Extraordinary Times, Extraordinary People

While we might be starting to see a light at the end of the tunnel, it remains unclear when we will reach it. For now, we remain homebound, maximizing distancing and finding ourselves in roles and having responsibilities many of us are not used to. These are no ordinary times and yet, there are countless stories emerging of extraordinary people who, rather than focus on themselves and this challenging crisis, are performing spectacular acts of kindness for others.

Those on the front lines are risking their own well-being to treat those who are ill.Those who were previously sick, rather than hibernate in recovery are donating plasma to pay it forward. Some at great personal expense and pain have pledged to continue to pay workers. A
group of Chasidic men delivered 1,000 tablets to coronavirus patients in New
York City hospitals to let them connect to their families who are not allowed
to visit. In our community, on Seder night a young family set up a table and
hosted their seder outside the window of an elderly Holocaust survivor so he
wouldn’t be alone. All around us, there are ordinary people doing extraordinary
things at this time.

In her recent article, The
Science of Helping Out, Tara Parker-Pope writes: “At a time when we are all
experiencing an extraordinary level of stress, science offers a simple and
effective way to bolster our own emotional health. To help yourself, start
by helping others. Much of the scientific research on resilience — which is our
ability to bounce back from adversity — has shown that having a sense of purpose,
and giving support to others, has a significant impact on our well-being.

What science is teaching now,
the Torah has endorsed for us all along.

לא תשנא את אחיך בלבבך…לא תקם ולא תטר את
בני עמך ואהבת לרעך כמוך אני ה״

“Do
not hate your brother in your heart….you shall not take revenge and you shall
not bear a grudge, you must love you fellow as yourself, I am Hashem.”

This passuk contains one of
the most famous commands in the entire Torah, and the Ramban is bothered by the
same question as everyone else – is it really possible to love someone as much
as you love yourself? We have been
designed and programmed to naturally be inclined to take care of ourselves,
look out for ourselves, and prioritize our well-being. We know ourselves better than anyone in the
world, and we give ourselves the benefit of the doubt, judge ourselves
favorably, see the best in ourselves, and are quick to justify and explain any
shortcomings in ourselves. Can we really
meet that standard for others including mere acquaintances and even strangers?

The Ramban explains that in
truth it is impossible to love someone as much as we love ourselves and, accordingly,
this is not actually the threshold of the mitzvah. In fact, says the Ramban, to actually put our
love for someone on equal footing with ourselves is a violation of the Halacha
which demands that in a conflict between saving our own life or saving that of
another, חייך קודמים, our life comes
first. So what, then, is the mitzvah and
how is it fulfilled?

The Ramban says it is human
nature to wish well for others but in reality want them to have less than
us. We want someone to make a good
living and be happy… as long as they earn less than we do. We want them to have a nice house… as long as
it isn’t as big as ours; or drive a nice car… as long as it isn’t as fancy as
the one we drive. Comes the Torah, and
demands, ואהבת לרעך כמוך, while you cannot
truly love others as you love yourself, you can want others to have כמוך, as much or more than you. You can be happy for them.

Nechama Leibowitz z”l quotes an
opinion that holds we are, in fact, absolutely obligated to love another כמוך; however, we need to re-think our
understanding of the word. כמוך doesn’t mean love
someone as much as you love yourself.
Not only is that standard impossible, but we cannot fully control or
regulate our emotions or how much we love someone. So what is כמוך
and how do we fulfill this mitzvah? To truly
understand כמוך, we must look to where it is used earlier
in the Torah. When Yosef hides his
identity from his brothers and holds Binyamin hostage, Yehuda steps up and
approaches his brother:

וַיִּגַּ֨שׁ אֵלָ֜יו יְהוּדָ֗ה
וַיֹּ֘אמֶר֘ בִּ֣י אֲדֹנִי֒ יְדַבֶּר־נָ֨א עַבְדְּךָ֤ דָבָר֙ בְּאָזְנֵ֣י אֲדֹנִ֔י
וְאַל־יִ֥חַר אַפְּךָ֖ בְּעַבְדֶּ֑ךָ כִּ֥י כָמ֖וֹךָ כְּפַרְעֹֽה:

Parshas Vayigash opens with
Yehuda telling his brother: “if you please, may I speak a word in your ears and
let not your anger flare up at me because you are like Pharaoh.” כמוך here means “you are similar to.”

ואהבת
לרעך כמוך
doesn’t mean love your
neighbor as you love yourself. It means
love your neighbor. Why? כמוך –
because he or she is similar to you. You
both possess the same spark of life, the same Godly soul, you both have
strengths and weaknesses, you both have virtues and faults, you both have
things to be proud of and areas to work on.

We cannot love others,
certainly not all others, as much as we love ourselves, but we certainly can
learn to love. Why should we and how can
we? כמוך – because if you can cut away their different type of
kippa or their lack of a kippa altogether, if you ignore that they dress
differently, act differently, think differently, if you cut away their
idiosyncrasies and habits that drive you crazy you will find they are כמוך, just like you.

Rebbe Akiva witnessed the
failure of thousands of his students to learn this lesson. They focused on their differences rather than
choosing to embrace their similarities and the result was that they couldn’t
see themselves in one another, they could not relate or identify. They saw their fellow student as different,
the other, and this caused them to disrespect one another. Rebbe Akiva attended thousands of funerals
and delivered thousands of eulogies as his students were cut down by a punitive
plague and he turned around and taught, ואהבת לרעך כמוך
is the כלל גדול בתורה, the primary
principle of the Torah.

It is not a coincidence that
the same Rebbe Akiva is quoted in Pirkei Avos as teaching us חביב אדם שנברא בצלם, precious is every person because we were
all created in the image of God. Knowing
and internalizing that concept is the secret of loving everyone.

We may not have the capacity
to love others as much as ourselves but we can do a whole lot better at loving
others, especially those who are different than us, by focusing on the כמוך, that as different as they seem, they are
in truth just like us. Loving those who
are just like you in hashkafa, Halacha and are your dear friends is wonderful,
but it is not real ahavas yisroel. Genuine
ahavas yisroel means peeling back the layers of that which separates us from
others until we find common ground and that which connects us.

But how do we express that
love? Is loving a fellow Jew just about tolerating them?

R’ Moshe Leib Sassover used to tell his chassidim
that he learned what it means to love a fellow Jew from two Russian peasants.
Once he came to an inn, where two thoroughly drunk Russian peasants were
sitting at a table, draining the last drops from a bottle of strong Ukrainian
vodka. One of them yelled to his friend,
“Do you love me?” The friend, somewhat surprised, answered, “Of course, of
course I love you!” “No, no”, insisted
the first one, “Do you really love me, really?!” The friend assured him, “Of course I love
you. You’re my best friend!” “Tell me,
do you know what I need? Do you know why
I am in pain?” The friend said, “how
could I possibly know what you need or why you are in pain?” The first peasant answered, “How then can you
say you love me when you don’t know what I need or why I am in pain.”

R’ Moshe Leib told his
chassidim that he learned from these two peasants that truly loving someone
means to know their needs and to feel their pain.

Real love is not lip
service, it is not just tolerating one another.
Love is noticing someone is having a bad day, it is feeling their pain,
it is showing someone you care, even when that person is someone you barely
know or don’t know at all.

The blessings of
Birchos HaShachar are said in the plural – פוקח עורים,
מלביש ערומים, etc. There is one exception – שעשה לי כל צרכי thank you God, who fulfills all of my
needs. Why is this blessing written in
the singular?

The same R’ Moshe Leib
Sassover, who taught us what it means to love a fellow Jew, explains that when
it comes to ourselves, we should have an attitude that I have everything I
need. We should feel content and
satisfied. But, when it comes to others,
we must be thinking – he or she doesn’t have everything they need. What are they lacking? How can I help them? What can I do for them?

