Last month, we took the liberty of offering post-election analysis a month after the election.

This month, the obliviousness goes further as we attempt to pay tribute to a person who left the world on Succos.

But it’s not a hesped, which is forbidden on these days. Once again, it’s an attempt at social commentary.

One of the great advantages of learning in yeshivah in Eretz Yisrael is that it offers young adults the chance to truly understand the differences between American and European bochurim.

There are several, but I focus on a particular one, brought home during Kabbalas Shabbos in one of the downstairs rooms of Beis Yisrael shtiblach. (This was the late ’90s. I have been there since and it’s not the same — well-intentioned gabbaim having slapped down marble slabs, expanded rooms, added sinks, and worst of all, replaced the single wilted, soiled, ragged towel that devotedly served hundreds of people each day.)

The weekly minyan was composed entirely of bochurim from Mir, who would then hurry off to seudos in Arzei, Maalot Dafna, and Sanhedria Murchevet, where they would be served apple crisp and chicken. (Different time. Even wealthy American couples didn’t serve meat on Shabbos, and chicken was on the bone. Remember, there were no magazines then, so how could anyone have any recipes?)

The baal tefillah chose a popular tune for Lecha Dodi, starting with gusto, members of the minyan eagerly joining in, but when he reached the high part, he paused. He seemed to freeze in place. I chapped what happened, because I’ve been there — he blanked, forgetting how the song continued.

Eventually, some baal chesed rescued him, continuing the song, but what I recall is the look of pure horror on the face of a slight British bochur next to me. His eyes opened wide and he blushed in empathy with the humiliation of the baal tefillah.

But the baal tefillah himself, an American, found it hilarious. He turned around after davening, beaming with pride, and for weeks after, he would recall the moment for anyone who asked and even those who did not.

The encounter confirmed my suspicion that in England, if someone goes off-key during a kumzitz, security immediately arrives and politely, but firmly, leads him out of the room while the other participants lower their eyes then resume singing in perfect harmony.

It’s the precision of good music meeting the precision of the British, and it can make for an intimidating mix.

Enter Yigal Calek.

What is it? What’s the secret of his music, the way it flows not past you, but through you?

It was on Chanukah of 2021 that London Boys Choir-love reached its international peak, no longer the first choice just for real snobs or people with many sisters. There was something mesmerizing in those much-publicized clips of gray-haired choir alumni farbrenging with their old director, the synergy and wordless flow between them, the way his withered hands functioned as a baton pulling forth intricate harmonies, a flick of his wrist able to speed or slow down the tempo as if he were turning a dial.

Those videos were magic. Every so often, my phone’s memory is full and I need to delete all videos — but those are the ones I keep re-saving out of an irrational fear that they will disappear and no one else on the planet will be able to access them.

And in those clips lies the answer.

A great salesman is necessary only when the product itself needs pushing; if the item being sold is desirable, then even a poor agent will succeed.

This was a man who clearly believed in his product, who felt that the poetry inherent in a pasuk or phrase of tefillah was enough for it to sell itself. It was musical purism — he shot high, confident that if the words were presented along with his interpretation of their tune, then people would connect.

He didn’t need lyrics that instantly, obviously suggest broken hearts and Jewish tears, because he believed that the poetry inherent in the scene of a mother bird sent away from her children is no less potent, that the drama of Devorah’s reproach to the people of Reuven, who appeared to choose the bleating of sheep over the honor of joining their people in war, would move us, if the resonance of her words could be reflected in cadence and tune.

What we have lost is not just the man and not just his compositions, but also that approach and its authenticity.

Today, music comes with built-in distractions, gimmicks to keep people engaged for more than one low part and one high part. If the words of a pasuk or tefillah are too complex or intricate, then it’s okay to surgically replace them with easier Hebrew or English ones, ’cause it’s all about inspiring people.

Okay, changing times, changing needs, fine, but we can at least appreciate the fact that Yigal Calek wrote songs that you will never see anyone singing at a kumzitz in a winery. (Yes, it’s a thing.)

I have a ra’ayah. If you can find those videos, look (if you can’t, I happen to have them saved on my phone), and you will notice something. There is a nice crowd, in a balabatishe home, with elegant furnishings, and ample refreshments, but there is little by way of decor: no party-planner forced lighting, no indication that anyone worked on creating a vibe, no oversized meat boards or uncorked bottles positioned at symmetrical intervals down the length of table, with waiters and bartenders hovering to ensure an endless supply of emotion.

(A friend was recently making a simchah, and the agent assembling the orchestra listed off various options and prices, then asked him if he davka wanted chassidishe musicians. My friend wondered why he would care if the trombone player wore a gartel during davening or not.

“Forget it,” the agent mumbled, “whatever… just some people like the flying peyos look, the optics of it, you know?”)

Actually, in those London clips, there are ornaments on display: a large menorah in the corner surrounded by smaller ones, because it is Chanukah.

From Heaven, it had been perfectly choreographed. Yavan got optics, a world where splendid music reflected visual elegance, external layers of glamour complementing one another. We also believe in beauty, but for us, it evokes and reflects the neshamah within.

If the oil is pure, you can strike a match, ignite the wick, stand back, and behold the simplest, most unadorned beauty. The externals have changed many times over the past 2,200 years — different language, clothing, architecture, and art — but the flickering flames that told a story then do so now, and if you believe that, you can lean in close and hear their song.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 1042)

The post Hear His Song first appeared on Mishpacha Magazine.

IN the weeks following the presidential election, this magazine provided a more-than-adequate flow of analysis, exploration, and perspective on what happened, why it happened, and what it means.

A writer offering a few more election thoughts at this point is as welcome as the middle-aged guy who still finds himself hilarious and throws a pekeleh at the chassan after the shul has already quieted down and no one expects it.

So take this not as political commentary, but as social commentary — not about them, but about us.

