Rabbi Pinchos Lipschutz

Rabbi Pinchos Lipschutz

It was back when the iron-horse railroad was coming to Russia and the transportation ministry planned to lay thousands of miles of track upon which trains would crisscross the giant country. When the plans were publicized, chassidim discovered that they called for a track directly over the kever of the Baal Hatanya. Alarmed, they sent a delegation to the minister of transportation and appealed to him.

They arrived for the meeting and pleaded their case. “Maybe you don’t appreciate what a rebbe means to us, so allow us to explain. He is more than a teacher and a guide. He represents life itself.”

The minister cut them off. “You don’t have to explain it to me. My brother and my father are religious. In fact, I was also religious until I was seventeen years old. I know what a rebbe is and what he means to you.”

The delegation was shocked and thought that they were about to catch a lucky break, but then the man continued talking.

“I was in yeshiva, when I decided that I wanted to join the Russian army. I became fixated with it. I didn’t want to give up religion; I just wanted to become a soldier. My father was worried that I would lose my connection to Yiddishkeit and begged me not to go, but nothing he said impressed me.

“My father was a Stoliner chossid. In a last-ditch effort, he asked me to go with him to the rebbe [Rav Shlomo Karliner, whose yahrtzeit was on Sunday]. I obliged. We entered the rebbe’sroom. The rebbe appeared to be on fire, his face radiant and his eyes alight, totally connected to Hashem. The force of holiness was so strong that my father could not open his mouth to speak for the first few minutes. Finally, he gathered his courage and told the rebbe of my intentions to join the military, how I refused to listen, and his fears that I would become a goy.

“The rebbe’s face grew red, his countenance aflame, hot tears streaming down his face as he turned to me and begged, ‘Efsher doch, efsher doch. Maybe, maybe [you’ll change your mind].’

“I turned him down and went to the army, and as you see, I am so far gone, you didn’t dream that I knew what a rebbe is. I know the power of a rebbe, and every time I do an aveirah, those pleading words of the rebbe ring in my ears. ‘Efsher doch, efsher doch.’”

It’s the Three Weeks, the time we mourn the destruction of the Bais Hamikdosh. We mourn that we are in golus. Our enemies gang up on us and we hear those words, “Efsher doch, efsher doch,” ringing in our ears. Maybe this will be the year we fix ourselves and make our way back.

Efsher doch, efsher doch. Maybe this will be the year we will be set free and get to go home. The sick will be healed, the abused comforted, and the homeless will be back at home in the land that is ours.

The posuk states, “Umikneh rav hayah livnei Gad velivnei Reuven” (Bamidbar 32:1). The children of shivtei Gad andReuvendid not want to join the rest of Klal Yisroelto continue on to Eretz Yisroel, the land they and their forefathers had been yearning to reach for hundreds of years. Why were they so connected to the land of Eiver HaYardein?

The rebbe of Peshischa interprets the words “mikneh rav” homiletically as a reference to the “kinyan” bond of these shevotim with their “rav,” their mentor and rebbi who had led them over the past few decades. They worried that in Eretz Yisroel, despite the opportunities for growth, they would be lacking the identity that comes with having a rebbi and would forget who they are and where they came from. They felt that since Moshe was buried in Eiver HaYardein, staying there would maintain their connection to who they are meant to be. Rightly or wrongly, they preferred being rooted outside the Promised Land to feeling rootless within the sacred embrace of Eretz Yisroel.

While some may not agree with the premise of the thought, it goes to the heart of the challenges we have faced throughout the long golus. People have found it difficult to remember who we are and where we come from, where we are headed and what our mission is. Sometimes, the stresses and distractions of everyday living threaten to overtake and engulf us and we forget.

Megillas Esther(2:5-6) introduces us to Mordechai by stating, “Ish yehudi haya b’Shushan habirah ushemo Mordechai ben Yair ben Shimi ben Kish ish Yemini. Asher hugla m’Yerushalayim. There was a Jewish man by the name of Mordechai, son of Yair, son of Shimi, son of Kish, from the tribe of Binyomin (see Megillah12b and Rashi), who had gone into exile from Yerushalayim.”

Who was he? A Jew, who followed in the ways of his father, grandfather and great-grandfather, with the traditions of shevet Binyomin. He never forgot who he was. And he never forgot where he came from. He was an exile, a survivor of the churban, who longed to return home, no matter how comfortable his golus experience was.

Rav Michel Twerski told of a distinguished chassidicrebbetzin, a child of great tzaddikim, who was confused towards the end of her life. Once, when a hospital aide asked her for her name, the rebbetzin was experiencing a difficult moment. She replied, “I don’t know who I am anymore.” Then, she sat up straight and, with all her dignity, she continued, “But I do know whose I am.”

We go to Eretz Yisroel and traverse the Holy Land, tear kriah at the sites of the churban, stand at the Koseland imagine what was and what will be, and daven at the kever of the avos, imahos and Rochel Imeinu. We feel their presence and beseech Hashem to help us in their merit. We walk on the derech ha’avos, where our forefathers trekked to Yerushalayim to be oleh regel and go to Shilo, the site of the Mishkon before the construction of the Bais Hamikdosh. And wherever we go, a chill runs down our spine. We feel connected to who we are and where we come from.

At great expense, people travel to the alter heimin the countries of Lithuania, Hungary, Poland, Belarus, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Croatia, Germany and elsewhere. They visit the old botei medrash, shuls, yeshivos and cemeteries to remember where they come from and what their mission is.

The struggle in golus is remembering who we are and hearing the call of “efsher doch,”reminding us thatmaybe we can find the way back to where we belong.

In the early nineteenth century, the government eased restrictions on Pressburg’s Jews, allowing them rights of residence. Many rejoiced, but the Chasam Sofer became worried. “Why is our Father making us more comfortable in an alien land? Why isn’t He making us welcome at home, in His house?” he asked.

Every year, as we bentch Rosh Chodesh Menachem Av, the cheerful blessing generates bittersweet emotion. A new month usually brings smiles and hopes for a fresh start. But this Shabbos, as we recognize that a new month is about to dawn, the fact that it is Av, with its undertones of melancholy, causes our hearts to sink.

The period of national sadness begins on the 17^thday of Tammuz, increases with the start of Chodesh Av, and peaks on Tisha B’Av.

Throughout our history, the first week of Avhas seen wrenching, catastrophic events for the Jewish people. That legacy of sorrow and disaster continues. It’s a sadness shrouded in this rootlessness, a sense that things are not as they should be and we are not where we should be.

As we enter Chodesh Av, we wonder what we can do to reverse that cycle and when it will end.

Our search for a ray of hope begins with the awareness that the root of all our sadness and misery is the churban Bais Hamikdosh. We reflect on the Gemara in Maseches Yoma (9b) that teaches that the first Bais Hamikdosh was destroyed because we did not properly observe the halachos of avodah zora, gilui arayos and shefichas domim.

The Gemara says that at the time of the destruction of the second Bais Hamikdosh, the Jews were proficient in Torah and gemillus chassodim. What brought about that churban was sinas chinom.

We’ve heard it so many times, but apparently we need to continue hearing that since sinas chinom caused the churban, the final redemption cannot occur until we have all repented for that sin, cleansing ourselves of the senseless hatred that seems to accompany the Jewish people wherever we are.

The parshiyos that we lain this Shabbos, Mattos and Masei, are always read during the period of the Three Weeks. They deal with the connection of the Jewish people to Eretz Yisroel. We are connected to that land not only as a nation, but also as individuals.

Chodesh Avis about connection. It is about a relationship that was severed, to ultimately be renewed. We are working towards returning to our cheilek in Eretz Yisroel.

The parshiyos contain the seeds of our geulah; lessons for us to improve our behavior in golus in order to merit our share in Eretz Yisroel.

Parshas Mattosbegins with the laws of nedorim and shavuos, different types of vows and promises a person makes, and the obligation “not to defile your words and to do whatever you said you would” (30:3).

In our society, words are cheap. They are thrown around aimlessly and carelessly, sometimes in a bid to impress and sometimes just to pass time. In the Twitter generation, everything is superficial, most of all words. They are conduits used to express thoughts and feelings that contain facile meaning and no depth. Little thought goes into what is said, or written, and therefore words carry no weight.

But we know that words are so much more than that. Words are life itself.

There was a time when people valued written and spoken words, when they perceived the inherent value of every utterance.

They were people of depth who appreciated the meaning of words. Their words carried weight, and were honored.

We are quickly losing that. In our society, words should have meaning. Meaning also has to have meaning. We should not be focusing on external values, such as financial worth, supposed status and impressions. We must not be superficial. The world is too dangerous a place for us to act without information and without thought. Too often, we express opinions and act based on feelings and not facts, emotions and not intellect. To do so is folly and can have drastic consequences.

Words affect us and other people. To end the golusand help rebuild the Bais Hamikdosh, we should think before we speak and ensure that our speech is neither hurtful nor insulting.

Once, in midst of a telephone conversation with Reb Sholom Mordechai Rubashkin, the line was suddenly disconnected, another reality for those unfortunate souls in our federal correctional system. They wait on line for a chance to place a phone call, and then their connection to the outside world goes dead.

I felt bad for him and went back to what I was doing. For him, it was a bigger deal. The next day, we reconnected. He said that when the line went dead, he was very sad. “I was waiting to talk to you, and when I finally got through, you were gone and I was alone again.”

I asked how he gets over those feelings and remains in good spirits. He matter-of-factly responded, “When we got disconnected, I was sad, so I ran to my Gemara and began learning. Torah lifts me up. Learning Torahmakes me happy.”

The power of words.

A man isolated from family and friends, deprived of a connection to his loved ones, Reb Sholom Mordechai is sad because of a conversation cut short. When cut off from those treasured words of love, he finds comfort in the holy words of the Torah and comes alive once again.

Words have the power to break and the power to repair. Words heal and words sicken. Words bring people together and words separate people. The words we use have lasting repercussions.

The Stoliner Rebbe’s efsher doch andthe potency of his holy words live on.

And sometimes, when a tzaddik speaks, the inherent sincerity can melt a soul too. A young man, a child of Gerrer chassidim, survived the horrors of World War II with his body intact but his faith shattered. He was done with religion.

He became friendly with a girl he met and became engaged to her. He bumped into the man who had been his mashgiach when he was in yeshiva, the prominent Gerrer chossid, Rav God’l Eisner.

The former chossid informed the mashgiachthat he was engaged and that the young woman wasn’t Jewish.

Rav God’l smiled and said to the survivor, “Mazel Tov. Wonderful.” He shook hands with the former student and then quietly, quickly added, “Ubber fort, ess past nist fahr ah Gerrer chossid. What you are planning to do is unbecoming for a Gerrer chossid.”

The words struck the young man’s heart with the force of a hammer’s blow. The words triggered introspection and with time he remembered who he was and where he came from.

As we complete the laining of the parshiyosthis week, we exclaim together, “Chazak chazak venischazeik.”We cry out a resounding message to each other and to ourselves. We repeat a word that is laden with power: Chazak. Be strong.

With that, we complete another sefer in our march towards the Torah’s conclusion. We internalize the chapter of the Bnei Yisroel’spassage through the midbar and try to learn the lessons that this seder has presented, so that we may be strong and strengthened. We say chazak.

Study the words of the Torah and you will be strong. Share the words of the Torah and you will be strengthened. Say it together again and again. Appreciate the power of words and use them properly.

Make the ikkar the ikkar and the tofelthe tofel. Remember what our priorities are. In every decision, as you contemplate your various considerations, remind yourself of your identity.

Efsher doch, efsher doch. May this be the year.

By Rabbi Pinchos Lipschutz

When you walk into a room where people are sitting close to the floor with a prominent rip in their clothing, the atmosphere is heavy and sad. Not a word is exchanged. Then a menachem, a comforter, walks into the room. Initially, the people on the floor look up at their visitor with sad, knowing eyes. Then they slowly come alive, sharing stories of their departed loved one, exchanging reminiscences. “What do you remember?” they ask. “What can you share?” They then accept words of chizuk as expressed in the eternal phrase of nechomah: HaMakom yenacheim es’chem.

During these days of Av, we are all mourners. We remember the time when the Bais Hamikdosh stood in the center of Yerushalayim. We reflect on how different and blessed life was at that time. We think about all the tragedies that occurred to the Jews throughout the ages and become sad, because we know that Tisha B’Av is the repository of sadness and mourning for everything that has befallen us.

The tragedy and sadness have to be part of our essence. We have to mourn, not look for ways to free ourselves from displaying that as believing Jews, we realize our history and what has befallen our people in the churbanand ever since. How can we laugh and party when the memory of the six million is with us in this period? How can we engage in happy and fun activities while remembering the Harugei Beitar, the millions of our brothers and sisters who were led into slavery?

How can we be so callous about Jewish suffering? Just this past Shabbos, innocent Jews were slaughtered at a Shabbostable in Eretz Yisroel. How can we not feel their pain? How can the reaction to such a tragedy be more apathy? In these days of Av, how can we not mourn what happened to this family and so many others like it?

The halachos of the Nine Days are not simply laws that we outwardly observe. Nor should we look for ways to wiggle out of them. They are meant to influence our thought and feelings during this time. An observant Jew is meant to be in a state of sadness these days, contemplating our losses, as a mourner would do. We are lacking if we don’t feel the losses in our hearts.

We all know that the second Bais Hamidkosh was destroyed because sinas chinom was prevalent amongst Jews at that time(Yoma 9b). However, the Gemara in Maseches Sanhedrin (104b) points to the chet hameraglim as the cause of the destruction. It was on the 9th day of Av that the Jews in the desert cried for naught. Their “bechiyah shel chinom”echoes all these years, giving generation after generation many reasons to cry.

Too many of us no longer cry. That itself is a reason to cry.

The meraglim lacked the ability to see themselves for who they were. They were reduced to the size of insects in their own eyes, feeling small and insignificant, because they accepted the attitudes and views of others as fact.

The Jews heard their report of their mission to the land that Hashem promised them and broke down in tears. “Woe is to us,” they cried. “We are being led to a country that will destroy us.” They were insecure about their ability to merit Hashem’s blessing and protection. They feared that they wouldn’t be worthy of the promises that they would inherit the Land.

They didn’t perceive their own greatness.

The historical accounts of the churban Bais Hamikdosh appear in MasechesGittin because the break between Klal Yisroel and Hakadosh Boruch Hu was a tragedy not unlike a get (divorce). The novi Yeshayahu cries out (50:1), “Ei zeh sefer krisus imchem asher shelachtiha - Which get has Hashem sent you.”

Hashem, however, never stopped loving His people. He never divorced Himself from them. There was no get. The people who were singled out and set apart with privileges unavailable to others believed that they had been cast aside. Because they lacked self-confidence, they were easily misled and taken in by apocalyptic predictions.

Years later, during the period of Bayis Sheini, although the Jewish people were religiously committed, the rot at the root of the chet hameraglim was still present. Because the people were cynical, negative and pessimistic, they didn’t feel Hashem’s love, nor did they appreciate His proximity. They didn’t see the Jewish people as being worthy of Divine love, so they hated each other. They wrote sifrei krisus to each other because they didn’t appreciate the greatness inherent in every individual Jew. Insecure, they were blind to their own worth and, like theJews at the time of the chet hameraglim, because they felt undeserving, they didn’t appreciate what they were given.

On Tisha B’Av,mourning is how we repent for what they did. We sit on the floor, reciting Kinnos, recalling how good we had it, how much love there was, how close we were to Hashem, and the holiness and unity that were apparent in our lives. We bemoan the losses we suffered. We recognize through our tears how much Hashem loved us, and we proclaim that we know that He still loves us and that we are worthy of that love. By doing this, we repent for the sins of the meraglim and sinas chinom.

Many of our problems are rooted in the sin of low self-esteem, of not realizing who we are. People give up on becoming great even before starting the process. They are easily knocked off course and lose motivation to succeed and excel, because they don’t believe in themselves. This is one of the ways the yeitzer hora causes us to live a hopeless, sad and sometimes self-hating life.

We don’t talk about it much, and maybe we should, but that doesn’t mean there is not an epidemic of young people who hate themselves and cause themselves pain because they can’t cope. These people start out like the rest of us, but because of bad vibes they pick up, they end up on a downhill trajectory and often hit bottom.

To get up, they need love, they need care, they need self-value, and they need to know that they make a difference and their lives are important. It may be easier said than done, but it saves lives and makes us and them better people.

How do we combat it? By putting our arm around a young person’s shoulder and letting them know that they are loved. By talking to them and treating them with respect, we instill self-pride in them.

How do we combat it? By talking up to people, not down. By pumping people up, not taking them down. By not being judgmental and by bearing in mind that every person wants to feel good about themselves. You can help them have that feeling if you talk to them as if their lives have worth, no matter how they act and how they look.

By caring about people and their feelings, you are helping give people a lifeline and a reason to carry on.

Chazal famously teach us that a generation that doesn’t merit the rebuilding of the Bais Hamikdosh is viewed as having had the Bais Hamikdosh destroyed in its time. The Sefas Emesexplains that anyone who doesn’t believe that their actions can contribute to the building of the Bais Hamikdosh is accountable for its destruction. Those who don’t realize that they have the power to bring about the return of the Bais Hamikdosh have a part in its destruction.

To believe that we make no difference is part of the churban.

Our response to churban is to have faith in ourselves and know what we are, who we are, and what we can achieve.

This, says the Sefas Emes, is what’s meant by the brocha we recite in Birkas Hamazon referring to Hashem as the “bonei (presently building) berachamov Yerushalayim.” Rebuilding the Holy City is a steady, ongoing process. At any given moment,Hashem is rebuilding Yerushalayim. It is destructive to think that we can’t play a role in that process.

We lost the Bais Hamikdosh because of two related sins: bechiyah shel chinom, a futile cry, and sinaschinom,baseless hatred.

Rav Yecheskel Abramsky quoted the posuk which states, “Umacha Hashem dimah mei’al kol ponim.” He explained that Hakadosh Boruch Hu will wipe off the tears of every Jewish face. “If every Jew is precious enough to Hashem that He takes the time to wipe off the tears of every face,” he said, “then we also have to do our part to erase tears and pain.”

Our every act, word and tear has a purpose. They are not for naught, chinom. Realizing what aJew represents is the greatest and most effective antidote to sinas chinom. Each of us carries so much power. We have to appreciate the mitzvos and ma’asim tovimof our friends and see their efforts with an ayin tovah.

In a Tisha B’Av shmuess, Rav Boruch Mordechai Ezrachi succinctly commented, “One who looks at his friend with sinas chinomand mocks the efforts of his fellow Jew isn’t just a hater, but an idol-worshipper. Because he wants every person around him to act as he does, think as he does, and agree with him about everything, he worships no one but himself.”

On Tisha B’Av, we see that no one is chinomand nothing they do is chinom. We re-learn how to love. We recognize that just because we look differently and act differently doesn’t mean that we are inherently different. Because the other fellow wears green and we wear black doesn’t mean that we should hate him and throw stuff at him. Just because someone dresses differently doesn’t mean he is not worthy of love and care.

The Chofetz Chaim would travel from town to town selling his seforim. It happened that he found himself staying at a Vilna kosher inn. At mealtime, a large burly fellow walked in and sat himself down at the table. He called over the server and ordered her to bring him roast duck and a large glass of an adult beverage. When the food came, he grabbed it from the server and began to eat voraciously, without a brocha or any decency and manners.

The owner saw that the Chofetz Chaim was appalled by the man’s behavior and was debating whether to get up and speak to the man. He walked over to the sainted gaon and begged him not to go over to the glutton and not to say anything to him. He was worried that something would break out. The uncouth man was a veteran of Czar Nicolai’s army and was liable to curse and lay a hand on the Chofetz Chaim.

The innkeeper approached the Chofetz Chaim. “Please, rebbe,” he said, “leave him alone. There is no one to talk to. He is an illiterate bully. When he was seven, he was taken away with other Jewish children and, as cantonists, they were taken to Siberia. He grew up with local peasants, and when he was 18 years old, he was inducted into the Czar’s army, where he spent twenty-five years.

“Forty years of his life found him among uncivilized ruffians, far removed from any Jewish community. He never learned a word of Torah and never saw a Jewish face. Rebbe, please don’t start up with him. Your respect is worth more to me than getting into a tussle with him.”

“Have no fear,” Klal Yisroel’s rebbiresponded. “I can speak to him and set him straight.”

With that, the Chofetz Chaim lovingly and with a smile approached the man. “Shalom Aleichem. Is it true that you were kidnapped as a young child, taken to Siberia, grew up among gentiles, and never merited to study even one word of Torah?

“It would seem to me that you suffered gehennomin this world, enduring various types of torture. No doubt they mocked your religion, tried to convert you, and forced you to eat pig and other non-kosher foods. Despite all you went through, they didn’t break you and you remained a Jew.

“I would be glad to have the sources of merit that you have and be a ben Olam Haba as you are. All the decades of mesirus nefesh for Yiddishkeit and kevod Shomayim rank you with the greatest of our people. In the World to Come, you will be seated among the giants of our people, the tzaddikim and gaonim.”

As the Chofetz Chaim spoke, tears began streaming down the face of the tough army veteran. He was shaken by the loving words of praise and support. His heart was touched as it never was before.

When the man found out who was speaking to him, he began to cry loudly and kissed the Chofetz Chaim.

The aged tzaddik completed his pitch: “A person such as you merited being considered a kadosh who was moser nefeshfor Hashem. If you live the rest of your life as a ‘kosher Jew,’ you will be the happiest man alive.”

The former cantonist undertook to do teshuvahand became an observant Jew.

Parshas Devorim, like the rest of the last seder of the Torah, is Moshe Rabbeinu’s farewell message to his people. This week’s parshaintroduces us to the seder that describes the stay of the Bnei Yisroel in the midbar and ends with prophetic words concerning their entry into Eretz Yisroel.

The Jewish people went on to settle the land, erected the Mishkon in Shilo, built the BoteiMikdosh in Yerushalayim, and experienced two churbanos before being tragically evicted from the land promised to them. They were sent into golus, where we remain until this day.

We will reach our desired state of shleimuswhen we will be gathered from exile and permanently brought to Eretz Yisroel with the geulah.

Rabbeinu Bachya (Devorim 1:1, 30:3) explains that the main role of Eretz Yisroel will also only be realized after the final redemption. Our people lived in the land for a temporary, relatively short period. After Moshiach returns us there, the purpose for which the world was created will be realized. Thus, the final pesukim of the Torah connect to the first ones in Bereishis. This is because the permanent return of Klal Yisroel to Eretz Yisroel is similar to the creation of the world, because at that time it will begin realizing the purpose for which it was established.

Similarly, Chazal teach, “Sofo na’utz b’sechilaso,” the end is tied to and rooted in the beginning. The paths, peaks and valleys of our existence combine to lead to our destiny.

SederDevorim begins with Moshe Rabbeinu rebuking his people, because to merit geulah and entry into Eretz Yisroel, they had to engage in teshuvah. As the Rambam says (Hilchos Teshuvah 7:5), “Ein Yisroel nigolin ela beseshuvah,” Klal Yisroelwill only be redeemed if we engage in proper and complete teshuvah.

Since Moshe loved his nation and selflessly wanted them to be able to enter the land that Hashem promised their forefathers, he admonished them with love and respect so that they would accept his tochacha. He spoke to them in a way that preserved their self-esteem (Rashi, Devorim1:1; see also Rambam,Hilchos Teshuvah 4:2), because he knew that for people to accept mussar, it is usually advantageous to maintain their dignity.

It’s not as if Moshe wasn’t aware of their obstinate and disrespectful nature. Rashi (ibid.) explains that Moshe gave them mussar only after the entire nation had gathered in one place. Moshe knew the nature of these people and wanted to prevent loathsome characters from being able to proclaim that had they been there, they would have spoken back to and challenged Moshe. Therefore, he gathered them all together, indicating, “If you have what to say, say it here to my face.”

Despite his keen understanding of their displeasing behavior, his speech was laced with love and respect. The role of parents, teachers and leaders when reproaching is to do so without destroying the person, while providing clarity about the correct path and conveying confidence for the future.

It is commonly noted that we lain this parshabefore Tisha B’Av because it contains Moshe’s admonition beginning with the word “Eicha,” which we lain in the same tune as Megillas Eicha on Tisha B’Av.

Perhaps we can suggest that another reason is to teach us how to give mussar and bring people home. It is not by demeaning them, yelling at them, or making them feel utterly useless. It is by crafting the corrective message with sensitivity and infusing it with love, demonstrating that it emanates from a loving and intelligent heart.

Man is created with a heart and a brain, impulses and emotions, competing character traits, and a complicated psychology and thinking process. In his youth, a person requires parents and teachers to set him on the proper path and teach him Torah, responsibility and manners. He needs to be shown and taught how to think and how to act. Man has successes and failures as he goes through life. Due to his very nature, he often requires course corrections by real friends, family and those who care about him.

Torah and mitzvos help us battle the ever-present yeitzer hora, but that is not always sufficient. Every generation has unique temptations. The further we get from Sinai, the harder it is to deal with them. Just like Noach in his day - Chazal say, “Noach hayah tzorich sa’ad letomcho” - we all need help to make it and can’t always do it on our own.

To the degree that people recognize this, they can be sources of support and constructive chastisement.

It is interesting that this month of Jewish tragedy is referred to as Av, which is the same as the word meaning father. Perhaps we can say that it is a reminder to us to reprimand, with fatherly love, those whose sins prevent us from realizing the redemption, treating others as a father would and lending them a shoulder to lean on and a hand to help them climb.

It is a reminder to act as Moshe did, as the Chofetz Chaim did, admonishing in a way that could be accepted so that the people would merit exiting their golus and entering the land of geulah.

The Torah teaches us to understand difficult moments by recognizing that “just as a father punishes his son, Hashem punishes Klal Yisroel” (Devorim 8:5).

We are to understand that when we are hurt by Hashem, it is an act of love, not anger. A parent disciplines because he wants to prod his child to growth and success. Even when the admonishment is painful, it is understood to be in context of parental love and hope.

So, during Chodesh Av, we read this week’s parsha,in which Moshe Rabbeinu, the av lenevi’im, the most effective rebbiwe have ever had and the eternal Jewish father figure, demonstrates how a loving father offers rebuke.

In order to bring people to teshuvah, which will bring us to the ultimate geulah, we need to preach as Moshe preached, and rebuke and reprimand as he did.

An examination of the posuk beginning with the word “Eicha” reveals the state of the Jewish people at the time of Moshe Rabbeinu’s talk with them. Far from a great people simply lacking in refinement, they were actually rambunctious apikorsim, who would mock Moshe and incessantly quarrel among themselves (Rashi, Devorim 1:12).

Yet, Moshe saw greatness in them and worked to bring them to the level that would allow Hashem to end their golus and bring them to Eretz Yisroel. So too, in our day, if we are mochiach with love, treating all Jews as brothers and sisters, and care about them, we can also help bring the nation out of golus and into geulah.

So much Jewish blood has been shed. So much heartache has been felt throughout the centuries in exile. On Tisha B’Av, we sit on the floor and plaintively ask, “Lamah lanetzach tishkocheinu?” For how long will death endure? For how much longer will we linger in golus? We want to go home.

Help us follow in the paths of Moshe Rabbeinu and the Moshes of every generation. Help us love all Jews and bring them back. Help us show them the way so that we can all finally go home.

Enough with hate. Bring on the love.

On Tisha B’Av, we say in unison, “Hashiveinu, Hashem eilechavenoshuvah, chadeish yomeinu k’kedem.Hashem, bring us back to You…”

People all over say and intone these words with love and inspiration. Hashem, we know that Your arms are opened wide, waiting to receive us. We know that we are worthy of Your embrace.

Bring us back. Take us back. We’re ready.

By Rabbi Pinchos Lipschutz

Think about it. Last week was Shabbos Chazon and the signs of mourning were everywhere.

This week is Shabbos Nachamu and you can feel the happy energy. Celebration is everywhere.

What has changed between last week and this one? Last week, we mourned the absence of a Bais Hamikdosh. This week, it still lies in ruins. The shu’olimstill run rampant over the Har Habayis. We are sorely lacking so much. Why are we suddenly happy?

Yeshayahu, the novi of nechomah, speaks to us seven weeks in a row. This week we read the first of those seven haftoros. What is nechomah anyway? What does the word mean?

The posuk in Bereishis (6:6) states after Adam and Chava sinned, “Vayinochem Hashem,” indicating that Hashem, kevayachol,“regretted” what He had done. Rashi explains that the word nechomah also refers to stepping back, re-evaluating a situation and shifting perspective.

Apparently, this is a facet of comfort, the general use of the word nechomah.

In the haftorah of this Shabbos, Yeshayahu repeats the comforting words of his hopeful prophecy. He says, “Nachamu, nachamu ami,” telling Klal Yisroel twice to be comforted. Clearly, there is significance to the nechomah bekiflayim, the double measure of solace.

At the end of Maseches Makkos, when Rabi Akiva sees the chaos and impurity on the Har Habayis as a harbinger of better times, his friends proclaimed, “Akiva,nichamtonu. Akiva,nichamtonu.” They repeated the comment, following the lead of the novi who had doubled his words.

Perhaps we can explain that nechomah, comfort, has two stages. There is the actual comfort, the words that form a healing balm on our souls as we are reassured that all will be well. There is also the comfort that is brought about when we are no longer myopic and step back to look again and see a bigger picture.

This Shabbos, we are promised that Hakadosh Boruch Hu will assist us in achieving both definitions: nachamu, nachamu.

Once again, the Jewish people approach Shabbos Nachamu in an all-too-familiar place. The nations of the world are aligned against us as we attempt to live decent, honorable, peaceful lives. As we are forced to fight against evil, they chant for our deaths.

They hate us.

Once again, the Har Habayis has been overtaken by shuolim.

