its annual dinner event last month, honoring several local women, including Sheri Fisch, left, who received the Community Service Award, and Melanie Rubin, who was presented with the Survivor Award by Nassau County Department of Health Commissioner Dr. Lawrence E. Eisenstein, FACP.

Living on Long Island, N.Y., where the rates of breast cancer are considerably higher than the rest of the United States, Rabbi Shimon and Chanie Kramer have met their share of women dealing with the disease.

“There are a lot of people who, unfortunately, are coping with breast cancer, and there were people in the community who wanted to do something to help,” explains Chanie Kramer, co-director with her husband of the Chabad Center for Jewish Life in Merrick, N.Y. “We thought there was a need for it because we kept hearing about people getting diagnosed.”

In 2011 alone, some 2,600 local women were diagnosed with the disease, the year the idea for a support group started germinating. Further, certain parts of Long Island have breast-cancer rates that significantly exceed the New York state average or expectations of breast-cancer rates.

Teaming up with local residents—in particular, Cindy Knoll and Lisa Fessler—the Kramers created the “Circle of Hope Merrick,” a support group for women currently facing breast cancer (whom they refer to as “previvors”) and, of course, survivors of the disease.While a number of studies have been conducted to determine why the incidents of breast cancer are so high on the island, on a more personal level, there just didn’t seem to be enough being done to support Jewish women, emotionally and practically, as they battled the disease.

But just as the group started to get off the ground, their plans were waylaid by Hurricane Sandy in October 2012, which hit the town of Merrick “pretty badly,” says Kramer. “We had to stop and deal with the hurricane.”

Once they got over the bulk of that recovery, it was full-speed ahead. Today, the organization runs support groups, educational programs, a wig bank, visitation to those facing treatment and more.

The tables reflected pink, the official color associated with breast-cancer awareness.

Its official description states that the Circle of Hope, a project of theMaimonides Educational Center, provides awareness, emotional support and hands-on help to individuals and their families coping with breast cancer and other illnesses.

“I think ‘Circle of Hope’ is unbelievable,” says Fessler, a breast-cancer survivor whose own mother died of the disease. “It’s a wonderful thing because there are a lot of women who just can’t handle it, and they need something and someone to believe in.”

Now entering its third year, the group held its annual “Journey for a Purpose” dinner last month, honoring several local women, including Sheri Fisch, who received the Community Service Award, and Melanie Rubin, who was presented with the Survivor Award.

‘Overwhelmed by the Response’

An avid cook who has been compiling her own recipes for years, Fisch spearheads the group’s “Cooking for Hope” program. The initiative, launched a year ago, brings teens together once a month for an evening of Jewish learning and community activism as they cook meals for women facing cancer challenges. The meals are then packed in containers and frozen so they can be delivered to families that need them.

The mammography van, one of various health-related services the “Circle of Hope” has provided to women.

Fisch, the mother of several teens herself, says she got involved at the behest of Chanie Kramer, who is originally from the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn, N.Y., and has been serving the Merrick area as a Chabad emissary since 2002 (Rabbi Kramer is also from Crown Heights). That, however, is not why she continues to do all the preparing, shopping, organizing, planning and packing that goes along with cooking dozens of meals one night each month.

“I think it was just my love for cooking and doing something that would be community-oriented that attracted me, but I was overwhelmed by the response,” she explains. “I didn’t realize the need was so great, and that just by doing something so simple to me is so important to someone else. It just makes me feel wonderful.”

Instruction and knowledge are also tools in the work of the “Circle of Hope Merrick.”

Chanie Kramer, co-director of the Chabad Center for Jewish Life in Merrick, center, is flanked by two local residents and organizers of the group, Cindy Knoll, left, and Lisa Fessler.

“We want to educate everyone in the community about prevention and how one can take measures” to thwart the disease, explains Kramer. “Everything is inG‑d’s hands, but there are things we can do on our part to help with prevention. We held a health seminar last year with a genetic counselor and a doctor. Someone also came in and showed the women how to do breast self-exams.”

They even had a medical van with a portable mammogram parked outside to provide exams to women who needed it.

“People hear the word and think, ‘I’m going to die,’ but this isn’t like years past. It’s not a death sentence. They’ve come so far with medication and chemotherapy,” insists Fessler, adding that women should know and feel that “they can get past it.”

Now entering its third year, the group reaches out to women of all ages coping with various diagnoses and has drawn on a pool of volunteers from the community.

Fisch, who spearheads the group's “Cooking for Hope” program, with daughters Jillian and Daniela.

Knoll attended the dinner with family members Ashley Knoll, center, and Andrea Kaplan Knoll.

  • Teaching Torah Values Through Unexpected Channels (By Menachem Posner)
Chabad rabbis and educators impact minds and lives on cable TV

Rabbi Yosef Katzman, left, has hosted “A Cable to Jewish Life” show since 1992. Here, he interviews two Chabad-Lubavitch emissaries—Rabbi Yossi Turk from Cordoba, Argentina, and, on right, Rabbi Mendel Kastel from Sydney, Australia.

The second in a series of articles on Chabad spreading Torah through a variety of media.

Television viewers are always on the lookout for something to pique their curiosity in the split second between clicks of the remote. That “something” can be anything, including a bearded Chabad rabbi. And sometimes, what develops reaches far beyond the flickering screen.

“I’ve gotten calls from people all over—often anonymous,” says Rabbi YosefKatzman, the host of “A Cable to Jewish Life” show since 1992, “telling me that they know me from television, and that they’d like to talk to me about one issue or another. Since they see me regularly, they feel familiar, but they also retain the comfort of anonymity since they know I have no idea who they are.”