Firstly, imagine Kamala had won the election. Many in our community would have been disappointed, or even worried. But then, a moment later, they would have shrugged and said what Jews say — i.e., some version of “The Ribbono shel Olam fihrt di velt, and He’s in charge.”

The fact that Trump won shouldn’t change that. It was always only Him, so we’re exactly in the same place regardless of who was elected.

Okay, but it still feels good. We were given a smile from Heaven at a time when we need it so badly; less a geopolitical transformation and more a morale-boost when we were feeling down. For this, #TYH.

My second post-election point: Can we please stop being choneif Chuck Schumer? I understand that those on the front lines of political shtadlanus sometimes have to swallow and shake hands with ideological opponents, but what’s the shiur? Our great rebbeim (both the Lubavitcher Rebbe and Rav Aharon Schechter, in different contexts) have taught us that we don’t ever say “yemach shemo” on a Jew, fine — but we don’t have to laugh enthusiastically when he calls himself a shomer Yisrael anymore, do we?

I feel like the next organization that makes it clear exactly how we view his duplicity, greeting him not with applause but with a cold, hurt silence, will make up whatever they lose in federal funding on a Charidy/Rayzeit/Whatever page within the hour, donors happy to invest in gaavasan shel Yisrael and basic self-respect. Oiss shoimer.

And the third point, the one I really wanted to get to — the previous paragraphs were just pleasantries. In an article analyzing the failure of the Democratic Party, one pundit astutely wrote, “When you have wealthy consultants talking to wealthy donors who are all living in an elite bubble, it can become detached from what messages will resonate with people who aren’t in the elite bubble… When you are surrounded by monied interests, you have to figure out how you don’t become bubble-ized.”

In their shower of funding, star-studded rallies, and virtuous-sounding taglines, they stopped seeing people. This one is so relevant to us.

Our communal structure is built on the generosity of the wealthy, and it is tzedakah that drives our mosdos, which do not turn a profit or benefit from ample government funding, for the most part.

It is natural that donors will take an interest in the causes they support, and thus it is natural that they will end up on the boards or advisory committees of these organizations. It’s also practical, because aside from helping make payroll, these are generally people who have worked hard and found success, and their own experiences can also help mosdos flourish. Along with this, a successful businessman has the luxury of being able to take time off, as necessary — a nine-to-five employee doesn’t get to take up mountain biking or work on his golf swing, so these lay leaders are giving that leisure time away to the klal, which is amazing.

So far, so good.

The issue is, When you are surrounded by monied interests, you have to figure out how you don’t become bubble-ized.

The few cannot make decisions for the many. You can’t have a group of high-net-worth individuals sitting around a table deciding if Shabbos food package recipients would rather get chicken tops or bottoms.

A friend once described sitting with a tuition committee, negotiating the terms for a new school year. They were suggesting a ten percent increase over the year before, while he felt it should not be ten percent, but twenty, and not an increase, but a decrease.

He explained the reasons: He had not changed jobs, but a child who needed a particular kind of therapy had drained his income, and a badly needed basement remodeling had forced him into debt. He shared this personal information uneasily and looked around at the faces of the men across from him. One was a successful real estate syndicator who had built himself up from nothing and had no sympathy for anyone who didn’t match his ambition and drive. One was a professional yoreish, who had never filled out a form in his life because his father still paid tuition for all the eineklach. And one was clearly somewhere else, still tanned from a quick visit to Turks and Caicos and deeply immersed in planning a getaway to Panama, because “it’s so important to make time for a marriage.”

My friend, to whom making time for his marriage means an occasional walk around the block with his wife, made a respectful point.

“You would not sit on a beis din and pasken sh’eilos about hilchos yuchsin, because you don’t know it, right?” he challenged them. “So why do you think it’s okay for you to sit here and pasken sh’eilos in hilchos ‘making ends meet,’ casting judgment on whether or not sending my son to camp for one month is appropriate or my wife should be driving a Kia instead of an Odyssey? The struggles of the middle class is not your sugya.”

The word bubble-ized in the quoted article resonated, because the danger exists in our camp too, this party called the Torah community. Our wealthy class is doing so much, but if we want our every organization and institution to be relevant, then we have to make sure that regular guys are getting air time at board meetings, too.

Some words change their meaning over time. Askan used to mean a person who was oseik, involved and devoted to the needs of the community. Then it started to be seen as another word for a person of prominence, and then it became stale, so naggid came back into use, a code word for rich respectable. You need neggidim to get things done, because money is important, and you need askanim, because so is dynamism and efficiency. But make sure your board has one regular guy (loosely defined as someone who still relies on credit cards, somewhat, has never flown private or sat in a stadium box, and knows when the Charles Tyrwhitt sale is).

Ayyy, you’ll ask me, the regular guys have to do that work thing, like with bosses and schedules, so when will they have time to askan-ize? It’s a fair question, so how about this: At least bring in board members who were once regular and can remember it, or at the very least, who associate with regular people.

The askan/nadvan/lay leader class is doing so much, giving heart and soul, resources and energy. If you’re around that table, make one more investment and try to make time to listen to the people you aim to serve.

It’s how you win.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 1039)

The post Burst Your Bubble first appeared on Mishpacha Magazine.

Photos: AEGedolimphotos.com

As the greatness of Rav Shlomo Halioua grew, so did his humility. The son-in-law of Chaim Berlin Rosh Yeshivah Rav Aharon Shechter, he was one more talmid before the master, even as he could no longer conceal his radiance. Until Rav Aharon passed away, and this humble servant became Rosh Yeshivah. Yet just as his fire started to blaze, it was snuffed out, leaving behind a shocked and shattered tzibbur. 

IF you knew Rav Shlomo Halioua, you are already crying.

If you did not know him, then you should cry now.