Throughout our history, we have encountered this animosity. Although there have been times when the hatred was delicately concealed, it is currently becoming more in vogue and acceptable to bash Jews. It has become acceptable for celebrities and icons to express their open hatred. While they couch their rhetoric in words of sympathy for the poor Palestinians, the truth emanates. They couldn’t care less about the Palestinians. They just hate Jews. Once again, Jews in Europe cower and seek escape routes, a chilling reminder of seventy years ago.

Arabs kill Jews and then demonstrate throughout Israel and in European capitals against Jewish people. Lovers of Israelare unwelcome in American universities, which drive campaigns against Israel. The Left battles Israelat every opportunity, offering nonsensical, hypocritical excuses for their anti-Semitism.

Much of the modern anti-Semitism is depicted as anti-Zionism, though the folly is obvious. Jews fight for their safety and are condemned. Millions of Jews were driven to their deaths from those very countries in which anti-Semites currently flex their muscles.

Anti-Semitism morphs to fit with the times. The age-old hatred for the Jewish nation adopts different slogans and chants, but at the heart of it all is the same old hatred for Yitzchok by Yishmoel, and Yaakov by Eisov and Lavan.

Whether it’s under the guise of blaming the Jews for spreading the plague, or drinking human blood, as in the days of old, or cloaked in humanitarian vestments, hate is hate. In Europe, a continent soaked with Jewish blood, it is in vogue to bash Jews, demonstrate against them, accuse them of the vilest crimes, and create an atmosphere reminiscent of the darkest days of Jewry that many believed we would never return to.

The eis tzorah is palpable in England, where Jews were burned alive; in Paris, where the Talmud was lit up and destroyed; in Germany, home of Kristallnacht and the Holocaust; Poland, home of the crematoria; Austria, birthplace of Hitler; and many other places.

We wonder how it will end. When will justice triumph? When will care and concern about the good and the kind be paramount?

We recognize that we suffer persecution and discrimination because we are Jews. The world’s hatred of the Jew is not derived from their concern about human rights violations or political decisions.

We are reminded regularly that sinah yordah l’olam, hatred for the Jewish people descended to the world as we gathered at Har Sinai to accept the Torah. Since that time, we have been cast apart from other nations, despised, reviled, stomped on and murdered. Miraculously, we endure.

This Shabbos, we will go to shul and listen as the haftorah proclaims that Hashem calls out to us and says, “Nachamu, nachamu Ami. Be comforted, be comforted My nation.”

Where do we find answers to our questions?

In the Torah. These parshiyos give us the depth we need to see clearer, the second type of nechomah.

A young man boarded a bus to Bayit Vegan and saw one of its most distinguished residents, Rav Moshe Shapiro, sitting there. He approached the rov and asked, “How are we to understand what happened during World War II?”

Rav Moshe looked at him and nodded. “Shalom,” he said, effectively ending the conversation. He didn’t say another word.

Later, someone asked why he hadn’t answered the questioner. Rav Moshe explained, “He knows where I live in Bayit Vegan, and he knows how much time he had until the bus reached my stop. He asked a question whose answer is much longer and more complex than the few minutes of the bus ride, so clearly he didn’t want the real answer, but a conversation, and I don’t have time for small talk.”

To understand the events of Jewish history, we must peer beyond the curtain, studying and scrutinizing the happenings of our people and the pesukim of the Torah. Small talk and pedestrian thoughts will not lead to understanding what has befallen our people throughout the millennia.

The pesukim of this week’s parsha form a retrospective review, reminding us of the beginnings of our nation and our first footsteps as the Chosen People.

We feel along with Moshe Rabbeinu as he pleads for mercy. “Asher mi Keil kamocha - Who else is like You, Hashem?” he wonders (Devorim 3:24). Rashi explains that a king of flesh and blood is surrounded by advisors who question his merciful decisions, whereas Hashem can extend mercy without listening to others.

There is a spark of nechomah.

We read about the essence of life, “V’atem hadveikim baHashem Elokeichem chaim kulchem hayom,” and we feel a surge of hope. Life means connecting to Hashem, displaying more intensity in tefillah, and demonstrating more concentration when we sit by a Gemara (Devorim4:3).

We continue by listening closely to Moshe Rabbeinu’s reminder: “Mi goy gadol asher lo Elokim kerovim eilov? Who else has this gift and ability that Hashem listens every time we cry out to Him?” (Devorim4:7).

Has Hashemperformed such miracles for any other nation? Has He gone to war for them and inspired awe and terror like He has done for us? (Devorim4:34).

We study the Aseres Hadibros, which form the building blocks of our lives as Torah Jews. We recognize that they set us apart from the rest of the world, and by following their precepts, we are placed on a higher, blessed plane.

We study the words of “Shema Yisroel Hashem Elokeinu Hashem Echod,” which are the bedrock of our faith. We wake up to those words and go to sleep to them. They form the last physical action by souls ascending to heaven and have been the enduring final message of martyrs through the generations.

In 6:18, we are taught how to live as ehrliche Yidden: “You should act honorably and be truthful; then Hashem will be good to you and will bring us into the land He swore to our forefathers and will drive away our enemies from confronting us.”

If we seekHashem’s protection and aid in battle, we must affirm our commitment to honesty and to battling corruption. Not just by listening, but by acting. If we tolerate men of ill-will and sometimes even promote them, how can we expect Hashemto fight for us?

We read about how He will lead us into the Promised Land, where we will find homes filled with good. It is an attainable goal, assured to us by He who is “ne’eman leshaleim s’char.” If we follow the word of Hashem, as laid out in the pesukim of this week’s parsha, we know that we will merit salvation, prosperity and peace.

The founding of Israel and the Six Day War were turning points in our history, but people became enamored with the power of man and seemed to overlook the Hand of Hashem. We are sent regular reminders that if we forget the Divine role and Hand in our existence, we are doomed to experience tragedy.

We merit nechomah when we recognize that we are kachomer beyad hayotzeir, wholly dependent upon Hashem’s mercy for our very existence.

Parshas Va’eschanon and the Aseres Hadibros are always lained on Shabbos Nachamu to remind us that our nechomaharrives when we follow the Aseres Hadibros and the Torah. It is through fidelity to Torah and Hashem’s word that we merit living peacefully, in Eretz Yisroel and everywhere else.

A young bochurdavened in the bais medrash of the Bluzhever Rebbe. On Chanukah, the crowd would file by the rebbe after hadlokas neiros to receive his good wishes. The boy asked his friend to take a picture of him as the rebbe spoke to him.

The Bluzhever Rebbe noticed. When the bochur reached him, the rebbe took the boy’s hand and held it. “Bochur’l,” he said, “you probably want a picture with me because I am a relic of a vanished world. And while it’s important to remember what was, it is also important that you understand that within you and your generation lie the koach, the ability, to guarantee its survival.”

We study what was because it gives us a charge for the future and a path forward.

That is why we rejoice now, comforted and secure in what we have learned over the past nine days. Over this time, we got in touch with our source, origin and destiny, and recognize our marching orders for the future. We even draw comfort from the fact that we mourned and that we have never forgotten, despite so many years and so much suffering.

After studying the messages of Eicha and Chazon, how can we feel anything else but “Nachamu, nachamu Ami?” We understand where we were and where we are and how we got here. We are thus able to experience consolation.

Armed with the Torah’s enduring message of where we are going and how to get there, we reach the state of consolation, nechomah.

Nachamu, nachamu. Forever and ever. Amein.

Rabbi Pinchos Lipschutz

Maybe because it was a slow news week, or because the Trump-Russia story is getting tiresome, or because it was a convenient way for the New York Times to cover our community from their vantage point; the Gray Lady has been running negative articles targeting our community and its practices.

First it was an article against bris milah - not only metzitzah, but the whole thing. The hardworking Timesreporter dug up disenfranchised Jews and wrote about their decision not to circumcise their newborn sons. One of those newborns isn’t halachicallyJewish, but that’s clearly beside the point. The goal is to plant seeds of confusion and uncertainty in the minds of readers.

Then it was a lengthy article about 62 families who moved to Jersey City, a major enough story to merit space on page A17. It’s as if 62 families moving into a city of 250,000 residents is something groundbreaking.

Are they Irish, or Italian, or blacks or Hispanics moving into a Waspy city? Of course not. The Timeswould never tolerate such bigotry. The 62 families are Jewish. Not only Jewish, but ultra-Orthodox. And worse than that, they are Hasids.

And get this. The Hasids have nerve. “The influx, however, has provoked tensions with long-established residents, as the ultra-Orthodox seek to establish a larger footprint for their surfing population.”

Those pushy Hasids again. Even the mayor says so.

“They literally go door to door and can be very pushy trying to purchase someone’s house,” said Mayor Steven Fulop, a Jew of course. He told the writer that “his town took pride in its diversity, but had been concerned about ‘very aggressive solicitation.’”

Then two more little dots for the reader to connect and complete the story.

The article is headlined “A Wary Welcome for Orthodox Jews as Prices Push Families Beyond Brooklyn,” and repeatedly speaks about Jews moving out of Brooklyn, as if that is something terrible.

“Squeezed out of their traditional neighborhoods, ultra-Orthodox Jews have taken steps that have raised concerns as they settle into new communities,” the article reports.

The continued reference to leaving Brooklyn is a dog whistle to watch out or you’ll have a ghetto in your backyard. A lead puncher is Mayor Fulop, who the paper identifies as “a grandson of Holocaust survivors and a graduate of yeshivas.”

Ah. So he has a right to speak.

Which yeshivos? I Googled it, and it turns out that the good mayor was in yeshiva as a child, but didn’t really stick around. I’m not judging him, and my heart is pained for another Yiddishe neshomah that drifted away, but by the time he graduated high school, he wasn’t in a Jewish institution anymore. The choices he made after that don’t indicate that the spirit of the yeshiva had stayed with him.

He’s certainly not the one to make a statement or provide analyses on our behalf.

The article also made sure to mention Lakewood - you know, the town where religious Jews have taken over - and remind readers that the municipality voted overwhelmingly for Donald Trump, making some sort of vague point without explaining it.

The author, who is probably a nice person, writes: “Lakewood is also feeling the impact of a fast-growing minority group. Decades ago, the area was rural, filled with hardscrabble egg-raising farms owned by Jewish Holocaust refugees, a few grand hotels and an estate that once had been owned by John D. Rockefeller.”

Holocaust Jews are the good kind, but the ultra-Orthodox Brooklynites? Watch out for them. They destroy farms and Rockefeller-esque properties. And they are going to destroy your town if you’re not careful and allow them to move in.

We, too, just like the good mayor, have a right to weigh in on the topic of Jews moving into rundown neighborhoods and helping the local economy.

Perhaps the relevance of 62 families moving into Jersey City is something very different and contains a message for us.

In Tehillim, we learn that after the meraglim convinced Klal Yisroel to reject Eretz Yisroel in the midbar -“Vayimasub’eretz chemdah” - Hashem promised “lehapil zarom bagoyim ulezorosom bo’arotzos,” to spread the children of the people who lost their trust in Him amongst the nations and disperse them throughout the lands (Tehillim 106:24-27).

Where does it say in Chumashthat after the sin of the meraglim, Hashem swore to disperse the Jews around the world?

The PeirushMaharz”uon Medrash explains that the root of this was the posuk that states that Hashem swore that His glory would fill the world: “Veyimolei kevod Hashem es kol ha’aretz” (Bamidbar 14:21). He explains that the only way for Hashem’s glory to fill the earth is through Jews living in every corner of the globe. The Jewish people are His ambassadors. Thus, it is derived that the Jews would be evicted from Eretz Yisroel as punishment for that sin and would be dispersed around the world.

The posuk in this week’s parsha (Devorim 11:1) says, “V’ohavta es Hashem Elokecha.” Chazal(Yoma 86a) derive from the posuk“sheyehei sheim Shomayim misaheiv al yodcha.” Our mission is to make the name of Hashem beloved.

Because our mission here is to increase love and appreciation of Hashem, there is significance to all we do. The story isn’t 62 families opening a shul in a former dry cleaners shop that was boarded up in a rundown neighborhood, but that kevod Hashem is spreading.

For our children to succeed, we have to invest them with self-confidence. For them to thrive, we need to tell them their strengths and point out their gifts. That should be obvious to everyone by now.

And sometimes, we need to give ourselves an injection of national self-esteem, to remind ourselves of who we are, who our forefathers were, where we come from, and why we’re here. We don’t always know. Sometimes we act as if we have forgotten.

The Chazon Ish writes that the length of golus makes us forget.

And we need to remember.

We lack self-confidence. We try to mix in with the others, because we aren’t proud enough of our identity.

We have to be self-confident.

In last week’s parsha (Devorim7:7), we learned, “Lo merubchem mikol ha’amim.” Hashem doesn’t love us because we are the largest or most powerful nation. He loves us even though we are the smallest.

We shouldn’t make believe like we are something we are not. Compared to all the other nations of the world, we are quite small and different.

Rav Leizer Yudel Finkel zt”l, the Mirrer rosh yeshiva, met the sons of the Brisker Rov after their arrival in Yerushalayim. He was surprised to see that their dress was unique. They were wearing the old-fashioned caps and suits of Eastern Europe, attire that was very different from the dress of the yeshiva bochurimall around them. Rav Finkel mentioned to their father, the Brisker Rov, that their mode of dress made them look very different than everyone else in the resurgent olam hayeshivos.

“Yes,” the Brisker Rov agreed, “it does. Because they are takeh different.”

Sometimes, we need to celebrate ourselves and realize that we have a mission and a mandate that make us takehdifferent, as the posuk in ParshasVo’eschanan (Devorim4:6) states, “Ki hi chochmaschem uvinaschem l’einei ho’amim.” “Study and observe My mitzvos,” Hashem says, for that is what identifies you as a smart and intelligent people in the eyes of the other nations.

We have it all. The nations of the world don’t hate us for being us as much as they hate us for trying to be them.

It’s summertime. People travel. Those who live in sheltered neighborhoods get to be exposed to Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s beautiful world and its inhabitants. We get to make an impression, to play our role as ambassadors. People who have only heard about us or read about us in the paper, watch us and see how we conduct ourselves. They notice if we are pushy, if we clean up after ourselves, and if we make sure our children don’t run wild.

On his visit to America, Rav Meir Shapiro asked for a hairbrush. The Lubliner rosh yeshiva then stood in front of a mirror and brushed his beard. His host was bewildered by the sight.

“I am a European rov,” the famed guest responded. “For many in the audience tonight, seeing me will be their enduring image of an old-time rabbi. I feel obligated to make it as pleasant as possible, so that they will view our world positively.”

If you read accounts of contemporary baalei teshuvah, you find that many of their journeys began with the sight of a religious family, or a glimpse of a Shabbos table. In so many cases, there was no seminar or lecture, just an image, followed by the thought of,“I want that in my life.” Read Rav Uri Zohar’s story. Read the stories of the thousands who fell under his spell and sent their children to a yeshiva and became religious. You’ll see stories of ordinary people who met a religious Jew and decided to find out more.

Hundreds of kollel men fan out across Eretz Yisroel cold-calling for Torah and bringing souls back to Torah and Yahadus just by being themselves.

We all carry much power, which is emitted by the way we walk, the way we interact with each other, and the way we carry ourselves. Everything makes a difference.

The message of the New York Times article referenced earlier is not the negative impression that it was ostensibly meant to create, but that if 62 families in a city populated by hundreds of thousands make waves, then we can all do the same, in the wider world, wherever we go. We shake ‘em up. We get noticed. What we do and the way we act make a big difference.

In hilchos Shabbos, the Chazon Ish (siman 56:7) rules as follows regarding milking cows on Shabbos: “It is forbidden to milk cows on Shabbos, and this is the minhag wherever Shabbos is valued, and it’s the Torah’s way to maintain peaceful relations with everyone…”

The last few words seem quizzical and unrelated to the halacha. What does having good neighborly relations have to do with milking cows on Shabbos?

Rav Yitzchok Hutner explained that the Chazon Ish wrote this p’sak at a time when the Israeli Histadrut labor union was on a campaign for Jews not to make use of Arab labor. They called it avodah zarah. The Chazon Ish held that Jews should try to maintain good relations with their neighbors, and thus inserted the line into a teshuvah in halacha in order to indicate the importance he attached to that dictate.

To be aware of those around us and act as a good neighbor is as eternal as the halacha itself.

Perhaps the New York Timesarticle was a message to remind us of who we are and how we can impact others.

In the very last paragraph, the article quotes a Jersey City resident. “Eddie Sumpter, 34, a black neighbor around the corner who was able to buy a bigger house by selling his previous home to a Hasidic family, said he welcomed the newcomers. “‘We live among Chinese. We live among Spanish,’” said Mr. Sumpter, who is a cook. “‘It don’t matter. People is people. If you’re good people, you’re good people.’”

People is people. If we would accept that and be comfortable with our role and identity, embracing it and taking pride in our distinctive dress and conduct, we would be the light unto others we’re meant to be. People would see us as people.

A talmid approached Rav Avrohom Pam before bein hazemanim. “I am returning home,” he said, “and I have several non-religious aunts who will extend their hands in greeting when I arrive. How should I handle it?”

“I will share with you a rule I live by,” Rav Pam replied. “If a person expresses himself with courtesy and respect, then others around him will respect him even if they don’t understand his practice. If you are polite and considerate, and explain the halachawith confidence, then I assure you they will respect your conviction and not take it personally.”

Rav Pam’s rule for life is a guiding light for this season of travel and relaxation, as well as all year round.

We have to know who we are, and then those around us will know it too.

We is good people.

By Rabbi Pinchos Lipschutz

An American tourist turned off of Rechov Meah Shearim with a dreamy look in his eyes as he wandered about in the small alleyways. A local man approached and asked if he needed help with directions.

The visitor explained that while he looked like a wayward tourist, he was, in fact, born and raised in Meah Shearim. He hadn’t returned for some forty years, and this was the first time he was back in the place where he had grown up. He had gone far from his roots, he told the Yerushalmi, and decided that it was time for him to return and see what he had left behind.

There was one thing about which he was most curious. He remembered a scene from his youth.

“There was a young man who would sit alone in a smallshul and learn,” he recounted. “That was all he did. His sweet voice would waft out through the windows, capturing passersby. He alone had the key to the shul, and he seemed to be there perpetually hunched over a Gemara,standing up to walk around and contemplate an idea, then returning to the Gemara. What happened to the young scholar from Ohel Sara?” he asked.

The local led him to the Ohel Sara shul and told him to peek through the window.

“Here he is,” said the Yerushalmi.

The visitor looked on in awe, a sight of more than forty years earlier coming to life in front of his eyes. That very same scholar, Rav Yosef Sholom Elyashiv, was sitting in his spot in the same shul, learning with the same sweet voice, hunched over a Gemara.

Rav Elyashiv chose a path and never veered from it. As remarkable as his hasmodah and focus, was the fact that he stepped onto a derech as a child and never left it. He remained on that blessed path his entire life.

Staying on the path, as much as anything else, leads to a life of brocha.

That is the key of this week’s parsha, which begins with the words, “Re’eh, see, anochi nosein lifneichem brocha ukelalah, I place before you blessings and curses. Es habrocha asher tishme’u…”

Those who listen and follow Hashem’s word remain on the path of brocha. Those who choose not to listen have no path to follow and find themselves ending up in the wrong places.

Someone who listens to the word of Hashem and follows His path is fortunate enough to know where to go and, just as importantly, what to avoid. If you have a path through life, you know how to live.

People who don’t have a path to follow get lost and end up far from the path of blessing.

Life throws so much our way that if we are not on an established derech, we can, when confronted by challenges, become sad, anxious, depressed and lonely. Those who don’t follow a derech will often lack the self-confidence needed to get back to where they belong.

The test of life is to withstand the ever-present pressures and difficulties. If we are ensconced firmly on a path, with a clear goal, then we have the strength to handle challenges.

People who find themselves in trying situations, facing danger, illness or financial difficulty, can retain their values and equilibrium if they follow the path of “re’eh” and brocha.

When Rav Yisroel Salanter was on his deathbed, he called one of the local gabboim, a fellow Rav Yisroel suspected would be asked to remain with his body until the kevurah.

Rav Yisroel spoke with the poor man about the fear of being with the dead and explained to him why he need not fear, thus giving him strength to face the imminent task.

Not long after, Rav Yisroel’s soul left him and the gabbaiwas able to discharge the mission of remaining with the body, because this tzaddik was calm and tranquil enough in his final minutes to continue on his well trodden path and maintaining his lifelong practice of focusing on others. He felt bad for the poor man who would be left alone with the lifeless body.

Many question why the parsha begins with the word “Re’eh,” in the singular, and then continues with the word “lifneichem,” which is plural.

Perhaps we can suggest an answer of our own.

The path is set for the individual to see and contemplate - re’eh. Once he has chosen to conduct his life on the proper derech, he is able to impact and help many people. Hence the plural; lifneichem.

Everyindividual possesses the power to impact and influence the many. Man is given the capability to shape not just his own destiny, but that of many others.

We need to follow the blessed path, and if we do, there is no limit to the impact we can have on other people. The one who is blessed can cause a revolution among others, and that is the greatest source of merit.

There are people who are able to help many others. They are people of brocha. One such person in our times was Rabbi Meir Zlotowitz, whose shloshim was recently marked. He began with one sefer. Its success emboldened him and showed him that there was a huge need for the type of work he became famous for publishing. From a small start, he went on to have a lasting impact on Jews around the world.

When regular people, like you and me, are on the right path, armed with visions, dreams and words, we can light up the world, if we only want.

The Kotzker Rebbe explained the shift in the posuk from the singular to the plural as a reference to the idea that we all have an individual path to Torah: Re’eh, find your path, your way, your road to Torah, but know that there is a path for each individual person. In our schools and homes, we need to remember that what works for one talmid or child doesn’t necessarily work for another.

This, too, is a directive for this period on the calendar, as we prepare for another year of doing our jobs as parents and teachers and meeting the call of the hour.

It’s time that we developed the humility to really try to understand the way our children perceive things and speak to them, rather than at them.

Rav Avrohom Pam, whose yahrtzeit will be marked this coming week, would recall a moment in his own home. There is a machlokes haposkim whether to first light the Chanukah menorah or to first recite Havdolah on Motzoei Shabbos Chanukah.

Rav Pam’s minhag was to light candles first. One year, as he struck a match and was preparing to say the brachos, his five-year-old son called out, “I don’t care what you do. I’m not lighting candles until after Havdolah.”

Rav Pam considered his son’s words and their source. He understood that his son was so frightened at the prospect of what he considered chillul Shabbos that he lashed out. Without hesitating, the rosh yeshiva looked lovingly at his son and thanked him.

As we bentch Rosh Chodesh Elul this Shabbos, we demonstrate that we are committed to living the next year more productively. “Anochi nosein lifneichem.” The anochi - that is us - can gain for ourselves great benefit if we are “nosein lifneichem,” helpful to others.

Success in impacting others starts with a respect and appreciation of where people are coming from. We have to learn to listen better and take the time to consider why people say what they say instead of brushing them off or shouting louder.

Re’eh. See the children and the adults. See the opportunities, each one an island of its own. Open your eyes, even if the sights appear new, even if you don’t completely understand them, and even if what you see calls for a new approach. Take the time to see and understand.

When we will recognize that other people think differently and have a path to avodas Hashem that is different than ours, we will join lifneichem, all of us as one, a nation marching forward into the new year, assured of endless blessing.

Rabbi Pinchos Lipschutz

The country was gripped by hysteria last week and many Jewish groups bought into the narrative as well, issuing quotes and releases in a bid to be included in the conversation.

Fringe lunatic groups, including neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and other weirdoes organized a demonstration in Virginia against the removal of a statue of General Robert E. Lee. Leftist groups lined up against them and there was much physical contact and violence. One of the neo-Nazis rammed his car into the crowd protesting his protest and killed a young woman while injuring many others.

A frenzy was stirred by the media against President Donald Trump. The president condemned the violence, but didn’t use the exact language that the PC crowd would have liked. His opponents grabbed onto the gift and launched a vicious tirade against him. Their candidate couldn’t beat Trump at the ballot box in November, and ever since, they have been working incessantly to discredit him and cause him to leave office prematurely.

The week before, it was North Korea and the hysterical alarms that the president’s statement that he would respond to any North Korean attack with “fire and fury” would cause a war. Trump’s gambit worked and the North Korean boy-dictator climbed down from his threats. That was the end of that story. It was gone from the national conversation almost as quickly as the allegations that Trump colluded with the Russians to swing the election his way, when polls showed it wasn’t sticking.

And so it has been going ever since Trump’s presidency began.

The Democrat party has evolved into a group of avowed leftists, led by the likes of Reps. Maxine Waters and Keith Ellison, socialists such as Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, Marxists such as Black Lives Matter, and the overwhelming majority of liberal Jews, blacks and Latinos. In order to preserve their coalition, it is vital for Democrats to cause their constituents to view the Republican Party as bigoted, racist, opposed to working people of all races and dedicated to stripping minorities of their rights and privileges. Class warfare is a classic Marxist tactic adopted by communists and Saul Alinsky, architect of much of the modern Democrat party and intellectual guide of notables Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.

I received the following invitation from Tom Perez, chair of the Democrat National Committee: “This weekend, we’re holding a nationwide Weekend of Action to rise against hatred and organize to defeat all those who would perpetuate it. What happened this past weekend in Charlottesville, and Donald Trump’s disgraceful actions since, should only motivate us to keep fighting even harder for what is right”

They are rising “against hatred” and have to “organize to defeat all those who would perpetuate it,” meaning Republicans, and especially President Trump, because he has “engaged in disgraceful actions” since Charlottesville.

What was Trump’s sin? He said that leftist protesters engaged in violence. It is forbidden to say that. Leftists can do no ill and whatever they do is justified. Their actions in Ferguson, Baltimore and other cities where people rioted against police, destroying property and causing mayhem, are not up for condemnation. Only people on the so-called right are to be condemned.

The Nazis, white supremacists, anti-Semites, KKK, and others like them are all contemptible; that goes without saying. We would prefer that they be put out of business, but this country’s laws guarantee them the right to gather and engage in public speech, even if it is hateful and despicable. The president never said otherwise, and to say that he did is fake news. Because he condemned leftist violence, he was accused of engaging in moral equivalency. A tumult ensued so quickly that it was as if it had all been planned.

Typical of the way the media works on the public’s perceptions was a broadcast conversation between CNN icon Wolf Blitzer and CNN national security correspondent Jim Sciutto, who said that the Barcelona terror attack was related to what happened in Charlottesville.

It was Sciutto who brought up the idea, saying, “In light of the uproar of the last several days, five days apart you have a white supremacist in Charlottesville use a vehicle to kill, and here you have attackers at least following the modus operandi of terrorists using vehicles apparently to kill as well, and those shared tactics that should be alarming.”

Blitzer, who views himself as the reincarnation of Edward R. Murrow, picked up the narrative, saying, “There will be questions about copycats. There will be questions if what happened in Barcelona was at all a copycat version of what happened in Charlottesville, Virginia. Even though there may be different characters, different political ambitions, they used the same killing device: a vehicle going at high speed into a group, a large group of pedestrians.”

Never mind that using vehicles as weapons is an ISIS tactic, perfected by the Arabs in their terror battle against Israel before being introduced to Europe. But facts never stop leftists from the propaganda tricks they use to promote their agenda, whatever it may be.

There are ISIS networks in many European cities, including Barcelona, where a large group had been plotting this attack for some time. ISIS doesn’t need to learn from a sick hick Nazi how to commit acts of terror. Much planning goes into their attacks as they perfect their killing methods. There is no way any thinking person could think that this was a copycat attack.

Yet, CNN, the standard for news reporting in this country, has no problem tying the terror act to Charlottesville and, by extension, Trump. People watch this and read it. And the continuous drip, drip, drip of the lie that Republicans and Trump are bigots and KKK supporters continues to seep deeper into the American psyche.

Polls taken last week show that an overwhelming majority of Americans want the confederate statues to stay where they are. You would never know that the only people who want them removed are liberals, because the media has so tainted the way you view and understand what is transpiring in this country. What the majority wants is not necessarily what the media tells you they want.

The facts are not important to the media. They are focused on an agenda, which in this case is to discredit, demean and destroy Trump.

Last week, some sixty-plus Democrat House members signed a resolution censuring the president. Rep. Steve Cohen went further, saying that he would seek to impeach Trump because of his Charlottesville response.

Trump is Trump. He hasn’t changed since he ran for president. His agenda was clearly laid out, a bitter campaign ensued, and the American people elected him to serve as commander-in-chief. His political enemies thought that would never happen. There was no way Mrs. Clinton would lose. When she did, they could not face defeat.

Trump surely has his faults, and his administration has not yet established a solid footing. His constant, sometimes infantile tweeting does him no good and must be done away with. He has to keep his petty thoughts to himself and concentrate on doing what he promised he would do for the country. While Senators McCain and Graham, and others, may well deserve the contempt Trump heaps upon them, his tweets accomplish little more than antagonizing the swamp and people whose support he needs to move forward the agenda he was elected to implement.

Now, with Steve Bannon out, there is a chance for the president to get his act together and regroup. We hope that he can right his ship and get back to focusing on governing, without veering off and getting bogged down with tangential issues.

There is a lot at stake here for the country and for religious Jews. President Trump is the friendliest president to Israel in a very long time. He has relationships with many Jews. Two of his children married Jews.

This president fights for moral causes. We benefit from a proper moral climate. He works to improve the economy. So far, the stock market has risen 4,000 points, as people are optimistic that his economic agenda will sharply improve the economy. Our community is desperate for a good economy, and for more and better jobs.

A President Hillary Clinton - like the past administration - would have forced us to be exposed to practices that are amoral. We should be thankful that we now have a president who values and supports religion. Our people should not be joining with the various liberal groups and swamp creatures who seek to weaken, isolate and topple the president, who still has the potential to do much good.