There are people
around us hurting, lacking, or in pain. While
this is unfortunately true year-round, it is especially true in this moment in
time. If we claim to love these people them, we cannot fail to notice. While for many of us Shabbos these days is
the happiest, most restful day of the week, for others, it is filled with
stress, anxiety and pain. Imagine living
alone and each week as Shabbos approaches finding yourself dreading the 25
hours away from the phone, the computer, any meaningful social interaction. With
the days getting later, imagine the prospect of a long Shabbos day by
yourself. How much of a nap and how much
reading can you do before you feel lonely?
This is one example of many people and populations we claim to love, but
we aren’t doing a great job of showing it. If you love them you reach out
during the week, maybe set up a time to check in with them on Shabbos
consistent with social distancing policies and the guidelines we have
previously sent out. If we love the people whose businesses or livelihoods are
taking a significant hit from this crisis, how are we creatively and sensitively
finding ways to help them, support them, or just let them know we are thinking
about them?

The sefer Kavanas Ha’Ari advises that
before beginning davening in the morning, one should say: הריני מקבל עלי מצות ואהבת לרעך כמוך, I hereby accept upon
myself the positive commandment to “Love your fellow as yourself.” Based on R’ Moshe Leib Sassover’s insight, we
can understand this in a new light. Before we can pour out our hearts to Hashem
for all of our needs, we must pause to think about our fellow man and their
needs. Before we ask Hashem to be there
for us, we must commit to be there for others.

Restricted to our Houses, Appreciating our Homes

Someone
in my Shul growing up loved to say, “I don’t repeat lashon hara… so listen
carefully the first time.” While witty,
the quip also reflects our tension between simultaneously feeling uncomfortable
gossiping and yet also feeling the insatiable appetite to share when we have
something juicy. Our two parshiyos, Tazria and Metzora, describe the
consequence and rehabilitative process for someone who could not sufficiently
guard their tongue.

Tzara’as,
spiritual leprosy, could strike an individual or clothing, and it could also
infect a house. Rashi
quotes the Midrash: “this was good, because the Emorim who lived there for the
forty years while the Jewish people journeyed through the desert hid their gold
and silver in the walls of their houses. Now, through this tzara’as affliction
and the need to demolish the walls, the Jews would find the treasure that was
buried there.”

Isn’t this a peculiar way to deliver a
treasure? If Hashem wanted to reward the
people with wealth, why hide it in the walls only to later be discovered
because of a condition the house suffers from?

Rabbi Mordecai Mayer was the rabbi of
Sha’arei Shomayim on the Lower East Side for 20 years. (You may recognize his name because for 18
years, he conducted a twice-a-week program on Jewish topics on the radio
station WEVD.) In 1949 he published a
book called “Israel’s Wisdom in Modern Life” in which he offers a fascinating interpretation
of this Midrash.

Some suffer the
plague of the skin, being uncomfortable with who they are and the consequences
of the choices they make. Others suffer nigei
begadim, the plague of the clothing, consumed by what to wear and with whom
to identify. And yet others are afflicted with the plague caused by the “walls
of their house,” the relentless pursuit of material possessions.

When our house
defines us and we invest disproportionate time, resources, energy, care, and
concern into what we have and the effort to keep up with others, we become
afflicted by the walls of our house. Our
house introduces a plague into our lives – jealousy, anxiety, stress, conflict,
arrogance, competitiveness, and an attachment with what we have, not what we
experience and who we are.

Rabbi Mayer writes, “The physical home becomes a “nega,” an
affliction, when it becomes an obsession, an ideal into itself that drains a
person’s energy, resources and spirit.”
He continues by describing how after suffering tzara’as of the home, we
actually find a besura tova, a treasure.
“The ‘treasures’ of life are sometimes found specifically within the
ruins of the home, of the physical building that had until now overtaken the
owner’s life and denied him contentment and fulfillment. The laws of tzara’as
ha-bayis warn us to focus on what we do in the home rather
than how it looks, on the values practiced within it rather than the monetary
value of its furnishings. If we seek the
true ‘treasures’ of life, then we must look not to our material assets, but
rather deep beyond the superficial ‘walls,’ behind the decorative trimmings and
luxuries that are incapable of providing the fulfillment and gratification that
we desire.”

The treasure we find is the discovery that what matters most is not in
fact the size and impressiveness of our house, but what matters is the home we
have built. What memories have we
formed? What relationships have we
created? What values have we
transmitted?

Consider: the Torah’s account of yetzias
mitzrayim repeatedly refers to the concept of “bayis,” the
home. The word bayis appears in
the section describing Pesach no fewer than 12 times. The very name of the festival, Pesach,
derives from Hashem passing over the battim, the homes of Bnei
Yisroel. The Torah contrasts
Hashem’s striking the Egyptians with His saving the Jewish battim. Even the pascal lamb is designated as se
l’veis avos, se labayis, a lamb for each father’s bayis, a lamb for
the entire bayis. What is a bayis
and why does it play such a central role?

The Tolner Rebbe explains that a bayis
is a home, not a house. What is the
difference between a house and a home? A
house is the physical structure within which I live. It is the bricks, mortar, wood and cement
that form that which I dwell within and that protects me from the
elements. The home, by contrast, is not
physical at all. It is comprised of the
people with whom I live, from whom I receive emotional and spiritual protection,
and on whom I can rely and depend upon with consistency. The Gemara tells us that Rebbe Yossi never
referred to his wife as ishti, my wife, but rather as beisi, my
home. The Chizkuni explains that battim,
or bayis, refers to children. A
Jewish home is never a matter of four walls, a roof, and furniture. Bayis consists of the family within,
and the dedication of that family to follow Hashem as the Jews did when they
gathered with their families to eat the Pesach sacrifice on that night.

It is therefore,
not coincidental that Bnei Yisroel left Mitzrayim and specifically lived
in sukkos, temporary, flimsy, impermanent houses. By living in such provisional and makeshift
houses, the people would learn to identify with their home and not their house.

For the last month and for an undetermined amount of time going forward, we have been constrained to our houses. Certainly, at this time, there are legitimate reasons to be concerned with how we will continue to afford them and the necessities within them. Nevertheless, during this crisis we have discovered a treasure by being reminded that ultimately what matters is not our house, its size or décor, but our home, the people, their health and well-being, and the relationships that we cherish.

May we all truly merit a bayis ne’eman, a reliable house and a healthy and enduring home.

Resilience and Tenacity: Finding the Strength to Split our Sea

The phrase is practically a cliché at
this point, but it is inescapably true that we find ourselves in very difficult
times. These are times that challenge
those who have lost a loved one in the most unimaginable ways and circumstances
that challenge us all to adjust to a new “normal,” one that leaves us confined,
concerned, and in some cases unemployed.
Even those fortunate not to be grieving that which is irreplaceable are
all grieving so much that we took for granted that is unavailable to us now and
for an unknown and undetermined amount of time.
This is a time we are all being challenged to dig deep, not only into
our wallets but into our faith, and into our character. This is a time that demands tenacity,
resiliency, and forbearance, but it isn’t the first time.

The last days of Pesach are a celebration
of the culmination of the miracles of our exodus when we were stuck between the
Egyptians and the sea, the proverbial rock and hard place. The Midrash
describes that when Hashem told the sea to split, the sea protested and said, “What
do you mean split! God, You created me
and designed me to flow to the lowest point and to be one sea. Splitting would violate the nature with which
you created me.”

The Midrash relates that Hashem responded,
“Do you see that coffin on the shoulders of Moshe standing on the shore? It holds the remains of Yosef. I created him, too, with a natural instinct, with
impulse and desire, and yet when the wife of Potiphar orchestrated things so
she could be alone with him, when she did everything in her power to seduce
him, though he was ready to give in, he transcended his nature, said no,
stopped himself and, as the pasuk says, Va’yanas ha’chutza, he fled
outside.” The sea was thus convinced it,
too, could overcome its nature and as we now say in Hallel, hayam ra’ah va’yanas,
the sea saw and it fled. It saw the coffin
of Yosef and then, like Yosef, va’yanas, it went against its nature and
split.

Though it was convinced it was ready
to split, the sea still needed something or someone to be the catalyst. When everyone else was standing there dejected,
hopeless, or perhaps deliberating what to do, one Jew, Nachshon ben Aminadav,
didn’t feel down, he didn’t debate, he didn’t give up; he started walking. As the water reached his nose, he shouted, “הושיעני כי באו מים עד נפש, save me because the
water is covering my soul,” but he kept walking. He went against his instinct to freeze, to
wait for a miracle, or to give up altogether.
The sea saw Yosef go against his nature, felt Nachshon go against his
nature, and the sea, too, agreed to go against its nature and split.

