The tremendous achievements in Eretz Yisrael over the last century caused many of our people to believe that a secular redemption was all we needed. So why did the accompanying ideology fail?

It seems that the world is in a very sorry state. Earthquakes, wars, people fleeing for their lives, and oh yes, Covid is still here too, in case anyone forgot.

In Eretz Yisrael, another wave of terror, an internal war against the very meaning of Judaism, the country’s economy and security in worse shape than it’s been in years, and a government existing in its own bubble of arrogance. We seem to be facing a new world disorder as we prepare for the Seder.

And despite all its efforts at normalization, the State of Israel is still considered not quite legitimate, even in the eyes of other Western-style nations. For some reason, the longer it endures, the more doubt is cast in the international community on its right to exist. In every corner of the world, the local pundits keep asking when the State of Israel will finally disappear.

Some years ago, The Atlantic ran an article predicting that Israel will be wiped off the map before celebrating its centennial. The article listed all the factors that put Israel in critical condition, and actually, they were all true. That article merely made a prediction, but in Europe many voices are calling, almost in so many words, for the dismantlement of the State of Israel as the only way of ending the Middle East conflict. Even Arabs serving as Members of Knesset dare, each in his or her own style, to express hope that this state will fall. And meanwhile Iran is doing all it can to produce a bomb that, according to their agenda, will “uproot the Zionist cancer from the Middle East.”

The would-be destroyers are in our own midst, too, dreaming of the demise of the Jewish State.   There are the post-Zionists, the abscess that has spread in our ailing body politic. Ever-diligent and watchful, they seize any chance, any media channel that reaches an international audience, to urge the enlightened public to boycott Israel on all levels, with the aim of weakening the state out of existence. The vicious articles they write, thinly disguised as informed expressions of ideology, shamelessly describe Israel as a Fascist, Nazi state in order to stoke the fires of the nations’ hatred toward us.

One Israeli professor published an article against a foreign investigative reporter who’d written that   Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians is comparable to the South African apartheid. “There is no comparison at all,” the enlightened Israeli wrote in his indignant response. “The State of Israel is ten times worse.”

Many Israelis of a patriotic bent are also feeling pessimistic about the fate of the Zionist dream, as they see the state itself apparently infected by a death wish. They feel they’ve gotten poor returns for the loyalty they’ve invested in their homeland. Someone recently told me, “For 2,000 years we lived in exile, and for 100 years in delusion.”

The self-destruct mechanism is especially blatant in the state’s loss of its Jewish identity, no longer present even as theatrical scenery. For this we can thank the folks who really run the country, not to mention the hundreds of thousands on non-Jews who’ve landed, and continue to land, on Israel’s shores thanks to the distorted Law of Return.

This is a snapshot of Israel in its sorry state as we enter Pesach 5782. What many have called reishis tzemichas geulaseinu, the beginning of the budding of our redemption, looks more like the beginning of the budding of our undoing.

Or perhaps not. Maybe it really is the beginning of the dawning of the light.

Pesach brings a unique opportunity to take a deeper look at what our eyes are actually seeing. We only need to remove the outer cover from the disconcerting events that are currently bombarding us, and the picture becomes clearer and brighter. Something is going on behind the scenes, under the surface of all these apparent catastrophes, and on Pesach we have the ability to get a glimpse of this higher, Divinely-driven reality. For we know from Chazal’s teachings that Geulas Mitzrayim, our first redemption, is the paradigm for the final Geulah as well.

In the Pesach Haggadah we read:

“And I shall pass through the land of Egypt on this night: I and not an angel. And I shall strike every firstborn in the land of Egypt: I and not a Seraph, and upon all the gods of Egypt I shall execute judgments: I and not an emissary. I am Hashem: I and no other.”

Why doesn’t Hashem act through an emissary? The Maharal of Prague explains how a direct act of HaKadosh Baruch Hu differs from His Will carried out by an emissary. The first nine Plagues, carried out through emissaries and not through a full and absolute revelation of Divine Hashgachah, leave room for a human being to seek natural explanations. In its desperate urge to escape from the truth, the human mind is capable of putting forth any theory.

Makkas Bechoros, however, was different. It was a full revelation of Hashem’s power. No natural explanation, even the most intricate, can account for a symptomless plague that target only the firstborn, only in Egyptian households, causing instant death, while their Jewish neighbors were unaffected. This was the manifestation of “I and no other.”

At that moment, Bnei Yisrael, as well as the Egyptians, knew retroactively that the previous Makkos, too, were acts of our Gd and no other power. It was a moment of clarity, of awakening from the illusion of belief in idolatry. This is another level of meaning in the Torah’s words, “upon all the gods of Egypt I shall execute judgments” — not only were the idols physically knocked down and shattered on that night of Divine revelation, but at the same time, their illusory power in the eyes of their worshippers burst like a bubble. Jewish eyes too saw the truth clearly now. They no longer attributed the events around them to anything other than the Borei Olam, the Gd of Israel. They were ready for Geulah.

For the past century, we’ve been confused. The astounding story of millions of Jews who returned to Zion fooled us into thinking that the solution to the Jewish problem lay in normalizing the Jewish People as a nation among all the others. The tremendous achievements that were made in our resettlement of Eretz Yisrael made many of our people believe that a secular redemption was all we needed, that we could reject the Torah and even fight against it.

But Jewish history is imprinted with the eternal seals of am levadad yishkon, and “Hashem alone guided them, and there was no alien power with Him” (Devarim 32:12). As the years pass, it becomes ever clearer that the resettlement of Eretz Yisrael has been more successful than anyone anticipated, baruch Hashem, but the accompanying ideology has failed.

So where does this inevitably lead us?

To the clear knowledge that everything happening around us and among us is not a sign of our imminent demise, chalilah, but quite the opposite. It heralds our release from attachment to “the gods of Egypt,” to all the “isms” upon which we hung our poor, human hopes, every last one of which deceived us. And it heralds our long-awaited recognition that our existence as a People and our standing in the world depend solely on “I and no other.”

Chag kosher  v’samei’ach  l’chol Am Yisrael.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 907)

The post I and No Other first appeared on Mishpacha Magazine.

After such a successful harvest, why not enjoy the profits in your cozy home instead of spending the week in a flimsy hut?

We all know that on Succos, we have a positive commandment to be joyful, but it’s puzzling: How can a person be instructed to be happy? And what are we supposed to be specifically joyful about on Succos? About eating our meals in a temporary hut out in the yard instead of in our dining room?

Let’s figure this out by closely examining the Torah’s words: “You shall make for yourself the festival of Succos, seven days, when you gather in [the produce] of your granary and your winepress. You shall rejoice in your festival… and you shall be only joyful” (Devarim 16:13-15).

One key phrase here is often misunderstood: “When you gather in [the produce] of your granary and your winepress” seems to evoke a natural simchah. Succos comes at the harvest season, indeed a happy time for our forefathers in the Biblical Land of Israel, when they saw the fruit of their labor. The sheaves of grain, bundled and lined up in rows, made their hearts swell. Their year of toil had paid off, and their silos were full. This was clearly a time to feel happy. But is this really the simchah that the Torah intended? Does the Torah need to command a person to be joyful while indulging in a feast? Who wouldn’t rejoice in the fruit of his labor in the field and vineyard, to see his granary full and his winepress busily crushing vats of grapes?

Clearly, the simchah required during the festival is of a different sort. It is a new breed of simchah, and as we’ll see, this joy is linked to the mitzvah of dwelling in a succah.

The succah, as we know, is meant to remind us of our sojourn in the Wilderness, as the Torah says: “So that your generations should know that in succahs I made the Children of Israel to dwell, when I took them out of the land of Egypt” (Vayikra 23:39).

Okay, so we should sit in a succah in order to recall Yetzias Mitzrayim. But why are we preserving this memory on the 14th of Tishrei specifically?

But Tishrei was chosen, for indeed, it comes in the joyous harvest season. True, when we “gather in the produce of our granary and our winepress,” we automatically feel a surge of joy that needs no prompting from the Torah.

