The Joys of Yiddish

On a bus in Tel Aviv, a mother was talking animatedly, in Yiddish, to her little boy - who kept answering her in Hebrew. And eatch time the mother said, "No, not talk Yiddish!". An impatient Israeli, overhearing this, exclaimed, "Lady, why do you insist the boy talk in Yiddish instead of Hebrew?"

Replied the mother, "I don't want him to forget he's a Jew".

Leo Rosten, The Joys of Yiddish

When a big haham is leaving this world

We are so poor now without Rav Ovadia zt''l. It's everything I can say after so many days after thinking he left this world. Days before, I was davening for his refuah shleimah. And was thinking, how I am to daven for such a gadol?

After with tears in my eyes I watched the impressive levaya when 800,000 people at least were there praying together, Sephardim and Askenazim, young and old, women and men, modern, religious and secular, FFB or BT, I realized what we lost. For me, he was one of the biggest personality of the Jewish world of the last century. Again, who I am to give qualifications who is bigger or not?

I have a lot of personal memories related to Rav. At the beginning of my religious journey, he was always the example of the big wise who is all the time busy with Torah. I was reading and told by those who had the honour to meet him how Torah was his only preoccupation. And Torah is what unites us, Jews from all over the world.
Rav Ovadia zt''l was important for the Sephardi world. Through him and his vast knowledge, the Sephardim heritage was re-evaluated and brought back in respect. I've heard a story about a discussion he had with his wife about the involvement in the creation of the Shas party. He told to his wife that getting involved in what will be the party of the Sephardim is a big duty and he doesn't want to be asked when arriving in Shamayim why he was not there when needed. How opportune is the presence of a religious figure in politics is another discussion, but his presence contributed to the creation of a new Sephardi Israeli identity. Political involvement means controversies and the last elections brought a lot of discussions and poisonous exchange of arrows, but this is already history. Many of those targeted by his arrows davened for his recovery and this is another example of his powerful personality.
Through his works, he tried to bring a unique voice to the very fragmented and not initially self-aware Sephardi world. My Iraqi Jews friends were davening together with the Yemeni and the Moroccans. Creating a unique authority at least with the same written base as the Askenazim was also part of his tremendous work in the service of Torah. He was highly respected by all the big Askenazim chassidic leaders in Jerusalem and abroad and he was often visited for advice on important Torah matters.
There are also many other significant moments associated with his personality: the recognition of Ethiopian Jews, the discussion about Bnei Menashe, the negotiations for the liberation of Gilad Shalit, the decisions in favour of 'chained' women. A complete history of his work and life is still to be written.
Over 800,000 said the kaddish together in Jerusalem for Rav Ovadia zt''l. Some say that such a big gathering of Jews for levaya was not seen since the death of Aaron haCohen.
Rav Ovadia zt''l takes care of us all now. Our duty is to intensify the Torah study and the good deeds. This can be done even by an am haaretz like me.

A royal wedding

I have no idea how many people in this world had 25,000 guests at their wedding. Maybe some royal families but even there, I am not sure if the participants were so free to share the holiness of the moment. 

In the last hours, I watched a lot of pictures and videos from the wedding of the Belz rebbe's grandson. From time to time, I also saw some comments, many related to the appearance of the veiled bride (should she stay like this her entire lifetime, or what a culture when the woman should wear a white covering on her face...etc.), but it will not be the point of my articles.

Before the Germans destroyed Belz, there were 3,600 Jewish inhabitants, out of a population of 6,100 persons. The Belzer rebbe was on the list of the most wanted Jews and he succeeded to escape first to Hungary and after, shortly before the Nazis (ימח שמו) invaded the country, he and his half-brother succeeded to escape to the then-Palestine. All the members of their families left in Poland were killed.