The Tzemech Tzedek says the last
days of Pesach are the Rosh Hashanah for mesirus nefesh, the new year
and days of judgment with regard to our willingness to sacrifice and for our
courage to overcome, to rise to the occasion.
These are the days that we remember the strength of Yosef Ha’Tzadik, the
courage of Nachshon ben Aminadav, the miracle of the sea transcending its
nature and we recall our capacity to be moseir nefesh, to overcome our
natural instinct and inclination and show the strength and character to do what
is right, to do what is expected of us, to bring out the best in us.

Mesirus nefesh
doesn’t only mean the willingness to die or endure something devastating or
catastrophic. It also means taking time during
our everyday decisions to consistently ask ourselves what does Hashem want me
to do right now, what is ethical, moral and correct, what does this situation
demand—and then staying committed to doing it, even if it takes compromise,
effort or sacrifice, even if it is inconvenient or uncomfortable.

A few years ago, I read a story
that disturbed me deeply at the time, and reading it now highlights an absurd
contrast to what so many were asked to give up for their sedarim this year. The author writes:

I love spending Passover with my family. I love the seder. I love the homemade seder guides that my family uses… I even love matzah. So it was a total no-brainer when I booked tickets back in January to come home for Passover. But this year, I learned, will be different from all other years. Why? Because this year, the first night of Passover happens to fall on opening night at Wrigley Field — where, for the first time in 108 years, the Chicago Cubs will play on their home turf as World Series champions.

So instead of hard-boiling massive amounts of eggs and hiding the afikomen in the piano bench, my parents and I will be making the trek to the Friendly Confines for a different kind of spring festival — one that may not be religious in the traditional sense, but just as significant to my family’s spirituality and identity.

Last fall, as the Cubs made their historic run to the World Series, I became even more aware of just how integral Cubs fandom is to my family’s culture — and how much being a Cubs fan is a lot like being a Jew. From the superstitions we habitually follow to the rituals passed down from generation to generation, one tribe starts to look a lot like the other. And so, when we realized the Cubs-Passover scheduling conflict this year, my parents and I didn’t think twice about “doing the right thing.” For us, the choice was clear.

My dad admitted to feeling just a smidge of guilt. “I hope God understands as I dine on hot dogs at Wrigley Field with Theo Epstein,” he said.

I wonder if the author now
reconsiders or regrets her decision from just a few years ago. Missing a Cubs game is not, and was never, mesirus
nefesh. Having children and
grandchildren, in some cases only a few towns or even a few blocks away, and
yet sitting alone, experiencing a seder by oneself, is sacrifice and
commitment.

If we are honest with ourselves,
while we may not publish essays about our failure to be moseir nefesh, all
of us, too, sometimes put our own desires, wants, needs, or cravings ahead of
what is right, what is expected of us, or what we should be doing. These last days of Pesach are the Rosh
Hashanah of mesirus nefesh. It is
the time that we admit we can do better and we accept that we have the capacity
to do what is right, even when it demands that we go against our nature.

Where did Yosef get the strength to
resist? After all, he was alone,
abandoned by his family, working as a slave in a foreign, unfamiliar land. Day after day, this beautiful woman literally
threw herself at him and circumstances were such that on this day, nobody was
around, nobody would ever know. He thought about it, he was tempted by the
opportunity, he was stirred to act, and suddenly, at the last minute, he found
the strength to be moseir nefesh, to resist and overcome. How?

Chazal say demus deyukno shel
aviv, at that moment Yosef saw the image of his father, he heard his voice
echoing in his ears teaching him right from wrong and reminding him of who he
could be. The Izbitzer Rebbe adds that
while his father’s lessons indeed were powerful and stayed with Yosef all throughout
his time Egypt, Yosef’s real strength came from remembering his mother. After all, it was Rachel Imeinu who performed
one of the greatest acts of mesirus nefesh of all time. She was scheduled to be married to the love
of her life for whom she had waited seven years. To avoid being tricked by her father, she had
devised a series of signs with Yaakov so he would know it was her. And yet,
when she learned how embarrassed her older sister would be, Rachel graciously
and generously gave her the signs and allowed her sister to take her place
under the chuppah, not knowing in that moment if she would ever be able to
marry her beloved.

When Yosef faced his battle, when he
confronted his moment to do the right thing, it was his parents who gave him
strength. Yosef heard his father’s
voice, but he also undoubtedly remembered his mother’s amazing mesirus
nefesh and the combination of the two convinced him that he could overcome
whatever challenge lay in his path.

This past month, to preserve and
promote the health and wellbeing of the many, we have been asked to be moseir
nefesh, to make sacrifices. We have
gone without our beloved shuls, our school campuses have been closed, many have
shut their businesses. Many have been
asked to serve in roles and capacities they didn’t train for and never felt
capable of, such as partnering with teachers to supervise children at home all
day. We are living for extended periods
in close quarters that try our patience and test the limits of our
forbearance. This is our moment to
shine, this is when we can and must discover strengths and capacities we didn’t
know we have.

We have been able to succeed in
being moseir nefesh before this crisis. For example, until this pandemic
began, many struggled with sleeping in and getting to shul late, or missing
minyan altogether. We thought it is just
who we are, but it doesn’t have to be.
Yosef planted within each of us, his progeny, the ability to overcome
our instinct and to be in control. He
passed onto us the tenacity, resolve and will to overcome, to endure, to rise
to the occasion and to be our best when the situation demands it. And now that
we are currently unable to be moseir nefesh to get to shul, or be on
time, or talk less during davening, we have the opportunity to apply our mesirus
nefesh to these new, challenging circumstances.

We must be moseir nefesh to daven
more genuinely than ever before, despite not having the tools and instruments
that normally enable and promote it. (Others
who may be tempted to organize a backyard or driveway minyan must overcome their
temptation, even if well-intentioned, and be moseir nefesh to daven
privately.) We must be moseir nefesh to continue to learn, grow and
achieve even while out of our normal routines and patterns. This is when we must be the most patient
parents, most devoted spouses, most loyal friends, most faithful servants of
Hashem, even when for some it has never been harder.

We all have battles, challenges, temptations, conflicts and moments of truth that we face. Doing what is right and doing what we must do is not always compatible with doing what we want. The right choices are not always consistent with what are the most convenient choices. Like Yosef, we can find the strength when we remember those who came before us.

We won’t be saying Yizkor together,
but as you say it individually or even if you don’t say it at all, as you
remember the loved ones who came before, feel their fingertips on our back,
pushing us forward to persevere and do the right thing. The fingertips of Mama Rochel and Yaakov
Avinu, but also those of our mothers and fathers, Bubbes and Zaydas who
confronted great obstacles and formidable challenges and exhibited tremendous mesirus
nefesh in their lives and give us the courage to know we can in our lives
as well.

As we enter Rosh Hashanah for mesirus nefesh, let us take to heart the lessons of Yosef and Nachshon, spend some time reflecting on what urges and natural inclinations we need to work to overcome in these circumstances, what changes we want to see in ourselves in the “new year,” and how we can use this period to emerge stronger and more resilient than ever.

It is Time to Grow Impatient

Just when you thought our society could
not get more morally depraved, on January 12^th, the annual No Pants
Subway Ride took place in cities across twenty-five countries around the world.
This outrageous “tradition” began in 2001 and was introduced by the group
“Improv Everywhere,” who thought it would be funny and entertaining for people
around the world to ride public transportation without pants, no matter the
weather and without concern for the sensitivities of fellow passengers.

There is a story told of a fascinating
19th-century science
experiment, (which may be more of a metaphor than a true experiment)
in which researchers found that when they put a frog in a pan of boiling water,
the frog quickly jumped out. On the other hand, when they put a frog in
cold water and slowly put the water to boil over time, the frog stayed in the
pan and ultimately boiled to death. The hypothesis is that
when a frog is introduced to boiling water, it senses the danger and avoids
it. When a change in temperature is gradual, however, the frog does not
realize it’s boiling to death and stays put.

