Understanding Teshuvah

The Hebrew word for repentance, תשובה, is derived from the root שב, to return. And the relationship isn’t just Midrashic/homiletic - HZ”L insisted that the concept of Teshuvah preceded the Creation itself, as evidenced by the following Midrash on Pesuqim 2-3 from the 90th chapter of Tehillim:

בְּטֶ֤רֶם ׀ הָ֘רִ֤ים יֻלָּ֗דוּ וַתְּח֣וֹלֵֽל אֶ֣רֶץ וְתֵבֵ֑ל וּֽמֵעוֹלָ֥ם עַד־ע֝וֹלָ֗ם אַתָּ֥ה אֵֽל׃.

תָּשֵׁ֣ב אֱ֭נוֹשׁ עַד־דַּכָּ֑א וַ֝תֹּ֗אמֶר שׁ֣וּבוּ בְנֵי־אָדָֽם׃.

(תהלים צ:ב-ג)

Before the mountains were birthed, you had brought forth the Earth and the world; you are God from eternity to eternity.

You return man to dust, and you say “return, you sons of man”.

(Psalms 90:2-3)

And although Midrash Tehillim isn’t a very familiar source to many of us (which is tragic, since it contains untold scores of gems), it is the oldest source of this principle that Teshuvah preceded the Creation:

תשב אנוש עד דכא - אמר רבי אבהו: גדולה תשובה - שקדמה לבריאת עולם, שנאמר בטרם הרים יולדו… תשב אנוש עד דכא (תהלים צ:ב-ג)

(מדרש תהלים צ:ז)

“You return man to dust” - Ribbi Abhu said: so great is Teshuvah that it preceded the very creation of the world, as it is said “[Even] before the mountains were birthed… (You brought forth Earth and the world, and You are God from eternity to eternity. You return man to dust, and You say “return, sons of man!”

The Midrash learns from the flow of these 2 Pesuqim that repentance itself as an institution was created before there was a world - before there was even a reality in which one could sin, and long before there was anyone alive to commit transgressions of any kind. It was not a patch added to the system in response to our errors, but rather embedded in the very fabric of the Creation itself.

Does Teshuvah work under any condition?

There is a well known Mishnah at the very end of Tractate Yoma which discusses many of the foundational details of Teshuvah that are later taken up in the Talmud and later commentaries - indeed, a great deal of the greatest discussions on the topic in Jewish literature focus on or cite this Mishnah. It lays out a few simple scenarios of intentional or repeat offenders, and the Talmud goes on to extrapolate from them some of the terms, conditions, efforts, remorse, regret, and part of the process itself.

הָאוֹמֵר, אֶחֱטָא וְאָשׁוּב, אֶחֱטָא וְאָשׁוּב, אֵין מַסְפִּיקִין בְּיָדוֹ לַעֲשׂוֹת תְּשׁוּבָה. אֶחֱטָא וְיוֹם הַכִּפּוּרִים מְכַפֵּר, אֵין יוֹם הַכִּפּוּרִים מְכַפֵּר.

(משנה יומא ח:ט)

One who says, “I shall sin, and repent, and sin again, and repent again”, will not be given the opportunity to repent. “I shall sin, and Yom Kippur will afford me atonement”, Yom Kippur will not afford him atonement.

(Mishnah Yoma 8:9)

This first scenario is particularly fascinating: if Yom Kippur is the day on which we were promised that our sins can be forgiven, then what happens if we abuse this promise and rely entirely on the day itself to change our status, as opposed to the sincerity of our efforts? The answer is that there is no such promise. Yom Kippur is a sacred day - the holiest of the Jewish Year, but it cannot serve its purpose if it is exploited in order to enable repeat offenses.

This should give us all a great deal of pause. There are disputes in the Talmud following this Mishnah regarding the terms and conditions of Yom Kippur having its intended effect even for those who don’t fast or don’t even repent, which makes this particular scenario of the repeat offender even more curious. One who didn’t fast or didn’t even repent has at the very least one opinion to rely upon in the disputes. But someone who announces in advance that even though he himself is repenting, he intends to repeat the entire sin-repentance cycle all over again, doesn’t even have a leg to stand on.

My Rosh Yeshivah, Rav Shabbtai Sabbato, שליט”א, once explained this concept to us as follows:

Spiritual Inflation

The physical world is a reflection of the non-physical reality that preceded it and from which it originates. And just as objects, concepts, and words have perceived value assigned to them in this world - based primarily on quality and scarcity - so should we expect our words and actions to be perceived and received in the non-physical reality. So if the rarity of gold, diamonds, platinum, etc., is what makes us bid and compete for them and what therefore drives up their price relative to other commodities, then the value of the mundane, the commonplace, and the readily available will similarly be much lower as a result.

As Rav Sabbato put it, the more you allow yourself to use and repeat a word or phrase, the more you devalue it by decreasing its impact. If you make a mistake and apologize for it, the toolbox of Teshuvah is at your disposal and can help you mend the damaged relationship. But if you abuse and overuse the words “I’m sorry”, you should expect the same outcome as the Boy Who Cried Wolf: people will lose their faith in your words over time, they will adjust their lives and expectations accordingly, and in no time even when you say it and mean it, the response will never be the same. And evidently, according to our Mishnah, so it goes in the Heavenly Court as well.

In a parallel vein, along the lines of great minds thinking alike, consider the following idea that I learned from Rav Maimon Retbi, שליט”א, in the name of his Rabbi, Rav Yehudah Leon Ashkenazy זצ”ל:

Rav Ashkenazy once asked his five closest disciples about the following, most curious Pasuq:

וְלִבְנֵ֤י הַפִּֽילַגְשִׁים֙ אֲשֶׁ֣ר לְאַבְרָהָ֔ם נָתַ֥ן אַבְרָהָ֖ם מַתָּנֹ֑ת וַֽיְשַׁלְּחֵ֞ם מֵעַ֨ל יִצְחָ֤ק בְּנוֹ֙ בְּעוֹדֶ֣נּוּ חַ֔י קֵ֖דְמָה אֶל־אֶ֥רֶץ קֶֽדֶם׃.

(בראשית כה:ו)

And to the sons of the Abraham’s concubines Abraham gave gifts; and he sent them while still alive away from his son, Yizhaq, eastward, to the land of the East.

(Bereishit 25:6)

While gifts are not at all uncommon in the Torah, these particular gifts are baffling, as explained in Tractate Sanhedrin:

מַאי מַתָּנוֹת? אָמַר רַבִּי יִרְמְיָה בַּר אַבָּא: מְלַמֵּד שֶׁמָּסַר לָהֶם שֵׁם טוּמְאָה.

(תלמוד בבלי, מסכת סנהדרין דף צ’ עמוד א’)

What is meant by these “gifts”? Ribbi Yirmiyah Bar Abba said: it comes to teach us that he gave them the name of an unholy spirit.

(Sanhedrin 90A)

And as if that weren’t odd enough, RaSh”I on the spot makes it clear what the intended use was:

רש”י שם: שם טומאה - כשוף ומעשה שדים:

RaSh”I: “The name of an unholy spirit” - sorcery and evil spirit conjuring/incantation

The way Rav Ashkenazy explained it, there really is no good explanation as to why anyone - let alone a prophet and messenger of God like Abraham - would want to spread anything but the name of Hashem and how He is to be worshiped. Knowing this, what rationale could there be for him revealing the names of unholy spirits - not to mention the intended use of such a transmission - to the idolaters of the East?

And so Rav Ashkenazy concluded that while Abraham spent his entire life teaching people about God and His expectations of us, his approach to the war between good and evil was actually two-pronged. If these unholy spirits - which are no doubt part of Hashem’s Creation and His plan for the fight between good and evil to be a fair and balanced one (something we can take up in a future post), then the same rules that apply to one side must apply to the other. To wit, if this rule of inflation applies to a holy institution such as Teshuvah, then it must apply equally to unholy concepts as well. And so Abraham Avinu decided before his death to not only transmit, but potentially to actually encourage the idolaters to make such frequent use of the unholy incantations that they end up devaluing them, rendering them less powerful and less responsive over time and overuse.

Doing Teshuvah for our Teshuvah

It stands to reason that few of us genuinely believe that the purpose of Yom Kippur is to afford us debt forgiveness only so that we can dig an even deeper hole for ourselves. But the Mishnah sheds light on the limitations of the Teshuvah process, and thereby on the proper approach we are expected to take when entering into it. Specifically because Teshuvah is so fundamental and so powerful, it is to be revered as the single most powerful tool at our disposal, and care must therefore be taken to avoid taking it lightly, engaging in it frivolously, or abusing it to the point that it no longer serves its intended purpose.

Perhaps we can look at this way: how we did Teshuvah in the past is often reason enough for us to repent. If our Teshuvah was insincere, inauthentic, or motivated by anything other than the desire to make things right - and the commitment to avoid repeating the same mistakes, then we sinned not only against our fellow man and/or God Himself, but also against the holy institution of Teshuvah. And in doing so, we have damaged and weakened the very tool that Hashem gave us to help us get back on the straight and narrow path, which only compounds the transgression and complicates the journey back.

I will conclude with both a blessing and a challenge: that this year be the year that we invest the time, the effort, and the preparation that goes into doing genuine, heartfelt Teshuvah, and that our Teshuvah should be so deep and so authentic that it should allow us to serve as living examples of what it can do for us when it is treated with veneration, awe, and an appreciation of the truly rare Divine gift that it is.

Shanah Tovah & Besorot Tovot!

Shir Hashirim and the terms of Redemption

One of the most fascinating discussions in the entire body of Talmudic literature appears at the very end of Massekhet Ketubot (110B-111A). It is introduced in the form of a back-and-forth between Ribbi Zera and Rav Yehudah regarding Ribbi Zera’s desire to move to Israel from Babylonia, knowing full well that Rav Yehudah - one of his Rabbis - was in stark opposition to such a move. The discussion rages over the status of making ‘Aliyah, as it were, from Babylonia to Israel in their time (about 1,700 years ago) - which in all likelihood reflects on the same debate and the status of Israel today, since we are still in the same exile.

