Category Archives: Personal Reflections

Challenges to Tranquility

[This article appears in a new periodical, “InSight,” published by Rabbi Avraham Mifsud of Detroit.]

There are, they like to say, two types of people: Those who categorize people into two groups and those who don’t.  I generally don’t.  But I have found that the “two groups” model does seem to encompass most folks when it comes to facing change.

Some individuals relish changes, are excited at the prospect of new circumstances, thrilled by interruptions of the norm.

And then there are the rest of us, we who are happiest when thing just blessedly stay the same, who are content with predictability, enamored of the status quo.

Changes, though, are part and parcel of life.  And so even those of us who are naturally averse to disruptions of our routines cannot escape them.  And among us, too, are two groups: Those who kick and scream (to no avail), and those who learn to come to terms with change.

There’s nothing wrong, of course, with wishing for peace and calm and stability.  No less a personage than our forefather Yaakov, Chazal inform us, “wished to dwell in tranquility.”

But as in Yaakov’s life, challenges to tranquility appear in every life.  Some take place, with Hashem’s help, as a matter of inevitable course, like adulthood and aging.  Others come as special blessings, like (hopefully) marriage, parenthood, grandparenthood, and – with Divine assistance – beyond.

Other changes, though, disrupt not only our status quos but our emotional equilibrium.  Things like illness, family problems, loss of employment, loss of loved ones…

Such uninvited and unwanted guests in our lives are vexing, of course.  They elicit the “Why me?” or “Why now?” or just the “Why?” laments, and can easily lead to feelings of resentment, anger and frustration.

Even Yaakov was not immune to seeing his many trials, even in retrospect, in a bitter light.  “Few and bad have been my days,” he tells Par’oh when the Egyptian  ruler, apparently noting our forefather’s wizened appearance, asks how old he is.

The Midrash considers Yaakov to have erred in that attitude, and even to have lost years from his life as a result.  Yaakov, to be sure, did indeed have a travail-filled life, and the travails were far from minor.  But he is held to account nonetheless for regarding them as negative.

Well, what then?  As positive?

Apparently yes.  It’s not easy, to be sure, but it’s right.

And it’s reflected even in halacha:  “Just as one offers a blessing over good,” Chazal teach and the Shulchan Aruch codifies, “so does one offer a blessing over bad.”

Our first, visceral, understandable, predictable reaction to unwanted change is usually negative.  But it’s misguided.  We need to realize that we need to have a second, more thoughtful, reaction, born of the admonition that even “bad” deserves a blessing – to internalize, and even express, the recognition that what seems unfortunate is, one way or another, for our benefit.

On Purim we celebrated Haman’s downfall.  Imagine, though, how things must have looked when Mordechai refused to bow to the Amalekite.  What a terrible, dangerous move that was.  It was born of Mordechai’s choice, to be sure, not an “act of Hashem,” but it was in accord with His will.  And it was something that certainly seemed to bode ill.  It ended up, to put it mildly, boding well.

Commemoration of Purim’s ge’ulah, the Gemara tells us, must take place in the month closest to the ge’ula of Yetzias Mitzrayim.  Think back about the beginnings of that redemption.  A decree to kill all newborn baby boys.  A baby being abandoned by his parents, left to his fate in the bulrushes.  Which led to his being taken by Par’oh’s daughter Bisya into the royal palace.  All, in the end, for the good.

It’s not only in the Torah, though, or the Megilla, that the inscrutability of seemingly “bad” happenings is evident.  In 1941, my dear father, may he be well, barely a teenager, joined the Bialystok Novardhok Yeshiva, which had relocated, first, like many yeshivos at the time, to Vilna; and then, in the case of his yeshiva, to the Lithuanian town of Birzh.  The Soviets, who had taken over Lithuania, gave the talmidim a stark choice: Become citizens of the USSR or retain your Polish citizenship and be considered foreign nationals.  The former status would mean being drafted and sent to the front, cannon fodder for the German army; the latter, being banished to Siberia.

My father and his colleagues and their Rosh Yeshiva, Rabbi Yehudah Leib Nekritz, zt”l, made the second choice, and were put on a freight train headed east to the frigid, forbidding place that would be their home for close to three years.  He remembers how, as the train prepared to depart, the Jewish townsfolk wailed and bemoaned the lot of the Siberia-bound boys.  How must those boys have felt?  Yet they grew in unimaginable ways during their Siberian ordeal.  And they survived the war to marry and have children.  And those children had children.  And those latter children are now raising their own families – two of them, as it happens, my father’s granddaughters, and their husbands,  in Oak Park.