At the risk of sounding melodramatic, it
seems to me that when it comes to striving for holiness and wholesomeness, we
are boiling to death. We find ourselves wearing, watching, listening to,
reading, speaking, and emailing things that just a few years ago we would have
blushed and been ashamed to do.

We are living in a world with fewer
boundaries and the disintegration of limits. People are fighting for the
right to walk around in whatever state of dress or undress they please and to
engage in any public act of affection they crave. Billboards, posters,
signs, advertisements, and banner ads relentlessly place images before our eyes
that are designed to be enticing, alluring, and tantalizing. Television shows
that include themes, relationships, language, and images that once upon a time
would have be relegated to seedy cable channels and appear in the middle of the
night, are now part of mainstream TV that families watch together and whose
reruns play during dinner time. This didn’t happen overnight; it is the product
of a slow but steady moving of “the line” over decades.

Society around us is changing, and unless
we conscientiously distinguish ourselves in our pursuit of sanctity, we are
going to spiritually boil to death.

In pledging to redeem us from the
servitude of Egypt, God promises to extract us from sivlos mitzrayim,
classically translated as “from under the burdens and bondage of Egypt.”
However, the Chiddushei Ha’Rim explains that sivlos comes
from savlanut. Being taken from tachas sivlos
mitzrayim means, I will redeem you from your patience and from a
willingness to endure the hedonistic and decadent culture of Egypt.

Redemption came through reaching a place
of being disgusted and repulsed by the degradation and defilement of
Egypt. When we no longer had savlanut, patience and tolerance
for the culture of Egypt, is when we were on your way to redemption and to a
life of kedusha, holiness.

Patience is a virtue and there are many
things we must be patient about. But it is time to be fed up with
allowing ourselves and our standards to be defined by pop culture, the fashion
industry, advertising agencies, Hollywood writers, and segments of society that
tout progressiveness, when in fact, they are bringing society backwards, not
forwards. If we are going to save ourselves and our children from boiling to
spiritual death, we need to lose patience with the unhealthy viruses that have
been introduced into our moral system and elevate ourselves above them.

In his book “The Road to Character,” David
Brooks writes, “We don’t live for happiness, we live for holiness.” The
world around us keeps telling us we deserve to be happy and to do whatever we
want towards that end, as long as it doesn’t hurt others. But as Brooks
says, people who subscribe to this philosophy are missing the key ingredient
for a life of virtue and character. It isn’t happiness we live for; it is
a life of holiness.

We currently find ourselves in a time of
the year that has been designated for centuries to work on our striving for
greater kedusha, holiness. The verse in Yirmiyahu (3:14)
says, “shuvu banim shovavim, return my wayward children.” The
great Kabbalist, the Ari, had a tradition that the word shovavim is
an acronym for shemos, va’eira, bo, beshalach, yisro, mishpatim.
Since his time, these forty-two days have been designated for reflection,
introspection, and commitment to work on seeking holiness in our lives.

During this time of the year, we are
called upon to sanctify ourselves and revisit the temperature of the water in
our pot and how it is affecting our souls and our lives. Permanent
promises are difficult to keep, but we can all pledge to be more careful about
how we dress, what we look at and how we speak for the remainder of these
forty-two days.

Shemiras ha’einayim, guarding our eyes and protecting ourselves from vulgarity, has always
been a challenge, but it has never been nearly as difficult as it is today. It
is not just the ease of access to graphic material due to the explosion of
electronic devices and the proliferation of the Internet, but it is the larger
issue that we live in a society that has utterly erased the taboo and stigma
once associated with possessing and viewing it.

We are all human, we
all have moments of weakness and areas to work on. But what happened to being
embarrassed or ashamed of doing things that are beneath us? What happened to
keeping it private, personal, and to ourselves? Our moral compass in this area
has become so mis-calibrated that social media is full of devotedly observant
men and women unabashedly linking to articles, referencing books, and reviewing
movies that they should be humiliated for anyone to know they saw or plan to
see.

In his Orot Ha’Kodesh, (3:296) Rav Avraham
Yitzchak Kook writes of a time when the world will look with great admiration
and awe at the Jewish people’s quest for purity, particularly during the period
of Shovavim. We have given the world great technological
advances and medical breakthroughs. The time has come to give an example
of what it means to participate in and contribute to the world around us,
without compromising or conceding our standards of and pursuit of holiness and
wholesomeness.

Torah Is Food for the Soul: Remarks from the Siyum Hashas

Adapted from my remarks at the South
Florida Siyum Hashas in memory of Brian Galbut –
Baruch Tzvi ben Reuven Nosson – held on January 1, 2020

הודו לה׳ כי טוב כי לעולם חסדו

What a magnificent
venue. What a beautiful day. And what a momentous occasion. Today is
special not only because we join Jews around the world celebrating the
completion of the 13^th cycle of Daf Yomi, but because today, we, the
South Florida Jewish community join together from diverse shuls, yeshivas and
schools, diverse backgrounds, ages, and perspectives, all gathered for one
reason, for one purpose, for that which has always united us and that which
will continue to bind us together – the centrality of Torah.

When Rav Meir Shapiro
zt”l, the founder of the Daf Yomi, was 7 years old, he found his mother crying
and he asked her why. She explained that
she was terribly sad because his melamed was scheduled to come that day but
didn’t show up. The young boy didn’t
understand why that moved her to tears.
She explained, “You don’t understand Meir’l because you are too young,
but my son, I want you to always remember, if you miss a day of learning, it
cannot be replaced, it cannot be made up.”

Rav Meir Shapiro’s
mother understood something so fundamental, so basic and so core to our people
– כי הם חיינו ואורך ימינו, Torah is not
information, it is not a set of facts, laws, or history. Torah learning is not just a way of life, it
is what provides life, sustains life and nourishes life. Without it we simply cannot live.

Rav Meir Shapiro’s
mother’s tears left an indelible impression and when the opportunity presented
itself, he introduced a system and initiative which would ensure we would never
miss a day of learning in our lives. It
is estimated that today there are more than 300,000 people around the world who
learn the Daf Yomi daily. Rav Meir
Shapiro and his wife didn’t have biological children, but make no mistake, each
blatt of gemara learned is his continuity and legacy, each of the members of
the daf his progeny.

Much of the credit
for the Daf Yomi, for the countless people who learn it daily, for the tens of
millions of blatt gemara learned in the last seven and a half years, goes to his
mother. She, and Jewish women since then,
have inspired, supported, promoted and sacrificed to ensure that a day of
learning is never missed. They, too, are
heroes of the daf who deserve recognition and appreciation this morning.

כי הם חיינו ואורך ימינו – In the golden age of the
Jewish people, Torah informed and inspired us, and in some of our darkest
periods and bleakest moments, Torah learning is what gave us not only courage,
faith and hope, but it gave us life.

My friend and colleague Rabbi Moshe Hauer
shared a story that his father only told him near the end of his life. During the war, he was exiled with Jews from
Romania to a place called Transnistria in the Ukraine. They were forced into slave labor and lived
in miserable and meek conditions. During
that time, though he was a young boy, he had the privilege to study Torah daily
with R’ Yosef Naftali Shtern zt”l, a true gadol b’yisroel. His father shared that often, when they would
finish studying, the great rav would tell the young boy, “Close your Gemara and
go home for supper.” Then he would look
at the boy and ask, “Tell me, do you have anything at home for supper?” His
father would respond, “No, not really.” So
Rav Shtern would open the Gemara and say, “let’s have another blatt Gemara for
supper” and they would continue learning.
His father told him, those extra blatt Gemara, that continued Torah
learning is what sustained him and nourished him through those dark days.

In the 5th perek of Tanya, the Alter Rebbe
writes: התורה היא המזון לנשמות שעסקו בעולם הזה בתורה לשמה, Torah is the nourishment for the soul who learns it
sincerely. המצות
הן לבושים לבד והתורה היא מזון וגם לבוש, mitzvos are
garments, they enable us to make contact with the Divine by doing them, but
Torah is the spiritual food we ingest. We digest it and it becomes absorbed by
us, part of us, informing us, inspiring us and enabling us to not only touch
the Divine but be of one mind with Him, integrated as one. When we learn Torah we are feeding our soul,
hydrating our spirt. כי הם חיינו ואורך ימינו.