The great commentators well understood the message the Torah wished to convey by timing the mitzvah of succah to coincide with the harvest season. For this is actually the ideal time to command a man to leave his home and fortress and spend at least seven days in a temporary dwelling:

“So that the generations to come should not let their hearts become proud at harvest time, when their houses are full of goods. Rather, they should think of their eternal home and of their end. They should know and take to heart ‘that I made the Children of Israel to dwell in succahs,’ to inculcate the message that this world is but a guest house and a temporary dwelling” (Malbim on the pasuk).

It becomes clear, then, that the purpose of a succah is to curb the harmful influences that come with the joy of accumulating property. Sin crouches at the barn door at harvest time. Along with the joy of a successful crop comes a certain smug sense of possessiveness. The feeling of wealth often brings with it more than a trace of pride. It gives the ego a pat on the back and congratulates it on a job well done. At the same time, imperceptibly, a sense of disdain and superiority develops toward the less successful, those who haven’t “made it.” And now, hidden in the recesses of the heart, a seed has been sown for divisions between people.

And that’s not all. Harvest time, or any time a person feels crowned with success, has another effect on the human personality. Success engenders pride, and as a result, material achievement becomes an end instead of a means. Then another evil seed is sown deep in the heart, driving a person to pursue material wealth at any cost. Like the mythical Sisyphus, he can never attain his goal, because he always wants more, yet he compulsively keeps up the chase, sometimes paying for it dearly.

Walling off one’s heart from others and the relentless pursuit of material goods are the chief enemies of simchah, the robbers that deprive both the individual and the community of happiness.

That is the sad story of humanity: It is not money, but the pursuit of money that has caused the desperate craving to climb to the zenith of prestige, by whatever yardstick one measures it and even if one has to claw his way there. It has turned our world into a hunting ground where the unachievable is endlessly pursued. Whatever is achieved cannot be enjoyed, because there’s always someone else who’s achieved more.

And so, precisely at harvest time, when the human propensity for greed is at a peak, the Torah places the mitzvah of succah before us to temper our natural urges, to restore balance to the human heart.

It is a mitzvah for rich and poor alike — “for every citizen in Israel” — to leave one’s simple house or one’s elegant mansion or penthouse, to leave the status that separates one man from another and go live for one week outside the material framework one has created for oneself. To live in structures that are all essentially the same, structures with flimsy walls that shake in the wind, that show the sky through a leafy roof that keeps out neither rain nor sun. A week of equality, imbued with a sense of transience, giving a fresh, healthier outlook on the property left behind in the house.

Every Jew knows that the whole nation is now sitting outside in their succahs, and this temporary disengagement from the comforts of home, this transience and minimalism, are reminders of the ephemeral nature of this world. Now a person can let go of the false sense of security in his property. His burning drive to obtain wealth and all its appurtenances is toned down, and through the cracks in the wall of materialism, a man gets a glimpse of others once more.

Rav Yitzchak Arama writes in Akeidas Yitzchak, “This is the special meaning of this festival… we go out to our little succah with only the meals for each day as it comes and furnished with only a bed, a table, a chair and a lamp, and this is a wonderful way of arousing one’s soul not to be concerned with these matters, for the necessities are enough… [The minimum size of a succah] which is seven tefachim in length, seven in width, and ten in height, teaches us, first of all, about a life of satisfaction with the minimum; that is to say, limit yourself to what is necessary and do not seek great things, because if you train yourself in this way you will want for nothing, and if you allow yourself luxuries, nothing will satisfy you.”

There you have it: Brotherhood, equality, and simplicity as opposed to mere exultation over one’s own success in winning material gains, a short-lived pleasure that always leads to sadness in the end, is the secret of true simchah. This year as we enter the succah, let’s all take stock, be grateful for what we have without chasing our tails, and experience the true simchah the Torah promises.

Chag samei’ach.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 878)

The post Happy Returns first appeared on Mishpacha Magazine.

Poalei  Agudas Yisrael

Bnei Brak, Israel

Rabbi Moshe Grylak

Idon’t remember being inside a shul until I was ten years old.

Until then, I’d been a child refugee on the run from the Nazis. By the time I was six years old, I’d already fled from Belgium to France and then to Switzerland. I’d been separated from my parents and forced to assume responsibility for my little sister in a strange new country.

In 1945, our family was reunited and we left a scarred Europe behind to make aliyah. We settled in the fledgling city of Bnei Brak, and I began to reclaim the childhood that had been snatched away: friends, games, cheder, and shul.

Our shul, known as the “Pai Shul” — an acronym for Poalei Agudas Yisrael — was housed in a classroom in the first and only Talmud Torah at that time in the city of Torah and chassidus: Talmud Torah Rabi Akiva. All week during regular school hours, young boys learned there. During off hours, the desks and chairs served as the shul’s furniture, with the addition of a plain aron kodesh, the type found on army bases today.

Most of the mispallelim were Holocaust survivors, still reeling from the traumas they’d been through. Each of them had left someone behind — a father, a mother, brothers and sisters, a wife and children, if not all of the above. During the daytime routine, they’d try to rebuild. But after davening, they’d linger in little groups and talk.

As a little boy, I would hover in the shadows and listen as they reminisced about their horrific experiences in Auschwitz, in the ghettos, in hiding, in the forests, and so on. I don’t remember much of what they said, but the atmosphere in that classroom-turned-shul still lives in my subconscious.

The post Tears, Ashes, and Grit   first appeared on Mishpacha Magazine.

We’re a people of inquiry commissions, thinking we can solve our problems by finding the culprit on which to pin the blame. But the greatest inquiry commission is that which frees a person from the shackles of self-interest and brings him face to face with the truth — and with himself.

Commissions of inquiry, investigative committees, parliamentary and state panels, international criminal courts and human rights councils and the like are appointed right and left by governments all over, ostensibly “to determine the facts.”

Whatever we may think of these investigations — some handled with integrity, others mere political posturing — one thing is certain: We are all now about to appear before the only committee that is really able to bring the truth to light, to extract it from its hiding place deep in each and every heart. This is the Supreme Tribunal, whose authority is predicated on the rulership of HaKadosh Baruch Hu, Creator of the Universe. And therein lies the difference between what awaits us on Rosh Hashanah and all those earthly investigative committees, which truly wield no clout at all.

Voluntarily or not, we stand before the Divine Investigative Committee with full transparency. We know that Hashem sees the most hidden levels of our hears, even those that we conceal from ourselves: “Before You all hidden things are revealed, for there is no forgetting before Your Throne of Glory, and nothing is concealed from Your eyes.” We know we can’t evade the truth, that we must acknowledge our errors, our lapses, our failures, our misdeeds. No media spin will avail us, and even our enormously creative power of self-justification, the silver-tongued voice of rationalization, will fall silent at the moment of judgment. There will be no twisting our wrongdoings out of shape until they look like the choicest of mitzvos.

None of this works on Rosh Hashanah. All the tricks our yetzer uses to deceive us about ourselves are simply disabled on these days, overwhelmed into submission by our awareness that we’re standing before the One Who knows all secrets. The words of Unesaneh Tokef hit us with full force:

“It is the truth that You are the Judge, the One Who presents the evidence, the Knower and the Witness, the One Who writes and seals, Who counts and makes the accounting, and You remember all that has been forgotten, and You open the book of memories…”

What is this “book” that is opened?

Rav Dessler explains in Michtav MeEliyahu that this book, which “reads itself,” is the human heart. In other words, a person reviews the documentation of his life, examining it with complete objectivity and transparency.

“And the signature of every man is upon it.” That is to say, all of us review this documentation of our lives, and after thorough examination, we put our signature on it, confirming its accuracy with the appropriate mixture of pain and regret over our backsliding misdeeds, and pride and pleasure over our growth and good deeds. No teams of lawyers huddle together, planning how to make our misdeeds look innocent or how to blame them on someone else. We stand alone to face the truth revealed in our own hearts.

