[Hat tip to MG]
Tomorrow morning, for example, we say Selichos for Taanis Esther. There are various minhagim about when you say the Selichos. I am not sure anyone says it before davening?
During Davening, it’s said at the time of Tachanun, and yet it looks like Tachanun is embedded within it. I’ve almost got the feeling that perhaps (and I have to admit gross ignorance on this topic as I’ve not had the time to look into it, nor have I done so in the past) it was meant to be a substitute for the standard Tachanun. I say that because at least for Nusach Sfard and Chabad and I think Sefaradim, we already say Oshamnu and Nefilas Apayim. For Ashkenaz it makes more sense as an add on because they don’t ordinarily say Ashamnu. I believe Chabad say it just before the last stanza of Tachanun, immediately after Nefilas Apayim?
Has anyone looked into this and made sense of it? It’s like spaghetti …
I daven in the morning in a Beis Medrash which allows the Shliach Tzibbur to daven in their own Nusach, with a few “universal” compromises.
For example:
It is well known that there are three practices in respect of the Bracha immediately before Krias Shema at Shacharis and Ma’ariv.
Now, I say the Bracha out loud, as Chazan.
The issue is briefly sourced in Brachos 45b.
Sefardi Rishonim consider it fine to answer Amen after your own Bracha (eg Rambam Brachos 1:16). Ashkenazi Rishonim, such as Rabbenu Tam (see Shulchan Aruch OC 215:1, 188:1,2) holds that the only Bracha we answer Amen to, even though we say it, is Boneh B’Rachamov Yerushalayim Amen (in Benching).
For the Bracha before Shema, the Rishonim say that since this is the second of the Birchas Krias Shema we do not need to say Amen. Shema is integrated, and the final Bracha (for Shacharis) is Go-al Yisroel. It’s not clear why one couldn’t, however, say Amen. For example, after Yotzer Or U’Voreh Choshech, one may say Amen, and many are careful to do so.
Minhag Chabad is not to say Amen for any of these Brachos. My question is as follows: if you daven according to Minhag Chabad in the Beis Medrash that I daven in, and I say the first of the Birchas Krias Shema out loud, (Yotzer Or U’Voreh Choshech) should you stay silent and choose not to answer Amen to this Bracha? In addition, if the Chazan says “Habocher B’Amo Yisroel Behava” loudly, should you say Amen. Clearly, Chabad Minhag seems concerned about it, because they say the second bracha quietly and don’t say any part of the first Bracah out loud.
So what do Chabad do? Do they simply say no Amen? Do they try to say the Bracha with the Chazan? Does anyone know?
[Apologies I fixed the last sentence … I was a bit off colour yesterday and my last sentence was almost random letters]
In this article, I asked how it was possible for a woman to fake claim that her 5-year-old was raped and then withdraw the charge. Complicating matters was the apparent refusal of Charedi Medical offices to cooperate.
It turns out now that the Police do believe that the woman was lying. One can only presume she has psychological problems herself and needs treatment. That being said, surely this is yet another reason the Charedi community should not fear police investigations, and makes a mockery of their decision to stay mum and not assist the police with their inquiries!
We had decided that in keeping with my father’s modest comportment and innate sense of unpretentiousness, that we’d keep his Shloshim, “low key” and a family affair. My mother had a few of her closest friends, but apart from that, it was a sombre and less public event. I know many people would have attended if it had been a different way; we hope you can appreciate the approach we took, however.
In truth, it is very difficult at a time of Aveylus to once more “confront the public gaze”. The Avel often craves solitude and is struggling with their sense of loss and grief. Indeed, Halacha encourages a detachment from the more public aspects of life during the year of Aveylus.
I had spoken at the Levaya, and was somewhat “grateful”, if I can use that word in context, that I was voicing introductions and context, as well as a Siyum Mishnayos.
The following is most of what I said to introduce the Shloshim.
Tonight we have gathered on the night of the Shloshim, the thirty-day period after the departure of our dear father, ר’ שאול זעליג הכהן הריני כפרת משכבו from the world as we know it, to the mysterious and exalted world of Souls. The Jewish people have a firm foundational framework which is rooted in Torah and through which we live and after which we depart this world. That framework does not evolve in the sense that it takes on new manifestations of populist modes of worship. Rather, like the foundations of a building that has been constructed to withstand an earthquake, Halacha is designed to move a given and acceptable number of degrees to the left or to the right, to remain intact, eventually returning to a proper and upright posture.
Following on from the Kevurah, where we tear our clothes, mourners observe seven days where there are major restrictions on the mourners and a responsibility for others to attempt to comfort the mourners.
Emerging from Shiva is a strange feeling. It is akin to letting go of certain practices; practices that directly and indirectly affect both the mourner and the comforter. It can sometimes be seen as an expression of “recovery”, and the notion of recovery is somewhat “offensive” to a mourner who is convinced that they will never recover, and perhaps should be sitting for two weeks and not one. Halacha is clear, however. A secondary period of mourning commences after the Shiva. Essentially, many of the restrictions are removed, providing a gentle but steady integration into society. It is far from a complete re-entry.
Some technical restrictions remain, and these represent visible signs that a person is very much still in a state of mourning. The aim of these restrictions is not to cause pain to the mourner. Rather, like all tenets of Judaism, there must be a tangible materialisation of the existential feeling of loneliness and aloneness that uniquely defines the state of mind of a mourner. Judaism has not ever been only a religion of the heart. One cannot reduce Judaism to “I am a Jew at heart”. Judaism is a religion of action emanating from feelings and belief.
From tomorrow morning, the Shloshim period ends and the mode of mourning is relaxed further, although there are still some clear strictures in place.
Jews have always had these three types of mourning: the Shiva, the Shloshim and the 12 months, and the customs and laws that go with each of these categories.
Each year, on Tisha B’Av, we mourn the fact that our true independence in the land of Israel, together with our Temple and all its accoutrements were removed from us. Even today, when we are blessed with our own country, we are far from independent, and find ourselves constantly bullied by our so-called friends and enemies. The commemoration of this loss follows three stages: the three weeks, the nine days, and then Tisha B’Av itself.
Unsurprisingly, Judaism is innately consistent. The customs surrounding the mourning of the three weeks are derived from those of the 12 month period of mourning after a parent. The customs of the nine days corresponds to the period of Shloshim. Finally, on Tisha B’Av, when we also sit on low chairs, the customs of mourning are based on the period of Shiva. Note though that the order is reversed. First it’s the 12 months, followed by the Shloshim and finally on Tisha B’Av it’s the Shiva. Rav Soloveitchik explained that this is an Aveilus Yeshana, and older event that we are mourning. We can’t simply start with the Shiva minhagim. Rather, there needs to be a gradual build up, culminating through Slichos and Kinnos to the Shiva, which is the last stage of mourning.
In the case of mourning after a human being, however, the wounds are red raw. The Aveilus is termed Chadasha, a new experience: both shocking and harrowing. The mourning commences from Shiva, the most intense period, and over time moves to Shloshim, and then finally onto the 12 months. Eventually, it becomes a Yohr Tzeit as well as special Rabinically enacted Yizkor prayers.
What then is the nature of the particular 12 month period that we are moving into?
Consider the following Halachic conundrum. A boy’s parent passed away when he was under Bar Mitzvah age. The boy became Bar Mitzvah during the Shiva period. He commences mourning. Does his choice of observing the remainder of the Shiva and Shloshim constitute the technical fulfilment חיוב of the Rabbinic enactment of the Customs of Shiva and Shloshim or do we say that since he was a minor at the time of the parent’s passing, he is doing a normal and good thing, but he couldn’t have been commanded to do this by the Rabbis because he was a minor at the time of death. Without argument, the Shulchan Aruch concludes that the unfortunate child is performing Minagim of mourning, but he cannot be considered as one who was commanded, or had to do so (בר חיובא).
I was learning the Chochmas Odom last Shabbos at Elwood Shule; the Shule where my father and his father davened, and where I have been leading the prayers each day in his honour. The Chochmas Adam (later cited by the Pischei Tshuva) made the following observation: in respect of the mourning after the Shloshim, that is, the mourning of the 12 months, the boy is actually doing what he was commanded even though he was a minor at the time. How so? The Chochmas Odom explains that the mourning after the Shloshim is essentially connected to the Mitzvah of Kibud Av V’Eim, honouring one’s parents. In this case, honouring a parent through acts that are undertaken which will bring them Nachas Ruach in another world, is something that he is now expected to do. This can commence as soon as the boy turns Bar Mitzvah.
It is this new period that we as children move into from tomorrow morning. It is also something that grandchildren may participate in, since the Gemara tells us that בני בנים הרי הם כבנים (grandchildren are like children). This insight might also explain why curiously, for our dear mother and aunt, the formal mourning laws and minhagim cease tomorrow morning. It is only children who are commanded in the Mitzvah of Kibud Av V’Eim.
The human process of grieving and missing someone, of course, is another thing entirely, and that is something that each person deals with in their own way, and their own time, and hopefully with well-meaning friends and family, especially those who have gathered here tonight and who have been so loyal and supportive to all of us.
Never assume that you are “anonymous” on the internet. You can go through hoola hoops to hide your identity if you know your stuff, but 99.9% of people don’t know how to do this. Is it worth it? The only time I can think of someone wanting to post an anonymous comment is if they have something that is so important to tell but simply are unable to reveal their name. This is an exception. It should happen in very few cases. One example might be a real victim of crime. Even in that situation, you would hope that the person doesn’t just use the internet, but actually goes to the police and makes a formal complaint. If they cannot bring themselves to make a formal complaint, then depending on the nature of what they have written, we make a value judgement call on whether it is reasonable that they remain anonymous in the context. There are far too many weasels, sock-puppets, and malingerers on the net who make “anonymous” comments which are demonstratively false and hurtful. That’s not what anonymity is about. That’s just offensive cowardice. Some websites are simply magnets for these toilet-like comments: Scott Rosenberg’s blog is one example where there is much horrible comment and back stabbing.
Sometimes, it is unfair. There is no effective right of reply because of smoke and daggers and innuendo. When we say things, just like in our daily speech, we need to be careful that there is a positive purpose in what we say or write, and that we are very sure about the veracity of our statement.
When I started blogging, it was for my benefit, so to speak. I enjoyed and enjoy the opportunity to express what’s on my mind, or something I have learned. In doing so, I have been (or tried to be) very conscious of not allowing ad hominem attacks via comments, and have edited and rejected comments accordingly. I don’t force people to login to show their identity; they could use a fake email, but anyone who thinks that authorities can’t trace them, should think again. I know a little about these things as a computer scientist. That being said, I’ve only once wanted to find out someone’s identity, and that’s when that person made threats to my family through this blog. In the end, I let it go. If it would have occurred more than once, that person may have found me on their door step, with an officer in tow.
It comes then, as little surprise that the “anonymous” blogger “ifyoutickleus” who has been trying to out R’ Chaim Halpern of London, is now under attack. R’ Halpern’s supporters have applied to find out “who he or she is” via google (who host that blog). This is not new. We have such cases in Australia as well.
It will be an interesting unfolding episode. If R’ Halpern is found guilty of an infraction of Jewish Law, then as I understand it, the anonymous blogger may not be found guilty of defamation? But who will determine if R’ Halpern allegedly did what he is purported to have done (which I understand may not be against Secular Law)? Will it involve the courts summoning the new Beis Din that has been formed to judge this case, and about which I understand very few women trusted enough to come forward? Will they subpoena the Rabbis who have publicly called on R’ Halpern to resign? This is going to get very messy, and I think R’ Halpern’s advisors have made a poor call. They may end up knowing who is publicising the material “anonymously” if google cough up the information, but that won’t cleanse R’ Halpern, surely, except in the eyes of one-eyed supporters. One needs to look at these issues with both eyes. If R’ Halpern has nothing to answer for, so be it. If, on the other hand, some allegations are true, then he should do the honourable thing, and step aside.
The mere fact that there was already an exposé on Channel 4, in which R’ Padwa did not emerge in a very good light as far as the issue of Mesira is concerned, would tend to suggest that this new subpoena will only cause a brighter torch to shine on the Charedi community in London, and Jews as a whole. Not good. It is true that R’ Halpern has a right to defend himself. Did the Beis Din who is sitting on this case, give permission to R’ Halpern to apply to the secular courts? Who did?
In the meanwhile, the rest of us sit back and ask ourselves, “why is this happening?”
[Disclaimer: as always, these views are my own. They do not represent my employer or any organisation with which I am affiliated or a member of]
In an article in the Australian Jewish News, the erudite and respected figure editorialised that it didn’t bother him that the Australian Labor Party through the Prime Minister Julia Gillard had chosen Yom Kippur as the election date, despite having other possibilities. Amongst his points Lipski argues that as far as he knew Halacha knew no difference between the voting on Shabbos and the voting on Yom Kippur. Despite Sam’s Orthodox roots and his current alleged membership of the (small) Conservative Jewish Community, it shocks me that he would make such statements. Granted, the job of an editorial is to be somewhat left (sic) field and sensationalist, but in this case he has taken his license too far.
The implication that once you drive on Shabbos, you may as well drive on Yom Kippur is a nonsense, and Sam knows it. Yom Kippur is the holiest day of the year, and even those who might infract on other days, attempt to refrain from doing so on Yom Kippur.
On Yom Kippur evening after davening at Elwood Shule, there are many people who walk back to their homes even though they drive on Shabbos. Are we expecting Sam to knock on their window and say “Hey Buddy, what’s the point, you already drove last Shabbos”. It is well-known that the Conservative movement’s attempt to purify driving on Shabbos was an abject failure. Even its own leaders now acknowledge this fact.
No Sam, your role isn’t to find special meaning on the “wonderful” conjugation of the election and Yom Kippur. That, is distasteful, disrespectful, and frankly grandstanding. You already have a good name. There is no need to engage in this populist, sensationalist nonsense that strikes at the holiest day of the Jewish Calendar.
Michael Danby a Labor MP, a member of Elwood Shule, put it respectfully and rightly when he expressed disappointment over the date and announced that extra polling days would be available in Jewish areas.
I urge all people to not even remotely consider the possibility of casting your ballot on Yom Kippur. Do it before, or by postal vote. All Orthodox Shules should contact their members in this regard, in my opinion. I’d venture to say that even the Conservadox, Conservative or Reform movements should do the same.
I’m told that on another blog, there is an article whose title suggests it is “Great” that an election is held on Yom Kippur. Whether this is sarcasm, wit or a real opinion, it’s a great shame that writers and thinkers even have the temerity, let alone the Jewish vacuity, to evince a view that is remotely positive about such a sad conjunction.
The article below is Itamar Fleishman from Yediot
I just don’t get it. People don’t all of a sudden suspect that a 5-year-old has been raped. If they do, then on what basis do they magically decide it was a figment of their imagination? As to the “local haredi (sic) Medical Facility” refusing to cooperate, they should be closed down simply on that basis. Modi’in Ilit has featured on my blog elsewhere. It sounds like a great place to live.
Several days after the police opened an investigation into an alleged rape of a five-year-old girl in Modiin Illit, the woman who filed the complaint has withdrawn it.
Nevertheless, the police have not suspended the investigation despite admitting that there are doubts as to whether a rape had indeed taken place.
On Monday, the police confirmed it was investigating suspicions that a girl at the age of five was raped by a man in the haredi settlement of Modiin Illit. The probe was launched following reports of medical treatment the girl had undergone.
The local haredi medical facility refused to cooperate with the investigation as did other residents who were reportedly instructed to keep mum. Neither the child nor the suspect have been located as of yet.
Rumor of the incident started spreading in the town last weekend, and according to residents, an anonymous complaint was filed with the police Friday.
Police questioned several residents who were warned they would be charged with obstruction of justice if they fail to cooperate.
According to the few details investigators have managed to gather, it is suspected that sometime in the past two weeks a man approached a five-year-old girl he saw on the street, took her to a warehouse at a nearby synagogue where he abused her for two hours.
Police said: “The investigation is rigorous, but we’re running into walls of silence from everyone. We’re utilizing all the resources we have in order to trace all those involved. I hope we can do so soon.”
There has long been conjecture about this group. Their cholent isn’t; it’s a legume soup (highly recommended if you are constipated). They speak Hungarian (Goyish) in Shule, whereas Poles and Russians speak Yiddish and considered it anathema to speak “Goyish” in Shule. Polacks often sneeringly (in jest) deride Hungarians. They drink this poisonous harsh on the palate drink called Slivovitz (which is now being considered as injurious to health as DDT) etc.
In response, once often hears that the person isn’t really Hungarian but they are Czhecoslovakian or born on the “border”. One startling fact, however, is that of the non Czech style Hungarians, the percentage of Cohanim is lower than among any other group. There have been many theories about this phenomenon. One that has gained traction over the years is that the Hungarian Jews are descended from the Khazars (Khuzarim) who converted to Judaism, as mentioned by R’ Yehuda HaLevi in his Sefer HaCuzari.
We’ve all read anecdotes such as:
“I recenly met a Jewish woman from Hungary. She is in her eighties. She told me that her family were descended from the Khazars who travelled with the Magyars into what is now the lovely land of Hungary. She said that they were part of the ten arrows. She said that her family converted to Judaism thousands of years ago after the Khazars met ancient Hebrews.”