But how dark the future must have looked as that train pulled slowly away and gained steam.

Talk to anyone thoughtful over 60 – or anyone younger, if he or she is a perceptive person – and you can hear personal stories of how changes feared and then bemoaned turned out to be blessings.  Perhaps you can testify to your own.  If not, with Hashem’s help, you one day will.

“Reuvain” was once part of a small Jewish community centered around a yeshiva where he taught.  Over seven years, the yeshiva thrived, the community grew and remained close-knit, and Reuvain was sure that he and his family would live out their lives in that wonderful place.  Then, quite suddenly, circumstances entirely beyond Reuvain’s control dismantled the community and the yeshiva.  He found himself having to move thousands of miles away to become part of another institution and community.  He was devastated.

Eleven years later, Reuvain was still in that new place, and it had become a wonderful home for him and his growing family.  He wanted to stay there until Moshiach’s arrival.  But, once again, circumstances beyond his control, a school administration bent on a certain path, conspired to evict him.  He and his family picked up again, in tears, and moved to a place Reuvain had said he’d never want to do more than visit: New York

It’s been 20 years since that latter move, and Reuvain has grown to recognize the bracha in that move as well.  In fact, when his employment status changed radically and unexpectedly several years ago, a seemingly grave setback to his parnassah, it, too, turned out to be a blessing in disguise, allowing him more creative freedom and opening new doors for income.

“Reuvain,” something of a slow learner, will likely still react with pain at any future seeming setbacks. I know, because his real name is Avi and he is me.  But he won’t have any excuse; just looking back at his own life so far should reassure him that things that seem bad can be very misleading

The idea is enshrined in Rabbi Akiva’s motto of “All that the Merciful One does is for the good,” and in the account related about in the Gemara (Brachos, 60b) his being refused lodging in a certain town.  Rather than express anger or frustration, he simply pronounced his motto to the people of the town, and went off to sleep in a nearby field.  More problems awaited him there, as the candle he lit was blown out by the wind; the rooster that was to serve as his alarm clock was devoured by a cat; and his donkey killed by a lion.

Still and all, he simply reminded himself that all that Hashem does is for the good.  That night a regiment of soldiers invaded the nearby town, taking all its residents captive.  Rabbi Akiva was spared that fate, the loss of his flame and animal having rendered him undetectable in the night.

The Gemara continues, though.  When the townsfolk, marched out in chains, passed Rabbi Akiva, he said to them, “Didn’t I tell you that all that the Merciful One does is for the good?”

It’s a bit disturbing to read that final sentence.  What was Rabbi Akiva doing?  Mocking the unfortunate captives with his own happy escape from their destiny?

I don’t think he was doing anything of the sort.  Quite the contrary.  He was offering them encouragement, strength to face their own futures.  “I experienced adversity yesterday and last night,” he was saying to them, “and in the end it was clearly for my good.  You are experiencing adversity now.  Realize that, even if the change in your lives seems irredeemably evil, it is not.  It is, in some way or other, whether you can imagine it or not, for the good.”

We’re not always able, even in the long run, to recognize the good in what seems bad in our lives.  There are times, moreover, when adversity serves a purpose in itself, in ways we simply cannot see in this world.

But there’s a bottom line here, Rabbi Akiva’s parting message to the captives.  When we feel captive ourselves to changes we didn’t anticipate or want, we’re wise to hear in our heads his admonishing, encouraging words: “Didn’t I tell you that all that the Merciful One does is for the good?”

Handwriting Analysis Analyzed

The notion that one’s handwriting can evidence aspects of one’s character and predict likely behavior (“graphoanalysis”) is prevalent in some circles, including some Orthodox Jewish ones.

While I have no desire to interfere with the livelihoods of those who offers handwriting analysis services, I do feel a responsibility to offer accurate information to the public.

To that end, I feel it is worthwhile to share an article on the topic of “graphoanalysis” that I wrote for Ami Magazine back in 2011.  You can read it here.  Feel free to share the link with anyone you feel might find it thought-provoking.