This is the greatness inherent in this personalized “investigative committee.” It frees a person from the shackles of self-interest, brings him face-to-face with the truth — and with himself.

Rav Yerucham Levovitz, the legendary mashgiach of Mir, writes: “Teshuvah is the highest and loftiest level, for it is the place where he is himself, that is, where he returns to himself. And the true self is higher and loftier than all the other levels of man” (Daas Chochmah UMussar, vol. 3 p. 171).

This amazing encounter with one’s authentic self, behind all the masks he wears, is a return to the bereishis of his soul. Despite the pain that comes with it when we have to acknowledge the many times we’ve strayed, it’s nevertheless a joyful and elevating encounter. Self-discovery has its own purifying power.

This is the “investigative committee” that actually garners real, true answers for the individual and the klal — for the word teshuvah is dual in meaning: It means both “return” and “answer.” And these two ideas weave into one integrated concept: Return is the answer.

In contrast, politically motivated inquiry commissions are like plaster, covering up the cracks in the walls. No matter the topic under investigation, their goals are essentially the same: to pinpoint who is to blame for whatever has gone wrong. Look at the behavior of the parties under investigation, how they prepare to appear before the committee. They consult with lawyers, searching for every possible way of proving that someone else, anyone but them, is the culprit.

In the State of Israel specifically, these committees — and there are dozens of them, rearing their heads after every crisis or conflagration, from the Gaza war to the IDF shooting incidents to the Meron tragedy — have no real desire to actually get to the bottom of the issues at the root, because it will ultimately indict the ruling echelon and the moral abyss into which society has fallen. (This is not, chas v’shalom, to disclaim in the least the wonderful achievements of this country, which certainly can’t be ignored.)

But I wonder, why isn’t there a demand for a committee to be set up to investigate the illness itself, rather than just the symptoms? With courage, and most of all with objectivity, perhaps it’s time for an investigation to determine how and why Israeli political culture and its offshoot society have sunk to such a state of moral breakdown.

Of course we hear mealy-mouthed mumbling about the need to revive the values of Zionism or socialism, but the excusers themselves know deep down that these are nothing but expressions of nostalgia for the past. These visions, even from the point of view of those who once sincerely embraced them, have run out of steam. The last puff has evaporated. They prattle about the need to incorporate these values in the education of the nation’s youth, knowing even as they speak that they’re just trying to quiet their conscience. For, as Chazal teach us, he who is locked up in prison cannot free himself. Painful as it is to admit, modern secular Israeli society is like a person who is drowning in the sea and trying to save himself by holding on to his own hair — because he has nothing else to grab.

Signs of hope will start to glimmer only with the recognition that since the dawn of secular Zionism, the nation has been caught in an ideological loop — the self-contradicting concept of a secular, Western-style Jewish state — and that breaking out of this loop will require a great internal upheaval. May Hashem grant that this upheaval be entirely spiritual and not brought about through terrible and catastrophic events, chalilah.

To do our part to bring about an elevated, merciful upheaval, let’s remember in our prayers this Rosh Hashanah all our brothers and sisters who are sinking and don’t know what to grab hold of — and maybe it’s us too. Let’s think of every Jew, not just the ones in our minyan, when we say, “Uv’chein tein pachdecha… al kol maaseicha, v’eimas’cha al kol mah shebarasa… v’yeiasu kulam agudah achas l’avdecha b’levav shaleim.”

Let’s find the true answers. After all, we’re all in it together.

Kesivah v’chasimah tovah.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 876)

The post Meeting Yourself first appeared on Mishpacha Magazine.

If the Torah is so explicit with mitzvos of the Yamim Tovim, why the vagueness when it comes to the mitzvah of shofar on Rosh Hashanah? Why are we being sent all the way to halachos of the once-in-50-year Yovel to understand what a shofar blast is all about?

It’s now the height of summer vacation, but in little over a week we’ll start blowing the shofar again. It’s a sharp transition, but if we look closely, there is in fact an intimate connection between these weeks and the shofar of Elul and Rosh Hashanah.

The blowing of the shofar throughout Elul is a rehearsal of sorts for Rosh Hashanah, in which shofar is the principal mitzvah of the day. We’ve all learned throughout the years about the multi-layered significance of the shofar, with its power of awakening, to the annual Day of Reckoning.

And yet, it’s an intriguing point that nowhere in the Torah is there a stated chiyuv to blow the shofar on Rosh Hashanah. At least, it can’t be found explicitly in the parshiyos dealing with Rosh Hashanah. The pasuk (Bamidbar 9:1) only says that the day shall be a “Yom Teruah.” And in parshas Emor (Vayikrah 23:24) the expression used is “Zichron Teruah.” But there’s no explanation of what exactly teruah is, nor any mention of a shofar. The fact that the mitzvah of shofar isn’t stated explicitly actually forces us to delve deeper into the essence of the mitzvah.

And the wonder only intensifies if this fact is taken in the context of the rest of the parshah. In the section devoted to the various chagim, every other chag gets a rundown of our instructions for the day. The Torah provides an outline of the mitzvos of Pesach, Yom Kippur, Succos, and so on. But when it comes to Rosh Hashanah, all we get is this one ambiguous word: “Teruah.” What is teruah? How do you do it? There isn’t a single word about any of this. Isn’t it a little curious that of all the chagim, the Torah won’t explicitly tell us of the principal mitzvah of Rosh Hashanah?

As many readers are aware, Chazal derive the mitzvah of blowing shofar on Rosh Hashanah (Rosh Hashanah, daf 32) from a gezeirah shavah (parallel terminology) with the mitzvos of Yovel. In the parshah dealing with Yovel, the word “shofar” appears on two occasions, one of which is tied to the word teruah (“v’he’evartem shofar teruah”). Hence the Gemara concludes that the word teruah used in parshas Emor means teruah with a shofar.

But this raises a fundamental question: There’s a well-known dictum that “tadir v’eino tadir, tadir kodem” — that is, a mitzvah observed regularly takes precedence over a mitzvah observed infrequently. Now the mitzvah of shofar on Rosh Hashanah is observed annually, in every generation, in every place where there are Jews. All are required to hear it. Even in hospitals and the depths of prison cells, volunteers make sure every Jew gets to hear the electrifying, soul-stirring call of the shofar.

But the chiyuv of blowing shofar at the Yovel comes around only every 50 years, and that shofar is only blown on Yom Kippur in the Beis Hamikdash. Furthermore, the laws of Yovel only apply if there is a Beis Hamikdash and the majority of Klal Yisrael resides in their homeland. In other words, it hasn’t been applicable in 2,000 years. In light of this, wouldn’t it have been more appropriate if the gezeirah shavah were reversed? If the word “shofar,” in its relation to the concept of “teruah,” had appeared in the pasuk dealing with Rosh Hashanah instead? If the mitzvah of Yovel was derived through gezeirah shavah from Rosh Hashanah, and not the reverse? Additionally, such an alternate wording would harmonize the section of Rosh Hashanah with the more expanded pesukim dealing with the other chagim.

Obviously, there is great significance behind this omission. The Torah is intentionally sending those looking for instructions on Rosh Hashanah to the mitzvah of shofar blowing in Yovel, to teach something profound.

Regarding the mitzvos of Yovel it is written: “You shall proclaim freedom throughout the land for all its inhabitants… you shall return each man to his ancestral heritage and you shall return each man to his family” (Vayikrah 25, 10).

In the days of the Mikdash, every Jew experienced the Yovel at least once in his life. He drank in the complete freedom and equality that descended on Eretz Yisrael  that year.

