What Does God Want From Us?

Good question, if I don't say so myself! The answer is in this weeks Torah portion, Eikev:

And now, Israel, what doth the LORD thy God require of thee, but to fear the LORD thy God, to walk in all His ways, and to love Him, and to serve the LORD thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul; to keep for thy good the commandments of the LORD, and His statutes, which I command thee this day?

The Ramchal explains this verse in the introduction to his classic book, Path of the Just:

This is what Moses our Teacher, may Peace be upon him, teaches us in saying (Deuteronomy 10:12), "And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God ask of you, but that you fear the Lord your God to walk in all His ways, and to love Him and serve the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul, to observe the mitzvoth of God and His statutes. .. " Herein have been included all of the features of perfection of Divine service that are appropriate in relation to the Holy One Blessed be He. They are: fear of God, walking in His ways, love, wholeheartedness, and observance of all of the mitzvoth.

"Fear of God" denotes fear of the Majesty of the Blessed One, fearing Him as one would a great and mighty king, and being ashamed at one's every movement in consequence of His greatness, especially when speaking before Him in prayer or engaging in the study of His Torah.

"Walking in His ways" embodies the whole area of cultivation and correction of character traits. As our Sages of blessed memory have explained, "As He is merciful, be also merciful..." The essence of all this is that a person conform all of his traits and all the varieties of his actions to what is just and ethical. Our Sages of blessed memory have thus summarized the idea (Avoth 2.1): "All that is praiseworthy in its doer and brings praise to him from others;" that is, all that leads to the end of true good, namely, strengthening of Torah and furthering of brotherliness.

"Love" - that there be implanted in a person's heart a love for the Blessed One which will arouse his soul to do what is pleasing before Him, just as his heart is aroused to give pleasure to his father and mother. He will be grieved if he or others are lacking in this; he will be jealous for it and he will rejoice greatly in fulfilling aught of it. "Whole-heartedness" - that service before the Blessed One be characterized by purity of motive, that its end be His service alone and nothing else. Included in this is that one's heart be complete in Divine service, that his interests not be divided or his observance mechanical, but that his whole heart be devoted to it.

"Observance of all the mitzvoth," as the words imply, is observance of the whole body of mitzvoth with all of their fine points and conditions.

That's all we need to do. Let's go!

Sexual Harassment?

Things have gotten way out of hand. They really have!:

An indictment was filed Thursday against Jerusalem resident Shlomo Fuchs, 44, an ultra-Orthodox man who hurled sexist slurs at a female soldier on a public bus in the capital.

Police officials said Fuchs' behavior was unruly, and that he sexually harassed the soldier, Doron Matalon, by humiliating her and making sexual remarks.

What did he do? Apparently he called her a "prutza", which means a slut or a harlot. Not a very nice thing to do, but does this amount to sexual harassment?

The court also stated that sexual harassment does not only apply when the harasser demands something of sexual nature from the harassed, but also when the harassed is humiliated based on remarks relating to his or her sex. The judge ruled such was the case in this incident, since "there is no dispute that Fuchs spoke bluntly and shouted harsh and humiliating words at the soldier aboard the bus, calling her a 'slut' three times."

"I am not a sexual offender," Fuchs told his attorney afterwards. "If anything – she harassed me. I wanted to move away and she kept moving closer."

Fuchs' attorney claimed this was not a criminal offense. "We live in a free country. We're allowed to curse, it's part of the freedom of expression," he explained.

If the court does decide this is a sexual harassment case, said the attorney, then any man who calls a woman a "bitch" or other curse words would be considered a sexual offender.

I have to agree with Fuchs' attorney. It seems to me that this is all a product of the media-fed frenzy of incitement against the ultra-Orthodox: the police and the court are abusing their power to legally harass Fuchs.

Once again we can learn a lesson from this. First of all, I do not think that the Rambam or the Chafetz Chaim would approve of calling this soldier a prutza, even if she did not follow the etiquette of the mehadrin line. We really should be careful about what we say. Even our mundane speech should be something that is worth studying.

Secondly, what I quoted recently from chapter 20 of "The Path of the Just".