While nobody questioned the Poles and Russian’s Jewish heritage, these two groups were considered the “peasant” class especially in respect of the “cultured” German jews. I fondly after my engagement to my wife, who is of half German origin, that they asked me what foods I liked. I answered that herring would be great. My wife’s grandmother, Ella Herzberg ע’’ה was seeped in Germanic traditions. She liked me despite my ‘Polish Peasant’ lineage. Herring just wasn’t served at a high-class Yekkishe meal, so she needed to come up with a good line in front of her friends. It went something like this:
“You know, when we were younger, Herring was for the poor people. Now there are almost no Herrings left, and it has become a delicacy”
This always brought a smile to my face 🙂
Back to the issue of Hungarian Jews, another intriguing addition to the jigsaw puzzle appeared in Yediot, which I produce below.
Jews of European origin are a mix of ancestries, with many hailing from tribes in the Caucasus who converted to Judaism and created an empire that lasted half a millennium, according to a gene study.
The investigation, its author says, should settle a debate that has been roiling for more than two centuries.
Further Research
Genetic map of Jewish Diasporas defined / Ynetnews
Findings of new study support historical record of Middle Eastern Jews settling in North Africa during Classical Antiquity, proselytizing and marrying local populations, forming distinct populations that stayed largely intact for more than 2,000 years
Full story
Jews of European descent, often called Ashkenazim, account for some 90% of the more than 13 million Jews in the world today.According to the so-called Rhineland Hypothesis, Ashkenazim descended from Jews who progressively fled Palestine after the Muslim conquest of 638 AD.
They settled in southern Europe and then, in the late Middle Ages, about 50,000 of them moved from the Rhineland in Germany into eastern Europe, according to the hypothesis.
But detractors say this idea is implausible.
Barring a miracle – which some supporters of the Rhineland Hypothesis have in fact suggested – the scenario would have been demographically impossible.
It would mean that the population of Eastern European Jews leapt from 50,000 in the 15th century to around eight million at the start of the 20th century.
That birth rate would have been 10 times greater than that of the local non-Jewish population. And it would have occurred despite economic hardship, disease, wars and pogroms that ravaged Jewish communities.
Seeking new light in the argument, a study published in the British journal Genome Biology and Evolution, compares the genomes of 1,287 unrelated individuals who hail from eight Jewish and 74 non-Jewish populations.
Geneticist Eran Elhaik of the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health in Baltimore, Maryland, trawled through this small mountain of data in search of single changes in the DNA code that are linked to a group’s geographical origins.
Such telltales have been used in past research to delve into the origins of the Basque people and the pygmy people of central Africa.
Among European Jews, Elhaik found ancestral signatures that pointed clearly to the Caucasus and also, but to a smaller degree, the Middle East.
The results, said Elhaik, give sound backing for the rival theory – the “Khazarian Hypothesis.”
Backed by archaeological findings
Under this concept, eastern European Jews descended from the Khazars, a hotchpotch of Turkic clans that settled the Caucasus in the early centuries AD and, influenced by Jews from Palestine, converted to Judaism in the 8th century.
The Judeo-Khazars built a flourishing empire, drawing in Jews from Mesopotamia and imperial Byzantium.
They became so successful that they sent offshoots into Hungary and Romania, planting the seeds of a great Diaspora.
But Khazaria collapsed in the 13th century when it was attacked by the Mongols and became weakened by outbreaks of the Black Death.
The Judeo-Khazars fled westwards, settling in the rising Polish Kingdom and in Hungary, where their skills in finance, economics and politics were in demand, and eventually spread to central and western Europe, according to the “Khazarian Hypothesis.”
“We conclude that the genome of European Jews is a tapestry of ancient populations including Judaised Khazars, Greco-Roman Jews, Mesopotamian Jews and Judeans,” says Elhaik.
“Their population structure was formed in the Caucasus and the banks of the Volga, with roots stretching to Canaan and the banks of the Jordan.”
Many things are unknown about the Khazars, whose tribal confederation gathered Slavs, Scythians, Hunnic-Bulgars, Iranians, Alans and Turks.
But, argues Elhaik, the tale sketched in the genes is backed by archaeological findings, by Jewish literature that describes the Khazars’ conversion to Judaism, and by language, too.
“Yiddish, the language of Central and Eastern European Jews, began as a Slavic language” before being reclassified as High German, he notes.
Another pointer is that European Jews and their ancestral groups in the Caucasus and Middle East share a relatively high risk of diseases such as cystic fibrosis.
The investigation should help fine-tune a fast-expanding branch of genomics, which looks at single-change DNA mutations that are linked with inherited disease, adds Elhaik.
Direct responsibility for not dealing with these issues is with the Rabbinate of Modiin Ilit. The scourge must be removed and all alleged perpetrators surrendered to police. It’s incomprehensible that there is a “better way”. There isn’t.
Police are investigating the alleged rape of a five-year-old girl in the haredi city of Modiin Ilit that occurred two weeks ago.
It is suspected that the girl was on her way to kindergarten, when a haredi youth grabbed her and took her to an unknown location close by, possibly a storage room or an empty communal building, where he raped and abused her.
He then release the girl who arrived at her kindergarten bruised an injured. The kindergarten teachers contacted the girl’s parents to collect their daughter and she was subsequently taken to hospital.
It appears that communal leaders have attempted to cover up the incident and have pressured anyone involved and the broader community not to cooperate with the police investigation; neither the parents nor anyone else involved in the incident reported it and residents are reluctant to speak to the police or media about it.
Army Radio, which first exposed the allegations, revealed that the incident was only finally reported last Friday by an anonymous tip off sent by SMS to an officer.
A police investigation is currently underway. Investigators went to the hospital where the child was treated but were not able to see her due to family objections.
Police officers from the Judea and Samaria District Police also went to the kindergarten in question but no-one was prepared to cooperate with the investigation.
A Modiin Ilit resident whose child attends the same kindergarten said on Channel 2 News that the kindergarten management was silencing the incident, specifically accusing the director of the kindergarten association.
The above article is from the Jerusalem Post by Jeremy Sharon.
I am pleased to inform you that several new ETC publications are NOW available on Rabbi Tzvee Zahavy’s wonderful Torah resource site http://www.halakhah.com (http://halakhah.com/index.html).
Newly uploaded are:
1. An updated and revised edition of 25 RULES FOR PERFORMING MITZVOHS derived from the famous Halachic compendium, the Chayei Odom. This is available at http://halakhah.com/rst/25rules.pdf.
2. A completely new translation with commentaries of SEFER MISHLEI (the Book of Proverbs). This you can find at http://halakhah.com/rst/mishlei.pdf.
3. The first volume (Bereishis) of Dr. Seligmann Baer’s (author of Siddur Avodas Yisroel) famous MASORETIC TEXT OF THE TANACH. This can be accessed at http://halakhah.com/rst/baer1.pdf. The remaining books of Tanach (except for Shemos through Devorim which were never produced) will be available, too, but due to their large size we are trying to figure out if it should be made available as zip files or on Drop Box or something like that.
4. Another volume in the Hadgashas Hane’emar series, SEFER YONA http://halakhah.com/rst/yona.pdf. Soon to be available on halakhah.com, please G-d, will be Sefer Esther (in time for Purim) and Sefer Ruth http://halakhah.com/rst/ruth.pdf. BTW, the entire Tanach has been formatted like this and, please G-d, will be made available in due time, as well. I think this format is an excellent study tool, particularly for young students, facilitating faster and better comprehension of the text.
Besides these items, halakhah.com hosts a number of other ETC monographs and works including the comprehensive Hebrew Verb Root thesaurus Shoroshim http://halakhah.com/rst/shoroshim.pdf, hundreds of non-esoteric passages from the Zohar http://halakhah.com/rst/kkz.pdf, an index to the usage of all verses and passages from Tanach in our liturgy, called Shimush Pesukim http://halakhah.com/rst/pesukim.pdf, a nice translation of Pirkei Avos with many unique and interesting lists http://halakhah.com/rst/pirkeiavos.pdf and lots more unique, fun and educational material.
On top of all this, you have the entire two-column, easy to read and download, REFORMATTED SONCINO TALMUD – the only complete, online, English language translation of the Talmud at http://halakhah.com/indexrst.html as well as the more traditional format of the Soncino, found scrolled-down lower on the same page. Rabbi Zahavy has made available some of his excellent works there, too, including access to an outstanding, world-class and highly-recommended philosophical exposition called Whence and Wherefore written by his late father, Rabbi Zev Zahavy, ztz”l. This book explores the most fundamental issues of the purpose and meaning of the creation, life and existence.
[Hat tip to Norm]
What are people’s views on this?
Appeals to a gadol and gedolim suggests that there does in fact exist within Judaism an elite class with the final authority over legal, theological, and public policy questions.
Published: January 31st, 2013
I first heard the term “gadolatry” attributed to the late professor Arthur Hertzberg. A portmanteau of “gadol” and “idolatry,” the word “gadolatry” refers to a perceived phenomenon in Orthodox Judaism where select rabbinic leaders are treated with a degree of deference or reverence, bordering on worshipping the person of the rabbi himself. That Dr. Hertzberg would coin such an inflammatory term is not surprising given his personality, such that reactions offense or outrage are as intentional as they are predictable. However, it has been my experience that those strong passions on either side have turned the reasonable question of the role of the gadol in Judaism into the single greatest impediment to intelligent religious discourse in the Orthodox Jewish community.While I have no expectations of resolving this divisive issue, I do hope to explicate the rationales implied when one invokes a gadol, and why others may find such an argument unconvincing.
In order to participate in an intelligible or meaningful debate, opposing sides must accept certain mutually agreed upon assumptions or premises relevant to the discussion at hand. This prerequisite can be particularly challenging in religious debates where the logical foundations are not based in empirical fact as much as one’s subjective faith, though such statements of faith are often presented as fact. Thus if only one side assumes an idea as a religious truism, the conversation will quickly deteriorate into personal attacks on the other’s religious integrity.
To illustrate this distinction between “fact” and “faith,” consider an instance where one cites a passage in the Talmud to support a halakhic or theological position. Whether or not the passage appears in the Talmud is a matter of “fact” which one can easily verify by looking up the citation in the Talmud. However the significance of that passage – i.e. the degree to which it is determines normative Jewish thought or practice – is a subjective matter of “faith” Often based on one’s tradition. For example, according to Maimonides the Talmud is final authority in determining the universally obligatory or prohibited laws for all halakhic process (Introduction to Mishnah Torah). For others popular practice takes an equal if not superior role in determining halakha, as demonstrated in the idiom “the custom of Israel is Torah” (Ramban Commentary to Pesachim 7b). Today it is not uncommon to hear from Orthodox rabbis, “we don’t pasken from the gemara.” To some degree the fact/faith dichotomy is at the core of any argument in which one invokes a “gadol” to support a position in an argument.
The term “gadol” means “great one” or more specifically a “great rabbi,” whose opinions because of his greatness, are treated not only as superior to those of ordinary rabbis (let alone common Jews) but may also be considered to be the definitive religious position on any given subject. Similarly, its plural form “gedolim” refers to a collective of great rabbis, which in addition to the implication of rabbinic greatness, also conveys the perception of consensus among the religious elite. Thus, when one invokes a gadol or attributes a stated position to a gadol or the gedolim, he is not only appealing to the higher authority in support of a position as much as arguing that the gadol’s affirmation itself determines the correct Jewish position. Conversely, any position which contradicts or criticizes a gadol or the gedolim on matters of halakha, theology, or even public policy is inherently illegitimate if not an outright heretical affront to the Jewish religion or even God’s will. In either case, any position contrary to that of a gadol is summarily dismissed purely on the authority of the elite rabbinic persona.
Appeals to a gadol and gedolim are primarily predicated on two categorical assumptions of faith.1 The first set of assumptions are ontological, in that there does in fact exist within Judaism an elite class with the final authority over legal, theological, and public policy questions to which all Jews must adhere and all lesser rabbis must defer. It is important to distinguish this elite class from the Sanhedrin which was a formal judicial and legislative body with its own qualifications, procedures, and regulations. Even if the other party in the argument agrees that certain rabbis are greater in some way than others, he may not necessarily bestow upon those rabbis the superior authority implied by the designation of “gadol.”
The primary obstacle with this assumption is that it is nearly impossible to verify or reject without similar assumptions of faith regarding the source(s) of religious authority in Judaism. Were one to support the existence of such an authoritative informal institution, one must provide some basis to justify that position. One such option would be to find supporting (or opposing) sources in Jewish texts such as the Bible or Talmud. However, even if these sources are considered part of the religious canon, their respective authority may be disputed and their meanings reinterpreted. In the Talmud itself we find differing opinions relating to the legal normativity of the books of the Prophets,2 and the Rabbinic sages often reinterpreted Biblical verses outside of their literal meaning – the most famous example of which being Ex. 21:24 “an eye for an eye” to mean a monetary penalty (B. Bava Kamma 83b-84a). Finally, as noted above, even the normative role of the Talmud is disputed among Orthodox traditions, not to mention the authority of interpreting Talmudic sources.
In other words, the very question of religious authority in Judaism requires a priori assumptions of faith regarding the very sources of religious authority with which to justify one’s position. After all, rabbinic authority is defined by the Rabbis, and the gadol’s authority would only be validated through the authority of other great rabbis, even those of an earlier era. The authority of any institution must come from some place outside of itself, and unless that source of validation is agreed upon a priori, the question of any authority is never answered, only deferred. Therefore, arguments for the existance of an authoritative gadol class through Jewish texts will not result in definitive conclusions.
And yet, if the existence and authority of an elite rabbinic class is granted, the second set of assumptions which need to be addressed relate to its membership. In particular, two questions which must be answered are 1. who is considered to be a gadol or among the gedolim and 2. what is the criteria by which one makes those determinations. Rarely (if ever) will an individual rabbi declare himself to be a gadol – such a declaration would be not only the mark of arrogance but blatantly self serving. Thus membership in the gadol class must come from an outside source.
Given the elite status of the gadol one may suspect that only one who has attained this elite status could in turn bestow it upon others. Rabbis can only be ordained by other Rabbis, members of the Sanhedrin appoint their own colleagues. To attain a high rank, one suspects the authority must derive from an equal or higher authority. However, there is no such formal mechanism of meritocracy for gedolim. There is no formal election, recognition, or proclamation indicating when a rabbi has achieved greatness. Thus, despite the magnified importance and authority attributed to the gedolim, there is no objective criteria to identify or define them.3
None of this is to argue that great rabbis do not exist. Every field of knowledge has it experts, and indeed, some may argue that similar to other areas of knowledge the gedolim are the recognized authorities in their field such that their opinions ought to carry greater significance. In other words, even if deference to gedolim is not mandated by Jewish texts it should still be expected by dint of the gedolim‘s superior expertise.
However, there are three important differences between the expertise of secular scholars and gedolim and the expectations in relating to that expertise. First, there are important differences in how such expertise is determined. Usually this is measured in terms of the academic output of publications or contributions to a field, except that each field has its own criteria for evaluating the quality of another’s work. Works in the sciences or social sciences must include a section on methodology – how is data collected and why were those conditions valid (if not optimal) for collecting data. In the humanities where there is more subjectivity, scholars not only justify the veracity of their claims or interpretation, but in many cases must justify the very existence of their scholarship. After all, who needs another essay on Hamlet.
As noted above, there no objective criteria by which to similarly evaluate the expertise and contributions of gedolim. In fact I would argue that this is by design. Secular experts seek to convince others of the validity and importance of their research, and so much meet certain formalistic requirements evaluated by peer review. But gedolim by definition of their elite status could only be properly vetted by other gedolim. Gedolim have no need to convince others of the correctness of their positions when those others lack the stature to use their own judgements.
Along these lines, the second difference between secular experts and gedolim is the expectation of obedience. Unless one is a university student dependant on GPA or a PhD advisor’s approval, there are no practical negative consequences for rejecting any expert’s theory. Even an expert’s devotees cannot expect to attract followers if they simply demand obsequiousness to their chosen mentor. On the other hand, a gadol is responsible for determining Jewish law, in which case his word becomes the law itself – which all Orthodox Jews must ostensibly follow. Due to this religious authority, it is not surprising for gedolim to attract a cult like following who will in turn attempt to get others to follow the gadol’s authority because after all, the religion commands it.
The third difference between secular experts and gedolim is also perhaps the source of the most of the controversies in Judaism. Specifically, what are the expectations when one speaks beyond their respective fields of expertise? Secular experts rarely venture beyond their training if they have not done appropriate research, and if they do, there are usually well defined rules of engagement for making a persuasive case. But gedolim frequently issue proclamations affecting public policies of economics, bioethics,4 criminology, or international and local politics. Instead of acknowledging that perhaps a gadol may contradict actual experts, supporters may argue epistemologically that all knowledge is encoded in the Torah, such that an expert in Torah is automatically an expert in all fields of knowledge. But this too is ultimately an assumption of faith, not fact.
One final point which must be mentioned is that not all references to gedolim follow this pattern. It is difficult to discuss contemporary Jewish law without at least consulting with the works of R. Moshe Feinstein or R. Ovadia Yosef, both of whom are considered gedolim even beyond their immediate constituency. Yet, not everyone who cites these undeniably influential sages does so with the expectation that their positions must be normative law binding on all Jews. The distinction between citing an invoking a gadol is in the expectation of unquestioning deference to the gadol’s position.