Let’s try to imagine what that year actually looked like: In the year of Yovel during the time of the Beis Hamikdash, all the economic ties created through the warping pressures of life were released, and with them their effects on society. People so far gone financially that they sold themselves into slavery held their heads high once again, as free men (“and you shall return each man to his family”). Family plots sold by their owners under dire straits returned to the original holders. The huge estates were dismantled and the original distribution of the land was restored. The accumulation of all capital in the hands of a small minority wasn’t possible under Torah life. Every time the 50th year rolled around economic life was regulated anew, restoring equal opportunity to every member of Klal Yisrael. In other words, every 50 years the entire nation went back to the starting line. And it started with the signal of the shofar blast on Yom Kippur (“You shall sound a blast on the shofar, in the seventh month, on the tenth of the month… you shall sound the shofar throughout your land”). The shofar blew, and the chains weighing down the people were struck off. Complete freedom reigned in the land. It was a bloodless revolution that reset the board and granted hope and fresh opportunities to every member of the community.

What a beautiful and elevated moment.

Back from the shofar of Yovel to the shofar of Rosh Hashanah.

And so, the Torah wanted the conscientious Jew to think long and hard about this question: Why must we turn to Yovel for instructions regarding Rosh Hashanah? It forces us to look at the promise of freedom that is at the core of Yovel, so that we can fully grasp how Yovel can enhance our understanding of the concept of teshuvah — the essence of the Days of Awe that are soon to come around again.

When the shofar blares out its notes in shul, explains Rav Shamshon ben Rafael Hirsh, the Jew is called on to remember the Yovel, to hear that other shofar blast with the promise of freedom it brought to Klal Yisrael. In his mind’s eye he should watch the slaves being liberated and returning home as free men. He should experience anew the liberating sensation of the year when the land was freed of all its warping restrictions and returned to be a land of promise and opportunity to all its people, who had received the chance to start over again.

Then he will be able to understand what the Torah wants from him. When the shofar blows, you’re called on — just as at the Yovel — to return homeward. To go back to being a free man on the personal level. To return to the freedom of the neshamah, the freedom from debasing instincts, bad habits, changing fashions, bad middos, anger and resentment, the pursuit of outward forms, false conventionalities and the counsels of the yetzer hara who has bound us to his train of sins throughout the year. That’s what HaKadosh Baruch Hu is demanding of us: Shuvu elai v’ashuvah eleichem. To return to the roots of the neshamah, to the purity that we all long for somewhere deep inside. And just as at the Yovel, teshuvah will give us the opportunity to shake off the weight of the past and return to the starting line, opening windows to new opportunities in the future.

And this is something we can start doing now, even during vacation.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 872)

The post Press Reset first appeared on Mishpacha Magazine.

True, many of us are busy learning the halachos of shemiras halashon and have become especially sensitive in the individual personal sphere. But what about the klal? Are we as generous when it comes to the “excitement” of public machlokes?

These weeks leading up to Tishah B’Av are an especially meaningful time for Am Yisrael. Speakers and writers keep reminding us that the second Beis Hamikdash was destroyed because of sinas chinam. We’re hearing plenty about the crucial importance of loving each other, of unity, as the formula for Geulah. Skillfully wielded, these words stir our hearts. They make us want to do better. Only trouble is, we heard these same things last year, and the year before, and ten or twenty years ago… and very little has actually changed in the love and unity department.

Yes, these derashos are critically important, but they seem to have only a fleeting effect. The old divisions still remain, the old resentments still simmer, while new ones appear daily, and we aren’t exactly seeing a mass movement of conciliation — people setting aside differences for the sake of brotherhood, goodwill, and cooperation. Lashon hara, rechilus, public shaming, and smearing run rampant, and ironically, the people who foment all this ill feeling will often be found pontificating about the importance of shalom and quoting Chazal on the destructive power of sinaas chinam.

For those unwilling to stay stuck in these destructive patterns, I highly recommend the short seforim put out by the Tzfas-based Machon Toras HaAdam L’Adam on various aspects of relating to one’s fellowman, as an excellent way of awakening the heart to the tragic import of machlokes, quarreling, and strife and the danger they pose to our nation, both physically and spiritually.

Still, we must happily acknowledge that much has improved on the level of one-on-one interpersonal relations. Over the years, there’s been a tremendous surge in the regular study of hilchos shemiras halashon, and that zechus belongs mainly to the women and girls of our nation. At this time every year, the days of bein hameitzarim, we see an increase in the study of these halachos, spurred by the calls of our spiritual guides to learn Sefer Chofetz Chaim in depth — and the effect on our lives is clear to see. Yet at the same time, on the community level, the rifts and the quarreling continue.

The Ponevezher Rav, Rav Yosef Shlomo Kahaneman ztz”l, sadly quipped that, “To this day, two things remain with us since the Churban: the Western Wall and sinas chinam.”

The question is, what can we simple Jews, who have little public influence, do to shift this state of affairs? Answer: Aside from correcting ourselves, we can do very little.

But there is one channel that is open to us, where we can exert real influence: We can refuse to be dragged into the quagmire.

Sad to say, the situation arises repeatedly. We hear of various camps causing deep rifts among us, but we know we’re not looking at ideological differences or incisive debates about how we choose to serve Hashem. (Do any the machlokes-makers even care about these things?) We’re looking at divisiveness led by political entities, as if we’d already shaken off the traumas of the past and learned nothing from them.

In recent years some peace has been achieved, and the factions have somehow learned to coexist. But there are those who keep bringing up the divisiveness in one form or another, those who would like to drag us all back into that whirlpool of machlokes, leaving families divided and the flames of hatred devouring all that’s been achieved.

We simple Jews aren’t really interested in who is “right” or who wins in these arguments. Let them work out their differences, go to mediation, intervention, arbitration, or whatever. But leave us out of it. We want no part of it, and we won’t be dragged into those dark pits they’ve dug. We want the peace that’s been achieved to continue. Let’s not underestimate our power: They will listen to us as to the voice of Hashem if we speak up loud, clear, and strong.

If we, regular people of conscience, use every channel of communication in these days of bein hameitzarim to make a statement that we refuse to be drawn into tangential fights, this small contribution from each of us can become a mighty stream that will turn the tide of needless discord, machlokes, and sinas chinam. It’s up to us.

WITH THESE THOUGHTS IN MIND, I was struck by a midrash on last week’s parshah. The midrash tells us that in the middle of Bilaam’s argument with his donkey, after Bilaam declared he would kill her if only he had a sword handy, the animal turned to him and said, “You can’t even kill me, a dumb donkey, unless you have a sword in your hand, so how do you expect to uproot an entire nation?” Bilaam had no answer to this.

The midrash goes on to say, “The stupidest of animals defeated the most intelligent of men. Once she had spoken, he could not stand against her.” And then it adds something astounding:

“The donkey died, because HaKadosh Baruch Hu had compassion on the honor of that rasha, lest people say, ‘That is the one that chased Bilaam away.’ And if HaKadosh Baruch Hu has compassion on the honor of a rasha, needless to say He has compassion on the honor of a tzaddik” (Yalkut Shimoni 565, 22).

These are shocking words. HaKadosh Baruch Hu had compassion on the honor of that rasha — the rasha who was on his way to curse Hashem’s People, in defiance of G-d’s explicit command. What a powerful lesson for us regarding the honor we owe to every human being, even the lowliest of men, simply because they have a tzelem Elokim.

Clearly, each community within Torah Jewry has the right — and even the duty — to preserve and inculcate its own traditions. But this doesn’t give others the right to speak negatively about, behave improperly toward, or belittle those who don’t conform to those particular traditions. So let’s take another lesson from Bilaam: When he looked down on the Jewish camp, he was inspired to utter the words we say every day — “Ma tovu ohalecha Yaakov...” Rashi explains that he saw how the tents were situated in a way that no one could look into the other’s dwelling. Rebbe Nosson of Breslov, in quoting his rebbe, Rebbe Nachman, extrapolates: Not only did they not look into one another’s homes, they didn’t “look” into one another when it came to their spiritual growth either. In other words, we shouldn’t be busy checking the level or spiritual state of others, but rather keep to our own “tent” and grow from the individual set of circumstances with which Hashem fitted each of us. Let’s stop checking and start accepting.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 867)

The post Meeting in the Middle first appeared on Mishpacha Magazine.