Let's hope that things will calm down soon.

Learning from the Beit Shemesh Zealots

The violent riots regarding the OROT National Religious school in Beit Shemesh gives us an opportunity to learn a few valuable lessons.

Our Rabbis taught us (Avot 1:6)

והוי דן את כל האדם לכף זכות

which could translated as "judge every man favorably." If you see someone doing a certain act, which could be interpreted negatively or positively, we should judge the person in a positive light.

An alternative translation could be "judge the entire man favorably." You should not judge someone on the basis of an isolated act. Everyone has their ups and downs. The same guy that you saw doing something nasty may also have many good deeds to his credit. You have to see the whole picture. Keep this in mind as you view the following clip about the zealots in Beit Shemesh:



The clip presents those people in a very unfavorable light. However, imagine if a camera crew followed you around, with the explicit purpose of filming you doing something improper. Afterward, after editing, adding narration and subtitles, the clip was uploaded to YouTube. Would this be a true representation of who you really are? So it is with the zealots in Beit Shemesh: I am sure that they have many good deeds to their credit and that there are many positive things to learn from them.

With regards to the OROT school, and what the zealots are doing their fellow Jews in Beit Shemesh (spitting on them, calling them "shikse" etc.), I believe they are terribly mistaken. What is their error?

When one wants to improve his service of God beyond the letter of the law, one must be very careful that his actions do not cause him to be lax in other areas. Rabbi Moshe Chayim Luzzatto discusses this issue in his book, "The Path of the Just":

WHAT MUST Now be explained is the weighing of one's deeds in relation to the aforementioned standards of Saintliness. This is an extremely fundamental process and one which constitutes the most difficult operation in Saintliness because of the great subtlety it demands and because of its susceptibility to great inroads by the evil inclination. The weighing of Saintliness entails great danger because it is within the power of the evil inclination to draw many good things far from one, as if they were evil and to draw many sins near to him, as if they were great mitzvoth. The truth is that a man must fulfill three requirements in order to succeed in this "weighing." He must possess the most just of hearts, whose only inclination is to give pleasure to the Blessed One; he must submit his actions to the closest scrutiny and exert himself to perfect them in accordance with this end; and after all this, he must cast his lot with God, after which it may be said of him (Psalms 84:6,12), "Happy is the man whose strength is in You ... Goodness will not be lacking for those who walk in purity." if one of these conditions is not observed, he will not attain to Wholeness and he will be very apt to stumble and fall. That is, if his intention is not select and pure, or if he weakens in the analysis of his deeds so that his full potential is not brought to bear upon them, or, if after all .this, he does not put his trust in his Master, it will be very difficult for him not to fall. But if he correctly observes all three - purity of thought, analysis, and trust, he will walk securely in truth and no evil will befall him, as Channah said in her prophecy (I Samuel 2:9), "He will protect the feet of his Saints." And David also said (Psalms 37:28), "And He will not forsake his Saints; they will forever be protected."

What must be understood is that actions should not be judged for saintliness at first glance, but should be carefully observed and reflected upon so that it may be determined how far their results extend. For at times an action in itself may seem worthy of performance, but because its results are evil, one will be obliged to leave it; and if he does not, he will be adjudged a sinner rather than a Saint. The episode of Gedaliah ben Achikam (Jeremiah 40:13ff) provides a clear illustration of this fact. Because of his abundant Saintliness, which would not permit him to judge Yishmael adversely, or which would not permit him to receive slander, he said to Yochanan ben Kareach, "You are speaking falsely of Yishmael." What was the result? He died, the Jews were scattered, and their last hope was extinguished. And Scripture attributes to him the death of those men who were killed, as if he were the murderer, as indicated by the comment of our Sages of blessed memory upon the verse, (Jeremiah 41:9), "All of the corpses of the men who were killed through Gedaliah."

