Parshas Ki Seitzei 5784

 

“RABBI’S MUSINGS (& AMUSINGS)”

 

Erev Shabbos Kodesh Parshas Ki Setzei

10 Elul 5784/ September 13, 2024

Pirkei Avos – Perek 2

 

Lovingly dedicated in memory of my Uncle R’ Shmuel Kohn, Shmuel Chaim ben Rav Yaakov Meir, who was niftar suddenly this week.

When we spoke, Uncle Shmuel would often comment to me about how much he enjoyed these articles.

YES WE CAN

I’m sure it’s the same in many homes. The last few days before the school year begins, our children are abuzz gathering school supplies. Our kitchen table and floor is littered with highlighters, crayons, markers, notebooks, binders, sticky notes, hole punchers, glue, tape, staplers and staples, paper reinforcements, looseleafs and looseleaf paper - standard and college (kollel) ruled, subject dividers, whiteout, rulers, compasses, and many other things that we will probably never see again after the first week. But it adds excitement of going back to school and that’s a good thing.

Almost all young children are excited to go back to school. Almost every child goes to school with determination and optimism that he/she will be successful this year and make his/her parents proud.

As the years go by, however, many children become more skeptical of their abilities. Based on their past struggles, they lose confidence and simultaneously excitement for school dissipates.

Many adults have a similar feeling during the month of Elul. “I’ve tried to change so many times, but I keep coming up short. Even the improvements I have made in my life are a drop in the bucket compared to how much work I still need to do to become a half decent person. So, what’s the use of even trying?”

I recently heard a lecture from Rabbi Daniel Kalish, beloved menahel of the Waterbury (Durham) Yeshiva, in which he poignantly expressed a point that I have long felt.

Rabbi Kalish noted that he detests when people have a defeatist attitude.

Paraphrased from his words:

“When I play sports, I give it my all. I can’t stand it when a guy gets on the court, looks at the other team and declares that his team has no chance.

Get your team, rally the troops and bring it. I'm very competitive and I hate it when people have a defeatist attitude. That's how Hashem made me. I'm a fighter and I'm a competitor.

“Don’t tell me you don’t have a chance. This is your team. Dig deep and play hard; fight like a tiger.

“You win, you lose, who cares? I don't mind losing. But the defeatist mentality bothers me.”

Rabbi Kalish compared this idea to an approach often espoused when it comes to spiritual matters, particularly regarding our observance of Tisha b’Av and Elul/teshuvah. People often nostalgically wax poetic about the days of old when people knew how to cry on Tisha b’Av and feel fear of G-d during Elul. They talk about a time when the fish in the sea trembled when the month of Elul was ushered in. Then they add how today our efforts are woefully ineffective and pitifully minuscule and inconsequential compared to generations past.

“It is dumb to say about Teshuvah that we have no connection. That is stupid. That's treif.

“In the Kinnus of Tisha b’Av we refer to a terribly tragic story when the Jews murdered, Zechariah, a kohain and Navi in the Beis Hamikdash. They killed him because they didn’t want to hear his message.

“Well, when you say we have no connection to Tisha B'Av, you're a murderer of the Navi.

“I promise you, that’s exactly what it is.

“We have a spiritual force inside us that energizes us to want to connect to the day and grow from it. But then we’re told that our observance of Tisha b’Av is pitiful, it kills our momentum. The Navi comes to connect us to the word of Hashem. When one extinguishes that fire he’s destroying that effort. Saying that our Elul and Tisha b’Av aren’t good enough is analogous to killing the Navi.

“I'm not saying that we experience it in the full ways we should. But we are trying.

“People like to preach on Tisha b’Av that we cry because we don't know what to cry about. Sometimes it’s said almost smugly as if sticking it to us.

“I say to those people - Stop it! Sit down! What are you doing? What are you trying to accomplish?

“I say kinnos for the person who tells everyone else they cry because they don’t know what to cry about!

