Editor's Note:
Dear Friend,
With the U.S. presidential primaries now in full swing, the topic of leadership is on everyone’s mind.
I am reminded of the last Chassidic discourse that the Lubavitcher Rebbe (Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of righteous memory) distributed before his passing. It is based on this week’s Torah portion and addresses the role of Moses’ leadership.
The Rebbe explains that the role of Moses and his successors is to arouse and reveal the inner faith and strength that is rooted in, and stems from, the very essence of our own souls. Building on that, we continue to grow through our own initiative. Change can only last if it comes from within ourselves, from our very essence.
While many aspiring leaders of today might focus on other candidates’ flaws, we must remember the Rebbe’s message. When we concentrate on developing the potential latent in our own souls, we no longer focus on those externalities that set us apart, but on that which unites us—the spark of G‑d that resides within our souls.
Yehuda Shurpin
on behalf of the Chabad.org Editorial Team
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Tetzaveh
Flattening the RideWhen times are rough, envision tomorrow, when all your efforts have paid off.
When times are good, pray for your livelihood at every moment, as a beggar prays for his daily bread.
For everything is in His hands.
Your Questions
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By Yehuda Shurpin
I always thought that lox and bagels on Sunday mornings is as “Jewish” as apple pie is “American.”
Why Can’t the Rabbis Agree on Anything?
By Tzvi Freeman
How can we rely on these rabbis if they can’t even agree with one another?
May I Shop in a Store and Then Purchase for Cheaper Online?
By Aron Moss
Current
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It’s a phenomenon predicted by Albert Einstein nearly a century ago, but never directly observed until now . . .
Parenting
Seven Things You Should Know About Parents of Children With Disabilities
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When you meet a mother or father of an older child or teen with disabilities, they may seem burned-out. Here’s why.
How to Eradicate Your Child’s Anger
By Sarah Chana Radcliffe
Our sages tell us that we should aim to avoid extremes in our personal expression and experiences of emotions. But when it comes to anger, we are admonished to remove it entirely.
Women
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When did a poor man in tattered clothing knock on my door begging for a slice of bread? Had I ever seen someone who was thin with hunger?
What This Man Did With His Trash Is Unbelievable
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Story
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A skeptic of Rabbi Menachem Nachum of Chernobyl learns his lesson.
My Memories of the Latvian Minister in Exile: Reb Mordechai Dubin
By Miriam Nevel
Parshah
Inspiration and Perspiration
The people who change the world, whether in small or epic ways, are those who turn peak experiences into daily routines, who know that the details matter, and who have developed the discipline of hard work, sustained over time.
Baggage Restrictions
By Nuta Yisrael Shurack
First it was taking off your shoes to go through security, and then it was your belt.
When Life Gives You Olives . . . Make Oil
By Yitzi Hurwitz
Now I’m left with my heart, my brain and my smile.
Lifestyle
Pomegranate Cupcakes and Something Sweet Review & Giveaway
By Miriam Szokovski
Art: The Incense Altar & the Menorah
By Yoram Raanan
Jewish News
Jewish Life Takes Off at Former Airport in Denver Suburbs
By Mindy Rubenstein
From 1929 to 1995, Stapleton, Colo., was the site of the Denver area’s airport. Today it's home to a young and growing Jewish community.
A First in the U.S. Senate: Rabbi From ‘The Last Frontier’ Delivers Morning Prayer
By Faygie Levy Holt
Chabad Rabbi Yosef Greenberg of Alaska emphasizes seven universal laws.
Hong Kong Jewish Community Hits the Streets to Help the Homeless
By Faygie Levy Holt
Amid ongoing tensions, food and warm clothing to people in need during Chinese New Year.
Chabad.org Magazine - Editor: Yanki Tauber
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Why Can’t the Rabbis Agree on Anything?
The Jewish obsession with arguments by Tzvi Freeman
Dear Ask-the-Rabbi Rabbi,
How is it that every rabbi I ask any question on anything Jewish gives me a different answer? And I’m just talking about the Orthodox ones! Isn’t this supposed to be one religion?
How can we rely on these rabbis if they can’t even agree with one another?[Mac Lokus]
Hi Mac!
First off, I disagree.
Arguments are good. Fortunate is the society that is full of healthy debate, and happy are the people that are smart enough to join the tussle. Not just because the only way to get to the truth is through a good argument, but also because a good argument—where no one lets up until every angle of attack has been exhausted and every load of ammo has been fired—is, on its own, an important form of truth.What other religion has a sacred book of arguments?
There’s a passage in the Talmud that says as much. (You may have heard of the Talmud. It’s a very voluminous Jewish holy book. And it’s a collection of thousands upon thousands of arguments between rabbis, and then even more arguments by later rabbis about what the earlier rabbis were arguing about. Yes, that’s what you study to be a rabbi—arguments. Tell me, what other religion has a sacred book of arguments?)
Rabbi Aviatar was engaged in an argument with Rabbi Yonatan. The argument wasn’t going anywhere. But Rabbi Aviatar was fortunate enough to bump into Elijah the Prophet on one of his regular earthly tours for the transmission of Torah secrets to those who toil over it.
Rabbi Aviatar said, “Elijah, fancy meeting you here! Tell me, what’s the Holy One (may He be blessed) into right now?”
And wadyuno, Elijah told Rabbi Aviatar that G‑d was currently engrossed in exactly the same topic that was embroiling Rabbi Aviatar and Rabbi Natan.
“That’s really exciting,” exclaimed the rabbi. “So what does the Holy One have to say on the topic?”
To which Elijah responded, “He says, ‘My child, Aviatar, says like this, and my child, Yonatan, says like that.’”1
Does that mean G‑d couldn’t figure out the answer? G‑d forbid. It just means that both opinions are true, and furthermore, the argument itself is also truth.
Carl Shleicher "Eine Streitfrage aus dem Talmud"
The Truth About TruthArguments are also truth.
Now, before you tell me why you disagree, first ask: What could be true about an argument? Once you ask, I’ll answer you the way rabbis are supposed to answer—with another question: What is truth?
Thanks so much for giving me your opinion there. Now let me tell you the truth about truth: Truth is that which is found everywhere.
That truth about truth is embedded in the very letters of the Hebrew word for truth: אמת (emet). אמת starts with the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet, ends with the last letter of the alphabet, and joins the two with a middle letter of the alphabet. Which tells us that truth is not just where everything begins, not just where everything leads, but also how you get there.
א ב ג ד ה ו ז ח ט י כ ל מ נ ס ע פ ק ר ש ת
Here’s another one: Count the words of the Torah—the Five Books of Moses—to discover what lies at the center. Okay, you don’t have time. So I’ll tell you: Moses and Aaron arguing (Aaron wins.) Elsewhere, Moses argues with G‑d (Moses wins). And it shouldn’t come as a surprise that Abraham, the prototype Jew, argued with G‑d over Sodom and Gomorra (Abraham wins—hey, is there a pattern here?). And I’ll bet your bubby didn’t let Him off the hook so easy, either.
The point is, those arguments are Torah. And central to Torah. Which means that, even before they are resolved, they are truths.
The Truth About Arguments
So what’s so true about arguments?
Because, if Torah is true, you can’t get away with, “Alright, that’s the official, authoritative stance on what the Torah says. I don’t get it, but, hey, who am I?”
No, because then you’re saying there’s some place where Torah cannot be found—namely, your brain. And if that’s the case, it’s not true. Which would mean it’s not Torah.You have to say, “I don’t get it.” That’s the first truth.
So you have to say, “I don’t get it.” That’s the first truth.
And then, you have to engage every faculty of your brain to get to the second truth—the truth that comes after thoroughly researching, considering all opinions, creating your own opinions, trashing those and trying others and, yes, arguing it over with anyone you can find ready to argue (rabbis are usually quite eager, as you noted), getting thoroughly confused (yes! that’s the marker for the threshold of truth!) and then—bang! “I got it! And it’s not how my rabbi sees it!”
It can’t be how your rabbi sees it. Because you're not your rabbi. When the Torah was given at Sinai, you and your rabbi stood in two different spots and heard the Torah from different angles. Each angle was true, because the same voice came from all directions from the same one G‑d. But each of us resonates in our own way with that voice. In each of us, the Torah finds a unique truth.How many truths are there to Torah? As many as there are Jews.
So how many truths are there to Torah? As many as there are Jews. (And then some—since Jews disagree with themselves and change their minds, too. As any thinking person would.)2
The caveat is that you have to do your homework—struggle with that teaching, hear out everyone else (hey, they also have truth), get utterly lost and befuddled by it—because that befuddlement, that’s the darkness of your wormhole back to your personal spot at Sinai.3
Carl Shleicher "Jüdische Szene 2"
Torah: Built From the Ground Up for Arguments
This diversity of opinion is not just built into the Jews who are supposed to be learning Torah, it’s built into Torah itself. Here’s another Talmudic passage:
When Moses learned the Torah from G‑d, for each case, G‑d provided 49 reasons to rule one way, and 49 reasons to rule the other way.
Finally, Moses exclaimed, “Ribono Shel Olam! (technically meaning “Master of the World!” but idiomatically more like “What on earth!?”) What are we supposed to do with 98 opinions on every subject?”
To which G‑d responded, “I told you already (Exodus 23:2): Majority rule.”4
Majority of what? Of expert opinions of the communally appointed judges.
Get this: There could be 71 judges on a case, but if 70 of them say, “I agree with the other guy,” we only count that as one opinion.5You’re only a somebody if you disagree with everybody else.
Did you hear that? You don’t count unless you have your own opinion. That’s how Torah works: You’re only a somebody if you disagree with everybody else. (Actually, there’s an argument about that as well.6 )
Because that’s the truth. You are different from everyone else. You have a unique perspective, and if you don’t offer it, then what did you come into this world for?
Getting Down to Earth
But that is not yet the last letter of Torah. Sinai was the first letter, the aleph. The arguments are the middle letter. The last letter is “Now what do we actually do?”
Doing is key. For the same reason that thinking and considering and arguing are so important. But much more so.
Because if Torah is really true, it can’t be like any other wisdom. Any other wisdom can’t tell you what to do. It can only tell you, “If you do this, this is what will happen. If you do that, well, you could blow yourself to smithereens. But, look, if you really want to…”Truth belongs down here on earth as much as it does in the heavens.
But Torah can’t do that. Because just like truth can’t be limited to some minds and escape others, so truth can’t be limited to the mind alone. Truth belongs down here on earth as much as it does in the heavens; in action as much as in thought. That’s why the ultimate truth of Torah is how it plays out down here.
Listen to the language the rabbis use, “Any judge who decides a true judgment to its truth is considered a partner in the work of creation.”7 Get that? There’s truth, and there’s true truth—a higher truth, one that transcends, supersedes and encompasses all other truths. And which one is that? The one that we all do.
Actually, if you want the ultimate truth, it’s not in your brain, it’s in your feet. What’s in your brain is a limited truth. It works for you, but not for the other guy. It works in theory, but not in practice. Yes, in theory, there should be no difference between theory and practice. But in practice, there is. Because in practice, everyone has to do the same thing.
So, to get things down to actual practice, we need to find an all-encompassing truth that transcends all opposites, one that can break through the abstract realm of mind-games into the down-and-dirty let’s-get-things-done reality.
Carl Shleicher "Jüdische Szene 1"
The Third Opinion
That’s a principle in Torah—the 13th of the 13 principles by which the Torah is studied:
Two Torah teachings may contradict one another. But then, a third teaching comes along that resolves them both.8
Meaning, the two really do contradict one another. You're not going to be able to investigate further and find you just weren’t listening properly. No. There’s no way to resolve them—until you get the third teaching.
But that third teaching doesn’t say, “This one is right, and that one is way off.” It presents a new dimension—just like popping out of one dimension into three to discover that two opposite poles make a single line. So too, within this new dimension, the inner soul of each of those two opinions is raised to a whole new level and each is fulfilled.
That’s where I disagree with what you wrote: When it comes to practical, what-do-we-do—what we call halachah—there's 99% consensus. Okay, there are details, as well as many contemporary issues, that have yet to be resolved (these arguments can last about 200 years—but when you’ve got 4,000 years of history, what’s 200 years?). But pigs remain unkosher and we rest on Saturday, not Wednesday. Etcetera.
There has to (eventually) be a consensus, because that’s what holds us together as a people. Action is the great unifier. And it’s at that consensus of the sincere and expert rabbis that the ultimate truth is found. How do we know? Because that's the mechanism for determining practical and ultimate truth provided by Torah itself.For the same reason we need to argue about everything, we need to come to a consensus: Because truth is everywhere..
Are you following? For the same reason that we need to argue about everything, for that very same reason we need to come to a consensus on how to implement this: Because truth is everywhere—not just in our minds, but in our feet; not just in the world of reason and argument, but in the world of action. Especially in the world of action.
Carl Sheicher "Beim Rabbi"
Surrender Without Surrender
Now’s your chance for a real good question: What is the guy who disagrees supposed to do? Is this the point where he just shrugs his shoulders in surrender and follows the crowd? I mean, we’ve got a real quandary here. Truth has to be found in the uniqueness of every individual and truth has to embrace the world of action—but in the world of action, we all have to do the same thing.
So, yes. And no. There’s surrender. But not of intellect. Surrender of ego. Which leads to an infinitely deeper intellect.
Because once a sincere and humble student of Torah sees that there’s a consensus, and he knows that this consensus represents a greater truth, the ultimate truth of truths—so he says, “I have to revisit this whole thing.”
Which he does, traveling yet deeper and deeper into his own mind, deeper than how he heard things at Sinai. And there he finds the voice that transcends and encompasses all minds, all voices. He sees how, from his perspective, with his own mind, this truth is a higher truth. At that point, his mind and truth become one.
All this explains a very puzzling account in the Talmud. Much of the Talmud is filled with debates between the students of Hillel and the students ofShammai. Other than a few special instances, the final ruling is in accordance with the students of Hillel.
The Talmud provides a reason it worked out that way: The students of Shammai were sharper. But the students of Hillel had more humility. They always cited the words of the students of Shammai before their own, and were ready to surrender their own ego for the sake of finding truth.
Now, if you’re a thinking person, your first reaction will probably be to disagree with the reasoning of the Talmud. You’ll ask, “Is this fair? You win an argument over those who are sharper than you just because you’re more humble?”
Well, I can argue a better question: Are you telling me that the students of Shammai lacked humility? You can’t learn Torah without humility. Learning Torah is all about quietening the loud voice of your own reasoning so you can hear the Torah’s (usually by listening to what others have to argue). So if these students of Shammai were great scholars of Torah, they must have also been very humble!“What does the Creator want with His universe?”
But there’s humility and there’s humility. There’s humility to put aside your “I think this” and open your mind to a higher wisdom. You can’t even begin to learn Torah without that. But to decide a final ruling you need to go further. You need to escape the cerebral bubble of a created, finite being—to reach beyond the mind altogether—and get a sense of “What does the Creator want with His universe?”
Now you’re thinking on a whole new level. A divine level.
Samuel Hirszenberg 'Szkola_talmudystów'
Case Study 1
Rabbi Yehoshua was a master of astronomy and halachah in his generation. In his times, the Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans. The Jewish supreme court, under Rabban Gamliel, had moved to Yavneh.
In those times, the new moon was established every month by the supreme court. Witnesses would come and report to the court that they had seen the new moon, and after much questioning, if the court was satisfied that the witnesses were correct, they would declare that day to be the first day of the new month. Now here’s the story:9
Two witnesses came to Rabban Gamliel and his court. They said that they had seen the moon at the time when it was supposed to appear. The problem was, the next day it was not there. Rabban Gamliel and his court accepted the witnesses and declared the new moon.
But other rabbis balked. Rabbi Dosa ben Hycanus said, “These witnesses are liars. It’s like testifying that a lady gave birth, and the next day her belly is up to her teeth.” [Yes, these rabbis had a very creative sense of metaphor.]