Today, we are going
to recite the Hadran from a very special Gemara. The Nazis had stolen, looted, and burned all
the seforim belonging to German Jews.
Not one complete set of Shas could be found in Western Europe. Rabbi
Samuel Snieg and Rabbi Samuel Rose, both survivors of Dachau, had an idea to
print an entire full-size set of Shas in Germany. They printed 50 sets of what
became known as “The Survivors’ Talmud” on the exact printing machines the
Nazis had used to produce their propaganda during the war. The survivors in the DP camps were starving
for food, but many were also desperate to feed their souls, eager to resume
learning the Daf Yomi.

Today, almost 75
years later, as we once again face a rise of those who want to harm us, heinous
attacks by those who want to eliminate us, we will celebrate the completion of Shas
with a statement of defiance, of triumph over our enemies. With this siyum, we once again declare נצח ישראל לא ישקר. We
will read the Hadran from a volume of the Survivors’ Shas, a testament to the
immortality of our people and to the central role of Torah in sustaining us – כי הם חיינו ואורך ימינו.

Shortly, we will hold
that volume and proudly declare הדרן עלך,
we will return to you. No matter what,
no matter when, הדרן עלך, we will return to
you. Some will try to cause us להשכיחם תורתך, to forget you, but we will be back. Others will burn you and destroy you, but we
will be back. Yet others, even today,
will try to destroy Torah in Shuls in Har Nof, Pittsburgh, Poway, or Monsey,
but we will keep coming back, because nothing can keep us away. This is our mission as Jews, this is core to
who we are and remains an essential part of our mandate.

In davening we
recite, שכן חובת כל היצורים…להדר, our obligation is להדר, to approach our Yiddishkeit, our
relationship with Hashem and our commitment to Torah with passion, dedication,
love, and affection. We are a people of הדר and of הידור, a people of הדרן עלך,
we glorify Hashem by our commitment to come back again and again.הדרן עלך , a love of Torah is not just for Talmidei
Chachamim, Yeshiva bochrim, those with a strong background, or those with
brilliant minds.

Torah is for every
single one of us. The Shulchan Aruch
records that when the Torah is lifted for hagbah, one should make an effort to
see the text of the Torah and to recite the pasuk, וזאת
התורה. The Arizal takes it a
step further and encourages moving up close to be able to actually read the
words during hagbah. Others quote a beautiful custom of not looking at random words
but using hagbah to find the letter that begins your name. We find our letter, we
see ourselves in Torah, we point and proclaim, וזאת התורה,
this Torah is for me, I can learn it, I have a portion in it, it speaks to me. I, too, can tap into its timeless messages
and inspiration. It has something to say
to me and it is waiting for me to say something novel about it.

כי הם חיינו ואורך ימינו – none of us can afford to be
too busy, too distracted, have too much insecurity or too little interest to
learn Torah. It needs us and we need it and nobody understood that better than the extraordinary
person whom we dedicate this siyum to today.
When our dear friend, my yedid nefesh, Rabbi Dr. Brian Galbut, ברוך צבי בן ראובן נתן, was diagnosed with a devastating brain
tumor, he knew that as important as any medicine, treatment or therapy was for
his health and wellbeing, it was Torah learning and the learning of others in
his merit, that would give him life.

Brian cherished the Daf
Yomi. He refused to learn it from an
Artscroll or Mesivta and insisted on using a regular Gemara, even if it meant
breaking his teeth over a difficult sugya.
Daf was only a part of his rigorous learning schedule that included
exploring topics that interested him and preparing high-level chaburas that he
delivered. The wear and tear of his
seforim, the notes in their margins and the underlines on its pages all testify
to his hasmadah, diligence, and commitment to learning Torah, all while earning
a reputation as an outstanding physician and being one of the most hands-on
fathers I ever saw.

When he got sick, the Daf in particular took on special significance for Brian, not only for what it meant for himself but as the perfect project to recruit others to join in his merit. When people wanted to visit while he was recovering from surgery, he suggested learning the Daf together. He got his uncles, brothers-in-law and cousins to learn it with him and for him. He called friends and acquaintances and asked them to take it on for him. As his illness progressed, understanding the Daf became harder and harder but you wouldn’t know it. He smiled and laughed, even while he struggled. He was never fatigued, never defeated. He kept plugging away until he literally, physically couldn’t learn the Daf anymore, and even then, it continued to play in his ears.

In anticipation of this siyum in his
memory, several people shared with me the experience of being recruited by
Brian to learn the Daf. I will just
share what one person wrote:

I will never forget the call. It was a Friday afternoon in July. I was driving home from work. When I first saw the name on the caller ID my jaw practically dropped: “Brian Galbut.” This was two weeks after Brian had been diagnosed and undergone brain surgery. It shocked me to see that he was calling me now. I picked up the phone and said hello. After answering my “How are you doing” with his trademark “Baruch Hashem, feeling great, everything’s great,” he told me he wanted a favor. “You’re smart, you’re capable, you can learn…. I was wondering if you could start learning Daf Yomi in my merit?” I didn’t hesitate to agree.

Those few minutes literally changed my life. I started Daf Yomi the next day. And that learning, but most of all the source behind it – Brian putting himself out there to personally ask me to do it – sparked something in me… Until then, I could check off every box as someone “frum” — but I wasn’t connected in a serious way to learning or davening or in my connection with Hashem. Seeing how Brian immediately reacted to his illness, calling people like me, trying to get us to commit to learning, inspired me to re-evaluate my life and consider what I could do to be more like Brian, someone I had always admired as a model of a true Eved Hashem. …

There is literally no area of my life that has not improved because Brian picked up the phone and called me one July day and solicited the initial commitment. Among other things, my Torah learning and davening are better, qualitatively and quantitatively, than they have ever been. We weren’t close friends and yet not a day goes by that I do not think about Brian and what he did for me with one short phone call. I cherish his memory and I will continue to learn Torah in his memory every day.

כי הם חיינו ואורך ימינו – Rav Meir Shapiro’s mother
understood that Torah is vital to truly live each day. Rav Hauer’s father literally consumed Torah
for dinner, sustaining his life during hard times. The Holocaust survivors in
the DP camps were starving for the Daf understanding it would restore their
lives. And Brian Galbut knew that if he
could get others to learn Torah in his merit, it would not only extend his life,
but it would give them eternal life.

In Pachad Yitzchak (Sukkos, 57), Rav
Hutner shares a story from the Chiddushi HaRim of two Talmidei Chachamim who
were dancing on Simchas Torah. One of
them got tired before the other and needed to rest. When asked why, the Chiddushei HaRim
explained that one was dancing in celebration of the Torah he had already
learned and the second was dancing in anticipation of the Torah he was about to
begin. The Torah of the past has
boundaries and limits and so one becomes exhausted celebrating, but the Torah
that is before us is limitless and therefore when we celebrate it, we never run
out of energy.

Many here are marking the completion of Shas,
an enormous accomplishment. I wish you
all a huge mazel tov and bless you that Hashem should continue to grant you energy,
good health and the wherewithal to continue learning. But those who finished Shas are only half the
reason we are celebrating. We are also
here to celebrate those who are about to embark on this extraordinary journey,
whether of learning Daf Yomi, or anything else.
If you are moved by this event and by this time to imbibe the sweetness
of Torah, this celebration is for you.
If you are determined to go from today and incorporate Torah study into
your life in a real and consistent way, the joy we feel with you today knows no
limits.

You don’t have to wait for hagbah to find
your place in Torah. Make a plan
today. Join the movement of those who
realize כי הם חיינו ואורך ימינו and take upon
yourself a commitment for Torah learning.
It could be the Daf or Amud Shevui, it could be Mishna or Tanach, it
could be listening to a shiur or having a chavrusa but everyone, absolutely
everyone here, men, women and children must nourish our souls by feeding them
Torah.