Do we want this country to look like Europe, where terror attacks are becoming commonplace thanks to the utopian open borders policy? Many Jews are afraid for their futures there and are planning leave the continent. Do we not appreciate what the president has set into action to stem illegal immigration and stop vile, dangerous people from coming here to perpetrate their murderous ideology?

Do we want a return to the days of Barack Obama? Have we forgotten what he did to undermine the country’s moral standing and weaken the country in myriad ways?

Are we that backward that we seek to curry favor with the likes of Senator Chuck Schumer, who votes against the interests of our community on every issue except Israel?

For decades, people have been voting for Republicans because they promised lower taxes, better health care, morality, and much else that the majority of this country supports, yet they have never delivered on their promises. They become engulfed by the Washington Disease and seek to please their bosses, lobbyists, the media and Democrats. Finally, there is a president who takes those promises seriously, and is fighting to force Republicans to keep their word.

As a people who have been buffeted about from one country to another, we appreciate that this country is the most accommodating to us in history. This is in large part due to the constitution, which guarantees free speech and freedom to worship as we please. It is imperative that we elect candidates who take seriously their pledge to uphold the constitution and the freedoms it offers every citizen of this great and compassionate land.

Do we not appreciate the meaning of Trump’s victory? Do we not recognize the need to respect the country’s leader? Does anyone think that the country, or the religious community, or Israel would have been better off with the Democrats at the helm of the vast bureaucracy?

Did the same people rushing to microphones to condemn the president ever utter a disrespectful word when Obama and his Sec. of State engaged in anti-Israel activity, or condoned wild anti-police demonstrations around the country?

There was an election and this candidate won. As a democracy, we are to support him and pray for his success. Let us do so and hope that he finally gets his act together and is empowered to bring prosperity and unity to the land. Let us not contribute to the president’s further isolation, and aid the bid to topple him and reverse the trajectory of accomplishment.

Rabbeinu Bechyei writes in his introduction to Parshas Shoftim that just as peace is necessary for the world’s existence, so is mishpot, justice. Without it, people would be robbing, harming and killing each other and the world would not last. It is only with a system of laws and jurisprudence that everything hangs together.

Chazal say (Avos1:18) that the world exists on three things, law, truth and peace, as the novi Zecharia (Zecharia 8:16) states, “In your cities judge truth, justice, peace.” He is referring to the necessity for judges to work for peace and be loyal to the truth, for the existence of the world depends on that.

This is the admonishment of the parsha: “Shoftim veshotrim titein lecha.” In order to maintain a healthy society, we must establish a system of judges and appoint people to enforce the rule of law. They must be learned, intelligent, honest, upstanding and incorruptible. They must be men whose life ambition is to pursue justice. It does not suffice to have one supreme Sanhedrin staffed with such leaders. Every town has to establish a court to ensure that its citizens have a place to turn for direction and adjudication of their grievances.

The officers of the bais din must be beyond reproach. They must be men of uncompromising honor and power, who do not cower in the face of opposition and intimidation. They must possess the skill and determination to enforce the edicts and rulings of the shoftim with strength and dignity. Anarchy and mediocrity have no place in our system of rule, lest they result in a breakdown of respect for authority and righteousness.

The Torah states that when the people choose a king, the candidate for royalty must be an individual who is not interested in enriching himself or indulging in senseless trappings of power. The posukfurther commands that the king write for himself two Sifrei Torah, from which he should read and learn throughout his life.

The Torah’s priority is to encourage people to follow an honorable, humble and just path. The monarchy, the Sanhedrin and other institutions were created to foster correct behavior and ensure that society is governed by Torah norms. Today, we unfortunately no longer have a Sanhedrin, kings or shoftim, but we still must act as if our every deed is destined to be written in the Torah, and conduct ourselves with that imaginary publication of our personal lives in mind.

The parsha ends with the mitzvah of eglah arufah, the procedure to follow when a body of an unknown person is found at the outskirts of a town. The elders of the city must wash their hands over the eglah arufah and state that their hands did not kill the person and their eyes did not witness it: “Yodeinu lo shofchu es hadom hazeh ve’eineinu lo ra’u.”

Obviously, no one would suspect the elders of murdering a person. The lesson of the eglah arufah is that they must declare that they set everything in place under their jurisdiction to preclude the travesty of murder. They proclaim that they established a proper system of justice and compassionate treatment of strangers. They come to the outskirts of the city to state for all to hear that the murder victim did not die due to negligence on their part. With the kohanim at their sides, the zekeinimclaim that they did everything in their ability to ensure that no person suffers abuse of any kind, especially of the kind or degree that would lead to such a tragic demise. They proclaim that they have always acted in the best interests of the community, without engaging in corruption and favoritism of any sort.

In our day, although we no longer have the eglah arufah, we still must all be able to proclaim that we have done what we can to set up institutions of jurisprudence, chesed and charity, and proper schools for chinuch and the transmission of our mesorah. We have to be able to act courageously and without fear to ensure that we can all say with complete honesty, “Yodeinu lo shofchu es hadom hazeh,” our hands did not spill the blood - both literally and figuratively - of unfortunate victims in our community.

Too many positions of power and influence are held by people who have muscled their way in by virtue of their wealth or hubris. Too many issues fester, because nobody is interested in the messiness involved in dealing with them. By holding gatherings where the same predictable boiler-plate banalities are offered, we will not succeed in attracting or energizing large numbers of our people, nor will we succeed in bringing about change.

If we seek to continue to grow and thrive, we have to be more realistic and real, allowing competent, faithful, honest people to attain positions of power, where they can influence others to follow in Hashem’s path and dedicate their lives to goodness and righteousness.

If we want to make a dent in the problems confronting us today, we have to get past the knee-jerk impulse to remain loyal to what is politically correct and safe. Lack of information and an inability to think boldly are crippling. They prompt people to offer safe and simplistic solutions, relying on “conventional wisdom,” even when dealing with serious, multi-faceted conundrums, because they fear the new and unknown.

The school year is about to begin. So many people suffer through the acceptance process and there is more than enough blame to go around on all sides. But have we ever sat down to seriously and honestly examine the roots of the problem and seek to resolve them?

A baal teshuvah couple from a secular Israeli city moved to Bnei Brak so that they could raise their daughter to be a fine, religious Jew, but the local school would not accept the newcomers. The couple discussed their problem with Rabbi Yossi Vallis, who had been aiding them in their journey towards Torah. He went to speak to Rav Elazar Menachem Man Shach, seeking his advice.

Rav Shach felt the pain of the parents and their daughter. He immediately called the head of Chinuch Atzmai, the religious school system in Israel, and told him the story, soliciting his aid. The leader turned down Rav Shach, saying that the principal of the school is a very tough woman and he has a very hard time with her. He was sure that his efforts would be in vain.

Rav Shach found the woman’s number and called. When she answered the phone, he said, “Hello, this is Leizer Shach calling. I want to speak to you about a fine girl who belongs in your school.”

How would you react if Rav Shach called you with a request?

Not this woman. She turned him down.

“They are baalei teshuvah,” she said. “I can’t take the girl in. The board of parents who oversee me will never permit such a thing.”

Despite her arrogance and obstinacy, the gadol hador continued the conversation. “Give me their names and phone numbers,” he said.

There were a dozen people waiting outside to enter and speak with Rav Shach, who had many other pressing issues to deal with, but ensuring that a bas Yisroel had a school was a priority.

He sat at his table and called each parent representative one by one. “Hello, this is Leizer Shach. I am calling to discuss an issue with you…”

He discussed the matter with every one of those parents who were the class representatives and resolved the matter. The girl was accepted into the school and Rav Shach kept tabs on her development.

That is a leader. That is someone who cares. That is a shofet who is incorruptible and works with emes and mishpotto find shalom. He has departed this world, but he left us an example to emulate.

Elul is a good time to start.

By Rabbi Pinchos Lipschutz

We are now into the second week of the month of Elul, the time reserved for reviewing our actions over the past year in preparation of the yemei hadin. We should not only examine what we did wrong and seek to improve our conduct, but also recognize what we did right and realize that we are essentially good people, capable of acting correctly. Concentrating only on what we did wrong can be depressing and lead us to think that we are incapable of conducting ourselves properly.

A cheshbon hanefesh should leave a person feeling empowered to get things right. Although we have sinned, we need not view ourselves as losers. We are given the opportunity to ameliorate our actions and correct the accumulated wrongs. We have the intelligence and strength to grow and persevere. Hashem helps those who seek to improve themselves but find it difficult. Lest someone feel that the task is too difficult, Chazal (Medrash, Shir Hashirim Rabbah5:2) provide positive reinforcement. They say that Hashem proclaims to us, “Pischu li pesach kechudo shel machat va’ani eftach lochem pesach kepischo shel ulam. Show some effort, show that you care, and I will help with the rest.”

No one should underestimate their worth by thinking that they are ill equipped to follow all the mitzvos and act with proper middos in a world in which it seems that people are competing against each other for everything, from money to social status. There are so many temptations and problems. It is difficult to earn the money we need to make ends meet. People can’t seem to catch up and keep their heads above water. Everywhere you turn, there are higher bills, higher taxes, and higher rents, mortgages and tuitions. Who can blame you for feeling inadequate when you can’t keep up with the neighbors and your children feel as if they are lacking?

Everyone needs to be reminded not to judge themselves by comparing themselves to others. Don’t live based on what other people think. Don’t live to make superficial impressions on your friends. Get your priorities together and concentrate on what is really important. Don’t waste your time on fleeting pleasures, and don’t waste your money on things that are not really important.

Elulcauses you to reflect and identify what is significant and central to you and your family. Keeping your family strong and satisfied is of prime importance. Improving yourself, learning Torah, observing halacha and being a mentchare important.

Finding time for what is crucial is possible even in our world, where it feels as if there is never enough time in the day to accomplish what must be done.

Concentrate on the meaningful things. When your focus is on the personal growth and wellbeing of yourself and your family, and that remains paramount in all your decisions, you will be successful and rewarded with a healthily functioning family and a healthy you.

Adjusting what takes precedence in your life is part of the Elul process and helpful as we seek to prepare ourselves for the Yom Hadin.

Elulshould empower us to find avenues of chizuk and not be afraid to admit that we have made mistakes. As we go through the process, we become stronger. We improve and grow during these special days. We set goals and achieve them. We show ourselves to be good people looking to live good lives, and Hashem helps us attain what we seek.

Rav Elimelech Biderman quotes anonymously a rov from a previous generation to explain a Gemara in Maseches Tomid (32a). Alexander Mokdon asked the chachomim what a person who wants to live should engage in. They responded, “Yomis es atzmo,” that he should kill himself. Rashiexplains that to live, “yashpil es atzmo,” a person should subjugate his ego.

The old rovremarked that a person who wants to live should “kill” his wild ambitions and desires that bring him down and cause him to be sad. If a person is driven to achieve a certain prestigious position that remains out of his reach, and he is frustrated and depressed over it, he should kill that urge. If a person is jealous of someone and becomes consumed by that jealousy, he will live longer and better if he kills that enviousness. If he is driven to be unrealistically wealthy, or to be respected by others, and it’s not happening, he should kill those motivations and accept himself the way he is and stop comparing himself to other people.

People ruin their lives chasing false dreams, seeking public recognition and accolades. They spend money they don’t have and occupy their time with ideas that lead them to depression and sadness.

Elulis the time to get our lives back, breaking free from the shackles that keep us from happiness and accomplishment.

“Yashpil es atmzo.” Practice humility and your life will be greatly enhanced.
This message is alluded to in the opening posuk of this week’s parsha: “Ki seitzei lamilchomah al oyvecha - When you go to war against your enemy.” While the Torah is discussing rules pertaining to declaring war on Klal Yisroel’s enemies, it also hints to what we are to be engaging in during the period when the parsha is read.

We have no greater enemy than the yeitzer hora. He causes us to act in ways that are detrimental to our wellbeing and life. He causes us to become arrogant and consumed by bad middos, which ruin our personality and drive people and success away from us.

During Elul, we do battle with the yeitzer hora. We rediscover ourselves, finding out who we are and who we really want to be. There are many layers and levels of thoughts and actions that contribute to who we are. During Elul, we peel apart those layers, inspecting and rectifying them until we return to our core of goodness and kindness.

“Ki seitzei lamilchomah al oyvechaunesano Hashem Elokecha beyodecha.” The posukguarantees us that if we set out to battle the yeitzer hora, Hashem will help us beat him.

He who wants to live and he who wants a good life looks forward to Elul. Although teshuvah is welcome a whole year, during this month of rachamim we are given extra assistance as we recharge ourselves. It was during this month that Moshe went up to Heaven to plead for the Bnei Yisroel after they sinned with the Eigel. Ever since then, Elul has been the month of personal and communal teshuvah.

The word teshuvahliterally means to return. People who engage in teshuvah return to their inner peace and goodness. It may be difficult to get the ball rolling and look at yourself and your wants and desires seriously, but once you get started, the rest flows and the results are exhilarating and liberating.

There was a Lelover chossid in der heim who was struck with a terrible lung disease. The doctor had no relief to offer him, so he sent him to a place with a higher elevation and crisp air, hoping that it would help the sick man. When he arrived at the European spa site, he was turned back, as the directors feared that his illness would spread and they wished to take no chances with him.

The poor man passed by Lelov on his return home to ask Rav Dovid Lelover for a brocha. The rebbe wanted to comfort the man and searched his kitchen for a delicacy. All he found was old salty cheese and some wine. He set the wine and cheese in front of the visitor and invited him to make a brocha. The man refused, saying that the doctor warned him against salty foods and forbade him from drinking anything alcoholic. The rebbe insisted. “I am now engaging in the mitzvah of hachnosas orchim,” he said, “and you are my partner in this. Shomer mitzvah lo yeida dovor ra. You won’t be harmed.”

The man did as the rebbe said, but the cheese was so salty that he kept on drinking wine to quench his thirst. Eventually, he fell asleep. When he awoke the next morning, he felt all better and was, in fact, cured. He thanked the rebbe profusely for saving his life and went on his way.

He returned home and was greeted exultingly by his family. The man went to see the doctor for an examination to determine if he had indeed been cured. He told the doctor the story with the rebbe. Amazed by his patient’s supernatural recovery, the doctor, Professor Chaim Dovid Brand, became a baal teshuvah.

Dr. Brand went to see the rebbe, Rav Dovid Lelover, who began to engage him in divrei Torah. Dr. Brand asked the rebbe, “Why are you discussing with me such deep ideas? I was just recently not observant. How can I have so quickly progressed to be able to discuss such topics?” The rebbe responded that such is the power of teshuvah. One day you can be so low and separated from Hashem, but after doing teshuvah the next day, Hashem brings you close to Him and you are worthy of plumbing the depths of Torah.”

Let us not think that we cannot return to the status we reached prior to our sins. We should never think that our middos ra’os are so entrenched in our being that we cannot rectify them. We are never locked into anything. We all have the ability to climb out of whatever rut we are in and rise to be great people, connected to Hashem.

The Gemara(Shabbos 133b) quotes Abba Shaul, who derives from the posuk of “Zeh Keili v’anveihu” that we are commanded to emulate Hashem. “Mah Hu chanun verachum af atoh heyei chanun verachum. Just as Hashem is compassionate, so should we be.” Now, as we seek Divine mercy, and as we seek to rectify ourselves so that we may find favor in His eyes, we should also seek to justify others and not rush to condemn and attack. As we behave with others, so can we expect Hashem to act with us.

There are several pesukim in Tanach that hint to Elul. One is the posukin Megillas Esther (9:22) that states, “Umishloach manos Ish Lerei’eihu Umatanos L’evyonim.” The first letters of the last four words here spell Elul.

The words indicated refer to sending gifts to friends and gifts to the poor. We can explain that during this period of Elul, when we engage in teshuvah bein adam lachaveiro, if we send gifts to friends and pacify the people against whom we have sinned, then Hashem will show compassion to us, who are poor - lacking - in mitzvos and Torah, and gift us His assistance in doing teshuvahfor mitzvos bein adam laMakom.

If we demonstrate a longing for improvement and personal betterment, Hakadosh Boruch Hu assists us in achieving our objectives. The Gemara states (Yoma38b-39a), “Odom mekadeish atzmo me’at mekadshin oso harbei… Haba letaheir mesayin oso.” If a person purifies himself and increases his connection with holiness, or even if he just begins the process and attempts to purify himself, he earns Divine assistance and achieves holiness and purity.

Baalei mussarof old would repeat a posuk or thought with great intensity for hours on end until they felt that the thought pierced their soul. We once wrote the story about the Elul that the Alter of Kelm sat at his shtenderfor seven hours and repeated the same words from Tehillim (118:19) with great devotion: “Pischu li shaarei tzedek. Please, open for me the gates of righteousness.” Finally, he jumped up and shouted, “Der tir is doch offen! Gei arein! The door is open! Go in!”

The story is a good one, but it goes deeper.

The posukthat the Alter recited, “Pischu li shaarei tzedek,” is followed by “Zeh hashaar laHashem tzaddikim yavo’u vo - This is the gate to Hashem, for the righteous to enter through,” and then, “Odcha ki anisoni vatehi li liyshuah- I thank You, Hashem, for Your salvation.”

We can understand that initially a person seeks to enter the shaarei tzedek, but is unable to, for they only open for tzaddikim. He engages in teshuvahand seeks to absolve himself of sin so that he may be termed a tzaddik, but he is unable, on his own, to attain that degree of teshuvah until he is blessed with the assistance of Hashem. When he is able to enter, he thanks Hashem for the yeshuah brought on by the Divine support in aiding him to achieve teshuvah.

The Alter worked on teshuvah for seven hours so that he may enter the shaarei tzedek. Finally, he felt that Hashem helped him and he had achieved teshuvah. He then proclaimed that the door had opened and he was able to enter the shaarei tzedek.

May we merit that level of devotion and teshuvah.

Rabbi Pinchos Lipschutz

This week’s parsha contains many brachos, and also numerous klalos. If we follow the path of Hashem, we will be blessed, and if we don’t, we will come to regret having strayed. The enormity of the Tochacha will befall us. Regrettably, as we read the pesukim, we recognize much of our history in golus.

The posuk (Devorim28:47) states that the cause of the punishment is “tachas asher lo ovadeta es Hashem Elokecha besimcha uvetuv leivov meirov kol - because you didn’t serve Hashem with happiness, for you had too much.”

It would appear that the Tochachais brought about because people don’t do the mitzvos joyfully. In fact, however, our avodas Hashem includes more than the observance of mitzvos. Serving Hashem must be on our minds as we go about our daily actions. Lacking joy is indicative of a latent sadness brought on by an absence of satisfaction with what we are doing. Someone who is unhappy while performing mitzvosand everyday avodas Hashem doesn’t appreciate what he is doing and is unaware of what he accomplishes when he performs a mitzvah. For that, he is punished.

At the beginning of the parsha, after discussing the concept of bikkurim, and the offering of first fruits, the posuk (Devorim 26:11) says, “And you should be happy with all the good Hashem has given you and your family…” When a person appreciates the goodness that has been bestowed upon him, it is natural that he will be happy.

Those who are blessed “bechol hatov,” and don’t appreciate the source of the blessing, are unhappy souls, as the posuk of “tachas asher lo avodeta” indicates. They have everything they need and more, yet they are morose, for they don’t appreciate that the source of their blessing is Hashem.

People who go through life thinking that they have earned everything they possess due to their own brilliance or actions can never be happy. They always want more. They are never satisfied. If their money, their house, and everything else they own came to them because of their own intelligence and hard work, then they are disappointed when they can’t get more than they already have. These people are upset when they look at others who have more money, a larger house, and fancier car. They are overcome by jealousy that they were not able to achieve what the other person did, because they think it is in their control.

But if you realize that everything that you have is from Hashem, and the amount of money you will earn this year was decided on Rosh Hashanah, then you are satisfied with whatever Hashem gives you. A believing person does not look at what others have, nor does he become jealous if they have more than him. A person who recognizes that he should be thankful for what he has is content and is oveid Hashem b’simcha.

Happiness is a central part of a productive life and a sign of a person who has perfected his middos of emunah and bitachon. Those who know that nothing that happens in their lives is happenstance are not destroyed when confronted by tragedy and sad occurrences.

The Litvishergaon, Rav Mordechai Pogromansky, represented the greatness of bnei Torah. Even when locked in the Kovno Ghetto, surrounded by death, destruction and deprivation, he never lost his calmness brought about by emunah and bitachon. He remained devoted to Torah and was a source of chizuk to those around him. With the Jews walled into a small, constantly patrolled area, he would tell those who would gather around him that he didn’t see the ever-present German beasts. “I don’t see Germans all around us. I see pesukim of the Torah [from the Tochacha] surrounding the ghetto.”

This Torah giant saw what was transpiring as the realization of the pesukim in this week’s parshathat we read quickly and quietly. He saw those words coming to life. He was able to remain calm, because he knew that all that was happening was, in essence, the realization of the verses. He didn’t see Germans. He didn’t fear Germans. He saw and feared Hashem. He knew that whatever was going to happen was preordained by the Ribono Shel Olam.

Bombs were falling, and devastation and hunger were his daily companions, yet, with depth, sensitivity and brilliance, he sensed the stark clarity of the pesukim of the Tochachaand the reality as expressed by the Torah. Everything around him was merely a reflection of that reality, a cause-and-effect built into creation by the Creator.

A Jew is meant to be joyful. The Arizaltold his close talmid that all the revelations that he merited through ruach hakodesh were a reward for performing mitzvos with tremendous joy.

Simcha is attained when there is shleimus, when something is complete. When doing a mitzvah excites a person and brings him to a state of ecstasy, that indicates that he has performed the mitzvahperfectly. Hence the joy.

A sense of calm and satisfaction permeated the Kelmer Yeshiva all year round. Rav Moshe Rosenstein of the Lomza Yeshiva would describe his first visit to Kelm, when he was still a bochur.

“As soon as I entered, a bochurcame over to me. He greeted me with a smile and a handshake. He asked me how I was and when I had arrived. He asked me if I had a place to eat and sleep and about my general welfare.

“He was so friendly to me and I was trying to place him. He had to be an old friend I didn’t recognize. A minute after our conversation concluded, another young man came over to me. He was another long lost friend I didn’t recognize. He smiled at me and was so happy to see me. He asked how I was doing, when I came, and if I had what I need. I assured him that all was well and moved along, embarrassed that I didn’t remember him.

“Then another boy came over, and then another one. By the time I was done, it seemed to me as if the whole yeshivahad welcomed me graciously, with smiles on their faces, as if they knew me. It took a while, but then I came to understand.”

Kelm meant treating every person with kindness, whether they knew him or not. Everyone created b’tzelem Elokim is worthy of respect and a smile.

In fact, there was a consensusin Kelm to greet people the same way even during the month of Elul and the period of the Yomim Noraim. The talmidim of the renowned mussar yeshiva were overwhelmed with preparing themselves for the Yom Hadinand did not engage in idle chatter during this somber time. Yet, even then, everyone was greeted joyously and with love, with a beaming face and a smile.

The chinuch we provide our children should involve the joy of doing mitzvos. Too often, mitzvoscome across to children as burdens and things they resent because of the harshness with which they are presented. If children are made to feel that the Torah and its commandments are grueling and stress-inducing, they will view them as a burden and not accept them. When they mature, they may be tempted, chalilah, to rid themselves of the shackles placed upon them in their youth.

Yiddishkeit is invigorating and joyous. Learning is exhilarating. And there is nothing as euphoric as Shabbos.

School should be cheerful and inviting. People don’t generally thrive or do well under punishing circumstances, with constant pressure and fatigue or in places where the restrictions are overwhelming. Students who are unable to succeed in a strict environment should be encouraged to switch schools to a more inviting place, where they can flourish and grow into fine bnei and bnos Torah.

Perhaps there was a time when negativity and crushing harshness were effective with children and adults, but those days have passed, as is evident by the many dropouts and at-risk youth. We have to bring back the everyday pride everyone felt about being a frumJew and the merriment with which people were infused.

We all face challenges. The tendency to become saddened by life’s burdens is understandable. But why lead a life of sorrow when, no matter how bad a person’s condition is, there is reason to smile and hope? There is always something to be happy about. Hashem created you and watches over you. It is He who has given you challenges, and it is He who will help you overcome them and succeed.

The courage to understand that is the theme of Elul.

In this week’s parsha, we read (28:1) that if we adhere to all the mitzvos we were commanded by Hashem and follow His word, we will merit to be ascendant over all the other nations.

It is interesting to note that this posuk is preceded by the one which states, “Arur asher lo yokim es divrei haTorah hazos - Cursed shall be the one who does not uphold [raise] the Torah.”

The Ramban cites the Yerushalmiin Sotah (7:4), which states that this curse is referring to people who are in a position to influence others to come closer to and support Torah, but fail to do so. People who shirk that responsibility are included in this arur. Even if a person is a complete tzaddik, nevertheless, if he could draw others closer to the holiness and truth of Torah but doesn’t, he is included in the arur.

The Chofetz Chaim would repeat this Ramban and strengthen its message by quoting the Gemarain Shabbos (54), which says that one who has the ability to protest against wrongful actions of the people of his town and fails to do so is punished as well. One who reproaches his fellows and causes them to return to proper behavior, thereby enhancing kevod Shomayim, is showered with the brachosin this week’s parsha that were delivered on Har Gerizim.

The Chofetz Chaim would conclude that to receive those brachos, each person should use his abilities for the causes of Torah. If Hashem blessed someone with money, he should use it to build yeshivos for the study of Torah. If he is blessed with oratory skills, he should use them to raise money for yeshivos and other Torah causes. He should speak out against practices that cause a weakening of our religion.

As the Yom Hadinapproaches, we all seek zechuyos so that we will merit being inscribed in the book of tsaddikim.

As the world spins out of control and rogue nations gird themselves with weapons capable of causing colossal damage, we realize that there is no one we can depend on to protect us other than Hashem. We seek to be included with those the posuk refers to as “boruch, the blessed ones.”

We must all use our strengths and abilities for worthwhile purposes. Hashem made each of us differently because it takes the varied capabilities of a group of individuals to build a community and strengthen a nation.

Let us all follow the admonition of the Chofetz Chaim and help increase the study and support of Torah. Let us find more time to learn and worthy causes to support. Let us inspire others to do the same.

Look at the kindness extended to victims of Hurricane Harvey and the overflowing boxes of donated goods at every Seasons store, waiting to be trucked to Houston. We are a great people, but it shouldn’t take a hurricane to bring out our goodness, and there are plenty of people around us who can use support.

Let us always be kind and thoughtful, always thinking about other people, and treating everyone as a tzelem Elokim.

Let us be ever vigilant in our behavior, remaining loyal to the Shulchan Aruch, our mesorah, and what we know is true and proper. Let us maintain the strength of character and purpose necessary to remain upstanding in a tipsy world.

May we earn the brachos for a year of success, good health, parnossah, happiness and shleimus.

Rabbi Pinchos Lipschutz

Here I am, last Wednesday afternoon, at Newark Airport, waiting at the gate for a plane. What, you ask, is the big deal?

I am waiting for a Lufthansa flight. I have never flown on the German airline and I am generally averse to all things German. But I’m flying to Lithuania, and that’s the way the arrangements were made.

I have never been to Lita. Until now, it has been a mythical place, something from the past, often referred to with reverence and varying degrees of holiness.

I’ve been hearing about Lita for as long as I can remember. I am a first-generation American. My mother was born there.Although my father was born in Massachusetts, he always viewed himself as hailing from Kovno.

And here I am, finally about to connect to my roots and breathe Lithuanian air. I am not foolish enough to ignore the reality of the number of Jews slaughtered by Lithuanians during the war and during the 700 years that Jews lived in that country. Although there were far fewer pogroms and anti-Semitic crimes and atrocities there compared to elsewhere, I have no illusions about the country and its people. Despite that, Lita has a calling for me.

Think about how much the lives of today’s yeshivapeople are influenced by Lita. We are all about tradition and mesorah. Much of our mesorah can be traced to there.

The Vilna Gaon, hailed by the Chazon Ishas a Rishon, has influenced our views on many things, especially the way we learn, pasken, and conduct ourselves. Rav Chaim Volozhiner, his prime talmid, founded the first yeshiva as we know it and authored Nefesh Hachaim, a blueprint of Jewish thought.

Rav Yitzchok Elchonon Spector, the towering giant who was the rov of Kovno, was viewed in his time as the leader of all Torah Jews. His Talmudic brilliance earned him universal respect and his kindness won him everyone’s love.

Rav Chaim Ozer Grodzensky was the king of Litvishe bnei Torah and the Jewish people. Nothing happened without his involvement. His home was the central address for difficult halachic queries, Talmudic discussions, charitable endeavors, and everything else on the Jewish agenda.

The rabbonim in the shtetlachwere giants, one a bigger gaon than the next. They lived in financial poverty, but amidst spiritual richness.

Infused with a love for Torah from a young age, the townspeople spent much time in the local shul, davening and studying to whatever degree they were able.

My mother’s father was a rov in a small shtetelnamed Vashki, a position he inherited from his father-in-law, a talmidof Volozhin.

The people and rabbonim were known to be unfailingly humble, oftentimes serious, and basically good. Many went on to earn much fame, as word of their brilliance spread, by word of mouth and by virtue of the seforim and divrei Torah that they published.

So much of the Torah that was replanted after the war can be traced to the yeshivos of Lita, such as Slabodka, Kletzk, Ponovezh, Mir and Telz. So much of the Torah we study is from Brisk and its great talmidim. So many of the stories we grew up with were about gedoleiLita. Brisk, Kletzk, Ponovezh, Radin, Vilna, and Kovno are names known to every school child.

The Chofetz Chaim and Rav Elchonon, the Bais Halevi and Rav Chaim, Rav Meir Simcha, Rav Shimon, the Alter of Slabodka, the Alter of Kelm, Rav Doniel and Rav Yeruchom, Rav Boruch Ber and Rav Naftoli… So many giants of that world guided our nation and raised talmidim who led our way in uncharted waters.