In conclusion, despite any pretense of a logical rational argument, most appeals to gedolim in religious arguments are not intended to advance a discussion but to end it through the imposition of one’s faith, or at least several components thereof. And as with most arguments of faith, it is usually a pointless exercise to counter argue on those terms. In this regard Dr. Hertzberg was correct in coining the term “gadolatry” – not in the sense that those who follow gedolim are idolaters, but in the minds of a non-trival segment of the Jewish population, when one disputes the sacred authority of a gadol, he might as well argue with God himself.
1. There are of course factual assumptions as well, such as if the person is accurately representing the gadol or gedolim’s position. Sometimes these representations are based on hearsay and on occasion may contradict a rabbi’s published position. In such cases the correct attribution of a position to the gadol is itself a matter of “faith” as well, but since in most instances it is empirically verifiable, for the purposes of this essay I will treat them as facts.
2. For one example, R. Elazar and R. Nachman Bar Yitzchak cites Hosea 2:1 as source that one who counts Jews violates one or two, ostensibly Biblical, prohibitions (B. Yoma 22b), yet B. Chagigah 10b rejects a legal argument based on Amos 5:25 staying, “divrei Torah medivrei kabbalah la yalpinan” – we do not derive words of Torah (i.e. law) from words of tradition. Space does not permit a full treatment of the legal sources of the Prophets, but for the purposes of my argument it does demonstrate at least two approaches codified in the Talmud.
3. Based on my own observations, it seems to me that the designation of “gadol” is more of the result of populism, that there is some communal recognition that someone has attained this rank. Even if other gedolim deem someone worthy, it is still dependent on a community to accept that person as such. And despite the deference one ought to bestow upon gedolim, in rare instances a community can turn against a gadol when he takes certain controversial positions. One such example is R. Saul Lieberman, who upon accepting a position at the Jewish Theological Seminary became went from being respected to reviled in the Orthodox community. See Marc Shapiro’s wonderful monograph, Saul Lieberman and the Orthodox
4. R. Moshe Tendler, a PhD in biology, once complained in shiur about having to argue brain death with people who never went to college.
About the Author: Rabbi Joshua Yuter was ordained in 2003 from Yeshiva University’s Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary. He also holds a B.A. in Computer Science from Yeshiva University, an M.A. in Talmudic Studies from Yeshiva University, and a Master’s Degree in Social Sciences from the University of Chicago. Rabbi Yuter is also an alum of Yeshivat Har Etzion. He is currently the rabbi of The Stanton St. Shul on New York’s historic Lower East Side.
[Hat tip to Ezra]
This article is from Bloombergs. There has been a traditional antipathy towards driving German cars. My father הכ’’מ used to drive one in Berlin immediately after the Holocaust.
I asked him why and he said
Because they are my כפרה. They destroyed my youth, I decided that I would דווקא enjoy the best that they had to offer.
I understood this to be “dancing on the grave of the person who tried to murder you”. That was soon after the war. Feelings were mixed and the psyche was scarred. Yet, once in Melbourne, he wouldn’t dream of driving a German car. He always admired “Daatchishe” technology and had no problem buying devices they made. Those devices, however, weren’t “in your face” and were used at home.
It wasn’t for me to make value judgements about his choice. I hadn’t gone through what he had and perhaps, in time, a public embracement through the aegis of a fancy car was not something that neither he, nor most survivors, were ready to make. Yet, there were and are children of holocaust survivors who bought fancy German cars and drove these cars while their parents were alive. I’ve never understood that attitude. If your parents lived through it and don’t do it, even if they are somewhat inconsistent by purchasing private goods of German origin, why would one feel so “obligated” to דווקא drive a car that their parents wouldn’t dream of driving. Even if my father had given me permission to do so (not that I could ever afford a fancy car) I wouldn’t do it while he was not doing the same. After all, there are alternatives.
Ironically, we now have the expose below about BMW. I’d imagine some Jewish BMW owners are now squirming in their warm leather seats.
Harald Quandt, Magda Goebbels’ son by her first marriage, center back stands in uniform with his step-father Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels, bottom from right, his mother Magda, third from left, and the couple’s children, Helga, Hildegard, Helmut, Hedwig, Holdine and Heidrun in 1942. Photograph: Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
In the spring of 1945, Harald Quandt, a 23-year-old officer in the German Luftwaffe, was being held as a prisoner of war by Allied forces in the Libyan port city of Benghazi when he received a farewell letter from his mother, Magda Goebbels — the wife of Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels.
The hand-written note confirmed the devastating news he had heard weeks earlier: His mother had committed suicide with her husband on May 1, after slipping their six children cyanide capsules in Adolf Hitler’s underground bunker in Berlin.
“My dear son! By now we’ve been in the Fuehrerbunker for six days already, Daddy, your six little siblings and I, to give our national socialistic lives the only possible, honorable ending,” she wrote. “Harald, dear son, I want to give you what I learned in life: Be loyal! Loyal to yourself, loyal to the people and loyal to your country!”
Quandt was released from captivity in 1947. Seven years later, he and his half-brother Herbert — Harald was the only remaining child from Magda Goebbels’ first marriage — would inherit the industrial empire built by their father, Guenther Quandt, which had produced Mauser firearms and anti-aircraft missiles for the Third Reich’s war machine. Among their most valuable assets at the time was a stake in car manufacturer Daimler AG. (DAI) They bought a part of Bayerische Motoren Werke AG (BMW) a few years later.
Lower Profile
While the half-brothers passed away decades ago, their legacy has endured. Herbert’s widow, Johanna Quandt, 86, and their children Susanne Klatten and Stefan Quandt, have remained in the public eye as BMW’s dominant shareholders. The billionaire daughters of Harald Quandt — Katarina Geller-Herr, 61, Gabriele Quandt, 60, Anette-Angelika May-Thies, 58, and 50-year-old Colleen-Bettina Rosenblat-Mo — have kept a lower profile.
The four sisters inherited about 1.5 billion deutsche marks ($760 million) after the death of their mother, Inge, in 1978, according to the family’s sanctioned biography, “Die Quandts.” They manage their wealth through the Harald Quandt Holding GmbH, a Bad Homburg, Germany-based family investment company and trust named after their father. Fritz Becker, the chief executive officer of the family entities, said the siblings realized average annual returns above 7 percent from its founding in 1981 through 1996. Since then, the returns have averaged 7.6 percent.
“The family wants to stay private and that is an acceptable situation for me,” said Becker in an interview at his Bad Homburg office. “We invest our money globally and if it’s $1 billion, $500 million or $3 billion, who cares?”
Wartime Profits
Together, the four sisters — and the two children of a deceased sibling — share a fortune worth at least $6 billion, giving each of them a net worth of $1.2 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. They have never appeared individually as billionaires on an international wealth ranking.
See the new interactive Bloomberg Billionaires Index
Becker declined to provide the exact figure the holding manages for the four sisters. The siblings declined to comment for this account, said Ralf-Dieter Brunowsky, a spokesman for the family investment company, in an e-mail. He said the net worth calculation was “too high,” declining to be more specific.
The rise of the Quandt family fortune shares the same trajectory as Germany’s quest for global domination in the 20th century. It began in 1883, when Emil Quandt acquired a textile company owned by his late father-in-law. At the turn of the century, Emil passed the business to his eldest son, Guenther.
The younger Quandt saw an opportunity with the onset of war in 1914. His factories, already one of the biggest clothing manufacturers for the German state, quadrupled their weekly uniform production for the army, according to “Die Quandts.”
Weapons Production
After Germany’s surrender four years later, Quandt put the company’s wartime profits to use. In 1922, he bought a majority stake in Accumulatoren-Fabrik AG (AFA), a Hagen-based battery manufacturer. Six years later, he took over Berlin-Karlsruher Industriewerken AG (BKIW), a Berlin-based manufacturer that made sewing machines and silverware. The factory, once one of Germany’s largest weapon producers, had been forced to retool as part of the country’s disarmament agreement.
“The Quandts’ business grew in the Kaiserreich, it grew during the Weimar Republic, it grew during the Second World War and it grew strongly after the war,” Rudiger Jungbluth, author of “Die Quandts,” said in an interview at a Bavarian restaurant in Hamburg last November.
Nazi Connections
In 1918, Guenther Quandt’s first wife died of the Spanish flu, leaving him a widower with two young sons, Hellmut and Herbert. He married Magda Ritschel in 1921, and the couple’s only son, Harald, was born later that year. Hellmut died in 1927, from complications related to appendicitis.
Quandt and Magda divorced in 1929. Two years later, she married Joseph Goebbels, a member of the German parliament who also held a doctorate degree in drama and served as head of propaganda for Germany’s growing Nazi party. After the Nazis took power in 1933, their leader, Adolf Hitler, appointed Goebbels as the Third Reich’s propaganda minister. Hitler was the best man at the couple’s wedding.
Guenther Quandt joined the party that same year. His factories became key suppliers to the German war effort, even though his relationship with Goebbels had become increasingly strained.
“There was constant rivalry,” said Bonn-based history professor Joachim Scholtyseck, author of a family-commissioned study about their involvement with the Third Reich, in a telephone interview. “It didn’t matter that Goebbels didn’t like him. It didn’t have any influence on Quandt’s ability to make money.”
Forced Labor
In 1937, he earned the title of Wehrwirtschaftsfuehrer, the name given to members of an elite group of businessmen who were deemed beneficial to the production of war materials for the Third Reich. During the war, Quandt’s AFA manufactured batteries for U-Boat submarines and V-2 rocket launchers. His BKIW –which had been renamed Deutsche Waffen-und Munitionsfabriken AG in 1936 — produced Mauser firearms, ammunition and anti-aircraft missiles.
“He was one of the leading industrialists in the Third Reich and the Second World War,” Scholtyseck said. “He always kept a very low profile.”
From 1940 to 1945, the Quandt family factories were staffed with more than 50,000 forced civilian laborers, prisoners of war and concentration camp workers, according to Scholtyseck’s 1,183-page study. The report was commissioned by the family in 2007 after German television aired the documentary “The Silence of the Quandts,” a critical look at their wartime activities.
Released in September 2011, the study also found that Quandt appropriated assets from Jewish company owners and that his son Herbert had planned building an AFA factory in which slave laborers would be deployed.
Army Volunteer
“Guenther Quandt didn’t have a Nazi-kind of thinking,” said Jungbluth, the family biographer. “He was looking for any opportunity to expand his personal empire.”
Quandt’s youngest son, Harald, lived with his mother, Goebbels and six half-siblings. In 1939, he joined the German army after the country’s invasion of Poland, volunteering for the army’s paratrooper unit one year later.
During the war, Harald was deployed in Greece, France and Russia, before being shot and captured in Italy in 1944, and taken to the British Army-run POW camp in Benghazi where he received his mother’s farewell letter.
His stepfather also sent him a goodbye note.
“It’s likely that you’ll be the only one to remain who can continue the tradition of our family,” wrote Goebbels, who served as Chancellor of Germany for one day following Hitler’s suicide on April 30, 1945.
Denazification Hearings
After the war, Guenther Quandt served in an internment camp in Moosburg an der Isar for more than a year, before being judged a “Mitlaeufer” — a Nazi follower who wasn’t formally involved in the regime’s crimes — in denazification hearings in 1948. No repercussions followed.
“He was lucky that he wasn’t as prominent as someone like Flick or Krupp,” said Scholtyseck, referring to the German industrialists Friedrich Flick and Alfried Krupp, who were sentenced to prison terms at the Nuremberg war crimes trials.
Guenther died in 1954 while vacationing in Cairo, leaving his business empire equally in the hands of his two surviving sons, Harald and Herbert. Most notably, the assets included ownership of AFA and Deutsche Waffen-und Munitionsfabriken — renamed Industrie-Werke Karlsruhe AG after the war — and stakes in Daimler-Benz and potash miner Wintershall AG.
Sovereign Wealth
Herbert managed the stakes in the battery, car and potash firm, while Harald oversaw the interests in the industrial companies, according to Jungbluth’s biography.
Over the next decade, the brothers increased their stake in Daimler; Herbert saved BMW from collapse in the 1960s after becoming its largest shareholder and backing the development of new models.
Harald died in 1967, at age 45, in an airplane crash outside Turin, Italy. The relationship between his widow, Inge, and Herbert deteriorated after his death. Negotiations to settle the estate by separating assets commenced in 1970.
The most valuable asset that the Harald Quandt heirs received was four-fifths of a 14 percent stake in Daimler, according to the biography. In 1974, the entire stake was sold to the Kuwait Investment Authority, the country’s sovereign wealth fund, for about 1 billion deutsche marks, according to a Daimler-Benz publication from 1986 celebrating its centennial.
Inge Quandt, who suffered from depression, died of a heart attack on Christmas Eve 1978. Her new husband, Hans-Hilman von Halem, shot himself in the head two days later. The five orphaned daughters, two of them teenagers, were left to split the family fortune.
Family Meetings
The estate’s trustees had started overseeing the daughters’ money in 1974. An active investment approach commenced with the founding of the family investment company in 1981.
“It’s different if you work for a family than a corporation,” said Becker. “You can really invest instead of fulfilling regulation requirements.”
According to “Die Quandts,” the siblings try to get together a few times a year to discuss their investments. Gabriele Quandt lives in Munich. After earning a master’s degree in business administration at Insead in Fontainebleau, France, she married German publishing heir Florian Langenscheidt, with whom she had two sons. The couple divorced in 2008.
Katarina Geller-Herr owns Gestuet Waeldershausen, an equestrian center in Homberg (Ohm), Germany. She sponsored Lars Nieberg, a two-time Olympic gold medalist in show jumping.
Jewish Conversion
Colleen-Bettina Rosenblat-Mo is a jewelry designer who runs a studio and showroom in Hamburg. She converted to Judaism in New York at age 24. Her first marriage was to Michael Rosenblat, a German-Jewish businessman, whose father survived a concentration camp. The couple divorced in 1997. She remarried Frode Mo, a Norwegian journalist.
“We live with both religions and also celebrate Christmas,” Rosenblat-Mo said in “Die Quandts.”
Anette-Angelika May-Thies lives in Hamburg, according to the Harald Quandt Holding shareholders list filed with the German federal trade registry. Her first marriage was to Axel May, a Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) international adviser for private banking, who managed the family’s investments for about 25 years.
The siblings are also majority owners and investors in five financial services companies, all of which pay dividends, according to Becker. The firms were founded to manage the sisters’ wealth and subsequently opened up to third parties.
Private Equity
The six companies combined manage $18 billion in assets, according to the family investment company’s website. Becker said the majority of the money controlled by these firms is invested for third parties. One-fifth of the family fortune is managed by trustees for the two children of the youngest Quandt sibling, Patricia Halterman, who died in July 2005, four days before turning 38. Her townhouse on the Upper East Side of New York City sold for $37.5 million in 2008.
Auda International LP serves as the sisters’ New York-based private-equity unit. It manages almost $5 billion and was founded as their U.S. office in 1989, said Becker. Real Estate Capital Partners LP started the same year and has invested about $9 billion in real estate, according to its website. Both companies are owned through HQFS LP, an offshore entity based in the Cayman Islands.
Family Fortunes
In Bad Homburg, HQ Trust GmbH serves as a investment management company for about 30 families with fortunes ranging from 50 million euros to 500 million euros. Equita Management GmbH invests in small and mid-cap companies in Austria, Switzerland and Germany. HQ Advisor GmbH provides accounting and controlling services.
Only one sister, Gabriele, carries the family name, and none are active in the day-to-day business of the family office, said Becker.
Their uncle, Herbert Quandt, died in 1982. His fortune was divided between six children from three different marriages. BMW, his most valuable asset, was inherited by his third wife Johanna Quandt and their children, Stefan Quandt, 46, and Susanne Klatten, 50. The three billionaires hold 46.7 percent of the Munich-based car producer, according to the company’s 2011 annual report.
After Scholtyseck’s study was published in 2011, cousins Gabriele and Stefan Quandt acknowledged their family’s ties and involvement with the Third Reich in an interview with Germany’s Die Zeit newspaper.
‘Sad Truth’
“Magda killed her six children in the Fuehrerbunker. Our father loved his half-siblings very much. And when, like me, you have something like this in your family history, you think: It can’t be any worse,” Gabriele Quandt said in the interview. “It’s a sad truth that forced laborers died in Quandt companies,” said Stefan.
The acknowledgment didn’t prompt a public distancing from the men that made their family Germany’s richest. The families’ offices in Bad Homburg are named after Guenther and Harald Quandt, and the Herbert Quandt media prize of 50,000 euros is awarded annually to German journalists.
“They have to live with the name. It’s part of the history,” said Scholtyseck. “It will be a constant reminder of dictatorship and the challenges that families have to face.”
To contact the reporter on this story: David De Jong in New York at ddejong3@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Matthew G. Miller at mmiller144@bloomberg.net
I haven’t read this story before, nor had I heard about the globe (or I’d forgotten). I think it’s well worth sharing. It’s from aish.com
Mayor Ed Koch, who passed away Friday at the age of 88, understood that all Jews are connected. Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau, the former chief rabbi of Israel tells the story.
Years ago, Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau visited his brother in New York. The two brothers were in Buchenwald together, and miraculously survived while the rest of their family was wiped out. Rabbi Lau, following in the footsteps of his father and grandfather, became a rabbi, continuing his family’s unbroken chain of 38 generations of rabbis. His brother, Naphtali Lau-Levie, became a noted author and was appointed Israel’s consul general to New York.
Ed Koch, New York City’s brash, outspoken, overtly Jewish leader, asked Naphtali to introduce him to the great Rabbi Lau – then Chief Rabbi of Tel Aviv – if his illustrious brother was ever in town.