It was also such incorrectly weighed Saintliness in the incident of Bar Kamtza (Gittin 56a) that was responsible for the destruction of the Temple: "The Rabbis thought to sacrifice the animal. R. Zechariah ben Avkulos said to them, `They will say that animals with imperfections may be sacrificed upon the altar.' The Rabbis thought to kill him [Bar Kamtza]. R. Zachariah ben Avkulos said to them, `They will say that one who causes an imperfection in sacrificial animals should be killed.' While all this was going on, the evildoer slandered the Jews to the emperor, who came and destroyed Jerusalem." It was to this that R. Yochanan was referring when he said, "The humility of R. Zechariah destroyed our Temple, consumed our Sanctuary and exiled us among the nations."

We see, then, that one should not decide upon the saintliness of a deed on the basis of surface appearances, but should view it from every angle that human intelligence can be brought to bear upon it, until he can truthfully determine the better course - performance or abandonment.

In their pursuit of modesty, the zealots violated several Torah precepts: Insulting others(Ona'at Devarim), harming people and property, and desecrating God's name to name a few. They "rebuked" their fellow Jews, in an uncivilized and violent manner. The fact that they yell and terrorize little girls is especially revolting. Even if the girls are not dressed properly, it is the parents' duty to educate their children, and not the duty of the zealots. If the zealots were to put aside their emotions and to weigh their deeds according to the ways of Torah, I think that they would agree with me. However, when emotion rules, Torah precepts are often forgotten.

This reminds me of something I saw many years ago in Me'ah She'arim. Apparently a woman who was not dressed according to the standards of Jewish Law walked down the street. I did not notice her. All of a sudden, a wannabe zealot ran down the street after her all the time yelling "prutza, prutza" (harlot, harlot).

I could not help but wonder: If she is a harlot, why is he running after her?

Parashat Kedoshim: You are What You...See

The expression, "you are what you eat" is well known. If you want to be healthy, you have to eat fresh and nourishing food. Where did the phrase come from?:

Ger. Mann ist was Mann isst, man is what man eats; cf. the philosopher Ludwig Feuerbach (1804-72) in Jacob Moleschott Lehre der Nahrungsmittel: Für das Volk (1850) ‘Advertisement’: Der Mensch ist, was er isst, Man is what he eats. The saying is sometimes attributed to the French gastronome Anthelme Brillat-Savarin who wrote in his Physiologie du Goût (1825): Dis-moi ce que tu manges, je te dirai ce que tu es, Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you what you are.

The Torah prescribes a strict diet for the Jewish People. According to the "The Path of the Just", we are dealing with a spiritual version of "you are what you eat":

The sin which comes third after theft and illicit relations in respect to desire is that of forbidden foods - whether thos; that are ritually unclean, or an admixture containing them, or a combination of meat and milk, or suet, or blood, or food cooked by gentiles, or the utensils of gentiles, or the wine used in ther libations, or their drinking-wine. Cleanliness in relation to all of these requires great scrutiny and self-strengthening because there is a lust in the heart for good foods and because one must sometimes suffer a monetary loss as a result of admixtures and the like. The prohibitions concerning forbidden foods also involve many details, as is reflected in all of the commonly known laws that are treated in the Halachic writings. One who is lenient in relation to these laws when he has been instructed to be stringent is destroying his soul. As is stated in the Sifra (Shemini), " `Do not sully yourselves with them, becoming unclean with them' (Leviticus 11:43) - if you sully yourselves with them, you will, in the end, partake of their uncleanliness." Forbidden foods carry uncleanliness itself into a person's heart and soul until the holiness of the Presence Blessed be He departs and withdraws from him, as is also stated in the Talmud ( Yoma 39a), " `...becoming unclean with them' - do not read `becoming unclean with them,' but `becoming dull with them.' " For sin dulls a man's heart in that it causes to depart from him true knowledge and the spirit of wisdom that the Holy One Blessed be He gives to the Saints (as it is said [Proverbs 2:6], "For God gives wisdom"), and he remains beastly and earthy, immersed in the grossness of this world. Forbidden foods are worse in this respect than all other prohibitions, for they enter into a person's body and become flesh of his flesh. In order to instruct us that this applies not only to unclean beasts or to earth creatures, but also to those animals, which, though in the "clean" category, are ritually unclean, Scripture tells us (Leviticus 11:47), "To distinguish between the unclean and the clean," upon which our Teachers of blessed memory comment (Sifra ad loc.), "There is no need to point up the distinction between an ass and a cow. What, then, is the meaning of `between the unclean and the clean'? - between what is unclean to you and what is clean to you; between the cutting of most of the windpipe and the cutting of half. And what is the difference between most and half ? - a hairs-breadth." The reason that they concluded in this manner ("And what is the difference between `most' ... ") is to show how amazing the power of the mitzvoth is, that a hair's-breadth constitutes the difference between uncleanliness and cleanliness itself.

