Rabbi Yisrael Salanter, the brilliant and renowned founder of the mussar movement, once found himself in a wagon traveling to a speaking engagement with a group of jews, who did not recognize him.
As the journey began, he took out sefer and began to learn. But he became distracted by the conversation around him.
“Did you hear about so-and-so?!” One man asked. “No! What happened?” “Well he and his wife...”
Rav Yisrael Salanter, who did not enjoy talking about other people, noticed that one of the horses drawing the wagon was particularly fine. He pointed it out to his companions, who agreed with his estimation, and the conversation quickly moved from one to another – each man telling his best and worst horse stories.
As the wagon arrived in the city, throngs of people gathered to meet Rav Yisrael Salanter. When the travelers realized who their companion was, they turned to him in shock. “Holy Rabbi, for the last two hours we have been talking, laughing and telling stories about horses – surely their was a better use for your time?!”
“Indeed,” said Rav Yisrael, “but just after I took out a sefer, you began to talk about other people. And Chazal teach out that one speaking Lashon Hara is likened to killing a person. I decided that it'd be rather be guilty of to killing horses, than people.”
Many might argue that the sensitivity and dedication of Rabbi Yisrael Salanter belongs to a bygone era of tzadikim. We can tell the story, maybe even aspire to such lofty heights, but we understand that there are levels beyond us, reserved for only the most transcendent and cautious.
I was speaking with a friend about a week ago, who was complaining about the challenges of working from home. Children banging on the door, work spaces constantly violated, and the ever looming temptation of the kitchen...
But more than all of that, he related, he was spending far more time with his family than ever before. “You know,” he says, “I always made sure to spend quality time with my family. But quantity time is much more difficult.”
In the past week we have said goodbye to two more Gedolei Olam – Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks and Rabbi Dovid Feinstein. This compounds the loneliness, the pain and the isolation we have all felt in the past nine months. But in the wake of their passing, we are left asking the same painful question yet again: Who will replace them?
Of course, no one is ever replaceable. The candle might burn from one shabbos to the next. The challah might, once again stay fresh all week long. But for Avraham Avinu, Rivka will never replace Sarah. How could she?
But in the wake of her passing, Avraham knows that his and her legacy must continue beyond their lifetime. Avraham slowly, tragically comes to terms with his own mortality. And the reality that the task of bringing the entirety of humanity to a recognition of Hashem is bigger than one lifetime.
And so his goal, and the goal of every Jewish parent since, is to perpetuate this truth by cheating death – by having children.
For Avraham, the stakes are incredibly high. If Yitzchak fails, then the world fails. In no uncertain terms, humanity depends on Yitzchak finding a Shidduch that will partner with him in this mission.
Reb Levi Yitzchok of Berdichev was well known as possessing a an extreme love for the Jewish people, but also for being both brilliant and somewhat eccentric.
Berdichev was a town with more than a few non-observant Jews, and was often host to enlightened Jews, who reveled in opportunities to catch a frum Jew on some hypocrisy in their behavior, or inconsistency in their understanding of Torah and mitzvos. Many of these maskilim were exceedingly learned, well versed and brilliant in their own right. Which made them all the more dangerous to an unsuspecting minyan goer...
There was a certain maskil that had heard rumors of the brilliance of the Berdichever, and relished in the opportunity to challenge him on issues of faith and mesora and authenticity.
He arrived in town dressed as a regular Jew, and armed with well developed arguments, he asked for an appointment with the Rebbe. He was informed that the Berchiver was davening. No matter, he said, I wait on the side of the small Beis Medrash. And what a sight it was to behold. The Rebbe was eccentric beyond belief. His davening began in one corner of the room and he appeared to jump and dance with little rhyme or reason from one corner to the other.
The Maskil began to chuckle to himself. How naive the chassidim could be to think that such a person, with his oddities could possess any philosophical sophistication. Perhaps it was not worth the time to come.
One end of the room to the other, he davened and danced. And the maskil looked on, slowly drawn into the seemingly strange movements of the Rebbe. Little by little, as if in a trance, the Maskil began noticing the patterns of his arms and legs. What appeared to be random eccentrics gave way to a complex choreographed performance, with an audience of two. The maskil and Hashem.
His mind gradually emptied, his breathing relaxed. His eyed fixated on the dance. Until as if all at once, the Rebbe's face was directly in front of him. Broken out of the reverie, the Rebbe grabbed him by his collar and firmly asked: “And what if you're wrong?”
All the walls had finally come down. The Maskil stood in that little room and cried and cried. Echoing over and over in his mind: “And what if you're wrong?”
“Avraham in the Idol Shop” is amongst the most cherished medrashim of our formative kindergarten parsha classes. It's a story of good old fashion Jewish smarts, of mesirus nefesh, of boldness and audaciousness.
Do you remember the first time you heard the story? And the punch line that he blamed it on the biggest idol. Brilliant! Look at him go! Smashing those idols, proving their worthlessness. Standing up to his parents, society and king. Every child leaves their kindergarten class thinking “when I grow up, one day I too will be like Avraham.”
But careful eyes will notice that there’s a major problem with the story. Because Avraham himself never grows up to be like Avraham. This is a one time event. Indeed, the Avraham that we meet in Lech Lecha is decidedly not an idol smasher.
And so the Chasam Sofer (ריש לך לך) questions: Why does Avraham destroy the idols in his home town of Ur Casdim, but never in Eretz Yisrael? Surely it would be his sacred duty to inform all those around him of the importance of ridding the Sacred Land of Israel of traces of Avodah Zara?
And yet he doesn't. This is not a result of weakness. Avraham is no push over. He goes to war against four armies and wins. And yet, never again does he wield the axe of destruction.
A student of Reb Yechezkel of Kozmir once got a job as a rabbi. Before he began his new position he went to his Rebbe to get a Bracha that he should be successful, and that people shouldn't give him a hard time.
Reb Yechezkel opened a Chumash to parshas Noach, and read:
This is the history of the generations of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, whole, among the people of his time. Noah walked with God.
He then turned to Rashi, who writes:
Some of our Rabbis explain this pasuk to Noach's credit: he was righteous even in his generation; it follows that had he lived in a generation of righteous people he would have been even more righteous owing to the force of good example. Others, however, explain it to his discredit: in comparison with his own generation he was accounted righteous, but had he lived in the generation of Abraham he would have been accounted as of no importance.
“Apparently,” said the Rebbe, “even for a person who the Torah says is completely righteous, a צַדִּיק תָּמִים, at the moment they have a position of importance there will be people that approve, and people that disapprove.”
I am not ambivalent. I don't think anyone is, or can be. My orientation to this intense political drama is not resultant from a lack of thought or opinions. I, just like you, have opinions. Some of them are even strong opinions.
Why don't I care who you vote for? It's an Avoda. Every day I am attempting to live a dialectic – a bifurcation of sorts. Of course, there is the famous and well explored dialectic of separating between a person and their thoughts/actions. This distinction was crystallized by Bruria, the wife of Rebbe Meir who admonished her husband that Hashem does not want to see the demise of sinners, but of sins. We could all stand to do some more work in this arena.
But even invoking the “sin vs sinner” conversation is a branding of sorts that I'd like to avoid. It's a “looking down from my pedestal” approach. And in the heat of our current political brouhaha, I think you'd agree that it is unhelpful.
Instead, the dialectic I wish to explore is a little more nuanced, and less understood. It's the point of conflict between Torah and Tefillah.