Rabbi Lau visited New York and Naphtali arranged a meeting. When Mr. Koch walked into the room, he announced to a surprised Rabbi Lau, “I’m a Holocaust survivor too.” Rabbi Lau turned to his brother in puzzlement; this was not the information he’d received about the American-born Koch.
Mr. Koch explained. He was born in the Bronx, and grew up an American. He only went to Europe for the first time as a GI.
Years later, though, after he’d been elected mayor, he had the chance to travel to Germany as part of an international delegation of mayors. There he met with officials in Berlin and was shown various artifacts. One piece made the greatest impression on him: a globe that had once belonged to Adolph Hitler.
This globe was special. Hitler asked his assistants to determine the Jewish population in every country on earth, and to write this number under each nation’s name on his globe.
Poland, Hungary, Germany, Austria…. The Jewish population of each country was recorded, waiting – in Hitler’s twisted mind – for extermination. There was even a number 1 written under the city of Tirana in Albania, Ed Koch told Rabbi Lau. That lone Jew in Tirana was offensive to Hitler; even he was worthy of being remembered and targeted by the Nazis.
Ed Koch also saw a number under the “United States.” It was a special number, Mr. Koch remembered: 6,000,000.
“I was recorded in that number,” Ed Koch said to Rabbi Lau. “I was one of Hitler’s intended victims too.”
Ed Koch not only acknowledged and felt their pain; he realized that their pain was his pain too. In his mind, there were no distinctions between him and other Jews.
Rabbi Lau realized that Mr. Koch was right – he was one of Hitler’s intended victims; he was a survivor of the Holocaust too.
Ed Koch wasn’t just an onlooker; he was a survivor. He saw himself as part of history, as a vital member of the ongoing narrative of the Jewish people. One way to honor his memory is to follow his example, to look at our fellow Jews not as foreigners divided by language, religious observance, geography or time. Like Mr. Koch, let’s try to look at other Jews around the world and see ourselves.
It is never too late, and it is usually the sign of a good person when they publicly apologise. I received a copy of the apology
I want to apologize for my completely inappropriate use of language when discussing sexual abuse. I have always believed in the importance of empowering victims of all kinds to move forward in building their lives. In my zeal to reinforce that belief, I came across as being dismissive of one of the worst crimes imaginable.
For that I am deeply sorry.
Molestation is a devastating crime, violating the intimacy and innocence of the pure and defenseless. The victim is left feeling that there is something wrong with the world in which they live. Perpetrators of molestation should be reported to the police and prosecuted appropriately. Any person, organization or entity that stands by silently is abetting in the crime.
From now on, I will make sure to make those points absolutely clear. This is about more than regret. The subject can’t be neglected.
I hope over time to earn the forgiveness of those who were hurt by my words.
I also received some comments attributed to Manny Waks of Tzedek where Manny was alleged to have said:
It is regrettable that Rabbi Friedman waited until now to issue this apology – but it is nonetheless a welcome development.
I do not understand this back-hander. If it takes a week of world-wide condemnation for someone to realise their wrong and express it, why focus on that week and give them a slap? People don’t always act immediately for a variety of reasons. There is all manner of reason for this, but I see absolutely no value whatsoever in being hypercritical about such. When victims take years and years to realise that going to the police is the right thing to do, would anyone dare say, “Oh that’s a good first step, but we regret that you took so long?”. Rabbi Friedman is not a victim. One week really isn’t an eternity, and Manny’s attack over this aspect really is unnecessary and mean-spirited.
I have no issue with Manny’s organisation Tzedek pursuing the issue, and I am on record as being critical of Rabbi Friedman. That being said, he was very foolish, but he isn’t a fool. I have every confidence that he will turn this incident into a launching pad to assist in shaking out the cobwebs and helping those who have experienced trauma. Sadly, some groups, such as Satmar and the supporters of Rabbi Halpern and Rabbi Padwa are not within cooee of even coming close to changing their attitude to the (correct) Torah view, let alone addressing the issue properly within their communities. Hopefully, Manny’s organisation can make some incursions into these two topical infamous cases. I’d encourage Tzedek and other similar organisations, however, to be a little more temperate in their language. When someone apologises, don’t give them a back-hander; it serves nothing.
Someone pointed me to an extract which described a purported letter from Manny Waks of Tzedek, where Manny’s organisation calls on two Botei Din to censure Rabbi Friedman. I hadn’t seen this alleged letter when I posted my thoughts on the topic. Let’s assume the letter is legitimate.
Let’s also assume that the purpose of the letter is to ask Rabbi Manis to retract the what I described as “crass and unsophisticated” comments he had made. In two paragraphs, Manny allegedly wrote (I’ve emboldened some key words)
Most concerning, he is having a direct, damaging impact on victims and survivors of child sexual abuse and their families. Some of those who have not yet addressed their abuse will think twice before taking any measures to obtain justice and to alleviate their pain and suffering. And some of those who have already taken measures will be self-critical.
I can only hope and pray that Rabbi Friedman’s remarks do not cause victims additional trauma, potentially leading to extreme consequences.
I do not believe for one minute that a Beth Din making an order to Rabbi Manis, and he acting on this order will cease “causing victims additional trauma.” It could be equally argued that victims will look at both the comments made by Rabbi Manis and any retraction or apology as being in the same category: “simply too far-fetched to be believed or taken seriously”.
If I am beaten black and blue by a thug, and spend 2 years in hospital, and end up with a prosthetic device all my life to help me walk, and somebody says “be happy you didn’t die” or “you know some people are worse off than you” then I may be very upset, very angry, very hurt and more. I might even curse the person as being over simplistic. If that person is then called to a Beth Din by an organisation responsible for helping those who have been mugged recover from their mental trauma and that person is forced to apologise, then I’m not likely to consider it real or likely to “feel better” or feel more inclined to report a previously unreported attack on me. Would you?
Let’s be clear: I’m not making comparisons of the psychological after-effects of different trauma-causing cataclysms. They will differ by trauma and victim. I am commenting on what I think is common human nature.
There are other ways to address Rabbi Manis’s offensive words. The Beth Din, in the context, would not have been my chosen approach. I’m baffled as to what the local sydney beth din has to do with it. As far as I know, Manny lives in Melbourne, and there are victims in many countries. Perhaps a group approach would have been better?
Either way, this issue is really one that should be dealt with by those who Rabbi Manis considers as his Mashpiim. After all, the last Lubavitcher Rebbe ז’ל issued a clear missive that each Chossid should have three Rabbonim/Mashpiim who they should turn to when/if they face issues that need advice or experience conundra and the like. The Lubavitcher Rebbe was clearly talking about the period after his own passing, and made this request first after the Shiva of his own wife, on Motzei Shabbos in a hidden (but now published Sicha) entitled בואו ונחשוב חשבונו של עולם. I don’t have a link to it, but I know it’s available and now published at the back of Toras Menachem. I believe there is an audio and possibly a video of this Sicha. If I recall he said it at the bottom of the stairs in 770. Allegedly, the LR asked for this Sicha to be sent to him for correction, but his Askanim refrained from doing so because? it implied there was a process after he passed away.
Anyway, Good Shabbos to all.
There is a controversy regarding comments over the Rabbinic role in helping a victim of molestation, made in a lecture by Rabbi Manis.
I disagree with Rabbi Harry Maryles’s take as described in the above link. If you watch the video alone, without knowing what he said in the first audio recording linked there, I don’t think there is anything objectionable in the video per se (viewed alone). The audio of the first lecture is another thing, however.
It is true that the “role” of the Rabbi must be different to a psychologist. It is true that Rabbis should not assume the role of police or psychologist. The Rabbi (here I assume Friedman means the pulpit or town Rabbi, as opposed to the Rabbinic member of a Beis Din or a Rosh Yeshivah both of whom generally don’t deal with a particular community or its membership in this way) needs to deal with the victim vis-a-vis stressing and fortifying their status as a valued member of Klal Yisrael. The victim’s membership, under such circumstances is inviolate and axiologically grounded. The central issue to me is how you communicate this fact and serve to intercept the sense of possible alienation a victim may feel.
Rabbi Manis’s audio presentation does this in a crass and unrealistic manner. It assumes that a person will feel alienated more by the fact that they have been the victim of a crime whose perpetrator’s punishment is Kores as opposed to say Malkus. In my opinion, this is a nonsense and is a most unsophisticated metric for measuring such factors. The Chacham, wise person, has eyes in his head. He observes, tailors, and reacts according to what he sees. Surprisingly to me, Rabbi Manis is a Chabadnik. Of all people, they are expert in stressing the inherent holiness of the soul, asserting that it can be found in every Jew, and are experienced in helping remove the “layers” of baggage of many varieties which may cloud the vision and experiential manifestation of this soul. Instead, Rabbi Manis, in the audio version, sounds like an old-fashioned, fire and brimstone, B’aal Mussar. Sure, there was a time where you could scare or influence someone to repent based on the technical halachic severity of the sin. Sure, there may have been a time where you could convince a certain type of victim in a certain era that the technico/halachic punishment of what had been perpetrated wasn’t as “severe”, say, as a crime deserving of the death penalty.
No, the approach, ironically, ought to be to give strength by stressing the positive contribution that even continued orthopraxic practice can serve. Importantly, it may well also be beyond the Rabbi. A given community (Kehila) can quickly undo even the appropriate response and support of a Rabbi.
If I was Rabbi Manis, I would apologise, and stress that his words and argument were not formulated in an acceptable manner, and stick to the thoughts that he expressed in the video. Even if he isn’t an official spokesman for Chabad, he’s considered important enough to be ascribed such attention. If he apologised, he’d be no less a person. In fact, he’d come across as more human and thereby more equipped to help people using his undeniable God-given gifts.
We all make mistakes and express ourselves poorly. It seems it’s harder though to admit when we do.
The following Dvar Torah is from the current Rosh Yeshivah of Kerem B’Yavneh, Rav Motti Greenberg. Back in the day’s when I was at KBY, Rav Motti was a Ram and senior member of the Kollel. I remember that he never sat up top near my Rosh Yeshivah Rav Goldvicht ז’ל because Rav Goldvicht insisted that those who sat on the מזרח wall near him, had to wear the clothing of a Talmid Chacham (which included a hat). Rav Motti felt that either a hat had passed its used-by-date as a Levush (piece of clothing) or that he wasn’t sufficiently a Talmid Chacham. The rumour was that the former was the main reason. I recall that in those days he wore a suit on Shabbos but always had an open neck (without a tie) and the collar was folded out over the outside of his suit lapel. When I met him a few years ago after many years, that’s exactly how he remained. Rav Motti was and remains infused with the Torah of Rav Kook ז’ל. Rav Goldvicht was a different type of man, having come through Etz Chaim, R’ Isser Zalman Meltzer ז’ל (who was his Mesader Kiddushin) R’ Aryeh Levin ז’ל and the Chazon Ish. Rav Goldvicht was rumoured to be a Boyaner Chassid, and whereas Rav Motti is always quoting Rav Kook, Rav Goldvicht was always quoting the Sfas Emes and Rav Tzadok HaCohen ז’ל. Anyway, enough of my reminiscing (great song by LRB, by the way, for those who know …)
One source used by Rav Motti is the Sefer מעיני הישועה by the famous, R’ Ya’akov Moshe Charlap ז’ל, who was a famous Talmid/Chasid of Rav Kook. Charlap is a actually an abbreviation in Hebrew of חייא ראש לגולי פולין in memory of Rav Chiya from Poland, who was the head of the Polish and Portugese Communities in exile. Rav Charlap’s grandson is Rav Zevulun Charlap, who is one of the current Roshei Yeshivah at YU, and who occasionally mentioned trips to Israel when he was a boy to visit his Zeyda.
Anyway, the Dvar Torah is beautiful and I hope you enjoy it.
לזכר נשמת אבי מורי הריני כפרת משכבו ר’ שאול זעליג בן ר’ יהודה הכהן בלבין
The title “the cloud of torah and redemption” was the name of an article that Rav Avraham Yitzchak Kook published a year before he passed away. He based his essay on the verse (Shmos 19:9) in this week’s Torah portion of Yisro
And Hashem said to Moses, “Behold, I am coming to you in the thickness of the cloud, in order that the people hear when I speak to you, and they will also believe in you forever.” And Moses relayed the words of the people to Hashem. ט. וַיֹּאמֶר יְהֹוָה אֶל משֶׁה הִנֵּה אָנֹכִי בָּא אֵלֶיךָ בְּעַב הֶעָנָן בַּעֲבוּר יִשְׁמַע הָעָם בְּדַבְּרִי עִמָּךְ וְגַם בְּךָ יַאֲמִינוּ לְעוֹלָם וַיַּגֵּד משֶׁה אֶת דִּבְרֵי הָעָם אֶל יְהוָֹה
The Rambam feels that the momentous events at Sinai and not the grandiose miracles that took place are the foundation of our faith (Hilchot Yesodai HaTorah 8). One question that we can ask is why it was necessary for this glorious revelation to appear in a cloud, from within a fog, and not as a clear vision.
Rav Kook’s answer is that Divine light is different from the physical light with which we are familiar. When we want physical light to do something we increase its intensity. The brighter the light the less darkness remains. But this is not true for Divine light. It is so powerful that the only way it can be seen is for its intensity to be decreased. Only then can the human eye perceive it.
“The weak eye of a human being and his limited and shaky intellect is not capable of looking at the awesome shine of the Divine light. Therefore humanity in its confusion flees from G-d, as a bat flees from the sun… The only way for the Divine light to become visible is for it to be diminished in a known way. Covering the light, decreasing it, and hiding it – t hese are the ways to reveal it.”
And just as the Divine revelation at the time of the giving of the Torah was through a thick cloud, so is the revelation of Hashem through history.
One of the phenomena through which the Divine light appears is linked to the light of the Mashiach. This light will be revealed to the world through darkness and from hiding. The first spark of Mashiach appeared in Sedom.
“‘I found my servant David’ [Tehilim 89:21]. מָצָאתִי דָּוִד עַבְדִּי בְּשֶׁמֶן קָדְשִׁי
Where did I find him? In Sedom.” [Bereishis Rabba Lech Lecha]. As is written [Bereishis 19:15],
“your two daughters who are here” . וְאֶת שְׁתֵּי בְנֹתֶיךָ הַנִּמְצָאֹת
Mashiach begins to take shape in the darkness of Sedom, through an act of illicit sex. David says [Tehilim 69:9],
“I was a stranger to my brothers”, מוּזָר הָיִיתִי לְאֶחָי
created in an illegitimate act! This process continues with the events of Yehuda and Tamar, in the immodest meeting between Boaz and Ruth, and in the story of David and Batsheva.
This same effect was seen in the building of the Second Temple, which was founded with the help of Koresh, who also had a hidden spark of the Mashiach [Yeshayahu 45:1,4]
“This is what G-d says to his Mashiach Koresh… I will call out to you by name, I give you a nickname but you do not know Me.”
כֹּה אָמַר יְהֹוָה לִמְשִׁיחוֹ לְכוֹרֶשׁ… וָאֶקְרָא לְךָ בִּשְׁמֶךָ אֲכַנְּךָ וְלֹא יְדַעְתָּנִיRav Kook notes that the same principle applies in modern times, when the leaders of the movement include “some people who do not know their worth with respect to the role within the exalted guided process. They have been called out by name, but they do not know who is calling them.”
“Just as the light of Mashiach appears in ugly envelopes, now that the footsteps of Mashiach are beginning to appear it is necessary for the same thing to happen… People like this have been chosen for the process, and everything is part of the wonders of the One who is Perfectly Wise.” [Eim Habanim Semeicha, from Rav Teichtal]. As it says in Yeshayahu 51:16
And I placed My words into your mouth, and with the shadow of My hand I covered you, to plant the heavens and to found the earth and to say to Zion [that] you are My people.
טז. וָאָשִׂים דְּבָרַי בְּפִיךָ וּבְצֵל יָדִי כִּסִּיתִיךָ לִנְטֹעַ שָׁמַיִם וְלִיסֹד אָרֶץ וְלֵאמֹר לְצִיּוֹן עַמִּי אָתָּהRav Charlap in Mayanei Hayeshua, page 103: “Because of the awesome power of its bright light, it states in Shir Hashirim 2:6
His left hand was under my head, and his right hand would embrace me. שְׂמֹאלוֹ תַּחַת לְרֹאשִׁי וִימִינוֹ תְּחַבְּקֵנִי
and this is the shadow, as it states in Yeshayahu 51:16
And I placed My words into your mouth, and with the shadow of My hand I covered you, to plant the heavens and to found the earth and to say to Zion [that] you are My people.
טז. וָאָשִׂים דְּבָרַי בְּפִיךָ וּבְצֵל יָדִי כִּסִּיתִיךָ לִנְטֹעַ שָׁמַיִם וְלִיסֹד אָרֶץ וְלֵאמֹר לְצִיּוֹן עַמִּי אָתָּה
If you look at my about page, you will notice that on my father’s side הכ’’מ we have links to Amshinov, and on my mother’s side תבלח’’א we have links to Brisk. It’s also no secret that I’m a fan of the Rav.