Not only because you did not know him, but because the nation you belong to — Klal Yisrael — sustained a serious blow with his sudden passing: one of those asher amarnu betzilo nichyeh, of whom we said, “Under His protection we shall live.” (Eichah 4:20)

He was a general who earned his rank in the trenches, a king whose crown was formed by hands lined with toil.

He was rosh yeshivah in Yeshivas Rabbeinu Chaim Berlin, and I wonder if there is another yeshivah in which the title carries as much meaning.

In that yeshivah, it means rosh yeshivah, but also rebbe, father, and melech.

And somehow, he did it.

To the alumni (in Chaim Berlin, there are no former talmidim), he represented the grandeur of what was, the sweeping, panoramic vision of Rav Yitzchak Hutner, the ability to fuse nigleh and nistar, to articulate esoteric complexities with the clarity and enthusiasm of a talented ninth-grade rebbi. He could sit at the head of a table lined with people older than him and make Yamim Tovim come alive as they once had, reenergizing talmidim who belonged to a brotherhood forged decades earlier.

To the talmidim of his father-in-law, Rav Aharon Shechter, he was heir to the avodas Aharon, the relentless, indomitable drive to serve — the ability to sit by a Gemara for five, six, seven hours at a time (as they often did, the two of them together on a sublime island of their own), the mix of incredible strength and incredible refinement and the humility that comes with being a servant to Klal Yisrael.

And to the talmidim, the yungeleit and bochurim inside that flourishing, vibrant Torah citadel on Coney Island Avenue?

He was the Rosh Yeshivah. The one who shared with them the Torah squeezed out of his essence with intense toil, whose breadth matched his depth, who seemed able to instantly draw on any source to clarify a point, and to whom that clarity — perfect havanah in a Rashba, the omitted word in the Rambam, the nuance in a Rashi — was the point of existence, the reason we are here.

The post Only Torah Consoles first appeared on Mishpacha Magazine.

I had the piece written, ready on schedule. It’s never nice to mess with the magazine’s production schedule, but especially at this time of year, when the calendar is a bunch of half-days and much of the production staff is fasting.

Then, on Motzaei Rosh Hashanah I heard news that shook me; that piece was shelved and I’m trying, just trying, to take the heaviness in my heart and turn it into words.

Perhaps the most moving part of the Mussaf of the Yamim Noraim starts with Unesaneh Tokef: We speak of the power of the day, and the gravity of judgment. But there is hope — a person can deflect a harsh decree, for Hashem knows of our frail nature. Man is like a broken shard… like a breeze that blows away and dust that scatters, like a dream that flies away. It appears to be a reflective rumination on the transient nature of man’s existence: Now he is here, and now he is gone.

But suddenly, inexplicably, voices rise and the joy is back: V’Atah Hu Melech — But You are King, G-d Who lives for all eternity!

How does this statement counter the earlier disheartening thought?

Since He is eternal, if we have an opportunity to use our brief sojourn in This World to encounter Him, to reinforce His glory, to elevate Him, then we, too, become part of that chai v’kayam and we, too, can live.

My friend Chaim Tzvi Katz was suddenly niftar on Rosh Hashanah, at just 28 years old, and this is what he taught me: Celebrate each moment of this fleeting, ephemeral existence and sing its song.

Chatzi, as he was known, lost his mother when he was 15 years old. In a piece he wrote for this magazine at the close of the year of aveilus, he showed a bit of the depth and sophistication hidden under the untucked white shirt.

He reflected on the year of having to daven from the amud — the inconvenience, humiliation, and awkwardness of it.

Now that the year is coming to an end, my first thoughts were… freedom at last. I could finally be a normal teenager.

But now I have mixed feelings…. You see, this whole ordeal gave me a special connection, a relationship to you, and you are looking down and smiling at me. I feel like you are going to Hashem and saying, “Look at my son and what he does for me. Please do for him.”

The physical and emotional struggles kept me thinking about what you did for me each day…. When I fought myself to get out of bed early, I remembered how you would drag yourself out of bed to wake me and lovingly send me off to yeshivah, despite your condition.

The year is coming to an end, but I don’t want to lose you. I will try to do good things for you….

Love,

Your ben yachid,

Chaim Tzvi

The imagery — a 16-year-old bochur pulling himself out of bed to make it to davening on time for the first Kaddish d’Rabbanan every day for a full year — would become his story, and it was this that made his music so meaningful.

In Lakewood, at Yeshiva Ateres Yisroel, he found a rebbi and with his rebbi’s encouragement, he eventually started to sing professionally — but he never became a professional singer.

Meaning — he was never an “other” to his audience, but part of the crowd, enjoying the music along with them. He was laughing uproariously along with the over-excited friends of the bar mitzvah boy; bursting with pride along with the 17-year-old mesayemim. Those were his favorite settings: bochurim, toil, and a room filled with dreams. And he was happy — so genuinely happy — for a chassan a year or two younger than him.

Sometimes a gig doesn’t go — people are speaking loudly, the sound system is having a bad night, or the host has placed him behind a potted plant, but Chatzi was able to remove himself from the equation and tease the hapless singer — himself — to roll his eyes good-naturedly and say “oh well.” I suspect he even enjoyed it, because this was human stuff. He never wanted to be shiny and he had no brand. He was just us, the people he was reaching.

He would talk about the struggle to connect, to feel, to really daven, but when he sang, you realized that he was way ahead of you. He didn’t announce that he was about to start davening or say “Ribbono shel Olam” or “Tatte,” but you could hear the slight shift in his voice and you knew that he was reaching deep: He knew that the Ribbono shel Olam is the Avi yesomim, and that he had a privileged relationship. Hashem malei rachamim, racheim alai.

We live in a golden age of Jewish music, with so many gifted singers, but I don’t know if there is another who can compare to Chatzi when it came not to showing his neshamah on stage, and instead using that stage to show you your neshamah.