רַבִּי זֵירָא הֲוָה קָמִשְׁתְּמִיט מִינֵּיהּ דְּרַב יְהוּדָה דִּבְעָא לְמִיסַּק לְאֶרֶץ יִשְׂרָאֵל, דְּאָמַר רַב יְהוּדָה: כׇּל הָעוֹלֶה מִבָּבֶל לְאֶרֶץ יִשְׂרָאֵל עוֹבֵר בַּעֲשֵׂה, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר: (קי״א א) ״בָּבֶלָה יוּבָאוּ וְשָׁמָּה יִהְיוּ עַד יוֹם פׇּקְדִי אוֹתָם נְאֻם ה׳״ (ירמיהו כז:כב). וְרַבִּי זֵירָא — הָהוּא בִּכְלֵי שָׁרֵת כְּתִיב. וְרַב יְהוּדָה? כְּתִיב קְרָא אַחֲרִינָא: ״הִשְׁבַּעְתִּי אֶתְכֶם בְּנוֹת יְרוּשָׁלִַים בִּצְבָאוֹת אוֹ בְּאַיְלוֹת הַשָּׂדֶה וְגוֹ׳״. וְרַבִּי זֵירָא — הָהוּא שֶׁלֹּא יַעֲלוּ יִשְׂרָאֵל בְּחוֹמָה. וְרַב יְהוּדָה? ״הִשְׁבַּעְתִּי״ אַחֲרִינָא כְּתִיב. וְרַבִּי זֵירָא — הָהוּא מִיבְּעֵי לֵיהּ לְכִדְרַבִּי יוֹסֵי בְּרַבִּי חֲנִינָא, דְּאָמַר: שָׁלֹשׁ שְׁבוּעוֹת הַלָּלוּ לָמָּה? אַחַת שֶׁלֹּא יַעֲלוּ יִשְׂרָאֵל בְּחוֹמָה, וְאַחַת שֶׁהִשְׁבִּיעַ הַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא אֶת יִשְׂרָאֵל שֶׁלֹּא יִמְרְדוּ בְּאוּמּוֹת הָעוֹלָם, וְאַחַת שֶׁהִשְׁבִּיעַ הַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא אֶת הַגּוֹיִם שֶׁלֹּא יִשְׁתַּעְבְּדוּ בָּהֶן בְּיִשְׂרָאֵל יוֹתֵר מִדַּאי. וְרַב יְהוּדָה — ״אִם תָּעִירוּ וְאִם תְּעוֹרְרוּ״ כְּתִיב. וְרַבִּי זֵירָא — מִיבְּעֵי לֵיהּ לְכִדְרַבִּי לֵוִי, דְּאָמַר: שֵׁשׁ שְׁבוּעוֹת הַלָּלוּ לָמָּה? תְּלָתָא — הָנֵי דַּאֲמַרַן, אִינָךְ: שֶׁלֹּא יְגַלּוּ אֶת הַקֵּץ, וְשֶׁלֹּא יְרַחֲקוּ אֶת הַקֵּץ, וְשֶׁלֹּא יְגַלּוּ הַסּוֹד לַגּוֹיִם.

Ribbi Zera was avoiding Rav Yehudah, since he wanted to move to Israel, and Rav Yehudah taught: one who leaves Babylonia for Israel is violating a positive commandment, as it is said (Yirmiyahu 27:22) “To Babylonia they shall be brought, and there they shall be until the day on which I revisit them, so said the Eternal One…”. And Ribbi Zera (in response, said), “that verse refers to the utensils of service from Beit Hamiqdash”. And Rav Yehudah (in response) said that there is another verse (Shir Hashirim 2:7): “I have foresworn you, maidens of Jerusalem, by the deer and by the rams of the field, [lest you awaken, lest you rouse the love until it is desired”. (This verse is offered up as yet another proof that the Jewish Nation is “foresworn” against moving back to Israel before the time is right, however that may be defined).

And Ribbi Zera (in response) - that verse was only meant to warn the Jews against returning to Israel as a wall (meaning in a massive wave). And Rav Yehudah (in response) - there is another verse exactly like this one (Shir Hashirim 3:5) (implying that each verse can teach us something different; the first that they shouldn’t return to Israel until it is time, and the second to warn them against coming in a massive “wall” of people - apparently even if the timing were otherwise right.)

And Ribbi Zera - this is learned as was taught by Ribbi Yosei Beribbi Hanina, who said: what are these 3 vows for (now including a third verse in Shir Hashirim 8:4 that mentions the same oaths only in slightly shorter form)? One teaches that the Israelites shouldn’t come in a massive wall of people; another that Holy One, blessed be He, foreswore the Israelites that they shouldn’t rebel against the non-Jewish nations (the ones keeping them in exile); another that the Holy One, blessed be He, foreswore the non-Jewish nations that they shouldn’t oppress the Israelites too much (or perhaps too long). And Rav Yehudah - “lest you awaken” and “lest you rouse” are written (implying that there is is still room to learn a total of 6 things from these vows, as we now have 2 items to learn from each and 3 verses with such double language).

And Ribbi Zera - this is needed in order to learn that which Ribbi Levi taught: these 6 vows are for what? Three as we have said. And the rest - that they should not reveal the end of time, that they should not delay the end of time, and that they should not reveal the secret to non-Jews (perhaps a general reference to teaching the secrets of the Torah to non-Jews).

This particular passage is the source for many rich and deep discussions and debates about the merits, obligations, interdictions, etc., of moving to Israel in our own time - a topic we will have to take up in a future post. One thing that it does make clear, though, is that there is an understanding by HZ”L that the verses in Shir Hashirim that reference these oaths spell out a clear warning that there is a general timeline for our Redemption (whatever that means), and that the process is beset by dangers and complications on both sides - both those stemming from to attempts to hasten the process, and those that will befall us should we become too complacent and allow our oppression to go on for too long (though the parameters here are undefined as well).

And although the Talmud doesn’t explain it explicitly, it seems as though the verses - despite using very similar language for the warnings (“אם תעירו ואם תעוררו” - “lest you awaken or lest you rouse” - both sharing the same etymological root “ער” in Hebrew) - are interpreted by HZ”L as to mean not to “awaken” the “love” of our Redemption by proactively attempting to force it before its time, and on the other hand not to try to “rouse” or otherwise force it by delaying our readiness or by allowing the Exile to endure for too long. The latter, despite being a passive process, is represented by an active verb (to rouse), since it could evidently result in the destruction of Judaism and Torah culture in the Exile at the hands of our oppressors, and any effort to encourage or even to passively allow that to happen would be interpreted as an active violation of the terms. (This concept is often referred to as “accelerationism” in modern sociopolitical discourse, and we may well take it on in a future post as well, as it is certainly worthy of further discussion.)

The RMB”N and a most novel take

Rav Levi Yizhaq of Bardichev quotes the RMB”N on these very verses in his major work, Qedushat Levi, in the context of the Shavu’ot holiday (פרשת במדבר, דרוש לשבועות). The RMB”N’s take on them is so unique and so powerful, that he himself sees in it a tremendous, foundational secret of Torah wisdom:

אופן הג’, הוא על פי דברי הרמב”ן שפירש על פסוק (שיה”ש ח:ד) “מה תעירו ומה תעוררו את האהבה עד שתחפץ”, ופירש כשמגיע לאדם איזה התעוררת של יראה ואהבה להבורא ברוך הוא, אזי תיכף ומיד יראה לעשות לה כלי, היינו שיעשה תיכף איזה מצוה, דהיינו שיתן צדקה או ישב תיכף ללמוד וכדומה, כי ידוע שהתעוררת הבאה אל האדם בפתע פתאום הוא אור הנשפע עליו מלמעלה ונקרא בחינת נשמה אזי צריך האדם להלבישה בגוף בכדי שיהיה לה חיזוק ובסיס שלא יהיה מוטה חס ושלום כידוע למביני מדע. וזה פירוש הפסוק “מה תעירו ומה תעוררו את האהבה עד שתחפץ”, כי חפץ הוא מלשון כלי, דהיינו ההתעוררות ההוא שבא אל האדם צריך תיכף ומיד כלי, וזהו “עד שתחפץ”. עד כאן לשונו אף שאין זה לשונו ממש.

A third approach (to explaining why Shavu’ot is often referred to as “‘Azeret” in the Mishnah and Talmud) is in accordance with the words of the RMB”N who interpreted the verse (here referring to Shir Hashirim 8:4) “why would you awaken and why would you rouse the love until it is desired”. And as he explained, when one experiences an awakening of awe and love towards the Creator, blessed be He, he must right away - immediately - make a vessel for it, meaning he should immediately perform a Mizwah, such as giving Zedaqah or he sohould right away sit and learn Torah, etc., for it is known that an awakening that occurs to a man all of a sudden is a light that is shone on him from above, and it can be understood much as a Neshamah, and therefore one must “dress it” in a “body” (i.e. vessel) so as to give it strength and a basis so that it should not go to waste, God forbid, as is understood to those who know (how these things work).

And this is the meaning of the verse “why would you awaken and why would you arouse the love until it is desired”, since the Hebrew word חפץ (Heifez, desire) is the same as the word for “object” (such as a vessel), meaning that an awakening that occurs to someone immediately requires an object (vessel), and this is the meaning of “עד שתחפץ” (until it is desired). End quote of the RMB”N, though I am paraphrasing.

The connection that the RMB”N makes between Heifez as a desire and Heifez as a vessel/utensil is an absolutely mind-blowing insight into a true gem of a secret in the Hebrew language. What he effectively reveals to us is the very nature of desire. If we understand desire as the “love” referred to in Shir Hashirim, then what Shelomo Hamelekh is referring to is the “right” moment; the confluence of a process reaching some form of culmination and the feeling of inspiration that often arises as a result. And so the secret behind these verses is that these moments of inspiration are on the hand fleeting and imperceptible to any onlooker, and yet they hold on the other hand the key to our very redemption - both individual and national. And just like our national redemption - which apparently needs to occur at the “desired” time, inspiration of any kind - even at the individual level - can come and go on a peculiar and often curious timeline.