Rabbi Yehoshua said, “Rabbi Dosa, I’m with you.”
So now you had a situation where the Jews in Rabbi Yehoshua’s town—and perhaps many others as well—would be celebrating the festivals on one day, while those in Yavneh (and many other places) would celebrate on a different day.
But next thing you know, Rabbi Yehoshua received a message from Rabban Gamliel: “I hereby order you to appear before me with your staff and with your purse of money on the day that isYom Kippur according to your reckoning.”
Rabbi Akiva went to visit Rabbi Yehoshua. He found him quite distressed. Rabbi Akiva told Rabbi Yehoshua, “Look, astronomically speaking, you could be right. But that doesn’t matter. Whatever Rabban Gamliel has done is done. And that’s the way it works. Take a look: The Torah says, ‘These are the seasons of G‑d that you should declare in their seasons.’10 Not that G‑d declares, but what those appointed by us in this world declare. Whether at the right time or not at the right time, G‑d says, ‘I’m going by what you people declare.’”
Then Rabbi Dosa ben Hyrcanus came to see him. He said, “Look, if we’re going to revisit the ruling of the court of Rabban Gamliel, we’re going to have to revisit the ruling of every court since Moses.”
So Rabbi Yehoshua picked up his staff and his purse of money and traveled to Rabban Gamliel on the day that was Yom Kippur by his reckoning.
When he arrived, Rabban Gamliel stood for him and kissed him on his forehead. He said, “Come in peace, my teacher and my student! You are my teacher in wisdom, and my student because you have accepted my words.”
Rabbi Yehoshua didn’t go begrudgingly. Neither did he abandon his opinion. He went, his staff went, and his money went, because Rabbi Akiva and Rabbi Dosa had provided him a deeper truth—one that did not contradict his own, but supported Rabban Gamliel nonetheless: Whatever the official representative sages of the Jewish observant community decide, G‑d Himself endorses.
And so there was peace and unity in Israel, as everyone fasted and celebrated on the same days.
Rabbi Yosef Rosen, "The Rogatchover Gaon"
Case Study 2
For a more contemporary case, let’s take the case of Rabbi Yosef Rosen, a.k.a. “The Rogatchover Gaon.” (Gaon means genius, Rogatchov is the town in Belarus where Rabbi Rosen was born.) He lived in the 20th century, but they say had he lived in the times of the Talmud, even then he would have been considered among the greatest of Torah scholars.
The Rogatchover Gaon answered many thousands of questions written to him, citing his sources from memory, every page number and every quote with perfect accuracy—as though the entire Talmud and all the major codes and commentaries were before his eyes in a single microfiche. Then he would provide his final, authoritative opinion.
In one such response,11 the Rogatchover Gaon attacked a 16th century ruling of the Rema, Rabbi Moses Isserles, whose glosses on the Shulchan Aruchare considered authoritative by Ashkenazic Jewry—from every angle, with sharp, incisive and brilliant arguments.
And then, the Rogatchover concluded, “After all is said, heaven forbid to budge one iota from the ruling of Rabbi Moses Isserles.”
You see, the Rabbi Moses Isserles’s ruling had already been accepted as final by the Jewish halachic community.
In that humility lies the wormhole to true genius.
Based on Likutei Sichot, volume 21, pp. 110 ff, and sources listed there.
FOOTNOTES1.Talmud, Gittin 6b.
2.See the preface to Baba Kama in Yam Shel Shlomo, a classic gloss on Talmud by Rabbi Shlomo Luria (16th century), one of the principal decisors of halachah:
…For all the souls were at Mount Sinai and each received through 49 channels…and these are the voices that they both heard and saw, as it says, “All of Israel saw the voices.” This refers to the knowledge that was divided by these channels. Each one saw through his channel, according to his understanding…
See also Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi, preface to Tanya.
3.See Rabbi Yeshaya Horowitz, Shnei Luchot HaBrit, Beit Chochmah (II), 25a.:
In truth, G‑d has already given us the Torah (at Mount Sinai); yet we refer to G‑d as one who still perpetually gives the Torah. This matter requires some elaboration.
It is written: “These words G‑d spoke to your entire congregation at the mountain… a great voice which did not cease.” Rashi explains the meaning of the words “did not cease” (velo yasaf) in accordance with the translation byOnkelos—it did not stop, for it is a powerful voice which endures forever. Rashi also offer a second interpretation of the words velo yasaf—“it did not any more,” i.e., that G‑d did not again speak so openly and publicly as He did at Sinai.
There is a profound significance in these two interpretations, as they are simultaneously true. The divine voice spoke the Torah at Sinai and “did not any more,” as all the subsequent laws and edicts instituted by the sages throughout the generations were not explicitly commanded by G‑d. At the same time “it did not cease,” for everything was included, in potential form, within that voice. It is only that “for everything there is a time and season,” and the time had not yet come for that potential to emerge into actuality; for that depends on the initiative of those down here below, in accordance with their nature and their abilities, and in accordance with the qualities of the souls of each generation. Following the revelation at Sinai, the sages of each generation were roused to actualize from that potential in accordance with the time and season. Thus, the sages did not invent anything from their own minds, G‑d forbid, but rather actualized the divine intent.
4.Midrash Tehillim 12. For more on this topic, including further Talmudic citations, see The Divine and the Human in Torah by Yanki Tauber, especially 3. The Phenomenon of Machaloketh.
5.Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Hilchot Sanhedrin 10:5.
6.See Siftei Cohen to Shulchan Aruch, Choshen Mishpat, 25, s’if katan 19.
7.Talmud, Shabbat 10a.
8.Torat Kohanim, beg. Leviticus.
9.Talmud, Rosh Hashanah 25a.
10.Leviticus 23:4.
11.Cited by Rabbi Menachem Kasher in M'pane'ach Tzfonot, preface. He cites it as an unpublished response.
BY TZVI FREEMAN
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Why Can’t the Rabbis Agree on Anything?
The Jewish obsession with arguments by Tzvi Freeman
Dear Ask-the-Rabbi Rabbi,
How is it that every rabbi I ask any question on anything Jewish gives me a different answer? And I’m just talking about the Orthodox ones! Isn’t this supposed to be one religion?
How can we rely on these rabbis if they can’t even agree with one another?[Mac Lokus]
Hi Mac!
First off, I disagree.
Arguments are good. Fortunate is the society that is full of healthy debate, and happy are the people that are smart enough to join the tussle. Not just because the only way to get to the truth is through a good argument, but also because a good argument—where no one lets up until every angle of attack has been exhausted and every load of ammo has been fired—is, on its own, an important form of truth.What other religion has a sacred book of arguments?
There’s a passage in the Talmud that says as much. (You may have heard of the Talmud. It’s a very voluminous Jewish holy book. And it’s a collection of thousands upon thousands of arguments between rabbis, and then even more arguments by later rabbis about what the earlier rabbis were arguing about. Yes, that’s what you study to be a rabbi—arguments. Tell me, what other religion has a sacred book of arguments?)
Rabbi Aviatar was engaged in an argument with Rabbi Yonatan. The argument wasn’t going anywhere. But Rabbi Aviatar was fortunate enough to bump into Elijah the Prophet on one of his regular earthly tours for the transmission of Torah secrets to those who toil over it.
Rabbi Aviatar said, “Elijah, fancy meeting you here! Tell me, what’s the Holy One (may He be blessed) into right now?”
And wadyuno, Elijah told Rabbi Aviatar that G‑d was currently engrossed in exactly the same topic that was embroiling Rabbi Aviatar and Rabbi Natan.
“That’s really exciting,” exclaimed the rabbi. “So what does the Holy One have to say on the topic?”
To which Elijah responded, “He says, ‘My child, Aviatar, says like this, and my child, Yonatan, says like that.’”1
Does that mean G‑d couldn’t figure out the answer? G‑d forbid. It just means that both opinions are true, and furthermore, the argument itself is also truth.
Carl Shleicher "Eine Streitfrage aus dem Talmud"
The Truth About TruthArguments are also truth.
Now, before you tell me why you disagree, first ask: What could be true about an argument? Once you ask, I’ll answer you the way rabbis are supposed to answer—with another question: What is truth?
Thanks so much for giving me your opinion there. Now let me tell you the truth about truth: Truth is that which is found everywhere.
That truth about truth is embedded in the very letters of the Hebrew word for truth: אמת (emet). אמת starts with the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet, ends with the last letter of the alphabet, and joins the two with a middle letter of the alphabet. Which tells us that truth is not just where everything begins, not just where everything leads, but also how you get there.
א ב ג ד ה ו ז ח ט י כ ל מ נ ס ע פ ק ר ש ת
Here’s another one: Count the words of the Torah—the Five Books of Moses—to discover what lies at the center. Okay, you don’t have time. So I’ll tell you: Moses and Aaron arguing (Aaron wins.) Elsewhere, Moses argues with G‑d (Moses wins). And it shouldn’t come as a surprise that Abraham, the prototype Jew, argued with G‑d over Sodom and Gomorra (Abraham wins—hey, is there a pattern here?). And I’ll bet your bubby didn’t let Him off the hook so easy, either.
The point is, those arguments are Torah. And central to Torah. Which means that, even before they are resolved, they are truths.
The Truth About Arguments
So what’s so true about arguments?
Because, if Torah is true, you can’t get away with, “Alright, that’s the official, authoritative stance on what the Torah says. I don’t get it, but, hey, who am I?”
No, because then you’re saying there’s some place where Torah cannot be found—namely, your brain. And if that’s the case, it’s not true. Which would mean it’s not Torah.You have to say, “I don’t get it.” That’s the first truth.
So you have to say, “I don’t get it.” That’s the first truth.
And then, you have to engage every faculty of your brain to get to the second truth—the truth that comes after thoroughly researching, considering all opinions, creating your own opinions, trashing those and trying others and, yes, arguing it over with anyone you can find ready to argue (rabbis are usually quite eager, as you noted), getting thoroughly confused (yes! that’s the marker for the threshold of truth!) and then—bang! “I got it! And it’s not how my rabbi sees it!”
It can’t be how your rabbi sees it. Because you're not your rabbi. When the Torah was given at Sinai, you and your rabbi stood in two different spots and heard the Torah from different angles. Each angle was true, because the same voice came from all directions from the same one G‑d. But each of us resonates in our own way with that voice. In each of us, the Torah finds a unique truth.How many truths are there to Torah? As many as there are Jews.
So how many truths are there to Torah? As many as there are Jews. (And then some—since Jews disagree with themselves and change their minds, too. As any thinking person would.)2
The caveat is that you have to do your homework—struggle with that teaching, hear out everyone else (hey, they also have truth), get utterly lost and befuddled by it—because that befuddlement, that’s the darkness of your wormhole back to your personal spot at Sinai.3
Carl Shleicher "Jüdische Szene 2"
Torah: Built From the Ground Up for Arguments
This diversity of opinion is not just built into the Jews who are supposed to be learning Torah, it’s built into Torah itself. Here’s another Talmudic passage:
When Moses learned the Torah from G‑d, for each case, G‑d provided 49 reasons to rule one way, and 49 reasons to rule the other way.
Finally, Moses exclaimed, “Ribono Shel Olam! (technically meaning “Master of the World!” but idiomatically more like “What on earth!?”) What are we supposed to do with 98 opinions on every subject?”
To which G‑d responded, “I told you already (Exodus 23:2): Majority rule.”4
Majority of what? Of expert opinions of the communally appointed judges.
Get this: There could be 71 judges on a case, but if 70 of them say, “I agree with the other guy,” we only count that as one opinion.5You’re only a somebody if you disagree with everybody else.
Did you hear that? You don’t count unless you have your own opinion. That’s how Torah works: You’re only a somebody if you disagree with everybody else. (Actually, there’s an argument about that as well.6 )
Because that’s the truth. You are different from everyone else. You have a unique perspective, and if you don’t offer it, then what did you come into this world for?
Getting Down to Earth
But that is not yet the last letter of Torah. Sinai was the first letter, the aleph. The arguments are the middle letter. The last letter is “Now what do we actually do?”
Doing is key. For the same reason that thinking and considering and arguing are so important. But much more so.
Because if Torah is really true, it can’t be like any other wisdom. Any other wisdom can’t tell you what to do. It can only tell you, “If you do this, this is what will happen. If you do that, well, you could blow yourself to smithereens. But, look, if you really want to…”Truth belongs down here on earth as much as it does in the heavens.
But Torah can’t do that. Because just like truth can’t be limited to some minds and escape others, so truth can’t be limited to the mind alone. Truth belongs down here on earth as much as it does in the heavens; in action as much as in thought. That’s why the ultimate truth of Torah is how it plays out down here.
Listen to the language the rabbis use, “Any judge who decides a true judgment to its truth is considered a partner in the work of creation.”7 Get that? There’s truth, and there’s true truth—a higher truth, one that transcends, supersedes and encompasses all other truths. And which one is that? The one that we all do.
Actually, if you want the ultimate truth, it’s not in your brain, it’s in your feet. What’s in your brain is a limited truth. It works for you, but not for the other guy. It works in theory, but not in practice. Yes, in theory, there should be no difference between theory and practice. But in practice, there is. Because in practice, everyone has to do the same thing.
So, to get things down to actual practice, we need to find an all-encompassing truth that transcends all opposites, one that can break through the abstract realm of mind-games into the down-and-dirty let’s-get-things-done reality.
Carl Shleicher "Jüdische Szene 1"
The Third Opinion
That’s a principle in Torah—the 13th of the 13 principles by which the Torah is studied:
Two Torah teachings may contradict one another. But then, a third teaching comes along that resolves them both.8
Meaning, the two really do contradict one another. You're not going to be able to investigate further and find you just weren’t listening properly. No. There’s no way to resolve them—until you get the third teaching.
But that third teaching doesn’t say, “This one is right, and that one is way off.” It presents a new dimension—just like popping out of one dimension into three to discover that two opposite poles make a single line. So too, within this new dimension, the inner soul of each of those two opinions is raised to a whole new level and each is fulfilled.
That’s where I disagree with what you wrote: When it comes to practical, what-do-we-do—what we call halachah—there's 99% consensus. Okay, there are details, as well as many contemporary issues, that have yet to be resolved (these arguments can last about 200 years—but when you’ve got 4,000 years of history, what’s 200 years?). But pigs remain unkosher and we rest on Saturday, not Wednesday. Etcetera.
There has to (eventually) be a consensus, because that’s what holds us together as a people. Action is the great unifier. And it’s at that consensus of the sincere and expert rabbis that the ultimate truth is found. How do we know? Because that's the mechanism for determining practical and ultimate truth provided by Torah itself.For the same reason we need to argue about everything, we need to come to a consensus: Because truth is everywhere..
Are you following? For the same reason that we need to argue about everything, for that very same reason we need to come to a consensus on how to implement this: Because truth is everywhere—not just in our minds, but in our feet; not just in the world of reason and argument, but in the world of action. Especially in the world of action.
Carl Sheicher "Beim Rabbi"
Surrender Without Surrender
Now’s your chance for a real good question: What is the guy who disagrees supposed to do? Is this the point where he just shrugs his shoulders in surrender and follows the crowd? I mean, we’ve got a real quandary here. Truth has to be found in the uniqueness of every individual and truth has to embrace the world of action—but in the world of action, we all have to do the same thing.
So, yes. And no. There’s surrender. But not of intellect. Surrender of ego. Which leads to an infinitely deeper intellect.
Because once a sincere and humble student of Torah sees that there’s a consensus, and he knows that this consensus represents a greater truth, the ultimate truth of truths—so he says, “I have to revisit this whole thing.”
Which he does, traveling yet deeper and deeper into his own mind, deeper than how he heard things at Sinai. And there he finds the voice that transcends and encompasses all minds, all voices. He sees how, from his perspective, with his own mind, this truth is a higher truth. At that point, his mind and truth become one.