The Differences We Make

In Baltimore’s Yeshivas Ner Yisroel, in whose yeshivah gedolah I was fortunate to study in the 1970s, the custom was that each beis medrash bachur would learn during night seder with a high school-age boy.  I enjoyed the experience and it probably set me on a path to become a mechanech, in which role I was privileged to serve for nearly two decades.

At least one of my night-seder chavrusos, as it happened, followed me into the field of Jewish education, becoming, as I learned years later, the principal of a middle school in New England and then of a Bais Yaakov in Rockland County, the position he currently occupies.

I had only seen him once since our youths, when I was a rebbi and principal in Providence, Rhode Island, where he had brought a group of students from his school there for a Shabbos. That, though, was more than twenty-five years ago, and so it was a special pleasure to find myself at a meeting not long ago that, as it happened, took place in his home.  It was an even greater pleasure to hear what he told me when he took me aside before the meeting began.

“You should know,” he told me, “that something you said when I brought those kids changed the life of at least one of them.”  He went on to recount that a young woman among the group had discovered that, although she was raised as a Jew, she did not meet the halachic standard of Jewishness. At the time of the visit, she was deeply conflicted about whether she wanted to become a giyores or just accept her non-Jewish status and forge a life apart from the Orthodox Jewish world.

According to my former chavrusa, the young women he had brought from his school joined the Providence Bais Yaakov for Shabbos seudos, one of which my wife and I and our daughters were invited to attend.  He told me that I spoke to the group about the parasha and, although I had been oblivious to the presence of a potential giyores, had made some reference to illustrious geirim and descendants of geirim in Klal Yisrael.

“It made a tremendous impact on her,” my former chavrusa told me, and recounted how the girl underwent giyur shortly afterward and went on to get married and move to Eretz Yisrael, where she is the mother of a large and wonderful family.

The story, as might be imagined, warmed my heart.  The only problem was that I had no recollection of ever having spoken to the group, or of speaking about geirim to any group of visitors.  I strongly suspect that the orator at issue had been one of my wonderful colleagues in Providence at the time. Whatever.

But the story, whomever it concerned, was one worth pondering, and still is.

One can never know the effect of an offhand encouraging word or positive comment.  If we think about our own lives, most of us can readily remember something said by a teacher, parent, friend or even a stranger, that subtly (or not so subtly) put us on this road rather than that one.  Sometimes it may even, as the famous Robert Frost poem goes, have made all the difference.

Unfortunately, the same, it must be thought as well, is true about discouraging or negative comments; the difference they can make can be devastating.  Anyone who is thinking of entering the field of chinuch needs to realize that, while being a Jewish educator relieves one of many of the ethical challenges of other professions – doctors, lawyers and businessmen face all sorts of dilemmas – there are dangers in the seemingly idyllic vocation of teaching Torah too.  Like the possibility of inadvertently saying or doing something that might negatively affect a young person.

I might not remember saying many of the things that erstwhile students of mine have told me made a positive difference in their lives.  But I remember more than a thing or two I said in frustration or under pressure that certainly could have, chalilah, had the opposite effect.  And those students won’t likely call to let me know.

“Death and life are in the power of the tongue,” Shlomo Hamelech informs us (Mishlei 18:21).  And while that organ may be physically soft and feeble, it can have the effect of a protective fortress or a sharpened dagger.

An important realization for every mechanech.  Actually, no less important for us all.

© 2015 Hamodia

A Hint of What We Pray for Daily

A wedding took place last week.  The bride and groom weren’t members of Klal Yisrael, so it wasn’t a Jewish wedding.  And yet, at least in a way, it was.

It took place in a Muslim country that I won’t identify; the authorities there do not look favorably on Jews or on citizens who communicate with Jews, like the groom and his mother, who long ago decided that the Jewish mesorah is true.  Long ago, she abandoned the Christianity into which she was born, and has tried mightily, and with some success, to convince her husband, a Hindu, to forsake the idols and rites of his own upbringing and join her in her acceptance of Torah. Talk about a complicated family dynamic.

“Tehilla,” as I’ll call her, has not converted to Judaism.  She and her two adult sons are “Bnei Noach,” non-Jews who have accepted the Torah’s truth and who cherish Klal Yisrael.

There are similar non-Jews in Australia, Asia, Europe and here in the United States (a good number of them, for some reason, in the south).  Many confront formidable societal obstacles, although Tehilla, considering where she lives, likely faces more than most.