Such is the nature of spiritual concepts: they defy definition, they do not behave according to familiar rules, and their timing can be entirely unpredictable. Nonetheless, when we are able to capture a moment of genuine inspiration and allow it to serve as the wind in our sails that propels us towards meaningful action and/or true accomplishment, we are capable of achieving extraordinary feats that have the potential to change the world profoundly. These inspired actions are best captured by the word “encapsulation”: taking an inspiring thought, feeling, or event, and capturing it, giving it embodiment - and thereby allowing it to make a lasting expression in the physical world, where it otherwise might have come and gone without ever having left a trace.

In fact, so fundamental is this principle that it serves as the blueprint of the entire Creation. When Hashem created the world, He gave us both the ability and the responsibility to partner with Him in the perpetuation of His Creation - by coming together as husband and wife and procreating. Creating a child is one of the most divine, life-changing goals that two human beings can undertake. And in the world as it was created, it requires a man and a woman who ideally love, respect, and inspire each other and come together in an act that combines both the physical AND the spiritual -allowing us to encapsulate the intensity of the ethereal, abstract, and invisible emotions that we share for each other in a physical act of creation - which as a result produces both a physical body that serves as as vessel, and the immortal soul which it contains.

As such, the “desired” time referenced in Shir Hashirim that we - and Hashem - are waiting for for so many years turns out to be these moments of powerful inspiration that we do finally capture and transform into the meaningful changes that are Teshuvah (repentance), devotion, and accomplishment. And our Redemption depends on them.

Elul and Redemption

Elul is the month during which we prepare ourselves for action and change. The entire Nation focuses on repentance, regretting bad deeds, recalibrating our desires, and rekindling our motivation to do more and better. This deeper understanding of inspiration - the idea, thought, feeling, or event that gives us a desire to do something, needs to inspire us to capture it and turn it into the motivation to actually make things happen. How often do we see people making promises, taking upon themselves commitments, New Year’s resolutions, etc., and yet failing to follow through on them? And in how many cases do people make the same commitments year after year and still somehow fail to make good on them?

Appreciating that moments of inspiration are few and far between - and that they are therefore precious opportunities to capture energy and desire from sources that are by and large inaccessible to us during our normal daily routines - will hopefully help us make lasting changes, firmer and more resolute commitments, and lead us to both individual and national Redemption. If we approach these sparks of energy and desire as the scarcest resource available to us on our spiritual journey, we can hopefully commit to acting on them without hesitation and harnessing their power to help us over the obstacles that hold us back every year from finally tapping into our true potential.

May this year finally be the year!

With all that’s going on over Pessah - cleaning out Hamez, stocking up on Mazah, the Sedarim, the Hagadah, Hallel, etc. - Sefirat Ha’omer tends to get lost in the KFP sauce. It does begin on the second night of Hag, but it has several interesting layers to it. On the biblical side, it represented a countdown between Pessah and Shavu’ot, which used to build up to a Minhhah (grain offering) that was offered on Hag Shavu’ot itself.

Nowadays that Beit Hamiqdash is still awaiting reconstruction, the count itself seems more symbolic than anything else, and indeed the Rishonim discuss the nature of the obligation. According to the R”N and the RA”Sh, the obligation is only biblical when Beit Hamiqdash is intact, since we’re counting from the 2nd night of Pessah - when barley was harvested for the purpose of offering a barley meal offering the following morning - until the day of Shavu’ot.

The RMB”M and the RAB”YA hold that the obligation is still biblical, and so whether or not grain offerings are being cooked up in Beit Hamiqdash, we need to count every day between the first day of Pessah and the day of Shavu’ot. Sacrifices aside, it does still serve the purpose of determining the day of Shavu’ot, which technically has no fixed date in the Torah.

In more recent history, we often associate this time period with the plague that killed 24,000 of Ribbi ‘Aqiva’s students, as recounted in an extremely short passage of Talmud in Massekhet Yevamot (62B):

דְּתַנְיָא, רַבִּי יְהוֹשֻׁעַ אוֹמֵר: נָשָׂא אָדָם אִשָּׁה בְּיַלְדוּתוֹ — יִשָּׂא אִשָּׁה בְּזִקְנוּתוֹ. הָיוּ לוֹ בָּנִים בְּיַלְדוּתוֹ — יִהְיוּ לוֹ בָּנִים בְּזִקְנוּתוֹ, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר: ״בַּבֹּקֶר זְרַע אֶת זַרְעֶךָ וְלָעֶרֶב אַל תַּנַּח יָדֶךָ כִּי אֵינְךָ יוֹדֵעַ אֵי זֶה יִכְשָׁר הֲזֶה אוֹ זֶה וְאִם שְׁנֵיהֶם כְּאֶחָד טוֹבִים״. רַבִּי עֲקִיבָא אוֹמֵר: לָמַד תּוֹרָה בְּיַלְדוּתוֹ — יִלְמוֹד תּוֹרָה בְּזִקְנוּתוֹ. הָיוּ לוֹ תַּלְמִידִים בְּיַלְדוּתוֹ — יִהְיוּ לוֹ תַּלְמִידִים בְּזִקְנוּתוֹ, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר: ״בַּבֹּקֶר זְרַע אֶת זַרְעֶךָ וְגוֹ׳״. אָמְרוּ: שְׁנֵים עָשָׂר אָלֶף זוּגִים תַּלְמִידִים הָיוּ לוֹ לְרַבִּי עֲקִיבָא מִגְּבָת עַד אַנְטִיפְרַס, וְכוּלָּן מֵתוּ בְּפֶרֶק אֶחָד, מִפְּנֵי שֶׁלֹּא נָהֲגוּ כָּבוֹד זֶה לָזֶה. וְהָיָה הָעוֹלָם שָׁמֵם, עַד שֶׁבָּא רַבִּי עֲקִיבָא אֵצֶל רַבּוֹתֵינוּ שֶׁבַּדָּרוֹם וּשְׁנָאָהּ לָהֶם: רַבִּי מֵאִיר, וְרַבִּי יְהוּדָה, וְרַבִּי יוֹסֵי, וְרַבִּי שִׁמְעוֹן, וְרַבִּי אֶלְעָזָר בֶּן שַׁמּוּעַ, וְהֵם הֵם הֶעֱמִידוּ תּוֹרָה אוֹתָהּ שָׁעָה. תָּנָא, כּוּלָּם מֵתוּ מִפֶּסַח וְעַד עֲצֶרֶת. אָמַר רַב חָמָא בַּר אַבָּא וְאִיתֵּימָא רַבִּי חִיָּיא בַּר אָבִין: כּוּלָּם מֵתוּ מִיתָה רָעָה. מַאי הִיא? אָמַר רַב נַחְמָן: אַסְכָּרָה.

… The Sages said: Ribbi ‘Aqiva had 12,000 pairs of students from Gevat to Antiparas, and they all died in the same time period because they did not conduct themselves respectfully one towards another, and the world was empty (of Torah) until Ribbi ‘Aqiva came to our Rabbis of the south and taught it to them: Ribbi Meir, Ribbi Yehudah, Ribbi Yosei, Ribbi Shim’on (Bar Yohhai), and Ribbi El’azar Ben Shamua’, and they are the ones who reestablished the Torah at that very time. It was taught in a Barayta: they all died between Pessah and Shavu’ot. Rav Hama Bar Abba said, and there are those who say that it was Ribbi Hiyya Bar Avin: they all died a harsh death. And what was it? Rav Nahhman said: Askarah (a respiratory illness, see here).

This source is the one and only mention in the entire Talmud of this plague and the traditionally understood reason behind it. There is no mention made of particular observances or customs pertaining thereto - all of which seem to have arisen many generations later.

The Shulhhan ‘Arukh wrote an entire Siman on the topic (493) and holds as Halakhah that we should not cut our hair or officiate weddings during the first 33 days of the ‘Omer, since that’s when Ribbi ‘Aqiva’s students died and tradition has it that that plague ended on the 33rd day of the ‘Omer. It is crucial to note that neither the 33rd day of the ‘Omer nor any commemoration whatsoever of Ribbi ‘Aqiva’s disciples is mentioned anywhere in the Talmud.

Back to Hair

The Mishnah and Talmud teach us that we are forbidden from cutting our hair or trimming our beards during Hol Homo’ed (see Shulhhan ‘Arukh here). It isn’t because there is so much work involved, though it could potentially be because not everyone owned scissors and the few professionals who did cut hair were meant to take the holiday off. Generally speaking, work is permitted on Hol Hamo’ed, but HZ”L sought to distinguish between work that is necessary in order to avoid or minimize loss (e.g. irrigating a field, smoking away agricultural pests) and that which is meant to generate wealth - especially if it can wait. One who was indisposed before Hag (e.g. at sea, in prison, ill, etc.) may get a secret haircut on Hol Hamo’ed, but the general population is expected to either get it done before the Hag or to tend to it afterwards.

This needs to be understood on the backdrop of what was done back in the day. Men generally wore beards in antiquity, and this was likely for a variety of reasons.

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Who is Haman?

