Q. Is it permitted to daven in a multi faith room in an airport?
A. Beis Avi (4: 31), Shevet Hakehosi (6: 83), Menuchas Emes (3: 6: n.24) rule not to pray in a multi-faith space, so is it amply quoted in the name of Rabbi J. D. Zoloveichik zt'l. (See also Remoh O.H. 94: 9, on davening in a non-Jewish hotel).
Horav Shlomo Miller's Shlit'a is similar, he suggests to daven outside of the non-denominational room.
Care should be taken as an array of diverse faith symbols may be exposed at the entrance of the room.
Rabbi A. Bartfeld as revised by Horav Shlomo Miller Shlit'a
By Rabbi Michalowicz
Erev Yom Kippur:
1. During Shacharis, Psalm 100 [Mizmor Lesoda], Tachanun, and Psalm 20 [Lamenatzayach] are not
said. This year, Avinu Malkeinu is not said.
2. It is customary to perform the “Kaparos” ceremony. One takes a chicken or rooster and waves it over
one’s head three times while saying the prayer, which is found on pg. 2-4 in the Artscroll Machzor.
The bird is then slaughtered and given to poor people. Alternatively, one can use money instead.
3. Ideally “Kaparos” should be done on Erev Yom Kippur, but if one thinks that he will be pressed for
time it may be done between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.
4. Ideally separate chickens should be used for each family member, but in times of need, it may be
used several times.
5. It is a Mitzvah to eat on Erev Yom Kippur. The main custom is to eat two festive meat meals, once
around midday and again during the afternoon. It is preferable to eat chicken at these meals. Some
have a custom to eat fish also at the first meal. It is customary to eat “kreplach” – meat dumplings.
6. It is absolutely imperative that one receives forgiveness for sins committed against other people. This
includes all forms of interpersonal offences such as hurtful remarks, slander, damages, overdue
debts, dishonesty in business, not respecting parents and teachers, etc.
7. Ideally, one should ask personally by going to the person or via mail or telephone. However, if this is
difficult, or if the person will be appeased more easily by another person, then one may make use of a
third party.
8. Ideally, one should specify the sin he is asking forgiveness of. However, if one thinks that doing so
would upset the other person, one may ask in a general way.
9. It is wrong to be cruel and refuse to forgive.
10. All men are obliged to go to the Mikveh. They should optimally go between one hour before
Halachik Midday day [12:03 PM] and Mincha [Mincha in our Shul will be at 3:00 PM].
11. It is customary to dress for Yom Tov before Mincha.
12.During Mincha, the “Viduy” [confession] is said at the end of the quiet Amidah. See Artscroll Machzor
pg. 8-24.
13.The final meal before Yom Kippur is called the “Seudah Hamafsekes.” It preferably should be eaten
after one has said Mincha. One should eat light foods that are easy to digest. The custom is to eat
chicken rather than beef. The main custom is to refrain from eating fish, although some permit eating
cold fish. It is advisable not to eat hot spicy foods, eggs, or garlic, or drink wine. One should be
careful not to over-eat in order to approach Yom Kippur in a mood of fear and humility.
14. After eating, it is customary to say “Shir Hama’alos’ and to wash “Mayim Achronim” before Birchas
Hamazon. One should say Birchas Hamazon with great concentration and devotion. After Birchas
Hamazon the teeth should be cleaned well.
15. A person who wants to eat or drink after this meal should preferably say so explicitly before Birchas
Hamazon, or at least have it in mind. If he does not have this in mind, he may nevertheless eat or
drink again.
16. Women light candles no later than 6:21 PM and make two blessings: 1) “Lehadlik Ner Shel Yom
Hakipurim” and 2) “Shehechiyanu.” Women usually accept the holiness of Yom Kippur with this
candle lighting. Under extenuating circumstances, a woman may travel to Shul after candle lighting if
she had in mind when lighting that she does not yet want to accept Yom Kippur. In that circumstance,
she should only recite the first blessing over the candles and say “Shehechiyanu” with the
congregation after Kol Nidrei.
17. One should light a 24 hour Yahrzeit candle in memory of all deceased relatives. An additional candle
should be lit specifically to be used for Havdalah at the end of Yom Kippur. These candles are
generally lit by the husband.
How to Celebrate Yom Kippur – 5777
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18. Men accept the holiness of Yom Kippur during the recital of “Tefilas Zakah.” See Artscroll Machzor
pg. 38-48. It would be optimal for men to come to Shul at least 20 minutes before Kol Nidrei in order
to properly say this prayer.
19. Married men wear a Kittel the entire time that they are awake on Yom Kippur.
20. Women should wear Yom Tov clothes, but should not dress over lavishly. They may wear jewellery
that is normally worn on weekdays, but not those that are usually worn on Shabbos or Yom Tov.
21. The father gives his children a special blessing before he goes to Shul. See Artscroll Machzor pg. 32.
22. Married men should put on their Tallis before sunset in order to be able to say the blessing. If one did
not manage to put it on until after sunset, the blessing should not be said.
Laws of Yom Kippur:
In additions to the forms of work that are forbidden on Shabbos, there are five additional prohibitions:
Eating and Drinking:
1. All adult males over 13 years and females over 12 are obligated to fast the entire 25 hours.
2. Healthy children from the age of nine should be encouraged to fast part of the day by giving them
their meals at a later time than usual, both at night and during the day. Children below this age should
eat as usual. Since they are exempted from fasting, one may give them Yom Tov meals and treats in
honour of the day.
3. Pregnant and nursing women must fast like everyone else. It is strongly recommended that they rest
as much as possible in order to preserve their strength, even if it means davening little or nothing in
Shul.
4. A person whose life will or may be endangered by fasting, even in the long term, is absolutely
forbidden to fast.
5. If upon consultation with a Rabbi, you are told that for health reasons that you may eat, the maximum
quantity of solid food that may be eaten in one session is 30cc [one fluid ounce], measured by volume
and not weight. The liquid quantity is 40cc [1.3 fluid ounces]. A person may eat these quantities as
often as necessary, provided that they are in nine minute intervals. All decisions of eating on Yom
Kippur should be done in consultation with a Rabbi.
6. A person may swallow bitter or tasteless medicines in tablet, capsule, or liquid form, but not if they are
pleasant tasting. The medicine should preferably be taken without water. If one can not swallow the
capsule without any liquid, he should preferably use a bitter tasting liquid. Only as a last resort one
may use water [less than 1.3 ounces].
7. It is permitted to touch food in order to feed children or the elderly.
8. It is forbidden to rinse out the mouth whether with water or with mouthwash, even if one feels
uncomfortable.
Washing and Bathing:
1. It is forbidden to derive pleasure from washing any part of the body, whether in hot or cold water.
2. It is permitted to wash off dirt, but one should be careful to wash only the affected area.
3. When you awaken in the morning, the hands should be washed carefully up to the knuckles only [i.e.
to the end of the fingers], but one does not need to be concerned if some of the water splashes a little
further. One should wash each hand three times as usual. The stickiness in one’s eyes may be
removed with your already moist fingers.
4. After going to the bathroom, one should wash up to the knuckles only. It is sufficient to wash each
hand once.
5. Kohanim, who are washing their hands to perform the Mitzvah of blessing the congregation, are
permitted to wash the entire hand up to the wrist as usual.
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6. Children of all ages should be trained to follow the above laws, whether washing themselves or being
washed by their parents.
7. A person is permitted to allow his hands to become wet when washing food or dishes for a person
who is eating.
Applying Oils:
1. It is forbidden to apply oils or similar liquids even in a small quantity on any part of the body. This is
forbidden whether done for pleasure, cleanliness, hygiene, or personal comfort. Therefore, one may
not use perfumes or similar liquid cosmetics whether in bottles or sprays. It is permitted to apply these
products just before Yom Kippur even though one will derive pleasure on Yom Kippur.
2. It is forbidden to apply deodorants and antiperspirants on Yom Kippur, but is permitted before Yom
Kippur. One may use Talcum Powder to maintain personal comfort.
3. Children of all ages are included in these laws.
4. A sick person, who has permission to use oils on Shabbos, may do so on Yom Kippur.
Wearing Shoes:
1. According to the strict letter of the law, only shoes that are made of leather are forbidden, whereas all
other materials are permitted.
2. This prohibition applies even if only a small part of the shoe is made out of leather. Whether the
leather is found in the sole, the upper part in the sole, or just in the straps.
3. If you are unsure if the shoes are real leather or imitation, you should be strict and not wear them.
4. According to most opinions, one is permitted to wear comfortable sport shoes, etc. Some opinions
prohibit this. The reason we do not wear leather shoes is as an affliction that helps to atone for one’s
sins; and therefore such footwear is inappropriate. It is praiseworthy to try and follow this opinion and
limit oneself to thin-soled shoes that do not offer such comfort.
5. One is permitted to wear leather shoes for medical reasons. However, today many synthetic materials
are available, and one should try to obtain an alternative to leather if possible.
6. Children from the age of two to three should be taught to wear other footwear.
Marital Relations:
1. All physical contact between husband and wife is forbidden, both at night and during the day.
2. All the laws of Niddah separation should be followed and friendly chatting should be avoided.
The Viduy [Confession]:
1. One must confess sins that are contained in the Viduy even if he thinks he has not committed them.
In addition, it is proper to make specific mention of personal sins that one has committed that he feels
are not mentioned in the standard Viduy.
2. One must stand with the body bent slightly forward when saying the Viduy. [similar to the way one
stands when saying Modim] One should remain bent until after the words “Arba Misos Beis Din.”
3. One may not lean on anything to the extent that one would fall over if the object were to be removed.
One is permitted to gently lean on an object.
4. A sick or elderly person may lean on an object heavily if necessary. If this is too difficult, it is permitted
to sit when reciting the Viduy.
5. The custom is to strike the chest at the mention of each sin, during the “Al Chet.” One should strike at
the word “Shechatanu.” And during the “V’al Chataim”, at the words “She’anu Chayavim.”
Kol Nidrei:
1. It is customary to come early enough to Shul to say “Tefilah Zakah.” If there is not sufficient time to
say the entire prayer, then one should at least say the short confession and the paragraph expressing
forgiveness to other people. See Artscroll Machzor pg. 40.
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2. “Tefilah Zakah” was primarily composed for men to say. A woman who wishes to say it may do so,
omitting the lines that refer specifically to men.
3. One should read the Kol Nidrei together with the Chazzan. The annulment of vows, which is the basis
of the Kol Nidrei, is not valid unless one understands the words.
4. Women who recited the “Shehechiyanu” blessing when lighting candles may not recite it a second
time. They should just listen and say Amen. Everyone else should say the blessing together within the
Chazzan, finishing a little quicker than him in order to answer Amen to his blessing.