All this explains a very puzzling account in the Talmud. Much of the Talmud is filled with debates between the students of Hillel and the students ofShammai. Other than a few special instances, the final ruling is in accordance with the students of Hillel.
The Talmud provides a reason it worked out that way: The students of Shammai were sharper. But the students of Hillel had more humility. They always cited the words of the students of Shammai before their own, and were ready to surrender their own ego for the sake of finding truth.
Now, if you’re a thinking person, your first reaction will probably be to disagree with the reasoning of the Talmud. You’ll ask, “Is this fair? You win an argument over those who are sharper than you just because you’re more humble?”
Well, I can argue a better question: Are you telling me that the students of Shammai lacked humility? You can’t learn Torah without humility. Learning Torah is all about quietening the loud voice of your own reasoning so you can hear the Torah’s (usually by listening to what others have to argue). So if these students of Shammai were great scholars of Torah, they must have also been very humble!“What does the Creator want with His universe?”
But there’s humility and there’s humility. There’s humility to put aside your “I think this” and open your mind to a higher wisdom. You can’t even begin to learn Torah without that. But to decide a final ruling you need to go further. You need to escape the cerebral bubble of a created, finite being—to reach beyond the mind altogether—and get a sense of “What does the Creator want with His universe?”
Now you’re thinking on a whole new level. A divine level.
Samuel Hirszenberg 'Szkola_talmudystów'
Case Study 1
Rabbi Yehoshua was a master of astronomy and halachah in his generation. In his times, the Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans. The Jewish supreme court, under Rabban Gamliel, had moved to Yavneh.
In those times, the new moon was established every month by the supreme court. Witnesses would come and report to the court that they had seen the new moon, and after much questioning, if the court was satisfied that the witnesses were correct, they would declare that day to be the first day of the new month. Now here’s the story:9
Two witnesses came to Rabban Gamliel and his court. They said that they had seen the moon at the time when it was supposed to appear. The problem was, the next day it was not there. Rabban Gamliel and his court accepted the witnesses and declared the new moon.
But other rabbis balked. Rabbi Dosa ben Hycanus said, “These witnesses are liars. It’s like testifying that a lady gave birth, and the next day her belly is up to her teeth.” [Yes, these rabbis had a very creative sense of metaphor.]
Rabbi Yehoshua said, “Rabbi Dosa, I’m with you.”
So now you had a situation where the Jews in Rabbi Yehoshua’s town—and perhaps many others as well—would be celebrating the festivals on one day, while those in Yavneh (and many other places) would celebrate on a different day.
But next thing you know, Rabbi Yehoshua received a message from Rabban Gamliel: “I hereby order you to appear before me with your staff and with your purse of money on the day that isYom Kippur according to your reckoning.”
Rabbi Akiva went to visit Rabbi Yehoshua. He found him quite distressed. Rabbi Akiva told Rabbi Yehoshua, “Look, astronomically speaking, you could be right. But that doesn’t matter. Whatever Rabban Gamliel has done is done. And that’s the way it works. Take a look: The Torah says, ‘These are the seasons of G‑d that you should declare in their seasons.’10 Not that G‑d declares, but what those appointed by us in this world declare. Whether at the right time or not at the right time, G‑d says, ‘I’m going by what you people declare.’”
Then Rabbi Dosa ben Hyrcanus came to see him. He said, “Look, if we’re going to revisit the ruling of the court of Rabban Gamliel, we’re going to have to revisit the ruling of every court since Moses.”
So Rabbi Yehoshua picked up his staff and his purse of money and traveled to Rabban Gamliel on the day that was Yom Kippur by his reckoning.
When he arrived, Rabban Gamliel stood for him and kissed him on his forehead. He said, “Come in peace, my teacher and my student! You are my teacher in wisdom, and my student because you have accepted my words.”
Rabbi Yehoshua didn’t go begrudgingly. Neither did he abandon his opinion. He went, his staff went, and his money went, because Rabbi Akiva and Rabbi Dosa had provided him a deeper truth—one that did not contradict his own, but supported Rabban Gamliel nonetheless: Whatever the official representative sages of the Jewish observant community decide, G‑d Himself endorses.
And so there was peace and unity in Israel, as everyone fasted and celebrated on the same days.
Rabbi Yosef Rosen, "The Rogatchover Gaon"
Case Study 2
For a more contemporary case, let’s take the case of Rabbi Yosef Rosen, a.k.a. “The Rogatchover Gaon.” (Gaon means genius, Rogatchov is the town in Belarus where Rabbi Rosen was born.) He lived in the 20th century, but they say had he lived in the times of the Talmud, even then he would have been considered among the greatest of Torah scholars.
The Rogatchover Gaon answered many thousands of questions written to him, citing his sources from memory, every page number and every quote with perfect accuracy—as though the entire Talmud and all the major codes and commentaries were before his eyes in a single microfiche. Then he would provide his final, authoritative opinion.
In one such response,11 the Rogatchover Gaon attacked a 16th century ruling of the Rema, Rabbi Moses Isserles, whose glosses on the Shulchan Aruchare considered authoritative by Ashkenazic Jewry—from every angle, with sharp, incisive and brilliant arguments.
And then, the Rogatchover concluded, “After all is said, heaven forbid to budge one iota from the ruling of Rabbi Moses Isserles.”
You see, the Rabbi Moses Isserles’s ruling had already been accepted as final by the Jewish halachic community.
In that humility lies the wormhole to true genius.
Based on Likutei Sichot, volume 21, pp. 110 ff, and sources listed there.
FOOTNOTES1.Talmud, Gittin 6b.
2.See the preface to Baba Kama in Yam Shel Shlomo, a classic gloss on Talmud by Rabbi Shlomo Luria (16th century), one of the principal decisors of halachah:
…For all the souls were at Mount Sinai and each received through 49 channels…and these are the voices that they both heard and saw, as it says, “All of Israel saw the voices.” This refers to the knowledge that was divided by these channels. Each one saw through his channel, according to his understanding…
See also Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi, preface to Tanya.
3.See Rabbi Yeshaya Horowitz, Shnei Luchot HaBrit, Beit Chochmah (II), 25a.:
In truth, G‑d has already given us the Torah (at Mount Sinai); yet we refer to G‑d as one who still perpetually gives the Torah. This matter requires some elaboration.
It is written: “These words G‑d spoke to your entire congregation at the mountain… a great voice which did not cease.” Rashi explains the meaning of the words “did not cease” (velo yasaf) in accordance with the translation byOnkelos—it did not stop, for it is a powerful voice which endures forever. Rashi also offer a second interpretation of the words velo yasaf—“it did not any more,” i.e., that G‑d did not again speak so openly and publicly as He did at Sinai.
There is a profound significance in these two interpretations, as they are simultaneously true. The divine voice spoke the Torah at Sinai and “did not any more,” as all the subsequent laws and edicts instituted by the sages throughout the generations were not explicitly commanded by G‑d. At the same time “it did not cease,” for everything was included, in potential form, within that voice. It is only that “for everything there is a time and season,” and the time had not yet come for that potential to emerge into actuality; for that depends on the initiative of those down here below, in accordance with their nature and their abilities, and in accordance with the qualities of the souls of each generation. Following the revelation at Sinai, the sages of each generation were roused to actualize from that potential in accordance with the time and season. Thus, the sages did not invent anything from their own minds, G‑d forbid, but rather actualized the divine intent.
4.Midrash Tehillim 12. For more on this topic, including further Talmudic citations, see The Divine and the Human in Torah by Yanki Tauber, especially 3. The Phenomenon of Machaloketh.
5.Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Hilchot Sanhedrin 10:5.
6.See Siftei Cohen to Shulchan Aruch, Choshen Mishpat, 25, s’if katan 19.
7.Talmud, Shabbat 10a.
8.Torat Kohanim, beg. Leviticus.
9.Talmud, Rosh Hashanah 25a.
10.Leviticus 23:4.
11.Cited by Rabbi Menachem Kasher in M'pane'ach Tzfonot, preface. He cites it as an unpublished response.
BY TZVI FREEMAN
Rabbi Tzvi Freeman, a senior editor at Chabad.org, also heads our Ask The Rabbi team. He is the author of Bringing Heaven Down to Earth.
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Your Questions
May I Shop in a Store and Then Purchase for Cheaper Online? by Aron Moss
Here's the scenario. I walk into an electronics store and ask the sales staff for advice on which digital camera is best for my needs. The guy spends half an hour explaining the pros and cons of all the different models. I say thanks and walk out of the store, then go online and order the exact camera he recommended, but at a much cheaper price. Am I being dishonest?
Answer:
"Thou shalt not steal" does not only apply to outright thievery. The Torah warns against “stealing people's minds,” which means misleading them through words or actions, in order to gain some personal benefit.
Say you’re getting married, and you send an invitation to an acquaintance who you know won't attend the wedding. If your true motive is just to earn a gift in return, and you don't really want the person to come to the wedding, then that's stealing their mind for selfish gain. But if you are extending the invitation to honor them, or so they don't feel insulted, then that's fine. In such a case, you are not taking, you are giving. It all depends on your intent.
The Talmud prohibits asking a shopkeeper the price of an item that you have no intention of buying. You are stealing his mind, by making him think he has a customer. It would seem that the same applies to your camera shopping expedition. The sales guy invested half an hour in you, thinking he had a buyer. If you never intended to purchase the camera in that store, you stole his mind, as he gave you his time for nothing.
Now, you could argue that your case is different from the Talmudic one. The guy who served you doesn't own the store, he is just in sales. It makes no difference to him if he made the sale or not, his job is to answer customers' questions. Okay, but perhaps he gets a commission on each sale, so he wouldn't have bothered wasting his time on you if he knew there was no chance of sealing the deal. And even if not, are you not stealing from the shop owner, who pays his sales team to serve genuine customers?
You might say that you would be more than happy to purchase the camera from the store, if they would match the online price. So you weren't deceiving, just comparative shopping. That may indeed be the case. Only you and G‑d know.
In most questions of right and wrong, actions count more than intentions. But when it comes to stealing minds, the action is always defensible. Your intentions should be, too.
Aron Moss is rabbi of the Nefesh Community in Sydney, Australia, and is a frequent contributor to Chabad.org.
© Copyright 2016, all rights reserved.
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Current
Six Things I Learned From a Gravitational Wave by Tzvi Freeman
On February 11, 2016, scientists at the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) announced that they had confirmed that their equipment had detected a gravitational wave—a warp moving through space-time caused by a transformation of mass to energy. It’s a phenomenon predicted by Albert Einstein nearly a century ago, but never directly observed until now, and it was hailed as one of the greatest observations in modern scientific history, one that opens up a new way of observing, measuring and understanding the physical universe.
According to their calculations, the wave was released by the collision of two black holes 1.3 billion light years away. Those two super-dense masses merged, converting matter into gravitational energy (a la E=Mc2) that propagated throughout the universe until it reached us.
The Baal Shem Tov teaches that the world is a classroom without walls, and everything we see and hear is a lesson. This being an epic event in the history of science, I figured I had to learn a few epic lessons. Here are the ones I find easier to explain:
Everything has bountiful purpose and meaning in our mission in life. Even black holes.
We gain a tremendous amount of valuable information from all those stars and galaxies shining in the sky. But from black holes that just suck in all energy and information?
Yes. In fact, we not only received information from them—they assisted us in developing a whole new way to perceive the universe. Gravitational waves pass unhindered through cosmic clouds and without distortion around heavy masses. A new clarity has opened for us—a new window on the oneness of the universe in terms we can view on a screen and hear with our ears. And the oneness of the universe reflects the oneness of its Creator.
Darkness shines—brighter than any light.
Mass warps things. The greater the mass, the more warped is its universe.
Since the physical universe is a mere reflection of the spiritual one, it follows that in the spiritual universe, where mass equals ego, those with the most massive egos massively warp their world—especially if they act like black holes, always receiving, never giving. Stay far from them, lest you be sucked into their mass. And make sure to keep your ego-mass fairly small too. Your universe will be all the less warped.
Everything happens in its time. In late 1915, Einstein published his paper on General Relativity—the theory that implied the existence of gravitational waves. Some 1.3 billion light years away, the Creator of the universe set up a giga-situation just so those waves would be detected smack 100 years later. Tell me that’s coincidence.
Rather, when it comes time for humanity to gain new eyes and ears, at that time they are given to us. Along with these vital lessons we need to learn right at this point in history. (The signal was detected on September 14, 2015—which just happens to be Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. The announcement was made after months of vigorous review and confirmation of data.)
When you gain a new way of perceiving things, you gain a tiny chunk of the known and a vast frontier of the unknown. A whole new universe now lies before us.
It was Newton's gravitational theorem, after all, that was humanity's first great step towards a unified view of the universe. With one simple equation, phenomena of the heavens and earth all became one. Einstein only took Newton's unification another grand step.
But this unifying force of gravity remained invisible and elusive. Now, for the first time, our eyes are opened to see it and our ears to hear it. The era when all eyes will see the oneness of the creation and its Creator are swiftly coming.
When you receive a new and startling signal from the heavens above, check your instruments. They must be delicately tuned according to specifications. Science and Torah are both accumulative—any new information must be checked against accumulated data of the past. Nothing flies unless it explains why everything before it flew.
If you know what to look for and how to find it, seek and you shall find. Science tells us how to find gravitational waves. Scientists searched for 100 years and they found them. Torah tells us how to find fulfillment, peace and happiness. Keep looking.
Those are my six. Tell me yours.
Rabbi Tzvi Freeman, a senior editor at Chabad.org, also heads our Ask The Rabbi team. He is the author of Bringing Heaven Down to Earth. To subscribe to regular updates of Rabbi Freeman's writing, visitFreeman Files subscription.
© Copyright 2016, all rights reserved.
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VIDEO
Why the Way You Dress Matters
Do Clothes Make the Man?
By Yacov Barber
Watch (6:01)<script language="javascript" type="text/javascript" src="http://embed.chabad.org/multimedia/mediaplayer/embedded/embed.js.asp?aid=3229393&width=auto&height=auto"></script><span style="clear:both;" class="lb" id="lbdiv">Visit <a href="http://www.chabad.org/multimedia/default_cdo/aid/591213/jewish/Video.htm">Jewish.TV</a> for more <a href="http://www.chabad.org/multimedia/default_cdo/aid/591213/jewish/Video.htm">Jewish videos</a>.</span>
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The Tzitz
The Gold Band Worn by the High Priest
One of the special garments and articles worn by the High Priest in the Holy Temple was a golden band placed on the forehead. Understanding the significance and symbolism of the Tzitz.
Aaron L. Raskin
Watch (18:41)<script language="javascript" type="text/javascript" src="http://embed.chabad.org/multimedia/mediaplayer/embedded/embed.js.asp?aid=2487627&width=auto&height=auto"></script><span style="clear:both;" class="lb" id="lbdiv">Visit <a href="http://www.chabad.org/multimedia/default_cdo/aid/591213/jewish/Video.htm">Jewish.TV</a> for more <a href="http://www.chabad.org/multimedia/default_cdo/aid/591213/jewish/Video.htm">Jewish videos</a>.</span>
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Parenting
Seven Things You Should Know About Parents of Children With Disabilities by Michelle K. Wolf
The experience of parenting a child with disabilities has sometimes been described as “extreme parenting” in terms of both duration and intensity. When you meet a mother or father of an older child or teen with disabilities, she or he may seem distracted, tired or even a little distant. They may seem burned-out and may not have the energy to engage in much social interaction. And here’s why:
1. They are still dealing with temper tantrums.
Most typical children stop having those screaming/yelling fits after ages 5 or 6, but they linger on with children who have disabilities throughout adulthood. This is especially true for children who have limited verbal or other communication abilities. Often, the triggers are something new or unexpected since most children with disabilities crave routine and predictability.