At his very first gig, at this time of year, he sang the tune of “Chamol al Maasecha.” As he reached the high part, the Lakewood Rosh Yeshivah, Rav Yisroel Neuman, was leaving the hall.

Tukdash Adon, sang Chatzi, and the Rosh Yeshivah turned around and came back in, closing his eyes. Rav Yisroel is this generation’s example of the masmid to whom every second is cherished, so if he made the decision to reenter the hall, it is because he heard something.

This column is not meant to be an obituary, but an opinion: My untucked, uninhibited friend wasn’t super opinionated, but he had a unique ability to make you rethink a topic.

I once spoke publicly about Kabbalas Shabbos and the joy a Yid feels with the onset of the holy day. Chatzi took issue with the premise. “Maybe the books that speak of the anticipation that fills a Yid on Erev Shabbos aren’t doing us a favor,” he challenged me, as always, the lamdan cutting through the haze. “Maybe, it’s just that you work hard all week, you don’t really see your family much, and when you come home from shul Friday night, you’re anticipating the chance to just sit with people you love, enjoying a delicious seudah and singing.”

Being single, he told me, he experienced it differently. “I am usually a guest somewhere else for Shabbos, and I don’t have the experience of going into my own house, surrounded by my loved ones. I would also want to feel that joy, though. Shabbos isn’t just for married guys with their perfectly set table and kinderlach in matching Shabbos pajamas.”

Having shaken me out of my presumptuous delusions about my own appreciation for Shabbos, he became my chavrusa. On Fridays, we started learning a sefer called Sidduro shel Shabbos. The words of the sefer are esoteric, at times, and lofty. I would read them without completely understanding them sometimes, but Chatzi got them. Even if he wasn’t sure what each word meant, he perceived the depth of their message, sometimes humming them.

You see, the sefer speaks about how Shabbos is the stuff of humans, about the power of our little actions and feelings to prepare ourselves and create keilim to receive the light, and this was Chatzi’s turf: He had tasted pain at a young age, and he had learned to smile through it.

That was his music. That was his chein.

He was single, and Shabbos involved planning — he never did get to make Kiddush at his own table, but he learned to make Kiddush of a different sort, working to find the spark of Shabbos within himself and to make himself a vessel to receive it.

He taught me not to confuse love of family-time, good food, and a relaxed pace for a love of Shabbos, but to make sure its the real thing. And he showed me that a bochur still dreaming of a home of his own could aspire to grow in their love of Shabbos.

Chatzi’s music was not the song of angels, but of humans, and that is why it resonated.

Chaim Tzvi ben Rav Elya Nota. He lived a short life — like a fleeting dream — but, as if he sensed this, he used it to create a song that will play on. Notes of submission, notes of pain, notes of hope, and notes of glory to the One Who endures.

Ashirah laHashem b’chayai. We are here to sing. With his every breath, Chatzi sang.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 1033)

The post Song of Humans first appeared on Mishpacha Magazine.

Photos: Meir Haltovsky

His father understood that this neshamah would best grow and develop in freedom. And then in 2019, the Skulener Rebbe, Rav Yeshaya Yaakov Portugal, ztz”l, was plucked away from his unassuming life in Montreal to assume the mantle of leadership

There was a man who lived in Montreal, a thin man with a black beard and glasses who learned in kollel all day.

If you spoke to him, he would stoop forward in humility, bending toward you to let you know he was all yours, in the manner of the Amshinover Rebbe or Rav Asher Arieli.

You could see him walking the streets. If you happened to be driving, and you pulled over to offer him a ride, he might take the glasses out of his pocket, squinting through the car window and see who it was.

His face would light up when he saw that it was you — whoever you were, because you were a Yid, and that was reason enough for joy. If he accepted the ride, he would climb into the car and shower you with brachos, telling you just what a favor you were doing, making you feel like your car coming down the street at this moment was an act of kindness unequaled since the moment of creation.

Morning often saw him circulating in local shuls — “gein noch gelt,” collecting for a Yid facing hardship: different days, different Yidden, different tzaros.

It might be a Yerushalmi meshulach who just didn’t have a knack for collecting, a local Yid who was overwhelmed by chasunah expenses, or someone he had met the night before. On Rosh Chodesh, he would go from shul to shul, collecting for Chessed L’Avraham, the organization founded by his grandfather to provide for the spiritual needs of immigrants to Eretz Yisrael.

Hand outstretched, he would approach, accept the five-dollar bill with his glowing smile, and leave the giver with a hail of brachos.

One morning, I saw him come into the Dzibo beis medrash in the Uptown neighborhood just as davening ended. Most of the regulars knew exactly who the slim man with the radiant face was, but one Yid, eager to get to the last of the cheese Danishes and rapidly dwindling Old Williamsburg bottle, said, “I just gave you last week!”

It was uncomfortable. This wasn’t a random collector looking for lunch money, but a genuine tzaddik, son of a tzaddik, grandson of a tzaddik, collecting for a different cause than the one the previous week. (And who knows how many other causes there had been between the two?)

“Ahhh,” said the tzaddik with the outstretched hand as he flashed a grateful smile, “takkeh, indeed. Tizkeh l’mitzvos, you should be gebentsht.”

Then he continued his dance through shul, through life.

What a beautiful person.

Then, Rav Yisroel Avrohom Portugal, the Rebbe of Skulen, was niftar, and this Yid from Montreal was plucked from this existence, crowned as Skulener Rebbe in his father’s place.

The post He Belonged to Everyone        first appeared on Mishpacha Magazine.

MY association with this magazine is a couple of decades old, baruch Hashem, and one of the nicer features of the relationship is the lack of a journalistic agenda.

In the wider world, media has discovered its own power. The theory of “media salience” proposes that some issues are not so important to the public, but by consistently focusing on them, the media gives them significance. So, for example, even if readers don’t have strong feelings about global warming, the media can make them believe that it is a pressing problem, and this will affect how they vote, or where they allocate their energy or resources.