Antisemites are once
again trying to destroy us. Of course,
we must fight them in the halls of Congress, in the court of public opinion,
with greater measures of safety and with security. But, we ultimately fight their nefarious plan
when we double down on our Jewish identity, when we recommit to our Jewish
mission and when we promise to keep Torah the centerpiece of our lives. We defeat them not only when we embrace Torah
stronger ourselves, but when we dedicate ourselves to share it with our
brothers and sisters who have never been introduced to Torah before. This large gathering is extraordinary, but
for each person here, there are literally 100 Jews living in our area who are
spiritually malnourished, dehydrated and on the brink of spiritual death.

Take something upon
yourself right now, right here. May
yourself a promise. Do it for Klal
Yisroel, do it l’iluy neshama of Brian, ברוך צבי בן ראובן
נתן, most of all do it for yourself.

The Story of Identical Twins: One a Nazi, the other, a Member of the Israeli Navy

Identical twins Jack Yufe and Oskar Stohr

As
twins, Jack and Oskar shared the same
DNA, the same nature, and yet, they emerged radically different people. Born in
Trinidad in 1933, they were six months old when their parents divorced. Oskar went to Germany with his Catholic
mother, while Jack stayed with his Romanian Jewish father. Oskar grew up as the Nazis rose to power, greeted
the school principal with “Heil Hitler,” and later joined the Hitler Youth
movement.

Jack, meanwhile, always considered himself Jewish (though halachikly he wasn’t), but didn’t understand the significance of that identity until he was 15 years old and was sent to Venezuela to live with his aunt. A survivor of Dachau, she was the only person from his father’s side to make it out alive.

After
the war, Jack’s aunt encouraged him to move to Israel and so at 16, he made
Aliyah and joined the Israeli Navy, ultimately becoming an officer. In 1954, Jack went to Germany to meet his
identical twin. They were 21 when they
met for the first time as adults.

Psychologist
Nancy Segal tells the story of that encounter in her book “Indivisible by Two:
Lives of Extraordinary Twins.” Jack and
Oskar examined one another as if they were looking at an alien, even though the
other’s appearance should have been entirely familiar to them. Their cultural
differences were as immediately apparent as their physical similarities.
Casting a wary eye at Jack’s Israeli luggage tags, Oskar removed them and told
his long-lost brother to tell others he was coming from America, not from
Israel.

Suffice
it to say that first reunion did not go well. Two brothers – one raised a proud
Jew who served in the Israeli Navy and the other raised a German Catholic who
had risen in the Nazi Youth movement and been taught to hate Jews. Because of the language barrier they couldn’t
communicate much. At the end of the
visit, they shook hands like strangers and Jack set off to San Diego where he
lived the remainder of his life.

In 1979, Jack read about a study being
done on twins and the great debate between nature and nurture. He asked if he and his brother could
participate and thought after 25 years it might provide another opportunity for
them to see one another and develop a relationship.

They met at the Minneapolis airport and to
their amazement discovered they were wearing the exact same thing – a white
sports jacket, similar shirt and wire- rimmed glasses. During the study, they
learned that they had so much in common.
Both were stubborn and arrogant, both fiercely competitive. Both read books from back to front, both
sneezed incredibly loudly, they walked in a similar fashion, and they both wore
rubber bands around their wrists.

And
yet, with all that nature gave them in common, nurture had made them
different. They could never agree on issues
about Israel and her enemies or who was responsible for World War II. Oskar’s
repeated reference to German soldiers as ‘we’ infuriated Jack. In a BBC documentary about the twins, Jack
describes that they tried to like each other and enjoy each other’s company but
there was always something in the background that they could not tolerate about
one another. Jack died a few years ago at
82 years old. Oskar passed away in
1997.

As twins, Esav and Yaakov shared the same
DNA, the same nature, and yet, they emerged radically different people. One became a patriarch of our people and the
other a great villain of Jewish History, the progenitor of Edom, the exile in
which we remain until this very day.

Rashi and the Rashbam both explain that
the name Esav comes from עשוי which
means complete, or finished product. The
simple way to understand this is as a superficial description of Esav’s
appearance. He was physically mature,
covered in hair and appeared complete, fully grown as an adult.

However, perhaps Esav’s name and its
implication about his being complete is not just about his physique but much
more importantly about his spirit and approach to life. In
his Menachem Tziyon, Rav Menachem Bentzion Zaks points out that
the Torah describes that this image of Esav is consistent with the Torah’s
description of him as a “man who knows hunting, a man of the field.” Esav remains a primitive, boorish man who
spent his days among the animals, doing what animals do – hunting in the field. Esav sees himself from the start as a
finished product. What you see is what
you get. He had no interest or ambition
to grow, change, or improve. He was עשוי, complete from the start.

Rav Zaks suggests
that Yaakov’s name reflects the exact opposite quality, the insatiable appetite
for growth and improvement. The root of Yaakov’s
name is “akeiv,” or “heel.” When we walk, the
heel is the first part of the foot that touches the ground, says Rav Zaks. It
represents the beginning, the first step, with much to follow. Akeiv means the
beginning of a process with much greater things to come as in the expression, “ikvesa de-Meshicha, heel of
the Messianic Era.”

Esav and Yaakov
are twins who enter the world with the same DNA, the same “nature,” but who
bring contrasting attitudes towards their “nurture.” Esav is satisfied with who he is from the
start while Yaakov feels entering the world is just the first of many steps and
journeys to come.

Indeed, while Esav is spiritually stagnant, remains immature and undeveloped, Yaakov spends his life struggling, wrestling and thereby growing. In our Parsha, he overcomes his shy nature to assert himself, first by obtaining the birthright and then collecting on it by going entirely against his nature and tricking his father into giving him a beracha. Later, before his reunion with Esav, we will read of his encounter with the angel with whom he wrestles the entire evening and triumphs. The shy, passive yeshiva bochur who is characterized as sitting learning diligently in the tent, emerges the strong, dynamic, assertive patriarch and leader who is among the greatest role models of our people.

Esav chooses to
remain עשוי but Yaakov puts one foot in front of the other, walks, jogs and
ultimately runs to his destiny as Yisrael.
No matter what our nature, we are not finished products. We can nurture ourselves to grow, improve,
and change in all areas of our lives. We
are Bnai Yisrael, we are the children of Yaakov.

Jack and Oskar
did not leave legacies based on the “natures” they shared in common like
sneezing loudly or by the way they walked.
Because of how they were nurtured, Jack left a legacy of having been an
officer in the Israeli Navy while Oskar left of a legacy of having been an
enthusiastic member of the Nazi youth.

We all have
natures that predispose us, but through the way we nurture our lives, ultimately,
we can choose who we are and the legacy we leave.

Please Don’t Replace “I’m Sorry” with “Thank You”

On a recent flight, I settled into my seat
tired and hungry. As one of those increasingly
rare people who don’t mind airplane food, I eagerly awaited my meal. When the flight attendant approached, I was
disappointed to learn that they didn’t have my kosher meal, but I was even more
disappointed by how flippant she was in informing me. While I didn’t raise my voice or become
aggressive, I must admit that I felt my blood pressure rise and my muscles
tense when I somewhat forcefully challenged how was it possible that I ordered
the special meal in advance, paid for it as part of my flight, and they were
failing to provide it with no remorse or recourse.

She gave me a halfhearted “sorry” that sounded more like, “oh well, too bad” and I began to stew in my seat and mentally compose my email complaint to the airline.

A short time later, another flight attendant approached to explain what had happened. Someone else had ordered a gluten-free meal and my meal had been served to them by accident. She said it was entirely the crew’s fault, took full responsibility, apologized and continued by telling me she could cobble together kosher products from other meals so that I would have something to eat.

I immediately felt my demeanor relax and
now it was me being dismissive of the mistake and telling her it was no big
deal, these things happen, don’t worry about it, I could do with skipping a
meal anyway. I deleted the email I had mentally
drafted, my body relaxed, and this meaningless setback was quickly put in
perspective.

As I sat there reflecting (plane rides are great for that), it occurred to me that nothing about my growling stomach and missing meal had changed, and yet everything about how I felt about it was now totally different; not because they found my meal, but because I found them to now be sincerely sorry.