2. Life is constantly throwing them a curveball.
Just when you think you’ve figured out how to keep your child with disabilities calm, safe and happy, something new pops up, such as a child developing seizures in adolescence. This is hard for any parent, but it’s even worse for one who already feels stretched.
3. Medical professionals don’t talk to each other.
In our current health-care insurance system, both private and public, there’s no money to pay for medical professionals such as pediatricians, specialists and speech therapists to talk to one another about the same patient, so parents end up having to fill the role of medical navigator/case manager as well.
4. Quality aides cost money.
Even if parents are able to cut through the red tape and paperwork and get government-funded services, the hourly rates are usually too low to attract and keep quality aides. Many parents end up supplementing those rates out of pocket to retain the best help for their children so they can participate in school and community settings.
5. Please ask your children to smile, not stare.
Most children who attend Jewish day schools never have the chance to meet a classmate with a severe physical disability or who “looks” very different. They therefore tend to stare when they meet a child or teen with those disabilities out in the playground or store. Please use that time as a “teachable” moment, and ask your child to smile or say “hi” if they see a child in a wheelchair or using an assistive communication device.
6. Include all of us.
Our son with physical and intellectual disabilities loves nothing better than a big party with music and dancing. When we get invited to a simcha without him, it just doesn’t feel right. If you were planning to invite other children of a similar age to ours to the simcha, please extend an invitation to him as well.
7. We are more than just parents of a child with a disability.
Although we are very focused on the health and well-being of our child with a disability, we are also interested in other things—from the latest new novel to what’s happening in Israel. Just as our child is much more than his or her disability, we are also much more than our roles as parents of a child with disabilities.[Michelle K. Wolf is parent disability advocate, blogger/writer, non-profit consultant and teaches grant writing. In 2005, she co-founded HaMercaz, an innovative multi-agency collaborative one-stop model that helps Jewish families raising children with special needs with a focus on developmental disabilities.
The Ruderman-Chabad Inclusion Initiative (RCII) is dedicated to building on the philosophy and mission of Chabad-Lubavitch by providing Chabad communities around the globe the education and resources they need to advance inclusion of people with disabilities. RCII engages Chabad’s network of human and educational resources to create a Culture of Inclusion so that all Jews feel welcomed, supported and valued throughout their entire lifecycle.
Artwork by Sarah Kranz.]
© Copyright 2016, all rights reserved.
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Parenting
How to Eradicate Your Child’s Anger by Sarah Chana Radcliffe
G‑d gave us all sorts of feelings—happiness, sadness, confusion, fear, anger. All of these feelings are meant to be signals, calls to action. Sadness urges us to rest and/or replace a loss. Confusion pushes us to seek clarity. Fear prompts our vigilance, helping to keep us safe. And anger helps us establish and maintain healthy boundaries.
Our sages tell us that we should aim to avoid extremes in our personal expression and experiences of emotions. We shouldn’t be so happy that we are delirious, nor so sad that we are morose. We should not be so certain of anything that we leave no room for G‑d or for human error, nor should we be so uncertain that we can never make a decision or take action. We should be cautious in order to guard our bodies, but we should not become paralyzed with fear. We should find the golden middle road.
However, when it comes to anger, we are admonished to remove it entirely (except for very rare, Torah-sanctioned occasions in which we are allowed to use this emotion in the defense and protection of G‑d’s honor). For all intents and purposes, we should be aiming to eradicate anger from our emotional repertoire. But why?
Anger & Idol Worship
Anger is a destructive force, harming individuals, relationships and the world. One who gives in to anger is said to be an idol-worshipper, for he is denying G‑d’s Omnipotence by believing that he knows how to run the world better than G‑d. He vehemently objects to the events unfolding in front of him and reacts in rebellious rage, terrorizing those around him and injuring his own heart. Indeed, when one gives in to anger, the sensitive soul departs, and the evil inclination takes over his heart.
Raising Un-Angry Children
Unfortunately, people don’t just outgrow their anger. In fact, a child who is allowed to express hostility simply becomes better and better at it. By the time he is a teenager, everyone in the household knows to stay clear when he is tired, hungry or irritable. As an adult, his spouse and children will become vigilant for his subtle signals of displeasure, tiptoeing around him so as to avoid his outbursts. How can we as parents ensure that our children do not grow up into rage-aholics whose lives will be soured by unhappy relationships and constant tension?
1. Model calm, healthy behavior. When parents shout at each other or at their children, the children often copy them. While you may have learned this style from your own parents, it’s not a gift to pass on to your children. Do everything possible to refrain from displaying outward anger.
2. Diagnose the cause of your child’s anger. This will help you know which interventions to choose from.
Here are some common causes of children’s anger problems:
- difficulties with emotional regulation (child doesn’t know how to deal calmly with disappointment or frustration and/or has trouble calming himself down once he expresses upset feelings).
- agitated nervous system. For instance, lack of proper sleep, nutrition or stimulation can cause agitation. Illness and pain can increase irritability, as can allergies and sensitivities.
- genetic tendencies toward impulsivity and negativity. Certain mental-health conditions such as ADHD, autism, bipolar disorder and other issues increase rapid or intense negative emotional responses. Also, inborn temperamental characteristics can lead to more negativity and irritability.
- overwhelming emotions. Finding schoolwork too hard, feeling socially rejected, having trouble feeling accepted within the family and other stressful experiences can lead to an increase in angry and frustrated emotions.
- traumatic experiences. Witnessing or experiencing abuse, terror, violence or life-threatening circumstances, such as floods and hurricanes, can significantly unsettle the nervous system, leading to irritability, hostility and aggression. Traumatic experiences also include being bullied outside or inside the family (by parents or siblings).
- parenting style that (unintentionally) reinforces tantrums, anger and aggression. For instance, a parent may pay too much attention to problematic behaviors, refrain from teaching appropriate behaviors or use ineffective techniques for teaching.
When a child doesn’t know what to do instead of lash out, parents need to actively teach him. A child needs to know how to leave an upsetting scene in order to calm down. He needs to know what to do in order to calm down once he has found a quiet place. And he needs to know how to get his needs met appropriately, using his words, once he returns.
For children who act out because of their physical health conditions, it is necessary to address those conditions. Seeing a medical practitioner or naturopath might be in order. It also may be necessary to change your child’s diet or develop tighter bedtime routines. Explore the possibility of food and substance sensitivities.
Mental-health conditions need to be addressed by a professional, as do the consequences of traumatic and intensely negative experiences. Emotional overwhelm can sometimes be addressed by parents (i.e., reducing schoolwork or getting a tutor) and sometimes require the help of outside professionals.
Parenting books and classes can help mothers and fathers develop more effective strategies to eradicate unacceptable expressions of anger, as well as to establish the kind of environment that reduces the tendency to stir angry, negative feelings. Parents need to learn gentle but effective ways of discouraging inappropriate behavior and encouraging appropriate behavior.
Whatever it takes, do everything you can to help your child feel calmer and happier. A mad child is a sad child—tantrums, aggression and grumpiness are not signs of happy contentment. If at first you don’t succeed, don’t give up; enlist the assistance of professionals when necessary. You will be helping your child for the rest of his life when you help him reduce his anger today.
[Sarah Chana Radcliffe is the author of The Fear Fix, Make Yourself at Home and Raise Your Kids Without Raising Your Voice. Visit her parenting page or access her teleclasses.
Illustration de Sefira Ross, une designer et illustratrice freelance dont les créations originales ornent de nombreuses pages de Chabad.org. Résidant à Seattle, Washington, elle partage son temps entre ses créations graphiques et être une maman.]
© Copyright 2016, all rights reserved.
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Women
Food for Thought by Anonymous
Mar Ukva, the reish galuta (“Head of the Exile”) used to slip four coins under the door of a neighborhood pauper on his way to the study hall. One day, the pauper decided to find out who was doing this kind act. That day, Mar Ukva’s wife accompanied him to the study hall, and on the way they stopped by the pauper’s door. As soon as the pauper saw that people were approaching his door to slip the coins underneath, he ran out after them, and Mar Ukva and his wife ran away from him to keep their identity a secret.
They hid in a baker’s oven, which was still hot from the day’s baking. Standing in the huge oven, Mar Ukva’s felt his feet begin to burn, but his wife’s feet were unaffected. “Place your feet on mine,” said his wife. Mar Ukva felt dejected; he saw that he was less worthy than his wife. Seeking to put him at ease, his wife said to him comfortingly, “I am generally present in the house, where I’m more accessible to the paupers. Also, the paupers’ benefit is immediate because I give them prepared foods.”1
As a child, I grew up on such stories of generous Jewish homeowners. If a poor man knocked on your door, you gave him food. This was how it went in all the old Chassidic and Talmudic tales. But for some reason, those scenarios didn’t seem to happen in real life. When did a poor man in tattered clothing knock on my door begging for a slice of bread? Had I ever seen someone who was thin with hunger?Had I ever seen someone who was thin with hunger? Thankfully, no. Perhaps people were hungry in other parts of the world, but in my middle-class Jewish neighborhood, I reasoned that most poor people were richer than the “rich people” of old. Poverty was hidden behind charity organizations, mailers, fundraisers, and, on rare occasions, an unknown man knocking on the door proffering a letter of recommendation for his cause. Even those poor men were not collecting for food. They were collecting for medical expenses, weddings and other needy families. If I offered them a chicken, they wouldn’t take it.
So I resigned to giving tzedakah (charity) in the conventional way. I banished the dreams of giving a poor man food, and instead emptied my wallet or swiped my credit card. Slick tzedakah.
Then came Rosh Hashanah. Along with thinking of ways to try and get a few minutes in shul, I was also busy thinking about how I would fit all the food in the refrigerator. I like to cook, and since Rosh Hashanah is the first in a series of holidays, I had a full freezer. Actually, I had three full freezers, fully stocked. Everything was packed to the gills.
On Rosh Hashanah morning, as I was racing around trying to collect all the things I would need before going to shul (synagogue), the electricity suddenly went out.My refrigerator! What would happen to all the food?I hoped the electricity would go back on soon.
When I returned a short while later to watch the younger children so my older daughter could go to shul, I was overjoyed at the whirring sound of the refrigerator—our electricity was back.
I was putting up the food to warm when there was a knock on the door. A neighbor from my building asked if I could store some things in the refrigerator or freezer. “I’ll tell you the truth,” I said, “I have no room in my refrigerator, but my freezer always somehow manages to fit in one more thing. You can bring things here.” I pushed things around in the freezer and somehow made room for the four uncooked chickens that my neighbor brought. “They’re not even mine,” she said. “They belong to a friend who had no room for them, so I was storing them for her. The rest of my freezer is filled with bread.”
I knew that this neighbor was financially strapped, and there was a man who gave her leftover bread from bakeries in the city. I knew because she sometimes had so much bread that she would give me some. Now, looking back, I wonder how I didn’t get the hint—a freezer full of bread on the first day of Yom Tov? Why wasn’t itI knew this neighbor was financially strapped, but I didn’t connect the dots filled with Yom Tov delicacies? But I didn’t connect the dots.
“What’s wrong with your electricity?” I asked. “Ours is working.”
“I don’t know,” she said, “but ours didn’t go back on.”
The day wore on. The men came back from shul, and we ate a scrumptious meal. Then something clicked in my brain. The neighbors were sitting in the dark! And what about all their food? Theirs was a family of seven children; they must have much more than my small family. So where were they storing it all? I had told her I had no room, so they must have put it in another neighbor’s refrigerator. But who had so much room? Something didn’t add up.
I went up to another neighbor. “Yes,” said my neighbor, “they put their food in my refrigerator.”
“How did you have room for it all?” I asked her.
“Oh, there wasn’t much. Only three hard-boiled eggs, a small container of cooked spaghetti and a little box with a fish head.”
“And that’s it?” I almost jumped. “No more? Where is the soup for tonight’s meal, and the fish and meat for tomorrow? What about chicken and kugels? They have seven children to feed ... where is all the food?”
“She told me that she was bringing all her food over to me, so this must be it,” said the neighbor. Then the realization hit us. We had a family in our building that had next to nothing to eat! Presumably, they had bread, but not much else. We devised a plan to bring the family some cooked food, complaining of having too much ourselves and no room for the leftovers.
Then I realized that poor people did not disappear behind fancy organizations and glossy brochures. They were regular families, behind regular doors—sometimes shabby, sometimes not—whose refrigerators did not need to be turned on for Yom Tov because they had nothing inside to keep cold.
Then I beganThen I began seeing them seeing them. The unstable couple, whose shouts could be heard all the way down the street, and whose garbage came cascading out of the window regularly—and the tray of warm foil pans delivered to them by a faithful neighbor every Shabbat morning.
I noticed a woman who, thinking I had not seen her, snuck up to a door and hung a bag full of plastic containers on the door handle.
I could still give food to the poor, a piece of chicken to a hungry soul. So can you. Just keep your eyes open.
[Artwork by Sefira Ross, a freelance designer and illustrator whose original creations grace many Chabad.org pages. Residing in Seattle, Washington, her days are spent between multitasking illustrations and being a mom.]
FOOTNOTES
1.Talmud, Ketubot 67b.
© Copyright 2016, all rights reserved.
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Women
What This Man Did With His Trash Is Unbelievable by Chana Weisberg
Dear reader,
I recently returned from the West Coast. On my last day there, the woman who drove me to my destination in Riverside offered to show me around her city. Hiking with Brittney in mid-January along paths littered with towering palm trees and picturesque tropical flowers in sunny California was a huge treat.
Brittney is artistic, so she showed me some great art spots in downtown Riverside where local artists display their creations. Together we marveled at the intricate architecture in the buildings. And then, my awesome host, offered to take me to a very unique and unexpected place.
Tio’s Taco is not a kosher restaurant, so don’t go there to eat. But do go there, as many tourists do, to view the incredible outdoor pathways set on an acre of land. I guarantee you that the sculptures and mosaics will leave you spellbound.
What makes the whimsical artwork so incredible is that every sculpture is made out of recycled everyday objects that you’d be more inclined to find in a junk yard. Beer bottles, soda cans, bottle tops, discarded children’s toys and shells are transformed into giant characters. Held together with simple chicken wire, this leftover trash tells a tale of ingenuity and creativity.
As a young child, the owner and artist, Tio Martin Sanchez, migrated with his family to California from a small town in rural Mexico. He describes how people of poor countries marvel at the trash of affluent, privileged countries. Back in Mexico, Tio created his own toys from whatever scraps of refuse he could find. Upon immigrating, he supported himself by selling oranges on the side of the road. Eventually, he worked his way up until he owned his restaurant.
Despite his success, his artwork attests that he never forgot the treasures that lay buried in what others may regard as trash.
The Kabbalists teach that every created thing possesses a "spark" of Divine energy that constitutes its essence and soul. No existence is devoid of a Divine spark; nothing can exist without the pinpoint of G‑dliness that imbues it with being and purpose. When we use something for a G‑dly end, we bring to light this spark, realizing the purpose for which it was created.
Walking through Tio’s Taco, I couldn’t help but think of the many things that we disdainfully discard as useless or purposeless. Even worse, how often do we treat people in the very same manner!
Tio’s Taco reminded me that if trash can be transformed into art, how much more so should we view each of our life experiences as a potential for something great, containing a wealth of learning opportunities.
And, most importantly, no matter at what state or stage, every individual we meet needs to be seen and treasured—as G‑d’s exquisite artwork.
Chana Weisberg
Editor, TJW[Chana Weisberg is the editor of TheJewishWoman.org. She lectures internationally on issues relating to women, relationships, meaning, self-esteem and the Jewish soul. She is the author of five popular books.]
© Copyright 2016, all rights reserved.