My son pointed out that the day of my father’s הכ’’מ Yohr Tzeit ג שבט coincides with the Yohr Tzeit of the 3rd Amshinover Rebbe, R’ Yosef, ז’ל (a great-grandson of R’ Yitchok Wurke) from Ostrov Mazowiecka. By chance, I “stumbled” on the additional fact that it was also the same day as R’ Moshe Soloveitchik ז’ל, the eldest son of R’ Chaim Brisker and father of the Rav (and whose wife was a cousin of R’ Moshe Feinstein ז’ל).
Some of my readers will be wondering if my thought processes have dried up over the last few weeks. They haven’t. My father, הכ’’מ passed away on the 3rd of Shvat, and I’ve obviously been under a non-self imposed emotional embargo and an halachic odyssey with הלכות אבילות (may nobody ever have to study this). I will resume soon, as soon as I catch up with life’s backlog.
I’ve always liked a [good] Chabad Nigun. Maybe it’s גירסא דינקותא, my childhood memories, but there is also a musical element. I’m partial to the more haunting Russian-inspired musical oeuvre. The morose underpinnings appeal to my darker side, especially if I’m melancholy.
Lehavdil, that’s why I’m also a fan of Rachmaninov, for example.
I enjoyed this video on the 200th Yohr Tzeit/Hillula of the B’aal HaTanya, the great Gaon and Tzadik, R Shneur Zalman Ben Baruch, at his grave site.
You won’t see the bleeding left, especially those on Galus Australis and the feel-good New Israel Fundniks and the like upholding the inalienable democratic right of a person to pray. No, they will bleat and scream, while complaining that Moshe Feiglin (whose political views I have not studied in detail) is breaking Israeli Law and offending our peaceful Muslim brethren. What is his new sin? According to the Jerusalem Post
According to police spokesman Shmuel Ben-Ruby, Feiglin, who is No. 23 on the joint Likud Beytenu list, prostrated himself in the plaza and tried to pray out loud. Praying aloud, going through ritual motions or using any type of traditional prayer objects such as tefillin, tallitot or prayer books, are forbidden for Jews at Judaism’s holiest site due to tensions with Muslim worshipers at the Aksa Mosque.
Or according to Ha’aretz (try and register and you will see you have an optional “country” called Palestinian Territories (occupied))
Police plan to recommend charging right-wing Likud politician Moshe Feiglin for obstructing them in the line of duty, inappropriate behavior in a public place and violating a legal order. Police detained Feiglin Tuesday for attempting to pray on the Temple Mount. “We expected that the closer the campaign got to Election Day, the more provocations we would see whose purpose is to influence the outcome of the election,” Police Commissioner Yohanan Danino said yesterday. “I have said and I say again: We have no intention of allowing anybody to disturb the peace or break the law.”
Ha’aretz conveniently forgot to mention that Feiglin goes there on the 19th of every month, as omitted by Commissioner Danino, quoted ad loc. As far as I am concerned, if a Muslim can pray there, then so can a Jew. There cannot be one law for the Muslim in Israel. If they can’t control themselves when they see a Jew davening on Har HaBayis, then they should take a bus to Mecca to the Kaaba instead. I am not making a statement regarding the Halachic issue of whether it is permitted or not to stand on Har Habayis. Most hold that it is forbidden, or delineate carefully where one can go. I assume Moshe Feiglin is following his Rabbinic Psak. Let them arrest him. I can’t think of a more stupid act, if they do. Oh, and for the bleeding green left, davening in this way also constitutes the ubiquitous neo-mantra of “Tikun Olam” especially B’Malchus Shadee”.
I’m sure many of you who interact with gentiles, commonly face a situation where wishes for a “Safe, healthy etc new year” are conveyed. There are poskim who still forbid writing a non-Jewish date on correspondence. General practice is to be lenient, especially outside Israel.
Tosfos in Avoda Zara 11a describe two different styles of custom forbidden by the prohibition of imitating non-Jewish customs as described in Vayikra 18:3 vis-a-vis the Gemora in Sanhedrin 52b. The Ramo, who we follow, in Yoreh Deah 178:1 is lenient and writes that as long as a custom has no pagan origins, and makes some common sense, it is permitted. On the other hand, the Vilna Gaon ad loc takes the opposite view: unless a custom has a specific Jewish origin, it is always forbidden. In general we don’t follow the stringent view of the Gaon.
According to wikipedia:
The Romans dedicated New Year’s Day to Janus, the god of gates, doors, and beginnings for whom the first month of the year (January) is also named. After Julius Caesar reformed the calendar in 46 BC and was subsequently murdered, the Roman Senate voted to deify him on the 1st January 42 BC[2] in honor of his life and his institution of the new rationalized calendar.[3] The month originally owes its name to the deity Janus, who had two faces, one looking forward and the other looking backward. This suggests that New Year’s celebrations are founded on pagan traditions. Some have suggested this occurred in 153 BC, when it was stipulated that the two annual consuls (after whose names the years were identified) entered into office on that day, though no consensus exists on the matter.[4] Dates in March, coinciding with the spring equinox, or commemorating the Annunciation of Jesus, along with a variety of Christian feast dates were used throughout the Middle Ages, though calendars often continued to display the months in columns running from January to December.[citation needed]
Among the 7th century pagans of Flanders and the Netherlands, it was the custom to exchange gifts at the New Year. This was a pagan custom deplored by Saint Eligius (died 659 or 660), who warned the Flemings and Dutchmen, “(Do not) make vetulas, [little figures of the Old Woman], little deer or iotticos or set tables [for the house-elf, compare Puck] at night or exchange New Year gifts or supply superfluous drinks [another Yule custom].” The quote is from the vita of Eligius written by his companion, Ouen.
Most countries in Western Europe officially adopted January 1 as New Year’s Day somewhat before they adopted the Gregorian calendar. In England, the Feast of the Annunciation on March 25, was the first day of the new year until the adoption of the Gregorian calendar in 1752. The March 25 date was known as Annunciation Style; the January 1 date was known as Circumcision Style,[5] because this was the date of the Feast of the Circumcision, considered to be the eighth day of Christ’s life, counting from December 25 when his birth is celebrated. This day was christened as the beginning of the New Year by Pope Gregory as he designed the Liturgical Calendar.[6]
Accepting this historical record would imply that the notion of celebrating January 1 as a “New Year” is forbidden even according to the lenient view of the Ramo. Indeed, the idea of Yidden getting together for a New Year’s eve party, may be forbidden according to Torah law, as above. Without trying to sound too judgemental, if a Yid wishes me a “Happy New Year” or something similar, I respond that our new year is not at this time. How though does one respond to a gentile?
It seems to me, and I repeat, that my view is not LeHalacha and not LeMaaseh and just pitputim, and each person really needs to ask their own Local Orthodox Rabbi: that there would be nothing wrong with issuing a pareve style response along the lines of
“I hope that the ensuing new calendar year is a successful one for you, yadadayada”
This is not just a throw away line. I think we do want our non-Jewish associates and friends to be healthy, wealthy and wise. Mipnei Darchei Shalom and Mishum Eyvo (that is, just to be a diplomatic mentch in a non-Jewish society) I think it is appropriate to make such statements, but to leave it at that.
Chas V’Shalom to ascribe any special meaning to the day, however, even if it has now become secular. The roots are pagan, and therefore forbidden in practice. Some believe it corresponds to the Yom HaMila of אותו איש, which of course it wasn’t, but even if they think that, it’s enough.
These are people with formal secular training who have degrees, and keep up with and understand the latest literature.. They can be psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers and the like.
When they are frum, this helps in providing an insight into particular issues relating to frum people and directions that may be more palatable.
When qualified, they are answerable to a professional board. If there is a complaint of misconduct, they must face that board. They must be accredited and re-accredited.
What they cannot be, is people with either no degree, or people with a degree in geography or history or economics or whatever, who suddenly become “experts” in dealing with social issues and call themselves therapists. There are creeps out there who do this. They are silver-tongued and charismatic. Beware.
Admittedly, there is the occasional very good one (e.g. Rabbi Yanki Horowitz), but there are some deeply troubled and sinister ones, who are answerable (currently) to nobody, some of whom will face their day, sooner than later.
It remind me of the apocryphal story of the big maven who built a succa according to all the shittos. His Succa fell down and he came to complain to his Rav. The Rav, said “Nu, Tosphos asks the same question”.
Beware of fraudsters parading as therapists. Don’t go to them or give them a podium to speak. Let them get an education and be answerable to a board.
So my father is very weak and the kind nurses come in:
Nurses: Are you comfortable Mr Balbin
Dad: doesn’t reply, his eyes are closed and he is uncomfortable
Nurses: We will move you around to a more comfortable position
Dad: says nothing
Nurses complete the re-arrangement and ask ‘Are you okay Mr Balbin, does anything hurt
Dad: only my pocket
Gold!
I sit next to Shimon Allen at Yeshivah Shule, in Melbourne Australia. I have done so for many years, as has my father. We’ve developed a rapport and he teases me about the fact that my wife doesn’t offer Griven (a heart attack causing, cholesterol laden morass of congealed and fried chicken fat, which happens to be delicious (think of it as real chicken bisli). I’ve mentioned it before. I point out that whilst he has herring on occasion, his isn’t the real McCoy because there aren’t copious lashings of Tzibelle (onion). We also share our “delight” that when invited to modernishe houses, they serve copious amounts of rabbit food, and one is expected to force a smile through the mountains of lettuce leaves, broccoli, pine nuts and every meshugass they find at the vegetable shop. Yes, they are “healthy for you” but when was the last time that you felt “full” one hour after such a meal? Why do our bodies require this gas-forming roughage. Is this Oneg Shabbos, let alone Kavod Shabbos? Sometimes I feel the right response is “Moo” while eating, as opposed to a hearty greps after a good choolent, washed down by some Bromfen, and followed by an antacid (pareve of course) and two cholesterol tablets.
Enough of the mirth.
Erev Shabbos, and my father took gravely ill due to a series of life threatening blood infections. I rushed from work to be at his bed side, as were my siblings and all our children. I was still in my work clothes, and asked many to say Tehillim, while I did so myself. We rang R’ Shimon and his wife, and immediately the key to their apartment across the road was made available to us. After davening Mincha and then Kabolas Shabbos, my stomache reminded me that I had not had anything all day other than a single cup of coffee. Baruch Hashem, I asked my incredible wife to organise 24 Vurst Sandwiches so that team Balbin, Leibler and Waller would not go hungry. Diana and Yirmi Loebenstein, for whom my parents are like a second set of parents (they live across the road and are very close) brought a stack of Schnitzels and some Challah etc. My own incredible wife even managed to buy little electric incandescent lights and relying on (at least) R’ Chaim Ozer, we made brachos over the licht.
Words cannot describe the effort that Adina and R’ Shimon have put into the unit directly across the road from Cabrini. Every last thing was available. The fridge was stocked a plenty. There was wurst, and drinks, and beer and nash, you name it, it was there. It was on the bottom floor. The key had already been made into a shabbos belt. There was a Shabbos light next to the beds. I can go on and on. None of us should ever need to use such a facility, but it gave us a dose of menuchas hanefesh and meant my father had more support than he could ever have dreamed about. It was also a rather hot day, and yet we didn’t feel any heat. We only felt true warmth.
Baruch Hashem, my father is slowly but surely improving, albeit slightly, each day.
Shaul Zelig HaCohen Ben Toba Frimet, may he have a Refuah Shelema B’Karov.
All the grandchildren brought sleeping bags, and were able to sleep in the lounge room. It was amazing, really. I’ll stop here because Shimon and Adina will be angry that I have written the above anyway and mentioned them explicitly.
That they are able to use their financial resources and care for the community in such a way is simply inspirational. I’m sure that in Gan Eden, their teacher and mentor, R’ Zalman Serbryansky is alerting HaKadosh Baruch Hu to their Mitzvah and is lobbying for appropriate Brachos to come their way.
Shimon and Adina Allen are pleased to advise of the opening of Malvern Beit Rafael Hospital Accommodation.
All members of the community are welcome to avail themselves of this fully furnished apartment which is situated close to Cabrini Hospital, whilst they have family members receiving treatment at the hospital.
A pantry stocked with kosher non-perishables and a fridge/ freezer containing kosher meals will be at your disposal.
Beit Rafael continues to offer accommodation at North Melbourne assisting families with loved ones receiving treatment at the Royal Children’s Hospital,
Royal Melbourne Hospital and the Royal Women’s Hospital.
Please enter the contact numbers into your telephone:
0421 408 522 – Shabbat: 0421 327 859
[hat tip to benseon]
I’m not sure if this is true, and you may have seen it before, but I liked it enough to repost.
A professor stood before his philosophy class and had some items in front of him. When the class began, he wordlessly picked up a very large and empty mayonnaise jar and proceeded to fill it with golf balls. He then asked the students if the jar was full. They agreed that it was.
The professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into the jar. He shook the jar lightly. The pebbles roll
ed into the open areas between the golf balls. He then asked the students again if the jar was full. They agreed it was.
The professor next picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar. Of course, the sand filled up everything else. He asked once more if the jar was full.. The students responded with a unanimous ‘yes.’
The professor then produced two Beers from under the table and poured the entire contents into the jar effectively filling the empty space between the sand.The students laughed..
‘Now,’ said the professor as the laughter subsided, ‘I want you to recognize that this jar represents your life. The golf balls are the important things—-your family, your children, your health, your friends and your favorite passions—-and if everything else was lost and only they remained, your life would still be full. The pebbles are the other things that matter like your job, your house and your car.. The sand is everything else—-the small stuff.
‘If you put the sand into the jar first,’ he continued, ‘there is no room for the pebbles or the golf balls. The same goes for life.
If you spend all your time and energy on the small stuff you will never have room for the things that are important to you.
Pay attention to the things that are critical to your happiness.
Spend time with your children. Spend time with your parents. Visit with grandparents. Take your spouse out to dinner. Play another 18. There will always be time to clean the house and mow the lawn.
Take care of the golf balls first—-the things that really matter. Set your priorities. The rest is just sand.
One of the students raised her hand and inquired what the Beer represented. The professor smiled and said, ‘I’m glad you asked.’ The Beer just shows you that no matter how full your life may seem, there’s always room for a couple of Beers with a friend.
[As always, my views are my own. Not that of my employer or any organisation I am affiliated with or a member of]
The action below, doesn’t conflict with the notion of innocent until proven guilty but at least it means that some people have the good sense to either remove themselves or allow themselves to be removed pending investigations. Compare and contrast this with the other unresolved example currently in the news. It also is another example of the thinking of the ’80’s and before, when the world was a very different place. The problem is to drag some, kicking and screaming into the world of truth.
Below is the article from the forward.
By Paul Berger and Nathan Jeffay
Published December 16, 2012.
Rabbi George Finkelstein has resigned his position at the Great Jerusalem Synagogue after the Forward reported that he had sexually abused students at Yeshiva University High School for Boys in Manhattan during the 1970s and ‘80s.
“He sent us an email saying he’s resigning because he does not want to expose the Great Synagogue to embarrassment,” Zalli Jaffe, the synagogue’s vice president, said in an interview. Finkelstein had served as the institution’s executive director since 2001; last month, he began serving as its ritual director.
Jaffe said that the resignation was received on Thursday, “immediately following the publication” of the Forward’s investigation. The correspondence came from France, where Finkelstein is currently vacationing.
Around the same time as Finkelstein resigned, senior staff of the Orthodox Union in America and Jerusalem held a teleconference regarding the position of the other Y.U. high school staff member investigated by the Forward, Rabbi Macy Gordon. They decided to impose a “leave of absence” on Gordon’s teaching duties at the OU Israel Center in Jerusalem, where he gives a weekly class on the laws of the Sabbath, Tzvi Hersh Weinreb, OU executive vice president emeritus, told the Forward on December 16.
He said that the unilaterally-imposed leave of absence will last until the OU can “clarify exactly what happened.” This is in spite of the fact that the OU has “to presume that he’s innocent until we find out more about it.”
Weinreb said: “When we became aware of the news article we felt we had to investigate ourselves to see what kind of credence to give [the claims].” He stressed that the allegations were dated to a time before Gordon started teaching at the OU.
He said of Gordon: “I know that he has no memory of the alleged incident whatsoever.”
The dramatic news came as five more men have stepped forward to say they were inappropriately touched and suffered emotional and sexual abuse at the high school.
In its investigation published online December 13, The Forward described the claims of three former students who said that they were abused by Finkelstein, who rose to become principal of the high school. Another former student said he was sodomized with a toothbrush by Gordon, a Talmud teacher.
Three of the former students said that their subsequent appeals to Y.U. to take action were ignored.
While denying that he knew about the severity of the allegations against the staff members, Norman Lamm, the chancellor of Y.U., told the Forward on December 7 that the school dealt with allegations of “improper sexual activity” against staff members by quietly allowing them to leave and find jobs elsewhere. Lamm was president of Y.U. from 1976 to 2003.
In particular, Lamm said that he did not report anything about the allegations against Finkelstein when he left after 27 years at the high school for a position at a Jewish school in Florida. Finkelstein was dean of the Samuel Scheck Hillel Community Day School in North Miami Beach, Fla. until moving to Israel.
Now, the Forward has heard from five more men who say they were harassed by Finkelstein and Gordon during the 1970s and ’80s.
The claims included description of how both men thrust their hands under boys’ shirts to check whether they were wearing tzitzit, the tasseled undershirts required under Orthodox Jewish law.
Finkelstein and Gordon, interviewed by the Forward in Israel where both men now live, denied the initial allegations. Efforts to reach them to respond to the latest allegations were unsuccessful.