It is very common when introducing an important personage in the TN”Kh that they’re introduced by the typical patronymics. Take for example Morekhai:

אִ֣ישׁ יְהוּדִ֔י הָיָ֖ה בְּשׁוּשַׁ֣ן הַבִּירָ֑ה וּשְׁמ֣וֹ מׇרְדֳּכַ֗י בֶּ֣ן יָאִ֧יר בֶּן־שִׁמְעִ֛י בֶּן־קִ֖ישׁ אִ֥ישׁ יְמִינִֽי: (אסתר ב:ה)

A Judean man was in Shushan, the capitol, and his name was Mordekhai, son of Yair, son of Shim’i, son of Qish, a Benjaminite. (Ester 2:5)

Mordekhai’s lineage is traced back three generations to his great-grandfather - more, in fact, than most genealogical introductions in the TN”Kh, which usually only go back to the father, and in exceptional cases to the grandfather. In the case of Haman, however, we encounter a glitch:

אַחַ֣ר ׀ הַדְּבָרִ֣ים הָאֵ֗לֶּה גִּדַּל֩ הַמֶּ֨לֶךְ אֲחַשְׁוֵר֜וֹשׁ אֶת־הָמָ֧ן בֶּֽן־הַמְּדָ֛תָא הָאֲגָגִ֖י וַֽיְנַשְּׂאֵ֑הוּ וַיָּ֙שֶׂם֙ אֶת־כִּסְא֔וֹ מֵעַ֕ל כׇּל־הַשָּׂרִ֖ים אֲשֶׁ֥ר אִתּֽוֹ׃ (אסתר ג:א)

Afterwards King Ahhashwerosh promoted Haman, son of Hammedatha, the Agagite, and he advanced him and put his seat above that of all of his fellow officers. (Ester 3.1)

Haman’s is described as the son of Hammedatha, his father, and as an “Agagi” - a descendant of Agag. The only problem is that Agag - although one of Haman’s true ancestors - lived over 500 years prior to Haman and the entire story of the Megillah. Agag was not only a contemporary of Shaul Hammelekh, he was actually the cause of Shaul’s ultimate deposition and why David Hammelekh was appointed in his stead.

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It happens to us all on an almost daily basis: we need to make an important choice between two or more reasonable, viable, and justifiable courses of action. And yet here we are - in a world of unprecedented prosperity, choices, and availability of goods and services - suffering from anxiety, depression, and chemical dependencies, and medicated at unprecedented rates. It is highly likely that some of our mental health challenges stem from a surplus of possibilities - what the French refer to as “l’embarras du choix” - the predicament of choice: when presented with more than one option, we begin to obfuscate, deliberate, analyze, and weigh the choices so carefully that we find ourselves incapable of taking one course of action with full confidence.

Often times we procrastinate and distract ourselves out of dread of the axe having to come down in favor of one or the other. Worse yet, once we do finally make a choice after being presented with viable alternatives, we offer suffer from buyer’s remorse: a process of doubt, regret, and lack of confidence in the choice we made in light of the merits of the other options that we left on the table. To complicate matters further still, knowing that you may eventually experience buyer’s remorse in the future (or already have in the past) doesn’t make the process of settling on any given option any easier. It only adds to the unease and discomfort of having to choose in the first place when you know that no matter what you choose you may find yourself regretting it in short order.

Enter Rav Maimon Retbi

I first met Rav Retbi, from whom I had the good fortune of learning most of my Torah, in the year 1999. I had just arrived in Israel from the US, and he had a son who studied in the same Yeshivah in Mizpeh Yerihho. Rav Retbi came for a rare visit on an “in” Shabbat at the Yeshivah - something exceedingly rare since he gradually lost his eyesight in his late teens and early twenties and did not enjoy having to learn to navigate new landscapes with his walking stick. One of his son’s best friends knew Rav Retbi from their neighborhood in Yerushalayim, so he took advantage of the visit to push him to give us a Shi’ur on the Parashah. The Shi’ur was very well received, despite being incredibly deep and perhaps over the heads of at least some of the participants.

I myself and a few others were immediately hooked, so Rav Retbi started teaching a weekly Shi’ur in the Yeshivah. As I got to know him better, I was able to organize a weekly Shi’ur at his apartment in Yerushalayim for a much smaller and more carefully selected crowd. As I made ‘Aliyah and went to Yeshivah after college, not high school, I happened to be entering the Shiddukh phase of my life at the time. And that’s when I ran into some serious dilemmas with some very far-reaching consequences (spoiler alert: I made the right choice, I love my wife, and things ultimately worked out).

But the choices were tough ones; the doubts and deliberations were very real, and the competition was stiff. I received Shiddukh proposals from some fine families and was introduced to some very accomplished young women that I at least thought might have what I needed to find in a wife that could make for a fruitful and productive Torah life and career. So how does one choose while drowning in a pool of top-notch options with no end in sight? And how do I not end up like so many men and women that we all know who had so much difficulty choosing the right person that they were never able to settle and therefore never settled down?

The test

I approached Rav Retbi when I found myself in this dilemma having to choose between two excellent options. With my whole life ahead of me, the weight of the choice was crushing and it was driving me out of my mind and ruining my ability to focus. His answer was brilliant: in order to make the best choice that you can, you need to invite your Yezer Hara’ (generally translated as “evil inclination”, though there are better definitions that we will take up in a separate post) out of the shadows and into the conversation in a serious and brutally honest way.

The way he explained it, part of the dilemma is your desire to do the right thing, and the other part is your fear of doing the wrong thing. If you can reduce the fear-driven side of the problem by tackling it first, you’ll gain both some clarity and some confidence, and the better choice becomes clearer and easier to make without all the regrets. In practice what he said was to make a list on a sheet of paper or a whiteboard, and to make two columns; one for Yezer Hara’, and the other for Yezer Hatov. First things first, list all of the BAD reasons why you’d prefer one option over the other. In this case the obvious pitfalls were physical attraction (which has its place, but can obviously lead to disastrous choices), family pedigree, prestige, educational resume, etc. None of them mean that this particular girl is the wrong choice per se, only that they are potentially confounding factors in the decision-making process.

Now that that’s out of the way, what are the GOOD reasons that any one girl would make the best choice? This isn’t to say that a girl can’t be both beautiful AND accomplished. That’s actually the ultimate win-win. But it paints a veeeeeeery different picture when you put things in writing and know who the other side is voting for.

Does her physical appearance skew my judgment? (Many a study certainly seems to suggest so.) So instead of selecting for or against it, the Retbi test is a challenge to survey both sides of your Yezer before making a commitment. In other words, now I know at least what Yezer Hara’ is voting for. And with that knowledge in hand, it doesn’t become impossible for the more attractive choice to win, it just means that that choice requires more scrutiny in order to win the ultimate approval of Yezer Hatov.

The test can be applied to any choice one makes, so a few more examples may help the beauty of it sink in.

Work

If I’m presented with 3 job offers, I need to sort through a lot of information in order to make a responsible choice for myself and my family. When we think “job”, we’re usually looking at the salary as the primary criterion by which the choice is made. But there may be some very good reasons - and some profoundly bad ones - to select based on salary alone: the commute, potential relocation, the educational opportunities available to us and our children should we move, and personal/spiritual concerns such as the environment in the workplace, my new potential coworkers, their attitudes, position in life, sense of humor, habits, etc.

So if we apply the Retbi test, I flag my greatest potentially misleading factor as a favorite of Yezer Hara’s. With money comes power, prestige, and financial comforts that can seriously distort my priorities in life, the stability of my marriage, and our approach to money itself - which may become much more casual and less intentional if we’re not careful with how we spend it. (I’ve written quite a stack of Gittin in my time that has shown me enough examples of this to last a lifetime.) So Yezer Hara’ often pulls for the job offer that promises the higher salary.

Now we approach the question from the side of Yezer Hatov:

Where will my marriage be more likely to flourish?

What holds the most promise for my children and their future?

Are they in need of more money in order to achieve our goals for their education and future - or do they need more of my time and attention at home in order to get where we’d like for them to go?

And what does this new job environment look like?

Will I be in an office run by a bunch of arrogant men and women telling each other crass jokes, trying to coerce me into their political beliefs, or inviting me out to places that I ought to be avoiding?

Will the location and the people in it be understanding of my religious commitments and lifestyle, e.g. early departure and absence out of respect for Shabbat and Hagim, the flexibility to attend religious, family, lifecycle events as they come up, etc.?

Where is the work more meaningful and more rewarding in non-monetary terms?

Should I consider working for less money but doing work that leaves me less drained and more satisfied with my efforts?

Or should I be doing harder or less pleasant work in return for more money?

Is the work they’re asking me to do moral, ethical, and spiritually gratifying?

Or will I be required to push and pull people in directions that they don’t want, sell them things they don’t need, etc.?

Home

This is one of the best places to apply the Retbi test, since so many factors go into purchasing a home and the investment and commitment are so huge:

If Yezer Hara’ were my real estate agent, what is he trying to pitch me? Status? Prestige? Exclusivity? Size of the house? Number of rooms? The yards? Etc.

Once we’ve cleared that up, where would Yezer Hatov want us to live, and why?

Which house/neighborhood/community best suits our spiritual priorities?

Where do the people in each community fall in terms of their priorities in education, social life, family life, etc.?

Should we choose to live here, are we prepared for the sacrifices that might entail - commute, distance from family (not always a disadvantage), etc.?

Even if the ideal home involves making sacrifices, more travel, less free time, etc., what could we do to offset that? And how likely are we to do it?

The Retbi test even works through multiple layers of complexity. My experiences in life and counseling have proven that the bigger factors aren’t always as impactful as what we choose to do in order to offset the downsides once a choice is made. If the entire family needs to relocate for my new job opportunity and my wife works as well, what problems might this create? Does it make life easier to the point that she no longer needs to work and can stay home if that’s what she wants? Does it afford us the ability to engage some hired help and relieve her of some of the household chores? If we both still need to work and this increases her commute meaningfully, what can I do to help offset that? If I decide to take the job that I like better - despite the fact that it inconveniences her, if she feels that I’m only adding stress and she doesn’t see the benefits offsetting it, my ideal job scenario may yield more stress than blessing at home.

Add this tool to your arsenal and see what wonders it can do for tough judgment calls. Simplifying and illuminating the decision-making process will help you arrive at better conclusions, reduce the stress and anxiety in the entire process, and offer you insight into where your struggles lie.

May our choices - especially the hard ones - find favor in the eyes of Hashem and the people in our lives, Amen.