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Story
Necessary Pilgrimages by Yerachmiel Tilles
A young man named Velvel was once traveling home from the house of his father-in-law, Reb Baruch, who lived near Chernobyl. Having heard so much about Rabbi Menachem Nachum, known as the Maggid (“preacher”) of Chernobyl, Velvel decided to stop off there and see for himself the wonders which had earned the Maggid such a reputation.
Although he had arrived as a skeptic, it did not take long for Velvel to be enchanted by the intense holiness that permeated Rabbi Nachum’s study hall. It was the most exhilarating experience of his life. He found it difficult to tear himself away from the Maggid; his only consolation was that he could return upon his next visit to his father-in-law.
In a short time Velvel was back, and again was captivated. He was inspired by the prayers, stimulated by the Torah thoughts he heard . . . in short, Velvel became an ardent disciple, or chassid, of the Maggid of Chernobyl.
His father-in-law, however, was less than enthusiastic about Velvel’s newfound mentor. “What is going on with you? Why are you becoming so involved with Rabbi Nachum?” he demanded. “I’m supporting you so that you should be able to use your days for studying Torah, and instead you are spending your time with the Maggid!”Velvel was disappointed, but sure his father-in-law would be persuaded . . .
Confidently, Velvel answered, “My dear father-in-law, there is only one answer I can give you. Come along with me the next time I go, and experience a Shabbat with the Maggid yourself.”
They arrived in Chernobyl right before Shabbat. After the Kabbalat Shabbat prayers, Velvel looked at his father-in-law expectantly for his reaction. Reb Baruch said, “I’m not impressed. I’ve heard similar praying before.” Velvel was disappointed, but sure his father-in-law would be persuaded after he heard the Maggid recite kiddush over the wine before the Shabbat evening meal.
Much to Velvel’s dismay, Reb Baruch remained unimpressed, even after kiddush. And neither the entrancing Shabbat songs, nor the rebbe’s inspiring Torah words which followed, help sway his opinion.
After Shabbat, Reb Baruch turned to his son-in-law and told him, “I am still unconvinced. I see no reason why I should be supporting you to learn, when instead you spend your time here with the Maggid. In fact, I am going to the Maggid’s to tell him directly what I think!”
“I promised to support my son-in-law while he learns,” Reb Baruch informed the Maggid, “but while I have kept my part of the deal, he has let me down. Instead of learning, he comes here to Chernobyl. I refuse to support him any longer if he continues in this way. Tell me,” he asked Rabbi Nachum, “do you think it is right that so many young men whose parents are supporting them should spend their time here?”
Rabbi Nachum smiled at the father-in-law and said to him in response, “Let me tell you a story.
“During the time of the the Holy Temple, there lived a man who had never in his life been to Jerusalem! He had always found some excuse not to go. He convinced himself that he could remain at home and still be a good Jew; it was unnecessary, he maintained, to go there, not even to fulfill the mitzvah to appear there on the three festivals of Pesach, Shavuot and Sukkot.
“Once, when he was already an elderly man, he inadvertently desecrated the Shabbat, for which one is required to offer a sin offering. Now he had no choice but to go up to Jerusalem to present his sacrifice. It was quite an experience for him: since he had never been there, he did not know the way, and had to constantly inquire for directions. The people he asked were incredulous. ‘Do you mean you’ve never been to Jerusalem? How could it be that a man your age has never been there?’
“Finally he reached the city. His excitement grew as the moment approached when he would finally arrive at the Temple Mount and see the Holy Temple. But, again, he had no idea how to get there, and had to ask people how to proceed. Again, he had to endure the astonishment of those from whom he asked directions, who exclaimed, ‘You’ve never been to the Holy Temple? At your age?!’“Was this the beautiful Holy Temple he had heard so much about?
“He arrived at the Holy Temple, and entered the courtyard where the kohanim were preparing the sacrifices. He was taken aback by the sight. Was this the beautiful Holy Temple he had heard so much about? It looked more like a kitchen! The kohanim were hurrying about, there was blood dripping everywhere . . . He had no idea what to do in order to bring a sacrifice, and he was ashamed of his ignorance.
“He asked to speak with the high priest, and was led to a man dressed in beautiful, majestic clothing. He had expected to see a saintly old man, and was unimpressed by this youth standing before him. Confused by the apparent lack of what he had always considered to be holy and respectful, he asked the high priest, ‘What makes this place unique? And what makes you more special than anyone else? Why do people flock to the Holy Temple three times a year?’
“The high priest turned to the old man and asked him, ‘Why have you come?’ He replied, ‘I sinned unintentionally.’ The high priest asked, ‘Is this the only time you sinned in all these years?’ ‘Yes,’ replied the man confidently.
“Looking down at stones of his breastplate (the choshen), whose engraved letters were now illuminated, the high priest said, ‘What about the time last year when you made a business deal and swore falsely?’ ‘Oh, yes,’ admitted the man, ‘I forgot about that.’
“Again examining the holy breastplate, the high priest said, ‘What about that time when you were alone and succumbed to temptation?’
“The man now realized that the high priest had the ability to recount all the sins he had committed in his lifetime. ‘Please, enough!’ he begged. ‘Say no more! Now I understand why one has to come to the Holy Temple three times a year! The holiness of the place elevates a person; had I come here all these years, I would not have committed so many sins!’”
When the Maggid completed his story, Reb Baruch was standing in openmouthed shock. The sins at the times that the Maggid had related were, in fact, transgressions that he himself had committed! When he found his voice, he cried out, “Rebbe, Rebbe, don’t say any more! I understand now why my son-in-law and your other followers feel a need to come here!”
[Reb Baruch became a loyal follower of the Maggid, and accompanied Velvel every time he went to Chernobyl.
Adapted from Gut Voch, by Avrohom Barash.
Biographical note:
Rabbi Menachem Nachum, the Maggid of Chernobyl [1730–11 Cheshvan 1787], was a disciple of the Baal Shem Tov and senior disciple of the Maggid of Mezeritch. He is the author of Me’or Einayim.]
[Copyright 2003 by KabbalaOnline.org. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this work or portions thereof, in any form, unless with permission, in writing, from Kabbalah Online.
Yerachmiel Tilles is the co-founder of Ascent-of-Safed, and was its educational director for 18 years. He is the creator of www.ascentofsafed.com and www.kabbalaonline.org and currently the director of both sites. He is also a well-known storyteller, a columnist for numerous chassidic publications, and a staff rabbi on AskMoses.com, as well as and the author of "Saturday Night, Full Moon": Intriguing Stories of Kabbalah Sages, Chasidic Masters and other Jewish Heroes.]
© Copyright 2016, all rights reserved.
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Story
My Memories of the Latvian Minister in Exile: Reb Mordechai Dubin by Miriam Nevel
The Synagogue
The Great Choral Synagogue in Moscow was a for-show place of worship, like others in the Soviet Union in the 1940s. Stalin had ordered his soldiers not to close this synagogue or the two Christian Orthodox churches in Moscow, so that when foreigners and their press would come to the USSR to see how religion was being persecuted, the Soviet police could prove this accusation false by showing the foreign visitors the St. Stanislaus Church, the St. Xavier Church and, lehavdil, the Great Choral Synagogue.
Rabbi Mordechai Dubin
In his younger years, Rabbi Dubin had been the minister of religion and education in the free and independent country of Latvia. In the year 1927 he was able to help the Lubavitcher Rebbe escape the Soviet Union.
When Latvia lost its independence and was annexed to the Soviet Empire, all the official members of the Latvian governing branches were imprisoned, among them Rabbi Dubin.
The rabbi was brought to Moscow and put under house arrest in the Great Choral Synagogue on Bolshoy Spasoglinischevskiy Pereulok. Perhaps Stalin had not yet decided what he wanted to do with the rabbi from Riga, the former Latvian minister of religion and education, so he locked him into the synagogue and forbade him to walk outside even for a moment.
Rabbi Mordechai Dubin (right) was instrumental in rescuing the sixth Lubavitcher Rebbe (left) from the USSR.
Rabbi Dubin and Me
Since my mother had passed away, I—a little girl at the time—was the only female person in the synagogue on that Yom Kippur. The balcony (the women’s section) was empty. While my father and brothers took part in the services in the men’s section, I covered the hallways. I had no toys, nor were there any books for me to read even if I could read (which I couldn’t). So I sat on the windowsill, looked out at the rooftops of Moscow, and watched the birds and cats and squirrels.
Sometimes I went to sit in back of the men as they davened, and made up stories about them in my mind. My stories kept me friendly company.
I was sitting on the windowsill, in the midst of thinking out a story about a lost princess who is found by three benevolent small brown bears who adopt her. I was the princess in this story. After I was adopted by the bears, I cooked and cleaned and did everything in the line of housekeeping for my bears, and all I wanted in return was to be loved. As I came to this part of my story, suddenly the heavy brown carved oak door of the big sanctuary, which was the men’s section of the synagogue, began to move.
Slowly, it was rolling open into the hallway. I held my breath in pure wonderment. I had never seen this before!
As soon as the door was completely open, there, with his head and shoulders covered in a big white tallit with black stripes at its edges, a faint smile on his face, a beard almost all white, eyes looking straight at me with an expression that brought a warm feeling into my child-soul, holding an apple in his hand, stood the great Rabbi Mordechai Dubin.
“This is for you,” he said, extending the apple toward me. “Eat it now.”
He tendered the fruit as if he were bringing a gift to a princess. And I accepted his gift like a princess would accept a gift from an honorable plebeian, in dignified silence.
If I had been a child who was being brought up by a good Jewish mother, surely I would have thanked the holy rabbi.
But since my mother was no longer with me, and my father, my only parent, seemed to want only one thing from me, and that was that I should keep quiet, I had learned how to be silent. So I said nothing to the rabbi.
Later, my brother told me that the rabbi’s custom was to give out apples to children who had come to the synagogue and were too young to fast an entire Yom Kippur. As he was giving apples to the boys who were in synagogue on that Yom Kippur, someone informed him that there was a girl roaming around the building somewhere. He went to look for her, and found me standing at the window watching the birds and squirrels.
The Great Choral Synagogue of Moscow
My Father and Rabbi Dubin
Rabbi Dubin, torn away from his family and home in the city of Riga, imprisoned in the synagogue in Moscow, made the Great Choral Synagogue his home, and the people who came there his family.
Every afternoon Rabbi Dubin taught Ein Yaakov, a compilation of Talmudic teachings.
Under Communism, Jews were afraid to be seen attending a lecture in the synagogue. He had few students, sometimes just one or two, and probably at least one of the two was a disguised police agent assigned to observe and guard the rabbi.
During one Ein Yaakov class, Papa slipped a note under the rabbi’s book. The note said, in Hebrew, “Request private conversation.”
And the next time my father came to the synagogue, the rabbi slipped a note into my father’s hand while shaking hands with him. It read, “East side door, 11:00 tonight.”
On that night, after my brothers and I had gone to sleep, suddenly Papa did something I had never seen him do before, and it woke me up. He sat down in a chair in the middle of our one-room home, dropped his head into his hands and began to sob. He tried to muffle his cries with his wrist, but did not succeed.
Why was Papa crying? Did he mourn our mother? Was he crying for all the innocent people who had perished under Stalin’s rule, for the pressures of his own daily life, and for his and his children’s uncertain future?
The crying went on only for a few moments. Then Papa wiped his face with his handkerchief, came over to my bed and told me to get dressed. Then he took my hand and we walked out of our building onto the boulevard.
Papa often took me for walks when he had to go someplace, especially at night, as having a child with you was protection against questions by some secret policeman: one could always say there was something wrong with the child, and she was being taken somewhere, or just for some fresh air to make her feel better.
We did not stay on the boulevard long, but quickly turned into a side street, then made our way through many dark pathways and alleys, and finally by a circuitous route arrived at the east side door of the Great Choral Synagogue.
Papa knocked on the door softly, and the door began to roll, at first slowly, and then, at the last point before opening completely, it swung wide, opened by an old man with a long white beard. The man was wearing a dark robe and a cap on his head. Warm, smiling eyes peered out from the face behind the white beard. I recognized this man. It was Rabbi Dubin, who had given me the apple.
Soon I was sitting in a front pew in a dark sanctuary, watching Papa and the rabbi speaking in hushed tones.
Dovber (Berel) Paltiel, father of the author
They did not turn on any light at all. Their only light came from the bright full moon that peered into the window.
Papa bent forward, lowered his head and put both palms of his hands on the sides of his head. “The walls are closing in on me at work,” he said. And he told the rabbi how he was being asked to write negative reports about people who worked with him at the bank, and how difficult it was to get free of the interrogations by the in-bank secret police.
(In a Soviet school under Communism, children were taught to report if they heard anything from an adult or another child which could be construed as counter-revolutionary. Religion was a counter-revolutionary concept under Communism. So naturally, a religious family felt pressured and scared if their children went to a Communist public school. Yet public education was mandatory. So my brothers and I went.)
“I have a young boy,” my father said, meaning my big brother, “who does not understand the dangers around us if we speak our mind.”
The elderly rabbi’s white hair trembled slightly, while he listened with all his heart and soul to my father’s uncertainties.
Papa and the rabbi stood still in the dark sanctuary, and seemed to have given themselves over to thought.
After a little while, the rabbi asked, “What are the possible solutions? How can we save the children and save you?”
My father answered, “You know about the agreement between Poland and the USSR? I understand that there are Polish Jews who are willing to help us escape from here.”
The old rabbi perked up.
The author as a child in Russia. (Photo courtesy of the author)
“How can they do this?”
“Well, those are refugees from Poland,” Papa explained quietly. “They came to Russia during the war to escape the Nazis. And now, according to the agreement between Poland and Russia, they are given permission to leave Russia and go back to their homeland, Poland.
“In order to leave Russia, they acquire exit visas as well as passports of entry into their own land, Poland. And after they arrive in Poland, many of them are able to send their documents back here, and some of our people are able to get those documents fixed so that the border exit stamp is erased and the document is made usable again. So we Russians can use those same documents to leave this country and enter Poland on the pretext of being Poles going back home to Poland after the war. Of course, this operation is fraught with danger, and involves a lot of bribes.
“Many people are getting out of Russia this way. I know of some people who have left already,” Father said, “They’ve changed their names to Polish names. They used the identity papers of the Polish people who have sent their papers back. My in-laws left, and other chassidim as well.
“I want your advice and blessing, Reb Mordechai. What shall I do? Stay here and hope for the best, or risk our lives by taking steps to cross the border into Poland?” Papa whispered.
“Of course,” whispered back Rabbi Dubin, “it’s harder for you to escape than for the others, because you are known at the state bank where you work, and they would look for you. Is there another solution?”
“The other solution is to do nothing. Because you know, Rabbi, I have a nephew, my niece Nina’s husband, a high military officer, and he is able to protect me. He has been protecting me all along. He says he thinks he can continue to protect me, not to worry about those threats.”
Father sighed, and continued:
“He might be able to protect me, but not my children’s education. I want my children to grow up in a free country, where they can live as Jews openly.”
Rabbi Dubin looked at Father even more intensely now. His nice, friendly eyes sparkled.
“The first solution is very dangerous, and the second one is not reliable,” he said. “We can’t rely on a nephew who says not to worry. What if they do imprison you, and put the children into a state home for children; what are you going to do? Sue the nephew?”
He made a slight, nervous, guttural sound that might have become a bitter laugh, had he let it develop freely.
“I am asking your advice and blessing,” Father whispered again.
Now the rabbi spoke slowly and deliberately. “It is worth the risk to try. You have three children. G‑d willing, you will bring them up in a free country.”
And after a few quiet thoughtful moments, he summarized, “You have no choice. You’ve got to leave this prison now, while there is a chance.”
“Yes,” my father said, and he put his head into his hands again like he had earlier that evening.