“Macy Gordon was malevolence personified,” said Barry Singer, who graduated from Y.U.’s Manhattan High School for Boys in 1975, “whereas George Finkelstein was a more complicated, disturbed individual.”
“I fought these guys tooth and nail the entire time I was in school,” Singer added. “I had no idea that what was being done to me was sexual abuse or any abuse, I merely knew I didn’t want these guys touching me and I did my best to keep them away from me.”
Singer, now a New York City journalist and bookseller, recalled walking into a school stairwell one day and being grabbed by Finkelstein who thrust him over the railings and “groped me looking to see if I was wearing tzitzit.” “It went under the shirt to the skin and below the waistline,” Singer said. “Hanging over the stairwell I didn’t understand what was being done to me, I just knew I hated him for it.”
Singer said Gordon emotionally abused him. “I believe that Macy Gordon found a way to emotionally abuse and intimidate any student that ever crossed his path,” Singer said. “He conducted tzitzit checks under my shirt that made me very uncomfortable.”
Singer, along with two other former students, also described being wrestled by Finkelstein in his office. “I was 6 foot tall and a basketball player,” Singer said. “I didn’t know I was fighting someone off sexually, I just knew I was fighting someone off I didn’t want near me.”
Zack Belil, who graduated from Y.U. in the early 1980s, said that he was forced to wrestle with Finkelstein for four years, at his home or in an office at the high school. Often, Belil said, Finkelstein would initiate the wrestling by asking Belil a question he could not answer and then wrestle him as a form of punishment. “It was very rough for an adult and a child…You can feel an erection through someone’s pants rubbing up against you. That was the most horrifying part,” Belil told the Forward.
Belil, now a New York real estate developer, said that during school hours Finkelstein could appear at the classroom door at any time of day and pull him out of class. On one occasion, Belil said Finkelstein led him to a staircase behind a closed door and asked him a question that he knew Belil could not answer.
“[Finkelstein] slapped me,” Belil said, “And then he said, ‘Aren’t you going to slap me back?’
“What are you to do at that age when this man of authority says something like this to you?” Belil said he gave Finkelstein a light slap on the cheek hoping that it might make Finkelstein stop, but Finkelstein replied, “Harder!” Belil said.
Belil, like other Y.U. high school alumni, said Finkelstein often called him at home. “I think that my parents actually felt honored that he took such an interest,” Belil said.
A fourth man, aged 57, contacted the Forward to describe months of emotional abuse by Finkelstein that drove the man out of Y.U. high school and away from Judaism for more than a decade.
“As soon as I saw the picture [of Finkelstein in the Forward] I got nauseous,” the man said. “I wasn’t touched by him, but he emotionally almost destroyed me.”
The fifth man said Finkelstein and Gordon put their hands under his shirt to check for tzitzit. The man, who had been abused by a rabbi at his elementary school, said he did his best to give both men a wide berth. After the Forward submitted a list of questions to Y.U. on November 26, detailing allegations of abuse against Finkelstein and Gordon, the University said that it would look into the claims.
Asked how the investigation was progressing on December 14, a spokesman for Y.U. said: “I can’t offer you any update beyond the fact we are conducting an investigation and when we have something to share we will do so at the proper time.”
Asked who was leading the investigation, how many people were involved and how it was being conducted, the spokesman said: “I’m not the right person to speak to about that.”
In a statement released December 13 Y.U. President Richard Joel said the “inappropriate behavior and abuse alleged by The Forward…and described in statements attributed by The Forward to Dr. Lamm, are reprehensible.”
The statement continued: “The thought that such behavior could have occurred at our boys’ high school, or anywhere at this institution, at any time in its past, is more than sufficient reason to express on behalf of the University, my deepest, most profound apology.”
Contact Paul Berger at berger@forward.com or follow him on Twitter, @pdberger
By now, at least Australian and British people are aware of the tragic story regarding a prank call initiated by two Australian radio jockeys, after which a nurse committed suicide.
The papers are full of condemnation, in the main, although there are others who have a different perspective. Former Victorian premier, Jeff Kennett of Beyond Blue stated
“When they did this they had no intention to cause harm, it was a harmless prank,” he said.
“Now they will be under extraordinary pressure and I just hope that they get our support and that their employer provides them with the professional support to help them get through what will be a terrible few weeks.”
I have certainly pranked and I would guess that many of us have done likewise. Who can forget the “Smile, you’re on candid camera” TV series. Those who us who are old enough were glued to the set to see how the “victim” would react when they realised that had been duped.
There is no doubt whatsoever that the two Radio hosts were convinced that their prank call was utterly without malice and could not cause any harm. Yet, as sometimes happens, sadly, one person took it to heart, and committed suicide.
We know that people who commit suicide generally suffer from a psychological malaise. In Halacha, this fact is also used to allow such sad people to be buried amongst the rest of the community. I understand that psychologists estimate that over 80% of those who commit suicide had a pre-existing condition (which may or may not have been manifest to others).
The nurse who committed suicide may have been from the 80% or may have been from the 20%. One thing is certain, the radio hosts did not perform an act that people would have called outrageous. Until the Nurse committed suicide, it was considered a funny episode. Nobody complained. I understand that even the Royal Couple thought it was funny.
One person didn’t think it was funny, and she killed herself.
What would Halacha say about this? Again, I’m no Posek, however, using the dicta of מדבר שקר תרחק and גניבת דעת one could conclude that their actions were not acceptable. That being said, I do not know if the damages, the נזק, which resulted, viz the loss of life is something they would be responsible for. I’d have though that at worst, they would be able to live in an ערי מקלט, a city of refuge for those who accidentally caused the death of another through some negligence. We’d need to show negligence, however, as opposed to a lack of truthfulness.
Your thoughts?
The papers and internet are discussing the infamous Satmar Weberman Trial.
Satmar and their ilk are outraged that such an issue should go before a goyishe court. They contend it should only have been dealt with by a Beis Din. Be that what it may, you can bet that if the court will find Weberman guilty they will continue this line and scream that it’s a blood libel.
I believe that Weberman will be found innocent, or guilty of a minor misdemeanour because the onus of proof from the court will ironically be greater than that required by a Beis Din. Weberman’s attorney argued that there was no evidence, no DNA etc. He is right. DNA and body fluids are not required to prove guilt according to Halacha.
My prediction is that they will be hypocritical. They will claim that the court found him not guilty in the main, and they will use this as proof that he “did nothing”. Proof from a goyishe court? Yes, that’s acceptable, but only if they do not find you guilty.
This is something I wrote for David Werdiger’s excellent “Jews of the CBD” organisation, so it’s reproduced here, for posterity.
We pine to know what the future brings. Yet, there is no prophecy in our day. Why? Prophecy provides a temporal glimpse or mirroring of the essence of God and His message. By definition, that transmission must be imperfect, for we are imperfect vessels. What of dreams and their interpretation? In this week’s portion, we see that even Yosef’s interpretation of his famous dream was not accurate because his mother Rachel did not bow down to him. Does this make Yosef a charlatan? Can there be a half truth? We know that the remainder of Yosef’s dream did come true.
Rav Kook explains that the essence was true. The essence is immutable. If Rachel had been alive, then she indeed would have bowed down to Yosef in the same way that Ya’acov did. A dream’s message relates to what potentially could or should have occurred given the confines of human imperfection and condition. Rav Hisda in Brachos 55a says this explicitly. Although we seek advice from the special leaders of our generation, sometimes we find that their predictions are not 100% accurate. But, it needs to be that way because man is an imperfect vessel for the transmission of God’s will. The challenge is to deal with and act on the messages of our time.
For this reason, those who cannot bring themselves to acknowledge that the State of Israel may well be the “beginning” of our redemption because certain minutiae are challenging to reconcile, miss the transcendent and essential message of our time.
I’ve written about this topic here and here.
Hungarian Poskim were prominent among those who considered Metzitza ּB’Peh as an integral part of the Mitzvah of Milah. For example, the Maharam Shick (Orach Chaim 152) in his responsa goes as far as claiming it’s a Halacha L’Moshe MiSinai! This statement had far-reaching ramifications. It would mean that no Metzitza B’Peh implies no fulfilment of the Mitzvah of Milah. This view is now common.
The problem with this approach is that I don’t think anyone actually agrees with it, and here I include those who follow the Maharam Shick (who incidentally made this claim even though his teacher, the Chasam Sofer did not).
What happens when there is a Bris performed by a Charedi Mohel who normally performs Metzitza for members of his kind, and that Bris is for say a non-frum (or “overly modernishe” orthodox) couple? I’ve been at such Brissen, and I’m sure many of you have as well. Guess what. There is no Metzitza B’Peh. Some estimate that 90% of Brissen in Israel amongst this group do not have Metzitza B’Peh even though the Bris is performed by a Charedi Mohel. If it is Halacha L’Moshe MiSinai, how can that be? Isn’t the Mohel transgressing the Torah prohibition of misleading the blind?
Ergo, we just don’t accept the view that it’s Halacha L’Moshe MiSinai. I think it’s that simple.
What is Halacha, however, is never to enter into Safek Pikuach Nefesh. That’s why they did Metzitza in the first place and that’s why it’s no longer necessary!
We have all regrettably heard about the infamously cruel and barbaric Nazi murderer, (Dr) Josef Mengele, ימח שמו וזכרו. This low-life “drew a line on the wall of the children’s block 150 centimetres (about 5 feet) from the floor and children whose heads could not reach the line were sent to the gas chambers”.
In Melbourne, we know that the Weiss sisters, Eva and Marta were subjected to Mengele’s experiments and have retold their stories. They were not alone.
The purpose of this blog post is to retell a story that has not (to my knowledge) been told. I know the story because a Doctor of a particular survivor recently related it to me. The survivor had submerged the experience throughout his life and had only shared it with his wife and the Doctor. He related his experience to the Doctor because of the oath of confidentiality meant that it would stay a secret. The survivor’s directive was that it remain confidential until he passed away. Sadly, the survivor is no longer with us.
This survivor, let’s call him Kadosh, was sent to Auschwitz. Like others, he stood precariously between life and death. Unlike others, however, his face was recognisable. He had been a World Champion in a certain sport, and had competed at the Olympic Games. The Nazi guards recognised him immediately, and considered that it would be a good idea if Kadosh taught them the finer parts of the sport. Kadosh was, after all, a world-renowned expert. Jews were just disposable commodities, and this one had some extraneous value. It would enrich their leisure time.
And so it unfolded. Kadosh was training the guards and improving their game. This kept him alive. The arrangement continued until one day, the dreaded Mengele eyed Kadosh. Kadosh wasn’t a twin and had no particular interest to Mengele from a “medical” or “anthropological” perspective. No, perhaps unknown to many, Mengele was a molester, a molester of young males. Mengele took a liking to Kadosh, and each day sexually forced himself on Kadosh. This was another example of the self-contradictory nature of the “superior race”. The Nazis persecuted homosexuals, and yet, for his own sick sexual gratification, the murderous Mengele, hypocritically and perversely “gratified” himself by repeatedly raping Kadosh in his office.
Kadosh was also given other duties. I won’t describe them here for a number of reasons.
There was a period of two weeks when Mengele didn’t force himself on Kadosh. One day, in front of the officers, Kadosh had enough and resisted by cursing Mengele, and telling him “Go kiss my backside”. Mengele instructed the officers to give Kadosh a beating that he would not forget but to make sure that Kadosh didn’t die. When he recovered from the beating, Mengele resumed raping Kadosh.
Kadosh eventually immigrated to Australia and married. His wife moved to an old age home after Kadosh died. She only had one wish which she relayed to the same Doctor
Please, when I die, make sure they don’t bury me in a white casket”
The significance of a white casket is like that of a white bridal dress. It signifies a certain virginal purity. Alas, Kadosh had never been able to physically consummate his marriage. Kadosh was affected for life. His wife silently accepted the life-long psychological curse that transformed her husband into a virtual eunuch.
Kadosh’s wife wasn’t Jewish.
The story shook me up and once more infused me with perspective. Next time you are feeling low, think of Kadosh and his “life”. Think of the lady that looked after him all those years. In fact, think of him at other times, too. It’s the least we can do.
[Hat tip to Abe]
They get a nice-looking scarf-less, american-accented mouthpiece to spout plain untruths. Many in the “cultured” western world, especially left-leaning tree-huggers will conclude that even though the interviewer caught her out, there is another narrative out there, and the only narrative that should be disregarded is the American/Israeli line.
The mighty and powerful aggressors are wantonly attacking the helpless ones, whose rocket-propelled “sling shots” don’t cause damage.
This is an Olam HaSheker, a world of lies. Those who think that propaganda will overcome this intense hatred towards us, would do better to re-read history and re-focus on
תשובה ותפילה וצדקה
Which doesn’t mean we “deserve” anything. What it means is that we need to increase our good acts and the quality of our personal and Godly interaction, especially when under fire.
By all means, write letters, twitter to your heart’s content, spread across facebook, share Friday night bread with co-religionists, but remember, that this alone does not, has not, and never will be sufficient to cause an attitudinal sea-change.
הלכה עשיו שונא ליעקב
It’s a Midrash, but for some reason it rings as true now as it did in 1939. That’s not all of them, but far too many. We’ve seen it before, and sadly, we will continue to see it until ובא לציון גואל.
Disclaimer: My private views, as always, should not be construed as associated with anyone but me, and me alone.
Benseon in Jerusalem described the following scene
In the middle of the Alenu of Minchah on erev Shabbos the sirens sound in Jerusalem. Everyone in the shul stops davening and starts looking around unsure of where to go or what to do. Suddenly, someone starts shouting at the chazan telling him to finish Alenu so he can say kaddish! And then, while some of us are leaving the shul to go to the bomb shelter, the rest act as if nothing has happened and proceed with Kabbolos Shabbos!
I’m not quite sure whether they were realists and decided that the rockets from Gaza had little chance of reaching central Jerusalem, or if they had supreme emunah that HaShem would protect them from the rockets if they continued with their davening!
Suffice it to say, those of us who went to the shelter returned later on feeling a bit sheepish that we had missed half the davening!
The description was disturbing to me. Does “Emunah” mean that people make some judgement call on whether Hashem could not possibly allow a situation where Hamas terrorists procured and sent a missile that just happened to hit their shul?
Is this Emunah or arrogance? The Levush in Yoreh Deah 116 clearly understands that the command of
ונשמרתם מאוד לנפשותיכם
Includes the consideration of physical danger. This is only suspended for Avoda Zara, Giluy Arayos, and Shfichus Damim. In addition it has no place when one is involved in physically fighting in a Milchemes Mitzvah. I seem to recall there is a Tshuva from Reb Moshe about the danger of playing baseball … in case one gets hit in the head.
I don’t think there is a Mitzvah to become a statistic. Tefilla is important, but it would be a fool who assumed that Hashem couldn’t hear his Tefilla in a bunker or that saying Kaddish with a minyan was worth ignoring a directive from the IDF.
Those who returned may have felt sheepish, they would have felt very different if a (stray) missile had hit the Shule and their colleagues died.
Lack of Emunah? I think not. Perhaps those who chose not to run to the bunker have too much Emunah in the Iron Dome or the proclivities of Hamas.
Ask them if they got a Psak to ignore the siren. Do tell us which Posek answered them.
Every day that we say Modeh Ani, we need to internalise it. As is well known, I have a life-long bond with the tragedy of the Bombay murders of my friends, Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg and his Rebbetzin Rivki, Hashem Yinkom Domom. That the new tragedy below could occur as a segue, shocks me further in a way that I am not able to comprehend. When I go home tonight, I will try to find an appropriate essay from the Rav, which may help me cope with the incomprehensible.
The story is from the algameiner journal, and is reproduced below.
Names Revealed: Kiryat Malachi Victim Was Chabad Emissary From India Visiting Israel for Mumbai Victims’ Memorial Service
A victim of a Gaza rocket attack on Kiryat Malachi lies in a body bag.
Israeli political consultant Jonny Daniels citing an Israeli source and a Chabad leader in Israel told The Algemeiner that among the victims of this morning’s Gaza rocket attack on the Israeli city of Kiryat Malachi was a 25 year old Chabad “shlucha (female emissary)” to New Dehli, India named Mirah (nee Cohen) Scharf, who was visiting Israel for the memorial service of Chabad Mumbai terror victims Gabi and Rivka Holtzberg. The Hebrew anniversary of their brutal murder is today.
According to Chabad website Lubavitch.com, Scharf was pregnant. Sources told The Algemeiner that she had come to Israel to give birth, but arrived early in order to be able to attend the Holtzberg memorial. Chabad members on Facebook say she was the mother of 3 young children.
A second victim named Ahron Smadga said to be in his late forties was the father of the 8 month old baby girl who was injured.
“He was married for 20 years and couldn’t have children then he had twin boys nine years ago, and 8 months ago his daughter was born and he was walking around with a smile on his face that he had a daughter after all this years,” Daniels told The Algemeiner.
“He was one of the first Chabad soldiers to join the Israeli Army,” he said.
The third victim was 22 year old Yitzchak Amselam. The funeral is planned for later today.
Israeli Chabad websites Shturem and COL, reported that the rocket attack hit the neighborhood of Nachlas Har Chabad and that “the entire community is devastated from the tragedy.”
“The shelters in Kiryat Malachi were not readied for the onslaught, and the residents of the building that was hit were running to relative safety under the stairwell of the building, when a missile hit, taking precious lives and injuring the others,” writes Shrurem.org.