5. One may say the Kol Nidrei prayer alone at home; however one can only read the text that refers to
future vows and not past vows.
Miscellaneous Laws:
1. If one can not be in Shul, one can say Yizkor alone without a Minyan.
2. There are different customs regarding saying Yizkor during the first twelve months. If one does not
have a particular custom, then one should say Yizkor.
3. If a man removes his Tallis during the day, he only repeats the blessing when putting it back on if he
took his mind off the Tallis completely. [usually 2-3 hours]
4. It is permitted to smell spices on Yom Kippur. Many people do so in order to complete the saying of
100 blessings a day.
5. It is customary to stand during the entire Neilah service, as the Ark is open. However, one may sit if
they feel weak.
6. One should not socialize or be involved in idle chatter during the entire Yom Kippur.
Motzei Yom Kippur:
1. Under no circumstances may one make preparations to break the fast before 7:28 PM.
2. It is forbidden to eat or drink before making or hearing Havdalah. Havdalah is after 7:28 PM. The
exception is water which may be drunk before Havdalah, after praying Maariv or saying “Baruch
Hamavdil Bein Kodesh Lechol.”
3. One should say the Maariv prayer carefully after Yom Kippur is over.
4. The custom is to wish everyone a good year when leaving Shul.
5. It is praiseworthy to wash one’s entire hands three times after the fast since they were not washed
fully in the morning.
6. Women who do not pray Maariv must say “Baruch Hamavdil Bein Kodesh Lechol” before doing any
work.
7. This year, Havdalah has three parts:
• Blessing on wine
• Blessing on candle
• Havdalah Blessing
8. One should use the pre-existing flame that was burning throughout Yom Kippur as the Havdalah
candle. If one does not have one, he should try to obtain one from a neighbour. If this is not possible,
no blessing is made on the flame.
9. The custom is to say Kiddush Levanah either immediately after Maariv or after one has broken the
fast.
10. The custom is to start building one’s Succah or to at least do something related to its construction
after he has eaten.
11. It is a custom to arise earlier than usual on the day after Yom Kippur.
On Tisha B'Av, five national calamities occurred
During the time of Moses, Jews in the desert accepted the slanderous report of the 10 spies, and the decree was issued forbidding them from entering the land of Israel. (1312 BCE)
The First Temple was destroyed by the Babylonians, led by Nebuchadnezzar. 100,000 Jews were slaughtered and millions more exiled. (586 BCE)
The Second Temple was destroyed by the Romans, led by Titus. Some two million Jews died, and another one million were exiled. (70 CE)
The Bar Kochba revolt was crushed by Roman Emperor Hadrian. The city of Betar - the Jews' last stand against the Romans - was captured and liquidated. Over 100,000 Jews were slaughtered. (135 CE)
The Temple area and its surroundings were plowed under by the Roman general Turnus Rufus. Jerusalem was rebuilt as a pagan city - renamed Aelia Capitolina - and access was forbidden to Jews.
Other grave misfortunes throughout Jewish history occurred on the Ninth of Av, including:
The Spanish Inquisition culminated with the expulsion of Jews from Spain on Tisha B'Av in 1492.
World War One broke out on the eve of Tisha B'Av in 1914 when Germany declared war on Russia. German resentment from the war set the stage for the Holocaust.
On the eve of Tisha B'Av 1942, the mass deportation began of Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto, en route to Treblinka.
Aspects of Mourning: The Afternoon Before Tisha B'Av
During the afternoon prior to Tisha B'Av, it is customary to eat a full meal in preparation for the fast.
At the end of the afternoon, we eat the Seudah Hamaf-seket - a meal consisting only of bread, water, and a hard-boiled egg.
The egg has two symbols: The round shape reminds us of a sign of the cycle of life. Also, the egg is the only food which gets harder the more it is cooked - a symbol of the Jewish people's ability to withstand persecution.
Food eaten at the Seudah Hamaf-seket is dipped in ashes, symbolic of mourning. The meal should preferably be eaten alone, while seated on the ground in mourner's fashion.
When the afternoon prior to Tisha B'Av occurs on Shabbat, there is no Seudah Hamaf-seket with eggs and ashes. Rather, the regular Shabbat "third meal" is eaten, albeit without guests and fanfare.
Restrictions on Tisha B'Av
Upon sundown, the laws of Tisha B'Av commence - consisting of the following expressions of mourning:
1. No eating or drinking until nightfall the following evening.
Pregnant and nursing women are also required to fast. If one suspects it could be harmful to the baby or mother, a rabbi should be consulted.
A woman within 30 days after birth need not fast.
Others who are old, weak, or ill should consult with a rabbi. (MB 554:11)
Medicine may be taken on Tisha B'Av, preferably without water.
In case of great discomfort, the mouth may be rinsed with water. Great care should be taken not to swallow anything. (MB 567:11)
2. Other prohibitions include:
Any bathing or washing, except for removing specific dirt - e.g. gook in the eyes (OC 554:9, 11). (Upon rising in the morning, before prayers, or after using the bathroom, one washes only the fingers. See OC 554:10, OC 613:3, MB 554:26)
Anointing oneself for pleasure. (Deodorant is permitted.)
Having marital relations.
Wearing leather shoes. (Leather belts may be worn.)(see: Laws of Shoes and Chairs)
Learning Torah, since this is a joyful activity. It is permitted to learn texts relevant to Tisha B'Av and mourning - e.g. the Book of Lamentations, Book of Job, parts of Tractate Moed Katan, Gittin 56-58, Sanhedrin 104, Yerushalmi end of Ta'anis, and the Laws of Mourning. In-depth study should be avoided. (MB 554:4)
3. Other mourning practices include:
Sitting no higher than a foot off the ground. After midday, one may sit on a chair. (OC 559:3)(see: Laws of Shoes and Chairs)
Not engaging in business or other distracting labors, unless it will result in a substantial loss. (OC 554:23)
Refraining from greeting others or offering gifts. (OC 554:20)
Avoiding idle chatter or leisure activities.
4. Following Tisha B'Av, all normal activities may be resumed, except for the following which are delayed until midday of the 10th of Av, because the burning of the Temple continued through the 10th of Av:
Haircuts and washing clothes. (When Tisha B'Av falls out on Thursday, these are permitted immediately following Tisha B'Av, in honor of the coming Shabbat.)
Bathing. (When Tisha B'Av falls out on Thursday, bathing is permitted on Friday morning.)
Eating meat and wine.
Music and swimming.
Prayer on Tisha B'Av
Lights in the synagogue are dimmed, candles are lit, and the curtain is removed from the Ark. The cantor leads the prayers in a low, mournful voice. This reminds us of the Divine Presence which departed from the Holy Temple.
The Book of Eicha (Lamentations), Jeremiah's poetic lament over the destruction of Jerusalem and the First Temple, is read both at night and during the day.
Following both the night and day service, special "Kinot" (elegies) are recited.
In the morning, the Torah portion of Deuteronomy 4:25-40 is read, containing the prophecy regarding Israel's future iniquity and exile. This is followed by the Haftorah from Jeremiah (8:13, 9:1-23) describing the desolation of Zion.
In the afternoon, Exodus 32:11-14 is read. This is followed by the Haftorah from Isaiah 55-56.
Since Tallis and Tefillin represent glory and decoration, they are not worn at Shacharit. Rather, they are worn at Mincha, as certain mourning restrictions are lifted.
Birkat Kohanim is said only at Mincha, not at Shacharit.
Prayers for comforting Zion and "Aleinu" are inserted into the Amidah prayer at Mincha.
Shortly after the fast is broken, it is customary to say Kiddush Lavana.
When Tisha B'Av Falls on Shabbat
Here is a brief overview of the special conditions that apply:
The fast is pushed off until Saturday night/Sunday.
All other prohibitions of Tisha B'Av (washing, learning Torah, leather shoes, etc.) are permitted on Shabbat itself, except for marital relations. (Of course, regular Shabbat restrictions apply, such as anointing with cream and showering.)
Seudah Shlishit has none of the restrictions of Seudah Hamaf-seket, and may include meat and wine. However, the mood should be somber, should not include invited guests, and eating must stop before sundown.
Ma'ariv on Saturday night is delayed, so that everyone can say "Boruch Hamavdil bein kodesh li'chol," then remove their leather shoes and come to synagogue.
Havdallah on Saturday night is recited only over a candle, without wine or spices. On Sunday night, Havdallah is then said over wine.
Regarding the various prohibitions, some are lifted immediately upon completion of the fast (e.g. bathing, laundry and haircuts), while others remain prohibited until the following morning (meat, wine and music).
1. The Talmud teaches us that five tragic events occurred on the 17th of Tammuz, the most notable
being that: a.) The tablets, containing the Ten Commandments, were destroyed; and b.) The walls
of the city of Jerusalem were breached, leading to the destruction of the Second Temple. To
commemorate these tragic events, the Jewish people observe this day as a fast day. In addition,
the custom developed to observe some mourning practices from this day until Tisha B’av.
2. The 17th of Tammuz is observed this year of 5775 on Saturday evening and Sunday of July
23 - 24. The fast begins Sunday morning at 4:46 A.M. and ends at 9:41 P.M. One who finds it
difficult to fast may eat at 9:31 P.M. The purpose of a fast day is to stir our hearts in order that
we utilize the paths of Teshuva, returning to Hashem, and to serve as a reminder to us of our own
actions and those of our forefathers. These mistaken actions are responsible for the terrible
events, which befell our people. Remembering these tragedies should lead us to examine our
conduct and return to Hashem.
3. One should not mistakenly assume that the abstinence from food and drink alone fulfills the
requirement and purpose of a fast day. The true purpose of a fast day must be evidenced in one’s
improved deeds.
4. Pregnant and nursing women are not required to fast, if they find it difficult.
5. A person who is ill or suffering is not required to fast – even if there is no fear of danger to health.
6. One is permitted to eat before the fast, provided that one explicitly states before going to sleep that
he/she plans to wake up early to eat before the fast begins.
7. Although it is permitted to bathe, it has become customary not to take a hot shower or bathe for
pleasure. [One may certainly bathe or shower if one is dirty / perspired.]
8. It is proper for adults to refrain from swimming, unless it is needed for a medical condition or to
cool off on a hot day. [Minors, however, may swim.]
9. One is permitted to rinse one’s mouth, provided that you only rinse the front part of the mouth,
taking care that no liquid enters the throat area. One should make sure to rinse with less than 3.3
fl.oz. of liquid at a time. [There is a stringent view that permits this only when in distress.]