Lita… Where would we be without you?

• • • • •

I find my seat and take out the seforimand books I brought along for the trip. First one I read is Rav Elchonon Wasserman’s Ikvisa D’Moshicha. Rabbi Ephraim Oshry’s Annihilation of Lithuanian Jewry is too sad to read. I usually take it out on Tisha B’Av. I brought it along for the trip and begin to read about the cities and towns of Lita and how thousands met their end across the country. And I wonder: Why am I going? Why in the world would I go to the place where so many were butchered to death for no reason other than being Jewish?

But I read on.

I read of what was and how it ended. I want to grasp on to what was. I want to walk on those streets our ancestors walked on. I want to be where Jews once scurried about, buying food for Shabbos. I want to stand in front of the shuls and imagine little Yiddelachrunning to daven and to learn Ein Yaakov.

I want to stand at the corner where Torah went forth to all of Klal Yisroel. I want to paint in my mind’s eye the majestic Slabodka Yeshiva that stood on that spot until its students were ripped out and killed 76 years ago last month.

I want to be in Kovno and feel the golden and sometimes acidic pen of my great-grandfather, Rav Yaakov Lipschutz, and be inspired never to quit or compromise. I want to find the secret of his genius. I want to tap into the gadlus of Rav Yitzchok Elchonon and the greats of the ages. I want to feel it. I want it to impact me.

I will be staying in Kovno and I hope it will.

I have another book with me. My friend gave it to me when he drove me to the airport. It’s for tourists. The book is enlightening, but also depressing. It contains a brief history of each town. They all end the same way. A kever achim. Every town has a kever achim, where the townspeople were buried when the Nazis marched in.

Lithuania was overrun by Germany in the early stages of the war, before the death machines were put in place in the concentration camps. The Jews were taken to the outskirts of the town, shot, and thrown into a pit. They were the lucky ones. At least they were buried.

People come every once in a while and take pictures of the monument, shake their heads, shed some tears, and move on to the next town, where they do the same.

How tragic.

I put away the books, learn the Daf Yomi, read something on the parsha, and try to sleep.

Who can sleep on a trip like this?

• • • • •

After an uneventful flight, we land in Frankfurt and wait for the connecting flight to Vilna.

The anticipation increases.

Flying to Vilna? Do planes actually land there? Is it a real place with an airport and not just the mythical subject of much lore?

We walk through the hot airport, which is teeming with people. I look in their eyes, trying to determine which ones are Germans and which ones are just passing through. Many don’t seem bad at all, and I’m sure that the vast majority are fine people.

People say much time has passed and things have changed. They buy and enjoy luxury German vehicles. After having been there, I can safely say I’d never purchase one.

Call me a golus Jew if you will, but after a few minutes, I begin identifying the Aryans - blond, serious, no smiles, with a certain smugness and self confidence. Yes, they are the perfect race and they know it. They stare at me. What are you doing alive and in my country? How dare you?

I stare back just to make them feel uncomfortable. They stare back at me with a menacing look and I thank Hashem that our encounter is taking place in a public place and not on an empty street of some picturesque small town. They give me that look again and again. It haunts me.

No, they are not all that way. Most are not. But I look at those who are and want to ask them if they would join the SS, and if their father and grandfather did. I think the better of it and move on to my gate, where I wait for my flight to mythical Vilna and a taxi ride to Kovno, where my grandparents lived and fought many battles for Torah.

• • • • •

Our flight is announced. We get on a bus for a ride to the plane. I take a window seat opposite the door to the rear of the empty bus. I watch the bus fill up. The seat next to me remains vacant. People get on the bus, look at the seat, look at me and say to themselves, “No way.” The seat remains empty. Elderly people get on. They look longingly at the seat and shake their heads. They’d rather stand than sit next to me. And so it goes. Right before the bus leaves the gate, an elderly couple hobbles on. The husband motions with his steely blue eyes to the wife to sit down. She shakes her head. Nein. But she can barely stand. He tells her to sit and she does. I smile and say hi. And that was the end of the conversation.

(When I took the bus on my return route after the flight from Vilna landed in Frankfurt, I tried the little test once more. This time, as packed as the bus was from the plane to the terminal, every person who got on looked at me, with hate and spite, and decided that they’d rather stand than sit next to the Jew.)

I look around and try to pick out the Lithuanians from the Germans. The Lithuanians have a Jewish appearance. Just put a yarmulka on them and they would be counted for a minyanwherever they go.

The bus arrives at the plane taking us to Vilna. I climb up the steps and I am greeted by a smiling stewardess. “So, you must be Mr. Lipschutz,” she says with a smirk. I smile and say, “How did you guess?”

I make my way to my seat and sit down. It is near the front. People walk by as they search for their seats. They look at me, some stare, and move on. I want to ask them what they are staring at. I know the answer, so I don’t. I stare back.

I know how it feels to be black.

• • • • •

I had come with my brother-in-law, Rav Meir Gelley, to participate in the chanukas habayis of the first mikvahin Kovno since the horrible events of the war.

Mr. Zev Stern from London does business in Kovno and noticed that many Israeli students come to the city to attend its medical school. He established a moadon community center, where the students would be able to fraternize with Jews. There would be outreach, kosher food, Shabbos and Yom Tov celebrations, and hopefully, one day, Torah classes.

His dream was realized. The center is run by Rav Moshe Schonfeld, a talmid of Rav Moshe Shapiro, and his wife. The mikvahis an indication of the success of their efforts.

At a location just one block away from the house of Rav Yitzchok Elchonon Spector, a property was purchased and renovated, with a gorgeous mikvah inside. It was dedicated partly in memory of my mother a”h, who personified the holiness and purity of Litvishewomen. She was born in a Lithuanian shtetel where her father served as rovand carried its memory with dignity.

It is an emotional occasion as I quietly think about her and the renaissance the mikvah represents on a road my great-grandfather had definitely spent much time.

Later, there is a festive dinner, with what seems like 150 Israeli guests, plus a few locals and some tables of people who have come to mark the historic occasion. The Stern family is there to celebrate with their parents, as are Mr. and Mrs. Leiby Levinson, who dedicated the mikvahin memory of Mrs. Levinson’s father.

Dayan Broide from Bnei Brak delivers a fiery droshaand the students hang on to his every word.

A concert follows. I leave. Tomorrow is another day.

• • • • •

On Friday, we visited sights of Kovno and Slabodka. It was a moving, emotional, heartrending experience. It was also spiritually fulfilling in a strange sense. We started at the kever of Rav Yitzchok Elchonon, whose remains were moved to the cemetery of the city of Alexot fromKovno, when the large historic cemetery there was threatened.

Due to my family’s connection to Rav Yitzchok Elchonon, being at his kever was, in a certain sense, coming full circle for me. Here I was, “meeting him” for the first time, asking On High that we be blessed in the merit of his Torah and many activities on behalf of the Jewish people, which were aided by my great-grandfather.

The setting is serene. You glance around and see the memorial erected on a seemingly empty site. It is only upon getting closer that you see the words on the memorial and learn that untold numbers of victims of the cruelty that transpired in the Kovno Ghetto, who, as the monument says, “zeinen gepainikt un gebrent, who were tortured and burned,” are buried in that area.

We have all heard stories of the Holocaust and of the millions who were killed. This burial place of Kovno’s finest citizens was the first “kever achim” I was at. It is hard to describe the experience. That awful period was always real, but now it is more real than ever.

“Kol demei achicha tzo’akim min ho’adama.” The cries of the innocent victims still ring out, reaching Heaven. All I hear is a still silence. All I feel is a still silence. The stillness is overwhelming and deafening.

We move on to the kever of Rav Boruch Horowitz, whose son was ripped out of the Slabodka Yeshiva and murdered. More sadness. The enormity of the tragedy is overwhelming.

Nearby is the kever of the D’var Avrohom, Rav Avrohom Duber Kahane Shapiro, last rov of Kovno before the war. He led his people through the period of the ghetto until he succumbed to illness there at the age of 73. He is buried in the Alexot cemetery.

Every cemetery is a sad place. This one seems to carry more grief than is possible to grasp. And then you come upon another opening, another kever achim. This one contains the remains of the Jews of another locale. A marker memorializes them and indicates that on one side lie those who were killed, and on the other are those who died of natural causes and had been laid to rest in the town’s cemetery. They were all brought here. May they be awakened soon at techiyas hameisim.

We then visit the Greeneh Barg Bais Olam, where Rav Yitzchok Elchonon was originally buried. The cemetery is huge and the communists were going to destroy it. When Mikhail Gorbachev came to power, he aborted that plan and Kovno’s dead Jews were spared.

A large, sprawling site, it is not well-maintained. Matzeivos are knocked over and even those still standing are hard or impossible to read.

We located the remains of the ohel that had stood atop Rav Yitzchok Elchonon’s kever. Around it are members of his family, including his wife, his son Binyomin, and his daughter-in-law. The son who succeeded him as rov was moved with him to Alexot.

I know that my great-grandfather was also buried near him, but I cannot locate his grave.

We say some kappitlach of Tehillimandleave for our next stop.

We approach the Ninth Fort, where thousands of our brethren were shot to death in front of open graves, most famous among them Rav Elchonon Wasserman, the towering student of the Chofetz Chaim.

At the grassy knoll of that infamous fort, I heardthe voice of Rav Elchonon as he spoke to the Jews who were about to be killed. He told them that they were being offered as korbanoson behalf of the Jews of America. “In the merit of your sacrifice, they will be spared and will flourish.”

So many years later, if you listen carefully in the awful, bitter, stillness, you can hear him. Then you hear the voices of the korbanos calling out from the ground.They beg the American Jews for their korbanosnot to have been in vain. “Don’t let go. Don’t fall prey to temptation. Don’t forget who you are and where you are from. We died for you. Please don’t ever forget that.”

Thousands met their end right where I now stand.

Rabbonim, roshei yeshiva, shopkeepers, shoemakers, yeshiva bochurim,older women, young girls, mothers and fathers, grandfathers and grandmothers. They were brought here and shot.

If you listen carefully, you can hear echoes of gunshots and cries of Shema Yisroel.

Only a heart of stone is notmoved here.

You begin to wrap your mind around the fact that this country is literally saturated with Jewish blood.

The Jewish presence is marked throughout the country. All in the past. This town’s Jews were wiped out here. A cemetery stood here. There was once a shul here, a house, a yeshiva. Now? It’s all in the past, gone for all time.

From there, we go to a large house. It occupies a corner and has two addressees, Karnevas 12 and Panera 9. The basement served as the office of the Slabodka Yeshiva. On the main floor resided Rav Avrohom Grodzensky, who was later killed by the Nazis. Rav Elchonon Wasserman sought refuge here when Baranovitch was overrun. Someone sneers at me from an upper floor window. For all I know, it was in that very room that Rav Elchonon stayed. I snap his picture and ignore him.

I head for the back of the house. It was from here that the martyred giant was taken by Lithuanian devils. He was learning with several bochurim when he was snatched and brought to the Ninth Fort.

I look at the flowers growing there now as if to cover up the awful crime that was committed. Once again, I am overwhelmed by the silence. I gaze again at the flowers and find them dark and ugly, nourished by the sitra acher.

I stand by that house and feel attached to it. I don’t want to leave. It calls out to me and says, “Stay! Stand here and give witness to the sins of humanity perpetrated at this site.” It says, “This is a place of holiness. Don’t be fooled.”

We cross the street and continue walking down Karnevas or, as it was known until the war, Yeshiva Gass. From nowhere, a dog begins to bark. I look up and see a large, ferocious canine on the steps of the house going wild as it watches us march down the street. Other hounds echo the first, and before we know it, from all sides, dogs are barking. It was the first and last time I heard dogs bark in that country.

We approach the end of the block and the spot where the famed Slabodka Yeshiva stood before it was burnt to the ground by its evil neighbors.

I was frozen at that corner. I felt a magnetic pull as I never felt before. I belonged there. My neshomah has roots at that corner, not only because my grandfather learned there and my dear father-in-law grew up in its shadow. It was a gravitational pull, a sense that I had been there before, that we had all been there before.

It is from that location that Torah and mussarwent out to the world.

I sensed hundreds of bochurim rushing to and fro, and imagined them coming to the bais medrash from their nearby stanzias. Was I hallucinating or are their spirits still there, kidshom leshaatom vekidshom le’osid lavo? The Torah studied there and the mesirus nefeshexhibited on this spot will be there forever, benefitting us and providing for us sources of merit as we go about our daily battles.

“Let’s go,” they tell me. “The time is late. Shabbosis coming. We must go.”

I think to myself, “The time is late. The golusis long. Too long. The world is dark. Too dark. We must go. The time for Moshiach to arrive will soon be here. We must ready ourselves. Let’s go and prepare.”

We walk back down that street and the many dogs that have been barking the entire time are finally satisfied. They tell each other that we are leaving and the street is silent once again.

We drive to the formerly Jewish town of Zezmer to see an old wooden shul. It is now undergoing renovation. We step inside and are awed by its former majesty.

We get back into the car and make a sharp turn into a forest. We drive on a pockmarked earthen path through the trees and come to a clearing. Neat grass covers the site of a massacre. We read the monument erected there: “The Nazis and their helpers tortured and then buried half alive 2,200 Jewish men from the neighboring towns at this location.” Women and children were liquidated at a similar spot nearby.

We learn that the monument has been defaced and destroyed several times, and the one that stands there now is not the original. Kind local authorities look after the hallowed spot and ensure that it remains a respectful area.

We return to perfectly clean, neat, quietKovno and rush to get ready for Shabbos.

More people have joined us now. Mr. Aron Wolfson, a leading supporter of the endeavor, has come to share in the nachas, as has Rav Yosef Chevroni of the Chevron Yeshiva in Yerushalayim, and others.

The Friday night Shabbos seudah was attended by many dozens of students. We were all one happy family, celebrating the gifts of Shabbos and Torah in a way that the city has not seen since the churban. What a beautiful site.

Shabbos morning, the crowd is sadly much smaller, as there are university classes to attend. Several students have become Shabbosobservant and, at great risk to their grades, come to daven rather than going to school. Their mesirus nefesh is duly noted and appreciated.

I am called to the Torah for Levi. We are back. The first aliyah for a member of my family in this city since the liquidation of the Kovno Ghetto.

Bittersweet, yes, but sweet nevertheless.

Shabbos was amazing, no doubt the largest, most festive meals and tefillos held here since the war.

On Sunday, we leave Kovno and head to Vilna. There is no time to stop at every significant place, but as we move through the bustling metropolis of Vilna, we are told that here Jews were killed, here was a shul, and here was something else of Jewish significance.

Here was a Jewish neighborhood. Here is the apartment where Rav Chaim Ozer lived.

You just sit there alone in your thoughts, imagining the people on line out the door for an audience with the rabbon shel kol bnei hagolah. Chassanim and kallos seeking brachos, a broken almanah looking for moral and financial support, a rovfrom out-of-town with a serious dilemma, local askonim and some from far away seeking direction, yeshiva bochurim waiting to talk in learning with the father of all bnei Torah, and refugees looking for a place to rest their weary bodies. A bird’s-eye view of Klal Yisroel lined up on this Vilna street.

How can you not be moved?

You stand at the kever of the Vilna Gaon and contemplate how this special neshamah learned all of Torah. Everything. And it sinks in that it is something that is possible for a human to accomplish.

Frightened by the holiness of the place, you say some kappitlach of Tehillim and pray for yourself and your loved ones, feeling sure that your pleas will be answered.

Right nearby is the kever containing the ashes of the Ger Tzedek, whose story comes alive in your head. Mesirus nefesh for Yiddishkeit. Again, the heights that man can reach overwhelms you and the niggun he sang on the way to his death plays in your head.

Vilna, the Yerushalayim of Lita, is now a bais hakevaros, comprised of a few empty buildings and markers, and a disturbing bust of the great Gaon where his house stood until it was demolished by the communists.

The kever of Rav Chaim Ozer is nearby, as is the gravesite of Rav Itzele Ponovezher. They were moved here ahead of the destruction of the old bais olam by the Russians.

We said kappitlach of Tehillim, asking to be aided in the merit of the great men who lie there.I merited to publish some of Reb Itzel’s Torah and asked that it be a zechusfor me and my family.

We drive to the old cemetery, where so many are buried. The vast area was bulldozed by the communists to erase any memory of the Jews who were laid to rest there. The kever of the rebbi of bnei Torah everywhere, Rav Boruch Ber Leibowitz, was located a few years ago and a matzeivah was erected. We daven there. It is the only grave in the cemetery that is marked.

Oy, meh haya lonu.

I wonder again why I am here. Why did I come to visit such an awful place?

• • • • •

Vilna is quite unlike Kovno. While Kovno is quiet and muted, a large city that feels as if it has had its air taken out of it and lost its spirit, Vilna is full of energy and people. There was a large marathon when we visited, and people were out cheering and strolling. While the people in Kovno seemed reserved and respectful, those in Vilna looked bigger and stronger, many with a menacing look as they gazed at us.They were louder and more boisterous. The city has life and spirit.

Kovno-ites look down on them and say that they are like Russians. Far be it from me to weigh in on this, but there does seem to be a stronger Russian influence in the capital city.

There is a large church at the entrance of the old city of Vilna that seems to have major religious significance to the locals. As we passed it, the tour guide became quite apprehensive and asked me to please remove my hat. I refused. She said that it was quite dangerous to go with a hat there as a Jew. I told her that enough Jewish blood was spilled in that small area, and if they are offended that I walk as a proud Jew in a place they had thought was Judenrein, then tough luck on them. Let them spit at me, I said. I can handle it.

She said that it was right here that the Ger Tzedek was stoned while he was yet a Christian, for he committed the crime of helping a Jewish girl. I am not one of those people who insist on parading through places of obvious danger to make a point, but I felt different about it here.

They tried wiping us out. Let them see that netzach Yisroel lo yeshaker.

Besides, I felt that her fear was something that was inbred but was misplaced. No doubt, if a movement would rise there against Jews for some reason, some people would join, but at no time did I feel any real sense of danger. Golus is not meant to be comfortable. Vilna reminded me of that.

We continued our walk through the old city, passing by where the entrance to the Jewish ghetto was in medieval times and in the modern period.

We found a small kosher coffee shop in the Old City, where we had coffee and some “lekach,” honey cake, and “imberlach,” a sweet Litvishe treat I had never heard of. You’re not missing much, by the way.

It was from there that we came upon the location of the Vilna Gaon’s house. Chills go down your spine as you imagine the holiness that was there. The Gaon! Like a Rishon, a spiritual father for all generations. He lived here. He learned Torah here. He had ruach hakodesh right here. He wrote his notes on Gemara and Shulchan Aruch at the spot on which I stand. How small I feel.I walk the same street he walked, tracing his footsteps to the small kloiz where he davened. Rather than daveningin the big shul, he chose this small place, because there was much less of a chance of hearing lashon hora here. I am lost in my thoughts.

The Gaon! The Vilna Gaon walked on these same stones to escape lashon hora.

How small I am.

• • • • •

The walk ends and it’s time to head to the airport. We walk to an area where taxis wait for passengers. The guide advises us to stand back while she finds one. “You stay here,” she says. “When I find one, I’ll motion to you.”

We are reminded yet again, as if we needed another reminder.

We fetch our belongings and continue to the airport, gratified that we had come, but happy to soon be gone.

We head back across the Atlantic on a Lufthansa plane. The service is impeccable. The staff goes out of their way to make us feel at home. I admit that I feel some comfort in that.

It felt good to take leave of the European continent and head back to the United States.This was my second time staying more than a few hours in Europe. When I am able to get away, I’d much rather go to Eretz Yisroel than anywhere else. That is our home and base. That land holds our connection to the essence of life and Torah.

Kovno and Slabodka are a distant second, but I hope to return to Lita, visit those places once again, see the town where my mother was born, and perhaps even find out why I want to go there.

May we all merit a safe and healthy year as we await the call of Moshiach.

By Rabbi Pinchos Lipschutz

Chassidimrecount that the Komarna Rebbe related that he heard from Rav Mordechai of Chernobyl that it is known that the Baal Shem Tov was told by Eliyohu Hanovi that every time one Jew wishes another a kesivah vachasimah tovah, malochim suggest that he is meritorious.

Perhaps we can understand this by quoting the Rama (at the end of siman 582), who says that on Rosh Hashanah, people should wish each other, “Leshanah tovah tikoseiv. May you be inscribed for a good year.”

The Mogein Avrohom (ibid.) states that the wish should be “Leshanahtovah tikoseiv veseichoseim,” adding the wish that they not only be written for a good year, but also that their good fate should be sealed. He explains that this is on account of the obligation to view others as tzaddikim, who are immediately sealed on Rosh Hashanah for a good year.

The Taz (ibid., 4) says that while we should view others as tzaddikim, we should view ourselves as beinonim, referring to the Gemara in Rosh Hashanah(16b) famously quoted by the Rambam in Hilchos Teshuvah.

A person who views others as tzaddikim indicates that he has undergone teshuvah and can view others favorably. Someone who wishes others, “Leshanahtovah tikoseiv veseichoseim,” is no longer encumbered by middos ra’os, and the malochim sing the praises of such a person.

Humility is an indication that the process of teshuvah has been completed. How do we get there?

The Gemarain Maseches Taanis (30b) discusses the concept that the most joyous days for Klal Yisroel are the fifteenth of Av and Yom Kippur. The Gemara explains that it is simple to understand the greatness of Yom Kippur, because on that day, Jews can be forgiven for their sins and the second set of Luchos was delivered to man.

It would seem that the two attributes of the day are intertwined. Not only was the re-giving of the Luchos on Yom Kippur a sign that Klal Yisroel had been forgiven for the sin of the Eigel, but the power of the Luchos is the power of the Torah. It is the Torah that raises man and brings him closer to Hashem, allowing his sins to be forgiven.

A person who dedicates his life to Torah becomes sanctified, as his life takes on added significance. Just as teshuvah allowed the dor hamidbor to recover after sinning with the Eigel, it allows the sinner in our day to return to Hashem’s embrace.

We seek to become closer to Hashem. Torah is the prime method of accomplishing that.

As we approach the Yom Hadin and ponder the awesomeness of the day of judgment, we also engage in teshuvah, tefillah and tzedakah to remove the barrier that separates us from Hashem.

Following the shofarblasts of Malchuyos, Zichronos and Shofaros, we ask Hashem to look at us “im kevonim im ka’avodim.” Either view us as children and pity us as a father pities his offspring, or look at us as slaves and recognize that our gaze is fixed upon You until we find favor in Your eyes and are judged favorably.

Thus, we recite twice daily the kappitel of L’Dovid, for it refers to our bitachonin Hashem, “ori veyishi,” our light and hope. Even as others abandon us, seek to entrap us, and declare war on us, “bezos ani voteiach,” we maintain our faith that Hashem will assist us. During the Yomim Noraimperiod, as the Soton seeks to prevent us from getting closer to Hashem and disparages us before Him, we believe that he will look upon us with kindness and love.

Rosh Hashanahis the day when our fates are decided. The day is awesome and frightening. Everything that will happen in the coming year is decided on this day.

With gratitude for the good bestowed upon us in the past year, we stand at the onset of the new year like poor people, begging for sustenance. We seek sources of merit that will shield us from the din, from anguish and agony, and from destruction and despair.

We can follow a healthy diet and do regular exercise, but there is no guarantee for good health. Expenses are so high that many people are unable to make ends meet. People seek to find happiness in their lives and aren’t able to. People look for menuchas hanefesh, shidduchim, nachas, good health, and more, knowing that on Rosh Hashanah our fates for the upcoming year are decided.

We promise to mend our ways. We say that we have examined our actions of the previous year and will do what we must to merit the gift of another year.

How do we clean our slate and earn a better year?

How does a person arrive at teshuvah? Doing so requires conducting a serious cheshbon hanefesh. We have to subject our deepest selves to scrutiny, and review every aspect of our conduct through the year. Then we set about correcting our character flaws, and rectifying the mistakes and errors of judgments we made.

We think about the times we were lackadaisical about performing a mitzvah, and if there was an aveirah, we must remove those stains and resolve to be more serious about the mitzvos and the Torah.

We emerge from the process changed. Teshuvah is humbling, as it reminds us of our place in creation and prompts a greater appreciation of Hashem’s role in one’s life.

Teshuvahbrings us back to where we were before we sinned. It sets us on the path we should have been on and provides us the energy we require to be properly and thoroughly engaged.

Teshuvahtriggers an outpouring of sincere tefillah. With a fresh awareness of how small and helpless we are in the face of life’s frightening precariousness comes a spontaneous outpouring of tefillah. We proclaim Hashem’s supremacy over all of existence, we thank Him for His daily kindnesses, and we beg that we merit His continued generosity.

Rav Aryeh Finkel, rosh yeshiva of Yeshivas Mir in Kiryat Sefer, was chazzan at the Mir in Yerushalayim for Mussaf on the Yomim Noraim. One year, as everyone waited for him to begin, he stood in a corner speaking with a young bochurin learning. It was a strange site, for not only was everyone waiting, but annually, prior to stepping up to the amud, Rav Finkel would sit emotionally engrossed in preparing himself for the tefillah and nobody would dare approach him.

Some began motioning to the rosh yeshiva that it was time to begin Mussaf, but he ignored them. Finally, he told the boy that someone was waiting for him and they would continue their conversation after davening.

He later explained that the boy was new to the yeshiva and had no idea that Rav Finkel was the baal tefillah for Mussaf. He had approached Rav Aryeh with a question after laining and Rav Aryeh didn’t want to hurt his feelings, so he answered the question and a conversation ensued. The rosh yeshiva feared that if he would interrupt the bochur and tell him that the entire yeshivawas waiting for him, the boy would be very embarrassed. Therefore, he continued speaking to him until he decided that he could tell him that someone was waiting, without causing embarrassment.

Such is the thought process of a person who has perfected his middos, performed teshuvah, and is respectful of everyone and their feelings. An onov considers others in a way that a baal gaavah cannot.

Middos tovosand proper ethics are prerequisites for teshuvah, for ga’avah prevents a person from recognizing his shortcomings as well as his dependence on Hashem. A conceited person is not able to reach the level of understanding required to draw himself closer to his Master. He wallows in sin and self-indulgence even as he goes through the motions of religiosity.

Ga’avahderails an individual from properly preparing for Rosh Hashanah and from becoming a special person.

Ga’avahprevents a person from helping others. An arrogant individual looks down upon others and views them askance, with a measure of scorn and hate. His negative middahkeeps him from using his gifts to help others. He views others as somehow deficient and inferior to himself.

This is what the Rambam(Hilchos Teshuvah 7:8) refers to when he writes “baalei teshuvah darkan lihiyois shifeilim va’anavim b’yoser.”

In the face of the yeitzer hora’s maneuvers, we have to offset the many challenges that prevent us from becoming better people. One of the most effective strategies, the Gemaratells us, is chochmah.

The posuk in Mishlei states, “Emor lechochmah achosi at.” The Gemara in MasechesBrachos (17a) explains that the ultimate purpose of chochmahis teshuvah and maasim tovim.

In order to overcome the yeitzer hora, we have to strengthen our ability to use chochmah. Only with chochmah can we subdue the yeitzer, as the posuk(Mishlei 24) states, “Betachbulos ta’aseh lecha milchamah,” in fighting your enemy - the yeitzer hora - you have to use chochmahto outwit him.

Chochmah is acquired by learning Torah, which touches our inner core, raises us and puts us back on course, following the literal translation of the word teshuvah,to return.

The Gemara (Rosh Hashanah 11a) states thatRosh Hashanah is the day when Yosef was freed from the Egyptianjail, as well as the day that marked the end of crushing slavery for the Jews in Mitzrayim. Thus, in addition to being a day of judgment, Rosh Hashanah is also a day of redemption. On this day, we can all be released from enslavement to the yeitzer horaand to the web of desires that ensnares us. The avodas hayom and the day’s built-in redemptive power can return us to an earlier, more ennobled state.

Once a person reaches that higher level of spiritual awareness brought on by teshuvah, he realizes that he is not superior to other people, who were created just as he was, b’tzelem Elokim. His eyes open to the plight of the many people in this world who are in need of assistance, evoking his sympathy and compassion. As part of the spiritual growth triggered by teshuvah and tefillah,he has a growing awareness that it is not enough to care for himself and satisfy his own indulgences. He must share his blessings with others.

The baal teshuvah has attained a new level of contentment reserved for those who are humble and walk in the path of Hashem.

When teshuvah, tefillah and tzedakah flow naturally, a person indicates that he has reached the level of observance required to prevail in the din of Rosh Hashanah. Thus, with our hearts focused on implementing the lessons embedded in these words, we proclaim, “Useshuvah usefillah utzedakah maavirin es ro’a hagezeirah.”

We endeavor to reach that lofty level and find favor in Hashem’s eyes, so that He will bless us all with a kesivah vachasimah tovah.

But then there are those who, as hard as they try, feel that they have not been able to return to the desired pure and exalted state. What are they to do? Should they give up? Is it possible that teshuvah wasn’t meant for them?

The novi Yirmiyahu speaks to such people in the haftorah we read on the second day of Rosh Hashanah.

The noviproclaims (Yirmiyahu 31:17), “Shamoa shomati Efraim misnodeid. I have heard Efraimmoaning. He is saying, ‘Yisartani va’ivaseir k’eigel lo lumod. You have rebuked me and I have accepted Your punishment like an untrained calf. Hashiveini ve’ashuvah ki Atah Hashem Elokoy. Bring me back and I shall return.’”

The Bais Haleivi, in his peirush al haTorah in Parshas Vayishlach, as an addendum printed on the bottom of the page, offers a fascinating explanation of the posuk. He says that Klal Yisroel asks Hashem to help us return to Him with teshuvah. We say that we are k’eigel lo lomud, like an uneducated calf.