Kiryat Malachi is about 11 miles from Ashkelon, and has a population of approximately 21,000.
The Talmud, when faced with a conundrum that cannot be solved, uses the phrase
יהא מונח עד שיבוא אליהו
Let the issue rest until Eliyahu HaNavi comes (back) and advises us of the Halacha
or
תשבי יתרץ קושיות ואבעיות
ֵEliyahu (HaTishbi) will answer all the questions.
The question is asked: since Moshe Rabbenu was our greatest teacher, why do we wait for Eliyahu (who never died) to answer the questions, surely we should wait for Moshe (who will be resurrected when Mashiach comes) and ask Moshe Rabbenu to Pasken/decide the Halachic conundrums.
Rav Yissacher Shlomo Teichtalהי’’ד
in his celebrated אם הבנים שמחה, explains that to be a Posek, a Halachic decisor, a Rabbi needs to be immersed in the world. A Rosh Yeshivah, for example, who only interacts with the surreal world of his Yeshivah, is not equipped to be a Posek for the masses. All his answers are designed for the שומר נפש, the Yeshivah or Kollel Jew, for whom being יוצא לכל הדעות, acting according to all stringencies, is the norm. Accordingly, since Moshe has not been interacting in our world for thousands of years, he is not suited to be the Posek when the Mashiach comes. Eliyahu HaNovi, however, who did not die, and lives amongst us, so to speak, is more suitable to answer our questions.
It is also for this reason that the משנה ברורה was not considered as acceptable to normative Psak, as the ערוך השלחן. The Chafetz Chaim was considered like the Rosh Yeshivah who lived in his world, and his method of Psak certainly was biased towards accommodating as many opinions as possible. The ערוך השלחן however was also someone who interacted deeply with his community, and for whom the sight of a woman brandishing a chicken to discover whether there was an issue of Kashrus with that chicken, was not unusual. Similarly, although R’ Chaim Soloveitchik ז’ל also known as R’ Chaim Brisker
was considered the genius of his generation in terms of learning and innovation, R’ Chaim wasn’t a Posek. When people came to R’ Chaim to ask a question, he referred them to R’ Simcha Zelig Reiger ז’ל,
the Dayan of Brisk. (Incidentally, R’ Hershel Jaeger once told me that some descendants of R’ Simcha Zelig live in Melbourne).
Rav Teichtal, takes this one step further. He considers it immaterial that earlier Gedolim, such as the Satmar Rav or R’ Elchanan Wasserman had a negative view of an en masse Aliya to Israel. Rav Teichtal claims that they, like Moshe Rabenu, were not there to witness the changes in the world, and so their Psak, for today, is irrelevant.
Picture the scene. It’s Yeshivat Hat Etzion, known as the “Harvard’ of the Yeshivot Hesder in Israel. It is considered somewhat more ‘liberal’ than the more mainstream/right-wing Kerem B’Yavneh or Sha’alavim. The Rosh Yeshiva, R’ Aron Lichtenstein, a son-in-law of the Rav ז’ל knows Shas off by heart and is a tremendous Talmid Chacham, but he has a PhD in English Literature from Harvard. It’s a press conference, and someone asks R’ Aron
“Who do you have more in common with: the Jew from Meah Shearim or the Jew from North Tel Aviv”
R’ Aron answers quickly:
The Jew from Meah Shearim
I’d like to ask the question now of a new Rosh Yeshiva. Let’s take a Rosh Yeshivah from Benei Berak or Kiryat Sefer or Meah Shearim. If they were asked
With whom do you share more in common: the Dati Leumi (Nationalistic Religious) Jew or the secular Jew from North Tel Aviv
What would they answer? In case you are thinking they would be likely to say the Dati Leumi Jew, consider that in the binary system of many (most) Charedim, the Dati Leumi person is considered an apostate as well, on account of his/her “krum” (crooked) views and Halachic/Hashkafic approach.
And yes, I realise that if you asked a Chabadnik or a Breslover the question, they would likely answer
We love all Jews the same. They were all created in the image of Hashem and have a Chelek Eloka Mima’al (a piece of God, so to speak).
When it comes to God, any answer to ‘why?’ is limited, by definition. Answers may approach the truth but The truth, is God Himself and only He knows and chooses when, how and what to transmit. This is an axiom. סוד ה’ ליראיו-the secret of God is [transmitted] to those who [truly] fear him-does not contradict this axiom.
Yet, it is part of the human condition to seek God, ולדבקה בו, and to attempt to approach him. We were created בצלם אלקים in the ‘image‘ of God. A similar transcendental urge that drives man to seek a wife, עצם מעצמי, because she is ‘derived’ from the rib of man himself, drives man’s pursuit of God. This pursuit takes place in spite of the axiom. It is no less than an irresistible magnetism sourced from spiritual connectedness. The pursuit defies logic and is materially translated into an axiology through Torah and Mitzvos.
Imagine training to run 100 meters in X seconds, where X was physically impossible, and you knew this to be the case. Would you train and improve and further train and improve with the ultimate aim of running in X seconds? Many would not. They would consider this a pursuit of folly. Even though we know we cannot reach Him, as Shlomo Hamelech said in Koheles 7:
אמרתי אחכמה והיא רחוקה ממני,
“I said that I am wise(r) and it is still remains distant from me”,
many of us still try. Trying isn’t defined by learning Torah and keeping Mitzvos. Trying also includes attempting to make sense of (rationalise, understand) the world around us and the sublime Heavenly purpose, through the prism of events that form our lives. For many, merely running the race in a time of X+Y, with Y>0, is worthwhile even if Y is somewhat large, because the exhilaration of approaching the time (essence) can itself constitute immense gratification. Using a different parlance, involvement with Kedusha is meaningful even if one cannot become completely Kadosh at the exalted Godly level.
Hurricane Sandy was a tragedy for many and represents a continuing challenge for those affected and those who assist in their rehabilitation. The pursuit of ‘Why’ in the context of the Hurricane is perhaps another expression of man trying to run the race in N seconds. Man seeks to reach a level of Godly truth and understanding. Man wants to know what he has done (wrong) to witness and experience such awful and awe filled ‘natural’ phenomena.
Recent medical research claim that during a time of trauma, MRI scans of the brain indicate significant interference with those components of the brain responsible for the transmission of speech. In one sense, this is the וידום אהרן phenomenon. When Aharon faced the untimely traumatic death of his sons, Aharon was silent. Perhaps current medical research argues that it was not simply a case of Aharon choosing not to speak; rather, Aharon was so traumatised, he simply could not speak.
In our world, there are professedly many self-styled experts who know via ‘Godly’ imbuement or a ‘conclusive’ deduction from textual sources, why Hurricane Sandy, or indeed any tragedy, was meant to be. Yet, these experts don’t seem to agree!
No doubt there are even more reasons, and new ones will emerge. At a time when people are suffering, and literally מעשה ידי טובעים בים drowning, is there really a need to engage in this attempt to run in less than those elusive X seconds? Is this the time to be spouting (sic) across the ether one’s “sure-fire” theory of why Hashem allows things to happen (הסתר) and/or causes them to happen.
I don’t think the trauma has really affected those who provide us with ‘here’s the reason for the hurricane’. If they had truly experienced trauma, their mouths may have been rendered silent, or in the least, speechless until recovery and renewal was in place.
As a lad, I remember seeing the Rosh Yeshiva, Rav Goldvicht ז’ל attempting to say a few words during the Yamim Noraim. For 15 minutes, he couldn’t get a word out. He just cried. He was overcome with shock, awe, regret and repentance. I watched on with incredulity. My reaction was silence. I simply hadn’t seen anyone unable to speak because the days were איום ונורא.
So, you might be thinking, okay Mr Chacham, what’s your “answer” to the “why”. Well, I don’t have any answers. Instead, I’ll quote the Etz Yosef on Shemos Rabba 8:2 referring to the hurricane-like wind storm that carried Eliyahu HaNavi up to the heavens.
סוסו של הקדוש ברוך הוא סופה וסערה. דבר זה הוא מסודות התורה.
The horse (chariot) of God is a whirlwind and storm. This is [one of] the secrets of the Torah.
Postscript: I, of course, recognise that victims of such trauma will need professional counselling and support and those conversations may touch on the “why”. I do not believe, however, that any of the reasons attributed to those mentioned above will offer the magical healing panacea.
Here is my blogpost on that topic at my workplace.
I came across a post where Ms Resofsky presented her views on how to deal better with the phenomenon of child abuse and invoke methods of protecting such children through education. I’m not at all critical of her contribution in the sense that she makes valid points and would appear to be academically and clinically qualified to make those points. However, I’m not at all in favour with the rather vicious pen that she points at the Jewish Taskforce against Family Violence. That aspect, in my view is uncalled for.
Ms Resofsky had written:
I have been attempting to engage The Jewish Taskforce Against Family Violence and Sexual Assault (The Taskforce) since 2006, both directly and in the pages of The Australian Jewish News because I am deeply worried by their approach – particularly by their assertion that children can and should be taught to protect themselves against adult predators. The truth is, they can’t.
I am so concerned that I have also submitted complaints to the JCCV, Jewish Care and the Rabbinical Council of Victoria about what I believe is The Taskforce’s dangerously misguided approach to a very complex issue; however, nothing has changed.
The best evidence indicates that we cannot leave children to protect themselves; however, The Taskforce refuses to acknowledge this. The Protecting our Vulnerable Children Inquiry Report (Feb 2012), weighed up all the worldwide research and evidence about the effectiveness of teaching children personal safety to prevent abuse. It accepted Finkelhor (2009 ),Smallbone et al. (2008) “There is little convincing evidence for the effectiveness of these programs for preventing sexual abuse.”
Ms Weiner, who has no degree or equivalent in any field related to child protection does not agree with the research. She states that, “Giving a child the tools to say NO denies the perpetrator the opportunity to abuse.”
Why would Ms Weiner advocate a position that goes against the best evidence? Unfortunately, Ms Weiner’s position is echoed by Mrs Balfour, head of The Early Learning Centre at Beth Rivkah, who believes The Taskforce – that schools do not need to educate parents, because children under the age of five can protect themselves!
Alongside Debbie Weiner, Taskforce board member, Sheiny New, also speaks publicly on behalf of the group and about child abuse. Ms New has spoken and written extensively about this issue, however, like Ms Weiner, she has no degree or equivalent in the area.
This information, however, is not available on The Taskforce website. In fact, much information about who comprises the Taskforce and their work with children is absent from their website. There is a serious lack of transparency that characterises the group. It is usual practice for a group that purports to protect children to articulate this and to clearly state it as part of their vision; however, the word, “child,” is hardly mentioned on The Taskforce site.
While The Taskforce has existed for 17 years, it only first acknowledged the issue of child abuse in 2006. It then moved to gain a monopoly on the protection of our children despite its lack of experience and the lack of qualifications of Taskforce volunteers.
In 2006, The Taskforce emailed Di Hirsh of the NCJW, strongly requesting that Ms Hirsh and her organisation withdraw their support from a community child protection awareness and education campaign. The Taskforce’s reasoning for this demand was that they wanted to present an efficient and unified communal response to such a sensitive subject in The Taskforce’s forthcoming forum.
In doing this, The Taskforce successfully removed support for a campaign that included child welfare professionals so that a group of volunteers could be the sole providers of communal education on child abuse.
It is important to remember that The Taskforce is a voluntary organisation whose members are not professionals in the area of child protection; however, The Taskforce have positioned themselves as the community’s authority on the matter.
Because they have worked for 17 years to raise awareness of family violence, they believe that qualifies them to advise on child abuse. Not only is this a logical problem, it also requires a real leap of faith because The Taskforce has only spoken out against child abuse in the last 6 years.
The Taskforce personnel also base their credibility on the training they receive from experts. Many of these experts are highly respected in their fields; however, educational seminars that last for a couple of hours, or at most, a couple of days, can not qualify people to do the work of trained professionals. The Taskforce should not therefore position itself as able to give advice on a par with professional advice.
The Taskforce’s lack of professional personnel leads it to offer poor advice (such as the idea that children can protect themselves). Ms New’s public statement that with the right treatment, victims of child sexual abuse will be, “just fine,” goes against research that demonstrates that only 1 in 10 cases of abuse is even reported. Many abused children cannot get help at all, because their abuse is unknown. Educating parents to spot signs of abuse can address this issue. This is not, however, what The Taskforce is doing.
This makes Ms Weiner’s claim that The Taskforce is, “tackling abuse head on,” difficult to believe. Ms Weiner’s and The Taskforce’s refusal to support parent-directed education is evidence that best practice is not in place. Parents need guidance to help them learn how to assess whether or not good child protection procedures are in place in schools and other institutions. They need to know what to look for. For example, does the organization train staff about child sexual abuse? Does the organization have a code of conduct for adults working with children? Does it outline clear expectations about boundaries between staff and children? How is staff misconduct handled?
It is difficult to understand why The Taskforce relies on extremely out of date ideas of child self protection. We used to think programs that teach children to identify and refuse inappropriate touch would prevent child sexual abuse. Personal safety programs for children have been in existence for over 25 years but experts now advise that children can’t fend off would-be abusers by themselves.
The Protecting our Vulnerable Inquiry 2012, weighed up all the worldwide research and evidence about the effectiveness of teaching children personal safety to prevent abuse. It agreed with Finkelhor 2009 and Smallbone et al. 2008: “There is little convincing evidence for the effectiveness of these programs for preventing sexual abuse.” (The Protecting our Vulnerable Children’s Inquiry Report 2012)
Telling parents that something will prevent abuse when it clearly will not puts children at unacceptable risk. Sexual abuse is most commonly a gradual process of desensitization, further complicated by the power imbalance between the victim and perpetrator. Would-be abusers use a grooming process to gain trust and acceptance.
Grooming can be described as a psychological process that breaks down a child’s resistance by using techniques such as gift giving, engaging the child in peer like activities, desensitizing the child to touch, isolating the child and then making the child feel responsible for the abuse. Grooming can take place over months or longer. Those who would offend try to get themselves into a situation where they are alone with a child who trusts them. The abused child is then caught in a web of confusion, guilt, deceit and mistrust and a child commonly feels overwhelmed and powerless to stop the abuse.
Ms New, however, advises that parents should educate themselves and then educate their children. The Child Protection Inquiry, however, does not expect parents to educate themselves. It recommends that efforts should focus on raising public awareness of child sexual abuse and providing parents of all school-aged children with education.
Parents need to become aware and even trained in the defence of their children. They can create a barrier between those who would abuse and their children. They need to discuss matters with their children in language that is not threatening and gives the child age-appropriate references. Parents can vet situations when they leave their children in the care of others and ensure that stringent screening, monitoring, training and reporting policies are in place. They need to know the steps they can take when they suspect something is not right. Schools should continue to teach children about personal safety, but the responsibility for protecting children should be placed on adults.
Finally, we must ask ourselves if it is appropriate for a single group to address matters of abuse in both the Ultra Orthodox and less religious communities. The differences in attitudes, values, and culture are enormous between the extremely religious and the less religious sub-groups in our community. Can and should a single group be charged with such a broad agenda?
According to Ms New there are “Jewish” specific factors that impact on why victims of child sexual abuse don’t report. When she refers to “Jewish” factors, are these applicable across the board or only to the Ultra-Orthodox community?
When The Taskforce makes statements like, “We consider ourselves to be a light unto other nations, and if we start talking about violence and abuse in what we consider a perfect Jewish family that light will be dimmed just a little bit and she (the victim) did not want to be the cause of more anti-Semitism…”
or
“Living in a host country we would prefer not to create anti Semitism.”
or
(referring to the Shidduch system)“…The first question asked is: “Is it a nice family?” sexual assault does not a nice family make. Don’t be judgemental. If your brother had to choose between two equally lovely girls but one had been raped 6 months ago which would you choose?”Do any of these statements apply to non-religious Jews who are the vast majority in the community?
Why then have the JCCV and Jewish Care welcomed The Taskforce’s attempt to be the sole organisation dealing with abuse in the community? Many non-religious Jews are horrified by such attitudes and might wonder why The Taskforce is not doing more to combat them. Meanwhile Ms New asks us not to be judgmental of that belief system. Surely such a group cannot represent our entire community.
My response to Ms Resofsky is:
Dear Ms Resofsky,
Have you read Dr Pelcovitz’s book? Have you listened to his on-line lectures?
I have. No doubt Ms Polin has some concerns that you mention, however, the educated reader may want to make up their own mind by doing what I did (well before this came on the horizon).Have you personally engaged Dr Pelcovitz with your concerns? I would suggest that a modicum of academic respect behooves you to do so. I would further suggest that you do this on the record so that Dr Pelcovitz can respond in kind on the record and isn’t interpreted or misunderstood.
In respect of your comments regarding Ms New (I know her as Sheiny, and she is a personal friend), let me say that you need to have a coffee with her. Your assessment based on a talk(s) that you attended simply doesn’t capture the approach that she has, which most definitely does include those aspects you believe she elides (out of supposed ignorance).
Having said that, the taskforce isn’t Sheiny, and Sheiny isn’t the task force. It is much bigger than that. I interact with them when I seek an opinion (in an informal way) and they have never pretended to be something they are not. They are a very determined group of people who seek to do much good, and have done much good, and will continue to do so. That being said, I have no doubt that they would welcome (and I don’t speak for them in anyway) volunteers—both professional like you and Talya, and others who are well meaning (and may have suffered directly or indirectly) to help them refine and progress what they are all about.
