"When you are a captive of a certain concept, they can put a pink elephant in the room and convince you that it's a little yellow cat," Yuval Diskin, former head of the Shin Bet
Former Shin Bet head: 'Seems Netanyahu does not want to get rid of Sinwar' (israelnationalnews.com)
Reminds me of the notion that nothing matters but Gemara study.
“Could the Chabad Rebbe be Moshiach?” - YouTube
"I do want to say for sure, for sure, for sure the Lubavitcher Rebbe was a phenomenally great man, great in learning, great in righteousness, great in his mesiras nefesh for Klal Yisroel. There is no negative thing that I could possibly say about the Rebbe and again his greatness is phenomenal."
Rabbi Yitzchak Breitowitz
Yeshivas Ohr Somayach
דוד המלך אומר בתהלים קיט, במה יזכה נער את
ארחו לשמור כדבריך. בכל ליבי דרשתיך. בליבי צפנתי. בשפתי סיפרתי. בדרך עדותיך
ששתי. בפיקודיך אשיחה. בחוקתיך אשתעשע לא אשכך דבריך
|
Selective
Citation |
Actual Tehillim |
Translation with redactions underlined |
|
במה יזכה נער את ארחו
לשמור כדבריך? |
בַּמֶּ֣ה יְזַכֶּה־נַּ֖עַר
אֶת־אָרְח֑וֹ לִ֜שְׁמֹ֗ר כִּדְבָרֶֽךָ: |
In what
manner should a youth purify his way? To observe according to Your word. |
|
בכל ליבי דרשתיך. |
בְּכָל־לִבִּ֥י
דְרַשְׁתִּ֑יךָ אַל־תַּ֜שְׁגֵּ֗נִי מִמִּצְוֹתֶֽיךָ: |
With all
my heart I searched for You; do
not cause me to stray from Your commandments |
|
בליבי צפנתי. |
בְּלִבִּי
צָפַ֣נְתִּי אִמְרָתֶ֑ךָ לְ֜מַ֗עַן לֹ֣א אֶֽחֱטָא־לָֽךְ: |
In my
heart I hid Your word in order
that I should not sin against You. |
|
|
בָּר֖וּךְ
אַתָּ֥ה יְהֹוָ֗ה לַמְּדֵ֥נִי חֻקֶּֽיךָ: |
Blessed
are You, O Lord; teach me Your statutes. |
|
בשפתי סיפרתי. |
בִּשְׂפָתַ֥י
סִפַּ֑רְתִּי כֹּ֜֗ל מִשְׁפְּטֵי־פִֽיךָ: |
With my
lips I recited all the
judgments of Your mouth. |
|
בדרך עדותיך ששתי. |
בְּדֶ֖רֶךְ
עֵֽדְוֹתֶ֥יךָ שַׂ֗שְׂתִּי כְּעַ֣ל כָּל־הֽוֹן: |
With the
way of Your testimonies I rejoiced as
over all riches. |
|
בפיקודיך אשיחה. |
בְּפִקּוּדֶ֥יךָ
אָשִׂ֑יחָה וְ֜אַבִּ֗יטָה אֹֽרְחֹתֶֽיךָ: |
Concerning
Your precepts I shall converse and
I shall look at Your ways. |
|
בחוקתיך אשתעשע לא אשכך
דבריך. |
בְּחֻקֹּתֶ֥יךָ
אֶֽשְׁתַּֽעֲשָׁ֑ע לֹ֖א אֶשְׁכַּ֣ח דְּבָרֶֽךָ: |
With Your
statutes I shall occupy myself; I shall not forget Your speech. |
He
leaves out all the parts about mitzvos and sin. Thus, “With all my heart I searched for You do not cause
me to stray from Your commandments” becomes “With all my heart I searched
for You.” “In my heart I hid Your word in order that I should not sin against
You” becomes “In my heart I hid Your word.”
You want to say that he was talking about Torah
learning so he just kept those parts? I want to answer that Dovid didn’t
separate learning from doing so why should we?
Well, we should if we want to turn Jewish life into
an intellectual game. This hespid had just mentioned that the deceased
was asked if he was afraid after the war broke out. He answered that his only
fear was being an Am Ha’aretz. What, he didn’t fear God? He didn’t fear
that he may have hurt other people in his life? Koheles says, “the sum
of the matter is to fear God and keep His commandments.” Try telling that to some
people. They’ll tell you that they just go by what their rebbes taught them.