A study published in the Journal of Patient
Safety and Risk Management found that hospital staff and
doctors willing to discuss, apologize for, and resolve adverse medical events
through a “collaborative communication resolution program” experienced a
significant decrease in the filing of legal claims, defense costs, liability
costs, and time required to close cases. The study found that 43% of the cases in which
a medical error had occurred were resolved with a simple apology.

Even with mistakes much more consequential
than an airplane meal, many or most people just want to hear someone take
responsibility and offer a sincere apology.

Last year, someone named Lauren tweeted
the following:

The tweet went viral with close to 800,000
liking it and 230,000 retweeting it. It
clearly resonated, but that is not necessarily a good sign. Contrary to this misguided sentiment, taking
responsibility and apologizing are not about positivity or negativity. They are not about avoiding feeling bad. An apology is all about taking
responsibility, no matter how it makes one feel.

The Shulchan Aruch (o.c. 606:1) tells us
that if we have hurt or injured someone, in deed or with words, we must take
responsibility and apologize. If we
aren’t forgiven at first, we must come back a second and even a third time, no
matter how negative it feels, and request forgiveness again and again. While we think of this law and repairing
relationships in the context of preparing for Yom Kippur, the truth is it
applies all year long and to whenever we may have hurt someone, intentionally
or accidentally.

Research published in the May 2016 issue
of the Journal of Negotiation and Conflict Management Research found that while
there are six elements to an effective apology, the most important component is
an acknowledgment of responsibility.
“Thank you for waiting,” is simply not the same as “I am sorry that I
was late and that I kept you waiting.”

Just this week, Former Mayor Michael
Bloomberg stood before a black Church and apologized for the stop and frisk
policy in place under his administration.
One can be cynical of the timing, but his expression of remorse had the
elements of a good apology. “We could
and should have acted sooner, and acted faster, to cut the stops. I wish we
had, and I’m sorry that we didn’t…I can’t change history. I want you to know
that I realize back then I was wrong, and I am sorry.”

Also this week, Antonio Brown apologized
to the Patriots and
team owner Robert Kraft for the negative attention he brought during his brief
time with the team. The four-time
All-Pro receiver wrote on Instagram: ”All I wanted to be was an asset to the
organization; sorry for the bad media and the drama!”

Bloomberg didn’t say “thank you for
understanding that I thought stop and frisk was good at the time” and Brown
didn’t say “thank you for tolerating the negative attention I brought to the
team.” They communicated the key
sentiment: I take responsibility, I was wrong, I am sorry.

Dr. John Gottman came to the same
conclusion about marriage. He found that
instead of trying to change your spouse, there are four things you can do to
change your relationship for the better, the most important being taking responsibility. He writes, “We are responsible for how our
words and actions make our partner feel.
Apologize to your partner by taking responsibility for the problem, even
just a small piece, and this will validate their feelings, promote forgiveness,
and allow you both to move on.” He
concludes, “Instead of trying to change your partner, be the change you wish to
see in your relationship.”

God didn’t punish Adam and Chava when they
made the mistake of eating from the eitz hada’as. He held them accountable after He called out “Ayeka?,”
“Where are you?”, and they failed to use the opportunity to take
responsibility. He didn’t punish Kayin immediately
when he killed Hevel. He held Kayin
accountable when Kayin failed to take responsibility by saying “Am I my
brother’s keeper?”

In contrast, Rav Chaim Shmulevitz (Sichos
Mussar #15) points out that Yehudah was awarded with malchus, monarchy,
specifically because when challenged, he took responsibility and said צדקה ממני, “I admit that she is more
righteous than I”. Notice that Yehudah
doesn’t say, “Thank you, Tamar, for letting me falsely accuse you, shame you,
and almost cost you your life”. Leadership
demands the willingness to say: She was correct, I was wrong, and for that I am
responsible.

Flight attendants, medical professionals
and every one of us will inevitably be challenged with the call of “Ayeka?,” “Where
are you?” when we have kept someone waiting, given away their meal, made a
mistake with their care, or with something else.

Whether we fail to answer that call
because it feels negative, or we positively take responsibility and
accountability, will say everything about us.

It Takes a Live Fish to Swim Upstream

In this week’s Parsha Hashem famously
tells Avram “Lech Lecha – Go forth from your native land and from your father’s
house to the land that I will show you.”

These words, which challenge Avraham with his first test and form the name of our parsha, are repeated by Hashem to Avraham as his 10^th and final test: “Take your son, your favored one, Isaac, whom you love, and Lech Lecha – go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the heights that I will point out to you.”

The Midrash (Tanchuma Lech Lecha 3)
actually wonders, which test was greater, the first “Lech Lecha” or the second? How could the rabbis have seriously
considered that question? How could
anything compare to the test of sacrificing one’s beloved child?

While the Midrash concludes that the second Lech Lecha, the test of the Akeida was greater, there is insight to be gleaned from the question being asked. Perhaps the Midrash considered the possibility of our Parsha’s Lech Lecha being greater because it is exceedingly difficult to break the momentum, to interrupt the trajectory that our lives are going in and to discover ourselves, our story, who we are meant to be and the lives we are meant to live.

To be a Jew, the progeny of Avraham, is to embark on the journey to identify who we are and what we can bring to the world. At the very beginning, God tells Avraham to set out on a journey of lech lecha. Go find yourself. Lech lecha, explains the Slonimer Rebbe – yi’udcha tikuncha. What is your destiny, what is your mission, what can you uniquely contribute and what is the world waiting for from you that nobody else can bring or do?

So many people are living other
people’s lives or allowing others to write their story instead of writing it
ourselves. Nevertheless, Chazal advise: B’makom
she’ein anashim hishtadeil liheyos ish.
The simple meaning of this instruction is to step up when nobody else
does. But on a deeper level, some
explain it means nobody else can be you by definition, nobody else can offer
what you can or do what you can do.
Don’t let others write your story, rather lech lecha, write your
own next chapter. You don’t have to be
stuck in that pattern or on that trajectory of life.

It is easy to be like everyone else,
go with the flow, and fulfill the dreams or expectations of others. It is less complicated to just fit in, act
like everyone else, believe what others believe, live like others are living,
continue on the path or trajectory that was started years or decades ago. But, as W.C. Fields once said, “Remember, a
dead fish can float downstream, but it takes a live one to swim
upstream.”

Avraham was called Avraham Ha’Ivri
meaning mei’eiver, on the other side. When the whole world
took one position and stood on one side, he had the courage to stand out,
remain true to the vision and will of the Almighty and to stand on the other
side, even when it meant standing by himself.
He was willing to go against the flow to discover his true self, to
pursue his mission, to write his story which has shaped our stories.

Hashem promised him the Lech Lecha would be L’Tovascha, for his own good, his own benefit and his own pleasure. The same holds true for us. There is nothing better or more fulfilling than the journey of self-discovery and actualization. Nothing brings more satisfaction than making a difference, than being a blessing.

Hashem spoke to Avraham and He speaks to each of us and invites us to write our own story. The only question is are we listening and are we ready to swim, sometimes even upstream?

How Will You Spend Your Extra Hour?

According to information that will
soon be outdated, Netflix subscribers around the world consume
164 million hours of Netflix each day. In an attempt to allow its
subscribers to consume even more in even less time, Netflix created some
controversy this week by testing a feature that would allow users to speed up
video playback as fast as 1.5 times the original speed.

The news was met with intense
backlash from show creators and movie directors who want their creations to be
seen as they intended. One actor wrote this feature would allow Netflix to “completely
take control of everyone else’s art and destroy it.”

Speed control already exists on
several platforms including podcast players, Youtube and even on YUTorah.org. Whether consuming the most precious and holy
content possible, our sacred Torah, or l’havdil, binging on entertainment
that shouldn’t be in our lives, people want more in less time and now have that
ability.

The central story of our Parsha is
the hard reset that God performed on the world, undoing all that He had created
and restarting the world anew. Hashem
took such a drastic measure because, the Torah tells us, the world had become
filled with corruption and moral depravity.
Indeed, the Sefas Emes says, the flood was midah k’neged mida,
measure for measure. The people had
violated all boundaries of behavior and so Hashem removed the boundaries that
protected the earth from water.