“Tehilla” is an appropriate alias for someone so filled with praise for the Jewish people.  Her studies of Judaism over years and her electronic interaction with various rabbis around the world have endeared the Jewish people and the Jewish religion to her – and her to her mentors.  Jews, to be sure, are enjoined from proselytizing to non-Jews, but Tehilla is self-motivated (an understatement); those, like me, who have corresponded with her are simply answering her queries – and are often inspired by her observations.

Tehilla’s empathy for Klal Yisrael, especially in Eretz Yisrael, is deep.  And it is accompanied by a clarity of vision that eludes so many, and so much of the media.  “With all the sufferings [the world has] inflicted on you all,” she once wrote, “I still cannot fathom how magnanimous you all are in being a light to all nations.”

“After meeting your people [by e-mail],” she once wrote, “I cannot understand how such a warm, compassionate and humane people can be so persecuted and so misunderstood.”

And, from other communications:

“G-d will never allow you to fall, in the merit of your patriarchs and prophets… soon G-d is going to say ‘enough’ to your tears…

“All I can pray is when Hashem decides it’s time for all your sufferings to be over, He will show us Gentiles the compassion we failed to show you all.

And she looks forward to Moshiach’s arrival with eagerness: “The greatest blessing for believing Gentiles like us is to be able to live where we can study … without fear and acknowledge Hashem as the supreme G-d and you all as His chosen.

Tehilla has always worried about how her sons, who share her dedication to truth, will find wives who will likewise eschew their religious upbringings and accept emes.  She was overjoyed when her older son found precisely such a young woman.  Their marriage is the one that recently took place.

Tehilla was pained by the possibility that the bride’s family, Hindus, would insist on a ceremony that might include idolatrous rituals.  In the end, the young couple’s insistence on only a civil ceremony and one presided over by an Orthodox rabbi in another country, carried the day – with the full support of Tehilla’s husband, and reluctant acceptance by the bride’s parents.  (And you thought your chasunos had challenges!

Tehilla is overwhelmed with gratitude toward her distant Jewish friends, whose tefillos on her behalf she credits with her good fortune.  Of course, those Jewish friends credit her fortitude and perseverance in a religiously hostile environment

It’s an image worth conjuring, and pondering.  A family without any natural connection to Jews or Judaism that has embraced both.  A wedding of two non-Jews who believe that Moshe emes v’Torahso emes, and who will raise their family accordingly.  A Bas Noach mother and traditional Hindu father looking on proudly.

I don’t know how many others there are in the wide world who have thought deeply about life and history and come to the same conclusion as Tehilla and her sons have.  But it’s intriguing to imagine that there may be many who are entirely “off the radar.”  And heartening to imagine that one day, their lives will come more publicly into view.  And then go, as they say, viral.

Our hope for precisely that, after all, is what we express three times a day in the second paragraph of Aleinu.

The Importance of Ignoring Headlines – and of Being a Mensch

In February, 2001, I penned a piece for Moment Magazine that caused quite a ruckus

I had titled it “Time to Come Home,” and it was addressed to Jews who belonged to Conservative Jewish congregations.  I made the case that the Conservative movement’s claim of fealty to halacha was hollow and that the movement essentially took its cues from whatever non-Jewish society felt was acceptable or proper.

The issue of same-sex relationships, I contended, would prove my point.  At the time, the movement hadn’t yet rejected the Torah’s clear prohibitions in that area.  I predicted that, as the larger societal milieu was coming to embrace such relationships as morally acceptable, the Conservative movement would follow suit in due time.

(It did, of course, rather quickly.  In 2006, the movement’s “Committee on Jewish Law and Standards” endorsed a position permitting “commitment ceremonies” between people of the same gender and the ordination as Conservative rabbis of people living openly homosexual lives.  But the accuracy of my prediction is not my topic here.)

I pleaded that Conservative Jews who truly respected the concept of halacha  should join their Orthodox brothers and sisters, and “come home,” as per the piece’s title.

It was most upsetting to me to see the final proofs of the article.  The editing and pull-quotes were great, but the piece had been retitled (with the artwork reflecting the renaming) “The Conservative Lie” – in large, bold letters.   I protested mightily but the magazine was adamant about its right to title the piece as it wished.  A newcomer to its pages (and having worked for many weeks on the piece), I relented.