10. You may take medications prescribed by a doctor. One, who has difficulty swallowing pills without
water, may drink the amount of water required to swallow them.
11. When suffering from a severe headache, etc., aspirin or Tylenol, etc., may be taken. One may
drink water as described above in #10.
12. There are other restrictions that begin on this day, as it begins the period of the three weeks. This
will be discussed later on.
13. During the reading of the Torah on a fast day, the custom is that certain verses are read aloud by
the congregation. The individual who is called up for that Aliya should not read the verses aloud
with the congregation. Instead, he should wait until the reader says them aloud and read along
with him.
14. One who mistakenly ate on a fast day must resume and complete the fast. He may say the Aneinu
insertion during the Mincha Amida.
15. One, who is not fasting altogether, should not say Aneinu.
16. We add the Avinu Malkeinu prayer for Shacharis and Mincha, even when praying alone at home
without a Minyan.
Laws of the Three Weeks:
1. Although the Talmud mentions that the mourning of the Tisha B’av season begins on the first day
of the month of Av, the accepted custom amongst Ashkenazic Jews is to begin mourning from the
17th of Tamuz.
2. There are different levels of mourning in terms of restrictions, with the mourning intensifying as we
get closer to Tisha B’av:
➢ From the 17th of Tamuz
➢ From the 1st of Av
➢ The week that Tisha B’av falls [i.e. from the Sat. night before Tisha B’av]
➢ Tisha B’av
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3. We do not make weddings during the three weeks.
4. It is permitted to celebrate an engagement with a festive meal during the three weeks, provided
there is no music and dancing. From Rosh Chodesh [1st of Av] one should only serve light
refreshments.
5. Dancing on weekdays is prohibited during the three weeks.
6. Generally speaking, it is prohibited to shave or get a haircut during the three weeks.
7. It is permitted to trim one’s mustache if it interferes with eating.
8. If one shaves daily, one may shave during the Three Weeks if one may lose one’s job or may
lose customers because one does not shave. However, if the only concern is that people will
make fun of him, one is not permitted to shave.
9. Shaving is prohibited during the week that Tisha B’av falls, even if one suffers financial loss.
10. Adults may not give minor children a haircut during the week that Tisha B’av falls. There is a
minority opinion that prohibits this for the entire Three Weeks.
11. Women may not cut their hair during the Three Weeks. She may trim the hair on her temples, for
the sake of modesty. A woman may tweeze her eyebrows and perform similar cosmetic activities.
12. A Shaitel [wig] may be washed /cut or professionally cleaned and/or set during the Three Weeks -
but not during the Nine Days.
13. It is permitted to cut your fingernails during the Three Weeks.
14. Playing or listening to music for enjoyment is prohibited during the Three Weeks. Listening to
recorded music is also prohibited. Playing is permitted on a professional basis in order to make a
living.
15. It is not prohibited to hear background music, such as what one hears while waiting in a doctor’s
office.
16. It is permitted to take music lessons if the lessons are not for pleasure and there will be a loss of
skill because of the time lost. The Kaf HaChayim writes: “Those who teach music during these
days, should teach sad songs, and it would be even better if they did not teach any music at all.”
17. There are opinions that permit singing during the weekdays. Everyone agrees that it is permitted to
sing sad or moving songs, similar to what we sing on Tisha B’av. For that matter, one should only
listen to recorded acappella music of sad or moving songs.
18. One may not recite the Shehechiyanu blessing during the Three Weeks for purchases or new
fruits. However, you may say it on Shabbat.
19. Therefore, one should not purchase items during the Three Weeks that would require that blessing
being said. [e.g. buying a new suit.] One may purchase new items that do not require a
Shehechiyanu. [e.g. a pair of new shoes or underwear.]
20. One should not purchase a car for pleasure or convenience until after the Three Weeks. One may
purchase a car if it is for work; however, the Shehechiyanu blessing should not be recited until after
the Three Weeks.
21. You may purchase a necessary appliance, such as a refrigerator, washing machine or bed, to
replace one that broke during the Three Weeks.
22. One should not engage in dangerous activities during the Three Weeks. For this reason, some
follow the practice not to schedule surgery during the 3 weeks, and certainly not during the 9 days,
unless the doctor insists that it cannot medically be postponed.
23. It is permitted to bathe, shower, or swim for pleasure until the 1st of Av. It is prohibited during the
Nine Days.
24. Although a parent should not strike one’s child at any time of the year, a parent should be extra
cautious and refrain from striking one’s child during the Three Weeks.
25. There are no mourning practices conducted on the Shabbos.
26. One need not decrease business activity, construction, or planting until the Nine Days begin.
Should a parent let her child experience on her own, so that when she finds the truth she'll be stronger?
ANSWER:
It's too expensive to learn by experience. If you're going to let a child fiddle around with a lighted gas range, she wouldn't have a chance to learn from experience. There are people who allowed their children to learn from experience, but their children weren't around anymore to use the experience. Therefore, you have to use your experience and transmit it to the child by means of words and by means of a strap. A strap is a very good conductor of experience.
You learned that to run in the street, to play in the street is not conducive to good health, but a child doesn't know that. When a child persists on running into the street, you are justified in being strict and chastising him; it's the biggest hatzoloh, you're saving his life. When Hakadosh Baruch Hu chastises us, He does the same thing; He transmits His experience to us too.
Therefore we can't afford to let anybody experience anything; vicarious experience is the best way.
I know a case of one rosh hayeshiva who made a very big error; he still thinks he's right. He said he allowed evolution to be taught in his high school. And when there was a complaint he said, better let the boys come in contact with it now, then on the outside, he wanted to inoculate them. So if he would inoculate them with arguments against it, maybe...but he was inoculating them with arguments for evolution because the teachers were apikorsim. So what kind of talk is that? It's just an excuse because he wanted to use the free textbooks that he gets for nothing. That's his excuse; it's only irresponsibility.
We cannot let our children experiment, once a child gets hooked on bad things then it's almost goodbye.
Good Shabbos To All
Thisl is transcribed from questions that were posed to Harav Miller by the audience at the Thursday night lectures.
To listen to the audio of this Q & A please dial: 201-676-3210
“When the Holy Ark would travel, Moshe would say, `Arise HASHEM, and let Your foes be scattered. Let those that hate You flee from before You.’” — Bamidbar 10:35
In this posuk, Moshe Rabbeinu is equating hatred of the Jews with hatred of HASHEM. “Let those that hate You flee from before You.”
Rashi is bothered by the comparison. Why does Moshe’s call the enemies of the Jews, “enemies of HASHEM?” Maybe they are just enemies of the Jewish people? Rashi answers, “Anyone who hates Yisroel hates HASHEM.” It seems clear that Rashi assumes that the root cause of anti-Semitism is hatred of G-d.
This concept of attributing hatred of Jews to hatred of HASHEM seems difficult to understand. After all, if we study history, we see many reasons that Jews were hated – and they had nothing to do with hating HASHEM.
The Jealousy Theory
One reason that has been commonly cited for anti-Semitism is simply jealousy. Historically, it was the Jew who brought his economic wisdom and acumen to the various countries he inhabited; it was the Jew who became the adviser and confidante to kings and governors. The Jewish contribution to the cultural, scientific, and technological evolution of civilization is nothing short of astounding. Whether in academics, politics, the media, or the professions — from curing polio to discovering atomic energy, from Hollywood to Wall Street — Jews have had an extraordinary influence on human progress. It seems that in business, politics, art, theatre, science, and social movements, the Jews are at the head. With contributions as diverse as those made by Freud, Spinoza, Trotsky, Kafka, Jerry Seinfeld, and Albert Einstein, the Jew excels. From 1901 till 1990, over 22% of Nobel prizewinners worldwide were Jewish, even though Jews constitute less than ¼ of 1% of the world’s population.
This alone would seem like a logical reason for anti-Semitism. The Jews have proven to be smarter, more enduring, and more successful than the peoples of the lands into which they were exiled.
However, this isn’t the only reason. There are many more.
The Scapegoat Theory
Another cause held responsible for anti-Semitism is the scapegoat theory. To gain power or distract the population from their suffering, a monarch would look for a place to put the blame. What better a place than the eternally despised Jew? By arousing the masses to Jew-hatred, an individual seeking power could use this energy as a galvanizing force to bring together masses of unaffiliated individuals. We certainly have seen many instances of this during the past 2,000 years.
The “We Killed Their God” Theory
But there are other reasons that sound plausible. One is deicide – we killed their god. The average person would agree that is a sound reason to hate a people. After all, it certainly doesn’t sound very friendly, charitable, and kindly to kill god.
The Chosen Nation Theory
Finally, one of the most oft-quoted reasons to hate the Jews is that we make no secret of the fact that we are the Chosen People. As clearly written in the Torah, the Jewish people have been given a unique role to play amongst the nations: to be a light, a guide, and HASHEM’s most beloved nation. Is it any wonder that throughout the millennium we have been hated?
But these aren’t the only reasons. There are many, many reasons presented to hate the Jews. How does Rashi explain that anyone who hates Jews, hates HASHEM? Maybe it is simply one of the reasons above.
The answer – there is no answer
The answer to this question seems to come from the very question itself: why is it that the one constant throughout history is that everyone always hates the Jews? It seems that all things change. Movements come and go; ideologies pass with time; systems of governments evolve. The only thing that doesn’t change is that everyone hates the Jews. Rich or poor, powerful or weak, dominant or oppressed, the Jew is hated – and then blamed for causing that very hatred.
Beginning with Avraham Avinu almost 4,000 years ago, there has been an endless stream of reasons to hate the Jew. And that itself is a most curious phenomenon. In whatever country the Jews found themselves, they were loyal and industrious citizens, yet they were always hated and always for different reasons.
Despised in one county for being too powerful, then trampled in another land for being too weak. . . Segregated into ghettos, then accused of being separatists. . . Accused by capitalists of being communist, hounded by communists because they were “all” capitalists. . . Hated for killing a religion’s god, yet equally despised in civilizations that don’t worship that god. . . Called “children of the devil” and the devil himself. . . Blamed for the Bubonic Plague and typhus, for poisoning wells and using sacrificial blood for baking matzahs. . .
With such varied and assorted rationales, it seems that there is no shortage of creativity when it comes to hating the Jew. The only consistency in reasoning is: we hate the Jews. Why we hate them doesn’t matter. The cause of the hatred doesn’t matter. The only thing that really matters is that we truly, truly hate them.
What Rashi is teaching us is that there is no plausible reason for anti-Semitism. It can’t be explained because it makes no sense. When you look into every cause, not only doesn’t it answer the question as to why, you quickly find another circumstance where that cause wasn’t present, yet the hatred was still there – as powerful and pervasive as ever.