“You’ll tell me the Sfas Emes says it. But the Sfas Emes didn't have a defeatist mentality. He didn’t mean it the way people say it today. He never meant to convey a feeling of we have no chance at really experiencing Tisha b’Av so let's all just wing it.

“Tisha B'Av is a force that you could plug into. There's a Moed called Tisha B'Av.

“Stop with the defeatist attitude! It's not a good thing. It's bad middos.

“Don’t say we can’t play because we don’t have a shot at winning. That's not how healthy people live life.

“Whatever you’re doing, do it with all your energy and effort. Live that on the court. Live that in the way you interact with your wife and children. Live that way on Tisha B'Av and in Elul. It may sometimes be hard. That’s fine. But never allow yourself to have a defeatist attitude.”

 

Noted inspirational speaker Zig Ziglar quipped that, “Ultimately, your attitude, not your aptitude, will determine your altitude.” This is undoubtedly true in spiritual matters as well. We have to believe that our efforts are invaluable in heaven (and there are enough sources to corroborate that idea). First and foremost is the fact that the most prominent hint of Elul is that the very word Elul is an acronym for “Ani l’dodi v’dodi li - I am to my beloved and my beloved is to me.”

I don’t know of a greater expression of love. Elul must be viewed as a time of love, and that engaging in teshuvah is a meaningful endeavor treasured in heaven. That positive attitude is the starting point from which all else flows.

 

 

Shabbat Shalom & Good Shabbos,

R’ Dani and Chani Staum

stamtorah@gmail.com

 

 

 

 

Parshas Shoftim 5784

 

“RABBI’S MUSINGS (& AMUSINGS)”

 

Erev Shabbos Kodesh Parshas Shoftim

3 Elul 5784/ September 6, 2024

Pirkei Avos – Perek 1-2

MAMA RACHEL CRY

It wasn’t the way we envisioned or hoped. We so wanted to see Hirsh Goldberg-Polin reunited with his family. No family should have to suffer as they did. Perhaps we, in America, identified more with them because they and Hirsh are American, and because we heard Hirsh’s parents speak so many times. Perhaps we felt it more because Rachel, Hirsh’s mother, tugged at our emotions, by openly personifying the Jewish mother, who will stop at nothing for her child. Hirsh’s parents traveled, spoke, begged, encouraged, and basically didn’t leave a stone unturned in their tireless efforts to get Hirsh out of the Gaza inferno. But to our chagrin and national pain, that’s not the way Hirsh was reunited with his family.

Along with 5 other precious hostages who suffered together for 332 days, Hirsh was murdered, just hours before the IDF was able to reach them. The 6 bodies were brought back to Israel for burial.

The poignant words of the Navi Yirmiyah that we read in the haftorah of the second day of Rosh Hashanah came to mind: “A voice is heard on high, Rachel is crying for her children. She refuses to be consoled for her children because they are not here.”

Yet, in her incredible eulogy, Rachel expressed gratitude (!) for the gift of her son:

“I am so grateful to G-d. And I want to do hakarat hatov and thank G-d right now in front of all of you for giving me this magnificent present of my Hirsch. For 23 years, I was privileged to have the most stunning honor to be Hirsch's mama. I'll take it and say thank you. I just wish it had been for longer.”

The six grieving families, along with every other shattered family since October 7, have wittingly and unwittingly inspired us with their relentless dedication and refusal to give up on their loved ones. Hope is very much a Jewish trait. So is the ability to forge on in the face of adversity and untold anguish.

In Parshas Vayera the Torah relates that after Hagar was banished from the home of Avrohom and Sarah, Hagar’s young son Yishmael became fatally ill. The pasuk relates that Hagar, “cast him under one of the shrubs, for she said I will not see the death of the child.”