I had expected a torrent of righteous indignation from Conservative leaders for daring to call their dedication to halacha into question.  And it came; the truth hurt.  I also heard from many thoughtful Conservative and ex-Conservative Jews who affirmed my thesis.

But I lament to this day the fact that the harsh title likely prevented many readers from actually weighing what I wrote, that it biased them from the start to regard the writer of the piece as a rude name-caller and to read my words (if they even bothered to) through the lens of that bias.

The experience returned to my consciousness not long ago when I saw the title the Forward placed on a piece I had written, this one about haredi women in the Israeli workplace.

The point of my piece was a simple one.  In much of the multitudinous reportage about high haredi poverty and unemployment rates in Israel, one interesting factor seems to have gone missing: the upsurge in employment of haredi women, trained and placed in a variety of professions by various private groups.

I noted the irony of that ignoring, since women’s economic empowerment has traditionally been celebrated by liberal-minded folks.  And I noted further that while haredi society embraces distinct male and female roles, it seems to have no objection to couples who decide that the husband’s full-time Torah-study is worth the wife’s becoming the family breadwinner.

The title the Forward placed on the piece: “How Ultra-Orthodoxy Is Most Feminist Faith.”

Not only was that not my thesis, but the word “feminism” didn’t even appear among the nearly 800 I had employed

The bloggerai, predictably, went bonkers.  Various armchair commentators seemed to not realize that headlines and titles are the choice of the medium, not the writer.  Some knee-jerk pundits  seemed to have read little beyond the title itself; others read the piece and were outraged that it didn’t fulfill the promise of the title; others still ignored the point of the piece altogether and just took the opportunity to vent spleen over the fact that I had dared address an interesting aspect of the haredi economic situation rather than condemning haredim for their choices.  And some, it seemed, just saw the word haredi and, reflexively, saw red.

A friend of mine, a non-observant Jew, recently sent me some unsolicited comments.  While he is puzzled in some ways by haredim, he noted how, deep into middle age, he has discovered how important it is to “understand that the other person has a point of view, that one should not judge a specific situation without knowing the specifics.”  As he grows older, my friend continued, “I increasingly appreciate, on a deep emotional level, the virtues of genuine tolerance and a certain degree of humility” when looking at seemingly disturbing things.

My recent re-titling experience, and my friend’s words, hold some lessons for us all:

Don’t pay attention to headlines or titles.  Rather, read what a writer has actually written.

And don’t make an automatic target of people who have made choices different from your own.  Sure, criticize, if you think it’s warranted.  But do so thoughtfully.  In your zeal, don’t jettison menschlichkeit.

Wedded Bling

Do the price of an engagement ring and cost of wedding have anything to do with how strong a marriage will prove to be?  Two Emory University economists recently studied that question. They noted that the multibillion-dollar wedding industry sends the subliminal message that large amounts of money spent on getting married can help assure successful marriages.  However, the researchers found, the evidence suggested that, if anything, relatively inexpensive weddings are associated with lower likelihood of divorce.

Correlation, it is famously and accurately said, does not necessarily imply causation.  It has been noted, for instance, that per capita consumption of cheese in the U.S. correlates closely with the number of people who died by becoming entangled in their bedsheets.  And mathematical proficiency generally correlates with shoe size (children’s feet, after all, being smaller than those of adults).

So it’s wise not to put too much emphasis on the recent research, which was based on a survey of nearly 3,400 people who answered 40 questions, much less to extrapolate from it to the observant Jewish community.

But still.

The researchers’ conclusion – “We find that marriage duration is either not associated or inversely associated with spending on the engagement ring and wedding ceremony” – does seem sensible, and correlates well, I’d venture to say, with many people’s experience.

Baruch Hashem, the divorce rate in the Orthodox community is nothing like what it is in the larger society.  But, sadly, it seems to be higher than it’s ever been; and there is widespread perception, if not clear evidence, that, Rachmana litzlan, it is growing.

And so, whether or not the recent Emory study holds any real-world meaning for us, it might certainly serve as a spur to thinking about chasunah and gift-related excesses, which we cannot deny exist within our community as well.

Most of us have attended a wide range of chasunos, some modest, others less so, and others even more less so.

This is only a personal observation, of course, but my enjoyment of a simchah has never had any relationship whatsoever to the presence or absence of a wet bar, number (or dearth) of cooked dishes at the reception/chassan’s tish, variety of courses at the meal or number of musicians in the band.