The Hasidic courts were re-established in Tel Aviv and later in the Kiryas Belz, in Jerusalem. The Belz synagogue is nowadays one of the biggest constructions in the holy city. A new network of yeshivot and educational system was created, following the model of intensive study used by the Belz in the old country. In the US, the Belz have a high-end medical treatment center and several charities that may support those who are interested in spending more time in the yeshiva before and after being married.

Nowadays, the Belz chosids are everywhere: there are more than 2 thousand families in the US, as well as in Canada or UK. No more chosids in Poland. 

The current rebbe, Yissachar Dov Rokeach, is the fifth head of the dynasty, and the son in law of Rebbe Moshe Hager of Vizhnitz, another hasidic dynasty that was re-born in Eretz Israel after the World War II. 

Nowadays, there are at least ten times more Belz chasidim than in the shtetl. The message? עם ישראל חי

Shabbos reading

When you have a full week of 6 full working days, Shabbat is the only day when I really can focus on serious reading on Judaism-related topics. I can also read more than 3-4 pages in a row in Hebrew and clean my mind from everything that during the week do not let me clearly consider more serious topics.

Thus, no business planning, no thoughts about the next trip to the other end of the town and any ideas about what I will do in the next hours after Shabbat will end. Just leaving the moment and let the future be on hold for a while, as being too busy with the present spiritual building.

As the Internet is offline for 25 hours, it is the only day of the week when I can read 1 book the day without interruption. No need to check my e-mails or to immediately look for some news on the web that will keep me busy online for couple of good hours. 

My choice of books was the following:

Shabbat and electricity, by Rabbi L.Y. Halperin, an authority in this very sophisticated halakhic domain. It addresses a couple of interesting aspects related to electrical and electronic devices on Shabbat: closing and opening circuits on Shabbat, the Shabbat telephone, why, when and how to use an elevator, dishwashers on Shabbat, air conditioning and automatic doors or alarm systems. The book is a translation from a Hebrew version published by the prestigious Institute for Science and Halacha and this is perhaps the reason why there are some shortages in terms of fluency of the English version. However, it is a must have and most read kind of book for anyone interested in getting more practical insights about various chellenges of the modern life to the old rules of Shabbat. 

Following the same line, my next book was Halachah and Medicine Today an interesting translation of excerpts of articles published on this topic in Halacha U'Refuah. The translations are good and you can have a full picture of all the opinions on a certain topic. There are articles signes by respectable rabbis, such as R. Ovadia Yosef shlita, R. Moshe Feinstein, R. Halperin from the previous collection of articles, R. Yehoshua Neuwirth, or the Lubavitcher Rebbe. The titles of some of the articles: blood tests on Shabbat for neonatal jaundice, taking blookd and giving injections on Shabbat, accompanying a patient to hospital on Shabbat, the observant physician and Shabbat. 

Just in order to be encouraged to continue my diversified menu of books, I ended up with One thing I ask, by Rabbi Hillel Fendel. Most probably, any well trained bochur know the answers to most of the questions - for instance, 'Where do we find complete passages from the Torah in the tefilah?', 'Which verse from Psalms do we recite the most often in our prayers?' or 'Which passages must be repeated if not said with the proper intention and devotion?'. However, it was not my case in over 98% of the cases. The book is organized with a section of questions, followed by the detailed answers, written in a very simple and concise way. The main topics are: hallel and rosh chodesh, Torah reading, blessings, morning prayers, Shmoneh Esrei, Halakhah, numbers. 

A good start for a week of light!

A Bit of Herring, a Pinch of Salt, and a Morsel of Bread

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The dubner maged once heard a scholar get up on the bime, the platform of the synagogue, and deliver a learned discourse, citing Biblical verses, Talmudic and rabbinic commentaries, and who knows what else. In the course of his talk, he managed to heap scorn upon the folk preached who had spoken before him.

When the learned man was done, the dubner maged said to him "Let me tell you a parable that may prove useful".