Anyone possessed of sense will regard forbidden food as poison, or as food with which some poison has become mixed. Would anyone allow himself to partake of such food? If there were any room for suspicion or even the slightest doubt, he would certainly not permit himself to eat of it; and if he did, he would be regarded as an absolute fool. Forbidden food, as we have explained, is poison itself to the heart and soul."

I claim that "you are what you see, what you hear, and what you read". Whatever your mind is dealing with, that is "you" at that very moment. This is perhaps one of the reasons that our sages said, "Thoughts of sin are worse than the sin itself (Yoma 29A)". The sin itself may be performed by one's hands, mouth, or whatever. This is a serious matter in and of itself which requires teshuvah. However, "thoughts of sin" go much deeper, entering the intimate recesses of one's inner being.

This is why it is so important to be close to Torah scholars, to invest time in learning Torah. Then one's mind is occupied with positive things: mitzvot, ethics, midot, holiness (Leviticus 19:1-2):

1 And the LORD spoke unto Moses, saying: 2 Speak unto all the congregation of the children of Israel, and say unto them: Ye shall be holy; for I the LORD your God am holy.

Of course, the opposite is also true: If one hangs around with fools, scoffers, and/or slanderers, takes part in their conversations, and reads their books (or blogs), one fills his mind with filth and vulgarity. That is what his mind is occupied with, and to a certain degree that is "him" at that very moment. Holiness and impurity cannot dwell together.

God has clearly put two paths before us. We shall chose holiness and life.

A Dollar From the Lubavitcher Rebbe

16 Marcheshvan 5769


Here's a dollar bill that I received from the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneursohn zt"l, on the 12th of Tammuz in the year 5744 (1984). Wow, I've been holding on to this thing for 24 years!

The Rebbe used to distribute dollars to his Hasidim in order that they would give the money to charity. I was told by the Hasidim that the custom is to keep the dollar as a momento from the Rebbe, and to give a different dollar to charity in its place. So the Rebbe's dollar has been with me for a long time. Not too long after I made aliyah, the Rebbe's dollar also made aliyah, along with some of my other momentos.

The Lubavitcher Rebbe was a righteous man and a great Torah scholar. Even those that opposed him, mainly because of the messianic undertones which were heard frequently among his followers, realized that the Rebbe was a great man.

I'm not a Hasid, so why am I holding on to this dollar? I owe a lot to Chabad. If it weren't for the Chabad House on my college campus, I don't know where I would be now. They had a profound effect on my life. Perhaps that will be a subject of a different post.

Fine, that doesn't answer the question of why I am still holding on to this dollar. I'll let "The Path of the Just" explain:

In the same way, the food and drink of the Holy man is elevated and is considered as if it had actually been sacrificed upon the altar. As our Sages 'of blessed memory have said (Kethuvoth 105b), "If one brings a gift to a Scholar, it is as if he offers up first fruit" and (Yoma 71a), "In the place of libation, let him fill the throat of the Scholars with wine." The meaning here is not that Scholars should lust, glutton-like, to fill their throats with food and drink (God forbid), but rather, as we have indicated, that Scholars, who are Holy in their ways and in all of their deeds, are literally comparable to the sanctuary and the altar, for the Divine Presence dwells with them just as it dwelled in the sanctuary. Their consuming of food is similar to the offering up of a sacrifice upon the altar, and the filling of their throats is analogous to the filling of the basins. In accordance with this view, anything at all which is made use of by them in some way is elevated and enhanced through having been employed by a righteous individual, by one who communes with the Holiness of the Blessed One. Our Sages of blessed memory have already referred to "the stones of the place" that Jacob took and set around his head (Chullin 91b), "R. Yitzchak said, `This teaches us that they all gathered together, each one saying, `Let the righteous one lay his head upon me.'"