Doesn’t matter what Koheles said, Heaven forbid. They just follow the rebbes
that just happen to teach at the yeshiva that they attended probably mostly
because of status.
The Gemara Tractate Sukkah 48B tells the story of a
Kohen Gadol, a Sadducee, who openly mocked the mitzvah of nisuch hamayim,
the water libations, by pouring the golden pitcher of water on his feet rather
than on the altar. The incensed crowd who were composed mostly of Perushim [according
to Josephus most of the common folk were Perushi] began pelting him with their
esrogim and damaged the corner of the altar.
תנו רבנן, מעשה בצדוקי אחד(! )
שנסך על גבי רגליו ורגמוהו כל העם באתרוגיהן ואותו היום נפגמה קרן המזבח והביאו
בול של מלח וסתמוהו וכו'" (סוכה, מח' ב')
The Lubavitcher Rebbe explains that the Sadducees
rejected the Oral Torah because they approached Torah with intellect only. They
believed that the Kohanim and scholars could replace kabbalas ol, the heavenly
yoke, with intellect. They rejected the water libation because it represented
acceptance of the heavenly yoke. He poured the water over his feet in a
symbolic act which said that the common people (metaphorically the feet), whose
intellect was weak, should just follow the dictates of the leaders. (Remind you
of anyone?)
Alternatively, the Sadducee wanted to indicate that
lowly personal matters (feet) need kabbalas ol, but that the higher powers, the
intellect and emotions, are above it.
“All the people pelted him” – a priest and Torah
scholar cannot answer this claim; as an intellectual person, he does not feel
the need for obedience so deeply. Only a simple person “all the people” senses
that the Sadducee’s claim is baseless and opposes the Divine will.
They pelted him with esrogim, the highest of the
four species, representing the intellect, the highest of the spiritual
faculties. By pelting him with esrogim, the people were saying that they also
understood intellectually that his claim opposed the Creator’s will. Kabbalot
ol had informed their intellect so that they had come to understand
intellectually what they accepted originally out of obedience.
“The top of the altar was damaged.” The choicest
part of the sacrifice, the fat and the blood, is offered on the altar. The
inner meaning of sacrifice is to subdue and harness the intellect (the choicest
part of the person) to serve God, so that altar represents kabbals ol. Heaven
arranged for the Sadducee’s claim to be answered. When there is a flaw in the
altar (kabbalas ol) there is a flaw in the sacrifices, intellectual service;
for all offerings offered on a damaged altar are disqualified.
“They brought a handful of salt and stopped it up.”
Salt, which has no nutritional value, also represents kabbalas ol, service
without intellectual rationale. When the altar was damaged, what was lacking
was supplied by salt, which represents kabbalas ol.
Kabbalas Ol is the part of Tehillim that this Rosh
Yeshiva cut out.
Who was this renegade Kohen Gadol? According to Josephus,
it was the Hasmonean King Alexander Yannai. Josephus in Antiquities describes
the episode:
As to Alexander, his own people were seditious
against him; for at a festival which was then celebrated, when he stood upon
the altar, and was going to sacrifice, the nation rose upon him, and pelted him
with citrons [which they then had in their hands, because] the law of the Jews
required that at the feast of tabernacles every one should have branches of the
palm tree and citron tree; which thing we have elsewhere related. They also
reviled him, as derived from a captive, and so unworthy of his dignity and of
sacrificing. At this he was in a rage and slew of them about six thousand.
Wikipedia tells us more about him, “Like his
brother, Alexander was an avid supporter of the aristocratic priestly faction
known as the Sadducees.” The Sadducess weren’t some fringe group in the forest.
“Josephus, writing at the end of the 1st century CE, associates the sect with
the upper social and economic echelon of Judean society. As a whole, they
fulfilled various political, social, and religious roles, including maintaining
the Temple in Jerusalem. The group became extinct after the destruction of the
Second Temple in 70 CE.”