The Jew represents HASHEM
The pattern that emerges is that there is no logical reason for anti-Semitism until you focus on the real cause – that the Jew represents HASHEM. We are HASHEM’s people. When the gentile looks at a Jew, he sees HASHEM, and that image is not always attractive to him.
This concept carries a huge lesson for us. While we may forget our holiness and our destiny, the gentile nations are always there to remind us: we are different, we are unique, and our role is unlike that of any nation. As is quoted in the name of Rav Chaim Volozhin, “If the Jew doesn’t make kiddush, the goy will make havdalah.”
If we recognize our greatness and live up to our title of the Chosen People, we are then exalted, revered and respected. When we fail to recognize our unique destiny and absorb the cultures of the times, then we are sent reminder after reminder of our unique role amongst the nations – HASHEM’s Chosen People.
We are Jewish orthodox women coming from Chassidic, Litvish, Ashkenazi and Sephardic backgrounds. All of us have a child or spouse that is currently struggling or in recovery from addiction. We meet weekly to learn, share, support and give hope to each other. Our group was founded and facilitated by a JACS (Jewish Addiction Community Services) therapist with years of experience helping families and individuals like ourselves.
You have spent tireless years raising your children, endless diaper changes, wiping noses, helping them with homework, soothing their physical and emotional hurts, laughing with and loving them. Then - something went wrong. Something you thought only happened to other people’s families. Alcohol, drugs, and other self-destructive behaviors entered your child’s life, changing everything.
You sadly wondered, “What happened to my sweet innocent child?”, “What did I do wrong?” and “What can I do to fix them?”, “Why did this happen to me?” You feel confused, betrayed, guilty, angry and ashamed. You feel confused, betrayed, guilty, angry and ashamed. In moments of honesty you realize that your other children or relationships are suffering. Sometimes you falsely believe that once one crisis has passed the problem will go away, but it does not. Many parents and siblings feel as if they are being held hostage to the addicts’ behaviour and moods in their own home.Are you ready to change?
We know you may feel some shame admitting and talking about your situation as we did. When you first walk into to the meeting you may feel uncomfortable for a few minutes, but in exchange, we promise you that you will gain a lifetime of support and knowledge. You can come to listen or share – there is no pressure either way.
Please join us on Tuesday evenings at 8 p.m. at the home of one our member’s home in the Bathurst / Wilson area. To attend everyone must agree to keep our anonymity requirements. Please call JACS 647-347-1250 x227 (David) for more information. If you would like to talk to one of us before coming to the group, we will be glad to speak with you. All contact with our group and JACS is confidential.
David Kaufman
Jewish Addiction Community Service
Director of Outreach and Education at JACS
Addictions Therapist
Office: 416-638-0350 x227
Email: DavidK@JacsToronto.org
Website: www.jacstoronto.org
Is Someone You Love Struggling
With An Addiction? You have spent tireless years raising your
children, endless diaper changes, wiping noses, helping them with
homework, soothing their physical and emotional hurts, laughing with and loving
them. Then - something went wrong. Something you thought only happened to other
people’s families. Alcohol, drugs, and other self-destructive behaviors entered
your child’s life, changing everything.
You sadly wondered, “What happened to my sweet innocent child?”, “What did
I do wrong?” and “What can I do to fix them?”, “Why did this happen
to me?” You feel confused, betrayed, guilty, angry and ashamed. You feel
confused, betrayed, guilty, angry and ashamed. In moments of honesty you
realize that your other children or relationships are suffering. Sometimes you
falsely believe that once one crisis has passed the problem will go away, but
it does not. Many parents and siblings feel as if they are being
held hostage to the addicts’ behaviour and moods in their own home.Are
you ready to change?
We are Jewish orthodox women coming from Chassidic, Litvish, Ashkenazi and
Sephardic backgrounds. All of us have a child or spouse that is currently
struggling or in recovery from addiction. We meet weekly to learn, share,
support and give hope to each other. Our group was founded and facilitated by a JACS (Jewish
Addiction Community Services) therapist with years of experience helping
families and individuals like ourselves.
We know you may feel some shame admitting and talking about your situation as
we did. When you first walk into to the meeting you may
feel uncomfortable for a few minutes, but in exchange, we promise you that you
will gain a lifetime of support and knowledge. You
can come to listen or share – there is no pressure either way.
Please join us on Tuesday evenings at 8 p.m. at the home of one our member’s
home in the Bathurst / Wilson area. To attend everyone must agree to keep
our anonymity requirements. Please call JACS 647-347-1250
for more information. If you would like to
talk to one of us before coming to the group, we will be glad to speak with
you. All contact with our group and JACS is confidential.
David Kaufman
Jewish Addiction Community Service
Director of Outreach and Education at JACS
Addictions Therapist
Office: 416-638-0350 x227
Email: DavidK@JacsToronto.org Website:
www.jacstoronto.org
Q. What is the halacha regarding using electric shavers? Does lift and cut make any difference?
Thank you
A. There are basically three different opinions in regards to using electric shavers. Early Gedolim including Chofetz Chaim (Likutey Halochos – Makos 21a) was against using even mechanical clippers that cut the hair until nothing remains, considering this as the hashchassa or destroying facial hair that the Torah prohibits. However, scissors may be used to remove facial hair since they do not accomplish total destruction, as the hair is cut in between the top and bottom blade. Therefore, stubble equal to the thickness of the bottom blade of the scissors remains. Following this stringent position the Chazon Ish, the Steipler Gaon, and many other Poskim prohibited the use of all electric shavers.(Igros Chazon Ish 1: 197- 198, Hadras Ponim Zoken, Kovetz Teshuvos 32, Minchas Yitzchok 4: 113, et. al.)
However, many Poskim maintain that the violation of this Torah prohibition is not determined by the size of the hair that is left, but by the instrument used, and if there is direct contact of the cutting blade with the skin. Horav Moshe Feinstein, Horav Yosef Eliyahu Henkin zt”l and other Poskim permitted the use of ordinary electric shavers, since they function as scissors, utilizing two blades to cut. The inner blade of the machine, does not cut by itself, and must be assisted by the outer screen of the shaver. The screen traps a hair within it, and as the inner blade approaches it, the hair rubs along the side of the screen and they both cut the hair simultaneously. This may not apply to the “lift and cut” shaver. According to the company that manufactures them, a lift and cut shaver first lifts up the hair and then pulls it into the machine. Once the hair is inside the shaver, the inner blade cuts it by itself closely to the skin, cutting it off completely at skin level, thus achieving a very close shave. A similar problem may involve Micro-Screen Foil shavers. The Terumas Hadeshen, (quoted by the Rema, Y. D. 181: 10) maintains that when shaving with scissors, a person should be extremely careful to either hold the bottom blade still, using only the top blade to cut his hair, or to use scissors where the bottom blade is incapable of cutting by itself. The reason for this is because extra precaution should be taken to prevent mistakenly shaving solely with the bottom blade, even a minute amount, since this is equivalent to using a razor.
There is a possibility that in micro-screen foil shavers, the micro-screen foil itself has cutting edges that can cut by themselves. This screen is comparable to the bottom blade of scissors, since it touches one's skin. Rabbi Avrohom Blumenkrantz zt”l writes the following in his Pesach sefer "...The new problem being discussed today is that the micro screen shields are so thin that they on their own have a cutting ability. We tested it and found out that if you bring a hair through the holes in the micro screen shield and by just moving the hair without too much pressure it could cut the hair.
Other Poskim are even more lenient The Zomet Institute follows the recommendations of an article by Rabbi Shabtai Rapaport (Techumim 10, p.200.) He proposed the criterion for not being scissor like and prohibited, whether the blade is capable of cutting hair without rubbing against the screen that covers it. And his conclusion was, that in the machines with a metal cover screen the blade alone cannot cut the hair, therefore the cutting is permitted.
Horav Shlomo Miller’s Shlit’a is reluctant to permit outright the use of any electric shaver, reflecting the first opinion mentioned above, and he strongly recommends not to use the lift and cut or micro-screen versions. However he permits the use of trimmers that leave over a stubble that is minuscule
Rabbi A. Bartfeld as revised by Horav Shlomo Miller Shlit”a
by Rabbi Y. Michalowicz
1. Shabbos immediately precedes Shavuos this year. Therefore, one should ideally light a two or three day Yahrzeit
candle prior to Friday evening candle lighting, so that there will be a pre-existing flame from which the women
may light from on Saturday and Sunday evening.
2. One is not permitted to prepare for Yom Tov on the preceding Shabbos. Therefore, For this year of 5775, the
earliest time to make preparations for Yom Tov, light Yom Tov candles, and to make Kiddush on Saturday
night is 9:42 PM. (It would be more ideal after 9:50 PM or even more ideal after 10:12 PM.)
3. One makes 2 blessings on the candle lighting: One for the Mitzvah of lighting the Yom Tov candles and the other
“Shehechiyanu” blessing. Ideally, the women should light by the time the men arrive home from Shul. However, if
they did not, they may light the entire night.
4. One may sleep on Shabbos; thereby having the strength to stay up Shavuos night. However, one should not
express this before sleeping, as such a verbalization would degrade the holiness of the day.
5. One should ideally finish eating Shalosh Seudos before 5:09 PM in order to be hungry for the Yom Tov meal.
Additionally, one should ideally daven Shabbos Mincha before eating Shalosh Seudos. If one forgot or was
negligent and did not eat the third meal in time, it may still be eaten afterwards. However, a full meal should not
be eaten then.
6. There is a well known minhag to bring flowers into shul and one's home as a remembrance that on Shavuos we
are judged on "Peiros Ha'ilon" - fruits. However, one should not cut off branches from fruit bearing trees for this
purpose because of the Torah prohibition of "Bal Tashchis”.
7. Kiddush on the first night should include blessings of 1) Wine, 2) Kiddush, 3) Candle, 4) Havdala, 5)
Shehechiyanu.
8. Many have the minhag to eat a milchige [dairy] meal (and milk and honey) on Shavuos. However, one is also
obliged to eat fleishig [beef] to be yotze [discharges his obligation of] Simchas Yom Tov with meat.
9. In order to satisfy all opinions, it is preferable to have a meat meal both in the evening and in the day of both days
of Yom Tov [4 meals], and to have a dairy meal or snack in the day before your meat meal.
10. If one finds it difficult to eat meat so late at night, there are opinions that permit you to eat dairy meals at night.
11. All agree that you should have meat meals at least one time on each of the two days of Yom Tov.
12. If one eats milchig but not "hard cheese" (which requires one to wait six hours before eating meat) one need not
bentch and wash again before eating meat. However, one should wash his /her mouth well and the tablecloth
should be changed. (Other poskim require one to bentch).