In a certain town there once lived a great merchant, very clever man. A very, very clever man. He observed that there were many rich and powerful people in his town, so he opened a jewelry store and had many customers. But some while later, he moved to a smaller town whose inhabitants, sad to say, were poor and threadbare.

Seeing that, the clever merchant opened a store - no, not a store, a little shop, in which he sold herring, salt, kerosene, and other ordinary things. And with the same hands that once handled diamonds, he now served up herrings and kerosene. And just as the merchand had been satisfied with the jewelry store, so now he was pleased with the poor little shop. No - he was actually more pleased with it; everything he did delighted him.

Thins went on like this until one day a friend from the larger town came to visit him and said "I don't understand. How is it fitting for a man who once sold diamonds and gems to be selling herring and salt and other such stuff?"

The good and the clever merchand replies, "I am sorry to say that you don't get the point. Let me tell you something: The people who live in the large city are rich. They own many jewels and they are great connoisseurs of jewelry. But in this little town, the poor are poor. They work with their hands and struggle to make ends meet. They don't need diamonds, nor do they understand them. Indeed, what they need...yes! - they need a bit of herring, a pinch of salt, and a morsel of bread".

from Yiddish Folktales, ed. by Beatrice Silverman Weinreich, Translated by Leonard Wolf, 1988, YIVO, pp.8-9

Hush!

I discovered Hush while e-reading Tablet. In the next ten minutes I ordered the book on Amazon and one week ago this time I was about to finish it. It took me another week for finding the time and the wording to write about it and almost one day for writing these paragraphs.

The issue of sexuality and abuse in the orthodox communities was rarely - if ever - approached in the English speaking literature. The author, assumed to be a woman using the pen name Eishes Chayil (Woman of Valor, the song that every Shabbat is honoring the woman as a mother, sister and holding a big responsibility in the perpetuation of Yiddishkeit), is belonging to this community and writes with a sensibility that I found surprising. Is educated, but know and respect in a very delicate way the traditional tabus and sensibilities. You will not have direct references to sex, even the book is talking about the victim of a sexual abuse. Or other explicit physical descriptions. The author is using the words in a very delicate way to describe terrible and controversial feelings and the influences of the creative writing classes are producing a very pleasant lecture. You don't even realize that something was missing and the words are powerful enough for suggesting explicit situations. And although the subject is very sad, there are enough episodes making you laugh.

And you need a lot of suggestions and paraphrases for the subject of this book: the education of the refuse to speak about the sexual abuses in the orthodox community. The knowledge is sealed beyond the closed doors but not for condemning the perpetrators, but to cover their facts. And this don't have nothing to do with Judaism or religion or "the tradition". It is the direct consequence of misunderstanding the role of the justice - equal for all commiting crimes. If nobody is taking measures and exposing the abuses, the potential perpetrators will be encouraged to do so. From my point of view, the attitude of the parents were relevant for this pattern: the mothers - Eishes Chayil - refused to acknowledge that the abuse were true and when they had all the evidences, they continued to recommend the hush-wise attitude for reasons of preservation of the community. But such an attitude is against the role that an Eishes Chayil should play in the community, as avertisor and guardian of the tradition. Such abuses don't have nothing to do with it and revealing the truth it is not even an act of justice, but the wake-up call for the return to the real values and tradition. You cannot build a community based on people with rotten behaviors, praying during the day and abusing their sisters during the night.

Another interesting aspect revealed in the book is the relation with the outside community. The perception based on an eternal conflict between "we" and "them" is creating the idea of a certain conflictual difference. Hence, the conception that making public all these scandalous situation the world will be turned around us. If so, create the proper mechanisms for preventing and punishing. And let the victims speak out - their suffering might be offering enough incentives for putting and end to this culture tolerating the evil.

And if it any question about the need to open a discussion on these issues, here it is the newest example pledging for the end of the "hush" way of thinking.

Related articles

• Review: Hush (bookingmama.blogspot.com)