How would we manage in such a spiritually sensitive utopian society that any utterance of a compromised nature would make our skin turn white and force us into isolation?

The drama in this week’s parshah is startling: All 600,00 souls who left Mitzrayim are condemned to die in the wilderness. Only their children will be permitted to enter the Promised Land. Their crime? They accepted the lashon hara of the Spies about Eretz Yisrael.

At the end of the previous parshah, B’haalosecha, the Torah relates that Miriam, sister of Moshe Rabbeinu and Aharon HaKohen, is afflicted with tzaraas, which turns her skin snow-white. This is her punishment for speaking lashon hara about her brother Moshe. It’s a cautionary tale in itself, but in addition, the Torah commands all subsequent generations to remember this occurrence every day of our lives, just as we are commanded to remember Yetzias Mitzrayim, Shabbos, and Maamad Har Sinai.

Chazal say that these two parshiyos come one after the other because they both deal with the sin of lashon hara. In fact, the warning first appears in the parshiyos of Tazria and Metzora, where the punishment of tzaraas and its halachos are detailed. Although today these concepts are almost too rarefied for us to grasp, we can still try to understand the message.

Let’s imagine for a moment that we’re traveling to a utopian land, something like the spiritual lost city of Atlantis, where we encounter a civilization with a central concept called tzaraas that functions as a warning signal of great influence.

Tzaraas, as we know, was a kind of rash that broke out on the skin of a Jew who spoke lashon hara. This was the conclusion drawn by Chazal from the data provided in the parshah:

“Rabi Yosei ben Zimra said, whoever speaks lashon hara, afflictions come upon him…. Reish Lakish said, what is the meaning of the verse, ‘This will be the law of the metzora’? This will be the law of one who is motzi shem ra.” (Arachin 15b)

Reish Lakish highlights the essential connection between sins of the tongue and the appearance of tzaraas on the sinner’s body. Clearly, tzara’as has nothing to do with leprosy, or Hansen’s disease, despite centuries of mistranslation. It is a physical sign of an entirely spiritual ailment, and only in a society of very elevated people with an instinct to purge any sort of moral corruption could there be such an instantaneous physical reaction to a sin.

A fanatical society indeed, that pays such strict attention to the words issuing from its citizens’ mouths. A culture that constantly reminds its faithful adherents that speech forms a person’s essence. A society in which a clean mouth indicates a pure, refined soul, with a healthy ecosystem between the mind that thinks, the mouth that expresses, and the senses that absorb, integrating speech into the fibers of the speaker’s soul.

And if a tongue should go astray in this utopian society, it gets quick, intensive care. A spiritual super drug.

HERE, THERE IS NO LENIENCY for one who speaks ill of his neighbor. There is no democratic right to let one’s mouth run wild, spreading evil reports about others and instigating quarrels (always in the name of truth and justice, of course). Their newspapers must have been boring. There were no gossip columns, and no one made a living out of intruding on the privacy of others. This society wanted its spiritual air unpolluted, and it understood that the tongue holds the key to life and death.

“Rabi Yehoshua ben Levi said, the word ‘Torah’ appears five times in connection to the metzorah: ‘This is the Torah of the affliction of tzaraas’; ‘This will be the Torah of the metzorah’…. To teach you that he who speaks lashon hara violates the Five Books of the Torah.” (Vayikra Rabbah 16:6)

Why does Rabi Yehoshua speak of violating “the Five Books of the Torah,” instead of using the usual expression “kol haTorah kulah, the entire Torah”?

Rabi Yehoshua wanted to stress that someone who gossips about his fellowman commits an offense against the very core of each of the five Chumashim separately. By shooting others in the back with the arrows of his tongue, he demonstrates that he doesn’t know how to read, that he doesn’t comprehend the content, that he did not take away a lesson from these books, and that he has no sense of responsibility toward society.

The gossiper, says the Midrash, ignores the story of the serpent in Sefer Bereishis. In the first narrative of the Tanach, the tragedy of Adam Harishon’s expulsion takes place — and it was caused by lashon hara: “For G-d knows that the on the day you eat from it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like gods” (Bereishis 3:5). Thus the serpent pushed humanity into the arms of sin, suffering, and death for all generations. And our gossiper apparently forgot what happened to Yosef when he brought an evil report about his brothers, how he was hated and sold into Egypt, while his father sank into deep mourning.

Sefer Shemos, too, says the Midrash, warns us strictly against evil speech, in the story of the “leak” that forced Moshe to flee from Pharaoh’s avenging sword, when Dasan and Aviram spread the word about the identity of the man who slew the Egyptian.

A person who speaks lashon hara also offends against Sefer Vayikra, where many pesukim explicitly prohibit misuse of the tongue, such as, “You shall not go peddling gossip among your people” (19:16).

As for Sefer Bamidbar, this very week’s parshah tells the story of the Meraglim, the tragedy that held an entire generation back from entering the slandered Land of Israel. And in the fifth book of the Torah, Devarim, we are enjoined to remember the punishment of Miriam by tzaraas for speaking improperly about her brother.

And with such destructive power of the tongue, the punishment fits the crime:

“All the days the affliction is upon him, which has made him unclean, he is unclean; he shall dwell isolated; his dwelling shall be outside the camp” (Vayikra 13:46).

“He shall dwell isolated.” He may not sit even with others who have become tamei. He remains isolated because he himself disrupted relationships, as Chazal say, “In what respect is he different from others who are tamei, that he must sit alone? Since he separated a man from his wife and a man from his fellowman, he, too, shall be separate.” (Rashi)

THIS IS HOW AN ELEVATED SOCIETY preserves its integrity and spiritual health: It takes the gossipmonger, who put a wedge into relationships and picked holes in the fabric of society, and sends him away to sit alone, outside the camp — and in that unbearable solitude, he can come to appreciate the value of society. Let him realize how much he needs it. Perhaps then he will comprehend the gravity of his sin.

Yet even after his period of isolation, his rehabilitation is not yet complete. After the tzaraas has disappeared, he must perform acts of atonement that will bring him to greater self-awareness.

“And the person to be cleansed shall take two live birds… and a stick of cedar, a strip of crimson wool, and hyssop…” (ibid 14:4).

“Live birds” — because tzaraas comes as a result of evil speech, which is an act of chattering, and therefore he is required to bring birds, which twitter constantly.

“And a stick of cedar” — because tzaraas comes as a result of haughtiness [symbolized by the towering cedar tree].

“A strip of crimson wool, and hyssop” — in order that he come down from his haughtiness like the worm [which produces the crimson dye] and like the [lowly] hyssop plant.

Before he returns to the camp and to society, his korban impresses upon him that the root of his sin is arrogance, a feeling of disdain toward others which allowed him to speak badly of them. Let him bring the lowly hyssop, then, and the crimson wool from the worm, as a reminder that a little humility would go a long way toward giving him a healthier attitude toward others and toward society as a whole.

And so it was in that strange, faraway land — a world that seems so foreign to this “advanced” generation, with our sophisticated mass communication. Are we ready to make the trip?

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 863)

The post A Loss for Words first appeared on Mishpacha Magazine.

With the spilled blood of 45 pure bnei Torah still boiling like the blood of the prophet Zechariah in the courtyard of the Mikdash, our hearts are roiling too, with so many questions. Why has Hashem done this to us? How has he allowed children, teenagers, and sterling avreichim to fall in such a cruel way?

But deep inside, we know not to question the Creator’s decisions. In truth, Moshe Rabbeinu already asked those questions for us all when he begged HaKadosh Baruch Hu: “Hodi’eni na es derachecha, inform me of Your ways.” With these words, the Gemara explains, he voiced life's most piercing question: Why do we see tzaddikim suffer while evildoers enjoy a good life?

HaKadosh Baruch Hu responded with a singular statement: “Hinei makom Iti — See, there is a place near me” (Shemos 33:21). Rav Samson Raphael Hirsch explains: With these words, HaKadosh Baruch Hu revealed to Moshe Rabbeinu that all of mankind’s questions about the ways of the Hashgachah Elyonah stem from the limited human point of view.