The Gemara (Sanhedrin 108a) makes a
mysterious comment: “The generation of
the flood became corrupt as a result of the great blessing that God had
bestowed upon them.” What does that
mean?

Rav Pam zt”l says the key to understanding this Gemara and what happened to Noach’s generation can be found in our title character’s name. The pasuk at the end of Bereishis tells us that Lemech names his son Noach saying, “this one will bring us rest from our work and from the toil of our hands from the ground which Hashem had cursed.” Rashi explains that until that time, the world had continued to suffer from the curse that God gave Adam, b’zeias apecha tochal lechem, you will have to work with the sweat of your brow to draw bread from the ground. Until Noach was born, man labored from morning to night and worked tirelessly with his bare hands just to have food to eat, leaving no recreational or down time.

Lemech saw prophetically that Noach
was destined to invent the plow and other agricultural tools that would make
man much more efficient and would ease his burden. Lemech names him “Noach” from the root “nuach,”
to rest, in the sense of providing relief.

Rav Pam explains that the plow and other
tools were the great blessing that Gemara referenced that were bestowed upon
this generation and yet, they became corrupt with it. He explains, the inventions and progress
yielded more free time. That time was obviously
a blessing and gift. It could have been used constructively, productively and
meaningfully. Instead, the generation
discovered the down time and used it for corrupt activity. The breakthrough and advancement could have
brought spiritual ascent, instead they brought moral decline.

Someone shared with me the story of
his friend’s grandmother, a Holocaust survivor who made her way to the United
States. With the characteristic perseverance of one who could not allow Hitler
to win, and despite her poverty, she raised her children to value life,
learning and the Jewish nation.

At some point in the 1960’s, after a
number of years saving penny by penny, she had finally saved up enough to buy
an electric washing machine. On the day that she purchased the washing machine,
she called her children in and told them, “Until now, I’ve spent an enormous
amount of time washing clothing by hand.
Now that we have this machine, I have discovered something I haven’t had
until now – free time. Now that I no
longer need to spend all day at home, we’re going to the library. If we have
free time, it’s to be used for learning.”

We are blessed to live in the
greatest era of technological breakthrough of all time. Simple tasks that used to eat up our time can
now be accomplished in seconds or through automation, in no time at all. We’ve advanced from the washing machine,
dishwasher, bread machine, and microwave, to time-saving modern wonders like
GPS, lightning-fast computers in our pockets, smart homes, and more.

Do we use the newfound time to
pursue frivolous activities and indulge in hedonistic experiences? Or, do we
use the time we are gaining with each breakthrough for meaningful, productive
and constructive activities? Are our
greater comfort and expanded time leading to moral decay and decline, or moral
development and progress?

The Mishna in Pirkei Avos (3:1)
quotes Akavya ben M’halalel who teaches that a person should always keep in
mind, “Before Whom he will have to give Din V’cheshbon, judgment and
reckoning.” What is the difference
between din and cheshbon?

The Vilna Gaon explains that din
refers to judgment for mistakes, indiscretions and poor decisions we made. Cheshbon is not about what we did
wrong during our time, but what we could have done right during that time. We will have to account for din, for mistakes we made, but we will even be held accountable for
the cheshbon, the calculation of what we could have accomplished if we
had only taken advantage of the time we claimed we don’t have.

Have you ever found yourself wishing
there were more than 24 hours in a day? This
weekend, your dream comes true. With the
clock change Saturday night, we will be gifted an extra hour.

A friend of mine in Israel, Akiva
Danto, runs a beautiful learning program the night the clock is changed. He tells people, we claim we want to learn
but don’t have the time. Well, each fall
we gain an extra hour. What will we do
with it?

Will we just stay out a little longer
or watch just a bit more? Or, will we
use it to read the book we claim to never have time to read or learn the Torah we
say we wish we had time to learn? Will we
waste it or utilize it, let it slip away or embrace it for something
meaningful.

Our rabbis say, בדרך שאדם רוצה לילך מוליכין אותו, when we show which
path we want to take, we are helped to move forward on it. In the merit of utilizing our extra hour for
something noble and meaningful, may we be blessed to find many “extra
hours” during the year to further our commitment to Torah and advance our
personal growth.

Have You Ever Had a HIIT Spiritual Workout?

In 2010, Ellen Latham co-founded an exercise studio in Ft. Lauderdale called Orangetheory. What began as one small business in 2010 is now a movement with 1,200 studios in 22 countries, more than 800,000 members and over $1 billion in sales. I recently came across an article explaining the philosophy and science behind this popular trend.

Unlike most other exercise classes, the workout is not the same for everyone in the class and the participants are not competing against anyone but themselves. Each member wears a heart monitor to capture how hard their body is working and does a workout based on several factors including age and other variables.

The founders of the company place an emphasis on creating a sense of community. Their goal is to have members feel part of a group that push one another, celebrate each other’s victories and support one another in their struggles. They also designed the franchise to have consistency: members can show up at any Orangetheory location in the country and know how the Orangetheory will look, what will happen in the class, and every part of the workout experience.

When reading the article, it occurred to me that this is exactly what Jewish communal life is meant to be for exercising our souls. We, too, are encouraged not to measure ourselves, the quality of our davening, the breadth of our learning, or the capacity of our giving, against anyone else. Our mission is to be driven to realize our best selves, to push ourselves to realize our fullest potential, and not anyone else’s.

Obviously, central to Jewish life is fostering a sense of community. We are best positioned for success in working out our neshamas when we plug into community and find encouragement, support, and structure. Our studios for the soul also provide a sense of consistency: we can walk into any shul in the country with an expectation, more or less, of what we will find in davening, at a Daf Yomi shiur, etc.

But it was something else in the article, another feature of Orangetheory, that caught my eye and that I think we can learn from in growing our studios for the soul. Orangetheory’s success is largely due to the format of their classes. The training is designed as HIIT workouts, an acronym for High Intensity Interval Training. In a typical HIIT workout, participants repeat short spurts of high-intensity exercise, intermingled within longer stretches of lower intensity activity designed for active recovery. Within a 60 minute workout, the goal is to keep the heart rate raised to the “orange” level for only about 12 minutes.

There is fascinating wisdom behind the benefits of a HIIT workout, including the fact that the high intensity portion stimulates the body to continue to burn calories, even when in recovery mode. But what struck me was not the science, rather the psychology behind it. Essentially, if you are told to begin a challenging workout that will keep your heart rate level high throughout and maintain the level of difficulty, many or most will not even start. However, if you know that recovery is built in and that you will only be pushed to your max for short spurts, you are much more likely to not only begin the workout, but to complete it and gain the benefits.

Our Jewish calendar functions in some ways as a HIIT workout. We are challenged to push ourselves in spurts spiritually, tap into different themes or energies based on holidays, and take the experience back into the “recovery” period where it continues to enrich us.

Elul is the ultimate intense interval in a HIIT spiritual workout. It is not disingenuous or inauthentic to push ourselves for a short spurt even if we know that the intensity will not necessarily last. The Shulchan Aruch (o.c. 603) records a practice from the Yerushalmi that even those who aren’t strict to only eat pas yisrael (bread products baked by a Jew) the entire year should be strict during Aseres Yimei Teshuva, the ten days from Rosh Hashana through Yom Kippur. Why? Whom are we fooling by being on our best behavior for ten days knowing we will revert back as soon as Yom Kippur is over?

The answer is that we are not trying to fool anyone. This time of year we are experiencing the height of an intense interval of our spiritual cycle. We are going to soon introduce the daily recitation of Selichos into our schedule. We will extend davening, feel encouraged to add more learning, take on positive practices, and generally push ourselves a little harder. Knowing the intensity will subside and we will return to a recovery period doesn’t make us fake, it makes us motivated.

Rise to the occasion and challenge yourself these next weeks. Push to be better and to do more, knowing the intense interval will soon be replaced with a recovery period in which our souls will still be benefiting from the hard work we will have done.

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