Dvar Torah For Ki Tisa: Getting Angry

Anger is a bad character trait. It is something that we must cleanse ourselves of, as the Ramchal (Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto) explains in his classic book The Path of the Just:

There are innumerable traits; for as all of a person's worldly actions, so are his traits. It is from them that his actions flow. But just as we discussed those mitzvoth which there was a greater need to consider, because of the greater frequency of lapses in relation to them, so shall we discuss the chief traits in greater detail because of the relative frequency with which they come into play. These are pride, anger, envy, and lust - all evil traits, whose evil is widely recognized and need not be demonstrated. They are evil both in themselves and in their results, for they are all outside the realm of intelligence and wisdom. Each one of them has it within itself to lead a person into severe sins. In relation to pride we are explicitly warned (Deuteronomy 8:14), "And your heart will be proud and you will forget the Lord, your God." Concerning anger our Sages of blessed memory said (Shabbath 105B), "One who becomes angry should be in your eyes as one who serves idols."

Furthermore the Ramchal writes that one who is humble does not get angry:

Unquestionably, Humility removes many stumbling blocks from a man's path and brings him near to many good things; for the Humble man is little concerned with wordly affairs and is not moved to envy by its vanities. Furthermore, his company is very pleasant and he gives pleasure to his fellowmen. He is perforce never aroused to anger and to controversy; he does everything quietly and calmly. Happy are those who have been privileged to attain this trait!

It is well known that Moshe Rabbeinu was humble:

Now the man Moses was very meek, above all the men that were upon the face of the earth.

However, in this week's Torah portion, Moshe loses his temper:

And Moses turned, and went down from the mount, with the two tables of the testimony in his hand; tables that were written on both their sides; on the one side and on the other were they written. And the tables were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God, graven upon the tables. And when Joshua heard the noise of the people as they shouted, he said unto Moses: 'There is a noise of war in the camp.' And he said: 'It is not the voice of them that shout for mastery, neither is it the voice of them that cry for being overcome, but the noise of them that sing do I hear.' And it came to pass, as soon as he came nigh unto the camp, that he saw the calf and the dancing; and Moses' anger waxed hot, and he cast the tables out of his hands, and broke them beneath the mount.

What's interesting that our sages praise Moshe for smashing the tablets! He got angry, smashed the tablets which "were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God". Rashi, at the end of his commentary to the Torah, brings us the words of our sages with regards to this matter:

before the eyes of all Israel. [This expression alludes to the incident, where] His heart stirred him up to smash the tablets before their eyes, as it is said, “and I shattered them before your eyes” (Deut. 9:17). - [Sifrei 33:41] And [regarding Moses shattering the Tablets,] the Holy One Blessed is He gave His approval, as Scripture states, “[the first Tablets] which you shattered” (Exod. 34:1); [God said to Moses:] “Well done for shattering them!” - [Shab.. 87a]

(A paranthetical comment: The words of the sages are based on a play of words in Hebrew. The Torah was given in Hebrew and really must be learned in Hebrew.) Since the sages praised Moshe, we have to conclude that there are times when one may get angry. These are the words of the Rambam (Maimonides) in the Laws of Character Traits (1:7):

כיצד--לא יהיה בעל חמה נוח לכעוס, ולא כמת שאינו מרגיש; אלא בינוני: לא יכעוס אלא על דבר גדול שראוי לכעוס עליו, כדי שלא ייעשה כיוצא בו פעם אחרת

To paraphrase the Rambam:

One should not be a madman that angers easily, and not like a cadaver that has no feeling. One should be in between; one must not get angry unless he is dealing with a very big, important matter that is fit to get angry about, in order that people won't repeat it.

No doubt that the sight of the Golden Calf and the dancing, so soon after the giving of the Torah, was something to get angry about. But what about the Ramchal who said that a humble person is "never aroused to anger"? IMHO he agrees with the Rambam, that in rare, special cases even one who is humble can get angry. However, everyone agrees that anger is a negative character trait that must be avoided.