“Your question, Moshe,” Hashem said, according to Rav Hirsch, “stems from the fact that your perspective is ground-based. Positioned as you are on earth, you are forced to peer upward, confined to a narrow view. However, if you would find a place to stand beside Me, and observe what is happening in the world from My lofty view — then you will understand the events below in a very different way.” (See the commentary of Rav Samson Raphael Hirsch ibid.)

Consider the difference between a street view and an aerial view. From above, one sees the world spread out before him as an expansive panorama, with a far broader perspective than his friend who’s standing on the street and whose aperture is far more limited. And from the higher perspective, all the questions dissolve.

So it’s not the question of all questions that storms our hearts this week. Instead, we wonder: What signal is this tragedy sending us? We have been reminded from Above that we are all one nation; almost every stream and every community in the Torah world was represented among the Meron victims. Is there not some message there?

When Yosef, the ruler of Mitzrayim, threw his brothers into the Egyptian prison, they said to themselves: “…aval asheimim anachnu, in truth, we are guilty regarding our brother, as we saw the anguish of his soul when he pleaded with us and we did not listen. That is why this trouble has come upon us.” (Bereishis 42)

In other words, says Rav Leib Chasman ztz”l, these holy brothers did not regret the actual sale of Yosef that they carried out. They thought it was justified according to the letter of the law. But when they were sitting in prison, they confessed, “How did we harden our hearts in the face of our brother’s pleas and cries? Where did our compassion go?”

They realized that this lack of empathy — their apathy, the erosion of their capacity for compassion — had brought their current trouble upon them. The pasuk says that after they sold their brother, “they sat to eat bread” — as if nothing had happened, as if no one’s life and future had just been cruelly ripped away. Now, when they were thrown into prison, their great hearts sensed the reason. “Because we did not see.”

Still, there are those who will claim — in their view justifiably so — that the events of last Thursday have nothing to do with them. True, a tragedy happened, but what could we have done to prevent it? Are we responsible for the safety deficiencies on a mountaintop miles away?

Let us look how the holy Torah addresses the death of one individual who is found on the wayside with no clue as to his murderer’s identity. This is the parshah of eglah arufah, at the end of parshas Shoftim. And according to the Torah, the greater Jewish nation must take responsibility for this death.

Why is this so? What does an isolated murder outside the city limits have to do with us? This is why we have a police force; they need to find the murderer. There’s a forensics institute, there are ambulances and burial societies. Let them do their jobs and leave us out of it. Isn’t that the way it should be?

Actually, no.

In primitive societies — and also in modern ones whose humanity has calcified — the death of a person is just a statistic. But that is not the case in the State of Torah, the only truly enlightened state in the universe. In this state, we don’t just count our losses and move on.

Hence, a dead person found lying on the wayside is not just a random incident. It has shockwaves and ramifications and must be felt on an emotional level by the entire nation.

Try, then, to imagine a bit how things would have been handled in the State of Torah with regard to the anonymous body. The elders of the nation — and according to the Gemara, they were the members of the Sanhedrin Hagedolah, meaning the highest beis din in the Land — would appear in the field and engage in a concerted effort of… measuring. They measured the distance between the deceased and the cities in the area, to ascertain which city was the closest. That city then bore the collective blame — because in some way, on some level, its sense of collective responsibility has eroded.

The public nature of the event, and the stature of the justices, meant that the lesson ultimately reverberated far and wide. Everyone saw, heard, and knew that the death of a person — even an anonymous individual — is not something to be taken lightly.

But it didn’t end there. When the closest city was determined, the elders of that city were obligated to take responsibility for the death. The Gemara says that all the elders of the city — even if they number one hundred — must go out into the ravine, where the eglah arufah ceremony takes place, and declare, “Our hands did not spill this blood.”

The Gemara then rightly asks: “And did it enter anyone’s mind that the elders of beis din are murderers?”

The answer is sobering: “Their statement means that he [the anonymous victim] did not come before us and leave without food and an escort.”

In the event that the city did not provide for the needs of the person — whether with food or with security — then the entire city, headed by the elders, could not declare, “Our hands did not spill this blood.” They felt guilty. They felt accountable. And mostly, they learned this important lesson of taking responsibility, even if there’s only a remote, insignificant misstep that could have ultimately caused the chain of events leading to the death.

The lesson here is the mutual responsibility we all carry for each and every member of our nation. Because potentially, we are all to blame. When a person is not careful (and generally we are not careful) he strings another bead in the chain — even if it is an insignificant one — of deeds and actions that may ultimately lead to a dreadful outcome.

We must uphold the value and significance of every individual among us — because every soul is a lofty one. That is the truth, and we must never lose sight of it. If not, we are all to blame — one way or another.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 859)

The post We’re All Responsible first appeared on Mishpacha Magazine.

We’ve been through a year of great and unfamiliar challenges, particularly in the realm of chinuch, which has, more than ever, found its center of gravity in our homes. And now as we return to the Seder table and the four sons gather together once again, let us turn to the Haggadah for guidance on how to relate to these sons that we meet throughout the year.

Through all our generations, these four characters have been among us, encountering, confronting, clashing with each other. And the father — the father of the nation or the personal father at the head of the table — is asked, required in fact, to speak to each of them in his own language. With each new generation, these sons find a new style of expression, but the essence of their psychological makeup remains the same as ever. Each personality is rooted in one of the Haggadah’s four prototypes.

How will we identify each son in today’s world? What is in their hearts, and in what terms do they speak in these modern or postmodern times?

The Haggadah categorizes these four types as the wise son, the wicked son, the simple son, and the son who doesn’t know to ask. Artists through the ages have illustrated the wise son as a bearded, rabbinical figure, and in sharp contrast, the wicked son as a wild, empty-headed youth of the sort you might find hanging out on street corners. But this is certainly not what the Haggadah’s author had in mind. The wicked son of the Haggadah could very well be brilliant, perhaps even more so than the wise son, and he might have all the refined manners of polite society. He could be an upstanding citizen making positive contributions to to humanity. Nevertheless, by the Jewish scale of values represented in the Haggadah, he is considered wicked.

Because in the Haggadah’s value system, a person’s worth is measured by the strength of his link to his People’s tradition, to the Torah. Let us examine the four categories according to this criterion, and we will quickly see that they typify four personality profiles, each with its characteristic attitude:

1. One who is strongly identified and also seeks to understand the Torah (the wise son).
2. One who is alienated and makes a point of being antagonistic (the wicked son).
3. One who just asks questions, with no particular goal in mind (the simple son).
4. One who shows no interest at all (the son who doesn’t know to ask).

How, then, to initiate a positive dialogue with each of the four types that make up the mosaic of our nation? A dialogue that addresses each on his level, in the emotional and intellectual language he understands, finding a pathway to each “son”?

The wise son is engaged; he feels part of the national Jewish experience. He identifies with the Jewish way of life, with the tradition, with the history and goals of his People, and he behaves accordingly. But he would also like to understand on a deep level and strengthen his connection further. And therefore, his question is, “What are the testimonials, statutes, and laws…?”

The father answers him in kind. In order to understand why we must fulfill the mitzvos in our times, we must return to the starting point: Yetzias Mitzrayim. There, on the eve of their liberation from slavery, Bnei Yisrael were commanded to bring the Pesach offering — to slaughter the gods of the Egyptians. This was a declaration of war against idolatry, an act also geared to uproot it from the hearts of Bnei Yisrael themselves.

This war isn't over yet. Idolatry is alive and well, although it no longer wears the primitive guise it wore in ancient Egypt and Canaan. We don’t see people bowing before idols of wood, metal, and stone, but they still worship money. Five hundred years ago Rabi Yitzchak Arama, the Akeidas Yitzchak, wrote:

And included in this [the commandment to “have no other gods before Me”] is the great avodah zarah that is very prevalent in the world today, and that is the focusing of all one’s thoughts and activities on the accumulation of wealth and success in business. These are the mighty gods many rely on and place their faith in, and in sanctification of their name they deny G-d above….