At this magazine, the starting point of any position is that it is firmly rooted in Shulchan Aruch, mesorah, and the viewpoint of contemporary gedolim, but outside of that, there is no agenda. Still, sometimes there is a sustained focus on a particular topic, and that itself — even if it’s not exactly an agenda — can turn a small problem into a much bigger one.

Before I continue, a serious trigger warning: I know this topic is sensitive, and that it provokes people, so I want to make clear that I do not believe vaping is safe.

Let’s talk this out. A few months back, the magazine ran a story about a boy who sustained a collapsed lung as a result of vaping, by a mother in distress writing to spare others a similar ordeal, chas v’shalom. A few weeks ago, in the popular Family First health section, there was a piece by a respected pediatrician cautioning readers about vaping: It’s not just a little unsafe, it’s very unsafe, was the conclusion.

Then, a couple weeks ago, there was an op-ed in the main magazine, with a bigger headline and more space allocated to the very same cause. I know it’s not an agenda, and I also know that the data is real and it is concerning. But running articles like these will not achieve any goal, unless the goal is to cause more hand-wringing and fearmongering.

Mimah nafshach, as they say in yeshivos: The mothers already believe this, as did the fathers, so they don’t need more information. The bochurim already know this, and yet, for whatever reason, they are nevertheless vaping. So the added two or three or ten articles won’t change anything. No bochur is waiting for just that one more statistic to find the strength to quit.

Ela mai, what will happen? What will happen is that the poor mother will be even more upset about it, and when her son has his brief, well-deserved off-Shabbos from yeshivah, she will be hounding him. Nothing will change, except that it will be a little less pleasant for both of them.

Bochurim are low-hanging fruit, though, so readers get to be strong and assertive by taking a position that is universally accepted, agreeing with one another and nodding along, regardless of what ideological or communal differences they might have.

I don’t know why bochurim vape. It is disturbing. But they do. Perhaps it’s because they bear the hardest workload of any demographic in the frum world — a workday, even in an average yeshivah, of about ten to twelve hours of toiling over and mastering Aramaic words and sophisticated concepts, along with the intense effort required to become bnei Torah, training themselves to safeguard hearts and minds. They are teenage boys, struggling with the changing reality of their very selves, with restlessness and too much energy and the usual adolescent struggle for self-worth and a clear identity.

Now, if you’re still reading.

Everyone — unless he is an AI-generated version of a human, or a serial liar — admits to facing challenges and temptations, and bochurim are no different. A lot of stuff has to happen between the ages of 17 and 22 for them to be successful adults, and the pressure is great. If you don’t see a vice, that doesn’t mean it’s not there. It just means it’s less visible.

If they were looking for vices — real ones, the sort that have the potential to destroy a person — they could find them without having to invest too much resourcefulness. It’s not like when we were teenagers and sinning took ingenuity.

The “you guys are the most heroic generation ever” speech is not just a cliché, but actual real life.

Now, imagine some rich sponsor looking to make a mark on the world. He decides to sponsor huge, eye-catching signs that will hang in bungalow colony shuls this summer. In oversized letters, kiddush attendees will be cautioned about the fact that pickled herring is high in sodium and very not recommended by the Pulmonary Hypertension Association, or that too many shots of whiskey can lead to cognitive decline.

I don’t predict great success for that sort of campaign.

It’s just noise, you know? Like, the donor gets to pat himself on the back for being proactive, but anyone who is a little geribben knows it will not change a thing, except to maybe force people to have one more shot.

(Hey, lay off our kiddush! We work hard all week, trying to support our families, help our married children, stay current with the daf and just keep it all together! Bug off. L’chayim!)

And these are adults!

Another magazine article on the dangers of vaping achieves nothing toward the goal. It just further riles up the ones who were already riled up.

But I get it. It’s a vice that doesn’t tempt most adults, so we get to feel virtuous.

Ayy, you’ll ask, it really is dangerous. How dare we remain silent?

Okay, then, let’s at least alternate topics in the new “Family Perils” column. We can talk about the effects of the skinny latte and the research connecting the use of artificial sweeteners with stroke or heart disease, or about how the acesulfame potassium in your diet drink triggers an insulin release, leading to cravings and actually stalling fat loss. Not geshmak, eh?

So here’s my plea, dear editors who display great moral courage and self-confidence in having allowed this piece to go to print. If you need to stick vaping into the roster just to maintain balance, add an extra disclaimer on those weeks, like the surgeon general’s warning, something about the positive effects that learning Torah with toil and exertion has on the world, or a note about how much brachah is generated for all of us when a bochur who isn’t that strong in learning pushes himself to chazzer the Gemara one more time.

Not as dramatic, but this effect of what they are doing is not speculation or conjecture; it’s fact, proven again and again, generation after generation.

Legends! Torah gives life and they — our heroes in black and white — are the ones keeping us alive.

So before the Shabbos off or bein hazmanim, consider clipping that last line and leaving it lying around for them to see. If you are proud of them, maybe they will appreciate their own role as well.

And then, who knows what kind of smart decisions they might make?

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 1020)

The post Low-Hanging Fruit first appeared on Mishpacha Magazine.

Mai Har Sinai? Har she- yardah sinah l’umos ha’olam alav. (Shabbos 89a)

It would seem that the hate is connected with our having received the Torah. Why is that? Do you feel this fierce, illogical hate toward someone who earns a PhD in molecular physics?

The hate, perhaps, is not about what we got, but more about what it means.

In every class, there is a kid who asks the rebbi a question just as the recess bell rings. (Later, as a rebbi, I discovered that the annoyance the kids feel toward their fellow student is not even close to… whatever.)

It is never appreciated. Leave us alone and let us go play ball.