As the presentation took shape, Katzman developed a relationship with Bea Moss, the show’s host. “She came over to our home for seder and Rosh Hashanah,” recalls the rabbi. “After a while, she tells me, ‘You have a flair for television and should have your own show. Until I met you, I had a negative opinion of Orthodox Jews, but interacting with you and other Chabad people has really changed that for me. You need to get on TV.’”Katzman made his first television appearance in 1990, as a guest discussing Chabad’s decades of clandestine work for Soviet Jewry behind the Iron Curtain, which was falling at that time. Since such work had been kept under wraps for generations, Katzman sought and received approval from the Rebbe—Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of righteous memory—before appearing on the show.

After a series of consultations with the Rebbe, Katzman began “A Cable to Jewish Life,” in which he interviews people on a wide range of Jewish topics every week.

Katzman with art-Kabbalah mystics Dov Lederberg and his wife (who has since passed on), Yael Avi-Yonah, of Jerusalem.

‘Touching People Deeply’

In some instances, the results of the show have been life-changing.

“One time, we did a show on Yemenite Jews, and included a segment on how Yemenite immigrant children in Israel were separated from their families and sometimes given up for adoption,” relates Katzman. “At the end, we shared a phone number where people who thought they may be adopted Yemenite children could call.”

After the show, six calls came in from Jewish people who suspected they may have been adopted. Two of them ended up being reunited with their families. Since one chose to remain private, the rabbi knows nothing more than that he found his long-lost twin.

Another instance involves a woman from California who had been watching the show at 6:30 a.m.—the time that the program aired on the West Coast.

After some detective work in cooperation with the Israeli government, she traveled to Israel to share her story. In the end, she reconnected with her birth mother.

“She then came back on our show to say thank you,” says Katzman. “She said that she tuned in every Sunday looking for her spiritual family and ended up finding her physical family as well.

“It’s gratifying to see how we impact someone’s life,” the rabbi reflects. “You can touch so many people so deeply, and you’ll never even know the tip of the iceberg.”

‘A Higher Plane’

Rabbi Nachman Simon of the Chabad House of Delmar in Upstate New York, who has been hosting “The Jewish View” since 1987, agrees. “I see clearly how my cable show has a direct connection to my Chabad House. I can mention an event on the show, and people I never met will come as a result,” he says.

Rabbi Nachman Simon, right, of the Chabad House of Delmar in Upstate New York, has been hosting “The Jewish View” on cable TV since 1987. Next to him is co-host Marc Gronich of Statewide News Service.

Since joining up with co-host Marc Gronich, Simon says his show has taken on a decidedly political flavor, with many appearances from many elected officials and public servants from the nearby state capital. Yet he makes sure to remain true to his original purpose: “Making sure that people are aware of Jewish practices and teachings, and what it means to them in the light of Chassidism.”

Perhaps Chassidic teachings come through the clearest in the Ontario, Canada-based “Messages” program, where host Michael Kigel would often invite a panel of rabbis and rebbitzens to discuss issues in the light ofchassidus, often after viewing a video of the Rebbe discussing that very issue.

The program was born in 2002, when Chabad of Ontario suggested that Kigel run a special program in honor of the 100th year since the Rebbe’s birth on his program, “Passages.”

“I had Chabad representatives on the show before,” explains Kigel, “and I always enjoyed it because they were well-spoken, happy to share and didn’t charge. But this was going to be something different. I wanted to do a show exclusively featuring the Rebbe’s teachings.”

He notes that Rabbi Moshe Spalter, administrator of the Chabad LubavitchCommunity Center in Thornhill, Ontario, dropped off a stack of videos of the Rebbe speaking for him to watch.

Michael Kigel, left, and Rabbi Moshe Spalter, of the Chabad Lubavitch Community Center in Thornhill, Ontario, have worked together on several Jewish-themed programs.

“I popped in the first one and within five minutes, I broke down crying and had to stop watching,” recalls Kigel. “It was such a powerful experience for me. I had never seen someone so forceful and unapologetic about Judaism before. For two weeks, I got so engrossed in the material and then interviewing theshluchim[Chabad emissaries] that I was in some sort of manic state—obsessing over the fact that such a unique human being could exist.”

After the show aired, Spalter and Kigel decided to make it into a regular half-hour feature. For three years, it was complimented by a five-minute segment called “The Deed,” which offered a friendly, practical guide to Jewish holidays, life-cycle events and other observances.

The fruits of the program were apparent immediately.

“Within the first week or two that the show aired,” Spalter explains, “I was in a part of town where I rarely find myself. I decided to look up an acquaintance of mine who owns a gym. It turned out that he was not there, and I was about to leave.

“Suddenly, the girl working there says, ‘Rabbi Spalter? You don’t know me, but I need to talk to you. I’ve been working on converting to Judaism for a while, and things have become difficult and I was thinking of giving up. The other night, you showed a video of the Rebbe talking about how challenges help take us to a higher plane than we would have achieved on our own. Then you elaborated on it, and you said exactly what I needed to hear. I told myself that I wanted to meet you, and here you are!’ ”

Today, the young woman is the proud mother of a large Jewish family and directs programming for a local Jewish-outreach organization.

As for Kigel, he says the seven years that he produced the show were radically transformative for him, as viewing and dissecting the Rebbe’s teachings prodded him toward becoming a full-fledged Chabad Chassid.

“I find it lamentable how many educated Jewish people are not aware of the deep, thoughtful underpinnings of Chabad,” he says, “and I feel that the show—which still airs as reruns regularly—affords them the same opportunity that it gave me.”

Katzman speaks with yeshivah students who traveled during Passover and over the summer to visit and offer assistance to Chabad centers in India, Ukraine and Siberia. From left are Mendy Wilansky,Noach Majesky and Arele Teleshevsky.

Mark Langfen, right, uses a three-dimensional display on Katzman's show to discuss water issues in Israel.

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