And JewishHistory.org:
"John Hyrcanus came under the influence of the
Sadducees in the latter part of his reign and the government of Israel
officially became a Sadducee government. He removed members of the Sanhedrin
who were Pharisees and replaced them with Sadducees. He also did away many of
the rabbinic ordinances and replaced them with the ways of the Sadducees – and
imposing them with a police force and the army."
But are they extinct, or have they returned in the
form of the yeshivists who now run Orthodoxy society, even at YU, even in their
influence among Chassidim and Sefardim.
You will ask, how can the yeshivists be Sadducees?
They haven’t rejected the Oral Torah. It’s their main focus.
So they say. But they have turned the Gemara into
an intellectual game. They don’t study halacha or aggadata. They pilpul around.
They may CLAIM that they are the opposite of Sadducees but that’s a cover, like
a liberal saying he’s all about compassion when his compassion is so selective,
really for his own causes only. The yeshivists don’t cherish the Gemara. They
don’t teach their son a trade, marry at 16, let students study the parts of
Torah that interest them, don’t learn from a cat, don’t take the good parts
from the goyim, don’t learn from the Gemara about the Sadducee. If they study
Tanach or Kabbalah at all, it’s only to take the parts that promote their
Brisker Lomdus, as we see in this rabbi's selective quoting of Tehillim.
Side note, I have heard it said that the Sadducces
were essentially Hellenists. "The
Sadducees, who were the heirs of the Hellenists, formed a very potent and
powerful force in Jewish society, but they subscribed to a philosophy that was
essentially non-Jewish, to a Greek view of the world." JewishHistory.org
How
fitting that the yeshivists came originally from 19th century Hellenist Europe
and really hit their stride in America and Zionist Israel where they
militarized Litvish Judaism into what we face today Yeshivism.
Not guilty
Of getting in your way while you're trying to steal the dayIf your life's not right, doesn't satisfy you
Don't get the breaks like some of us doAgain, what came into my box. The Jew without mitzvos is not nice and the gentile is nice.
Don Rickles was so rude ! I was a teen and went to a fancy restaurant in Long Island with my rich aunt and uncle. He was at the table next to us. He treated the server like shit !!! He was so rude and disrespectful that I got a stomachache from watching and listening to him. He belittled and berated her so badly and she was so kind. He sent his dinner back about five or six times , left without tipping. He was absolutely disgraceful! He was alone too… Gee I wonder why?!?!Nicest was Al Pacino ! He was in peds ER with one of his twins. Asked me if there was something he could do for me. I said yes. Please visit my patient in room 15. She’s was a teen , terminal cancer ! Her brother was with her , parents were out of the country. He immediately came with me and spent about an hour chatting with them. Gave them movie tickets and his cell number💙
Joni Mitchell, 1967. Her songs had been recorded by Tom Paxton, Buffy Ste Marie, Dave Van Ronk. Judy Collins had a huge hit with Both Sides Now. Joni’s first album had been produced by Dave Crosby and was great. So Joni was right up there. But she still had some contractual commitments to the smaller clubs where she started out. Like The Riverboat, in Toronto. Held maybe 100 people. Yours truly goes to see her - for the umpteenth time - and afterwards wangles his way backstage to ask Joni if she can give him guitar lessons.
In her dressing room was her manager, there was Bernie, who owned The Riverboat, a guy who looked like a lawyer, and a couple of reporters from the local papers. Everyone’s going “Joni!” “Joni!” “Joni!” She puts up her hand and says, “Wait. I need to show Max a couple of things.”
I’m a nobody, a 16 year old schmo who’s politely pushy, and she told all the movers and shakers to wait while she explained a couple of things. Can you spell ‘gracious’? ‘Kind’? ‘Patient’? She was magnificent.
For the musicians reading this, she checked that I knew the open G and open D tunings and could play the basic chords. She then showed me - she wrote it out on a napkin which of course I lost - a 2-note descending line against various pedals. She also said, “There are no rules. If you like it, it’s good.”
How could Esav – a child of Yitzchak and a grandchild of Avraham – have turned out so badly?
Rav Samson Raphael Hirsch suggests (based on earlier sources) that the fault partially lies with Yitzchak and Rivkah in that they ignored “the great law of education chanoch la’naar al pi darko, ‘bring up each child in accordance with its own way’ – that each child must be treated differently with an eye to the slumbering tendencies of his nature.”