13. There is a custom to stay up the night of Shavuos and learn Torah. This is based on the Midrash which says that
the Jewish people overslept the night before Matan Torah and Hashem had to awaken them to receive the Torah.
Therefore we stay up all night to rectify their oversight.
14. The Arizal [The Kabalist Rabbi Yitzchok Luria] writes that one who does not sleep the night of Shavuos and toils
in Torah is assured to live out the year and no harm will occur to him.
15. There is a compilation of Torah learning known as "Tikkun Lay'l Shavuos,” which has The Zohar and the writings
of The Ari'zal as its source, and many have the minhag to say/learn this on Shavuos night.
16. Generally women should not say the "Tikkun Lay'l Shavuos". However, some say that a woman who counted all
the days of Sefiras Ha'omer may learn the portions of the Tikkun which are from Tanach.
17. One who stayed awake all night of Shavuos should, after Alos Hashachar (dawn), use the restroom, wash his
hands and then make the berachos of "al netilas yadayim" and "asher yotzar", and listen to Birchas Hatorah from
someone who slept.
18. One who stayed awake all night should not make a beracha on his tzitzis. Rather, he should make the beracha on
his Tallis Gadol and have in mind to be yotze for his tzitzis with the same beracha. Someone who does not wear a
Tallis Gadol, should hear the beracha from someone else who will discharge his obligation.
19. One who stayed awake all night should listen to the berachos of "Elokai Neshama" and "Hamaveir Shayna
Mayeinoi" from someone who slept during the night.
20. One who goes to sleep after Alos Hashachar Shavuos morning (or on any day) does not say the beracha of
Hamapil.
21. To summarize, for those who have stayed awake all night, the minhag of Ashkenazim is that after Alos Hashachar
(4:23 AM) one goes to the bathroom, washes ones hands, makes al netilas yadayim, and asher yatzar, and then
listens to and is yotze [discharges his obligation of] Birchas Hatorah, Elokai Neshama, and birchas Hamaavir
Chevlei Sheynah, from someone who slept, and then one says all rest of the usual morning berachos for oneself.
22. While reciting Birchos Hatorah on Erev Shavuos, one may clearly stipulate that his berachos should be in effect
only until the next morning. In this case, he may recite the berachos on Shavuos morning although he did not
sleep.
23. If no person who slept is available, many poskim rule that the berachos of Elokai Neshama and Hamaavir Chevlai
Sheynah may be recited even by one who did not sleep.
24. One may not make any Yom Tov preparations on the first day of Yom Tov for the second night, light candles, or
make Kiddush until after 9:42 PM.
25. Second night candle lighting is done in the same way as on the first night. Kiddush has the blessings on 1) Wine,
2) Kiddush, and 3) Shehechiyanu. It does not have blessings for the Candle or Havdala.
ANSWER:
Bad memories mean - not sad memories, I'm talking about bad memories. A person once picked up a newspaper and saw a piece of tiflah, something that was foul and it went to his head at that moment, how do you get rid of that? That's important, how do you get rid of the wrong ideas? You passed a billboard, there are very bad ideas on billboards today sometimes. How do you get it out of your head? We follow the Rambam's advice: fill your head with good things so there shouldn't be any room left for wrong things. Now that's very important; your mind must be full of ideas.
When you walk in the street, are you thinking of Torah ideas? For instance, are you thinking how great it is to be a Jew, she'lo uh'sani goy? Are you thinking about your tzitzis? Ur'isem oso uzchartem es kol mitzvos Hashem. Do you ever think about any mitzvos when you look at your tzizis? Oh it's a pity, get in the habit, when you look at your tzizis think about something. Think about mezuzah, think about shmiras halashon, think about learning Torah, there are a thousand things, think about something.
When you see a mezuzah, look at the mezuzah and the mezuzah is saying Hashem echod, Hashem is one. What does that mean? He is the mehaveh, He is the only one that exists, and He made the world come into existence out of nothing, at least that much you should think. Now, I can't say every time you see a mezuzah, but sometimes the mezuzah should be able to remind you of something. It reminds you also to get busy and learn Torah, and when you're in the house at the Shabbos table, the mezuzah is looking at you all the time, and watching you.
You're sitting in the house eating, look at the mezuzah, it's watching you, watch out! Don't talk the wrong things! Don't get angry! Be polite, make a brochoh with kavanah, the mezuzah is looking at you!
Therefore that's how to get wrong things out of your head.
Good Shabbos To All
This is transcribed from questions that were posed to Harav Miller by the audience at the Thursday night lectures. To listen to the audio of this Q & A please dial: 201-676-3210
We pray every day not to be subjected to temptations and not to be subjected to tribulations, so Rabbi Grozovsky asks, but that's our purpose of being in the world (to be tested)?
ANSWER:
Our job is, to avoid temptations and tribulations. They're going to come anyhow, we shouldn't seek it. We have to run away from temptation and we have to try to protect ourselves from all kinds of suffering; that's our job in life. Now why that is, it's simple. Suppose you have a fellow Jew and he's suffering from a toothache and you can do something for him, shall you say no, suffering is good, yisurim are good for him! No, your job is to help him out, uh'zov ta'azov imo, help him out with his burden.
Suppose that Jew is not our fellow man, the Jew is myself, is it any less a mitzvah that I should have pity on this Jew? On the contrary, it's more mitzvah, because a man has to have more pity on himself. The closer the relative is the more he should have pity. Therefore, I have to protect myself against suffering, it's my duty. The body is not mine, I'm responsible to Hakadosh Baruch Hu for this body that He entrusted to me, I have to protect the body.
Therefore I have to guard the body against suffering and against ordeals. But don't worry, there will be ordeals aplenty and tribulations will come no matter what you do to avoid them.
Good Shabbos To All
This is transcribed from questions that were posed to Harav Miller by the audience at the Thursday night lectures. To listen to the audio of this Q & A please dial: 201-676-3210
The attached statement on the subject of physician-assisted dying was approved by, among others Rabbis Assayag, Lowy, Miller and Ochs and is sent out in the name of the Vaad. PDF version available below.
April 7, 2016
We, the undersigned Orthodox rabbis of Canada, hereby express our categorical objection to and deep dismay over the Supreme Court of Canada’s decision in Carter v. Canada to grant a right to physician assisted dying (PAD), and the subsequent Report of the Special Joint Parliamentary Committee on Physician-Assisted Dying which expands the scope and circumstances allowing and even requiring PAD beyond the Supreme Court’s ruling.
We understand the arguments to be made in favour of PAD. We understand that individuals facing terminal illness with significantly diminished quality of life may wish to end their suffering and the suffering of their loved ones.
Notwithstanding these arguments, we express our opposition to PAD, because of the following:
• According to Jewish tradition, and as expressed explicitly in the Torah (Bible), God gives man life, and it is therefore God alone who has exclusive purview to take away that life. Even people who take their own lives are committing murder. Anyone who aids and abets suicide is therefore an accessory to murder. By creating a legal pathway for killing the ill, our society is supporting and normalizing the act of murder.
• Regardless of an individual’s quality of life, Judaism asserts that every moment of life on this earth is precious to the Creator, and so actively terminating a relatively low-quality life is still ending a precious life. By diminishing the value of a terminally-ill patient’s life, society demeans the value of all human life.
• The legalization of PAD will potentially prey on the most vulnerable in our society, those whose physical health is waning, and who may have fallen into depression or other mental illness. Those expressing a desire to end their lives have been known to change their minds once their physical or mental anguish can be alleviated through treatment. There is no way for anyone to know how they will feel in the future; resorting to suicide, even in the face of terminal illness, is a permanent solution to what is often a temporary problem.
. . . 2
- 2 –
• We fear that over time, the “slippery slope” aspect of PAD will result in our hospitals and clinics actively encouraging patients to end their lives so as not to be a burden on their loved ones and on an already overburdened health-care system. A disproportionate amount of medical spending takes place in the last years of life. The structural and financial incentives to promote premature death will subtly and explicitly influence many unfortunate results.
• Health care professionals of various faiths and consciences may be put in positions of conflict between Canadian law and the mandates of their respective faiths and/or consciences. There is currently insufficient provision in the Report of the Special Joint Committee on Physician-Assisted Dying for health care professionals who are conscientious objectors to recuse themselves when a patient requests PAD.
• Should this PAD become the standard of care, it will become difficult for members of many faith communities to enter health care professions, especially in areas of geriatrics and palliative care. We are concerned that professional schools, professional colleges and hospitals may eventually establish qualifications that would require applicants to accept and perform PAD or face rejection.
For these reasons and others expressed by various faith communities, we oppose Physician Assisted Dying. We state that any participation in PAD is forbidden by Jewish law. While the Supreme Court has decided to the contrary, we cannot be silent in the face of what our religious teachings and our conscience tell us is contrary to what is good and moral. We are committed to continue advocating for the value of life within our society.
We call upon all people throughout Canada, especially those in positions of leadership, to raise their collective voice, restore moral clarity to our society, and eliminate this trend toward the devaluation of human life. We further call upon legislators, medical care professionals, organizations and facilities to challenge PAD – within the confines of the law – wherever and whenever possible. We also call upon medical professionals to respect and accommodate their colleagues who conscientiously object to Physician Assisted Dying.
If a person was hurt by somebody's words, should you discuss it with anybody?
ANSWER:
If he's able to forget about it, it's the very best way. That's the ideal of savlonus; because it was given as a test. If he passes the test and just forgets about it, that's the most successful way.
To talk it over means, you want somebody to justify you and to blame him. Sometimes you want him to console you, but if a person knows that you don't need consolation, the biggest consolation is that Hakadosh Baruch Hu is satisfied with you. So forget about it.
Some people go to psychologists, counselors; it's a waste of money and a waste of time. They'll make a big fuss about it, and they'll make another visit necessary, and another visit, and the bills keep on piling up. The best thing is get it out of your head, just laugh it off, laugh from simcha because it's a benefit given to you. It was a privilege, and you passed the test and now it's all over.
Good Shabbos To All
This email is transcribed from questions that were posed to Harav Miller by the audience at the Thursday night lectures. To listen to the audio of this Q & A please dial: 201-676-3210
Why do we make a seudas mitzvah for a boy when he becomes bar mitzvah and not for a girl when she becomes bat mitzvah?
ANSWER:
When a boy becomes bar mitzvah, he is chayov in all the mitzvos; a girl doesn't get all the mitzvos. There's another reason however, and this is an important reason.