In fact, when things were “fancy,” I often enjoyed the chasunah less, pained in my heart by what struck me as a wanton waste of money; and in my ears, by the decibel overkill.

Now, there may, of course, be perfectly valid reasons to host a lavish simcha rather than a simpler one.  Like the need to impress business contacts, to satisfy the mechutanim, or to create jealousy in others (okay, okay, scratch that one).  But one thing is certain, at least to me: Excess spending does not somehow create an enjoyable simchah.  Or, it’s safe to say, if only from reason alone, healthier marriages.

As to rings, baruch Hashem, neither our daughters or daughters-in-law had any insecurities about diamond size or flawlessness or clarity (or any of the other creative “chiddushim” invented by the diamond industry – itself based on the fiction that diamonds are somehow inherently important to a shidduch).  I think that any of them would have happily accepted a cubic zirconia ring, a lovely replacement that, were I king of the world, I would insist upon for all my subjects’ engagement gifts.

I might well be accused of holding such opinions because my wife and I, having been privileged to marry off eight children so far, boruch Hashem, always opted (as a matter of necessity – but with no embarrassment or regrets) for the most simple gifts and affairs available.  We went for one-man bands (except in one case, where mechutanim were close to a bandleader and wanted to honor him with the job), no wet bar, limited reception food and simple seudah fare.  When a “takanos hall” – a wedding hall that subscribed to the call of Gedolim to keep simchos simple, and insisted that its patrons hew to a list of clear limitations – was available, that was what we chose.

But the simchos were beautiful, as have been, baruch Hashem, the marriages that began at each.  If any guest was disappointed at not having enjoyed a fine scotch before the chuppah or by not being regaled by a horn section or offered a choice of main course, well, I imagine he’s gotten over it by now.

The chasunos all shone.  But the shine came from faces, not silverware.

© 2015 Hamodia

Out of Borough Experience

Back in the fall, a candidate for the New York State Assembly made construction of major new housing in Borough Park the centerpiece of his campaign.  A New York City councilman heartily endorsed that same goal. Currently, a developer is planning to build 13 six-story edifices in the neighborhood that will provide nearly 130 new apartments.

To those of us who don’t live in southern Brooklyn, efforts that will add to the population density and vehicular traffic there (an area some of us call Borough Double-Park) seem to border on irrationality.  But of course, to residents who wish to see their married children settle in the neighborhoods where they were raised (and to those children who wish to live near their parents), new housing is an urgent priority.

No one lacking the requisite rebbishe credentials should arrogate to suggest to others how they should make decisions as important as where to live.  But, having just spent a warm, memorable and inspiring Shabbos in Cincinnati, Ohio, I’d like to at least share a few impressions of that small but vibrant kehillah; and some others about some others.

Neither my wife nor I had ever been to Cincinnati before, and the fact that the occasion was an Agudath Israel “Shabbos of Chizuk” and featured a special and celebrated guest from overseas, Dayan Aharon Dunner, surely made it an unusual few days for the community.  But it doesn’t take great effort to extrapolate an impression of a community’s essence from even an uncommon Shabbos.

Much of Cincinnati’s kehillah is concentrated in one area, and offers a broad variety of housing options that can cater to Jews all along the economic spectrum.  The local day school is an impressive center of Torah chinuch.  The mechanchim and mechanchos who teach there, as well as the rabbanim of shuls in the area, are remarkable people.  As are the friendly, learned and dedicated members of the community kollel and their wives.

But this is not a column about Cincinnati.  Cincinnati was just its inspiration.  I could write many thousands of words in praise not only of Cincinnati’s kehilla but of Providence’s, (where we lived for 11 years), or of Detroit’s (where two of our daughters and their husbands are raising beautiful mishpachos), or of Milwaukee’s (where another of our daughters and her husband are doing the same, baruch Hashem).  Or any of a number of other communities we’ve visited or know about.

The point is that there is a broad Jewish world –a vibrant and wonderful one – out there.  Yes, even beyond the exotic realms of Staten Island, Passaic or Stamford.

Admittedly, there are challenges to “out-of town” living.  If a choice of chalav Yisrael pizzerias or fast food joints (or nice restaurants) is a must, not every city out there will be able to oblige.  But for those for whom the benefits of a diverse but cohesive and dedicated community outweigh gastronomic concerns (and, of course, other more significant ones), the thought of living “out of town” should not be treated as unthinkable.