What constitutes trustworthiness in Kashrut?

The main source for the discussion on competence and reliability in Kashrut is in the first chapter of Masekhet Hhulin, where the Talmud grapples with the issue of whose Shehhitah we may rely upon. (As a matter of fact, there are quite a few crucial Halakhic discussions that begin there, among them who is considered Halakhically “observant”, and how one can be qualified as mentally incompetent, but we will have to take those up in a later post). The Talmud launches into this discussion right off the bat since the opening Mishnah of the Masekhet discusses who is qualified to shecht:

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To this day it remains one of the most meaningful and impactful Shi’urim I’ve ever heard. The title of the Shi’ur was “Hhumrot”. And from the tone and from the sound of his voice, I got the impression that Rav Reuven was on the warpath right out of the gate. I’d like to share with you a few gems from that Shi’ur then we can explore the ideas and how they’ve aged in the 28 years since I first heard that lecture.

I recall Rav Reuven starting the Shi’ur with a quote from his father, Rav Moshe, saying that if you take a bird’s eye view of the Halakhic trends of the past 100 years or so, what you’ll find is that almost without exception every newly introduced or recently popularized Hhumra (stricture) in Halakhic practice or custom is in a domain of Halakhah that is quantifiable and in some way material. The volume of your Qiddush cup. The dimensions of your Tallit and Zizit. The size, shape, and volume of your Etrog. The dimensions of your Tefillin. And perhaps the biggest Hhumra of all: how much you paid for each of your “Hiddurim” (embellishments).

Some background

To give you some very needed context for this discussion, Rav Moshe Feinstein was a giant of Torah and in particular Halakhah. And by that I mean that he wasn’t just writing Teshuvot (Halakhic responsa) for the Halakhic elites; he was very much the people’s Poseq. He thoroughly researched and wrote on issues of modernity and technology, he was asked questions on medicine, life support, brain death, abortion, IVF, etc., and by and large he made great efforts to rule in favor of leniency wherever possible.

He was born in the 1895 in Uzda, Belarus, and lived through World War I and the Bolshevik Revolution. He saw the established communities of Eastern Europe struggle with the Enlightenment and industrialization, and then suffer terribly under communism and state-sanctioned atheist oppression. And then he left the USSR for the US in 1937, where he saw the American communities - many of them comprised of immigrants from communities he had known so well in Eastern Europe - facing spiritual struggles of an entirely different kind, namely those of a lack of Jewish communal and educational institutions of all kinds and the challenges of integration and assimilation.

So after millennia of traditional observance, followed by atheist, anti-religious oppression, the communities of the America that Rav Moshe guided were, for perhaps the first time in Jewish history, living among people who accepted them so openly and offered them so much societal and cultural freedom that they, somewhat ironically, began to lose their own identity. Encouraging Halakhic observance was a unique challenge, and in a culture that opened so many educational and occupational doors, making Mizwot any more difficult or more expensive than they needed to be was not going to fly. And so Rav Moshe’s early rabbinic work was focused on making Jewish life possible and bearable under the jackboots of communist surveillance and persecution, and yet his later work with communities who had almost completely forgotten about oppression didn’t change his approach to making Halakhah viable, practicable, and attainable for people who looked at religion very differently once liberty and tolerance finally came their way.

The source

The Torah tells us at the very end of Parashat Yitro (Shemot 20:22):

וְלֹֽא־תַעֲלֶ֥ה בְמַעֲלֹ֖ת עַֽל־מִזְבְּחִ֑י אֲשֶׁ֛ר לֹֽא־תִגָּלֶ֥ה עֶרְוָתְךָ֖ עָלָֽיו׃

And do not ascend on steps to my altar, such that your nakedness (‘Erwah) shall not be exposed upon it.

The technical (Peshat) explanation of this Pasuq is that when one ascends on steps of any kind, the hems of his tunic would hike up, and as a result the underside of his body (i.e. his nakedness) would be exposed. And although this is true in general, the applicability of this concept here is bizarre since, as the Midrash points out, the Kohanim are commanded to wear fitted pants under their tunics (Shemot Rabbah 30:2):

מה כתיב למעלה מן הענין? (שמות כ:כב) “ולא תעלה במעלות על מזבחי”. וכתיב: (שמות כא:א) “ואלה המשפטים… ” וכי מה ענין זה אצל זה? וכי ערותן של כהנים היתה מגולה? והרי כתיב : (שמות כח:מב) “ועשה להם מכנסי בד לכסות בשר ערוה”! אלא אמר רבי אבינא: כשם שהזהיר הקב”ה את הכהנים שלא יהו פוסעין פסיעות גסות על גבי המזבח, אלא יהו מהלכין עקב בצד גודל, כך הזהיר הקב”ה את הדיינין, שלא יפסיעו פסיעות גסות בדין:

What is written before this topic? (Shemot 20:22) “And thou shalt not ascend on steps to my altar.” And it is written [right afterwards] (Shemot 21:1) “And these are the laws that you shall put before them.” But what does this have to do with that? Is the nakedness of the Kohanim exposed? Behold it is written (Shemot 28:42) “And make them pants of fabric to cover the flesh of their nakedness”! Rather Ribbi Avina said: just as the Holy One, blessed be He, warned the Kohanim not to take broad steps towards the altar, but rather to walk heel to toe, so too the holy One, blessed be He, warned the judges not to take broad steps in judgment.

So the teaching is applied more broadly to the service of God: just as when approaching the altar one must take the ramp (since we learn from here that we may not construct steps), and just as on a ramp one takes shorter, more cautious steps, so too in judgment one must approach litigation cautiously and not “jump” to conclusions. In other words, where there are steps, one can try to skip them and advance even faster, albeit at the expense of making such broad steps that he exposes himself. And this is something less likely to happen on a ramp.

A deeper meaning

In his weekly Parashah Shi’ur, Rav David Feinstein taught us something fascinating about this Pasuq. The term ‘Erwah (nakedness) appears towards the end of Humash Bereishit in the interaction between Yosef and his brothers (Bereishit 42:9):

וַיֹּ֤אמֶר אֲלֵהֶם֙ מְרַגְּלִ֣ים אַתֶּ֔ם לִרְא֛וֹת אֶת־עֶרְוַ֥ת הָאָ֖רֶץ בָּאתֶֽם׃

He said to them “you are spies! You came to see the [‘Erwah] of the land!

It certainly does not make any sense to translate nakedness literally in the context of the geography of a country like Egypt. RaSh”Y picks up on this and explains:

ערות הארץ....גִּלּוּי הָאָרֶץ – מֵהֵיכָן הִיא נוֹחָה לִכָּבֵשׁ… וְכֵן כָּל עֶרְוָה שֶׁבַּמִּקְרָא לְשון גִּלּוּי

“The ‘Erwah of the land” - it’s exposure, from where it is most easily conquered… And in the same way any “‘Erwah” in Scripture denotes exposure

In other words, said Rav David, its weakness. We’re used to thinking of exposure in terms of modesty and immodesty (as in indecent exposure), and although it is most often used that way in Scripture, it actually describes exposure more generally, in this case in the context of weakness. And just an attack to the groin exposes a particular weakness (see Devarim 25:11 for biblical proof of that particular technique) - not dissimilar to searching for the weakest link in a nation’s defense, there is a “weakness” exposed when one tries to climb or even skip steps.

Rav David said that skipping steps is often something one does in an attempt to decrease the time it takes to get from Point A to Point B. In the context of the Torah and its commandments, we most commonly encounter this when one tries to take too much upon himself, be it in an effort to impress others, to make up for lost time when repenting, or even in an act of personal hubris when one would like to go further and do more than his own soul is ready to take on. What the Torah is telling us is that it is in this type of haste that one typically exposes his own weaknesses - and puts them on plain display for all to see.

To be clear, the spiritual journey is a long and winding road. We start out ignorant and hope to learn over time how to do better, how to better adjust ourselves, our lives, and lifestyles to more harmonious interactions with others in our lives and to come closer, metaphorically speaking, to our Creator. Problems arise when we try to take on too much, when we do things for the wrong reasons, and when we skip the more fundamental precepts and practices and look to try “advanced mode”. Skipped steps become visible when the foundation starts to crack.

Someone who tries to go on a special diet in an effort to take a step away from materialism and towards a more enlightened spiritual state is being counterproductive if the caloric deficit makes him irritable, impatient, and unpleasant to be around. Someone trying to make an impression by spending an excessive sum of money on a fancy pair of Tefillin or a ridiculously expensive Etrog will have his weakness exposed by those who know where he is particularly spiritually stingy in contrast to where he goes all out.

I recall one individual in particular who used to brag about how much he paid for his fancy Tefillin, how he had to pull this Sofer out of retirement to write just this one last pair, and how he paid $2,400.00 for them - which he put down in advance and only received some 6 months later. This same guy used to yell at his wife in front of company (including in my own presence on more than one occasion), and one couldn’t help but wonder if he himself understood how ridiculous he looked being so incredibly meticulous about one Mizwah while violating who knows how many - and far more important ones - in how he treated his wife and the poor example he set for his children.

I worked a summer job in my early high school days at testing lab in Fairfield, NJ. The lab received all kinds of items to run through all kinds of testing standards: furniture, exercise equipment, gloves, helmets, textiles, construction materials, packaging, etc. I worked most of that summer in the furniture testing lab, where we would build chairs, work stations, tables, etc, according to the manufacturer’s instructions, and then set up pneumatic pistons to drop sandbags that approximated the weight of an average adult sitting on the item tens of thousands of times to see if it holds up. Some tests were run to a particular specification (e.g. 100,000 cycles), and other standards called for a “test to failure”. Once the item in question broke, the lab tech would have to fill out a report of how many repetitions it survived, as recorded on a mechanical counter, and how and where it failed.