If the neighbor on the rigorous diet who never cheats and goes running in the rain were miserable about it, you could live with him. But his pride and exuberance is what gets you. He loves his diet, and you can barely get up off the couch to glare at him as he tears past your window. (For sure listening to a shiur and no doubt ahead of the daf, guaranteed. It’s the same type.)

For the world, it’s been 3,300 years’ worth of ideas, each one capturing the attention of society, dictating behavior and convention for a while, then fading away as something shinier and newer comes along.

For us, we never really let go of the original idea, sticking with that program. The whole neighborhood is still trying diets that allow them to eat what they want — but don’t make them happy.

I write this because of what happened to America. Or better, what is happening to America. Another glorious empire that promised so much, founded on such noble, admirable principles, fallen victim to hate and insecurity — a symptom of not having a clear identity and mission.

I don’t know much about business, or how the markets work, but I do know, for example, that crypto was a weird concept that no one could really explain. Then, some people (and there’s one in every shul) were suddenly very rich cause they chapped it, and jumped in. We were happy for them.

Then, suddenly, they were wiped out because crypto was a sham, and we were sad for them. (The words “happy” and “sad” are being used loosely here — the emotions may or may not have been reversed.)

I think it’s back up now, but you get the point. No one can say that crypto is the best investment ever, because it’s been up and down.

TO be the best investment ever, value has to hold steady, or increase. It has to be the asset that you can still count on when every other asset in the portfolio has dipped.

At the Mir dinner a few months ago, one of the most powerful moments of the night came in a speech from a balabos who conveyed the most profound, simple truth.

Over the last few weeks, there was a phrase running through my mind, a lullaby that a generation of Yiddishe mothers sang to their children.

Toirah, these women hummed, iz di beste sechoirah.

Five words.

Five words that have played in the ears of Yiddishe kinderlach, but sometimes, it can take decades — the child all grown up, with children and grandchildren of his own — until he fully grasps the depth of the song.

I have spent many years in business. I have learned to recognize value in commodities, properties, and stocks, and some of them developed value, but about none of them can I say with conviction that they are the beste sechoirah.

Investments, deals, and portfolios have failed the test of time, but Torah endures — the time, the heart, the energy, and the resources we invested in it making us proud and grateful.

What made the message resonate was how frank and honest it was, the fact that Mr. Ralph Herzka works in the mortgage industry, and it hasn’t been the easiest few years in that space.

He, a child all grown up, with children and grandchildren of his own, had fully grasped the depth of the song.

Sometimes, in a foundering world, it’s good to take a step back and remind ourselves of what we have.

Mothers, teach your children to sing that song.

I want to share my own, original vort here. Granted, it’s not very good, not the sort with which you will impress your shver, but still.

The question is a legitimate one: Why did Klal Yisrael sleep soundly through the night before Matan Torah, so much so that the Ribbono shel Olam came and found them asleep in the morning? (Shir Hashirim Rabbah 1:12.)

Chazal say that they had been counting down the days until they received the Torah, filled with excitement and energy, so how could they oversleep on the day itself?

Here’s the somewhat cringy vort.

To sleep is to remain the same, comfortable and content. One who is restless and looking for change cannot sleep.

Hence, the term “woke,” which is very different from awake. Awake means alert and attuned, open to change — and open to forgiveness and self-reflection as well. Woke means furious and anguished and censorious of whatever was.

The Torah will never change. Before receiving it, the people went to sleep, proclaiming that they were just fine. The sleep was a message that this was not a seething, frenzied movement occupying highways, but a calm, contented, grateful people: not restless, but restful.

I may be dreaming, said the Ponevezher Rav, but I am not sleeping. Here, they may have been sleeping, but they were not tired.

Shavuos is our anniversary, always a special time for a couple — but there is something especially meaningful about the anniversary after the couple has endured a challenge together.

It’s been a year. The Torah carried us — those on benches gave their all for those on the front, faces radiant as they learned through bein hazmanims and afternoon breaks. Those on the front, faces worn and streaked, glowed when showing pictures of their newly printed Daf Yomi Gemaras. The world came crashing down, and the beste sechoirah did not go down in value, but up.

And we carried it too. We accepted it, right? We slept soundly, purposefully, indicating that we were truly comfortable with the decision.

May this be the happiest anniversary yet.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 1015)

The post The Best Merchandise first appeared on Mishpacha Magazine.

At what point do we press the panic button?

No one wants to be the “it feels like Germany in 1938” guy, a prophet of doom thundering about the end of American Jewish life when people are trying to enjoy a new type of tequila at the kiddush. But at the same time, it feels tone-deaf to haul an extra-large meat board into your home as you pass through the Free Palestine protesters in the front yard.

I had been wondering about the balance between carrying on as normal (for the children) and waking up to a new reality (for yourself) when I ended up in Toronto, a guest at an especially innovative gathering.

It was, to borrow a popular cliché, “not a fundraiser,” though there was a carving station and mixologist and the room was filled with philanthropists and executive directors.

The goal was not to raise money. For real. Called Impact 2024, it was hosted by a cross-section of Toronto mosdos and organizations, the most generous donors and most dedicated executive directors gathered around a figurative table just to talk.

The relationship between the donor base and those who willingly choose to make out a career out of balancing budgets, soliciting, arranging events, and borrowing to heroically make payroll, and then doing the whole thing again the next month, is not unlike a marriage, two forces pulling the communal wagon together.

Those who carry the back-end of our mosdos (whatever their title might be — just like one day, stewardesses became flight attendants, fundraisers became executive directors, who then became directors of development, and — oh, even gvirim got a new name this week, Rabbi Motti Rapaport of Relief Canada referring to them with the elegant title of “stakeholders”) give their neshamos to the job. The donors give their money, called damim by Chazal, since one who gives money is giving his essence. Both sides are investing their lifeblood.