I like to imagine a well-funded organization that could amass sociological data about observant Jewish families in the New York area willing to consider moving elsewhere. and that would maintain a comprehensive database of housing and employment opportunities in other communities.

The data, in my fantasy, would then be crunched, and a group of New York-born participant families with similar backgrounds would receive invitations to move together to a new locale.

Just think… Satmarers in Seattle… Klausenbergers in Kansas City… Lakewooders in Las Vegas… Bobovers in Boston… Briskers in Boca…  The possibilities are endless.

More seriously, though, one meets former New Yorkers in frum communities nationwide, and they seem entirely happy to live where they do. Yes, there are downsides, not least of which is being at a distance from family members back in the “old country.”  But the upsides are powerful: warm, caring communities, slower pace of life, inexpensive housing, the sense of being appreciated.  In fact, being appreciated.

Nor are Torah resources – batei medrash, shiurim or chavrusos – lacking.  “Minyan factories” might be rare, but not Minyanim.

And the confluence of housing crunches and the growing number of cities across America that are already home to yeshivos and kollelim should spur more of us to seriously consider whether, if we choose to live in chutz laAretz, where we live or think we need to live is necessarily the best place for us to be.

© 2015 Hamodia

Leaf Bag Lesson

An aroma all but absent these days but deeply evocative of childhood to many of us who grew up before pollution laws is the bouquet of burning leaves.  Back in the day, we would rake the dry debris of autumn into a pile or put it into a metal trash can (remember those?) and set the leaves aflame.  The resultant smoke, at least at somewhat of a distance, was a seasonal perfume, an olfactory hint that the snow days weren’t far off.

Today we put what we’ve raked into very large double-reinforced paper “lawn bags” and leave them for the recycling pickup.  (I don’t imagine they put the leaves back on trees, but surely something worthwhile is done with them.)

A few weeks ago, while I was doing the final leaf-raking of the year, the lawn bag I was filling provided me some timely spiritual direction.

I needed the chizuk, and for a reason not unrelated to how distant a memory the scent of burning leaves is, to how many years have elapsed since it would regularly waft through the autumn air.

Having several months ago passed the 60-year life-mark (the “new 40,” as I prefer to imagine it), I find myself among the population I casually regarded for so much of my life as “old.”  I still like to think of myself as a young adult, and am always happy when, at a simchah, I’m seated with people much younger than I.  I prefer to converse about the sort of things un-old people talk about, not my contemporaries’ various aches, pains and medical conditions. (Though, of course, if anyone demonstrates the slightest interest, I am happy to share details of my own.)

One danger of passing the half-century mark and then some is the enticing thought that it’s time to “settle down” and rest on one’s laurels – or, if one doesn’t really have any laurels, to rest at least on one’s easy chair.  That is to say, to imagine that the season of personal growth and development is in one’s past, and that the present and the future are limited to “maintenance,” not only of our physical health but our spiritual states as well.  The baalei mussar, however, famously warn us that there’s no spiritual standing still in life, no neutral gear as we climb the hill of our personal histories.  Take your figurative foot off the accelerator, they caution, and be prepared to drift downward.

A Midrash (Koheles Rabbah 1:3) speaks of the various stages of life, comparing a baby to a king and an aged person to a monkey. Every parent understands the royalty comparison – we wait on our newborns, happily but often exhaustedly, hand and foot; high chairs are thrones and the will of the little one (in most cases) must be done.

What’s with the monkey, though?  Explains the Kotzker, zt”l:  An ape… apes.  That is to say, he imitates what he sees.  Visit a zoo and engage one of the simian prisoners.  Slowly raise your hand; as likely as not, he’ll do the same.  Lift your leg; he’ll follow suit.

When people grow old, explains the Kotzker, they all too often come to just imitate… themselves, or, better, their younger versions. They just keep on keeping on, with their lives mere mirror reflections of their earlier days.  They daven the same, they study Torah the same, they observe Shabbos and Yomtov the same, they interact with others the same way.

Whereas once, in youth, striving for higher levels of sensitivity to tefillah, Torah, Shabbos, Yomtov and interpersonal relations was a given.  As we grow older, unfortunately, it is all too often a forgotten.  Yet, we do well to recognize that “ohd yenuvun biseivah” isn’t just a brachah; it’s a mandate.