Rav Hirsch argues that Esav and Yaakov possessed very different natures and thus should have been raised differently. “To try to bring up a Yaakov and an Esav at the same school desk, make them have the same habits and hobbies, want to teach and educate them in the same way for some studious, sedate, meditative life is the surest way to court disaster,” he writes.
But isn’t there one Jewish archetype to which parents should raise their children? No, writes Rav Hirsch. “The great Jewish task in life is basically simple, one and the same for all, but in its realization is as complicated and varied as human natures and tendencies are varied.”
Rav Hirsch points out that on his deathbed, Yaakov, speaking to his 12 children, prophesied of a Jewish nation that included – yes – scholars but also merchants, farmers, and soldiers, “and he blessed all of them.”
continue
Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch on the parsha: Improper parenting (israelnationalnews.com)
In the beginning, as the Midrash teaches,1 G‑d “created worlds and destroyed them.” The Kabbalah explains that this refers to spiritual worlds, Supernal Sefirot (“emanations”), that first existed in one state of being and then in another. The Sefirot in the former state of being — called the World of Tohu (lit., “Chaos”) — underwent a “breaking of the vessels.” The World of Tikkun (lit., “Order”) was then built.
The Sefirot comprise orot (“lights”) and kelim (“vessels”) that contain these lights. The crisis in the World of Tohu occurred because the orot were so intense that the kelim were incapable of containing them. As a result of this breakage, sparks of holiness descended within the kelipot. These sparks are to be found in the Worlds of Beriah, Yetzirah and Asiyah in general, but particularly within the physicality of our world. It is the task of the Jew to sift this materiality by using it properly, in order to extract and refine these sparks, thereby elevating them to their original source in the World of Tohu. This elevation in turn elicits a mighty downflow of Divine energy from Tohu, and from even higher than that level.
(Certain Divine Names, whose respective Kabbalistic meanings are signified by Hebrew letter-combinations, are related to this process of beirurim, the extraction and refinement of the sparks of holiness. Thus the Name known as Ba’n (ב״ן) is the source of the fallen holy sparks; the Name Ma’h (מ״ה) is the power that extracts and elevates them; while the Name Sa’g (ס״ג) is the original source of the World of Tohu. When the extraction and elevation of the sparks deriving from the Name Ba’n is accomplished through the Name Ma’h, a lofty degree of Divine illumination is drawn down from the Name Sa’g, and is vested within the “capacious vessels” of the World of Tikkun.)
This extraction is for the most part accomplished through the performance of action-oriented mitzvot involving physical objects which derive their life-force from kelipat nogah, and which house the sparks of Tohu. Performing a mitzvah with such objects disencumbers the hidden sparks of their corporeal husk and elevates them.
Kuntres Acharon, beginning of Essay 4
We thus see that in one sense Torah without proper intent is superior to prayer without proper intent, for such Torah study creates angels in the World of Yetzirah, while prayer without proper intent is repulsed. On the other hand, when the lack of proper intent in Torah study is such that it prevents it from ascending, as in the case of studying for the sake of self-aggrandizement, then this is lower than prayer without proper intent.
For one proper prayer, or even a compilation of different prayers that add up to one prayer with proper intent, elevates all the other prayers of that year. With regard to Torah study, by contrast, even if one later studies with proper intent, this does not elevate his previous study; actual repentance is required. Until such time one’s Torah study is in exile within the kelipah which spawned his ulterior motive.
Nevertheless, since all Jews will eventually repent, for7 “No one of them will be rejected,” our Sages advise that8 “one should always study Torah and perform mitzvot even when they are not done for their own sake” — and, indeed, even if they involve an ulterior motive — for eventually he will achieve the state of lishmah, when he repents. This is explained by the Alter Rebbe at the end of ch. 39 of Tanya.
Kuntres Acharon, beginning of Essay 3
-------------------
Torah for self is lower than prayer without cavanagh. What about Torah that's just for intellectual thrill?