The Bais Haleiviexplains that we say to Hashem, “Please don’t whip us. Don’t punish us, for we know not of what we do. We have received so many punishments and reminders to adhere to the proper path, but we are untrained and lost. Hashiveini. Please, Hashem, bring me back. Return me to the proper path, without the whip. Show me the way. Show me where I should be going and how I should behave, ve’ashuvah, and I will return and remain on the path You have charted for me.”

Teshuvah is for everyone. We all want to return to Torah and behave as Hashem intended for us. At times, it is difficult for us to right ourselves and we require painful reminders.

There is a concept in halacha of kofin oso ad sheyomar rotzeh ani (Rambam, Hilchos Geirushin 2:20). Even if a Jew proclaims that he does not want to follow halacha, if he is beaten and submits and declares that he will do what is incumbent upon him, we accept his declaration. The Rambam(ibid.) explains that “rotzeh hu la’asos kol hamitzvos ulehisracheik min ha’aveiros, veyitzro hu shetakfo, vekivon shehukah ad shetoshash yitzro veomer rotzeh ani…” Every Jew wants to observe the mitzvos, but his yeitzer hora overcomes him. Therefore, when the evil inclination is beaten down and the person says that he wants to do the mitzvah, we accept his declaration as if he willingly observed the halacha.

Everyone essentially wants to do teshuvah and return to Hashem’s embrace, but some find it difficult to overcome their habits and the yeitzer hora, which leads them astray. They feel removed from kedusha and Torah and fear that they can never rid themselves of their addictions and sins. If they would only call out, “Hashiveini! Hashem, help me. Bring me back,” then ve’ashuvah, they would be able to return. No one should ever give up on themselves, and we should never give up on anyone.

“Zeh hayom techilas ma’asecha.” Rosh Hashanah is not just the commemoration of the first day of creation, but an opportunity to experience creation anew, and in the process renew our own personal circumstances.

Rav Yisroel Salanter questioned why Rosh Hashanah precedes Yom Kippur. Would it not be better, he asked, for us to first cleanse ourselves through teshuvah and then celebrate Hashem’s dominion over the universe? Would it not be more glorious for our King if His subjects, who join in His coronation, are pure of sin and able to indicate that they are fully devoted to His will?

Perhaps the answer lies in the essence of Rosh Hashanah. This day proclaims that nothing can be counted on to remain in the coming year as it was in the previous year. Just because it was that way in the past does not mean that it will continue that way in the future.

On Rosh Hashanah, we daven for a good new year, with new beginnings that will improve our standing over the past year. We seek to merit a year of positive developments for ourselves and our families, keeping sadness and failure in the past.

We examine ourselves and, instead of being upset that we are not as good as we would like to be and were not able to realize all of our goals, we recognize that just because last year didn’t turn out as perfect as we would have wanted, that doesn’t mean that we are doomed to remain in a lesser state.

Hayom haras olam. Today is the day of creation. Not just back when the world was created 5,778 years ago, but also today and now. Hayom yaamid bamishpot kol yetzurei olamim. Today, the forces of creation are strongly present, as Hashem judges all His creatures and decides what type of year they will have. The day of Rosh Hashanah marks a new start for everyone.

Thus, the teshuvah process begins with the days of Rosh Hashanah, reminding us that we can walk a new path. Rosh Hashanah precedes Yom Kippur because it is the day when we begin anew. The realization of the new beginning provides us with the confidence that we can undertake teshuvah and make ourselves whole once again.

Rosh Hashanah is the gift that launches us onto the path culminating with Ne’ilah on Yom Kippur. It is this awareness that allows us to believe that we can change. Everything can change. We can do it over.

In the shofar’s plaintive wail, we hear echoes of the blasts that were sounded at Har Sinai, when Klal Yisroel was formed into the nation of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. The shofar then proclaimed a new beginning. The world had reached its destiny. Ahead was much hope and promise.

The shofar was also blown at Yovel. When we blow it on Rosh Hashanah, it hints at the independence of the Yovel year, the collective song of freedom chanted by so many released slaves going home to begin life anew. The earth, as well, joins in the process, as land returns to its original owners in Yovel. We are reminded that we can all start again. We can get a fresh start, a new lease on life.

Teshuvah is how we climb back to where we belong.

We slip. We make mistakes. We commit sins. We don’t do mitzvos properly.

Hakadosh Boruch Hu gives us Rosh Hashanah, when everything starts over. We are given the ability to make a new beginning and to start from scratch.

To be happy, even if we were sad.

To be upbeat, even if we were depressed.

To learn well, even if we didn’t last year.

To scrub ourselves clean from sin and muck, from the dirt and silliness we got involved in.

To press reset on our lives, so that we can begin anew.

May we merit new beginnings and hearing the blasts of the great shofarannouncing the arrival of Moshiach.

Leshanah tovah tikoseivu veseichoseimu.

By Rabbi Pinchos Lipschutz

Sukkosis upon us. The Yom Tov of joy has returned. We study its halachosand concepts so that with the observance of its mitzvos, we grasp its lessons.

The Torah tells us that the mitzvah of sukkah was given "lemaan yeidu doroseichem,"so that future generations shall know that Hashem placed the Jewish people in sukkoswhen He removed them from Mitzrayim. Rabi Akiva (Sukkah 11b) says that they were “sukkos mamosh,” actual sukkos.

We left the servitude of Mitzrayim and crossed the Yam Suf, but we had no roof over our heads to protect us from the elements and to live a family life in a home. Hashem made for us small huts, in which we lived for the duration of our sojourn in the desert.

Allegorically, it would seem that living that way was an uncomfortable experience, yet for all the complaints the Jewish people had, the Torah doesn't record that they grumbled about their living arrangements. Apparently, life in the sukkah was quite acceptable to them.

And we wonder how that can be.

Living in the sukkah means living surrounded by Hashem’s blessing and knowing that He grants us our needs. A ma’amin is happy with what he has, because he appreciates that his possessions are given to him by a loving Father who provides for each person according to his/her personal needs.

This is symbolized by the humble sukkah. We leave our sturdy, temperature-controlled places of luxury, and for seven days we dwell in a small, barely furnished, uninsulated shed to demonstrate our dependence on Hashem all year round, and our happiness with what we have. If it is ordained for us to live in a place like this, we accept that this is the will of Hashem, and we not only make the best of it, but are actually happy and grateful for what we have.

Therefore, Sukkosis a Yom Tov of joy. When the sun sets on the fourteenth day of Tishrei, happiness descends upon the Jewish people, as they look forward to living for seven days in the shadow of Hashem’s Shechinah.

We begin with the much-awaited experience of sitting in a beautifully decorated sukkah. Chains crisscross its expanse, pictures adorn the walls, and the table is laid out with a crisp white tablecloth and the finest dishes. Everyone is dressed in their Yom Tov best, the refraction of the lights and candles reflecting off the glowing faces of the people seated around the table.

The Vilna Gaon, in his peirush to Shir Hashirim (1:4), explains why we celebrate Sukkos during the month of Tishrei and not Nissan, when we were freed from Mitzrayim and Hashem placed us in sukkos.

The Gaon writes that the sukkah is a commemoration of the Ananei Hakavod that enveloped the Jewish people as they traveled through the desert.

[Whether the Gaon’s explanation is strictly according to Rabi Eliezer (ibid) who disputes Rabi Akiva and posits that the sukkos referred to in the posukrefers to ananim is beyond the scope of this article.]

The clouds that protected us when we left Mitzrayim during the month of Nissan departed when we sinned with the Golden Calf. They did not return until after our teshuvah was accepted. It was on Yom Kippur that Moshe Rabbeinu returned from interceding on our behalf for forty days. The next day, he gathered all of Am Yisroel and related the commandment to build a Mishkon. It took a few days to gather the material, and on the 15th day of Tishrei, they began to work on crafting the Mishkon. It is for this reason, the Vilna Gaon writes, that we celebrate Sukkos in Tishrei.

Since it is the return of the Ananim to Klal Yisroel that we celebrate with our sukkos, they contain an extra measure of simcha. The return of the Ananim was tied to the acceptance of our teshuvah. That empowers us in moving ahead from the days of Rosh Hashanah, Aseres Yemei Teshuvah and Yom Kippur, as we see the power of teshuvahand tefillah.

Just as Am Yisroel was able to come back from the depravity of the sin of the Eigeland merit the Ananei Hakavod, the Mishkon and a home for the Shechinah, so too, in our day, if we return with full hearts, our teshuvah is accepted. Thus, after the Yomim Noraim, we construct the sukkahto demonstrate our faith that Hashem accepted our repentance and will accept us as He did at this time of this month when the Jews left Mitzrayim.

Our joy is overwhelming as we await the return of the Ananei Hakavod and the Shechinah. We enter the sukkah and praise Hashem “asher bochar bonu mikol am.” We recite the brocha of Shehecheyonu, thanking Hashem for keeping us alive so that we can celebrate this moment.

The Maharal(end of Drasha LeShabbos Hagadol) goes a step further and says that in the merit of us observing mitzvassukkah on the first day of Sukkos, Hashem will rebuild the Bais Hamikdosh, which is His sukkah in this world.

However, there are times when it rains on Sukkos and we aren’t able to observe the remembrance for the acceptance of teshuvah and return of the Ananei Hakavod. Rain on Sukkos is distressing, as there is a Divine message inherent in the downpour. The Mishnah in Sukkah (28) famously teaches that rain on Sukkos is compared to a servant who pours a drink for his master. Instead of accepting it, the master throws the drink back in the servant’s face.

How dispiriting it is to have an act of devotion and deference rejected in such fashion.

Why does the Mishnah convey its point regarding the bad omen of rain on Sukkosthrough an allegory describing a slave and his master? The Mishnah could have made the same point with a tale involving a son serving his father.

A person’s children are his children no matter what happens. If a son is disobedient, he is still a son. If a son doesn’t serve his parents properly, he is still their son. They may be upset with him, and they will try to educate him to improve his ways, but they cannot divorce him from being their son.

Servants and slaves, however, exist purely to serve their masters. The concept of avdusis one of complete servitude. A servant’s very existence is dependent upon his master’s mercy. Should the servant not serve his master properly, he won’t remain a servant much longer.

When a master rejects his servant’s help, the master isn’t merely rebuffing or insulting him. The master is rejecting his very essence. The master, in a statement of invalidation, is declaring that he has no need for the servant.

Our relationship with Hashem is one of duality. We are both children and servants. On Rosh Hashanah, following the shofar blasts of Malchuyos, Zichronos and Shofaros, we recite a brief tefillah. We proclaim that we are bonim and avodim. We ask Hashem that if He perceives us as children, He should have mercy on us the way a father has mercy on his children. If He is dealing with us as avodim, we ask that we find favor in His eyes so that we will emerge triumphant upon being judged.

If that is the case, why, when it comes to Sukkos, is our relationship with Hashem depicted as one of avodim, servants, and not as bonim, children?

Perhaps we can understand this by examining the biblical explanation for the mitzvahof sukkah.

Hashem commands us to sit in the sukkah, stating, “Lemaan yeidu doroseichem ki vasukkos hoshavti es Bnei Yisroel behotzi’i osam mei’eretz Mitzrayim - So that your future generations will know that I placed the Jewish people in sukkos when I took them out of Mitzrayim.”

The mitzvahof sukkah is to remind us that Hashem redeemed us from slavery in Mitzrayim. When we sit in the sukkah, we proclaim that Hashem plucked us out of that awful situation and fashioned us to be His avodim. As Chazalsay, “Avodei heim, velo avodim la’avodim.” We are avdei Hashem, not avodim to people who are themselves avodim.

Because we are His avodim, He freed us from the Mitzri’s physical servitude, split the Yam Suf for us, and put us on safe, dry land, where He built sukkosfor us and spread His canopy of peace over us. The supreme joy of Sukkosis a celebration of our rewarding avdus of Hashem.

Therefore, since the Yom Tov of Sukkos is a celebration of us becoming exclusively avdeiHashem, when it rains on us in our sukkos, it is as if there is a Heavenly proclamation that our service is not appreciated. The avodah of Sukkos is avdus. It is a celebration of avdus. When there is a taanoh on us, it is a taanohon our bechinah of avdus. Therefore, the Mishnah uses the parable of a slave and his master to portray the calamity of Sukkos rain.

This might be the explanation of the halacha of mitzta’eir, which is unique to sukkah. A person who finds it difficult to sit in the sukkahis freed from the obligation. We can explain that since we perform this mitzvahas avodim, a servant doesn’t have the luxury of complaining that he is inconvenienced by the master’s request of him. If a servant complains about a task, that is an indication that he has failed in his role and doesn’t appreciate his function. A servant does as he is commanded. His job is to perform for his master and be there at his beck and call. If he cannot do that, he has failed.

An evedHashem who feels inconvenienced by a mitzvah has lost focus. A person who is pained by fulfilling the will of Hashem has failed in his avodah. Hashem says to him, “I don’t need you here. You may leave.”

We can also understand why someone who sits in the sukkah as rain is falling is termed a hedyot. An eved whose services are not wanted must atone for his wrongdoing and find favor again in the eyes of his master before returning to his service. As long as his master is displeased with him, he must stay away and work on amending the situation. Rain on Sukkos is a message to us that we must work harder to find favor in the eyes of Hashem. One who ignores that message is a hedyot. The proper response is sadness at being turned away and engaging in teshuvah in order to be welcomed back in the tzila demehemnusa, not so-to-speak forcing ourselves on Hashem.

Rain on Sukkos,as well, forces us to reexamine our identity, since our role as avdei Hashemis threatened.

On Rosh Hashanah, each time we blewthe shofar, we asked Hakadosh Boruch Hu to have mercy on us, whether as sons or as servants. We are indeed both. We possess the fierce love and devotion of a son, coupled with the loyalty and dependability of a slave.

The avodahof the Yomim Noraim is to work on ourselves to be more subservient to the will of Hashem and be mamlich Him over us. With much longing, we say, “Veyomar kol asher neshomah be’apo, Hashem Elokei Yisroel Melech.” For ten days, we proclaim that Hashem is the “Melech Hakadosh.” We recite pesukim of Malchuyos and pray that“veyekablu ohl malchuscha aleihem.”

The point of these tefillos and others similar to them is for us to recognize our duty as avodim to Hashem. We approach Sukkos confident in understanding our mission and having perfected our avdus. Therefore, when it rains, it is a sign that our avdus is lacking and we have not yet perfected ourselves as required.

Yetzias Mitzrayim was a march to a new reality. Once we felt the bitter taste of servitude to the Mitzriyim, we were led out toward Har Sinai, where we were charged with the mandate of being avdei Hashem.

Rosh Hashanah tells us of Hashem’s greatness.The teshuvah of Yom Kippur leads us to humility. Following those great days, we are ready for Sukkos, humble servants eager to serve our Master.

The excitement we feel about sitting in the sukkah is exhilaration about facing our destiny. In its embrace, we celebrate avdus.

Rav Eliyohu Tabak, who passed away on ShabbosParshas Nitzovim-Vayeilech, was such a person. No matter what his situation was, he was satisfied, because that was what Hashem wanted for him.

A man who was menachem avel told the family the following. “A few months back, your father told me something he hadn’t told anyone: His doctors gave him only a few months to live. Sometime later, I was very ill and the doctors gave me a few months to live. A few weeks afterwards, I was talking to your father, who asked me why I was so upset. I said that my doctor told me that my heart was weak and that it could give in at any time and cause my death.

“‘Why are you upset?’ he said to me. ‘Whatever happens to you is the ratzon Hashem. Shouldn’t you be happy that you are a keili for that ratzon?’”

What an authentically Yiddish perspective.

That was how Reb Eli lived his life. He knew and understood that whatever happened was Divinely destined to be that way, so how can a person be sad about things that happen in his life? He wasn’t a jolly person, laughing all day like a simpleton. He was quite intelligent, in fact, and serious, but he was thought out. He was saturated with Torah. His thought process and the way he viewed himself, others and the world were through the prism of Torah.

When I was growing up in Monsey, the whole town was comprised of five streets. Nobody had much. We didn’t even know that we were lacking anything, because everyone we knew was in the same boat as us. We weren’t ashamed that we wore hand-me-downs; we didn’t know to be. It was a simple time. People were practical and normal. Yiddishkeitwas real to us. No one did things merely because everyone was doing it. There was no showing off for other people. There was no ceremony or pomp.

Back then, everyone knew everyone, and everyone knew the Tabaks, and everyone knew that even in such a milieu, the Tabaks were different. They were a cut above. Reb Eli Tabak never changed from back then. He never changed to adapt as many did. He stayed the same, with it and current, but he was real. He was always real. He never sought to impress anyone or do what others did to fit in.

Rabbi Tabak was an original and he brought up his children to be originals.

He took his sons to a Satmar tish and told them to look at the rebbe’s face and see how holy he appeared. “Look at all the kavod he is getting here tonight,” he said to the young boys. “Do you know why he is so heilig? Do you know why he has so much kavod? Because he is up all night helping people and learning Torah. That’s what you have to do.”

The Satmar Rebbe was real, so Rabbi Tabak attached himself to him, and when he found other people who were real, he attached himself to them, as well.

And he transmitted to his fifteen children the reality of a Torah life. They all relished in it.

His children noticed that every morning, he would sit in the kitchen with his Gemarafrom 5 a.m. until it was time to davenShacharis. They saw how important Torah was to him. They saw how many people he helped in so many different ways. They saw how happy he and they were, and they drew one conclusion: Their father was a lamed vov tzaddik.

He passed away on Shabbos at 5 a.m. His last words were, “Amein yehei shmei rabbah mevorach le’olam ul’olmei olmaya.” How fitting.

The Netziv, in his Ha’amek Dovor (Vayikra 16:29), explains that according to teva, the Jews should lose in their tug of war against the nations of the world, for there is no way that Jews are plentiful enough or strong enough to defeat all those who seek their destruction. Klal Yisroel endures because it is lema’alah miderech hateva.

Like our forefather Yaakov Avinu, who beat back his brother Eisov, we are not beholden to teva and the laws of nature.

Thus, when rain falls and prevents us from observing the mitzvah of sukkah, it is an omen that the teva may be dominant during the coming year. It is a reminder that we must complete our teshuvah.

If rain prevents us from entering our sukkah, we fear that it is a message from Heaven that we are not worthy of being the Chosen Nation and bearers of that royal heritage. By consequence, we fear that we are no longer being treated specially as bonim laMakom. Thus, the Mishnah compares us to avodim, not bonim.

To commemorate that we know Hakadosh Boruch Hu stands by us, we build sukkos as our grandfather Yaakov did, confident that Hashem will protect us there.

We pray that we will be seen as worthy heirs to the name Yisroel and treated as Hashem’s children and not as slaves, who are only around as long as their services are desired.

We pray that we will be treated as children, and even if we stray, we will always be welcomed and never abandoned.

The Tur(Orach Chaim 417) writes that the Yom Tov of Sukkos is “kineged” Yaakov Avinu, as the posuk states, “Ulemikneihu osoh sukkos” (Bereishis33:17). The Zohar also says that Sukkos is “kineged” Yaakov, but derives this from the first part of the same posuk, which reads, “V’Yaakov nosa sukkosah.”

The Torah tells us that Yaakov was “ish tam yosheiv ohalim,” literally a simple, or complete, person who lived in tents. Yaakov was the “tam,” who simply trusted in Hashem without questioning his lot and making “cheshbonos.” Yaakov was the “yosheiv ohalim,” dedicating his life to Torah. For him, a tent - temporary, simple and rustic - was a sufficient dwelling place if that was what Hashem had chosen for him.

“V’Yaakov nosa sukkosah.” It was in merit of those middos that we were given the mitzvah of sukkah, reminding us to live as our forefather Yaakov did, with complete faith, come what may.

The Gemarastates (Pesochim 88a) that Yaakov Avinu referred to the place where the Bais Hamikdosh was to be built as a bayis, a home.

Similarly, for seven days, we call the sukkah, which commemorates the return of the Ananei Hakavod and the commencement of the construction of the mishkon, a bayis. The simple roomis our home and we are very happy with it.

Sukkosonly lasts seven days, but its lessons and inherent joy keep us smiling throughout the cold and darkness of winter. The messages of the sukkah,celebrating the acceptance of our teshuvah, the return of the Ananei Hakavod, and the construction of the Mishkon, warm our hearts and lighten our paths through the golus.

We await the day when our teshuvah for the sins that keep us in golus will finally be accepted. Then we will merit the return of the Shechinahamong us and the construction of the third Bais Hamikdosh, bemeheira beyomeinu. Amein.

By Rabbi Pinchos Lipschutz

ParshasBereishis ends by stating that human behavior had degenerated to the point that Hashem reconsidered the creation of man. The parshaconcludes by saying that Noach found favor in the eyes of Hashem. Parshas Noach continues this theme by describing Noach as a tzaddik tomim who walked with Hashem.

The Torah states that Noach was a tzaddik tomim in his generation. Rashi tells us that some interpret this posuk as laudatory of Noach and others interpret it in a critical vein. The detractors say that had Noach lived in the generation of Avrohom, he would not have counted for anything.

Since the Torah describes Noach as a tzaddik and a tomim, why must we pounce on him and minimize his greatness? Why can’t we take the posuk at face value? If the Torah states that the entire world except for Noach had become defiled, isn’t that enough to establish his spiritual grandeur? Does it really make a difference to us what level of greatness Noach would have attained had he lived in the generation of Avrohom?

The world was about to be destroyed, and the only people Hashem found worthy of being saved were Noach and his family. The future of mankind would be perpetuated through them. They must have been good and worthy people. If not, they would have been swept away by the flood along with the rest of humanity. Why does Rashi interject that some looked upon Noach unfavorably?

It is often noted that Noach was occupied with his own personal avodahand didn’t seek to improve people around him.

Noach apparently felt that since Hashem had already decided to bring the flood, it would be futile to chastise his generation. The entirety of mankind of the generation in which he lived was depraved and unredeemable. Why waste time ministering to them and trying to assist them in rectifying their lives? There was clearly no interest. They had developed theories and philosophies to rationalize their hedonistic behavior and were not amenable to change.

Noach’s existence was quite lonely. There were no people with whom he could carry on a conversation or take walks.

“Es ha’Elokim hishalech Noach.”The humble tzaddik walked with Hashem. It is commendable that Noach, who lived in a deplorable time without role models or teachers to learn from and follow, raised himself to such a degree that G-d would speak to him, quite a noteworthy achievement.

Yet, Rashi is quick to interject, “Ilu haya bedoro shel Avrohom lo haya nechshav leklum.” Had the tzaddik Noach lived in the time of Avrohom, he would not have been considered anything.

Noach’s self-contained, self-oriented avodah would not have been considered great in the time of Avrohom, because Avrohom showed that it is possible to be a tzaddik, live among wayward people, improve them, affect their behavior, and earn their respect. The posuk of “es hanefesh asher asu b’Choron” (Bereishis 12:5) attests that Avrom and Sorai had established a following of people whom they influenced and brought “tachas kanfei haShechinah” (Rashi, ibid.).

Additionally, Avrohom pleaded with Hashem not to destroy the city of Sedom and its evil inhabitants. He never gave up on anyone and never perceived any person as being beyond salvation.

There are various derochim in avodas Hashem. Noach’s was acceptable in his generation prior to the birth of the derech of Avrohom. However, once Avrohom showed that we are not to give up on anyone, that became the path for his progeny to follow.

This is why Rashi takes pains to tell us that although Noach was a tzaddik tomim, we should not learn from him. His way is not our way. As children of Avrohom, we must follow the path that Avrohom Avinu hewed for us. We have to accept responsibility for those around us who are confused and lost. We have to be able to rise above the moral dissolution in which society attempts to drown us. We have to find the skills and the intelligence to effectively reach out and touch people.

We have to care enough to find the right words at the right time to let people know what they mean to us. If we cared about G-dliness and goodness as much as Avrohom did, then we would try as hard as he did to spread it in our world. We wouldn’t justify our inaction by saying that the people we could sway are too far gone. Parents who suffer with a child who has fallen under bad influences and is struggling with addiction never give up. They never stop loving their child and desperately seek ways to convey that love.

“Ilu haya bedoro shel Avrohom lo haya nechshav leklum.” Although Noach was a tzaddik, found favor in Hashem’s eyes, and was chosen to have the world rebuilt through him, once Avrohom came on the scene, Noach’s greatness was eclipsed. It is now Avrohom’s path - his actions and example - that we must emulate.

In our own day, when we witness injustice and impropriety, we should not shirk the responsibility of intelligently addressing the source of these lapses. When we see bizayon haTorah, it should shake us to our core and we should not be too weak to express our indignation. Following Avrohom’s example, we must be engaged with others, not withdrawn from them.

When we see people wronged, we should not stand by apathetically. Rather, we should rise to the occasion. We should imagine that it is our family being wronged. We should imagine that the transgression took place in our teivah. We should raise our voices and use our abilities to attempt to right the wrongs.

We mustn’t content ourselves by only educating our children to follow in the path of the Torah and halacha. We have to at least attempt to enroll more children into religious schools. We mustn’t say that we are helpless to bring about change.

Why don’t we see full-fledged kiruv in this country as there is in Israel and other places? How can it be that there are millions of Jews being lost to our people and we don’t do anything about it?

Decades after Hitler diminished the world’s Jewish population by at least six million, we are witness to the loss of many more, yet we do nothing - or little - about it. Hundreds of thousands of Jewish kids who could be convinced to attend Jewish schools grow up oblivious to their heritage. We are glad when Reform temples close up shop and merge due to dwindling numbers, without realizing that their demise is an indication of more Jews being lost for eternity. Why the joy? At the very least, we should be pained and at least attempt to work to stem the awful tide.

There are remarkable groups and individuals who dedicate their lives to outreach and school placement, but despite their heroic efforts, they can barely make a dent in solving the problem. They need much wider communal support and concern in order to reach appreciable numbers. We have to genuinely care about our Jewish brothers and sisters and really want to save them from drifting from their heritage to points of no return.

Noach was a great man. Undoubtedly, it required superhuman strength to withstand the temptations of his period. Certainly, he was outstanding in that he remained moral and honest despite the corruption of his time. The posuktestifies that Noach found favor - chein- in the eyes of Hashem. And the Gemarain Sukkah (49b) states axiomatically that anyone who has chein also possesses yiras Shomayim.

Yet, while Noach had yiras Shomayim and all of mankind is his offspring, he is not referred to as av hamon goyim, the father of the nations, although, in fact, everyone alive is a descendent of his. That appellation is reserved for Avrohom Avinu, who treated all of mankind as his children, as dwellers of his own ark, whom he was responsible to care for and love. He didn’t mock them; he sought to raise them. He touched their hearts, reached their souls, affected their psyches, and improved them to the level that they joined his flock.

Avrohom went further than Noach. Not only did he have yiras Shomayim, but he was also the first to convert to Hashem’s service. The Gemara in Sukkah (ibid.) expounds on the posuk, “Am Elokei Avrohom - shehaya techilah l’goyim,” which Rashi explains to mean that he was the first person in the world to convert.

Noach never took that step. He didn’t go around trying to straighten out the people he lived with, and he wasn’t mispallel for their salvation as Avrohom was. Noach didn’t sit out in front of his tent waiting to bring them under the canopy of G-d as Avrohom did.

“Ilu haya bedoro shel Avrohom lo haya nechshav leklum.”

Let us not excuse inaction by contending that those around us are too far gone to merit our intervention. Let us not minimize our talents and abilities. Let us find the right words of reproach and outreach to express our love and determination, and may we merit for our actions to be judged favorably by G-d and man.

Rav Shlomo of Karlin told his students that following his passing, they should turn to the rebbe of Nishchiz for leadership and direction.

Rav Uri of Strilisk followed Rav Shlomo’s advice and made his way to Nishchiz. As he waited his turn, he watched as a wealthy man was warmly received and blessed by the rebbe. Rav Uri was able to see that the man had recently committed a serious sin. He was horrified that the man his rebbe had sent him to for guidance was so welcoming to an evil-doer.

The rebbe of Nishchiz perceived Rav Uri’s anger and told him to immediately leave the room. Quite embarrassed, he did as he was told and headed for the local bais medrash.

A short time later, the rebbe arrived at the bais medrash. He went over to Rav Uri and said to him, “I also know what you know. But do you know why Rav Shlomo Karliner sent you here? It is so that you should learn that a person without enough ahavas Yisroel to love a sinning Jew hasn’t reached the proper level of avodas Hashem, for if you would treat people like him with love, they can do teshuvah and return.”

The Jewish Week is happy this week, an indication that something is wrong. Rabbi Shlomo Riskin, propagator of new roles for women in Orthodoxy, is preparing to hand off leadership of his Ohr Torah Stone network of institutions to Rabbi Kenneth Brander, a YU executive and former pulpit rabbi.

The Jewish Week reports, “The fact that he plans to head the Ohr Torah Stone network could bolster the notion here that empowering women as decisors of halacha, or Jewish law, is more mainstream than fringe, and well within the bounds of Orthodoxy.”

The paper quotes Sharon Weiss-Greenberg, president of the Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance, who is ecstatic over Riskin’s chosen successor. She remarked, “It is significant and telling that one of the major rabbinic leaders of Yeshiva University, the flagship of Modern/centrist Orthodoxy, will be heading an institution that gives women semicha.”

She added, “If you choose to write off Rabbi Brander’s appointment” at Ohr Torah Stone as not applicable to American Orthodoxy, “you are blind to where Orthodoxy and amcha [the people] are. This is huge.”

The article mentions that the OU organization of Orthodox synagogues is soon to vote on whether to expel from its group shuls that employ women. Jonathan Sarna, an oft-quoted Jewish expert, is trotted out. He says that “this is a plastic moment for the Orthodox community in the U.S.” The Orthodox synagogue group can take what he calls “the inclusive, big tent approach” or it can vote to maintain “ideological purity, which could result in a split” within Orthodoxy.