Then the rabbi said, “Let’s look into the Holy Book.” They picked up a chumash, opened up a page and read together. It said, “G‑d said to Abraham, ‘Lech lecha me’artzecha . . .—leave the land in which you were born, and go to the land unknown to you, that I will show you.’” They smiled at each other, just a small smile.
Papa and Rabbi Dubin shook hands and then hugged each other. “Berachah v’hatzlachah,” the old rabbi whispered, “and good luck. I will pray for you and your children.”
Then Father said, “And you, Reb Mordechai, what about you?”
In answer to Father’s question, Rabbi Dubin raised his large hand to his beard and tugged at it like a man in sudden torment.
“I have made my peace,” he said. “This is G‑d’s will for me. Would I like to leave? Yes. If it was only me, perhaps I would take a chance to try to escape. But it’s not only me.”
Father looked confused.
“What do you mean?”
Rabbi Mordechai Dubin perished in Russia.
The rabbi released the white lock of hair he was pulling from his beard. His hand once again settled quietly by his side. “I only meant to say that G‑d has placed me here. This is where I am needed. The little bit of Ein Yaakov that I learn with people who come sometimes; the prayers; the dancing with the Torah on Simchas Torah—this is G‑d’s purpose for my life now.
“G‑d gave me a job of making the voice of Torah heard in this forsaken place. And so, with this work, I am at peace.”
Papa and I left the synagogue through the same door we had entered.
Again we walked and walked the back streets and alleys of Moscow, and finally came to our lit-up street, and then home, and went to sleep until morning.
In the morning Papa got us up to go to school, while he went to work, as usual.
For two more years Rabbi Dubin lived in the synagogue, never leaving once.
Then one day, the feared Communist police came to the Great Choral Synagogue on Spasoglinischevskiy Pereulok.
Last time, they came to bring him here. This time, they came to remove the Latvian minister of religion and education from his confinement in the synagogue, and transfer him to prison.
My heart cries for the great Torah scholar who once gave an apple to a lonely little girl in synagogue on Yom Kippur.
The author with her father and brothers in France, on their way to the U.S. (Photo courtesy of the author)
In 1946, Miriam Nevel, together with her father and two brothers, left Russia clandestinely and became free Jews. Rabbi Dubin died in Tula, Russia, in 1956. This memory is part of Miriam Nevel’s forthcoming collection, Crossings, and was reprinted with permission from the author and Hamodia, where it originally appeared.
Miriam Nevel is a blend. She navigates between now and then.
© Copyright 2016, all rights reserved.
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Parshah
Inspiration and Perspiration
Beethoven rose each morning at dawn and made himself coffee. He was fastidious about this: each cup had to be made with exactly sixty beans, which he counted out each time. He would then sit at his desk and compose until 2:00 or 3:00 p.m. in the afternoon. Subsequently he would go for a long walk, taking with him a pencil and some sheets of music paper to record any ideas that came to him on the way. Each night after supper he would have a beer, smoke a pipe, and go to bed early, 10:00 p.m. at the latest.
Anthony
Each cup had to be made with exactly 60 coffee beans Trollope who as his day job worked for the Post Office, paid a groom to wake him every day at 5:00 a.m. By 5:30 he would be at his desk, and he then proceeded to write for exactly 3 hours, working against the clock to produce 250 words each quarter-hour. This way he wrote 47 novels, many of them 3 volumes in length, as well as 16 other books. If he finished a novel before the day’s 3 hours were over, he would immediately take a fresh piece of paper and begin the next.
Immanuel Kant, the most brilliant philosopher of modern times, was famous for his routine. As Heinrich Heine put it, “Getting up, drinking coffee, writing, giving lectures, eating, taking a walk, everything had its set time, and the neighbors knew precisely that the time was 3:30 p.m. when Kant stepped outside his door with his gray coat and the Spanish stick in his hand.”
These details, together with more than 150 other examples drawn from the great philosophers, artists, composers and writers, come from a book by Mason Currey entitled Daily Rituals: How Great Minds Make Time, Find Inspiration, and Get to Work. 1 The book’s point is simple. Most creative people have daily rituals. These form the soil in which the seeds of their invention grow.
In some cases they deliberately took on jobs they did not need to do, simply to establish structure and routine in their lives. A typical example was the poet Wallace Stevens, who took a position as an insurance lawyer at the Hartford Accident and Indemnity Company where he worked until his death. He said that having a job was one of the best things that could happen to him because “It introduces discipline and regularity into one’s life.”
Note the paradox. These were all innovators, pioneers, ground-breakers, trail-blazers, who formulated new ideas, originated new forms of expression, did things no one had done before in quite that way. They broke the mold. They changed the landscape. They ventured into the unknown.
Yet their daily lives were the opposite: ritualized and routine. One could even call them boring. Why so? Because – the saying is famous, though we don’t know who first said it – genius is one per cent inspiration, ninety-nine per cent perspiration. The paradigm-shifting scientific discovery, the path-breaking research, the wildly successful new product, the brilliant novel, the award-winning film, are almost always the result of many years of long hours and attention to detail. Being creative involves hard work.
The ancient Hebrew word for hard work is avodah. It is also the word that means “serving G‑d”. What applies in the arts, sciences, business and industry, applies equally to the life of the spirit. Achieving any form of spiritual growth requires sustained effort and daily rituals.
Hence the Being creative invovles hard work remarkable aggadic passage in which various sages put forward their idea of klal gadol ba-Torah, “the great principle of the Torah”. Ben Azzai says it is the verse, “This is the book of the chronicles of man: On the day that G‑d created man, He made him in the likeness of G‑d.”2 Ben Zoma says that there is a more embracing principle, “Listen, Israel, the L‑rd our G‑d, the L‑rd is one.” Ben Nannas says there is a yet more embracing principle: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Ben Pazzi says we find a more embracing principle still. He quotes a verse from this week’s parsha: “One sheep shall be offered in the morning, and a second in the afternoon,”3– or, as we might say nowadays, Shacharit, Mincha and Maariv. In a word: “routine.” The passage concludes: The law follows Ben Pazzi.4
The meaning of Ben Pazzi’s statement is clear: all the high ideals in the world – the human person as G‑d’s image, belief in G‑d’s unity, and the love of neighbor – count for little until they are turned into habits of action that become habits of the heart. We can all recall moments of insight when we had a great idea, a transformative thought, the glimpse of a project that could change our lives. A day, a week or a year later the thought has been forgotten or become a distant memory, at best a might-have-been.
The people who change the world, whether in small or epic ways, are those who turn peak experiences into daily routines, who know that the details matter, and who have developed the discipline of hard work, sustained over time.
Judaism’s greatness is that it takes high ideals and exalted visions – image of G‑d, faith in G‑d, love of neighbor – and turns them into patterns of behavior. Halakhah, (Jewish law), involves a set of routines that – like those of the great creative minds – reconfigures the brain, giving discipline to our lives and changing the way we feel, think and act.
Much of Judaism must seem to outsiders, and sometimes to insiders also, boring, prosaic, mundane, repetitive, routine, obsessed with details and bereft for the most part of drama or inspiration. Yet that is precisely what writing the novel, composing the symphony, directing the film, perfecting the killer app, or building a Much of Judaism must been boring, prosaic and mundane billion-dollar business is, most of the time. It is a matter of hard work, focused attention and daily rituals. That is where all sustainable greatness comes from.
We have developed in the West a strange view of religious experience: that it’s what overwhelms you when something happens completely outside the run of normal experience. You climb a mountain and look down. You are miraculously saved from danger. You find yourself part of a vast and cheering crowd. It’s how the German Lutheran theologian Rudolf Otto (1869-1937) defined “the holy”: as a mystery (mysterium) both terrifying (tremendum) and fascinating (fascinans). You are awed by the presence of something vast. We have all had such experiences.
But that is all they are: experiences. They linger in the memory, but they are not part of everyday life. They are not woven into the texture of our character. They do not affect what we do or achieve or become. Judaism is about changing us so that we become creative artists whose greatest creation is our own life.5 And that needs daily rituals: Shacharit, Mincha, Maariv, the food we eat, the way we behave at work or in the home, the choreography of holiness which is the special contribution of the priestly dimension of Judaism, set out in this week’s parsha and throughout the book of Vayikra.
These rituals have an effect. We now know through PET and fMRI scans that repeated spiritual exercise reconfigures the brain. It gives us inner resilience. It makes us more grateful. It gives us a sense of basic trust in the Source of our being. It shapes our identity, the way we act and talk and think. Ritual is to spiritual greatness what practice is to a tennis player, daily writing disciplines are to a novelist, and reading company accounts are to Warren Buffett. They are the precondition of high achievement. Serving G‑d is avodah, which means hard work.
If you seek sudden inspiration, then work at it every day for a year or a lifetime. That is how it comes. As every famous golfer is said to have said when asked for the secret of his success: “I was just lucky. But the funny thing is that the harder I practice, the luckier I become.” The more you seek spiritual heights, the more you need the ritual and routine of halakhah, the Jewish “way” to G‑d.
[Artwork by Sefira Ross, a freelance designer and illustrator whose original creations grace many Chabad.org pages. Residing in Seattle, Washington, her days are spent between multitasking illustrations and being a mom.]
FOOTNOTES
1.Mason Currey, Daily Rituals,New York, Knopf, 2013.
2.Genesis 5:1.
3.Exodus 29:39.
4.The passage is cited in the Introduction to the commentary HaKotev to Ein Yaakov, the collected aggadic passages of the Talmud. It is also quoted by Maharal in Netivot Olam, Ahavat Re’a 1.
5.A point made by Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik in his essay,Halakhic Man.
© Copyright 2016, all rights reserved.
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Parshah
Baggage Restrictions by Nuta Yisrael Shurack
Flying today is a far cry from what it was a few years ago. It seems that every day a new security measure is introduced. First it was taking off your shoes to go through security, and then it was your belt. Laptops have to be taken out of their bags and absolutely no vegetation of any kind is allowed through the border.
Then there are the fees involved in traveling. There’s the regular state and federal tax, of course, but then there is also the fuel surcharge, the 9/11 tax, and a few other hidden dollars that somehow get added to the total ticket price. And there are other changes as well. One of the most annoying: baggage regulations.Imagine . . . having to pay to bring your belongings with you on the plane . . . simply unbelievable.
Not too long ago you were able to take two bags, each weighing over 70 lbs on every flight. These days, you are lucky if you can bring one suitcase aboard and not have to pay for it. Imagine . . . having to pay to bring your belongings with you on the plane . . . simply unbelievable.
Once you have paid for your bag, there is always the worry that it will be overweight. Then you have two choices, either leave some of your precious belongings right there at the check-in counter, or pay the astronomical cost of $20.00 dollars for every ounce over the limit. That may be a slight exaggeration, but in all seriousness, what does it matter if your bag weighs 2 lbs more than it should? Often the person in front of you only used half of their baggage allowance anyway, so can’t you use some of the weight that they didn’t use? They have the space on the plane, so why the Byzantine rules?
Maybe there is something to learn from the strict regulations surrounding baggage weight restrictions.
In life, we all carry with us a suitcase in which we pack various parts of our lives. One by one we place inside our luggage: childhood memories, positive experiences, negative encounters, happy occasions, stressful moments, joyous celebrations, difficult challenges, and more.
On our journey we take this suitcase with us, and the more we place inside, the heavier it becomes. At points it can become so heavy, that we just can’t carry it anymore. This gives true meaning to the saying ‘carrying a grudge’. The more one carries, the more bogged down and weighted they become. Just like at the airport there is a limit to how much we can carry with us. It is then that we have to reevaluate our reason for traveling, consider our final destination, sort through our belongings and identify which items we want to truly take with us, and which ones we no longer need to hold on to.
Everything in our life has its purpose, its time, its place. Even difficult periods are a chance for us to mold ourselves and develop our character. What about the bitter moments? When we have reason to be hurt or angry with another? We think to ourselves, they can’t treat me like that! What right do they have? We may even decide not to interact with that person anymore!Even difficult periods are a chance for us to mold ourselves and develop our character.
But where does this leave us and our suitcase? Does this allow us to travel lighter or does it slow us down?
In the weekly portion of Tetzaveh, Moses’ name is not mentioned even once. Why is that? After the People of Israel erred by creating the golden calf, G‑d had said that he was going to wipe out the entire nation. However, Moses stood before G‑d and put his own life on the line in order to save the Jewish people., saying that if G‑d would not forgive, He should erase him (Moses) from His book (the Torah). Everything that a righteous person says reverberates in the heavens and must come true in one form or another. Therefore, though G‑d did indeed forgive Israel, He had no choice but to remove Moses’ name from the Torah, and He did so in this week’s portion.
Why would G‑d forgive the Jewish people? If G‑d wished, He could have created a new nation from Moses that would be far superior to the Jews. In fact, if G‑d wanted He could create a race of individuals who never made mistakes and were perfect in every way.
However, this is not the purpose of creation and not what G‑d intended. G‑d wants that the Jewish people should have free choice, which they can use to make a dwelling place for holiness in this world. But, with free choice comes the opportunity to make mistakes. In fact, it’s our ability to make mistakes and recover from them that makes us perfect for the job that G‑d has given us!
Thus G‑d found it within Himself to forgive the Jewish people. And this can be a most profound lesson for us. When someone does something that upsets us rather than holding on to that experience and putting it in our suitcase to take with us, instead place it aside and leave it behind. The most powerful tool we hold is the ability to forgive, not only others but ourselves as well.
[Nuta Yisrael is the Editor-in-Chief and Senior Writer of the e-newsletter and website A Shtikel Vort.
Artwork by Sefira Ross, a freelance designer and illustrator whose original creations grace many Chabad.org pages. Residing in Seattle, Washington, her days are spent between multitasking illustrations and being a mom.]
© Copyright 2016, all rights reserved.
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Parshah
When Life Gives You Olives . . . Make Oil by Yitzi Hurwitz
In the beginning of Tetzaveh, G‑d tells Moses, “You command the children of Israel, and they should take to you, pure olive oil, crushed for illumination, to kindle (or literally: ‘to lift up’) the lamp, regularly.”
To get the purest olive oil, the olives were crushed in a mortar, and the first drop expressed was used for producing the oil. Only the oil extracted this way could be used to light the menorah. The remainder of the olive was ground to extract more oil, but this oil was not for the menorah.
What can we learn from this?
The kindling of the menorah symbolized lighting up the souls of our fellow people. For this, only the purest olive oil, extracted through crushing, may be used.
The purest comes out through being crushed. And it is this that ignites souls.
We all are at times “crushed”—tested with suffering in one form or another. What we do with it is our choice. You can choose to “grind”—to wallow in self-pity—or you can use your crushing experience to lift up those around you.
Choosing to use your experience for the positive will not only uplift those around you, but will give meaning and purpose to your situation.
Before, I was talented. I could teach, lecture, sing, dance, play guitar, and I was strong and handy. Within two years, I watched that all slip away. Now I’m left with my heart, my brain and my smile. Being crushed has brought stronger connections, new abilities, higher purpose and deeper meaning. Before, I used my talents to make people happy and to educate them. Now I get to do that and much more.
With this attitude, I have gained an added extra. I feel happy and fulfilled, and the people around me seem happy and uplifted.
Yet, it is time for the crushing to end, and enjoying the light to begin.
[Rabbi Yitzi Hurwitz—father of seven, husband of Dina, and spiritual leader at Chabad Jewish Center in Temecula, Calif.—has been rendered immobile by ALS (Lou Gehrig’s Disease). Unable to speak or type, he uses his eyes to write heartfelt thoughts on the weekly Torah portion.]
© Copyright 2016, all rights reserved.
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Lifestyle
Pomegranate Cupcakes and Something Sweet Review & Giveaway by Miriam SzokovskiThe kosher cookbook market continues to flourish, and it can be difficult to know which cookbooks are the right match for each home cook. We all have our own strengths and weaknesses in the kitchen; some like to try varied international cuisines, while others prefer to stick with the more familiar; and, of course, some people are happy to spend time making complex recipes, but others are staunchly in the quick-and-easy-only camp.