The derech haTorah is to keep women under the cover. Women should come out in public, even a girl, is not the derech haTorah; it can't be helped, that's human nature. There's a blanket between us and between the other gender. L'hisracheik min hanoshim, keep away from women, not because - chas v'shalom, women can be even better than you are, but you have to keep away from men and men keep away from women.
At a boy's bar mitzvah, he comes into shul, everybody listens to him, looks at him. It's not good for a girl to be looked at too much, the less they see her the better off we are; it can't be helped. Men have a drive that women don't have, men are more easily excited than women are, that's why men have to be more careful not to have women around them that they can't look at.
Any woman who walks in the street with her body exposed, she's going to pay a very big price; she's going to be punished terribly for what she did to men. She walks in the street, exposing her body to men, a tremendous punishment is going to be upon her. She doesn't realize how expensive it's going to be, because men are sensitive. It can't be helped, that's their nature.
Therefore Hakadosh Baruch Hu said, that there should be a great mechitzah between man and women forever and ever, and that's the kedusha of the Am Yisroel, we're separate. It doesn't mean chas veshalom any reflection; the Jewish women are kodesh kodoshim just like the men are kodesh kodoshim. In a certain sense, the gemara says that women are more fortunate because when they stay home and don't look for kavod, don't fight who gets shishi, it's easy for them to avoid many things that men have nisyonos.
Therefore the Jewish woman is just as kadosh and in Gan Eden they'll be no less than men, no less than men, only in this world we have to separate them, that's the derech haTorah, that's the holy nation.
Good Shabbos and A Freilichen Purim To All
This email is transcribed from questions that were posed to Harav Miller by the audience at the Thursday night lectures. To listen to the audio of this Q & A please dial: 201-676-3210
The American Declaration of Independence speaks of the inalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Recently, following the pioneering work of Martin Seligman, founder of Positive Psychology, there have been hundreds of books on happiness. Yet there is something more fundamental still to the sense of a life well-lived, namely, meaning. The two seem similar. It’s easy to suppose that people who find meaning are happy, and people who are happy have found meaning. But the two are not the same, nor do they always overlap.
Happiness is largely a matter of satisfying needs and wants. Meaning, by contrast, is about a sense of purpose in life, especially by making positive contributions to the lives of others. Happiness is largely about how you feel in the present. Meaning is about how you judge your life as a whole: past, present and future.
Happiness is associated with taking, meaning with giving. Individuals who suffer stress, worry or anxiety are not happy, but they may be living lives rich with meaning. Past misfortunes reduce present happiness, but people often connect such moments with the discovery of meaning. Happiness is not unique to humans. Animals also experience contentment when their wants and needs are satisfied. But meaning is a distinctively human phenomenon. It has to do not with nature but with culture. It is not about what happens to us, but about how we interpret what happens to us. There can be happiness without meaning, and there can be meaning in the absence of happiness, even in the midst of darkness and pain.1
In a fascinating article in The Atlantic, ‘There’s more to life than being happy’2, Emily Smith argued that the pursuit of happiness can result in a relatively shallow, self-absorbed, even selfish life. What makes the pursuit of meaning different is that it is about the search for something larger than the self.
No one did more to put the question of meaning into modern discourse than the late Viktor Frankl, who has figured prominently in this year’s Covenant and Conversation essays on spirituality. In the three years he spent in Auschwitz, Frankl survived and helped others to survive by helping them to discover a purpose in life even in the midst of hell on earth. It was there that he formulated the ideas he later turned into a new type of psychotherapy based on what he called “man’s search for meaning”. His book of that title, written in the course of nine days in 1946, has sold more than ten million copies throughout the world, and ranks as one of the most influential works of the twentieth century.
Frankl knew that in the camps, those who lost the will to live died. He tells of how he helped two individuals to find a reason to survive. One, a woman, had a child waiting for her in another country. Another had written the first volumes of a series of travel books, and there were others yet to write. Both therefore had a reason to live.
Frankl used to say that the way to find meaning was not to ask what we want from life. Instead we should ask what life wants from us. We are each, he said, unique: in our gifts, our abilities, our skills and talents, and in the circumstances of our life. For each of us, then, there is a task only we can do. This does not mean that we are better than others. But if we believe we are here for a reason, then there is a tikkun, a mending, only we can perform, a fragment of light only we can redeem, an act of kindness or courage or generosity or hospitality, even a word of encouragement or a smile, only we can perform, because we are here, in this place, at this time, facing this person at this moment in their lives.
“Life is a task”, he used to say, and added, “The religious man differs from the apparently irreligious man only by experiencing his existence not simply as a task, but as a mission.” He or she is aware of being summoned, called, by a Source. “For thousands of years that source has been called God.”3
That is the significance of the word that gives our parsha, and the third book of the Torah, its name: Vayikra, “And He called.” The precise meaning of this opening verse is difficult to understand. Literally translated it reads: “And He called to Moses, and God spoke to him from the Tent of Meeting, saying ...” The first phrase seems to be redundant. If we are told that God spoke to Moses, why say in addition, “And He called”? Rashi explains as follows:
And He called to Moses: Every [time God communicated with Moses, whether signalled by the expression] “And He spoke”, or “and He said”, or “and He commanded”, it was always preceded by [God] calling [to Moses by name].4 “Calling” is an expression of endearment. It is the expression employed by the ministering angels, as it says, “And one called to the other…” (Isa. 6:3).
Vayikra, Rashi is telling us, means to be called to a task in love. This is the source of one of the key ideas of Western thought, namely the concept of a vocation or a calling, that is, the choice of a career or way of life not just because you want to do it, or because it offers certain benefits, but because you feel summoned to it. You feel this is your meaning and mission in life. This is what you were placed on earth to do.
There are many such calls in Tanakh. There was the call Abraham heard to leave his land and family. There was the call to Moses at the burning bush (Ex. 3:4). There was the one experienced by Isaiah when he saw in a mystical vision God enthroned and surrounded by angels:
Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?” And I said, “Here am I. Send me!” (Isaiah 6:8)
One of the most touching is the story of the young Samuel, dedicated by his mother Hannah to serve in the sanctuary at Shiloh where he acted as an assistant to Eli the priest. In bed at night he heard a voice calling his name. He assumed it was Eli. He ran to see what he wanted but Eli told him he had not called. This happened a second time and then a third, and by then Eli realised that it was God calling the child. He told Samuel that the next time the voice called his name, he should reply, ‘Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.’ It did not occur to the child that it might be God summoning him to a mission, but it was. Thus began his career as a prophet, judge and anointer of Israel’s first two kings, Saul and David (1 Samuel 3).
When we see a wrong to be righted, a sickness to be healed, a need to be met, and we feel it speaking to us, that is when we come as close as we can in a post-prophetic age to hearing Vayikra, God’s call. And why does the word appear here, at the beginning of the third and central book of the Torah? Because the book of Vayikra is about sacrifices, and a vocation is about sacrifices. We are willing to make sacrifices when we feel they are part of the task we are called on to do.
From the perspective of eternity we may sometimes be overwhelmed by a sense of our own insignificance. We are no more than a wave in the ocean, a grain of sand on the sea shore, dust on the surface of infinity. Yet we are here because God wanted us to be, because there is a task He wants us to perform. The search for meaning is the quest for this task.
Each of us is unique. Even genetically identical twins are different. There are things only we can do, we who are what we are, in this time, this place and these circumstances. For each of us God has a task: work to perform, a kindness to show, a gift to give, love to share, loneliness to ease, pain to heal, or broken lives to help mend. Discerning that task, hearing Vayikra, God’s call, is one of the great spiritual challenges for each of us.
How do we know what it is? Some years ago, in To Heal a Fractured World, I offered this as a guide, and it still seems to me to make sense: Where what we want to do meets what needs to be done, that is where God wants us to be.
Beethoven rose each morning at dawn and made himself coffee. He was fastidious about this: each cup had to be made with exactly sixty beans, which he counted out each time. He would then sit at his desk and compose until 2:00pm or 3:00pm in the afternoon. Subsequently he would go for a long walk, taking with him a pencil and some sheets of music paper to record any ideas that came to him on the way. Each night after supper he would have a beer, smoke a pipe, and go to bed early, 10:00pm at the latest.
Anthony Trollope who as his day job worked for the Post Office, paid a groom to wake him every day at 5:00am. By 5:30am he would be at his desk, and he then proceeded to write for exactly 3 hours, working against the clock to produce 250 words each quarter-hour. This way he wrote 47 novels, many of them 3 volumes in length, as well as 16 other books. If he finished a novel before the day’s 3 hours were over, he would immediately take a fresh piece of paper and begin the next.
Immanuel Kant, the most brilliant philosopher of modern times, was famous for his routine. As Heinrich Heine put it, “Getting up, drinking coffee, writing, giving lectures, eating, taking a walk, everything had its set time, and the neighbours knew precisely that the time was 3:30pm when Kant stepped outside his door with his grey coat and the Spanish stick in his hand.”
These details, together with more than 150 other examples drawn from the great philosophers, artists, composers and writers, come from a book by Mason Currey entitled Daily Rituals: How Great Minds Make Time, Find Inspiration, and Get to Work.1 The book’s point is simple. Most creative people have daily rituals. These form the soil in which the seeds of their invention grow.
In some cases they deliberately took on jobs they did not need to do, simply to establish structure and routine in their lives. A typical example was the poet Wallace Stevens, who took a position as an insurance lawyer at the Hartford Accident and Indemnity Company where he worked until his death. He said that having a job was one of the best things that could happen to him because “It introduces discipline and regularity into one’s life.”
Note the paradox. These were all innovators, pioneers, ground-breakers, trail-blazers, who formulated new ideas, originated new forms of expression, did things no one had done before in quite that way. They broke the mould. They changed the landscape. They ventured into the unknown.
Yet their daily lives were the opposite: ritualised and routine. One could even call them boring. Why so? Because – the saying is famous, though we don’t know who first said it – genius is one per cent inspiration, ninety-nine per cent perspiration. The paradigm-shifting scientific discovery, the path-breaking research, the wildly successful new product, the brilliant novel, the award-winning film, are almost always the result of many years of long hours and attention to detail. Being creative involves hard work.
The ancient Hebrew word for hard work is avodah. It is also the word that means “serving God”. What applies in the arts, sciences, business and industry, applies equally to the life of the spirit. Achieving any form of spiritual growth requires sustained effort and daily rituals.