Today’s avodah zarah has a new look. The Jewish philosopher Franz Rosenzweig, who was on the brink of conversion to Christianity but became a baal teshuvah instead, put it this way:

Although the names have changed, polytheism is alive and well. Culture and civilization, ethnicity and state, nation and race, art and science, livelihood and status could summarize, albeit briefly and incompletely, the pantheon of our times, and who would deny the existence of these gods?...And never has an idolater worshipped his gods with greater sacrifice, with greater belief than modern man worships the aforementioned gods… and thus the war in the human heart between serving the One Gd and serving many gods goes on to this day, and the outcome of this war is never certain. (from Rosenzweig’s book in German on Rabi Yehudah HaLevi)

Indeed, the testimonials, statutes, and laws comprised in the Torah are our defense system, preventing idolatry from taking over our hearts.

And therefore, the father’s answer to the wise son is, “We do not serve a dessert after the Pesach offering.”

Once the Pesach offering has been eaten, we consume no other food, so that the taste of the Korban Pesach — victory over idolatry — should remain on our palate through the night. Internalize this lesson, my son who seeks a deep connection. Taste nothing more, once the concept of Pesach has made our People’s secret clear to you and you know the root of our obligation to keep Torah and mitzvos. That taste of the Korban Pesach must remain with you wherever you go, for therein lies the whole meaning of being a Jew.

THE WICKED SON is the antithesis of the wise son. The rituals of the Seder have nothing to say to him and all this collective historical memory is just a burden. He believes in now, in all its forms, and he really sees no point in all these things his father and forefathers want to teach him. What will he get out of it now?

“Can’t you see times have changed?” he insists. “Maybe that was meaningful to people who lived thousands of years ago, but hey, this is the 21st century!”

Indeed, the father’s whole system of thought and action is rooted in the distant past. The intent, however, is to improve the quality of the present and lead to a better future. But the son who lives for the moment is not interested in all that. It only gets in his way. He wants to cast off the shackles of what he sees as a coercive approach. And his question makes it clear where he stands in terms of Jewish identity:

“What is this service to you?”

Unlike the wise son, he’s not interested in the details, the distinctions and nuances. As far as he’s concerned, the Torah is just one big encumbrance, handily summed up in one word: avodah, service. Bothersome demands imposed on him against his will. He believes he’s got better things to do right now.

Perhaps he chooses this word as a rebuttal to his father’s words in the recitation of the Haggadah, “And the Egyptians put Bnei Yisrael to backbreaking work.” The son means to say, “What’s the difference between one form of slavery and the other? It’s still slavery.” The Talmud Yerushalmi suggests this idea in its interpretation of the wicked son’s question: “What is this bother that you put us through every year?”

Clearly, then, the wicked son is setting himself against his father. His question is no question at all, but an answer, a dismissal of Jewish tradition.

The father has a problem now. This son’s mocking attitude is liable to spoil the atmosphere at the Seder table, and what’s worse is that others, if they’re weak in their convictions, might be influenced by his bold self-confidence.

Therefore, the Haggadah advises the father, “Blunt his teeth.”

Of course, the Haggadah isn’t advocating violence. Rather, it’s saying, take the sting out of his words; neutralize the impression he has made. He is trying to devalue the traditions of the Seder, so you must devalue his opinions. Show him up for who he is: a shallow, rootless individual who doesn’t even understand what he is trying to denigrate. His inability to appreciate Yetzias Mitzrayim points to a flaw within him that prevents him from savoring the taste of redemption:

“Had he been there, he would not have been redeemed.”

He thinks he doesn’t needs all this baggage from the past in order to be a Jew. He needs to be told that not only are he and his children at high risk of perishing in the sea of assimilation, but that even then, when Israel was redeemed from Egypt, he would have been left behind to assimilate.

This sharp rejoinder is an attempt to save him. Knocked down from his high horse, perhaps he will understand that with his attitude, he is removing himself from Am Yisrael, and that in terms of both Jewish destiny and his own life, he is headed nowhere. Perhaps then he will change his ways.

THE SIMPLE SON is not lacking in intelligence, either. He only lacks a sense of connection. He’s full of curiosity, but his curiosity is like that of a tourist. By contrast, the wicked son’s defiance at least indicates an inner struggle. He wants to throw off the yoke, but his animosity shows some vestige of caring, while the simple son is just an onlooker. Whatever he learns at the Seder table about the Exodus is stored away with the facts he knows about penguins in Antarctica or the bushmen of Africa, and then he’s ready to move on, untouched emotionally and with no thought that this could be a life-changing experience.

And the answer to this son’s touristy questions is, “With strength of Hand, Hashem took us out of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.”

This son needs to be shaken out of his anthropological detachment, his intellectual posturing. The father’s answer to him is meant to arouse a sense of wonder, to call his attention to the miracles that happened in Egypt, the revelation of G-d’s Hand. If we can get this message through to him, the Seder won’t be a mere visit to ancient Middle Eastern culture, but a personal experience.

THE SON WHO DOESN’T KNOW to ask is the type that is simply uninterested. He doesn’t even feel any intellectual curiosity to know what the Seder is all about. Studying in a European university, becoming a financial wizard, or trekking through Nepal may tug at his heart, but the mesorah of his ancestors has no appeal for him, and it’s never occurred to him to take an interest in the seminal events of Yetzias Mitzrayim.

But the Haggadah won’t give up on this son, either. It tries to address him with this message: “At petach lo.” You start the conversation. Try to engage him, try to penetrate that wall of indifference. Perhaps you will find some soft spot where you can dribble something in. The father is actually instructed to answer this son with the same pasuk that is thrown at the wicked son: “For this, Hashem acted for me when I left Egypt” — but without the implied stinging rebuke. Rather, it's like a road sign popping up before the son who doesn’t know to ask, alerting him that here is something he can’t afford to miss. If he does miss it, he is liable to become as alienated and antagonistic as the wicked son, and to follow him into oblivion. But despite his apparent apathy, he still wants to retain a certain connection with the Jewish People.

The pasuk’s message to this son is that no matter how liberally you want to interpret the word “Jewish,” the concept is inextricably connected with Yetzias Mitzrayim. “For this, Hashem acted for me.” Everything I represent, by my very existence, stems from the fact that Hashem took us out of Egypt! Without this event, there would be no such thing as being Jewish — not even “culturally Jewish,” “part Jewish,” or “of Jewish ancestry.”

And therefore, the Haggadah says to the son who doesn’t even care to ask, “Unless you want to be cut off completely from your people, you must take off your blinders and investigate this thing called Yetzias Mitzrayim, this thing that defines us, with a broad perspective and without prejudice.”

May we all succeed in accessing the heart of each “son,” biological or not, at our Seder table this year, and getting the message of the Haggadah across to him. For even the most distant, the most alienated, is still a son of our People.

And to all of Beis Yisrael everywhere, chag kasher v’sameiach

The post The Four Sons Meet Again first appeared on Mishpacha Magazine.

Many secular Jews are perplexed by the harsh Orthodox response to Israel's High Court ruling regarding Reform conversions, but when confronted, not every religious Jew knows how to give an answer. Here’s the way I do it

My Dear Brother,

I’m what you call a chareidi Jew, and although you call yourself chiloni, I want to speak to you beyond the barriers that the media has placed between us, and above the heads of the politicians who like to pretend that they are speaking in your name and in mine. I want to talk to you directly about a matter of mutual interest: our shared concern for the continued existence of Israel as both a Jewish nation and a Jewish state.

If you see yourself solely as a citizen of the world, if you have no interest at all in the Jewish nation, and just by chance you happen to live here, on the eastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea; if you are unconcerned that with time, the character of the State of Israel will be altered, meaning you do not care if it becomes a pronounced Levantine state, devoid of any exceptional Jewish history; if it’s not important to you that your grandchildren be “Israeli” in some form or another, without any reference to its Jewish past — then don’t continue reading this.