From time to time I’ll be reviewing different cookbooks here, giving you a little glimpse inside each one, to help you decide which ones might be a good investment for you.
Have you heard about Something Sweet, the new dessert cookbook by Miriam Pascal? The author is a popular kosher food blogger, and her readers were very pleased when she came out with this cookbook full of exciting new recipes. The publishers have sent me a copy to review, as well as several recipes from the book that I’ve included below (click on the picture or name of the dish to be taken to the recipe). We also have a second copy of the cookbook for one of you!
Chocolate Chip Peanut Pie
Photography
The photography in this book is outstanding. Each recipe has a full-page, vibrant, beautifully styled photograph. Many food bloggers hire an outside photographer when writing a cookbook, but Miriam did all her own photography and in my opinion she couldn't have made a better choice.
Other Features
The cookbook comes with an informative introduction, explaining many baking terms, offering ingredient substitution suggestions and clarifying terms used throughout the book. And in the back of the book you'll find a holiday guide, suggesting four or five recipes that relate to each Jewish holiday. Many of the recipes also include "plan ahead" instructions and advice on how to best freeze the dessert.
Neapolitan Trifles
Cuisine
The recipes in this book are very American. For example, there is significant use of cream cheese and sour cream in many of the recipes, and lots of classic American flavors like apple-cinnamon, peanut-chocolate and caramel everything. The recipes also use mostly easy-to-find ingredients and are not complicated.
My main criticism would be lack of originality. The photos are great, but I didn't find a single recipe that took me by surprise, or made me say, "Wow, I've never heard of that. I'd love to try it." There are a lot of basics—blueberry pie, carrot cake, marble cake, strawberry-rhubarb tarts— andmany assorted cupcakes and cookies and cakes. So if that's what you're looking for, you will probably enjoy this cookbook. If you're looking for the next level, you may be disappointed.
Chocolate Pretzel Cookies
Who Will Enjoy this Cookbook?
Is this cookbook for you? I can’t answer that question for you, but we’ve shared four recipes here with you, which you can try out for yourselves, and then decide.
One of the recipes that really caught my eye were these very visually appealing pomegranate cupcakes.
Pomegranate Cupcakes
Pomegranates are beautiful fruits, loaded with health benefits and delicious flavors, so it’s a shame they aren’t used more in baking! These easy-to-make and unusual cupcakes have a delicate fruity flavor and pretty pink appearance, thanks to the glaze.
Cupcake Ingredients
½ cup oil
¾ cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
2 eggs
1½ cups flour
½ cup pomegranate juice
Pomegranate Glaze Ingredients
1½ cups powdered sugar
2-3 Tablespoons pomegranate juice, divided
pomegranate seeds, for garnish, optional
Directions
Preheat oven to 350°F. Line a standard (12-cup) cupcake pan with paper liners; set aside.
In the bowl of an electric mixer, on medium speed, beat together oil and sugar until smooth and creamy.
Add vanilla, salt, baking soda, baking powder, and eggs. Beat until combined.
Alternately add half the flour and half the pomegranate juice, beating after each addition until incorporated.
Spoon batter into prepared pan, filling each cup about three-quarters full.
Bake for 16-18 minutes, until the tops are set. Remove from oven; cool completely before glazing.
Prepare the glaze: In a small bowl, combine powdered sugar with 2 tablespoons pomegranate juice; mix until smooth. Gradually add an additional 1-3 teaspoons juice if needed to form a thick but spreadable glaze.
Dip the tops of the cooled cupcakes into the glaze, allowing excess to drip back into the bowl. Garnish with pomegranate seeds, if desired.
Yield: 1 dozen
Plan Ahead: These cupcakes freeze well in an airtight container. For best results, freeze them without the glaze and add it just before serving, but you can glaze them before freezing if necessary. Be sure to let the glaze set before you cover the cupcakes.
Giveaway!
So, is Something Sweet a cookbook you’d love to own? We are giving away a free copy to one lucky reader. It could be you!
Purim is coming up, when it's a mitzvah to give food gifts to others. This book could help you bake up a storm to include in your mishloach manot or festive Purim meal. To enter, leave a comment sharing a memorable Purim experience you had. If you haven't had the opportunity to celebrate Purim yet, you can share a different Jewish holiday experience. (Also, we can hook you up with your closest Chabad center and you can join their Purim festivities this year. Click here to find a center near you.)
NOTE: Cookbook can be shipped only in the U.S. Entries must be made by 11:59 PM EST on Wednesday, February 24, 2016. Winner will be chosen on Thursday, February 25, 2016.
[Miriam Szokovski is the author of the historical novel Exiled Down Under, and a member of the Chabad.org editorial team. She enjoys tinkering with recipes, and teaches cooking classes to young children. Miriam shares her love of cooking, baking and food photography on Chabad.org’s food blog, Cook It Kosher, and in the N’shei Chabad Newsletter.]
© Copyright 2016, all rights reserved.
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Lifestyle
Art: The Incense Altar & the Menorah by Yoram Raanan
You shall make an altar for bringing incense up in smoke…Aaron shall make incense of spices go up in smoke upon it; every morning when he sets the lamps in order, he shall make it go up in smoke. And when Aaron kindles the lights in the afternoon, he shall make it go up in smoke, continual incense before the L-rd for your generations. (Exodus 30:1, 7-8)
Originally, this was two separate canvases. Both were saturated with color and mingled with pools of water, to which heavier thicker paint was added with hands and fingers. In the painting, the menorah is alive and vibrant, containing the full spectrum of color, and looks like a primordial tree of life. Actually, the menorah of the Holy Temple evoked the image of a tree. Its central branch was like a trunk and the other lamps were its "branches". The decorations were referred to as almonds, buds and flowers. Here the menorah looks like a tree of light, a tree of life, and a tree of fire.
In the abstract rendition of the golden incense altar, a cloud of smoke rises upward from a fiery red background. The incense offering, ketoret, relates to the root word, ketar, Aramaic for bond.1 The essence of the incense offering is when matter and spirit get connected through a cloud of fragrance, an experience that brings man closer to G‑d.
In the Torah portion of this week, Tetzaveh, the kindling of the menorah is coupled with bringing the incense offering. Hence, the artist joined the two canvases into one painting to enhance their connection. (It is interesting that Tetzaveh relates to the word tzavta, which also means connection). According to the Rebbe, the kindling of the menorah was intended to draw and spread light into the world. It is through the menorahthat the inner bond established through the incense offering was radiated throughout the world. Here in the painting we sense their connection through the fiery red hues which seem to transform earth into spirit.
[Yoram Raanan takes inspiration from living in Israel, where he can fully explore and express his Jewish consciousness. The light, the air, the spirit of the people and the land energize and inspire him. His paintings include modern Jewish expressionism with a wide range of subjects ranging from abstract to landscape, biblical and Judaic.]
FOOTNOTES
1.See here.
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Jewish News
Jewish Life Takes Off at Former Airport in Denver Suburbs by Mindy Rubenstein
Getting together for a community climb with the Jewish Life Center-Chabad of Stapleton in Colorado, as people of all ages tackle a “14er,” one of 58 mountain peaks in the state that exceed 14,000 feet. (Photo: Neil Rosenfeld)
Life in Stapleton, Colo., is taking off—and so is the Jewish community in this fledgling town in suburban Denver.
From 1929 to 1995, Stapleton was the site of the Denver area’s airport. It was relocated and replaced by Denver International Airport, with the old property redeveloped for residential and retail space. The area remains a work in progress—a community in progress, literally called the “Stapleton Community.” It now consists of an enclave of nine neighborhoods, 50 parks, several shopping and business districts, and even its own visitor center. And, of course, there is now a Chabad center.
A mix of young families and empty-nesters have found a place here—and have been welcomed by Rabbi Mendel and Estee Popack, co-directors of the Jewish Life Center-Chabad of Stapleton.
The Popacks moved to Stapleton, about 15 minutes northeast of downtown Denver, in March of 2013, and immediately started creating a Jewish niche there. Planned to be fully operational this year, the “Stapleton Community” as a whole will be connected to the rest of the Denver metropolitan area, including the new airport, by a commuter-rail line currently under construction.
Rabbi Mendel Popack, co-director of the Jewish Life Center-Chabad of Stapleton, blows shofar on a mountain top. (Photo: Neil Rosenfeld)
With this in mind, “our goal,” says the 34-year-old rabbi, “is to create a new center for Jewish life in North Denver.”
How will they accomplish this?
“One program at a time,” says Estee Popack, 31, who mentions that they are holding a family Shabbat dinner this Friday at Johnson & Wales University, the culinary-arts institution in Denver, hoping to get between 50 and 70 people.
The couple also works with graduate students at the University of Colorado’s Anschutz Medical Campus and Health Sciences Center, which borders Stapleton. About 3,000 students are enrolled in programs at the center, which has two hospitals with a third in the works.
Many of these students, faculty and doctors work on campus, and live in nearby Aurora and North Denver. (When the light-rail system is complete, it will connect to the Anschutz campus in Aurora as well.) Others have been coming to events and programs from surrounding neighborhoods as they hear of the Chabad House and an infusion of Jewish activity.
The former Stapleton International Airport in 2006, as seen from the air. Much of the land has now been developed into a residential and retail community. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)
‘Things Just Fell Into Place’
When they first began thinking of potential locations for their shlichus, “we had a vision for the type of community we envisioned ourselves in,” he says. Stapleton’s community is “young, fresh and vibrant, with no other immediate Jewish infrastructure. That offered the potential to make a strong impact.”
“Things just fell into place,” says the rabbi of the various opportunities, owing it to hashgacha pratis [Divine Providence].”
For example, they came to visit Stapleton several years ago during spring break, when students tend to be away. Nevertheless, Rabbi Popack happened to bump into a young man who was part of the student senate.
“I asked if there were any Jewish student programs on campus,” the rabbi recalls of the encounter. “He said he didn’t think there was.” He took the rabbi to the third floor to visit the office of student life and the director of student affairs, where the rabbi was able to propose some ideas about Jewish life there.
Estee Popack, seated at left of table, organized a Jewish Women's Circle event in a glass studio, where the group made glass mezuzah cases and learned about the significance of a mezuzah.
“She loved the idea of making that happen,” he recounts.
She put him in touch with a Jewish member of the student senate, and they discussed the idea of a Chabad presence on campus. “That became the foundation,” says the rabbi.
Tyler Scholl, 24, a pharmacy student at the Anschutz Medical Campus and student president of Chabad Jewish Student Life, says he often went to the Chabad House at the University of Colorado Boulder when he was an undergraduate. The rabbi there connected him with Rabbi Popack.
“They have all sorts of events now in Stapleton, and I try to attend as many as I can,” he says, adding that it’s been a nice way to connect with other Jewish students. “I think it’s really great that they have so many types of events for all types of people.”
“It’s very helpful for me and for other students to have them here,” say Scholl, who has been in the Stapleton area for three years. The campus, he adds, can feel dispersed since people come and go, and are really busy. “It’s nice to have them bring everyone together. And it’s been fun to see them grow and be part of it.”
“They make you feel at home, like family,” affirms the grad student. “You know they are always there if you need them.”
Children enjoy entertainment at a Purim event. This year's theme is “Purim in the Stadium,” which just so happens to follow on the heels of the Denver Broncos' win at the Super Bowl.
New Faces, New Developments
The Popacks, who have three young children, note that young families make up the majority of attendees at Chabad activities. As such, kid-friendly community events became very large very quickly.
For example, the couple expected 50 people at their first Chanukah event; instead, 150 showed up. The next year, that number doubled to about 300, and this past year saw nearly 400 people at a public menorah-lighting with a fire-juggler/acrobat entertaining the crowd.
Purim is up next, and this year’s theme, set in motion months ago, resounds even more with the Denver Broncos’ Super Bowl win on Sunday. “Purim in the Stadium” will actually be held in an enclosed event space overlooking Dick's Sporting Goods Park, home of the Colorado Rapids professional soccer team. And it just so happens to be located right across the street from the most recently completed Stapleton neighborhood.
The Popacks hold services once a month in their home, in addition to Shabbat meals and smaller classes. All events have a Colorado health consciousness about them, with vegan and gluten-free fare cooked by Estee Popack.
Rabbi Mendel and Estee Popack, and their children
She runs a small but growing Hebrew school, with about a dozen students so far. “There were new faces this year,” she says. “More and more people are always moving in.”
Her husband concurs, noting that “the growth has been very exciting. We’ve grown by 100 percent each year. Our goal is to service every Jew here, however we can.”
The rabbi grew up on shlichus in Denver and attended yeshivahs around the world, from Los Angeles to Israel to Australia. His wife also lived in different countries, including Guatemala, though it was in Colorado where she confronted her first “14er.”
Colorado has 58 mountain peaks that exceed 14,000 feet, known locally as “14ers”—more than any other U.S. state. Outdoor enthusiasts of all skill levels can find peaks ranging from easy to difficult, with hiking trails for exploring the state’s scenery, wildlife and rugged beauty.
“People are so into hiking; the outdoors is very popular here,” she says. To that end, the emissaries have instituted a community climb up a “14er,” a very Colorado thing to do.
The rabbi shakes the lulav and the etrog with a young community member during Sukkot.
‘Learning Into Our Lives’
Marianna Moss and her family moved to Stapleton in 2007. The rabbi first met them while dropping off some honey cake during his first High Holidays in the area; later, Estee Popack wound up communicating with Moss via Facebook.
“We immediately clicked,” declares Moss. “She’s amazing. She’s one of the kindest people I’ve met.” The two women even attended the International Conference of Chabad-Lubavitch Female Emissaries (Kinus Hashluchos) together in New York the last weekend in January; Moss went as part of the guest program.
Moss participates in women’s programming offered at Chabad of Stapleton, and says she learns a “tremendous amount.”
“It’s brought back Torah and learning into our lives,” she says of her family’s involvement with Chabad. “We now explain to our children that being Jewish isn’t just a label. It means something.”
Her two children, ages 7 and 10, attend Hebrew school there, something they used to balk at in a different locale. “Now, they look forward to going,” notes Moss. “The Popacks take them seriously and answer all their questions. They are treated like scholars.”
A fire-juggler/acrobat performs for a crowd at Chanukah time.
Attendance at Chanukah events keeps on growing; this past year saw nearly 400 people at a public menorah-lighting ceremony and event.
Having a blast in a “human hamster ball” at a Lag B'Omer family event.
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Jewish News
A First in the U.S. Senate: Rabbi From ‘The Last Frontier’ Delivers Morning Prayer by Faygie Levy Holt
Rabbi Yosef Greenberg, co-director of Chabad-Lubavitch Jewish Center of Alaska in Anchorage, delivered the morning prayer invocation last week at the U.S. Senate. (Screenshot: C-SPAN)
Rabbi Yosef Greenberg, co-director of Lubavitch Jewish Center of Alaska in Anchorage, was the first rabbi from his state to address the U.S. Senate by delivering the daily morning prayer invocation last week as an official guest chaplain. His wife, co-director of the Chabad center in “The Last Frontier,” accompanied him on his visit to Washington, D.C.
Taking to the floor at the opening of business, Greenberg prayed for the Senate members, expressing his hope that in these troubled times, the United States would help to fix a damaged and suffering world. He denounced violence in the name of religion and reminded those assembled of the seven universal laws that are incumbent on all mankind.
In the address, Greenberg said, in part: “May you grant, Almighty G‑d, that the members of this honorable body have the wisdom and courage to embody the universal values of the seven commandments which you, Almighty G‑d, issued to Noah and his family after the great flood, the foremost of which is not to commit murder.