Hence the remarkable aggadic passage in which various sages put forward their idea of klal gadol ba-Torah, “the great principle of the Torah”. Ben Azzai says it is the verse, “This is the book of the chronicles of man: On the day that God created man, He made him in the likeness of God” (Gen. 5:1). Ben Zoma says that there is a more embracing principle, “Listen, Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.” Ben Nannas says there is a yet more embracing principle: “Love your neighbour as yourself.” Ben Pazzi says we find a more embracing principle still. He quotes a verse from this week’s parsha: “One sheep shall be offered in the morning, and a second in the afternoon” (Ex. 29:39) – or, as we might say nowadays, Shacharit, Mincha and Maariv. In a word: “routine”. The passage concludes: The law follows Ben Pazzi.2
The meaning of Ben Pazzi’s statement is clear: all the high ideals in the world – the human person as God’s image, belief in God’s unity, and the love of neighbour – count for little until they are turned into habits of action that become habits of the heart. We can all recall moments of insight when we had a great idea, a transformative thought, the glimpse of a project that could change our lives. A day, a week or a year later the thought has been forgotten or become a distant memory, at best a might-have-been.
The people who change the world, whether in small or epic ways, are those who turn peak experiences into daily routines, who know that the details matter, and who have developed the discipline of hard work, sustained over time.
Judaism’s greatness is that it takes high ideals and exalted visions – image of God, faith in God, love of neighbour – and turns them into patterns of behaviour. Halakhah, (Jewish law), involves a set of routines that – like those of the great creative minds – reconfigures the brain, giving discipline to our lives and changing the way we feel, think and act.
Much of Judaism must seem to outsiders, and sometimes to insiders also, boring, prosaic, mundane, repetitive, routine, obsessed with details and bereft for the most part of drama or inspiration. Yet that is precisely what writing the novel, composing the symphony, directing the film, perfecting the killer app, or building a billion-dollar business is, most of the time. It is a matter of hard work, focused attention and daily rituals. That is where all sustainable greatness comes from.
We have developed in the West a strange view of religious experience: that it’s what overwhelms you when something happens completely outside the run of normal experience. You climb a mountain and look down. You are miraculously saved from danger. You find yourself part of a vast and cheering crowd. It’s how the German Lutheran theologian Rudolf Otto (1869-1937) defined “the holy”: as a mystery (mysterium) both terrifying (tremendum) and fascinating (fascinans). You are awed by the presence of something vast. We have all had such experiences.
But that is all they are: experiences. They linger in the memory, but they are not part of everyday life. They are not woven into the texture of our character. They do not affect what we do or achieve or become. Judaism is about changing us so that we become creative artists whose greatest creation is our own life.3 And that needs daily rituals: Shacharit, Mincha, Maariv, the food we eat, the way we behave at work or in the home, the choreography of holiness which is the special contribution of the priestly dimension of Judaism, set out in this week’s parsha and throughout the book of Vayikra.
These rituals have an effect. We now know through PET and fMRI scans that repeated spiritual exercise reconfigures the brain. It gives us inner resilience. It makes us more grateful. It gives us a sense of basic trust in the Source of our being. It shapes our identity, the way we act and talk and think. Ritual is to spiritual greatness what practice is to a tennis player, daily writing disciplines are to a novelist, and reading company accounts are to Warren Buffett. They are the precondition of high achievement. Serving God is avodah, which means hard work.
If you seek sudden inspiration, then work at it every day for a year or a lifetime. That is how it comes. As every famous golfer is said to have said when asked for the secret of his success: “I was just lucky. But the funny thing is that the harder I practice, the luckier I become.” The more you seek spiritual heights, the more you need the ritual and routine of halakhah, the Jewish “way” to God.
I hope this finds you all well and happy and enjoying ‘Yeshiva week’. There are so many topics in this parsha, from which to choose, but I finally settled on conveying to you the following story, one that teaches us something very basic but valuable, about ‘ Kibud Av v’Eim ‘ (honoring parents), I found in an unidentified parsha-letter. The author brings it from a sefer called ‘Nitzotzos’. First, a short historical anecdote:
Among the devastating events that we commemorate on Tish’a b’Av, is the expulsion of the Jews from Spain, for on that day (July 30) in 1492, after a four month warning period, Spain became “Judenrein” – officially ‘cleansed’ of its 250,000-strong Jewish population. There were some though, who stayed, by ostensibly converting to Christianity while secretly remaining true to Hashem and the Torah. We know them as the Marranos, and they were the primary targets of inquisition spies who actively sought to catch them doing Jewish things and then to burn them at the stake as heretics in accordance with Inquisition ‘law’.
Many of these marranos were very wealthy merchants or people who held positions of power and prestige in government. King Ferdinand himself, was completely unaware of the fact that his closest advisor and confidant, a man by the name of Don Pedro (fictitious name), was one of these secret Jews. However, as was so often the case, others in the royal court who burned inside with jealousy at the close relationship between Don Pedro and the king, decided to use the inquisition to their advantage. They collected enough evidence (and not much was needed) to convince the tribunal of Don Pedro’s guilt. Not only was he convicted of heresy against the church, but also of the unforgiveable crime of treason for deceiving the king, queen and the entire royal court. He was sentenced to be burned at the stake.
During his short confinement in prison, messengers were sent by the king to plead with Don Pedro to publicly apologize, reject Judaism and vow to, from then on, conduct his life in accordance with the catholic faith. That would be all that would be needed for the king to exercise his authority of pardon. Nevertheless, the now-openly Jewish minister adamantly refused to do anything of the sort.
At last, the appointed day arrived. An “auto-de-fe” was set up in the main city square. These gruesome events always attracted many spectators, but it wasn’t often that the king himself attended. This time he did. The prisoner, looking worn and weary, was dragged in chains, out to the platform. The shackles were removed so that he could step up to be strapped to the cross. Unexpectedly, the king bolted out of his chair and ran up to Don Pedro. “ Please my dearest friend,” he whispered, as the entire crowd silenced themselves and struggled to eavesdrop on the conversation, “ For my sake as well as yours – renounce your Judaism right now, and I can reinstate you in your position immediately! Please, it hurts me so to see you suffer needlessly like this!”
Don Pedro, the suffering but determined Jew, did not whisper his response – he let out an anguished wail, “ The chain! The chain! ”
No one understood what he meant by these strange words. The king looked down just to confirm that the shackles had been removed, and then tried to reassure Don Pedro, “ The chains have been removed my brother. Why are you moaning about chains? Why does this seem to be so painful when it could be so easy?”
“ Do you want to know what chain I am talking about? “ his voiced now boomed with Jewish pride and defiance. “ I am talking about the great chain that links me back, through my parents and grandparents, all the way to Avraham our forefather. I am only one small but nevertheless important part of our history, entrusted with passing down our heritage, our continuing relationship with G-D, to the next links in the chain. I have no right, nor do I have the slightest inclination to sever that connection. Do with me what you will, but I will never renounce my faith and loyalty to G-D and the Torah!”
The concept of children showing reverence and loyalty to the heritage and to the legacies imparted to them by their parents, has always been a powerfully motivating and life-altering one – and that could be a positive thing or not. ( Still, I think one of the most insidious parts of current western culture is the ridicule and disrespect with which it treats many things old and established; but anyways…). If children would appreciate how much energy parents expend, to convey to them those things that they consider important, the children would understand that following in a parent’s GOOD footsteps, greatly honors that parent and earns the child a mitzvah of “Kibud Av v’Eim”.
R’ Avrohom Abba Weingort, an orator of note in Yerushalayim, was once invited to speak to a small, intimate audience in Modiin. The topic he chose was this very mitzvah of honoring one’s parents. In the course of his talk, he was reminded of an incident that happened with his Rebbe, to which he too, was a witness.
His Rebbe, R’ Yechiel Yaakov Weinberg ZT”L (1884-1966), famous for, among other things, his colossal halachic work, “Seridei Aish”, served as Rosh Yeshiva at the Hildesheimer Rabbinical Seminary in Berlin, between the two world wars. At a time when so much of German Jewry had embraced the reform movement or outright secularism, he was a beacon of strength and light, representing true orthodoxy despite the crushing adversity. Most of the time, he devoted and confined himself to his duties as Rosh Yeshiva, but every Yom Kippur, he made it his practice to daven at the great Central Synagogue of Berlin, and that, despite the added hardship of it being located quite a distance from his home.
The year was 1921. Yom Kippur was a day, as it is even in our times, whose seriousness inspired even the most secular of Jews to attend Shul, and many still chose to daven in the traditional orthodox setting. There was an air of solemnity and decorum throughout Shacharis, as all in attendance concentrated deeply and genuinely as they communicated with their Creator. At the conclusion of the Haftorah, the Gabbai announced “Yizkor!”. Immediately, most of the young people, and others who had not by then, lost any close relatives, exited the Shul and went to wait outside until Yizkor would conclude and Mussaf would commence.
All of a sudden, a large, black limousine, escorted front and rear by two police motorcycles, pulled up and stopped directly in front of the Shul. With impatient curiosity, the crowd mulling about, turned to see who would be coming out of the official-looking vehicle. The rear passenger door opened abruptly, and out stepped the Foreign minister of the German “Weimar” Republic, Walter Rathenau. Most onlookers were shocked and surprised to see this man even come near a Shul. Yes, he was indeed a Jew, but one who had quite publicly forsaken anything and everything associated with Judaism and the Jewish people.
The minister ignored the hushed mumbling around him, and rushed up the steps of the entrance to the Shul with a look of satisfaction on his face when he realized that he had arrived just on time for Yizkor. Many observers seemed untroubled by Rathenau’s appearance, but a number of others had strong opinions against his ‘hypocritical’ attendance at Shul – they argued too, that it was offensive to them that for the sake of a mere custom, Yizkor, this man would arrogantly desecrate the sanctity of the holiest day of the year by driving right up to the front of the Shul. Discussions turned into arguments and continued after Yizkor had finished, even as they took their seats to begin Mussaf. Fortunately, the minister did not hear any of these nasty comments as he left and disappeared back into his limo.
The Chazzan approached the Bima to begin Mussaf, when unexpectedly and uncharacteristically, R’ Weinberg stood up and advanced toward the Bima. Signalling to the Chazzan to wait, he began to speak. “ Rabosai,” he roared, “ What were some of you thinking when you disparaged and mocked a man who, in all sincerity, came to Shul to pay proper Jewish respect to his father’s memory. Can any one of us, even imagine how much tumultuous thought went into his decision to do this, a full five years after his father’s demise? I tell you all now,” he said sternly, “ Anyone who shows this kind of respect to his parents, guarantees for himself, the zechus of possibly he, but definitely his descendants, returning to the fold and doing Teshuvah! With this one tiny act, Herr Rathenau has shown that he has not completely removed himself from the heritage passed down to him. He has not severed the great chain of Jewish history!” With that, the Rav returned to his seat, his terse words making a huge impression on the entire congregation.