The goal of this event was to take a relationship that was becoming impersonal — everyone is busy, overwhelmed, and distracted — and make it personal again. I know that you don’t mind giving what you gave last year, but can we do it better? Can we do it smarter? Needs have changed, so shouldn’t those who are providing those needs also consider adapting?

The conversations, conducted through a series of short, honest panel discussions, revolved around these topics, and one comment has been replaying in my mind since that night.

Rabbi Elliot Diamond, CEO of Aish Toronto, said, “Throughout Jewish history, there have been periods in which we had to press reset, to take a step back and not just continue to do things because we always did them that way. Everyone understands that this is one of those reset moments.”

He answered my question. For those who don’t want to press the panic button, there’s the reset button.

We have to let go of the false sense that everything is okay; the images, sounds, and messages coming forth from the campuses, shopping malls, and highways of America and Europe are telling us differently.

Now, where that reset should be and what areas need overhaul are not my department. There are gedolei Yisrael who make those decisions. (Random data compiled by reading the comments on a frum website shows that there are, in fact, enough crises and issues facing us, and a sincere reader shouldn’t have too much trouble finding an appropriate disaster area.)

For a reset to work, there are two steps.

First, people have to talk — with their rabbanim, friends, spouses, neighbors (and with themselves!) — but the honest conversation has to happen. What are we doing, and how can we do it better? What was good enough eight months ago isn’t good enough today, because being engaged in a war means that we are all in.

And second, they have to believe in their own ability to be great, to tap into the koach revealed by the Rebbe who saw inside every Yid: Rabi Shimon bar Yochai.

The one who revealed penimiyus haTorah, the inner dimension of Torah, also revealed the penimiyus of a Yid. He saw the depth, the passion and the yearning.

In Toronto, there was a sense that it’s not enough to have a secretary issue a generous check anymore; as the world rumbles with Chevlei Mashiach, the chance to give tzedakah is a means of survival, and being connected this way is the most important thing in the world. We’re doing it anyhow, so let’s take a moment to appreciate what it is we’re doing and why we do it.

Find the wise, honest people in your life and sit down with them. Is it your Shabbos table that needs an upgrade? How you act in shul? Could you be working harder to help others find shidduchim?

The other side is feeling the virtue of their cause. If we shake ourselves up, maybe that will be viewed favorably enough in Heaven to open the floodgates of rachamim. At the very least, we will have told Him that we get it — we’re not panicking, but we are resetting.

Halachah hi, b’yadua, she’Eisav sonei l’Yaakov. It is a law: it is known that Eisav hates Yaakov, Rabi Shimon bar Yochai taught.

Kol Yisrael bnei melachim heim. Every Jew has the status of a prince, Rabi Shimon bar Yochai taught, an opinion with relevant halachic implications.

The world has come together to bring a ra’ayah to his first teaching.

Now, it’s our turn to come together to bring a ra’ayah to the second one.

Let’s become a little greater, a little more real, a little more alive in our Yiddishkeit, pressing reset on the old way.

Look inside yourself and see what he saw.

Ashreichem Yisrael.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 1012)

The post Pressing the Button first appeared on Mishpacha Magazine.

Writing an opinion column for a popular magazine has several perks.

Here is something that is not one of them. I sometimes feel like a sheimos box for people’s ideas, the community-saving solutions developed over kiddush or a Shabbos meal.

The idea-developers carry these grand ideas around, and then, when they find somewhere safe to deposit them, they do so, feeling like they discharged their duty to society.

I already know the look, the glee in the eyes of the guy about to finally take the weight of the idea off his shoulders and shift responsibility to someone else — now, he can go back to reassure his shvogger/kiddush buddies/fellow think tank members that it’s being worked on.

I try not to get cornered, but it’s hard to move faster than walking inspiration.

I have already been accosted and informed that the delay between the chuppah and the first dance is destroying the schedules of Klal Yisrael and we’re giving too much power to the photographers (not a crazy thought, but no one is changing the wedding schedule because of a magazine column).

In a few weeks it will be, “Why can’t the schools and camps align their schedules?” (Also a fair observation, but also, assuredly, one that none of the administrators or camp directors need me to point out to them.)

This time, the eitzah is my own. I’m the activist here, and you get to listen.

Earlier this year, at the Agudah convention, I had the opportunity to discuss a favorite topic: shuls, rabbanim, balabatim, and the relationship between them.

Over the past half year, I have become more educated, hearing feedback from both sides along with some real catch-22 questions that need to be addressed.

For example: Balabatim would ideally like rabbanim who don’t just know their names and faces, but know them, their realities and situations. Several balabatim expressed the same desire — that the rav visit their home, if only once or twice a year, and sit with their wives and children as well. Nice, said a rav, but if the rav is paid like a part-time secretary, forced to work one or two other jobs to make ends meet, how is he supposed to find time to visit 40 or 50 homes a year and chat?

In many cases he works as a rebbi, dayan, mechaber seforim, paid chavrusa, etc. by day, and at night, he’d better show up at simchahs and stay till after the first dance (hijacked by the photographer, I know), and he’d better hope that no other shul member is making a siyum or a shloshim seudah, or being honored at a dinner at that same time. Balabatim are very sensitive.

The rav is expected to “be there” at times of challenge, and listen, empathize, advise, and guide. To help navigate shidduchim for your children and take phone calls from those asking about those children.

Balabatim would want their rabbanim to know them better — to be able stop a shul member passing by on Friday night to say Gut Shabbos and tell him he looks a bit stressed and is everything okay? (As an aside, for that to happen, people have to make it a point to walk by and say Gut Shabbos after davening.)

The topic is always relevant, but especially now, when life is especially complicated, a good rav is not a luxury, but a necessity.