Perhaps you can let us know whether you have ever sought to meet with the group without the public/blogosphere headlights and passed on your thoughts? Have they rejected your ideas? Were they aware of what you were professing?
As to those who continue to denigrate the Task Force/and or Sheiny through simply because Sheiny is married to a member of the YC Board of Management, I find that beneath contempt. These women work hard and tirelessly for the community. By all means try and improve and enrich their approach and support their work, but this public castigation leaves me with a very sour taste.
I noticed that Ms Resofsky gives five points to prevent child sexual abuse:
1) Learn about it – you need knowledge about abuse before you can protect your children
2) Minimise risk – Know the adults and teens in your children’s lives.
3) Talk about it – Talk to your kids about personal safety rules.
4) Teach your children that these safety rules apply to everyone.
5) Start early with your children, in an age appropriate way.
Nobody can argue with these five points, however, it is important to note that (especially in certain groups which are secularly insular and/or ignorant) that the School and the Synagogue (via Rabbis) can be great contributors in fostering points 1 through 5.
I am reminded of an interesting question raised by Professor Marc Shapiro (who is certainly not an ultra-orthodox apologist, for those who are aware of his scholarly output). Marc asked why there seemed to be more abuse in ultra-orthodox circles. Why was it that a child who ate Treyf or broke the Shabbos was given more “attention” than a child who came home and accused their teacher of fondling? He answered, and I believe he is right, that these communities understand Treyf and they understand Shabbos. They simply have no understanding, let alone a sophisticated understanding, of what the effect of such abuse can be and why it ought to be considered with at least the same level of abhorrence as transgressions between Man and God. They (wrongly) think that this is something that will “go away” with time. They have not understood that this is a pattern, and that the perpetrator rarely if ever has just “one” victim.
The answer to that needs to start (especially in such communities) with those who are charged with imbuing education: the Rabbis and the Teachers. They must be educated. In such communities, you simply can’t call a meeting of parents as a first step, and “educate” them with seminars. They won’t come! They will think it has nothing to do with them, or their kids. Of course, they are wrong. But the one key, doesn’t fit every lock. Ms Resofsky certainly is correct to hone in on parental education, but I’d suggest (from a lay perspective) that the science of this approach needs to be implemented in a different manner for each group. Is anyone seriously suggesting that the awareness and understanding of a group of say Yavneh or Mt Scopus parents is at a similar level to that of Adass parents (who we know are, by choice cut off from the external world)?
Let’s be positive. I don’t like it when we “attack” those who are actually on the same side.
This is one you should watch after work, if you haven’t seen it. It is one hour, but worth every minute.
Truly inspirational.
[Hat tip to Benseon]
I agree mostly with the article, although, I reject the notion that it is about Kabbalists per se. They are but one category of people in a position of power/influence/mystique some of whom may be taken in by the God given gift and basically go off the Derech. Almost each time I am in Israel I go to a Mekubal (and no, please don’t ask me who, as he is not interested in seeing more people and keeps very much to himself) who frankly scares me out of my wits. He can literally “see” things in the future. He doesn’t ask for money. He sleeps on the floor and fasts. He works a Bank Clerk, if you can believe it. He has impeccable lineage from a Kabbalistic perspective, being a direct descendants of the Akeidas Yitzchak (R’ Yitzchak Arama). I don’t like to ask him too much, as I am by nature and training a rationalist and try to deal with life as it unfolds. On the occasions where I have succumbed, and especially when my dear wife has “instructed” me to call him, he has been scarily accurate.
Jerusalem – Opinion: Abuse Of Holy Power
News Source: Opinion Dr. Haim Shine, Israel HayomJerusalem – There is nothing more embarrassing than revered rabbis and kabbalists being suspected of stealing Torah scrolls or bribing police officers. No amount of water can extinguish a fire that rages in God’s vineyard. What will naive, God-fearing Jews say when they see corrupt rabbis striving to retain their positions as leaders of communities, and when the homes of the grandchildren of the righteous become their prisons?One of the greatest kabbalists of the past generations lived in the Shabazi neighborhood in Tel Aviv for decades. He was known as the “holy cobbler,” and he lived in a small apartment beside his shop. Each night, pious sages would gather there to learn, pray and offer formulas of “tikkun olam” meant to repair a fractured world. They were all poor Jews who supported themselves through menial labor. Each of them had a nickname that reflected his profession — the cobbler, the builder, the painter, the milkman and the street cleaner. They did not have titles of honor and their yards were always filled with hungry cats rather than important businessmen.During those years, Rabbi Mordechai Sharabi, of blessed memory, lived in Jerusalem. Sharabi, a great kabbalist and founder of Yeshivat Nahar Shalom, a yeshiva for the study of kabbalah in the neighborhood of Nachlaot, was visited by many students eager to learn the secrets of Jewish mysticism. Hundreds paid him a visit each night, and the rabbi patiently blessed each of them. Every cent of the charity donations he received was transferred immediately to the needy, while he himself never took interest in monetary gain. Most of his life was spent in affliction, shunning worldly materials. He viewed the world as a narrow passageway to the world of the afterlife.Years passed and the ever-growing material world took its toll on rabbis studying and teaching kabbalah, the holy crown of Jewish wisdom. Materialism began to affect rabbis who were viewed as role models — rabbis who were supposed to be modest, humble and devoid of material desires. Jewish mysticism, which transcends the mundane world, was gradually taken over by a few characters who proceeded to transform it into nothing more than a lucrative business venture. Those people purchased palaces, luxury cars and other envy-inspiring items with the money they obtained. A genuine sage told me years ago that a kabbalist has never emerged from a five-room apartment.The unholy alliance between the tycoons looking for something to help them deal with their consciences, rabbis under the influence of material desire and media agents who constantly chase the ratings, created a difficult reality that tarred the image of religious Judaism and the kabbalah. God, as we know, is upright and loathes corruption, even when it is done in the name of heaven.The common response to the charges of corruption is that it was perpetrated by rabbinical aides, without the knowledge of the rabbi himself. But if a rabbi is unaware of what his aides are doing right under his nose, how can he know what is being done by Jews who seek his advice?Everyone has the right to approach his trusted rabbi and donate money to him, even if the money constitutes the person’s entire life savings or his or her accumulated pension funds. But the line is crossed when the act involves a desecration of God’s name, something for which there can never be any restitution.It is important for rabbis, kabbalists and public servants to internalize the significance of being a personal example. It is unfortunate that the splendid image of Judaism is being held captive by a few unholy people who exploit the heritage of our forefathers and abuse their special God-given abilities.
We have emerged from an intense month. Starting from the Ellul lead in, through Rosh Hashona and Yom Kippur, onto Succos/Hoshana Rabba and culminating in Shmini Atzeres/Simchas Torah. I use the word culminating, because in a pristine existence, it is meant to be a culmination after which ויעקב הלך לדרכו, the newly inspired and invigorated Jew “goes on his way”.
In the days of old, when distractions of worldy existence were minor and inconsequential, and when tomorrow was simply a new day, it was arguably less of an issue to exult in finishing the leyning of the Torah. (It wasn’t always the case that we completed the Torah each year, but I digress).
I fondly remember dancing the night away at (the Religious Zionist) Mizrachi Shule only to arrive in the late evening at (the Chabad) Yeshivah Centre. We were young, restless and more daring back then and attempted to hijack the singing by introducing “Tziyon Halo Tishali” (a Satmar tune for those interested in trivia, and one which connotes sadness vis-a-vis Kinos on Tisha B’Av). This song, was akin to a Religious Zionist anthem, and we were determined to show that “we have arrived” and perhaps, just perhaps, we could all sing together. We got away with it, and the singing and dancing continued in the usual uplifting vein.
Rabbi Groner ז’ל together with other “elder” Chassidim, hosted all with a classic Farbrengen on Shmini Atzeres. Regaling us with stories of his youth, and more, we sat spell-bound for hours. Snippets of Chassidus were spoken, and anyone could pipe up and say something. Some interloping comments were interesting whilst others displayed the result of someone who was less able to hold their liquor. There was, however, a feeling of Achdus and inspiration.
In later years, Rabbi Groner would be wheeled in, but the Farbrengen continued as long as he had an ounce of strength left in his body. To be sure, there were other significant iconic Chassidim of yore, R’ Zalman, R’ Nochum, R’ Chaim Serebryanski, to name a few. It was like a pseudo-pantomine. They often criticised each other, under the influence of some Mashke (alcohol) and although we sometimes witnessed Rischa D’Orayso (heated interchange, for want of a better description) it was never acrimonious and, importantly, nobody pulled rank. Indeed, Chabad is a binary system as far as people go. There was the Rebbe and then the rest. It was, as in the beginning of Parshas Nitzavim: from the Rosheichem, the leaders, right through to the water drawers.
Mashke was a lubricant. It released the inhibitions. It facilitated an ability to dispense with the Tirdos (worries) of Olam Hazeh, the world we live in, and temporarily immerse in something more corporeal. In short, it was a means to an end. It was never an end of itself. Personally, I found that as I got older, Mashke helped me to “lose” the relative trivia that might be occupying my neurones and focus. It sounds contradictory, but it’s the reality. Mashke is sufficient, but it is by no means necessary, so to speak.
Fast forward. It’s Shmini Atzeres. Nusach Sfard and Chassidim perform Hakofos in Chutz La’aretz. There is a Kiddush (in the Chabad Yeshivah Shule where I have davened for eons) and many said kiddush (in the Succa) ostensibly to resume Hakaofos, somewhat liberated by the Mashke. In the last few years, I have felt decidedly uncomfortable going into the Succa for this preparatory libation. I do not refer to the issue of under age drinking. That is a separate item and not the topic in this post. The atmosphere of late, especially this year, seems to have become one more akin to a tavern/pub (lehavdil). Many never return to Hakofos, and the kiddush on mashke, has become an end, and not a means to an end. It is true, that my attention was also somewhat “distracted” as I was learning about Cohanim, Air Planes, Tumah, Moving Tents and floating carpets, and came to the realisation that I was close to clueless about the intricate Dinim of Tumas Ohel and Kelim, so I could be described as “preoccupied”.
The next day, as a Cohen, I duchened. I was somewhat psychologically affected by a Halachic question I had been reading from R’ Oshry ז’ל regarding a Cohen in the Ghetto whose voice box had been dismembered by the Nazis, may their memory be blotted forever. I felt strangely inspired to “give it my all”. I had a voice box. I wasn’t tormented. All I needed to do is have thoughts of אהבה and ask Hashem to give everyone everything they needed.
We then retired to the Shmini Atzeres farbrengen. I made kiddush, and then a little more, and waited with pregnant excitement to hear words of wisdom. It was probably me. All I heard was sloganeering and seemingly parroted thoughts that I had heard so many times before. There was no “git vort”, no “geshmake mayse”, not even a new Chassidic insight into the day we were meant to be only happy.
I began to question things being said our of sheer frustration. Perhaps if I hadn’t been exposed to the “good times” or had been more tolerant towards this somewhat more mediocre experience, I would have stayed silent.
I wanted to say something. It was to be my attempt to steer the ambient discussion towards some Tachlis. It had been on my mind during davening, and while there could have been an opportunity to do so in the good old days, and did, it sadly had no place anymore.
The shutters were up. The Arba Minim are meant to signify a unity and tolerance of all types of people and philosophies. Call it a symbol of Achdus or Unity, the personification of ואהבת לרעך כמוך. I felt that it was relegated to sloganeering. There was no action. One kind soul, attempted to assuage me
Isaac, if you were sitting in a Belzer Succah, do you think they would allow a non Belzer to say a Dvar Torah?
It was then that I realised he was right. This is, sadly, what we have become (in most places). We have compartmentalised to an extent where everyone thinks they have the (sole) mortgage on the truth. It’s my way or the highway. There seemingly can no longer be more than one path to serving Hakadosh Baruch Hu. Eventually I left.
As I walked home, I reflected on the words of the first Amshinover Rebbe, R’ Yaakov Dovid ז’ל
The Rebbe asked about the well-known Passuk in Tehillim:
הנה מה טוב ומה נעים שבת אחים גם יחד
Behold it is good and pleasant when brothers are sitting also together
The verse should have read:
הנה מה טוב ומה נעים שבת אחים יחד
Behold it is good and pleasant when brothers are sitting together
The word גם—also—is superfluous and misplaced. The Rebbe explained that there are many occasions where brothers (and sisters) sit together. However, it’s only good and pleasant when they are also together, sharing a commonality.
I wondered how each original Rebbe, who was a student of the Magid of Mezeritch sat around the same table. They had nuanced differences in their outlooks. Were they together? Of course they were. In our day, each Chassidic group is basically in its own cocoon. The same is true of non Chassidim.
On Shmini Atzeres/Simchas Torah, one would have thought that the uniting element, the Torah itself, would have the pulling power to create the גם יחד.
Maybe next year. I’ll be positive. There is no other choice.
Over Yom Tov, I was discussing this Medrash (9:9) with family and friends.
In one of the saddest episodes in the Torah (at least the way I read it), Moshe is pleading at the end of Haazinu to enter his beloved Land of Israel. Hashem appears implacable, despite the notion of צדיק גוזר והקב’’ה מקיים, that Hashem “listens” to Tzadikim. In an almost “teasing” twist, Hashem asks Moshe to go up and have a good look at the Land. On the one hand, it’s an expression of “this is as close as you will get”. On the other hand, psychologically, it must have made Moshe pine even more. He was so very desperate to enter the beloved promised Holy land.
The Medrash then relates that Moshe tried a clever “Talmudic” twist. He suggested to Hashem that as the Leader, the Manhig, of B’nei Yisrael, there was a decree that he could not enter the Land. Would it be acceptable to Hashem then, if Moshe decided to become an “ordinary citizen”, a veritable Talmid of the new Manhig, Yehoshua, and in that way, he could enter the land. Hashem responded that this would be okay! However, he’d need to assume the role of a Talmid. Moshe readily agreed. Standing on the left hand side of Yehoshua, like a Talmid behind his Rebbe, Moshe followed Yehoshua until Yehoshua had an interchange with the Shechina/Hashem. Moshe stood at the distance while Yehoshua spoke with Hashem. When Yehoshua had completed his “discussion” Moshe asked him what the discussion was all about. Yehoshua promptly responded that when he (Yehoshua) was the Talmid and Moshe was the Manhig/Leader, he had never been privy nor asked about the private interchanges between Moshe and the Shechina. What business/right did Moshe now have (as an ordinary Talmid) to become privy to the Godly meetings between Yehoshua and Hashem!
Moshe could not cope with this new reality, and abandoned the idea of demoting himself to being a Talmid, and as we know, Moshe passed away and was buried in an unknown location.
Tradition has it that the Tzadikim/Manhigim in each generation carry a kernel of Moshe’s Neshama into each generation, and this somewhat imbues their leadership status. Could you imagine a Rebbe who realised that his life would soon end, assign the role of Rebbe to his living son (or prime Talmid?). I am not sure if this mode of succession planning has ever taken place? Yet, Moshe, the greatest ever Prophet and Leader (who never aspired to leadership in the first place) was happy in theory for a succession plan, while he was still alive, just so that he could enter the Holy Land.
What can we derive from this?
Your thoughts?
It is questionable during the year whether one needs to wear a Gartel. Let’s assume that it is your family minhag or acquired minhag to continue to do so even today. This article is not about the need to wear one.
On Yom Kippur, certainly those who wear a Gartel also wear a Kittel. Almost every Kittel I have seen, includes a white gartel, made of the same material as the kittel. If so, on a day when we are meant to wear white (via a Kittel) largely because it reminds us of the deathly shrouds (which is why Shulchan Aruch paskens that even women can wear a Kittel) why is it that people also put their black gartel on top of their kittel. That is, a gartel on a gartel?
On Rosh Hashana, when I am the Ba’al Tefila for Musaf, I wear a Kittel. I don’t wear an extra Gartel. On Yom Kippur, I confess that I also wear a black gartel over my kittel. The reason that I do so has nothing to do with Halacha. It is an emotional expression. My Zeyda Yidel Balbin passed away on Yom Kippur. As a young man, when I entered the room that he was in when he passed away on Motzoei Yom Kippur (he had already been removed by the Chevra Kadisha). I stood there alone for quite some minutes feeling the emptiness of the room. His hat and walking stick were in the room. As I walked around, I also found his Gartel. I took that Gartel and I wear it on his Yohr Tzeit (Yom Kippur).
Why do others wear a black gartel on top of their kittel? If they do so because their Rebbes did so, then why did the Rebbes do so?
Along these lines, why don’t some Chassidim substitute their black yarmulkas for white yarmulkas?
Does anyone know?
Professor Karabus, currently 78 years old was arrested when in transit through Dubai for manslaughter. He is a senior paediatric specialist who headed Red Cross Childrens Hospital Oncology unit for many years. Apparantly in 2002 while he was doing a locum in Sheik Kalifa’s medical centre a patient died of leukaemia. Later in his absence he was “tried” and found guilty of manslaughter. He is sentenced to a period in prison without this ever being communicated to him. This is not justice. He was not given an opportunity to defend himself. Medical patients die, particularly when they have serious illnesses such as leukaemia.
Please sign the petition. And please do it before the fast.
Sign HERE
A nice readable English summary, from my cousin’s husband, Reuven Brauner, describing the service or Avoda of the Cohen Gadol, can be downloaded here.
pitputim 
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