“It’s not going to be easy,” he averred, “for the OU to explain why Israel accepts Orthodox women leaders” and the U.S. shouldn’t.

So now, the idea of Orthodox women rabbis is perceived as a given. The only question is whether the OU will face the facts or not.

We hate to say, “We told you so,” but when Avi Weiss began ordaining female clergy several years ago and the Yated undertook a lonely campaign against him and his practice, we were castigated for writing about topics that will never affect the majority of Orthodoxy. People said back then, and continue to contend when we write of the dangers of Open Orthodoxy, that it is a non-issue that does not and will not affect frum Jews.

We have proven that Open Orthodoxy’s leaders are, in fact, not Orthodox, and have called for the rescinding the semicha of Ysoscher Katz, Chair of the Talmud Department at Yeshivat Chovevei Torah and the director of the Lindenbaum Center for Halakhic Studies.

We have written that the deviating actions of Open Orthodoxy will affect all of Orthodoxy. Indeed, it is coming to pass. An idea is born, then it is adopted, progressives swoon over it, people are loath to protest lest they be seen as unenlightened, and slowly it gains approval and becomes accepted. We see this with the moral climate of this country and others, and sadly the same is true with the innovations of Open Orthodoxy and people like Shlomo Riskin, who claims to be “Modern Orthodox.”

Sarna can say that in Israel women are accepted as “leaders,” and it is accepted as fact. Riskin tells the paper that women can be “spiritual leaders and have the right to give halachic directions and make halachic decisions.”

The Jewish Week says Riskin told them that “he has received no negative reactions from Israeli gedolim(Orthodox rabbinic sages) regarding his positions on women’s roles.” It is a ridiculous assertion, but one that he gets away with. He knows the universal position of gedolim and Orthodoxy on the topic, and he is well aware of the stated positions of the Orthodox Union and the Rabbinical Council of America, as well as the position of Rav Joseph B. Soloveitchik, the towering rabbinic figure of Modern Orthodoxy.

This issue is but one example of the result of adopting a position of not getting involved in issues affecting the larger community. There are many that come to mind. There is no one who is beyond reach and there is no one who is beyond reproach. We have a responsibility to be mochiach and set the record straight as to the proper path our people should follow. We have an obligation to other people. No one is ever that far gone that we give up on them.

Like Avrohom Avinu, we are to express concern for others, seek to return sinners to the tent of Torah, reach out to wayward folks with love and care, and teach anyone who will listen the ways of morality and goodness.

Never perceive any issue as hopeless. View every person with merciful kindness, knowing that “betzelem Elokim bara osam,” there is spirituality in every living soul.

May we be worthy inheritors of our grandfather, Avrohom.

Rabbi Pinchos Lipschutz

We were introduced to Avrohom Avinu in Parshas Noach. Last week, Avrom was mentioned in passing regarding his lineage. This week, the Torah simply tells us that Hashem appeared to Avrom and told him to leave his birthplace, to uproot himself from his ancestral home and to move to the land Hashem would show him.

Without being told anything about Avrom, who he is or why he merits for Hashem to speak to him, the parsha continues, telling us that Hashem promised Avrom that in the land in which he was currently living, he would not merit children (Rosh Hashanah 16b, Rashi ad loc), but if he would follow Hashem’s directive and move, he would be blessed with children and wealth, and his offspring would develop into a great nation.

We still don’t know anything about him, but we assume that he must have been a great man, for why else would Hashem appear to him and bless him with so many brachos?

In order for Avrom to merit being blessed, it was not enough that he was the first person who recognized on his own the existence of the Creator. He would have to separate himself from the heathens with whom he lived and grew up.

That theme seems to flow through the pesukim of the parsha. “Lech lecha, leave your land, your birthplace and your father’s home.” To merit blessing, he had to escape the society that surrounded him.

Lot left his ancestral home along with his uncle, Avrom. It would seem that Lot had good intentions, casting his lot with Avrom and Sorai, setting out for parts unknown. His allegiance was rewarded, as the posukrelates (12:5) that Lot was blessed with material wealth. Rashi quotes the Gemara which states that this was a result of his accompanying Avrom.

When the land of Canaan was plagued by hunger, Lot went with Avrom and Sorai to Mitzrayim. When Avrom was blessed with livestock and riches there, Lot benefited as a consequence of his attachment to his uncle.

A rift developed between the shepherds of Avrom and the shepherds of Lot. Without searching for compromise or peace gestures, Avrom suggested that they separate. Lot looked towards Sedom, attracted by its lush vegetation. Without putting up an argument, he contently offered to move there, while Avrohom settled in Eretz Canaan.

Lot, the talmid and relative of Avrohom, ended up in the city whose very name until today is synonymous with sin.

It took much determination and intelligence by Avrom to chart the course of his life. Although Noach was alive when Avrom was born, the world had already forgotten its Creator. The people worshipped the moon, stars, sun and idols they fashioned. Avrom recognized that the world had to have been created by a Higher Being and spent the first years of his life seeking Him out.

There was much opposition. Avrom was vilified by those around him for violating the doctrines of his day. Worse, he became a threat to his father and the ruling powers. They conspired to kill him and put an end to his dangerous influence.

It would have been much easier for Avrom to play along with them as he pursued his own agenda. His life would have been smoother had he not antagonized the powerful as he went about his personal search to understand how the world came into being.

But Avrom fought for the truth. He discovered the Ribono Shel Olam and shared his finding with the world. He was not deterred by the powerful or by friends, and not even by his own father. He was not enamored by the trappings of pagan life. Their way wasn’t his. Their lifestyle wasn’t his. As soon as Hashem told him to leave, he was gone.

When Hashem’s blessing came to fruition and he was showered with wealth by Paroh, he remained the same person he was in Choron. As he returned from his adventure in Mitzrayim that led to the accumulation of his great fortune, the Torah says that he returned to the same tent in which he had previously lived. He did not permit his material success to give rise to pride, arrogance and gluttony. He returned to the mizbeiach he built prior to leaving the Holy Land.

Lot was close to Avrom for many years, but when he returned from Mitzrayim, the money had changed him. The pesukim (13:3-5) that speak of Avrom’s return to his previous home and mizbeiach are followed by the posuk that states, “Lot who traveled with Avrohom also had sheep, cattle and tents.” Avrom used his newfound wealth for good things. Lot did not.

Sending Lot away, Avrom finalized his separation from the people of his past. The posuk (Bereishis 13:14)relates that after Lot had parted from him, Hashem told Avrom to take a sweeping view of the land, for it would all be given to him and his plentiful offspring. “Walk its length and breath, for I will give it to you,” Hashem says.

Avrom’s separation from Lot was required in order to merit that blessing (see Rashi, ibid.).

Later in the parsha, Avrom went to war to defend Lot and his Sedomites. When the king of Sedom attempted to gift Avrom all the captured wealth, Avrom declined. “Harimosi yodi el Hashem konei shomayim va’aretz. I will not take from you even a thread or a shoelace.”

Once again, following that mark of separation, Hashem appears to Avrom and says, “Al tira Avrom, Anochi magein loch, sechorcha harbeh meod,” issuing him monumental brachos, culminating with the Bris Bein Habesorim (Bereishis 15:17-21).

Separation leads to brocha.

Towards the end of the parsha, Hashem tells Avrom to be a tomim in his service. Hashem changes the names of Avrom and Sorai to Avrohom and Sorah and offers his bris to Avrohom. A covenant is formed between them: Avrohom and his offspring will follow the word of Hashem and separate themselves from everyone around them by performing bris milah, and Hashem will give them Eretz Yisroel and be their G-d. Avrohom will be “av hamon goyim,” our father, and Sorah will be a mother, soon to give birth to Yitzchok, despite her old age and condition.

We are identified as bnei ubenos Avrohom v’Sorah. What does that mean? What does that say about us? What do we do to earn that appellation and maintain it?

Do you want to be My people? Lech lecha. Hishaleich lefonai veheyei somim. Separate yourself from the hedonistic culture that surrounds you.

Avrohom realized that there is a Creator and spent his life spreading the message of truth and following His path with temimus.

The Torah doesn’t tell us more about Avrohom than the directive of “Lech lecha,” for that was his essence - distancing himself from those whose lives are about temporary, fleeting pleasures.

Avrohom arrived at his level of avodah through giving much thought to the world and his place in it. Not only that, but before performing an action, he contemplated whether it would increase or decrease kevod Shomayim. When commanded to perform brismilah, he consulted with his friend, Mamrei (Bereishis 18:1, Rashi) about which venue for the procedure would maximize his ability to bring people to serve Hashem.

This is the foundation of Avrohom’s greatness. As the Ramchalwrites in Mesilas Yeshorim, man must think daily about what he is doing, just as storekeepers review their inventory and weights to ensure that they will not err and cause themselves great losses. Someone who fails to do so is enslaved by his yeitzer hora, which causes him to become blinded to the truth. He walks blissfully, thinking that he is safe and secure in his blissful path, only to stumble and fall.

A ben Avrohom must realize that he is here for a higher purpose and ensure that his actions are furthering that goal.

Many of the crises people discuss are symptoms of what ails us, and of the generation in which we live. There are many issues to discuss, and many things that are bringing us down and then there is our terrible image in the press. What are we doing about them? How badly does it bother us when our people are portrayed negatively? What do we do to rectify this?

It seems as if we hear the same speeches repeated over and over again about symptoms and dealing with symptoms. Somehow, however, the heart of the issues that plague us is not addressed. We aren’t reminded that we are the nation of Avrom.

If we would act as Avrohom did, with thoughtfulness, so many people would be helped, so many problems would never have been created in the first place and those which confound us would be more easily corrected.

Learn what life is really all about. Set goals for yourself. Be ambitious. Don’t be superficial. Have some depth. And thought. How does a Jew act in such a situation? How would Avrohom act? How would Sorah? Do that and then you will live. Your life will be fulfilling. And real.

A talmid of Rav Moshe Shapiro was experiencing marital difficulties. He called his rebbi, “I need to speak to you, my wife wants a get, I am distraught.” Rav Moshe told him, “Stay where you are. I’ll get back to you.”

Fifty minutes later, there was a knock on the door. It was Rav Moshe. He dropped what he was doing and came to help the couple.

They went into the study. Pain and tears poured out, as the accusations flew.

Rav Moshe sat quietly and then asked, “Have you learned Iyov?” Without addressing any of the issues so emotionally discussed, he launched into a comprehensive shiur on Iyov. When he finished, he gave the couple a warm brocha and got up to leave.

“But rebbi, you didn’t address any of our issues. You didn’t help us,” the talmid questioned.

Rav Moshe said to him, “Do you really think that I came here to judge who said what, when and how?

“The story between you and your wife, and the story between people, and between people and themselves, has nothing to do with who raised their voice, and who said what, and who cleaned the floor.

“The deeper story is all about how we look at life, how we understand our missions, the meaning of our actions and what Hashem wants from us.

“SeferIyov teaches how to live, how to view the world, how to view our existence. It teaches how to ride the waves and not let the waves ride us; how not to fall into ruts that are difficult to climb out of.

“Don’t fall into ruts. Stop waiting for others to lift you from them. Learn how to live.

“Learn. Learn. Learn. Learn Iyov. Learn it with your wife. Learn it.”

Besides being invigorating and inspiring, daily study of Torah and mussar reminds us how to think and conduct ourselves in a tumultuous world.

We have definitely been blessed. We live better than Jews ever did throughout the exile. Do you think that Hashem has blessed us so in order for us to become self-indulgent pleasure-seekers, so self-absorbed that we should become oblivious to the concerns and needs of other people? Do you think that He intends for us to become a people corrupted with an entitlement mentality who engage in pursuits that are of momentary enjoyment, as fleeting as the interest people have in their selfies? Do you think He is happy when we inconsiderately inconvenience people? How about when we demean people who need something from us?

If the glamour and glitz of the very world we seek to separate from appeal to us, it becomes tough to engage in the “Lech lecha” of our time, turning our backs on that realm. If vapid popularity is important to us, we risk eroding our eternal values to find favor with the “in” crowd. If the “good life” attracts us, it becomes difficult to smash the pagan idols of our time.

Avrohom and his offspring will forever be sealed with brocha- “bechachosmin” - as long as we remain loyal to what is true and good. When we follow the ways of Avrohom and consider our actions and words, and we raise our children with Torah values and teach them to be considerate of others, kind, good and honest, we will continue to merit the brachosreserved for the offspring of Avrohom. People who are not seduced by the blandishments of Sedom are deserving of the Divine brachos.

Avrohom Avinu delved into the intricacies of this world and mastered the underlying truth of creation and man’s purpose in this world. Society’s delusions and icons held no appeal for him. As children of Avrohom, we need to be reminded that our path is the correct one. The most rewarding and eternal blessings are reserved for those who know that all else is fleeting.

Let us study the parsha and grasp its inherent lessons. Let us think before we speak and act, always endeavoring to remain loyal to our appellation as bnei Avrohom, ne’emomim to Hashem and his Torah.

By Rabbi Pinchos Lipschutz

At times, people feel that they are stuck in a rut. They are lacking money or something else they feel they need and deserve. They are unable to overcome the gaping feeling that life has wronged them and therefore become anxious and depressed. They are overwhelmed by feelings of emptiness and suffering.

Rav Elimelech Biderman recently told the story of Reb Nisson Shtitzberg. One of his daughters married a fine young man. In the middle of sheva brachos, tragedy struck and the chosson suddenly died. Imagine the sadness that gripped the kallahand both families. The great simchawas turned into tremendous sadness.

Not only that, but they found out that the new wife would be an agunah for the next eight years, as the chosson’s only brother was but a five-year-old lad. He wouldn’t be able to partake in chalitzah, which would enable the poor kallah to remarry, for another eight years, when he would become a bar mitzvah.

Reb Nisson was a chossid of the Yesod Ha’avodah. In utter dejection, he turned to the rebbe to find out what they had done to deserve such a tragic situation.

The rebbe said to him, “Look at what is happening and you will realize that it was decreed in Heaven that your daughter wouldn’t have children until eight years from now. Now, if this would not have happened, she would not have gotten engaged until now. You would have spent your days and nights trying to find a shidduch for her, and rightfully so. As time went on, without success, you would have undertaken various segulos, davened like you never had before, and begged any rusty shadchan to come up with someone normal for your daughter.

“And what would people say? They’d no doubt say that your daughter hasn’t found a shidduchyet because there must be something wrong with her. You would have been going through torture until finally finding her zivugafter eight aggravating years.

“Hashem had mercy on you and saved you from all that. In eight years, the brother will come of age and she will perform chalitzah. She will then immediately marry and give birth to a beautiful family, all in the preordained time.”

One who trusts in Hashem knows that whatever happens to him is for the good and is brought on by Hashem. We don’t always understand what has befallen us or why. Sometimes it can take years until the reason becomes evident. Sometimes it becomes clear sooner and other times we never figure it out.

We read in this week’s parsha (18:10) how Hashem appeared to Avrohom and told him that he and his wife would be giving birth to a son who would be their heir and carry their mission forward. Why did Avrohom Avinu not rush to tell his wife that Hashem promised that they would have a son? The elderly couple had unsuccessfully sought a child for many years. How could Avrohom not share the great news with his wife?

Avrohom and Sorah had worked to bring Hashem’s message of G-dliness to the world. They set out on their path alone, and were successful in drawing many followers, until they had a wave of maaminimfollowing them.

They were blessed with much wealth and fame, and had everything a couple could desire, except for a child. When Avrohom Avinu found out that he and Sorah would soon have a son, he kept the promise from his wife. Wouldn’t you imagine that this was the happiest moment in his life? How could he not tell her that their prayers have been answered and she would soon be a mother?

The Ramban (Bereishis 18:15) writes that Avrohom waited for Hashem to let Sorah know the good news. Sorah actually found out the wonderful news from the malachim.

He suggests, as well, that Avrohom was preoccupied with performing the mitzvah of milah on himself and his household as he had been commanded and didn’t have the time to tell Sorah. When he finished fulfilling Hashem’s commandment regarding milah, he was weak and sat at the entrance of his tent to recuperate. Before he had a chance to get back to himself and tell Sorah, the malochimcame and told her themselves.

Even after studying the words of the Ramban, the question still bothered me. How can it be that Avrohom didn’t run to tell his wife that the one thing they were lacking in their lives would be granted to them? Wouldn’t doing so bring much happiness to his wife? How could he postpone bringing her that joy?

Perhaps the question is based on a mistaken premise. A believer knows that everything that happens to him in life is for the good. A person who lives with bitachon understands that Hashem’s purpose in creation is to bring about goodness and kindness.

We don’t always understand what is going on, but we know that there is a greater purpose for what is happening. Nothing that happens is haphazard and nothing happens by itself.

People want children because they have been conditioned to expect to give birth to a child. Children bring joy, enrichment, and meaning into your life.

But, in fact, we are all here because Hashem willed it so. Everything we have - or don’t have - is because Hashem willed it to be that way. We all have a mission in life. We are given what we need to be able to fulfill our mission.

Some people need a large home in order to accomplish their shlichus, while some don’t. Some need a nice car, while for others a small jalopy suffices. Some people need a lot of money in order to carry out their mission, while some can be most successful in their shlichus without a dime in their pockets.

A maamin and baal bitachon doesn’t look at what other people have and complain about why he is lacking in those blessings. He knows that Hashem chose this situation for him. He is not jealous of others and does not view himself as lacking in anything. He is happy with what he has, because he knows that his loving Father provides for him what he needs.

He is never jealous of other people, asking, “How come they have what I don’t have?” A familiar refrain is that life is unfair. Why don’t I have all that I want, just like the person across the street? Why is he so smart, yet as hard as I try, I can’t remember a thing I learn? Why does he always find the bargains, while I pay full price for everything? Why do their kids dress in designer clothes, while mine make do with end-of-season sale items?

So many of our complaints are brought on by jealousy.

Rav Yecheskel Sarna, the Chevron rosh yeshiva told the Chazon Ish that during the Second World War some rabbis had a debate. A certain tyrant who persecuted Jews died. The question was, should they be happy now that he was gone, or should they worry that perhaps his replacement would be even worse.

The Chazon Ish told him that “they could have simultaneously celebrated his departure and worried about the future. It is possible to be happy and apprehensive at the same time.”

He proved his point. “Yirmiyohu Hanovi wrote Megillas Eicha, a mournful dirge of tragedy. We know that he wrote it with ruach hakodesh, and we also know that in order to merit ruach hakodesh, you have to be besimcha.

“You see that it is possible to mourn and weep over the destroyed beis hamikdosh and to be besimcha at the same time.”

The depth of his message is that while a person is suffering from a calamity or loss, the knowledge that it did not happen by itself, but rather was orchestrated by the Creator for a higher purpose, is comforting and allows the person to be content.

People who trust in Hashem know that He oversees all. As the Gemara states (Chulin 7b), “a person doesn’t even get a small wound on a finger without it being decided so by Heaven.” If a person receives a setback of any kind, he should know that it didn’t happen by itself, but was decreed by Hashem.

The Ribnitzer Rebbe was walking with Rav Eliyohu Tabak, when the elderly rebbe tripped and fell. Rav Eliyohu rushed to lift the rebbe off the ground. The Ribnitzer told him to wait. “Eliyohu, before I get up, I have to make a cheshbon hanefesh. If I don’t know why I fell, I will fall again.” The rebberemained on the floor for a minute before allowing Rabbi Tabak to raise him.

People who live with emunah are that way. When something doesn’t go their way, they try to figure out why. They search their souls to find what is lacking and they seek to rectify it. Otherwise, they understand that Hashem brought it upon them for reasons they do not know. They accept it and move on.

Avrohom and Sorah were maaminim. They understood that Hashem did what was best for them. Before they had a child, they were not overcome with grief. They didn’t view their lives as lacking. They viewed their lives as full and blessed. They perceived their mission to be bringing the knowledge of Hashem to the world. If they didn’t have a child, then apparently Hashem felt they didn’t need one. Their good acts would live on some other way. They would attain joy, happiness and fulfillment without giving birth to children together.

Since they didn’t view the lack of a child as a tragedy, when Avrohom heard from Hashem that he and his wife would be giving birth to a son who would be their heir and carry on their mission, he didn’t feel the need to rush and tell his wife.

In last week’s parsha (15:4-5), Hashem told Avrohom, “Ki imasher yeitzei mimei’echa hu yiroshecha - The one you give birth to will be your heir.” The posuk says that Hashem took Avrohom outside and told him, “Look up to the sky and count the stars. If you are able to count them, so will you be able to count your children,” for they will be so plentiful that it will be impossible to count them.

The posuk then states (ibid. 6), “Vehe’emin baHashem vayachsheveha lo tzedakah,” Avrohom trusted Hashem and Hashem looked upon Avrohom’s faith favorably.

What was the big deal about the fact that Avrohom trusted the promise of Hashem? And why did Hashem consider it a major act? If Hashem appeared to anyone, wouldn’t that person trust Him to keep His word?

If we continue with our line of reasoning, we can answer that the big deal was that Avrohom was the paradigm believer in Hashem. He believed in Hashem when he didn’t have a son as much as he believed after he was promised the son and multitudes of offspring.

As such, when Hashem promised that he and Sorah would give birth to a child who would continue their mission, Avrohom was not so overjoyed as to interrupt the mitzvah he was doing in order to tell Sorah.

This is what the Ramban means when he says that Avrohom was occupied with carrying out Hashem’s commandment regarding milah. Avrohom was fulfilling his mission of following Hashem’s word. That is what his life was all about. He was the consummate servant of Hashem, whether he had a child or not, so his first obligation was to finish doing what Hashem asked him to do. Sorah wouldn’t expect anything different.

We tend to plug our emotions, perspectives and reactions into stories of the avos. Thus, we have questions. We understand the burning desire for a child, the ache of loneliness, and the frustration of unanswered tefillos.

But there is a level beyond ours, the level of tzaddikim. Yes, a child is a hemshech, a continuation of all man’s accomplishments, and a means of ensuring that the chain goes on. A child affords us themitzvah of chinuch, the joy and fulfillment of seeing a new generation growing in Torah and avodah, and the nachas of transmitting eternal values. But there is a backdrop to all this: The only reality that counts and exists is that which Hashem desires.

To us, a husband and wife longing and yearning for something for so many years and then receiving it is a happy story. To tzaddikim, before they are answered, it is viewed as the ratzon Hashem,andafter they are answered, it remains the same ratzon Hashem.

To Avrohom Avinu and Sorah Imeinu, the desire for a child was in the context of that reality. Since Hashemhadn’t blessed them with a child, they were content. They existed serenely within that reality. The news that they would have a child meant, in their terms, that the ratzon Hashem now was different than it had been before.

Their lives had been in concert with Hashem’s will all along, and so would it continue.

Similarly, the nisayon of the Akeidah was a test of Avrohom’s bitachon. Now that he had been blessed with a son, were he to learn that it was the will of Hashem for him to return that gift, would he happily comply with Hashem’s wish or would he question the command?

The posuk (Bereishis 22:3) relates that Avrohom passed the test. “Vayashkeim Avrohom baboker.” Without delay, he hurried to fulfill Hashem’s wish. He had wanted a son in order to perform his shlichus in this world. If Hashem wanted him to have a son, he was thrilled, and if Hashem did not wish for him to have a son any longer, then he would rush to fulfill the will of Hashem, fully accepting the decision.

The Chazon Ish wrote poetically, “Ein kol etzev ba’olam lemi shemakir ohrha’oros shel ha’emes. There is no despair in the world for one who perceives the light of lights of the truth.” Rav Yitzchok Hutner pointed out that the Chazon Ish, who was childless and experienced the same struggle as the avos, was expressing that there exists an “ohr,” a light, of ratzon Hashem that is more obvious. There is also an “ohr ha’oros,” a less obvious but deeper light, that of amitas retzono Yisborach. For those who perceive the deep light of Hashem, there is no depression, for they recognize the truth that all that transpires is for the greater good.

On Shabbos,we do not wish a sick person refuah sheleimah. Instead, Chazal tells us, we say, “Shabbos hi milizok.” On Shabbos, we don’t cry out in pain.

Perhaps we can understand that pain and pity are appropriate when one is somewhat removed from the ohr ha’oros. On Shabbos Kodesh, our proximity to the Borei Olam makes such reactions inappropriate. Shabbos is the day when the ohr of sheishes yemei bereishes shines through and we appreciate that if things are a certain way, it is because that is what Hashem wants. During the yemei hama’aseh, things are less clear, and we cry, but on Shabbos, when the light is evident, we refrain from sadness.

On Shabbos, as well, we do not engage in obvious acts of mourning. On the six days of the week, we cry over the passing of loved ones. When Shabbos arrives, there is no sadness. On Shabbos, we proclaim that the world was created by the Creator. We receive a neshomah yeseirah, which allows us to comprehend concepts that we can’t understand during the week. On this day, we do not mourn or engage in sadness, for we recognize that Hashem created the world to do good and all that transpires is for the good.

It’s all ratzon Hashem.

Such is the way of the avos, tzaddikim and maaminim, and that is the way we should try to live our lives.

We see treachery and evil rising. We see morality under attack, as laws that promote deviancy are enacted. We see dishonest people prosper and corruption entrench itself.

Our personal lives are tumultuous. Life is not going as planned. Everyone has a share of heartache and problems. We wonder why we have to work so hard and why we can’t attain our goals with less aggravation. It takes so much money to make ends meet. We can’t take the constant pressure to stay above water. There are so many things we wish were different. Should we be overcome with sadness? Should we give up? Should we feel alone and forlorn?

We have to do our best to live besimcha. We have to recognize that what happens is His will and ratzon hatov leheitiv. We should have no doubt that what happens is good and is the right thing for us, whether or not we easily understand it. We must know that those who see the ohr ha’oros recognize the good nature of everything that transpires. We have to do our best to rise to that level.

The connection to the Ribbono Shel Olammeans that we know that He who created us and gives us life also knows what we need. At times, we wish for things to be different, for a lack to be filled, or for a situation to be changed.

So we daven and hope, but always with the confidence that He knows how things ought to be. Avrohom Avinu prayed for the people of Sedom, pleading for Heavenly mercy on their behalf. He was turned down. How did he respond? The posuksays that Avrohom returned the next morning “el hamakom asher omadshom es pnei Hashem” (Bereishis 19:27). He went back to the same “place,” with the very same submission, humility and faith with which he had offered his tefillosand been turned down the day before.

“Yes” and “no” are but two expressions of the same ratzon. They are thus not different. As Hashem’s children, we have the ability and unique attitude to recognize that everything is from Hashem. So ein kol etzev. We don’t become dejected. We continue to hope, certain that one day, may it be very soon, we will rejoice when it all becomes clear just how good it has been all along.

What seems to us as reality is only a façade. One who seems blessed may in fact be cursed. One who seems poor may actually be blessed.

Let us learn from Avrohom and Sorah to look at the world properly, envisioning things as maaminim and baalei bitachon.

Let us live with faith and confidence, recognizing that we have a calling and mission in life. Let us do what can to accomplish our goals without jealousy or sadness. Let us concentrate on our own lives, on our own improvement, on what we must do to achieve happiness and wholesomeness. Let us take the steps which will enable us to attain the peaceful tranquility we all yearn for.

Rabbi Pinchos Lipschutz

This week’s parsha, Chayei Sorah, speaks of historical underpinnings of our people as we read of Sorah’s death and Avrohom’s search for a proper burial place for her. That is followed by the search for a wife for Yitzchok and ends with the passing of Avrohom. As happens in Jewish life in the exile, there are obstacles and setbacks along the way. People who profess honesty and statesmanship turn out to be neither honest nor statesmen.

Following the passing of Sorah, the Torah elaborates on how Avrohom reached out to the people of Cheis regarding a kever for her. The people of Cheis treat Avrohom with great respect, referring to him as a G-dly king and offering him any grave he chooses. Instead, he asks to speak to their distinguished friend, Efron, and offers him a high price for the cave at the end of his field. After first proffering the field and cave as a gift, Efron demands a very high price, telling Avrohom that he’s giving him a good deal.

Avrohom happily paid for the Me’oras Hamachpeilah and buried Sorah there without a complaint.

Avrohom Avinu paved the way for us in golus. So many times, we are lied to and played for fools. In the name of justice, good people, such as our friend Shalom Mordechai Rubashkin, get locked away for years. In the name of fairness, the Balfour Declaration is mocked and vilified in honor of the 100th anniversary of the document that led to the founding of Israel.

The New York Times honored the centennial with an article wondering whether the document was “the original sin in which Israel was conceived.”

The paper of record reports, “The Balfour Declaration, the pivotal, 67-word assurance by the British foreign secretary that promised support for ‘the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people,’ turned 100 on Thursday…

“Dated Nov. 2, 1917, the letter was delivered to the leaders of Britain’s Jewish community at the height of World War I, when Britain was driving the Ottomans from Palestine and seeking Jewish support in the United States to spur the American war effort. It did not gain the force of international law until 1920, when the remains of the Ottoman Empire were divided into mandates by the League of Nations, and the British inserted the Balfour Declaration into the text for their mandate for Palestine.

“The Arabs of Palestine were overmatched in the diplomatic realm, offering only feeble attempts at rolling back the declaration,” said Mahmoud Yazbak, a history professor at the University of Haifa.

The document was not fair, reports the Gray Lady. “Dueling academic conferences at the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities in central Jerusalem and at the Palestinian National Theater in East Jerusalem offered sharply different takes on the document’s meaning, genesis and historical consequences,” continues the Times.“The former emphasized World War I-era geopolitics and international law, and the latter keyed on imperialism and racism.”

More, “In an interview, MK Zouheir Bahlool spoke of the Balfour Declaration as if it were a fresh wound. ‘This declaration virtually buried the existence of the Palestinian people, which I am a part of,’ he said. The document, he said, promoted self-determination for the Jewish people ‘while completely ignoring the fact that there were Palestinians here.’”