Solid wood furniture that is properly designed and assembled can last quite a while and take a real beating. Cheaper manufacturers would look to save money on screws, staples, glue, low-quality joinery, poor upholstery, etc. It always comes out in the test. The weakest component is the first one to fail, and it doesn’t matter how strong or pretty the rest of it is; once any component broke, the test was over. As I learned more about these cost-saving strategies, I got better and better at predicting which component would fail. And after I heard this Shi’ur from Rav David, it made a whole lot of sense to me in a way that has served me very well throughout my rabbinic career.

In practice

Exercise great caution when deciding to take upon yourself a stricture, a routine, a budget - anything that reflects a change in how you prioritize your time, effort, energy, and money. And I don’t mean to say that you should never change or grow - quite to the contrary. Just make sure that any tweaks or adjustments that you do make you are ready for, and they are right for you and anyone else who may be affected (spouse, children, parents, etc.). You can and should expect some divine inspection of your priority list, and if it’s in line with who you are, where you stand, where you’d like to go, and how to get there responsibly, then go for it. If you’re not sure, be aware that you may well be incurring more scrutiny by the people around you and by your Creator, and instead of showing the world how strong you are, you may end up inadvertently exposing the very same weakness that ought to have drawn your attention and that was in need of repair before you took that leap.

Aside from being Moshe Rabbenu’s father-in-law, Yitro is introduced as “Kohen Midyan”, a Midyanite priest. And although he originates from Midyan, his interests in idolatry went far beyond the borders of that country. HZ”L teach in Mekhilta Deribbi Shim’on (18:11) about Yitro’s choice of words in his famous exclamation (Shemot 18:11):

עַתָּ֣ה יָדַ֔עְתִּי כִּֽי־גָד֥וֹל ה’ מִכׇּל־הָאֱלֹהִ֑ים כִּ֣י בַדָּבָ֔ר אֲשֶׁ֥ר זָד֖וּ עֲלֵיהֶֽם׃

"I now know that Hashem is greater than all of the gods…”

ד”א “כי גדול ה’ מכל האלהים” - אמרו מתחלה לא הניח יתרו ע”ז בעולם שלא עבדה, עכשו הודה בדבר שנ’ “אלהים”, “האלהים”, “כל האלהים”, מכל האלהים

An alternative interpretation: "that Hashem is greater than all other gods” - it was said that originally Yitro hadn’t left a single form of idolatry in the world that he hadn’t worshipped; now he came to admit (that Hashem is the greatest of all), as it is said, [not the greatest] “god”, not “the god”, not “all gods”, [but rather] “of all gods”.

HZ”L insist that the wording clearly implies that Yitro had an intimate familiarity with all of the other gods known to be worshipped in his time, as he had investigated and worshipped all of them before arriving at the truth of the Torah. He took the long and winding road, as it were, but what he witnessed with his own eyes (either the war with ‘Amaleq or the splitting of the Red Sea) demonstrated how Hashem’s promises to us were being fulfilled right before his very own eyes, and that real-time manifestation of prophetic promises was what inspired him to convert.

And although we would never ideally recommend to anyone serious about their spirituality to take the scenic route with all of its twists and turns before availing themselves of the Torah’s wisdom, it appears that one of the most influential Jews of all time found his way to us by taking every possible detour on his path to spiritual enlightenment. Strange but true. And, as it turns out, Yitro was not alone his approach.

Who was Rahhav?

The Talmud comments on the following Pasuq in Yehoshua (2:11):

וַנִּשְׁמַע֙ וַיִּמַּ֣ס לְבָבֵ֔נוּ וְלֹא־קָ֨מָה ע֥וֹד ר֛וּחַ בְּאִ֖ישׁ מִפְּנֵיכֶ֑ם כִּ֚י ה’ אֱלֹקיכֶ֔ם ה֤וּא אֱלֹ'קים֙ בַּשָּׁמַ֣יִם מִמַּ֔עַל וְעַל־הָאָ֖רֶץ מִתָּֽחַת׃

We heard and our hearts melted, and no man’s spirit has awoken for fear of you; for the Eternal One your Judge - He is the Judge the heavens above and on Earth below.

And so the Gemara (Zevahhim 116A-B) says:

ולא קמה עוד רוח באיש - דאקשויי נמי לא אקשו. ומנא ידעה? שלא היה כל שר ונגיד שלא בא על רחב הזונה.

“and no man’s spirit has awoken” - from here we learn that they (the male inhabitants of Yerihho) all became impotent. And how did she know? Since there wasn’t an officer or a dignitary who hadn’t had relations with Rahhav the prostitute.

HZ”L seize on the peculiar words that Rahhav uses to express the fear that the nations inhabiting Erez Kena’an were experiencing, as the expression itself doesn’t appear anywhere else in TN”Kh. And given that she is introduced as a prostitute (Yehoshua’ 2:1 אשה זונה ושמה רחב; “a prostitute named Rahhav”), it follows suit that her particular profession offered her a unique insight into the moods, attitudes, and capabilities of the men of her time. The Gemara goes on to do the math and arrives at the conclusion that she heard about the splitting of the Red Sea 40 years prior, engaged in her work for the 40 years since, and was unemployed once the nations living in the Land of Kena’an heard that Hashem had yet again performed a water-related miracle by temporarily stopping the waters of the Jordan River. Now that the Jews were camped out on the far bank of the Jordan, the men knew that the end was nigh, and the fear clearly had a corporeal impact on them.

Rahhav decides to help Yehoshua’s spies case the city of Yerihho, she hides them from the soldiers who were sent to capture them, and she and her family are saved during the conquest of the city. And not only does she convert, but she ends up marrying Yehoshua’ himself, a topic worthy of a great deal of study and exploration if anything ever was. (Perhaps in a future post)

So Yitro finds himself in the unique company of Rahhav, who herself also made a point of experiencing everything there was to experience in her particular field of expertise before she became fully convinced of the veracity and authenticity of the Torah. And in her case as well it had to do with how and when the promises Hashem made to us began to be fulfilled.

Who was Shelomo Hamelekh?

Shelomo Hamelekh is a genuine puzzle. Although he is described in many places in scripture, the Talmud, and Midrashim as the wisest of all men who ever lived, some of his choices strikes us as not only odd, but in apparent contravention of the Torah and its commandments. Of his wisdom Scripture says the following (Melakhim I, 5:10-11):

וַתֵּ֙רֶב֙ חׇכְמַ֣ת שְׁלֹמֹ֔ה מֵחׇכְמַ֖ת כׇּל־בְּנֵי־קֶ֑דֶם וּמִכֹּ֖ל חׇכְמַ֥ת מִצְרָֽיִם׃

וַיֶּחְכַּם֮ מִכׇּל־הָאָדָם֒ מֵאֵיתָ֣ן הָאֶזְרָחִ֗י וְהֵימָ֧ן וְכַלְכֹּ֛ל וְדַרְדַּ֖ע בְּנֵ֣י מָח֑וֹל וַיְהִֽי־שְׁמ֥וֹ בְכׇֽל־הַגּוֹיִ֖ם סָבִֽיב׃

“And Shelemo’s wisdom was greater than the wisdom of all of the inhabitants of Qedem, and greater than all of the wisdom of Egypt.

He was wiser than any man, from Eitan the Ezrahhite and Heyman and Kalkol and Darda’ and the descendants of Mahhol; and his reputation spread to all surrounding nations.”

So Shelomo was blessed - not only with the wisdom of the Torah, but with the wisdom of all of the known nations of his time; Egypt, the Qedemites, etc.

And we find later in Sefer Melakhim (I, 11:1-3):

וְהַמֶּ֣לֶךְ שְׁלֹמֹ֗ה אָהַ֞ב נָשִׁ֧ים נׇכְרִיּ֛וֹת רַבּ֖וֹת וְאֶת־בַּת־פַּרְעֹ֑ה מוֹאֲבִיּ֤וֹת עַמֳּנִיּוֹת֙ אֲדֹ֣מִיֹּ֔ת צֵֽדְנִיֹּ֖ת חִתִּיֹּֽת׃

מִן־הַגּוֹיִ֗ם אֲשֶׁ֣ר אָֽמַר־ה אֶל־בְּנֵ֨י יִשְׂרָאֵ֜ל לֹא־תָבֹ֣אוּ בָהֶ֗ם וְהֵם֙ לֹא־יָבֹ֣אוּ בָכֶ֔ם אָכֵן֙ יַטּ֣וּ אֶת־לְבַבְכֶ֔ם אַחֲרֵ֖י אֱלֹהֵיהֶ֑ם בָּהֶ֛ם דָּבַ֥ק שְׁלֹמֹ֖ה לְאַהֲבָֽה׃

וַיְהִי־ל֣וֹ נָשִׁ֗ים שָׂרוֹת֙ שְׁבַ֣ע מֵא֔וֹת וּפִלַגְשִׁ֖ים שְׁלֹ֣שׁ מֵא֑וֹת וַיַּטּ֥וּ נָשָׁ֖יו אֶת־לִבּֽוֹ׃

“And King Shelomo loved many foreign women and the daughter of Par’oh; Moabite women, ‘Ammonite women, Edomite women, Zidonite women, and Hittite women.

From the nations Hashem said to the Israelites “you shall not mix with them, and they shall not mix with you, they shall indeed tilt your hearts after their gods; Shelomo clung to them in love.

He had 700 chief wives and 300 concubines, and his wives tilted his heart.”

Although Shelomo was born Jewish, we see clearly that he had an interest in connecting with the nations of the world - in fact, almost all of the nations of the known world of his time, and now we see that it is both in the capacity of studying their wisdom AND in marriage or concubinage. Why would such a thought or desire have a place in soul the wisest of all men? Wisdom we could perhaps understand, but marriage? And how could something that’s in such flagrant violation of black-and-white Mizwot in our Torah have been carried out by someone of unparalleled wisdom?

To be clear, Shelomo did violate the Torah, and as a result his entire kingdom was torn in two between the Kingdom of Judea and the Kingdom of Israel. It hastened the destruction of Beit Hamiqdash and ultimately the exile and diaspora. We will hopefully look more deeply into this in a future post, but the connection I’d like to make here is the following.