Rabbi Samson Rafael Hirsch comments:

“Hagar's whole behavior… typifies the unrefined Chamite nature. A Jewish mother would never abandon her child, even if all she could do for him would be to speak softly to him, to soothe him if only for a millionth part of a second. One who abandons a child and does nothing because "she cannot bear to see the child's misery" does not act out of compassion. Such conduct reflects the cruel egotism of a brutish character. True humanity is marked by a sense of duty that is capable of mastering even the strongest of emotions. A sense of duty makes one forget his own painful feelings and enables him to extend help and assistance, even if one can do no more than give the comfort of one's compassionate presence…

“All of the foregoing shows that Hagar completely lost her head when overcome with her own grief. A mother descending from Avraham would never behave toward her child in such a manner.”

The inhumanity of our enemies is truly unbelievable. The only reason it’s not downright shocking is because we are aware of similar terror subjected on our people throughout our long and painful exile. We are shocked only because we are naive in thinking it wouldn’t happen in 2024.

Rachel concluded her eulogy:

“Okay, sweet boy, go now on your journey. I hope it's as good as the trips you dreamed about, because finally, my sweet boy, finally, finally, finally, FINALLY!, you're free!

“I will love you, and I will miss you every single day for the rest of my life. But you're right here. I know you're right here.

“I just have to teach myself how to feel you in a different way. And, Hirsch, there's one last thing I need you to do for us. Now I need you to help us stay strong. And I need you to help us survive.”

 

This week, I was reading “Stories from the Land of Israel” by Chanan Morrison about Rabbi Avrohom Yitzchok HaKohain Kook zt”l, whose yahrtzeit is 3 Elul.

Six months after the 1929 Arab riot and massacre, Rav Kook spoke at a memorial event in the Yeshurun Shul in Yerushalayim. In light of this week’s tragic events, I found his words to be so applicable and encouraging:

The holy martyrs of Chevron do not need a memorial service. The Jewish people can never forget the holy and pure souls who were slaughtered by murderers and vile thugs.

Rather, we must remember and remind the Jewish people not to forget the city of the Patriarchs. The people must know what Chevron means to us.

We have an ancient tradition that "The actions of the fathers are signposts for their descendants." When the weak-hearted spies arrived at Hebron, they were frightened by the fierce nations who lived in the land. But "Calev quieted the people for Moshe. He said, 'We must go forth and conquer the land. We can do it.” (Bamidbar 13:30)

Despite the terrible tragedy that took place in Chevron, we announce to the world, "Our strength is now like our strength was then." We will not abandon our holy places and sacred aspirations. Chevron is the city of our fathers, the city of the Machpeilah cave where our Patriarchs are buried. It is the city of David, the cradle of our sovereign monarchy.

Those who discourage the ones trying to rebuild the Jewish community in Chevron with arguments of political expedience; those who scorn and say, “What are those wretched Jews doing?" Those who refuse to help rebuild Chevron – they are attacking the very roots of our people. In the future, they will have to give account for their actions. If ruffians and hooligans have repaid our kindness with malice, we have only one eternal response: Jewish Chevron will once again be built, in honor and glory!

The inner meaning of Chevron is to draw strength and galvanize ourselves with the power of Netzach Yisrael, Eternal Israel.

That proud Jew, Calev, announced years later, “I am still strong... As my strength was then, so is my strength now" (Joshua 14:11). We, too, announce to the world: our strength now is as our strength was then. We shall reestablish Chevron in even greater glory, with peace and security for every Jew. With G-d’s help, we will merit to see Chevron completely rebuilt, speedily in our days.

Our collective heart is broken and aches for the pain of the six families. But our response will be as the Jewish people have always responded - with greater conviction and dedication to our cause.

“Behold a people that rises like a lioness and raises itself like a lion. It does not lie down until it eats its prey and drinks the blood of the slain.” (Bamidbar 23:24)

 

Shabbat Shalom & Good Shabbos,

R’ Dani and Chani Staum

stamtorah@gmail.com