One hundred years later, after all the crimes against humanity committed by Arabs in the name of a fictitious people they invented, the Palestinians, the world is still upset about the lack of fairness in returning the Jews to their ancestral home following two thousand years of being chased from place to place, pariahs wherever they were.

It is interesting that the Medrash (Bereishis Rabba 79:7) comments that there are three places in Eretz Yisroel that the nations of the world cannot contend to have rights to: the Me’oras Hamachpeilah, Har Habayisand Kever Yosef. Symbolic of the perfidiousness of the nations of the world, davka these three places are depicted most often as Muslim holy places where Jews should have no rights.

Such is the way of the nations.

Republicans were swept to power with promises of healthcare and tax reform. There was no healthcare reform, and now that they have presented their plan for tax reform, it seems that nobody will gain from the changes. More likely than not, you will pay more taxes if the bill, as it is proposed, is approved by both houses of Congress and signed into law by the president.

So much of what is said and promised turns out to be less than truthful. More often than not, politicians, upon being elected, turn their backs on their constituents and seek to benefit themselves.

Witness the trial of Senator Bob Menendez and the news about Mrs. Clinton and how she and her husband used their charity foundation to enrich themselves and collude with Russia on a deal giving them control of 20% of America’s uranium. Read the recent revelations of how she corrupted the Democrat Party to fix the primaries to guarantee her victory, while she continuously lied throughout the campaign about her handling of classified information.

As bneiAvrohom v’Sorah, we place our faith in Hashem, for we know that He is the One who guides us through our days.

This week’s parsha opens with the passing of Sorah Imeinu at the age of 127 years. We are all familiar with the Rashi that states, “Kulan shovin letovah– All her years were equally good.”

We have learned that Rashi repeatedly since we were youngsters. What does it mean?

There must be a deeper meaning to Rashi’s comment. If we are to understand his lesson as stating that all her years were good, we know that, in fact, they weren’t. The day she was snatched from her husband and brought to Paroh certainly wasn’t a good one. The day she was kidnapped by Avimelech was surely terrifying.

The day she saw Yishmoel being metzacheik with Yitzchok cannot be described as a good one. The days that Hagar caused her pain were not good ones. Of course, she accepted whatever came her way, but that alone does not turn bad days into good days.

The explanation may be that Sorah Imeinu was the personification of goodness. She was so good and so concerned about other people and the welfare of the world that she seized every opportunity to do good. Her days were filled with chesedand tzedakah.

Sorah didn’t just sit by and say, “Why doesn’t someone do something?” When she sensed an opportunity for improving the world, she grabbed it. When she saw someone who needed help, she didn’t just offer them advice about where to go and what to do. She brought them into her tent and took care of them herself, just as her husband did.

Because she was so intrinsically good, she spent her days and years doing good. She spread goodness and G-dliness wherever she went. In every situation and in every predicament, she discovered a way to increase goodness in the world.

When Rashidescribes Sorah’s years as “kulan shovin letovah,” the word tovahis not only a noun and an adjective, but a verb. All her years were consistently spent performing good. That is the mark of a person whose essence is goodness.

She didn’t bother with the sheker of the outside world. She ignored it, as she worked on strengthening and improving people, one at a time.

As bneiAvrohom v’Sorah, we need to find the good in everything and seek to create goodness in every situation in which we find ourselves.

The Torah goes into extensive detail about Avrohom’s search for a mate for Yitzchok. Feeling himself growing old, Avrohom entrusted his servant Eliezer with finding a girl suited for his holy son.

The Torah spends so much time recounting how Eliezer went about his task that the Medrash (Bereishis Rabba 60:8) states, “Yofoh sichoson shel avdei botei avos mitorasan shel bonim.” The parsha of Eliezer offers many lessons regarding how we are to lead our lives that the Torah elaborates on everything that Eliezer thought, did and said.

The purpose of the Torah relating the episode of Eliezer is to instruct us in middos. The reason these stories are retold is not to make for interesting, charming tales for youngsters in the primary grades. They are meant to be studied on a deep level and used as practical guides in our own lives.

When a talmid’sfirst daughter was entering shidduchim, he traveled to Rav Elazar Menachem Man Shach for guidance on what they should be looking for in a boy.

“Middos,” the sage responded.

“But what about yichus?” asked the father. “Is that something I should be looking for in my prospective son-in-law?”

“No. Middos,” repeated the rosh yeshiva.

“And what about excellence in other things?”

Again, the answer was, “Middos. The most important thing to look for is good middos. Only after you have ascertained that the boy is of fine character and middos tovos, then you can look into the other important attributes.

Rav Shach may have reached that conclusion after a lifetime of observation and he may have learned it from this week’s parsha.

The Drashos Haran writes (Drush 5) that Avrohom sent Eliezer to search among his family members for a mate for Yitzchok and warned him against searching among the Canaanites, because the members of his family were blessed with a fine nature, while the disposition of the offspring of Canaan were not. That way, the girl’s children would also be exceptional. (See also Kli Yokor Bereishis24, 3.)

Eliezer was determined to find a girl blessed with middos tovos. He devised a test for the girl he would meet to ensure that the one who would marry Yitzchok possessed a refined character and excelled in dealing with people.

Eliezer’s dedication to Avrohom was reinforced with deep faith in Hashem to lead his way. Even when it seemed entirely dark and there was little hope that he would be able to fulfill his master’s request, Hashem lit the way for him. The Medrashstates, “Hakadosh Boruch Hu haya me’ir lo bezikim ubevrakim.” When the believer appears to be lost in the dark, the light of Hashem bursts forth as lightning through the darkness and dread.

In Parshas Vayeira (21:14), the posuk recounts that Hagar was sent from the home of Avrohom and Sorah. The Torah states, “Vateilech vateisah.” Targum Onkeles translates the words to mean that she went and became lost. Rashisays that they mean that she returned to serve avodah zarah.

The Brisker Rov explained that Rashi saw in the word “vateisah” that she had left the path of Hashem, because anyone who has emunah and bitachonknows that they are never lost. They know that they didn’t end up in their situation by mistake, for everything that happens is Divinely ordained. Hashem declared it so for reasons not always evident at the moment.

A person who feels lost and aimless is lacking in their belief. Hagar was forlorn in the desert. She was confused, broken and lost. If she was feeling forsaken, Rashireasoned, she must have left the path of Avrohom and drifted back to the ways of her family.

Sometimes, people involved in shidduchim become despondent and give up hope. This week’s parsha and its Medrashim can help instill the faith people need to endure the shidduchim period and other trying times.

We must never let anyone rob us of hope. We are entitled to dream of brighter and happier days. As long as we can keep hope alive, we will not lose sight of our goal and will remain loyal to our ambition. We mustn’t lose our faith and optimism. When we lose hope, we have lost everything.

When the Brisker Rov was trying to escape from Europe during World War II, he spent a night in war-torn Warsaw. There was a debate among the residents of the apartment building he stayed in whether it was safer on a higher floor or a lower one. The higher floors carried a danger, since if the area was bombed and the building would topple, they would most certainly not survive. But others argued that being higher up was safer, since at least there was no danger of the apartment being buried under the rubble, whereas on lower floors, although they might withstand an attack, they would be crushed by the building collapsing on them.

The Brisker Rov recalled that the night he slept in that building was more restful than his other nights on the run. He explained that as he moved from place to place, he would worry about whether what he had done and where he had gone was the proper halachic way to seek protection.

On that awful night in Warsaw, he felt that the question of where to take refuge in the building was a “safeik hashakul.” Since there was really no clear answer to the quandary, because both options were equally valid, he knew that his actions were correct.

And what about a fear of dying that night in a bombing attack? He said that he was not worried, for he had bitachon. He did what was incumbent on him to do for his safety and went to sleep with equanimity, for he knew that Hashem was watching over him.

A person like that is never “teisah.” He is never lost and never forsaken.

Eliezer found Rivka and was introduced to her family. Lavan saw Eliezer approaching his home and ran towards him (Bereishis 24:29), apparently to welcome the guest. Rashi informs us that Lavan observed the new jewelry his sister was wearing and sensed that the guest was financially blessed. He ran to him to seek some riches for himself.

The Torah describes the encounter between Eliezer and Rivka’s family, leading up to when Rivka took leave of them to travel with Eliezer to meet and marry Yitzchok. As she left, Lavan gave her a parting brocha: “Achoseinu, at hayee l’alfei revovah…”

Rashi states that Lavan repeated the brocha that was given to Avrohom at Har Hamoriah following the Akeidah. That indicates that Lavan possessed ruach hakodesh, for how else would he be aware of what Hashem told Avrohom?

So, was Lavan a good guy or a bad guy?

The Alter of Kelm writes that Lavan was a gadol hador, but his drive and passion for money led him astray. If someone were to analyze the major failings of our generation, at the top of the list would be the worship of money.

People forsake everything in their eagerness to become wealthy. They wear themselves down, can’t maintain relationships, forego family and friends, and forsake common sense and beliefs in the pursuit of the deal that will take them over the top.

People drive themselves into depression over their jealousy of the money other people seem to have. Their envy leads them to be spiteful, hateful and bitter, oftentimes leading others to be repelled by their behavior.

Some have such a craving for money that they assume crushing debt to create an impression and illusion that they are affluent. They struggle mightily to maintain that image, crushing their hearts and souls in the process.

Lavan was a gadol, and he could have remained a great man had he not craved wealth as he did. We need to take that message to heart and not be obsessed with money.

Like our avos, we are meant to be a people of character, who endeavor to raise our children to be kind, thoughtful and considerate. We seek to do what is right, in all situations. We are contemplative, intelligent and strong in the beliefs handed down for millennia. We are smart, strong and fearless when necessary. We live with faith, emunah and bitachon, and appreciate the calmness and happiness this engenders.

We inculcate in our children and ourselves a love for Torah and mitzvos. We don’t force children to learn by rote without understanding what they are learning. We explain to them the words of Torah and tefillah, and ensure that they understand and thus appreciate what they are saying and studying.

Recognizing that we are bnei Avrohom, Yitzchok and Yaakov, we have our priorities in order and aren’t led astray by feeble pursuits. We appreciate our lives, and if something is amiss, we daven and seek out good people to guide us.

We learn the parshiyos of Sefer Bereishis and gain perspectives on life and direction in a floundering world.

We say, “Ashreinu mah tov chelkeinu,” understand it, mean it, and feel it every day of our lives.

By Rabbi Pinchos Lipschutz

In this week’s parsha, we learn of Rivkah’s concern during her much-anticipated pregnancy. She sought out great men to explain to her why her unborn child was exhibiting tendencies toward kedusha and tumah. The posuk (Bereishis25:22) states that she said, “Im kein, lamah zeh anochi,” and went to seek Hashem.

Why was she so bothered that she went to Sheim to find out what Hashem had planned for her?

Perhaps the language of the posuk provides us with a hint. The words “Lamah zeh anochi,” commonly translated as, “If so, what am I doing this for? Why did I pray for children?” can be understood allegorically a bit differently. Rivkah was perturbed, as the Medrash states, by the fact that when she passed the bais medrash of Sheim and Eiver, the baby kicked as if trying to exit, while when passing a place of avodah zorah, the same thing would happen.

When Rivkah said, “Lamah zeh anochi,” perhaps she was referring to the Aseres Hadibros that her offspring were to receive, commencing with the commandment of “Anochi Hashem Elokecha.”

She was concerned, for she knew that someone who pretends to be a proponent of opposing sides cannot be the progenitor of the Shivtei Kah, the chosen people who will receive the Torah. As the ultimate truth, Torah is not the domain of those who are all things to all people. Hashem is uncomfortable, kevayachol,with someone who presents himself as a holy person when that is advantageous to him, while he poses in a different fashion when he deems that to be more beneficial.

Rivkah knew that as the child of Yitzchok and grandson of Avrohom, the offspring she was to give birth to would have to be a leader, setting a standard of virtue as the epitome of goodness and G-dliness in this world. She was worried that the child she was carrying was demonstrating symptoms of being unprincipled. Since such a child would not be a worthy heir to Avrohom and Yitzchok, she thought that she would have been better off remaining barren.

Thus, she was relieved when Sheim informed her that she would give birth to twins, one righteous child and the other evil. Although she would have been happier with two righteous children, she was comforted with the knowledge that she would be giving birth to a worthy progenitor to Avrohom and Yitzchok.

Not only in her day, but in ours as well, there is a shortage of leaders. In every society, in every country, and in every industry, people are disconcerted as they seek leadership in a drifting world. People look for someone trustworthy to rally around, searching desperately for a person who can put their feelings into words and give voice to their concerns. There is a dearth of leaders who act in the best interests of the people they are supposed to serve.

The Torah is not some esoteric book available only to the smart learned. The Torah is for everyone, at every time, and in every period. It is neither in the heavens nor available only in some remote region. It is for anyone who dedicates himself to its study and acquisition.

As we sit by the feet of good teachers and imbibe the lessons that were inculcated in them by their rabbeim, our minds are opened, our souls are purified, and our sensitivities are awakened to the needs and aspirations of our people.

To find answers in a confounding world, we should follow our grandmother, Rivkah, and seek the word of Hashem in the bais medrash. Only those who study the word of Hashem are equipped to guide us in times of disillusionment and confusion. It is only with the Torah’s perspective that we can appreciate what is going on around us and find direction and purpose in our world.

This week, as we enter the month of Kislev, we begin thinking about the story of Chanukah. We realize that the Bnei Chashmonaim were neither warriors nor leaders. They were people in whose hearts burned an insatiable desire to rid the world of evil. As we say in Al Hanissim, they were few and they were weak. But they were righteous. And they had the courage of their convictions. They refused to subjugate themselves to the profane practices and worldview of the Hellenists.

Under the leadership of Matisyohu ben Yochanan Kohein Gadol, the handful of die-hard tzaddikimand oskei Torah arose to provide leadership for a dejected, subjugated people. Hashem took note of their courage and self-sacrifice, and empowered them with the ability to rally the bnei Yisroel and to emerge victorious over a powerful and deeply entrenched enemy.

The leader is not the one who cheats his way up the political ladder. The true leader is not the one who repeatedly lies to his people and engages in subterfuges in a desperate bid to maintain a hold on power. He doesn’t just pontificate and blame the consequences of his ineptitude on someone else. The proper leader doesn’t hold on desperately to an outdated and disproved ideology. He is not crippled by arrogance and ignorance.

The Jewish leader spends his time bent over a sefer, teaching and helping people. He imparts his knowledge to others with love and devotion. He parcels out his advice and guidance with humility. People flock to him and follow him. We have an inbred sense of where to go for leadership and whom to follow.

A radio call-in show was playing in the background as I was writing. I wasn’t paying attention until I heard someone who identified himself with a Jewish name from a frum town ask a question. The host is retiring after a few decades of broadcasting. The listener called for advice.

“As you plan to retire, can you give me some advice?” the caller asked. “I want to be a success. How do I go about that? You are successful. How can I be successful?” he questioned with a tone of desperation.

The host asked him what his goal is.

“Goal? I want to be successful. That’s my goal,” was the response.

The host went on a rant, educating the caller that success is not a goal.

“A goal is something you want to reach. Do you have interests? Do you have any talents? Is there anything you care about? If there is something you can do and want to do, you work hard at it, set a goal, and aim towards it. Reach your goal and you’ll be happy, satisfied and successful.”

What struck me most about the conversation was that the caller was asking this person in the first place. Why would he turn to a radio talk show host? Is he the person best qualified to answer the question? If you don’t see yourself as succeeding in life, why would you call this fellow? Why wouldn’t you reach out to people known for their success in Torah and other areas of pursuit?

If this caller would be satisfied with his heritage and spend time each day learning Torah and mussar, he wouldn’t have to contact a radio show for tips. The Torah and sifrei kodesh are replete with lessons guiding a person to reach success. They teach what life is about. They teach us to set goals and what those goals should be. When confused, the bais medrash and its leaders offer care and concern, as well as proven advice on how to overcome dissolution and achieve success.

Yaakov and Eisov were born to the same parents, and had the same chinuch and upbringing. One grew up to be a tremendous success, while the other may have succeeded financially but is remembered for all time as an evil loser.

One spent his time in the bais medrash, studying Torah and seeking to establish a life predicated upon the values of his father and grandfather. The other spent his days hunting, acting as a ruffian and tough guy in the street, and putting on a show for his father, presenting himself as a holy and learned person.

Rav Reuvein Dov Dessler of Kelm would say that the way Eisov presented himself was dependent on his wants on that particular day. On the day of Avrohom’s passing, Eisov’s goal was to gulp down the bowl of adashim Yaakov had prepared for the seudas havra’ah following the funeral. He decided that in order to procure the adashim,he would present himself as a person of mussar, remembering the yom hamisah and broken over the loss of the tzaddikAvrohom.

In truth, he was moved by neither. His sole motivation was the sweet-smelling pot of beans. And so is the way of man, Rav Dessler would say. He has different masks, depending upon his specific wants. We have to be careful to be true to ourselves and not project ourselves as people we are not.

Which brings us to the age-old question of why Yitzchok wished to bless Eisov, and not Yaakov, with the blessings of Veyitein Lecho.

Let’s go back to Rivkah seeking out Sheim’s guidance regarding her troubling pregnancy and her statement of “Im kein, lamah zeh anochi– If this is the child I will be giving birth to, why do I need this?”

Rivkah knew that Avrohom had more than one son. She also knew that Hashem promised (Bereishes17:21) to honor the covenant He had made with Avrohom through Yitzchok. She knew that following Avrohom’s bris, Hashem said (Bereishis18:18), “Avrohom will give birth to a large nation… For I know that he will command his sons and household to follow the ways of Hashem, to engage in charity and justice, so that Hashem will bring upon Avrohom (and his children) all He promised.”

In order for the son of Yitzchok to merit being the inheritor of the brachos and for the bris to continue through him, he would have to be someone who would follow in the ways of his father and grandfather.

Were Rivkah to give birth to a son who served avodah zora, he would not be able to continue the chain and would be rejected, just as Yishmoel was.

Rivkah feared that since the baby was exhibiting dangerous tendencies, he was evil, and when that would become evident, she would be scorned as Hagar was and would be evicted from the home of Yitzchok along with her son.

“‘Im kein,’ if that is to be my fate,”worried Rivkah,“‘lamah zeh anochi,’ I will not merit to be the mother of the Jewish people, so what will be of me?

“Eliezer came to my area and devised a test to see who would be the worthy wife for Yitzchok, carrying on the traditions established by Avrohom and transmitting them to future generations. Perhaps, although Eliezer was impressed by my acts of chesed, I was not the girl who was bashert for Yitzchok. ‘Im kein,’ if it is true that my son will be an unworthy heir, ‘lamah zeh anochi?’ What am I doing here? I am the wrong wife for Yitzchok and my shlichus is not to be the mother of the third av.”

Sheim informed her that while one son would be unworthy, his twin would be the third of the avos, and through him the Jewish nation would begin to take shape. Rivkah was satisfied with that and happily returned home.

Apparently, Rivkah never shared that information with Yitzchok and never let him in on the fact that Eisov was an evil imposter, who succeeded in fooling his father with respect to his degree of religiosity. Explanations for Rivkah’s behavior are set forth by the Zohar, Rishonim and Acharonim and are beyond the purview of this article.

When it came time to transmit the brachos, Yitzchok planned on giving them to Eisov. However, Rivkah, who knew the truth about Eisov, worked to ensure that Yaakov, the worthy heir, would be blessed, and the chain would be transmitted through him and his children.

“Im kein, lamah zeh anochi?” She learned that her shlichus, her mission in life, was to give birth to the third of the avos hakedoshim and ensure that he would be the heir who would give birth to the Shteim Esrei Shivtei Kah, the progenitors of Am Yisroel.

This is the meaning of the posuk which tells us (Bereishis 25:28), “Yitzchok loved Eisov and Rivkah loved Yaakov.” Yitzchok was unaware of Eisov’s true nature. Therefore, he loved him, because he would constantly seek to impress his father about his knowledge and frumkeit. Rivkah was aware of the truth and knew that the golden chain would carry on through Yaakov. Therefore, she loved him and dedicated herself to his welfare, though he was “ish tam yosheiv ohalim” and not one to brag or put on a show to impress anyone, including his father.

We all have our missions in life. We all seek to be worthy links in the chain going back to Avrohom, Yitzchok and Yaakov. We face many financial pressures just to be able to maintain a stable family life. We feel pulled from all sides. The yeitzer hora is ever-present, seeking toensnare us. He has many vises, some of which allow us to maintain our outward appearance of frumkeit and yashrus. He causes us to fool ourselves and think that we are engaging in mitzvos, when what we are really after is the nezid adashim.

We have to be honest not only with others, but also with ourselves. We have to understand what we are doing and what our motivations are. If the cause is not as holy as we think, or if we are doing something that we can’t really afford, we should not let ourselves be fooled into something improper or unrealistic.

Flee from an overtaxed life and carve out moments of silence to hear your heart and soul, ensuring that they are focused on proper goals. Escape the noise of the world and find a tent, as our grandfather Yaakov did.

Eisov was a man about town, making deals, rushing, always on the move. He wanted to be successful. Yaakov, the ish tamyosheiv ohalim, was neither a participant in the rat race nor seeking to impress anyone. He set goals for himself and attained them.

In our day, as well, if we want to benefit from the brachos reserved for the Bnei Yaakov and not fall prey to the vicissitudes of life, we have to set goals for ourselves. A simple drive to succeed leads to bogus figures, dishonest dealings, deceitful relationships and false impressions, coupled with increased pressures and many dead ends. Eisov sought to succeed at all costs. Unprincipled and deceiving, he has been remembered throughout history as the epitome of fallaciousness.

Get away from the noise, frustration and pressure. Find a seat in the ohel of Yaakov. There you will find yourself and the elusive commodity of inner peace. You will become motivated to achieve a good life, and merit calmness and happiness as a worthy heir to Yitzchok and Rivkah.

Rabbi Pinchos Lipschutz

This week’s parsha portrays the difficult life of Yaakov avinu. The av of golus, Yaakov left his home in Be’er Sheva and was displaced for the next few decades. The posuk (Bereishis28,11) relates that as darkness descended, he laid down to go to sleep. The Medrash (partially quoted in Rashi, relates that he slept there, but did not sleep during the fourteen years which he spent learning Torah at the feet of Eiver. He slept at that place, but did not lie down to sleep during the twenty years he lived in the home of Lavan. Such was the life of Yaakov in exile.

Hashem promised him as he slept that He would be with him as he wandered from place to place and would protect him and bless him. Though alone and penniless, Yaakov was strengthened (Rashi, ibid, 29,1) by his faith that he would emerge from his experience bigger and better than ever.

The parsha details the ups and downs of Yaakov’s life under Lavan, his marriages, children, financial blessings despite all the maneuvers employed against him. Finally, at the end of the parsha, Hashem determined that it was time for Yaakov to return to the Promised Land. After all he was put through, Yaakov remained the same strong believer he was when he left the home of Yitzchok. Despite all the many blessings heaped upon him, despite his wealth, Yaakov remained as humble as he was when he fled to escape the wrath of his brother Eisov.

Thus, at the beginning of next week’s parsha, Yaakov avinu declares, “Katontimikolhachassodimumikolha’emesasherasisaesavdecha - I have become small because of all the kindness and truth that You have performed with me…”

Too often people who are successful become arrogant and pompous. They view themselves as on a higher plane than the people who fly coach. Oftentimes, when people become wealthy or assume higher positions they begin to take themselves very seriously, cutting themselves off from reality and looking down on others. Power and money lead to conceit and corruption.

“Vayishman Yeshurun vayivot,” the Torah (Devorim32,15) testifies that as people become more successful, they forget that Hashem has blessed them. They become enamored with themselves and assume credit for all they have attained, saying, “kochi v’otzem yadi asu li es hachayil hazeh.”

When Yaakov arrived in Choron, he was penniless and alone. As he was returning to Eretz Yisroel with his wives, children and many possessions, instead of becoming haughty, he felt humbled and undeserving of the gifts Hashem had bestowed upon him.

Yaakov, the av of golus, reminds us that when we live in times of plenty such as ours, we dare not become complacent and apathetic, we must always remember the source of our largesse and be appreciativee of the blessings granted us. Returning home, Yaakov thanked Hashem for His kindness.

In expressing his gratitude, Yaakov thanked Hashem for the chesed bestowed upon him, and also for being dealt with emes, truthfully.

Rashiexplains that Yaakov was grateful to Hashem for being true to His word and fulfilling His promises to him.

Isn’t that to be expected?

Perhaps we can understand “emes” in this posukin another sense, as well. Yaakov was thankful for being dealt with honestly. In a world of darkness, with a brother like Eisov and a father-in-law like Lavan, there was subterfuge at every turn. Yaakov expended much time and effort during his life navigating between liars and their falsities as he sought to pave a successful path.

After being in golus for so many years, Yaakov was thankful that his faith was not misplaced. Hashem watched over him and protected him from the evil plots of those who sought his demise. Yaakov was able to marry and raise fine children far from the idyllic home of Yitzchok and Rivkah.

“Titein emes leYaakov,” says the prophet Micha (7:20). “The truth belongs to Yaakov.” While maligned by those who detested him, Yaakov proved to be the essence of truth, as Avrohom was the paradigm of chesed. Thus, Hashem remained faithful to Yaakov through all his difficulties and blessed him and the shevotim with lives embodying the truth of Torah, the source of emes in our world.

Yaakov paved the way for us to excel in golus. Away from our ancestral home, removed from the kedusha of the Bais Hamikdosh, ensconced among cultures becoming more depraved by the day, we succeed, with the abilities inherited from Yaakov, in remaining faithful to the Toras Emes despite all that gnaws at us and all who seek our downfall.

The Nefesh Hachaim (1:21) explains why Yaakov married two sisters, even though he observed the Torah before it was given and the Torah forbids such a relationship. When we say that the avos kept the laws of the Torah before it was given to man on Har Sinai, it is not to be understood that they were aware of the laws of the Torah and accepted upon themselves to observe them. Rather, they were on such a high spiritual level, and their neshamos were so purified, that they were able to comprehend the tikkunim that each mitzvah accomplishes in creation, as well as the damage caused by the performance of each aveirah. They understood the cosmic relationship between heaven and earth, the spiritual and the physical, and thus acted in ways that strengthened the world and abstained from actions that would bring harm to creation.

Yaakov perceived that his soul could achieve great accomplishments for the spheres of the world if he would marry the two sisters, Rochel and Leah. He understood that through them, he would be able to build Klal Yisroel. Therefore, he labored mightily and withstood much pain and humiliation under Lavan.

Rav Chaim Volozhiner explains that the Torah was not given to the avos, for if it had been, Yaakov could not have married Rochel and Leah, and the foundation of Klal Yisroel would never have been established.

“Titein emes leYaakov.” Our forefather Yaakov was given the ability to perceive the truth of the world and thus lay down the foundation for Am Yisroel. The world was created with Torah, and when we observe its commandments, we contribute to the greater good in ways we cannot understand. As anshei emes, we believe that the more Torah we study and the more truth we bring about, the more we fortify the world.

The Ben Ish Chai offers a similar explanation for how Rochel and Leah became familiar with Torah as they grew up in the home of Lavan. He says that they were born with exalted neshamos and were thus able to perceive the truth about Hashem’s existence and the fallacy of their father’s ways.

Our forefathers were blessed with special neshamos and ruach hakodesh to guide them as they grew in a stunted, pagan world.

We have been blessed with the strong foundations that they laid for us. In a world of decadence, they followed the light of truth. That truth was later delivered to us in the form of the Torah and has been guiding us ever since. We are a people of truth and have always been. Since the days of the avos and imahos, we have been mocked and vilified. We have been accused of every crime, blamed for various catastrophes, and hated throughout the ages.

Through it all, we have survived, and today Hashem has caused us to prosper spiritually and financially as never before. We must take advantage of the blessings, recognize them, and be appreciative of all we have achieved. Like our forefather Yaakov, we should collectively proclaim, “Katonti mikol hachassodim umikol ha’emes,” recognizing the source of our wealth and the obligations we have because of it.

All we do must be consistent with the truth. Our Torah is a Toras Emes, our foundation is emes, and our lives must be all about emes.

Too often, we sense danger, but are unable to properly address our concerns because we aren’t honest in appraising the situation. We see ill winds blowing, but if we don’t honestly examine their roots and causes, we can’t expect to be able to defend and fortify ourselves.

Our community seeks to deal with a wide range of serious problems, including shidduchim, abuse, drop-outs, children being rejected by schools, overcrowded educational institutions, rising tuitions, inadequate incomes, high costs of living, and other vexing issues. To formulate solutions, we must be able to honestly examine the substance of the issues without being straight-jacketed by tunnel vision and political correctness. If we are not forthright in our introspection, we will be overwhelmed by the dynamics and complexities of our challenges.

People who care about the truth get upset when told a lie. People who seek the truth are not afraid of it. The truth is what strengthens them. The more the facts emerge, the clearer their focus is and the stronger their convictions are.

Contrast this approach with philosophies built on self-deception and lies. Think of those whose way of life is fraught with duplicity. These people are threatened by the truth. They are scared of the facts. They hide from reality. They crumble when confronted by it.

People who know that they are right don’t have to sweep issues under the rug. They are secure in their beliefs and do not have to resort to convoluted rationales to convey their messages. When faced with an issue, they are able to examine it honestly, allowing them to arrive at a proper solution.

Similarly, countries built on lies and tyrannical governments lock their borders. They don’t permit their people to leave and don’t allow foreigners to enter. They are afraid that if their citizens learn the truth, they will revolt, so they feed their people a steady diet of fabrications, seeking to indoctrinate them with the greatness of their government and the supposed idyllic way of life they have created. The leaders know that they must ensure that the masses are never educated about the truth.