What do we learn?

Hashem created the entire universe and everything in it, and everything has its place and its purpose. And although not all items in God’s creation are of equal importance, they are all crucial to the fulfillment of the goals of the Creation, because if they weren’t, they would not exist. This means that everything has a divine purpose to it, and if we analyze it thoroughly enough, we should be able to find the “divine spark” that it represents and how the Creation would be incomplete without it.

This applies to everything from the planets, stars, and inanimate objects, to the plant kingdom, animals, and humans - both as individuals and as nations. Of the 70 nations of the world listed in Parashat Noahh, there obviously isn’t a single one that doesn’t serve a divine purpose. That’s certainly not to say that they’re all righteous or even that they usually fulfill their purpose (people have free will to do good or bad, so they can’t by definition be fulfilling the will of God just by being there), but it does mean that there is something to their existence and their essence that we must be able to learn from and without which our understanding of the world is lacking.

There is more than one secret lurking here. For brevity’s sake I’ll sum it up as follows: while it is clear that we all have to learn from the entire Creation and everything in it - including, perhaps most especially - the people in it, this type of expansive inquiry is wrought with complication and potentially dangerous. Confusion, distraction, and even worse, assimilation are the dangers that await someone willing to take the risk of studying all of humanity in order to understand it that much better and be able to apply this knowledge in real life, in real time, in the service of Hashem. And there are obviously practical applications when it comes to converts and conversion that we will discuss elsewhere as well.

The greatest of souls are, at least in theory, those that on the one hand are blessed with a breadth of spirit that yearns for the most expansive and complete understanding that one can hope to achieve, and at the same time those - in theory - most capable of handling and managing such a breadth and depth of spiritual information productively. It is, however, far from a guarantee. The risks exist all the same, and with a tremendous Neshamah comes tremendous power but also great responsibility.

In the case of Yitro, his gift to the world was understanding spirituality both in theory and in practice. Moshe married his daughter, and that was no accident. This is the lens through which he viewed the world, and therefore the lens through which he needed to explore, experience, and understand how humanity connects with and serves its Creator. His conversion was the culmination of a lifetime of study and investigation, and it represented the pinnacle of his life’s achievement, where his Neshamah finally found its happy home and the ultimate way in which to express itself in divine service.

In the case of Rahhav, her unique gift was her curiosity, maybe her infatuation with love and the connection of one soul to another. We know this to be the ultimate connection that one can achieve on Earth, as it is the very first Mizwah given to Adam and Hhawah. Every aspect of the male-female relationship is divine in nature, though that does not mean that it cannot be perverted, contorted, and even defiled by debaucherous behavior and application out of the context of love in divine service. And though, just like Yitro, her initial pursuits appear to be completely wide of the mark, she eventually arrives at a point where she is able to distill all of her prior experiences and understandings into the motivation to convert - and even to pursue the ultimate human-to-human relationship in service of Hashem, where she marries Yehoshua’ and becomes the progenitor of more than one prophet.

So they are both born with unique Neshamot, with clearly powerful and determined drives and appetites to explore and understand the world in their own way, and they both bring their incredible experiences to ‘Am Yisrael - both of which are worthy of inclusion in the Torah and Nevi’im are committed to posterity for us to learn from. Which brings us to Shelomo.

Shelomo actually embodies an intense appetite for knowledge and understanding - as evidenced by his ultimate request of Hashem (Melakhim I, 3:9) for the ability to understand, which Hashem grants. And he has an equally powerful appetite to connect with souls - in fact, a mind-boggling variety of them, representing almost the entire world - which tragically leads him astray and into violation of the same Torah that motivated him to do all that he did in the first place. And although it baffles us as casual onlookers, the concept is clear and in plain sight: if we could measure these Neshamot in terms of intensity on a scale of absolute value, they are some of the most intense and the most powerful people to ever have lived. That some of their drive and pursuits led them off the beaten path is almost as much a feature of such Nishmatic intensity as it is a bug.

We will discuss these concepts in further depth and detail in future posts, but what I’d like you to take from this for now is the following: we typically judge people by their actions, which is really the only aspect of them that is visible to us, and that forms the basis of our relationships, how we adjudicate disputes and crimes, and how we form our opinions of the world, current events, and the individuals with whom we interact at home, at work, in community, and in society at large. But we can only see the tip of the Nishmatic iceberg. Sometimes, at least in some special cases, we are missing quite a bit of context and much understanding of the unique nature of the motivations of people whose abilities and drives are infinitely greater than our own.

In education, for example in school, it is very easy to reward the “good” children who are obedient, diligent, and generally very well behaved. But misbehavior can stem from many things, and for a soul operating on very high voltage, sitting still, fitting in, and doing what everyone else does is often not an option. These individuals think, act, react, and understand the world very differently from how we do, and it isn’t always due to a particular deficiency; sometimes their gift is itself a tremendous burden when we attempt to box it in, tie it down, and force it to conform. And although we would never advise anyone to run wild with their desires, the giants who often did step out of line sometimes became cornerstones of our nation’s history and trajectory.

It is far from a guarantee of success. It is fraught with dangers and temptations, and it probably fails more often than it succeeds. But such is life. And such is Torah. We have what to learn from everyone, but in particular the true giants of spirit - who often taught us more from their mistakes than we could teach others with our successes. And even if their drive drove them to make almost every mistake possible, there are cases in which they were not only redeemed, but they redeemed us themselves in that same process.

Both the theoretical and practical applications of this concept are too numerous to explore here. With God’s help we will continue this particular discussion and the principles and sources behind it in future posts.

Shabbat Shalom!

This question is a great springboard into a bunch of other related and equally fascinating questions, so let’s break it up into a few pieces.

What makes meat Kosher or not? (We’ll get to “Glatt” later on…)

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A historical perspective

Like so many other things, choices like this were simpler in many ways in antiquity. Chances are you went into your father’s line of work. Chances are you studied in whatever Yeshivah or school your community had to offer - if it had one at all, or in the nearest town to you if those were the closest and most accessible institutions. And there’s a really good chance that you married the one of the guys or girls that your parents knew, likely because they grew up with their parents, and the wedding date, terms, and conditions were often negotiated by them as well.

Back in the day the local community Rabbi was probably the only Rabbi in town. It made things simpler, but not necessarily easier. There was one local authority who ruled on all questions and set all the standards. There was generally a respect for Rabbis, and people either observed their rulings or had to face the disapproval of the communities in which they lived - which back then had far more consequences than it does today due to the difficulty in picking up, leaving a community, and finding a new one.

But it wasn’t necessarily easier. People have historically approached Rabbis with their most difficult, personal, intimate questions, and without some sense of connection it’s very difficult to open like that to someone else. And it’s not like you had anywhere else to go - your local Rabbi knew you better than the Rabbi of the next town over, and travel was dangerous, difficult, and expensive. The old-school Rabbi was a Halakhic authority, an educator, a judge, a psychologist, a marriage counselor, and a broker of truces between disputing parties. And he was either altogether unpaid or paid peanuts to boot. They worked for a living, just like everyone else, and they lived very meager and poor lives.

Rabbis and the printed word

With the advent of the printing press, more and more works became accessible to those who could afford them, and the rulings, teachings, and advice of Rabbis from very distant lands became available to the average middle class citizen. This brought with it many obvious advantages in terms of how information traveled and circulated and allowed for the price of books (formerly manuscripts copied over painstakingly by hand) to come down significantly. For those who couldn’t afford it or couldn’t find it, it was no longer necessary to learn with a private tutor or in an institution for quite as long in order to learn Torah - once you knew how to read with proficiency and you could learn pretty much anywhere you could find the books.

Some other effects of the spread of printed books were that one wasn’t quite as immediately dependent upon the local Rabbi for Halakhic rulings - much of the information needed to make such rulings was now affordable enough for at least some people, and so the types of questions they needed the local Rabbi for became perhaps less frequent but also more complex than what they could find on their own in common books.

Additionally, people could benefit from the writings of brilliant men who lived far away, and in some cases individuals who could afford to might have relocated in order to learn by prominent Rabbis who had earned their reputation among learners. It may have been a luxury, but moving in order to gain easier access to a Rabbi or Yeshivah goes back to the times of the Mishnah and the Talmud themselves (Avot 4:14): הוי גולה למקום תורה, ואל תאמר שהיא תבוא אחריך - you should exile yourself to a place of Torah, and you shouldn’t say that it will [eventually] find you…

Another effect worth noting is that the publication of printed Halakhic works very much expedited the standardization of practice across many communities. When the works of giants like the RMB”M became popular (e.g. the Mishneh Torah) - even as manuscripts - the entire Sepharadi (or perhaps more accurately the non-Ashkenazi) world stuck very close to the RMB”M’s rulings on Shabbat, Hagim, Kashrut, Tefillah, etc. It had a unifying effect on the one hand, and at the same time it inevitably drove to extinction many a local practice, custom, and tradition in favor of the now widely available Spanish standard.

The changing role of the Rabbi

As Rabbis no longer needed to interpret the Talmud and the subsequent commentaries on their own, rulings could be made based on the Mishneh Torah, the Tur, and later the Shulhhan ‘Arukh with relative ease for the vast majority of real-life situations. This may well have contributed to the explosion in more philosophical works coming out of medieval Spain and Germany, as perhaps the Rabbis had just a bit more free time on their hands and were able to invest more of it into more abstract and occasionally less technical thought. At least one century before the Expulsion from Spain in 1492 CE there was a growing movement of Qabbalistic literature emanating predominantly from Spain, which has undoubtedly changed the course of Jewish History, thought, and practice even further.

Meanwhile the questions being asked of local Rabbis seem to be increasing in complexity as well. If the basics had already been brought up and discussed, the questions that were published in the later medieval period include questions on custody arrangements for divorced coparents, increasingly complicated wills, business contracts, partnerships between Jews and non-Jews, more complicated cases brought to Batei Din for adjudication, larger-scale food preservation and production, etc. In some cases it was due to the nature of life in growing cities, which allowed for significantly larger communities than previously possible, and in other cases it reflected changes in the way life was being lived compared with antiquity. People and communities do change over time.