R’ Weingort, having concluded the story, scanned the small audience in Modiin to gage their reaction. Suddenly, one of the men got up, shaking and looking somewhat faint. Everyone in the room turned his way and it was clear that the man had been crying. “ The Rav mentioned Walter Rathenau!” he said, obviously still very emotional. “ That was the last Yom Kippur of his life – he was brutally assassinated about nine months later! Walter Rathenau was my great-grandfather! I am here attending this shiur today, because his grandson, my father, became a Baal Teshuvah! Indeed, as the Rav promised, the chain has been revived!”
Another short vignette: There was a small Shul in north Tel-Aviv that generally struggled to scrape together a minyan. One day, an elderly man began frequenting the Shul for davening. He didn’t socialize with anyone and would hurry out right after davening ended. The Rav’s curiosity was piqued by this man who looked like someone who had not been a regular attendee at Shul for most of his life. It was quite an anomaly for an older person to become a Baal Teshuvah, and finally after a few days the Rav approached him. “ Shalom Aleichem sir,” he said to the man as he caught him hurrying as usual, out of Shul. “ We’re glad to see that you are becoming one of our ‘regulars’.”
“ Yes, Aleichem Shalom,” he replied. “ I just recently became religious.”
“ Oh, how wonderful,” the Rav responded with a warm grin. “ If you don’t mind my asking, what made you make such a drastic life-change at your age?”
“ Well,” offered the man willingly, “ did you hear about the case of Rav Ravitz Z”L?”
The Rav was indeed aware of the case, and of the Kiddush Hashem resulting from it. R’ Ravitz was in dire need of a kidney transplant. All of his children were eager to help and ended up arguing over who would have the zechus of donating their kidney to him. They could not reach agreement on their own, and brought the case to R’ Elyashiv ZT”L, who ruled that the Bechor, the firstborn, had first rights to this zechus. The case received much interest, even in the media, and resulted in a great Kiddush Hashem.
The Rav nodded and the man continued. “ Well I was in the same position as R’ Ravitz. I too, urgently required a kidney transplant and the doctors approached my children, whose kidneys would be the best match for me. My son apologetically refused because he was set to take an extended business trip abroad and was afraid that the surgery would render him too weak to function effectively. My daughter also turned them down because she was poised to begin a new semester at university, and also feared being too weak to address her studies diligently. “So you see,” said the old man, tears now running down his wrinkled cheeks,” I gave them life. I invested everything, time, money and physical effort for them, and they still abandoned me in my time of need. I was so hurt! And it was just then, at this low point in my life, that I read about the case of Rav Ravitz and realized the greatness, the transcendence of Torah and the Torah life. If my children, nebich, in their ‘progressive’ lives, were no longer sensitive to the chain of decency and ‘Hakaras Hatov’ taught by Judaism, I was not going to let my own life slip away, disconnected from my forefather’s heritage. I felt an urgent need to grab hold of the chain, at least for myself – right then and there, I began my Teshuvah journey!”
How can a person not be depressed when he hears about so many people who are dying young?
ANSWER:
Let me tell you, it's an excuse, it's an alibi. People are looking for a tirutz to be unhappy, that's all it is. The truth is, you don't care much about them, you're looking for an excuse to be unhappy. On the contrary, you should say Baruch Hashem that You protected me. All day long think about that, Hashem protected me! Of course what can you do? Pray for them. Are you praying for that person? No, you're just showing that you're dissatisfied, asking questions. Why don't you pray for him? In shmonei esrei, in refaeinu, are you praying for him?
And in addition to that you should thank Hakadosh Baruch Hu, Modim anachnu luch, we thank you Hashem, You saved me and my wife, and my sons and my daughters, and my grandchildren! We don't have such things among us, Baruch ata Hashem ha'gomel chasadim tovim le'amo yisroel! Are you thinking that? That's one of the purposes. When you hear tzaros, you have to rejoice that you didn't get the tzaros.
Rejoice you say, I have to rejoice? Be mispalel for them, if they need money, help them get money, but you should not lose sight of the fact that Hakadosh Baruch Hu has protected you, and you have to utilize that to have more simcha in your life. Whenever you hear of a misfortune, think that Baruch Hashem it didn't happen to me. You stand shmonei esrei, you bow down Baruch Ata Hashem, you think, I thank you Hashem.
For what am I thanking You? Nothing at all, you bow down like a robot! Bow down and think, You saved me from what that person has.
Now, we don't know why Hashem did it to that person, Hashem has His reasons, but Baruch Hashem He didn't do it to me. That should be your reaction, and be happy and enjoy it.
How can I enjoy somebody else's tzaros? No, I'm not enjoying it, I'm praying for him. You know what else you can do? You can contribute to his health by giving some money to bikur cholim. Whatever it is you should do...but at the same time, utilize it and understand that Hakadosh Baruch Hu rescued you from that trouble.
Good Shabbos To All
This is transcribed from questions that were posed to Harav Miller by the audience at the Thursday night lectures.
To listen to the audio of this Q & A please dial: 201-676-3210
Maimonides called his ideal type of human being – the sage – a rofe nefashot, a “healer of souls”.[1] Today we call such a person a psychotherapist, a word coined relatively recently from the Greek word psyche, meaning “soul”, and therapeia, “healing”. It is astonishing how many of the pioneering soul-healers in modern times have been Jewish.
Almost all the early psychoanalysts were, among them Sigmund Freud, Alfred Adler, Otto Rank and Melanie Klein. So overwhelming was this, that psychoanalysis was known in Nazi Germany as the “Jewish science”. More recent Jewish contributions include Solomon Asch on conformity, Lawrence Kohlberg on developmental psychology and Bruno Bettelheim on child psychology. From Leon Festinger came the concept of cognitive dissonance, from Howard Gardner the idea of multiple intelligences and from Peter Salovey and Daniel Goleman, emotional intelligence. Abraham Maslow gave us new insight into motivation, as did Walter Mischel into self-control via the famous “marshmallow test”. Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky gave us prospect theory and behavioural economics. Most recently, Jonathan Haidt and Joshua Green have pioneered empirical study of the moral emotions. The list goes on and on.
To my mind, though, one of the most important Jewish contributions came from three outstanding figures: Viktor Frankl, Aaron T. Beck and Martin Seligman. Frankl created the method known as Logotherapy, based on the search for meaning. Beck was the joint creator of the most successful form of treatment, Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. Seligman gave us Positive Psychology, that is, psychology not just as a cure for depression but as a means of achieving happiness or flourishing through acquired optimism.
These are very different approaches but they have one thing in common. They are based on the belief – set out much earlier in Habad Hassidim in R. Schneur Zalman of Liadi’s Tanya – that if we change the way we think, we will change the way we feel. This was, at the outset, a revolutionary proposition in sharp contrast to other theories of the human psyche. There were those who believed that our characters are determined by genetic factors. Others thought our emotional life was governed by early childhood experiences and unconscious drives. Others again, most famously Ivan Pavlov, believed that human behaviour is determined by conditioning. On all of these theories our inner freedom is severely circumscribed. Who we are, and how we feel, are largely dictated by factors other than the conscious mind.
It was Viktor Frankl who showed there is another way – and he did so under some of the worst conditions ever endured by human beings: in Auschwitz. As a prisoner there, Frankl discovered that the Nazis took away almost everything that made people human: their possessions, their clothes, their hair, their very names. Before being sent to Auschwitz, Frankl had been a therapist specialising in curing people who had suicidal tendencies. In the camp, he devoted himself as far as he could to giving his fellow prisoners the will to live, knowing that if they lost it, they would soon die.
There he made the fundamental discovery for which he later became famous:
We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms – to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.[2]
What made the difference, what gave people the will to live, was the belief that there was a task for them to perform, a mission for them to accomplish, that they had not yet completed and that was waiting for them to do in the future. Frankl discovered that “it did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us.”[3] There were people in the camp who had so lost hope that they had nothing more to expect from life. Frankl was able to get them to see that “life was still expecting something from them.” One, for example, had a child still alive, in a foreign country, who was waiting for him. Another came to see that he had books to produce that no one else could write. Through this sense of a future calling to them, Frankl was able to help them to discover their purpose in life, even in the valley of the shadow of death.
The mental shift this involved came to be known, especially in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, as reframing. Just as a painting can look different when placed in a different frame, so can a life. The facts don’t change, but the way we perceive them does. Frankl writes that he was able to survive Auschwitz by daily seeing himself as if he were in a university, giving a lecture on the psychology of the concentration camp. Everything that was happening to him was transformed, by this one act of the mind, into a series of illustrations of the points he was making in the lecture. “By this method, I succeeded somehow in rising above the situation, above the sufferings of the moment, and I observed them as if they were already of the past.”[4] Reframing tells us that though we cannot always change the circumstances in which we find ourselves, we can change the way we see them, and this itself changes the way we feel.
Yet this modern discovery is really a re-discovery, because the first great re-framer in history was Joseph, as described in this week’s and next’s parshiyot. Recall the facts. He had been sold into slavery by his brothers. He had lost his freedom for thirteen years, and been separated from his family for twenty-two years. It would be understandable if he felt toward his brothers resentment and a desire for revenge. Yet he rose above such feelings, and did so precisely by shifting his experiences into a different frame. Here is what he says to his brothers when he first discloses his identity to them:
“I am your brother, Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt. And now do not be distressed, or angry with yourselves, because you sold me here; for God sent me before you to preserve life … God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth, and to keep alive for you many survivors. So it was not you who sent me here, but God.” (Gen. 45:4-8)
And this is what he says years later, after their father Jacob has died and the brothers fear that he may now take revenge:
“Do not be afraid! Am I in the place of God? Though you intended to do harm to me, God intended it for good, in order to preserve a numerous people, as He is doing today. So have no fear; I myself will provide for you and your little ones.” (Gen. 50:19-21)
Joseph had reframed his entire past. He no longer saw himself as a man wronged by his brothers. He had come to see himself as a man charged with a life-saving mission by God. Everything that had happened to him was necessary so that he could achieve his purpose in life: to save an entire region from starvation during a famine, and to provide a safe haven for his family.
This single act of reframing allowed Joseph to live without a burning sense of anger and injustice. It enabled him to forgive his brothers and be reconciled with them. It transformed the negative energies of feelings about the past into focused attention to the future. Joseph, without knowing it, had become the precursor of one of the great movements in psychotherapy in the modern world. He showed the power of reframing. We cannot change the past. But by changing the way we think about the past, we can change the future.
Whatever situation we are in, by reframing it we can change our entire response, giving us the strength to survive, the courage to persist, and the resilience to emerge, on the far side of darkness, into the light of a new and better day.
Important Numbers