As bnei Avrohom, Yitzchok v’Yaakov, we are heirs to a golden heritage of fidelity to the truth. We know our place in the world and appreciate our blessings. Even in success, we must remain humble, ethical and honorable. We recognize that we become smaller when we become unprincipled and untruthful. We lose when we become disconnected and aren’t able to honestly examine problems that confront us. We jeopardize our connection to the avos and imahos, and risk being separated from our foundation if we don’t follow in their ways.

Yaakov Avinu merited to grow, prosper and receive Hashem’s chesed and emes because he was all about emes. If we want to succeed as a people, as a community, and as individuals, we must do the same.

Rabbi Pinchos Lipschutz

People have many questions and don’t know where to go for answers. In truth, the answers are ever-present in the words of the Torah. So many of our questions are answered in the parshiyos of Bereishis, which we are currently studying. If we study them properly, it can help us navigate our daily lives. When we are at a loss as to which way to proceed, the Torah provides us direction.

The Ponovezher Rov, Rav Yosef Shlomo Kahaneman, was on his first fundraising trip to the United States. He was riding alone on the New York City subway, going to an evening appointment, when he noticed a group of people who were up to no good. They were eying him as an easy target and drawing closer. He stood no chance against them and began to think of an escape plan.

He took out a piece of paper with the address of his destination scrawled on it and showed it to the group. “Which stop do I get off to go here?” he asked them.

The ruffians were thrilled to be of help. It would be much easier to hold the man outside on a dark street than in the lighted, occupied subway train.

“Get off with us,” they responded. “We are also going there.”

The train stopped and the rov let them exit first. He moved as if he was going to follow them off the train, but he was purposely too slow and the doors closed. He was safe.

When the rov recounted his tale of salvation, the person he was talking to marveled at his on-the-spot brilliance.

“Please,” said the rov, who was known for his genius. “I got the idea from the pesukim in ParshasVayishlach(33:12-14), which state that when Eisov suggested to Yaakov that they travel together, ‘nisah veneileicha,’ Yaakov responded, ‘No, it’s fine. Yaavor na adoni lifnei avdo.’

“Yaakov told Eisov to go before him with his gang and he would slowly follow. It’s a befeirushe posuk!”

The answers to the questions are in the Torah.

In 1933, when Hitler became Germany’s chancellor, one of the roshei yeshiva in Radin asked the Chofetz Chaim whether the madman would succeed in his stated mission to wipe the Jewish people off the map.

The Chofetz Chaim responded with a posukfrom this week’s parsha. He said that no one will ever be able to kill all the Jews, as the posuk (32:9) states, “Im yavo Eisov el hamachaneh ha’achas vehikohu vehaya hamachaneh hanishor lifleitah - Were Eisov to succeed in wiping out one camp, there will be another that will survive.”

“Nobody was ever able to kill all the Jews, and no one will ever be able to,” said the Chofetz Chaim.

The man asking the question was frightened by the response. “And if this murderer will be able to destroy European Jewry, who will remain?” he asked.

The Chofetz Chaim responded again with a posuk (Ovadiah 1:17): “Ubehar Tzion tihiyeh pleitah vehaya kodesh - Eretz Yisroel will be a place of refuge.”

The answers to the questions are in the Torah.

The immortal words of the parsha (32:25), “Vayivoseir Yaakov levado vayei’aveik ish imo,” ring with special urgency in our own times. “Yaakov was left alone and a man came to do battle with him.”

Chazalexplain that “the man” referred to in the posuk was the angel of Eisov. Unable to defeat Yaakov, the malach struck Yaakov and hurt him.The angel left, but not before blessing Yaakov, saying, “Your name will no longer be Yaakov. It will be Yisroel, for you were able to do battle with angels and man and prevailed.”

Levado. Our legacy, handed down by Yaakov, is to be alone. Halacha hi beyodua she’Eisov sonei l’Yaakov. It is an irrevocable force built into the natural order that the Jewish people are hated. The nations of the world and the forces of evil will be forever locked in battle with us.

All through the ages, wherever Jews have found themselves, they have been hounded. Through the merit of our forefather Yaakov, as long as we were true to the mission of Yisroel, we were spared. Though battered and bruised, as was Yaakov, we have remained standing long after those who fought Eisov’s battles in each generation disappeared from the scene.

In the darkness of golus, men of faith stand out as lonely beacons of light and hope. Remaining loyal to the Torah in a degenerate world is not easy. We are always on the defensive. Sometimes Eisov appears in the guise of a well-meaning brother trying to help us. He tells us to make compromises so that we can advance our causes. He tells us to sacrifice our principles and bend the rules in order to get ahead.

We have to be prepared to do battle with him and his ilk. This means being prepared to be lonely, unpopular and unloved. They speak of love and paint us as creatures of hate. They speak of peace and acceptance, and define us as spiteful non-progressives.

Take the example of the promoters of Open Orthodoxy, though they are not the only deviants from Torah and mesorah.

People said that no person or shul that calls itself Orthodox could ever do it, but they have done it repeatedly.

Recently, two Open Orthodox shuls wished mazel tov to people who underwent unconventional marriage ceremonies. Here is what happened.

Congregation B’nai David-Judea of Los Angeles is led by a male Open Orthodox rabbi, Yosef Kanefesky, and a female “rabbanit,” Alissa Thomas-Newborn, the latter of whom was given semicha at Avi Weiss’ Yeshivat Maharat.

Kanefsky’s bio gives a sense of his Open Orthodox orientation:

“He helped to introduce changes in synagogue ritual and leadership to enhance the role of women, and most recently guided the congregation through hiring its first female clergy member.”

Kanefsky wrote two articles in 2011 that argued against the recitation of the morning brachos of shelo asani ishaand shelo asani goy, in which he provided what he called a halachicloophole that would enable people to avoid saying these brachos. The fact that these brachos are required by the Shulchan Aruch does not seem to matter to Kanefsky.

“Rabbanit” Newborn is basically Kanefsky’s assistant rabbi, who recites Kiddush for the congregation on Shabbosos when Kanefsky is away, among other tasks.

B’nai David-Judea’s weekly bulletin for Shabbos Parshas Vayeira, 2017, wished mazel tov upon the birth of a baby to a couple who have an unconventional marriage. Despite the halachic and hashkaficviolation involved, B’nai David-Judea celebrates it.

Then, Hebrew Institute of Riverdale (HIR) wished mazel tov for another such unconventional wedding, as featured in the HIR weekly bulletin of Shabbos Parshas Vayeira, 2017.

The regular clergy at HIR, the Open Orthodox congregation founded by Avi Weiss, who is now semi-retired and is currently listed as “rabbi-in-residence,” are two males who were ordained by Weiss at his Open Orthodox seminary, Yeshivat Chovevei Torah (YCT), and by two females who were ordained at his Yeshivat Maharat.

HIR has previously been featured in the Yatedfor many of its outrageous deviations from halacha and tradition. A case in point is its annual Martin Luther King Day concert, where a church choir, garbed in church robes, sings gospel music in the HIR sanctuary in front of the aron kodesh. Some of the songs are solos performed by female church choir members, some of the songs are sung by the church’s pastor, Rev. Roger Hambrick, and some of the songs are led by Avi Weiss with the pastor and the church choir. This desecration has gone on for years, and no one from the Orthodox establishment besides this newspaper has really condemned it.

This past summer, HIR’s weekly bulletin for Shabbos Parshas Ki Seitzei, 2017, included an announcement that extended mazel tov wishes to an HIR couple for their son being married in an unconventional union.

The posuk refers to it as toieva, an abomination, yet they celebrate it.

At the Agudah Convention, the Novominsker Rebbe addressed the scourge of “the new plague called Open Orthodoxy,” which represents the “corruption of Torah ideals, Mesoras avoseinu and downright apikorsus.” He drew attention to the Mazel Tov announcement on the engagement of two men in the synagogue bulletin.

He warned that “the soton– and he’s standing next to everybody - comes sometimes with reasonable sympathetic arguments in the name of fairness, equality, enlightenment and being good natured and accepting and before you know it – if you are not on guard with strong Torah ideals - you can fall into his trap.”

Despite the disgrace, no one else has said a word publicly, other than the new TORA Rabbis organization, which issued a November 16 “Statement on Synagogue Acknowledgment of Forbidden Unions,” which read in part:

“We call upon spiritual and lay leaders and members of the public of respective synagogues not to congratulate or celebrate, whether orally or in writing, those celebrating life cycle events in violation of Jewish law, included but not limited to halakhically prohibited marriages… celebrations held in blatant violation of Shabbat or kashrut laws, or any other event that publicly proclaims opposition to Jewish law…

“When there are events we cannot condone, it is not out of contempt or disrespect, but rather out of a firm commitment to the Torah, its values and its worldview, which requires us all to submit to the Torah even when doing so is difficult or inexpedient.

“We call upon all Jews to reaffirm the immutable character of the Torah’s value…and proclaim that to celebrate events that publicly flout Torah law is itself a violation. Within the confines of Jewish law, we recommit to making our synagogues and other Orthodox institutions sacred spaces where all can seek the wisdom of the Torah, the guidance of its teachers and the inspiration from the fulfillment of its precepts and the internalization of its values.”

More voices are needed to condemn these Open Orthodox shuls.

It is not only about female clergy. It is not only about changing brachos and violating the Shulchan Aruch. It is, rather, about a rejection of the values of the Torah and the authority of chachmei haTorah. It is about a rejection of all that Torah Judaism stands for.

What more will it take for us to recognize that there is nothing Orthodox about Open Orthodoxy?

We sit complacently, thinking that their deviation will never affect “us,” but as many have found out already, if we sit quietly and don’t expose these people for what they are, an Open Orthodox rabbi may be coming soon to a shul near you and bringing this brand of Judaism to your door.

Levado. We have to remain separate from them and continue reminding Torah Jews that they represent a growing danger to Judaism. We must not permit them to distort our religion and openly defy Torah and halacha.

People who celebrate actions the Torah refers to as disgusting are abhorrent. We pray that they reconnect with the veracity of the pesukimof the Torah and reunify with those for whom Shulchan Aruch is the guide.

The opening to Parshas Vayishlach tells us about the malochim sent by Yaakov. Rashi teaches that the messengers sent by Yaakov to scout his brother were malochim mamosh, angels. What was it about this mission that could not be carried out by men and required angels?

Why did Yaakov immediately assume that there was malice in the heart of his approaching brother? How did he know that Eisov intended to harm him? Perhaps upon hearing that his brother was returning home after having done well, he wanted to greet him and express his love.

The Baal Haturim in ParshasToldos(25:25) states that the numerical equivalent of Eisov is shalom, peace. Perhaps we can understand the gematria as teaching that Eisov oftentimes presents himself as a progressive man of peace. He seeks peace and walks in peace, and all he does is motivated by a desire to spread peace and love.

Yaakov feared that if he would send humans to explore his brother’s intentions, they would be fooled by Eisov’s appearance and comforted with the belief that he seeks a peaceful existence with Yaakov.

When he was informed that Eisov was on the way, Yaakov sensed that he was in danger. The Torah doesn’t recount that the malochimwarned Yaakov that Eisov was planning to do battle. It only says that he was on his way. But Yaakov understood that if Eisov was coming towards him, it could only mean trouble.

The wicked adopt the posture of Eisov, portraying themselves as calm intellectuals. As they promote their agendas, they slam us for deviating from the modern, liberal, progressive outlook.

The Bnei Yisroel though, have always opted for the emes of Yaakov,stating the facts as they are and accepting the ramifications.

The novi Michah said (7:20), “Titein emes l’Yaakov.” Yaakov Avinu, the fountain of emes, sent malochim to Eisov to gauge his positions. Yaakov yearned for shalom, but his primary concern was that it be within the context of emes.

He sent malochim mamosh,who could discern the truth of Eisov’s intentions. Yaakov was sending a message: “If you speak of peace, but under your smile lies a dagger, I will have no choice but to kill or be killed. I will not compromise on the emes. I won’t change and will not adapt the truth to conform to your evil path.”

Let us endeavor to inculcate a desire for fidelity to Torah as well as emes and shalom. Let us hope and pray that peace will reign in our camp, and that a united desire for truth leads to harmony. Let us all seek to bring peace among Jews.

The Maharal in Ner Mitzvah states that at the time of the neis of Chanukah, the Yevonim sought to transform the Jewish people through Greek intellectualism. The Sefas Emes(435) adds that there is a fine line separating truth and fiction. Knowledgeable individuals are able to bring people over to the cause of shekerby making small, barely perceptible changes. However, Jewish people, through their connection to Hashem, have an inbred ability, through the roots of their souls, to discern the truth.

Our study of Torah reinforces our fidelity to the truth.

Allowing the pesukim to pave our way will lead to unity, success, nachas and permanent peace.

Rabbi Pinchos Lipschutz

In this week’s parsha of Vayeishev, we read of the travails of Yosef, Yaakov’s favorite son, the one whose life most closely followed the pattern of Yaakov’s. Hounded by brothers who wanted to kill him, forced to run away, held against their will, Yaakov by Lovon and Yosef in captivity, the list of comparisons is quite long.

Yaakov’s dedication to his mission of raising twelve shevotim empowered him to persevere despite his many travails. From the day he left the home of his parents, he remained focused on his goal of perpetuating the mesorah he had been handed by his father, Yitzchok, and his grandfather, Avrohom.

The posuk (Bereishis37:9-11) states that Yosef told his father and brothers of his dream in which the sun, moon and eleven stars bowed to him. Yaakov scolded him for seeming to foretell that they would bow to him. The brothers were furious at Yosef, but Yaakov “shomar es hadovor,” waited to see when the dream would be realized.

The brothers despised Yosef and let their bias affect their thinking. They scoffed at the dream and mocked Yosef for repeating it. Yaakov, displaying his middah of constant focus on his goal and mission, “shomar es hadovor,” paid attention to the dream and anticipated watching it play out.

As we go through life, there are many ups and downs. There are things that go our way and things that don’t. There are friends who stand by us and some who hinder us. There are health issues that crop up and challenges of a financial nature. Small people become deterred and thrown off course, while great people never permit anything to disturb their concentration and focus.

Listen to people who have accomplished things in life and you will hear tales of dreamers who wouldn’t let naysayers talk ‘sense’ into them. Listen to people who have accomplished much and you will hear how they responded to their “hair will grow on my palm before that happens” moment. War, hunger and pestilence could not take their eyes off the prize that awaited them for continuing to pursue their goal. And nothing should deter us from realizing ours.

Yaakov saw in Yosef the attributes that would make him the one who would carry on the mesorah. The posuk(37:3) explains Yaakov’s affection for Yosef: “ki ven zekunim hu lo.” Onkelos says that it means that Yaakov saw intelligence in his son. The Rambanexplains that Yaakov taught him everything he learned at the feet of Sheim and Eiver. By the time Yosef was sold into captivity, he was versed in all of Torah, with wisdom way beyond his years.

This, says the Alter of Kelm, is what is meant by “v’oviv shomar es hadovor.” Yaakov waited to see how his plan for Yosef to transmit his Torah to future generations would play out.

The brothers were selling a young boy to a traveling tribe, thinking that they would be done with him. Yaakov, however, though he accepted the tale that Yosef had been killed, watched to see how his plan for the future would unfold.

In fact, as Yosef was repeatedly tested in Mitzrayim, he withstood every temptation and remained loyal to his mission as the “ben zekunim,” because the image of his father appeared before him (Sotah 36b, quoted by Rashi 39:10).

While commonly understood as meaning that he was reminded of his father, perhaps we can explain that he was reminded of his mission to perpetuate the teachings of his father. He remained focused on what his mission in life was, and therefore wasn’t thrown off track by what came his way.

The parsha, in discussing the saga of Yosef, relates how he was sold into Egyptian slavery. The posuk (39:2) then tells us that Yosef was a very successful person: “Vayehi ish matzliach.” If you were asked to describe a young man hated by his siblings who attempted to kill him and sold him to a group of vagabonds who sold him as a slave, would you call him a success?

To all outward appearances, Yosef was anything but a success. He was a lonely slave in a strange land with no home. Why does the Torah describe him as an “ish matzliach”?

I was discussing this with my dear friend, Shalom Mordechai ben Rivka Rubashkin, this past Motzoei Shabbos, and he suggested an answer quite fitting for him and the way he lives his life in the place Hashem has put him in.

Shalom Mordechai said that the answer lies in the beginning of that same posuk: “Vayehi Hashem es Yosef, vayehi ish matzliach, vayehi b’vais adonav haMitzri.” Yosef was with Hashem even as he slaved in his master’s house. The reason he was termed a success was because he stayed loyal to Hashem.

We attach success to physical accomplishments. If a person is wealthy, he’s referred to as a success. If he has a good business, a nice house and car, a good wife and children, then he’s successful. Here the Torah is teaching us that to be a success, a person must remain loyal to Hashem – and, if we may add, loyal to his mission in life.

Yosef was an ish matzliachand blessed because he didn’t permit his surroundings and situation to affect him, his identity and his mission. By any other definition, a lonely young slave is an abject failure, but not by the value system of the Torah.

Shalom Mordechai is locked away with the worst criminals, but he grows daily in Torah and emunah and bitachon. He prays that every day will be his last in that place, and Jews around the world pray with him that he merit a quick redemption.

Our situations are nowhere as extreme as his, and it is much easier for us to maintain our commitment to Hashem and His Torah. It is easier for us to remain focused on achieving success.

Temptations and nisyonosabound. We live in a time of moral depravity and laziness. We have to keep them at bay. Yaakov and Yosef paved the way for us to succeed in golus, remaining optimistic about the future and focusing on the real goal.

We can do it. We can all do it. We can all succeed. We can each be a success story.

Rabbi Yisroel Meir Lau, chief rabbi of Tel Aviv and former chief rabbi of the State of Israel, told me that he once met Cuban President Fidel Castro at the United Nations. Castro mentioned to Rabbi Lau that he had read his story and knew about his fascinating history. Rabbi Lau’s brother snuck him into the Buchenwald concentration camp as a young child and kept him alive there by hiding him under a bed and feeding him scraps. Castro recalled the story of his miraculous deliverance from the gehennom of the concentration camps.

“But I have one question,” said Castro. “How was it that after all you went through, you didn’t give it up? How did you not abandon your religion? Not only did you keep your religion, but you became a rabbi. What was the force that kept you going? What is your secret?”

Rabbi Lau told the communist ruler, “I descend from a line of 37 generations of rabbis. I wasn’t going to be the one to break that chain.”

It takes tremendous fortitude to hold on to a legacy in the face of severe hardship and adversity. We should never go through what Rabbi Lau endured, and we should never know of such evil and pain. But we must ensure that no matter what challenges life hurls at us, we will remain determined enough and strong enough to keep that chain going.

Every Jew forges his own link in the chain of generations that stretches back to Har Sinai. It is our duty to keep our link strong and durable, capable of weathering the pressures and the pitfalls of modern life.

We are descendants of Avrohom, Yitzchok and Yaakov. We descend from great, smart and strong people. Our forebears struggled through anti-Semitism, pogroms, blood libels, holocausts, churbanosworse than anything we can imagine, and the most awful deprivations known to man. They had few physical possessions, small dwelling places, no heat in the winter and no air conditioning during the summer, and no running water or electricity, yet each one was a success. Each one had a mission and lived their life by it. They all lived so that we could live, so that we could succeed, so we could prepare the world for the next generation and for Moshiach.

Let’s focus on success!

Rabbi Pinchos Lipschutz

It was with a certain sense of foreboding that I left my house for the airport last Tuesday night.

President Trump had announced that he was going to fulfill his campaign promise and recognize Yerushalayim as the capital of Israel on Wednesday. The Arab world was screaming bloody murder and Western Europe was cheering them on.

It does happen to be ludicrous that a Jewish country can’t do what every other country in the world does and decide where its capital is.

The seat of government is there, the parliament is there, the city has been the capital of the Jewish nation forever, yet the free world and the not-so-free world refuse to recognize an obvious fact. They are concerned about “peace” and the rights of a fictitious nomadic people relatively new to the area. They also don’t have any particular love for the Jewish people.

Along comes a straight-shooting president and calls a spade and a spade, a capital a capital, and the world threatens him and Israel.

Arabs and Palestinians promise a new intifada and the end of the peace process.

The intifada begins Wednesday, they announce. Little me lands in Israel on Wednesday. I wouldn’t think of cancelling the trip, but I was more apprehensive about it than usual.

I have faith in the Shomer Yisroel and know that everything that transpires in the world is caused by Him and no other, so I am in good hands and off I go.

The plane was packed with all types of Jews heading to the land of their forefathers, as if there is no world, no self-righteous indignant heads of state, and no bloodthirsty Arabs aiming for them.

Others can debate the finer points of Trump’s declaration, but to me it shows a leader who takes his position seriously, keeps his word, and is a genuine friend of the Jewish people. He is a straight talker and a straight shooter, and he sees things the way they are, not as a duplicitous politician, but as a person of considerable accomplishment.

No, I wasn’t invited to the White House Chanukahparty, but facts are stubborn things, and it behooves us to acknowledge them and appreciate the historical significance of what happened.

We can quibble among ourselves whether the declaration is worth the risk of loss of Jewish life and other fine points, but as far as the president is concerned, he deserves our appreciation for being a friend of Israel and the Jewish people.

I sat awake a whole night on the plane, who can sleep when traveling to the land our grandparents dreamed of and wished they could see.

The trip was amazing and my goals were accomplished.

From the airport, I went to Rav Chaim Kanievsky and enjoyed an invigorating discussion. He also gave me several meaningful brachosand I left there with an extra bounce in my step. How blessed we are to have such a person living among us.

The Shuvu mission was in Bnei Brak, and I joined them for a short while before heading to Beit Shemesh and then Yerushalayim.

On the way, Mr. Trump’s speech played on the radio. There was a measure of comfort in hearing the US president acknowledging the truth about Yerushalayim, while the nations of the world refuse to recognize the simple fact that Yerushalayim has been at the center of Jewish life for thousands of years.

Long before anyone dreamed up the idea of a Palestinian people, and long before the Muslim religion was invented, there was Har Hamoriah at the center of everything.

It took guts to do what Trump did in a world of lies and threats. He stood up to them and provided a lesson for us. When we are right, even if threatened and mocked, we should ignore the scoffers and, having carefully assessed the dangers, move ahead and carry on with the truth on our side.

I comfort those of you who worry that I have become a partisan secular Zionist. Your fear is misplaced. I am simply acknowledging a historic fact, without delving into hashkafic or philosophic connotations.

It is said that when the Chazon Ish saw a beautiful flower, he quickly turned away. He would say that if he concentrated on its beauty much longer, he would faint from overwhelming emotion. He would be reminded that Hashem created a beautiful world for us, and the intricate beauty of a colorful flower was created to cause us joy. The Chazon Ishwould be overwhelmed when he would contemplate all that Hashem does for us.

On Thursday, I headed for Naharia, with a stop in Zichron Yaakov. Walking through the breathtakingly gorgeous Ramat Hanadiv botanical park there, I was overwhelmed by the beauty of creation.

While far from being as sensitive and holy as the Chazon Ish, when visiting the park it is easy to be reminded of Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s manifold chassodim.

We continued on to Naharia for an audience with Rav Dovid Abuchatzeira, whose warmth and concern for other Jews is as overwhelming as his abilities to help people in need. Visiting him is always a chizukand this time was no different.

The trip back to Yerushalayim was uneventful, and we headed straight for the Kosel. It was disheartening to go through the “bitachongate,” and noticing that the area was basically empty but for a few intrepid souls. People were scared off by fears that Arabs would cause trouble in the Old City and had stayed home. Had I been paying attention to the news, perhaps I wouldn’t have been there either.

In fact, there was no reason to fear. The Arab threats did not materialize and the area was calm as could be. Those of us who were there had a view of the Kosel rarely seen, as the Arabs turned off the lights of their mosque on the Har Habayis to protest the president’s remarks. It was nice to come to the Kosel and, for once, not have to view the symbol of their tumah.

As time went on, people began coming. Rav Yaakov Ades arrived and began putting together a minyan for Maariv. While the quiet there was upsetting, it had a side benefit of allowing for easier concentration on tefillos at the makom haMikdosh from where the Shechinahnever departed.

After a walk through Geulah and the purchase of food, it was time for some sleep. Friday, it was back to the Geulah/Meah Shearim area. I love to be there when chadorim empty out and I get to see the charming children of Yerushalayim running through the streets with their peyosflying and parsha sheets flapping. The sight is almost as beautiful as the flowers that caused the Chazon Ish to be overcome. These children represent the past and the future of Yiddishkeit, and embody the charm of the Jewish people.

Traffic in Yerushalayim was minimal, as people from other parts of the country who normally come to the city were scared away by a media seeking to report on protests and attacks as the Shomer Yisroelprotected His people.

We let a taxi driver convince us to go to Kever Rochel for Mincha. He said that the roads were safe, and that with the reduced traffic, we’d be there in ten minutes. The kever was guarded by a dozen soldiers, as Arabs in Bais Lechem took to the streets to throw stones and burn garbage and tires. As we arrived, we heard gunshots and saw clouds of smoke right past the kever. There were many policemen and soldiers, who told us that they had shot rubber bullets and tear gas to keep marauders away from the Kever Rochel area.

It was special to davenMincha and say Tehillimunder such conditions at the location where Mama Rochel cries for her children.

There is nothing in the world like a Shabbos in Yerushalayim. I am thankful that Hashem allowed me to have that experience once again.

It was gratifying to spend over an hour with Rav Dovid Cohen, rosh yeshiva of the Chevron Yeshiva. A rebbi to many and author of classic seforim, his warm welcome and humility match his brilliance in all areas of Torah. We discussed personal and communal issues, as well as topics pertaining to Chanukah. Being with him was heartwarming, inspirational and invigorating.

And then, before I knew it, I was back in Monsey, trying to eternalize the lessons learned.

I am reminded that the Chofetz Chaim said that before Moshiach’s arrival, chizuk and encouragement for Torah would decline. He said that there would be a few resolute individuals who would fight lonely battles.

He foretold that while they might be few, they would be proud and effective.

Every individual has the ability to grasp an ideal and stand tall in its defense. We all have a singular mission in life, and if we are true to our core, we can summon the strength to realize it. We must never lose sight of what our ultimate goal is, despite all the noise and static seeking to steal our attention. Challenges confront us, but we possess the ability to surmount them.

It is as true today as it was thousands of years ago, when the Chashmonaim confronted the masses to fight with dignity and pride in defense of Torah and mesorah.

On Chanukah, we celebrate the Chashmonaimand their mesirus nefesh for kedusha. The light source of the nation was blocked, and they rose to throw off the forces of darkness. They were the me’atim, the tzaddikim, the tehorim, the people who performed Hashem’s service in the Bais Hamikdosh and in the bais medrash.

The miracle of Chanukah that we celebrate is primarily that of the tiny flask that burned longer than was thought to be physically possible. The menorah’s lights signify that the power of light overcame the power of darkness. The oil lasting longer than one day signifies that if you expend the effort and work bemesirus nefesh, physical rules will not apply.

We see wrongsin our world and are told that there is nothing we can do about it. We try to right the wrongs and are mocked. Yet, in fact, if you look around, there are so many people who overcame odds, building Torah where no one thought it was possible, restoring lives others had given up on, and fighting abuse that people thought was part of life. We see teachers touching souls and impacting them forever. We see righteous men and women not taking no for an answer, standing up to an apathetic society, and awakening people’s consciences. We see people rallying to fight for those who have been wronged.

A delegation once traveled to St. Petersburg to meet with the Russian minister of education in an attempt to convince him to revoke a decree that would have terribly impacted yeshivos. Upon arrival in the Russian capital city, the participants met with the local rov, Rav Yitzchok Blazer, to discuss tactics they would employ to underscore the importance of Torah to the minister. Someone suggested translating the words of the tefillah of Ahavah Rabbah for the minister, to demonstrate the depth of love for Torah. Rav Blazer replied, “If we would translate those words for ourselves, we wouldn’t need to do so for them.”

We daven three times every day, but we don’t necessarily take the words to heart. We learn the story and halachos of Chanukah, but we have to recognize their relevance to us and our daily lives. The inspiration is there for those who seek it.

If each of us would internalize the lesson of the Chashmonaim, we could free ourselves from much oppression.

It is because of such people that we can learn and daven. It is because of the mesirusnefesh of people who went forth into an eretz lo zorua that Torah and Yiddishkeit are stronger than ever. It is because of their dedication that we can publicly light the menorahwith pride, without fear of our neighbors.

There are ten middos of hanhogah in this world. These fundamental metrics of energy drive the universe.

The Arizal discusses the idea that each of the middoscorresponds to a different Yom Tov. The middah of hod, he reveals, relates to Chanukah.Hod relates to the middahthat defines the ability of the Jew to allow the Divine light to shine through him, submitting to a higher calling. His own essence is but a vehicle to bring honor to his Maker.

The middah of hod, Divine splendor, is mirrored in man’s ability to allow his personal splendor, referred to as his penimiyus, to shine through. Those who are thankful of Hashem’s gifts and act according to His wishes, practice hoda’ah and are capable of allowing the middahof hod to reflect through their being.

Hod is the middahof Chanukah, a Yom Tov of hallel vehoda’ah, when we ponder and appreciate the myriad chassodim of the Ribbono Shel Olam as we contemplate the lights of the menorah.

Let us all appreciate the gifts we have and let us seek to let the middah of hod shine through us, brightening the world with the light of Torah and splendor of those who follow its ways. The world will be a better place and that much closer to redemption with the coming of Moshiach. May it be soon.

Ah freilichen Chanukah.

Maybe, Maybe

Do It With Love

Where We Are

People is People

Find Your Path

Truth and Justice

Getting It Right

Do it With a Smile

Exploring Roots in a Bygone World

A New Start

Let’s All Be Happy

Make A Difference

Avrohom’s Grandchildren

Peaceful Tranquility

Never Get Lost

Finding Inner Peace

First Class

The Book with the Answers

Focus on Success

Redemption