Decades ago, Rav Shlomo Freifeld would caution American couples planning to move to Eretz Yisrael that they faced a real risk of “getting lost.” A family has to belong somewhere, he would say, and in America, the shul provides that spiritual, ideological, and social home, but at the time, there were not yet such shuls in Yerushalayim.

Eventually, American families living in Eretz Yisrael formed their own kehillos, and this winter, I discovered something even more heartening. I spent Shabbos in Ramat Eshkol, and went to daven with my son-in-law — at a minyan formed by young American couples who are not making aliyah, and might only be there for a year or two; it makes no difference.

They have a minyan of their own, in a rented apartment, with a real rav to whom they pay a salary — a rav who meets each couple separately so they have a voice of stability when they are far from home.

Fittingly, the minyan is named for Shlomie Gross — who (as recounted in Rabbi Shimon Finkelman’s fantastic ArtScroll biography) was the sort of balabos who made his shul a success and was a soldier to his rav.

Anyhow, in that same conversation, Rabbi Freifeld spoke of families in America who daven in three different shuls over a Shabbos, based on weather, schedule, kiddush menu, and mood, saying, “That’s not a shul — that’s a shopping spree.”

To have a shul means, ideally, to have a kevius, a set place.

I used to look warily at the “makom kavua” people, thinking that anyone who says, “Excuse me, you’re in my place,” has unresolved issues — Big deal, take a siddur and sit somewhere else, do you need your seat to feel like you belong somewhere? — but now I see it differently. (Or maybe I also have… whatever. Forget it.)

Now, I see it differently — beyond the halachic implications of a makom kavua and what being a real member of a shul does for the rav-member relationship.

And this is my personal save-the-Jews epiphany, so consider yourself cornered (just, for accuracy’s sake, try to imagine it happening at the kabbalas panim of a wedding, when you just filled up a plate with sesame chicken and rice, let’s say, and you’re hungry after driving a few hours, and you know that soon they will clear away the food, and then you’re not eating anything nogeia until the main course, if you’re still there bichlal — talk about Klal Yisrael issues! — and the solution-sharer detains you before you managed to get a fork, and now you’re stuck with a heaping plate and no way to eat it).

Having your seat in shul provides something else: sheer comfort.

It’s been a long, difficult winter. As a great man remarked: The war in Eretz Yisrael is not the expression of Middas Hadin, but a symptom of it. The war is the most tangible and obvious effect of a period of hester panim, and it is felt in different ways throughout the Jewish world.

The only out that we know of is through tefillah — Yisrael, they have no strength other than with their mouths!

Having your seat — your shtender, your siddur, your stuff — gives a sense that this tiny spot belongs to you and you can freely share what’s on your heart.

The world has become scary, and it’s nice to have somewhere to run. Somewhere to speak, or to cry, or to feel.

And hopefully, somewhere to give thanks.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 1008)

The post Consider Yourself Cornered first appeared on Mishpacha Magazine.

Photos: ArtScroll/Mesorah

I’d never met Rebbe Yisroel Alter, the Beis Yisroel of Gur, as he passed away close to 50 years ago. Yet the passage of time actually made this biography project easier — because the Beis Yisroel, with his immeasurable impact on a nation still reeling, was such a complex personality, such a nuanced story, that it’s only now we can marvel at the precision of a Divine plan that planted him at that juncture in history. With the release of The Beis Yisroel, maybe we can still feel the impact

My friends sometimes make fun of me (which is what good friends do), mocking the fact that I breathlessly claim how each new book is different than any of the previous ones I’ve written and I have never been so inspired/moved/determined/motivated.

It’s an okay joke, but it’s also really true that every story awakens parts of a person they didn’t know existed, pulling them into a different dimension.

I never saw the Beis Yisroel — Rebbe Yisroel Alter of Gur — who was niftar in 1977 when I was just a year old, though we did have a connection which I only learned about two years ago, when I was unsure whether or not this project was for me.

I asked my father for his opinion, and he told me a story.

On a visit to the Holy Land, my father went in to the Beis Yisroel with a kvittel. The Gerrer Rebbe scanned the paper, a smile playing on his lips.

“Drai techter — three daughters?” he asked my father.

Seeing an opportunity, my father suggested that if the Rebbe would bless him with a son, surely it would come true.

The Rebbe nodded. “You will have,” he said.

A year later, I was born, and then it was back to sisters again, five of them in total, bli ayin hara, and no brothers.

In Ger, like in most Polish chassidic courts, wonder-stories don’t impress anyone: As the Kotzker Rebbe said, playing on the words we say in Maariv each night, “Osos umofsim b’admas bnei Cham” (literally, “Who wrought us signs and wonders in the land of Cham”), as “Signs and wonders are appropriate for the children of Cham.”

The story above would be seen as nice, but not much more than that. For stories to be worth anything, they have to obligate.

There are enough such stories, but — in the style of Polish chassidus — they do not obligate in an overt way, and they are not the sort of stories that a teacher can tell students and then neatly sign off with “what we see from here, kinderlach, is the importance of…”

The Lev Simcha, Rebbe Simcha Bunim Alter, the Beis Yisroel’s brother who succeeded him as Rebbe, gave expression to this.

Not long after the Lev Simcha assumed the mantle of leadership, a chassid came in and told the new Rebbe about how his son had been learning in the Gerrer Yeshivas Sfas Emes, and he had developed a serious illness. The Beis Yisroel had assured the father that there was no reason to worry, and the bochur had recovered, showing no signs of having ever been ill.

“I am happy the boy is fine,” the Lev Simcha responded, “but that is not a moifes. If you want to know the real moifes my brother did, it is that he took bochurim and turned them into fiery talmidei chachamim and ovdim — that was his moifes.”

To make a sick person healthy is necessary, of course, but it is not the goal. The goal is to come a bit closer, to work a bit harder, to reach a bit higher

The post His Pleas Still Echo    first appeared on Mishpacha Magazine.