“Grant, Almighty G‑d, that the members of the Senate, who assembled here today, to fulfill one of your seven commandments—the commandment to govern by just laws—understand that the United States has the ability to lead the entire world, and be a role model in spreading and incorporating your Seven [Noahide] Laws, and in doing so, have the power to bring healing and peace to a struggling and broken world that is facing ongoing terror and violence,” he went on to say.
In speaking about the Seven Noahide Laws—the laws of universal humanity that G‑d gave to all peoples to follow—Greenberg followed in the footsteps of Rabbi Moshe Feller of Minnesota, who was the first Chabad rabbi to give the morning prayer invocation at the Senate back in 1987 and who also spoke of the seven laws.
Back home from his trip to the East Coast, Greenberg recalled that when he was a student in yeshivah, he heard the Lubavitcher Rebbe—Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of righteous memory—talk for several hours about how the seven laws provide the answers to humanities’ ills. Indeed, the Rebbe publicly spoke about the subject many times over the years. And that’s why it seemed, stated Greenberg, the most appropriate topic to include in his prayer given the current era, with terrorism on the rise, and more and more people not valuing human life.
The Chabad-Lubavitch emissary was invited to offer the prayer, which was televised live on C-SPAN2, by his local senator and family friend, Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska).
Greenberg spoke about the Seven Noahide Laws—the laws of universal humanity that G-d gave all peoples to follow. (Screenshot: C-SPAN)
‘Reflect on His Words’
Addressing her colleagues, Sen. Murkowski noted that a little bit of history was being made that day; it represented the first time that a rabbi from Alaska had delivered the morning prayer before the U.S. Senate.
She said the rabbi “has led our state for two decades now, beginning in 1991, not only leading a small but vibrant Jewish community across the state, but also reminding us of the significance of the Jewish culture and Jewish history—not only to Alaska but throughout the nation. He has been instrumental in the work in building the Jewish Cultural Center and Museum that recognizes that history and that culture.”
The leadership of Rabbi Greenberg, she added, “is not only strong and recognized, again within the Jewish community, but across all faiths within our very broad and inclusive state of Alaska, and it is indeed a pleasure to be able to listen to his words, reflect on his words and thank him for his leadership in my state.”
Greenberg noted that this was his second visit in Washington at such a prestigious level, the first one having been during Chanukah 2003, when President George W. Bush was in office. That invitation came through Rabbi Levi Shemtov, director of American Friends of Lubavitch (Chabad).
During their day-and-a-half trip to Washington, the Greenbergs also met with their state’s other senator, Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska). The couple presented books about the Rebbe and Chabad to both Sullivan and Murkowski.
The rabbi and his wife, Esty Greenberg, who presented Joseph Telushkin's the book “Rebbe: The Life and Teachings of Menachem M. Schneerson, the Most Influential Rabbi in Modern History” to Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski.
© Copyright 2016, all rights reserved.
--------------------
Jewish News
Hong Kong Jewish Community Hits the Streets to Help the Homeless by Faygie Levy Holt
Members of the Hong Kong Jewish community deliver bags with food and warm clothing to the homeless, timed to the Chinese New Year. The effort was organized by Chabad of Hong Kong, co-directed by Rabbi Mordechai and Goldie Avtzon, and a local humanitarian project called Shine.
On Sunday night, as residents of Hong Kong were ushering in the Chinese New Year, members of Hong Kong’s Jewish community—men, women and children—took the streets, quite literally, to distribute food packages to the city’s homeless.
The effort took place amid widespread social unrest. The next day, violent rioting erupted over a government crackdown on illegal street vendors, who were selling fishballs and other popular fare for the holiday.
But the tensions did not deter volunteers, who delivered packages that included a card written in both Chinese and English that said: “We want to wish you a happy new year and bring sunshine into your life.” Some 60 people were involved over a two-week period—under the auspices of a local humanitarian project called Shine—baking bread and cakes, decorating cards and packing everything up, though only a few did the actual distributing.
“I’m really excited about this, and I think it can have real potential for givers and recipients,” said Goldie Avtzon, who co-directs Chabad of Hong Kong with her husband, Rabbi Mordechai Avtzon, and is helping to spearhead Shine. “This pilot project exceeded our expectations.”
She said the Jewish community in Hong Kong tends to be affluent and homogeneous. The less fortunate are not as present in Hong Kong as they are in other Asian cities, she added, making a program like Shine, which brings the needs of others to the forefront, a real necessity.
“I was introduced to the problem of homelessness in Hong Kong through my computer technician—a man from India who volunteers to help,” explained the Chabad emissary. “Hong Kong is a very happening place; you don’t think there are homeless and you don’t regularly see homeless people. But it moved me to want to bring the Jewish community to help them.”
Volunteers baked batches of breads and cakes for distribution.
Among those who participated in the project was the Gafni family.
“I was looking to get involved with volunteer work that combined the Jewish community with the local Chinese community, so as soon as I heard of ‘Shine,’ I asked to join the committee,” said Keren Shahar Gafni, who lives on Lantau Island—the largest of Hong Kong’s islands—with her husband, Tal, and their four children. “The first official project was the food distribution to the homeless for the Chinese New Year—not joining it was not an option for me.”
Noting that her four children, who range in age from 4 to 11, attend a local Chinese school, Shahar Gafni said: “We feel connected to the local community and see how lucky we are by being part of a loving big family and a greater Jewish community.”
Observing the response to the project, Avtzon thinks “it’s going to become something big and beneficial for both the people who give and the people who receive. We plan to have monthly and bimonthly events where people come together to do things for those in Hong Kong, as well as in Israel. It’s going to be an action-based program, as opposed to fundraisers.”
While Shine’s first official program was the food distribution for the Chinese New Year, it was actually the second time in recent weeks that the Avtzons and members of the local Jewish community came to the aid of Hong Kong’s homeless.
Jewish community members of all ages helped prepare the packages.
‘Outside Their Comfort Zone’
Two weeks ago, the city was in the throes of a cold snap, with the thermometer dropping to 38 degrees—a 50-year low, according to news reports. While this is indeed the coldest time of the year there, the average temperature ranges from the high 50s to the low 60s.
The Chabad center immediately emailed community members to pitch in. After delivering an initial donation of 20 blankets and 20 coats—and seeing the dire need among the homeless population—the emissaries knew they had to do more.
“There were people who didn’t even have shoes or socks,” said Goldie Avtzon. “So I sent another email asking for donations [or contributions]. The response was unbelievable. We raised between $2,000 and $3,000 in six hours.”
The money allowed volunteers to purchase additional items, including sweaters, scarves and boots. Avtzon recounted one particular image that stuck with her: A man was walking around outside in flimsy hotel slippers; thanks to one of the donors, he was able to trade them in for a pair of UGG boots.
“The outpouring was amazing. People I haven’t heard from in years said, ‘Yes, we want to donate and deliver,’ ” she said. “It was something incredible to see.”
Helping others in a tangible way is the ultimate goal of Shine. Said Avtzon: “I hope it does for others what it did for me, making people look outside their comfort zone. I want them to feel it—to be involved with their own hands.”
The finished food baskets, wrapped and ready for delivery.
Children pitched in to make homemade cards that were inserted into the food packages.
The project was action-based and family-based, with plenty of things for the kids to do to help.
Children assisted in gathering and distributing the bags.
Warm-weather gear and blankets were first donated to and collected by Chabad when temperatures plummeted last week, leaving people in the streets struggling with the cold. Later, funds were raised to buy coats and shoes for those in need.
Organizing blankets to give to people out in the cold.
Unloading blankets, coats and more to go to the city's homeless population.
Chabad is now planning to have monthly events where people come together to do things for those in Hong Kong, as well as in Israel.
Accepting a bag of food in time for the Chinese New Year.
Making sure those hunkered down on Hong Kong's streets had a blanket for warmth.
Rabbi Avtzon, right, out delivering food and clothing.
Informational material, in Chinese and English, included in the food packages about Shine.
© Copyright 2016, all rights reserved.
Chabad.org Magazine - Editor: Yanki Tauber---------------------
"our dear Rabbi Gordon, of blessed memory" Chabad for Wednesday, 10 February 2016
B"H
Dear Chabad.org Family Worldwide,
We are deeply pained to share with you the tragic news of the untimely passing of our very own Rabbi Yehoshua Binyamin Gordon, Chabad.org Torah teacher par excellence.
As many of you know, Rabbi Gordon’s knowledge, clarity, humor and down-to-earth sensibility made learning with him edifying, enlightening and enjoyable. It’s no wonder that within two short years of allowing his daily Torah classes to be streamed live on Chabad.org, he gained the unique and historic distinction of teacher to the largest classroom of daily Torah study in the world. (In the last year alone, his classes have been viewed more than 1.86 million times!)
Rabbi Gordon rose daily at 4 a.m. to prepare for his classes, giving his all to his students across the globe.
Less known, however, to his worldwide family of students were the immense responsibilities he undertook in caring for the San Fernando Valley’s 250,000 Jews.
When Rabbi Gordon and his wife, Deborah moved to the Valley in 1973, the Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of righteous memory, blessed them with immense success to accomplish their mission: to help every single Jew in the Valley achieve his or her Jewish potential. In so doing, Rabbi Gordon recruited 35 additional emissary couples, and established some 26 Chabad-Lubavitch centers, to serve area Jews.
Shouldering a great deal of responsibility for the successful joint Valley operations, including a crushing fundraising load, Rabbi Gordon also counseled couples and individuals, and made himself available to fellow shluchim around the world who sought his advice, all the while raising a wonderful family with his wife. He did his utmost to maximize every moment.
Yet his Torah-teaching—to his community and to the Chabad.org family worldwide—held a special place in his heart. It meant a great deal to him that on his travels around the globe for Chabad, he would encounter people from all walks of life, who told him: “Rabbi, I learn with you daily”; “You’re my personal teacher”; and so much more.
Rabbi Gordon lived the knowledge that rabbinic, organizational and budgetary responsibilities notwithstanding, the very first responsibility of a shliach—an emissary of the Lubavitcher Rebbe—was to impart the Torah’s wisdom to others.
And he felt fortunate to have each of you worldwide as his students, no less fortunate than each of us felt to have him as our teacher. He had a unique intimacy to him that came right through the screen, helping each of us to feel as if we were in the room with him and he was speaking with us directly.
While Rabbi Gordon was always ready to put himself out for others, he did not want others to be inconvenienced by him. It was this steadfast principle that caused him to prohibit us at Chabad.org from informing anyone of his illness upon its discovery more than a year ago. He could not bear the thought of so many people walking around pained in any way because of him. With the heaviest of hearts, we obliged. And for as long as he possibly could he went about his business as usual, including teaching his daily classes.
When his energy waned and he suffered great pain, Rabbi Gordon derived daily strength and satisfaction from the knowledge that he was continuing to help us all learn Torah, through the filmed archive of his classes, which we will forever air daily on Chabad.org.
The soul of HaRav Yehoshua Binyamin ben HaRav Shalom Dov Ber has ascended on high, but he has left us a strong and lasting legacy of Torah scholarship permeated with Chassidic warmth, which will remain with us forever.
We know from discussions we had with him that it would bring him the greatest nachas, the greatest joy and satisfaction, if in his memory we would each:
Rededicate ourselves to the Rebbe’s daily learning programs of Rambam, Chumash,Tanya, and Tehillim to which Rabbi Gordon gave his all; and
Inspire at least one more friend who does not yet participate in these classes to beginlearning with Rabbi Gordon daily.
To ensure that we all remember our teacher and friend, and to give his wife and children an inkling of what he meant to so many of us, we encourage you to post your memories and condolences by clicking here. (To send your message privately to Rabbi Gordon’s family and not publicly online, please use the same form and indicate your preference in your comment.)
May G‑d bless Rabbi Gordon’s family, including all of us around the world, to be comforted with the mourners of Zion and Jerusalem, with the coming of Moshiach speedily in our days.[The Chabad.org Team]
Click here to read an obituary of Rabbi Yehoshua B. Gordon, and here to watch a tribute video in his honor.---------------------
B"H
Dear Chabad.org Family Worldwide,
We are deeply pained to share with you the tragic news of the untimely passing of our very own Rabbi Yehoshua Binyamin Gordon, Chabad.org Torah teacher par excellence.
As many of you know, Rabbi Gordon’s knowledge, clarity, humor and down-to-earth sensibility made learning with him edifying, enlightening and enjoyable. It’s no wonder that within two short years of allowing his daily Torah classes to be streamed live on Chabad.org, he gained the unique and historic distinction of teacher to the largest classroom of daily Torah study in the world. (In the last year alone, his classes have been viewed more than 1.86 million times!)
Rabbi Gordon rose daily at 4 a.m. to prepare for his classes, giving his all to his students across the globe.
Less known, however, to his worldwide family of students were the immense responsibilities he undertook in caring for the San Fernando Valley’s 250,000 Jews.
When Rabbi Gordon and his wife, Deborah moved to the Valley in 1973, the Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of righteous memory, blessed them with immense success to accomplish their mission: to help every single Jew in the Valley achieve his or her Jewish potential. In so doing, Rabbi Gordon recruited 35 additional emissary couples, and established some 26 Chabad-Lubavitch centers, to serve area Jews.
Shouldering a great deal of responsibility for the successful joint Valley operations, including a crushing fundraising load, Rabbi Gordon also counseled couples and individuals, and made himself available to fellow shluchim around the world who sought his advice, all the while raising a wonderful family with his wife. He did his utmost to maximize every moment.
Yet his Torah-teaching—to his community and to the Chabad.org family worldwide—held a special place in his heart. It meant a great deal to him that on his travels around the globe for Chabad, he would encounter people from all walks of life, who told him: “Rabbi, I learn with you daily”; “You’re my personal teacher”; and so much more.
Rabbi Gordon lived the knowledge that rabbinic, organizational and budgetary responsibilities notwithstanding, the very first responsibility of a shliach—an emissary of the Lubavitcher Rebbe—was to impart the Torah’s wisdom to others.
And he felt fortunate to have each of you worldwide as his students, no less fortunate than each of us felt to have him as our teacher. He had a unique intimacy to him that came right through the screen, helping each of us to feel as if we were in the room with him and he was speaking with us directly.
While Rabbi Gordon was always ready to put himself out for others, he did not want others to be inconvenienced by him. It was this steadfast principle that caused him to prohibit us at Chabad.org from informing anyone of his illness upon its discovery more than a year ago. He could not bear the thought of so many people walking around pained in any way because of him. With the heaviest of hearts, we obliged. And for as long as he possibly could he went about his business as usual, including teaching his daily classes.
When his energy waned and he suffered great pain, Rabbi Gordon derived daily strength and satisfaction from the knowledge that he was continuing to help us all learn Torah, through the filmed archive of his classes, which we will forever air daily on Chabad.org.
The soul of HaRav Yehoshua Binyamin ben HaRav Shalom Dov Ber has ascended on high, but he has left us a strong and lasting legacy of Torah scholarship permeated with Chassidic warmth, which will remain with us forever.
We know from discussions we had with him that it would bring him the greatest nachas, the greatest joy and satisfaction, if in his memory we would each:
Rededicate ourselves to the Rebbe’s daily learning programs of Rambam, Chumash,Tanya, and Tehillim to which Rabbi Gordon gave his all; and
Inspire at least one more friend who does not yet participate in these classes to beginlearning with Rabbi Gordon daily.
To ensure that we all remember our teacher and friend, and to give his wife and children an inkling of what he meant to so many of us, we encourage you to post your memories and condolences by clicking here. (To send your message privately to Rabbi Gordon’s family and not publicly online, please use the same form and indicate your preference in your comment.)
May G‑d bless Rabbi Gordon’s family, including all of us around the world, to be comforted with the mourners of Zion and Jerusalem, with the coming of Moshiach speedily in our days.[The Chabad.org Team]
Click here to read an obituary of Rabbi Yehoshua B. Gordon, and here to watch a tribute video in his honor.---------------------
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