From Rabbi to Rebbe

The Hassidut movement certainly propelled rabbinics into a different realm altogether. In the 18th Century, when the Enlightenment had enticed many a Jewish man and woman into a more secular lifestyle, the Hassidim sought to rejuvenate the population with a renewed outlook on life, spiritual priorities, community living, and of course the Rabbi, who featured very prominently in their literature and practice.

Hassidim sought the Rebbe’s advice on many matters, spiritual, personal, relational, and material as well. And although it irked the original Mitnagdim (opponents of the Hassidut movement), the reality is that, whether they admit it or not, their communities rallied around their own Rabbis, who in many ways took very similar roles to the Rebbe in their own communities. The Lithuanian school of Torah has popularized terms like “Da’at Torah” (the Torah opinion on something), which does not appear to have enjoyed nearly as much usage in antiquity or in our foundational literature. In fact, save for the outward appearance, the difference between most Hassidic and non-Hassidic Haredi communities is not nearly as big as one might think in terms of family life, lifestyle, hierarchy, structure, institutions, and interactions with the outside world.

And it certainly seems as though the Hassidim were onto something, as their teachings have spread far beyond their own communities. But in particular, the central role of the Rebbe as one in whom a Jew can confide, someone with whom one could discuss challenges, problems, personal issues of all kinds, seems to have played a very central role in the success of Hassidut - particularly in the form of outreach (one area where Chabad certainly blazed a trail). Perhaps the answer to many of life’s questions - especially those posed by modernity, science, and philosophy - lies in a personal connection with someone who is knowledgeable, experienced, and able to offer personalized guidance without judgment.

What is the modern community?

I recall listening to a Shi’ur of Rav Herschel Schachter’s on YU Torah that I enjoyed very much (link here) on the topic of who takes priority over whom when it comes to the distribution of one’s charitable funds. The Talmud says (Bava Mez’iah 71A) ענייך ועניי עירך - ענייך קודמין, עניי עירך ועניי עיר אחרת - עניי עירך קודמין - [if the choice is between] your poor (i.e. your own family) and the poor of your town, your poor take precedence; the poor of your town and the poor of another town - the poor of your town take precedence. The Talmud establishes a clear picture with concentric circles of social influence, where one’s financial priorities must lie first with his own family, after which the community in which he lives, and only afterwards the poor of other communities. It stands to reason that if everyone took care of their own families, there would be less of a need for others to step in, and if every community took care of its poor, there would be less pressure on other communities to solve their problems.

Rav Schachter said in the name of Rav David Feinstein (the son of Rav Moshe Feinstein by whom I happen to have had the good fortune of learning for a year) that in a giant metropolis like New York City, “the poor of your community” must be understood to mean the poor with whom you associate, such that even if I live in closer proximity to someone who attends a different synagogue than I do or whose children learn in a different institution - my obligation must be to prioritize the people with whom I live, pray, study, socialize, celebrate, and mourn with.

Rav Schachter took this concept one step further and said that one’s community need no longer be understood as the immediate surroundings in this day and age, but rather if I spent my year in Israel at a particular Yeshivah, that Yeshivah is much more a part of my “community” than a Yeshivah in my town in which I have never set foot. The Miqweh that my wife uses, even if there is one closer to my home, is the part of my community to which I am more Halkhically bound when it comes time to give, and the schools that my children attend - regardless of their geographic location - are the schools that I must go out of my way to support.

How does one “choose” a Rabbi nowadays?

In this day and age, where travel is so much easier, far safer, and much more affordable, we are additionally blessed with digital communications which have afforded us the ability to interact with just about anyone in the world. We’re able to engage in live video conversations, to reach out via phone, SMS, email, etc., and we have access to more people than ever before. We are no longer limited in any of our relationships only to those people in close proximity, and we may not necessarily be interested in relocating and uprooting everything in order to benefit from the presence, guidance, teachings, or advice of any one given Rabbi.

There are two separate Mishnayot in Pirqei Avot - in the same chapter, in fact - that mention the imperative of finding one’s own Rabbi:
(Avot 1:6) עשה לך רב וקנה לך חבר - establish for yourself a Rabbi and acquire a friend (which need not necessarily be interpreted as one and the same individual), and:
(Avot 1:16) עשה לך רב והסתלק מן הספק - establish for yourself a Rabbi and evade doubts (which again need not necessarily be interpreted as a cause and effect)

What both Mishnayot have in common is that YOU, the individual, are the one responsible for finding or establishing a Rabbi for yourself. Geographical concerns aside, you may learn from whomever you wish, and you may consider any Rabbi who finds favor in your eyes as your Rabbi. This comes as a shock to many of us, but the Mishnah clearly indicates that anyone - even a layperson - has both the ability AND the responsibility to decide who his Rabbi will be. In other words, I don’t need to be a Rabbi in order to choose one for myself, and I don’t need any other Rabbi - learned though he may be - to tell me whom I should choose.

This is a vote of confidence on the part of HZ”L, and what I find most striking about it is that it puts the onus on the Rabbis themselves to be able to connect with laypeople, even the entirely uninitiated, and to present themselves such - via their conduct, their communication skills, and their character - that laypeople might want to associate themselves with them. At the same time it prevents anyone from being able to tell you that you must accept so-and-so as your Rabbi, that you must follow this individual and not that one, or that your choice has already been made for you by virtue of your geographical location.

There are of course issues of local important where the local community Rabbi has a say over how things are or should be - the local ‘Eruv, Miqweh, Beit Kenesset, etc., but those items are relatively limited in scope and not very intrusive in terms of how one runs one’s home. And since community infrastructure and certain other aspects of community life are of crucial importance, there is obviously a time and a place for deferring to the modern local Rabbi. But that’s the Rabbi that the community chooses nowadays anyway, and by and large that process has changed radically as well. There is a selection process, often preceded by a search committee, interviews, test Shabbatot, contracts are drafted, and there is often enough a member vote, a board decision, or some other form of community representation. What I’m discussing here is the choosing of the Rabbi in whom you confide, whose advice you are interested in following, and whose guidance you choose to accept.

HZ”L teach us in Masekhet ‘Avodah Zarah (19A) אין אדם למד אלא ממקום שלבו חפץ - one only learns from a place where his heart desires. It is a great benefit to us all to be able to look for and find sources of wisdom with whom we connect, and be able to choose from a broader variety than our ancestors could ever have imagined possible. And unlike purchasing and reading a book, it is probably even easier today than it has ever been to entertain some form of communication with Rabbis from all over the world, such that we can benefit not only from their wisdom but also from their continued advice and support.

In that sense maybe the internet may come one day to be seen as the next great revolution in Torah and community since the Hassidut movement. If it makes making the personal connection even a little bit easier, count me in.

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My goals for this community

My dream is to create and foster an online community where people of different backgrounds, from different locations across the globe, and of different levels of formal Jewish education can pose questions, dig deeper, and share ideas in a collaborative, respectful, and productive environment.

1. No questions are off limits

This is the place where the toughest questions are welcome. We invite them. The more contentious or controversial the topic, the more it needs to be opened up, not ignored. We analyze the issues. We share the sources. We do our best to understand all of the issues at hand, and we come to meaningful and actionable conclusions.

2. Your questions become our discussions

The community began from interactions with individuals and their questions. Nothing interests me more than the questions that are on your mind, the issues you’re struggling to understand, and the choices that you’re having trouble making. This is why we’re here.

3. The questions you never thought to ask

One of the biggest blessings of joining this community is the interactive nature of it. We all have questions; some of them are front and center in our minds, and some are subconsciously gnawing at us from the shadows. The more questions you ask, the more all of us stand to benefit - even those of us who haven’t yet mustered up the courage to put them out there.

4. Insights, advice, and encouragement

In addition to technical questions and answers, I will be posting notes and articles about life advice, relationship tools, and self betterment insights that I believe we all stand to benefit from. I had the unique opportunity to learn in both Torah and secular studies from some fascinating and extraordinary individuals, and if the advice and insights they gave me can do for you what they’ve done for me, I will be dedicating some conversations to sharing those gems and putting them into an actionable format.

I took my first Rabbinic position in Fair Lawn, NJ, at the age of 26. After 5 years in Fair Lawn, I was offered a position on Manhattant’s Upper West Side working with predominantly French immigrants of North African descent. We moved back to Bergen County, NJ, where I served as the Rabbi of the Moroccan community in Congregation Bnai Yeshurun, in Teaneck, and now that I am retired from pulput rabbanics, I have decided to turn my attention towards a broader audience in the hope of reaching more people and making an even bigger difference.

In addition to the community work, I taught at Yeshivah University for 10 years in the Mechinah/JSS Program, where I was responsible for the international students from an impressive variety of countries (20+). I wrote several hundred Gittin for 3 different Tri-State-Area Rabbinic Courts (Batei Din), and I volunteered for ORA (the Organization for the Resolution of ‘Agunot) helping to mediate and resolve some extremely contentious and legally complicated divorce situations. The experiences, in addition to my pulpit rabbinic work, informed, sharpened, and broadened my take on relationships, successful and unsuccessful marriages, and how radically these dynamics are changing in our lifetimes.

In 2009 I founded my business in Kosher meat processing, with a heavy focus on Niqqur (nose-to-tail traditional Kosher butchery) and natural dried meats of all kinds (beef prosciutto, salami, pâtés, jerkies, etc.). What began as a passion for autehntic and high-quality food products ultimately because the pursuit that made the biggest waves in the Kosher world, and the one that compelled me more than anything else to start broadcasting as publicly as possible what I believe needs to change in the way we approach Kashrut. It began with a passion for antiquity and for quality in all sorts of traditions, and it very quickly grew from culinary history and food preservation to Jewish food history and the preservation our our precious culture and traditions.