But if you’re like me, perhaps you too are worried. If our nation’s increasing assimilation worries you (despite the Hebrew language and IDF service), if you deeply desire that the State of Israel remain the Jewish state, perhaps we can find some common language that will form a bridge of understanding over the abyss of differences of opinion that lies between us.

I know that you do not accept the term “Jew” the same way I, with my traditional view, understand it. I know that you reject my worldview, which sees an absolute correlation between the Jewish People and its Torah and asserts that Jewish nationhood cannot exist for long without the framework of emunah and a Torah-based lifestyle.

I know that you see this traditional approach as stifling, and that you are proud of your pluralistic and open approach to the concept of “Jew” and “Judaism.” This view propounds that it is possible to live as a Jew and feel like one, even if one does not observe mitzvos and is not faithful to Torah principles. I’m not here to argue or persuade you that my position is correct. That’s not why I’m reaching out to you.

But in light of this “silent Holocaust,” as assimilation is called by Jewish leaders in America, as young, unaffiliated Jews are fleeing into the arms of mixed marriages and are then lost to our nation for eternity, both of us must ask ourselves: What happened? Why is it like this? Where have we gone wrong?

Allow me to put to a historic test a modern mantra — the call for “pluralism in Judaism,” meaning that every Jew has the right to determine and define his personal brand of Judaism. Actually, ours is not the first generation to have taken this liberty. If we look back thousands of years, we can make the claim that Yeravam ben Nevat, who caused the split between the kingdoms of Yehudah and Yisrael, was the founder of the first Reform movement. He was the first leader to redefine the service of Hashem and “adapt” it to his generation, establishing an “alternative spiritual center” to the Beis Hamikdash in Jerusalem.

The results of that step led to the fall of Malchus Yisrael and the disappearance of the Ten Tribes from the map of the Jewish People. True, the kingdom of Yehudah also fell, but the Jewish nation — the descendants of the tribes of Yehudah and Binyamin — remained faithful and continued to weave the unique tapestry of Jewish life even in the lands of our exile.

Other movements, such as those of the Tzedukim (Sadducees) and the Baitusim (Boethusians) — who wanted to alter norms and institute new ones that were different from accepted mesorah — actually exerted powerful influence on political and religious life in the land of Yehudah of those days, while the Perushim (the Torah faithful), whose traditions were based on Torah shebe’al peh and later compiled in the Mishnah and the Talmud, had little power. Despite their deep, internal moral strength, these staunch Perushim were just a tolerated minority — which was sometimes not quite tolerated, and instead, persecuted and besmirched.

That leaves us with the question: Where are they today, the Tzedukim and the Baitusim? Why did this stream — deeply influenced by the dominant Greek culture — not prevail in the greater historical picture? Why didn’t religious pluralism maintain a hold? Why is it that ultimately, the Perushim’s approach to Judaism captured the hearts of the Jews?

Throughout the long years of exile following the destruction of the Second Beis Hamikdash, various reform movements rose every so often, waving the banner of pluralism. These movements strayed from tradition, and their adherents vehemently defended their right to be called Jews or Bnei Yisrael. The most well-known among them was the movement of the man from Nazareth, and his Christian disciples to this day call themselves the true Nation of Israel. I assume that even you, a supporter of pluralism, is not ready to accept Christianity as a legitimate movement in our nation. (But actually, why not? Why are they not allowed to interpret Judaism as they wish?)

And throughout the exile there have been other movements, such as the Karaites, the Annanites, and others, who decided to reject the Oral Torah and rabbinic authority, cleaving only to the literal interpretation of the Written Torah. And again the question: Why did they not survive? Why did they lose their Jewish identity? Why did they become isolated communities with no connection to the Jewish nation?

That big “why” is compounded by another important “why.” Why is it that precisely the weakest faction, the Perushim — the rabbinical group that’s ostensibly so stagnant, so ossified, and that scrupulously adheres to Torah according to the traditional interpretation — was forced to spill rivers of blood yet emerged intact from the many lands it has traversed? Today, it not only exists, but is thriving. And even the alternative modern movements in Am Yisrael today, which claim the right to self-definition in the name of pluralism, arose from within this traditional sector, and not from the remnants of bygone pluralistic movements.

How is it that this group has succeeded in maintaining authentic Jewish identity, and has survived for 1,900 years without a state of its own? And conversely, how is it that those pluralistic ideals you embrace have not withstood the test of the generations? The mass escape to the arms of assimilation (and eventual oblivion) comes overwhelmingly from the pluralistic camp.

We see this happening to Jews who belong to the Reform movement in the United States, the movement that has erased from its charter the concept of a “Jewish nation” in favor of a “religion” that must be adapted to the “spirit of the time and the place.” As such, it has also erased from its “siddur” any mention of Jerusalem or Zion, and has clergy who marry mixed couples in church in a joint ceremony with a Christian clergyman — in the name of pluralism, of course.

On the other hand, the Orthodox sector of the Jewish nation, its most scorned and derided demographic, is preserving Jewish identity. This despite the fact that we live in a global village, in an open, enlightened, comfortable world that offers every opportunity and temptation.

We stand today, my dear friend, facing the reality on the ground. It’s hard to argue with facts, of course. And now, if the future of the Jewish nation is in fact important to you, if you want your grandchildren and great-grandchildren to be Jewish, you must ponder this question: Why is the nation coming apart at the seams? Why is it losing its identity just a few decades after the movements that demanded for themselves the right to define Judaism in free terms? What is lacking in these interpretations that strips them of the power to endure the ravages of time?

Indeed, Western democratic society promotes pluralism, the free play of opinions and many viewpoints, which are decided, on a practical level, according to the decision of the majority. But even this democracy doesn’t sanction faking opinions and worldviews. What would you, the Zionistic Israeli, say if, one fine day, Neturei Karta declared themselves “Zionists,” albeit according to their own interpretation? It’s safe to assume that you would feel indignation at this effort to blur or distort the concept of “Zionism” that is so dear to you. You believe that every person has the right to promote whichever worldview he wants, but at the same time, he must not distort the facts, falsify definitions, or steal worldviews, thus engendering confusion and blurring of real lines.

There is a general consensus about this elementary rule — except when it comes to Judaism. Why is anyone allowed to decide that his behavior — even if it goes against everything stated in Toras Moshe — constitutes Judaism, and entitles him to certain rights as a Jew?

I want to point out, for your sake, that every movement that has deviated from the traditional interpretation and accepted concepts of “Jew” and “Judaism” has been so fully eroded over the years that, by a century or two later, nothing remained of their initial ideas and sentiments.

You have a right to call traditional Judaism whatever you want — you may ascribe to it dubious descriptions such as stagnant, outdated, medieval and the like — but based on historic experience, I promise you that in another two or three hundred years (if by then we’re still waiting for Mashiach), that Judaism that you have ridiculed will still be alive and vibrant, while all the other modern interpretations of Judaism will be dismal postscripts in the annals of history. There may be new movements that will “march with the times,” but that is the great virtue of time — that it passes with time.

Perhaps in light of all this, you can understand a bit better what Torah-aligned Jews are fighting for in Eretz Yisrael, the land of the Jews. Believe me, it is not just for us, the Torah-observant Jews, that we are fighting for self-preservation, but rather for the entire Jewish nation. Even those who self-define as secular and pluralist are just as Jewish in G-d’s eyes — and in ours — as the most pious Yid in Meah Shearim.

Because I believe that you are a partner to my concerns, and because I am convinced that you are also alarmed at the current situation in the Diaspora and do not want to bring that dilution here, I deeply hope that my meager yet sincere words will awaken some positive thoughts in your conscience regarding our joint future.

Thank you for your understanding,

Your Worried Brother

This article was adapted from a piece originally published as part of Rabbi Grylak’s “Know Thy Judaism” column, which ran for many years in Maariv.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 853)

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