It’s not easy to maintain growth after a few decades of adult life.  Like objects moving closer to the speed of light, where the faster they go, the more energy they need to increase speed, it takes greater effort as we age to avoid complacency, to not become lazy about life.

Such thoughts were bouncing around in the back of my head as I raked the leaves.  And then I noticed the apparent motto of the “home-improvement center” where I had purchased my lawn bags, inscribed in large letters on the side of the bag.  It seemed to be speaking to me; halevai I should take it to heart.

It read: “Never Stop Improving.”

© 2014 Hamodia

Unknown Unknowns

Should you ever find yourself in an ornate, high-ceilinged room with a military-uniformed classical string ensemble segueing from a flawless rendition of a Bach concerto to an equally impressive (if less inspiring) version of “I Have a Little Dreidel,” it can only mean one thing: you’re at a White House Chanukah party.

I know, because during the George W. Bush administration, on behalf of Agudath Israel, I attended several of the yearly gatherings, which brought together assorted Jewish personalities, politicians and organizational representatives. One of the times when my wife didn’t accompany me, a major supporter of Agudath Israel was my guest.

I discovered then (aside from the fact that nothing compares to home-made potato latkes) that Mr. Bush is a mentch.

As we stood in the long line for the ritual photo-op with the president and first lady, my guest asked me if I minded if he alone stood next to the first couple for the photo.  Having already garnered the souvenir before (along with a presidential seal paper hand-towel from the White House restroom, now hanging on our own bathroom wall), I didn’t.  And so, when it was our turn, I stepped back to allow my guest to pose unaccompanied with the First Couple.  Mr. Bush motioned to me with a broad smile to join the photo.  I explained that I wanted my guest alone to be in the picture.

The president allowed the photographer to snap the photo but then, breaking assembly line photo op etiquette, insisted that a second photo be taken with me in it.  “Why shouldn’t you get a turn?” Mr. Bush asked.  I was a little embarrassed but, of course, heeded the Commander in Chief’s order.

Mr. Bush’s mentchlichkeit has been on more public display many times, most recently, during a Fox News interview.  The interviewer reminded Mr. Bush of his 2007 warning that withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq could be disastrous, and asked if he had criticism of President Obama for doing precisely that two years later.

“I’m not going to second-guess our president,” Mr. Bush said. “I understand how tough the job is. And to have a former president, you know, bloviating and second-guessing is, I don’t think, good for the presidency or the country.”

Mr. Bush wasn’t just being perfunctorily polite.  Having “been there,” he knows that there are factors that go into a presidential decision to which the citizenry is blissfully oblivious – and that, in the end good outcomes can only be hoped for, not prophesied.

A decision Mr. Bush made during his tenure was to authorize the secret creation of the Stuxnet computer virus, designed to infect and wreak havoc on Iran’s main nuclear enrichment facilities. When Mr. Bush left office, President Obama accelerated the clandestine program, ordering increasingly sophisticated attacks on the computer systems at the Natanz plant.

In 2010, the plant was hit by a new version of the worm, widely regarded as having been designed by American and Israel cyber experts working together, and then another one after that. Nearly 1,000 Iranian uranium-purifying centrifuges were disabled. The virus continued to hamper other Iranian facilities through the end of 2012

During that same period, many media were brimming with indignation over Mr. Obama’s not having yet visited Israel as president; trumpeting charges that cooperation between Israel and the U.S. was at its lowest point in decades; bubbling with outrage over Mr. Obama’s opposition to Israeli construction in the West Bank; and castigating the president for mentioning Israel’s 1967 borders as a starting point (“with mutually agreed swaps, so that secure and recognized borders are established…”) for Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.

And yet, behind the scenes, unknown and unsuspected by all the righteously irate, Mr. Obama was pursuing a joint program with Israel to undermine the Iranian threat to her security.

Ex-President Bush is both wise enough and modest enough to know that even those who once sat in the Oval Office are not privy to all that’s happening at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.  Kal v’chomer, the rest of us.

Predictably, though, in anticipation of news about a nuclear development deal with Iran, or of an extension of negotiations (this is being written before the deal-deadline), the usual suspects are cleaning their BB guns, ready to take their potshots at the president.  But the wiser among us do well to remind ourselves that we don’t know all there is to know, to not “bloviate and second-guess” the current president.  We could learn a little wisdom and humility from the forty-third.

© 2014 Hamodia