Moreinu Horav Moshe Dov Ber Rivkin zt”l 5652/1891 — 5736/1976
At Yeshiva Torah Vodaath from 1928 — 1976 Horav Moshe Dov Ber Rivkin was born to R’ Ben Tzion and Esther Rivkin on 21 Kislev 1891, in Zintsi, Ukraine. R’ Ben Tzion was the Rav of the town and, was considered an expert in Shas Bavli, Yerushalmi, Shulchan Aruch and sifrei Kabbalah. Many gedolim corresponded with him in halachah issues. From a very young age, Rav Moshe Dov Ber was known to be an illui. He began learning gemara at age 5. Rav Rivkin was a chassid of Chabad and most particularly, he was a beloved chasid of the “Rashab” (1860-1920). In his early years, he learned in Yeshiva Tomchei Temimim in Lubavitch, and he later followed the Rashab to Rostov where he learned with him privately and was one of the very few people that the rebbe wanted to have with him in the weeks before his petirah. During these last days, the Rebbe Rashab talked to the young Rav Rivkin in Torah and their discussions became the basis for Rav Rivkin’s first sefer, Ashkavta D’Rebbi. While yet unmarried, Rav Rivkin was invited to become Rosh Yeshiva in Tomchei Temimim. He soon married Nacha Heber of Kalisch, later a noted mechaneches, and immigrated to Eretz Yisrael where he was a founder of Yeshiva Toras Emes and developed a close connection with such luminaries as Horav Avraham Yitzchak Kook zt”l and Horav Yosef Chaim Zonnenfeld zt”l. He was invited to join the faculty of Yeshiva Torah Vodaath in 1928. During his time at Torah Vodaath, he gave smicha to many hundreds of talmidim. He had close personal relationships with the gedolim of the age including R’ Moshe Feinstein, zt”l, R Yaakov Kaminetzky, zt”l, Rav Yitzchak Hutner, zt”l, Rav Yosef Ber Soloveitchik zt”l and others. Through his years, Rav Rivkin published extensively in Torah journals and also collected a selection of his chidushim in his sefer, Teferes Tzion. Rav Rivkin not only taught Torah in the bais medrash, he was also role model to his talmidim in how to use Torah as a guide for life. When he was seen shopping for shabbos, it was a lesson in itself. Rav Rivkin’s devotion to his talmidim was unparalleled and was returned in force. Rav Rivkin’s talmidim were bound to him with such love and commitment that when he was hospitalized in his last weeks, they stayed in shifts near his hospital bed day and night. Doctors were amazed at the attachment the talmidim felt for their Rebbi, recompense for his dedication to them throughout his life. Rav Rivkin, zt”l was niftar on 18 MarCheshvon 1976.
We have been hearing this
month about death cults. That’s when a group destroys life allegedly for the
sake of some imagined after-life. I’m
not saying there isn’t an after-life, but must it be one that works in
opposition to the life we are living now?
Does this not describe the
yeshivist world? There life is lived for the afterlife, for mysterious prizes that
are earned through one activity – Brisker lomdus on the Gemara. Nothing else
matters.
Have you heard that phrase uttered
before? I have seen it in articles about dead rabbis. The articles are called literally
“Nothing Else Mattered”. What matters is Torah study, by which they mean Gemara
study, by which they mean abstract argument on a handful of chapters of the
Gemara – not the aggadata, not the halacha (both of which are guides for
living) but rather abstractions about Talmudic principles that underlie the
halachot. It’s a kind of game of chess.
For this you drop everything.
You don’t get career training even though the Gemara says “teach your son a
trade.” For this, you delay marriage until your mid-twenties even though the
Gemara says to marry at sixteen. For this you ignore people even though the Tanach
and the Gemara say to do chesed and to be a light unto the nations. For this
you turn away from all secular studies, mocking them, even though the great Talmudic
scholar Maimonides says to find God in the study of nature. For this you deprive
yourself of sleep, eat whatever junk appears before you, and pretend that your
body doesn’t exist even though the Torah tell us “Guard your health very much.”
None of that is Brisker lomdus, and nothing else matters, right? Your life
doesn’t matter. You are told to turn your life into Brisker lomdus by which you
earn some kind of equivalent of 70 virgins in the afterlife.
But even madmen must bow to reality
a bit. So at some point you do marry if only because the females, who don’t
study Gemara, don’t know what to do with themselves. So we give them babies
that will be told that nothing else matters but Brisker lomdus. We indoctrinate
them to give up their lives for Brisker lomdus. We are so proud when they do
that.
Does all this remind you of
anyone? It is said that only Jews can draw down the divine flow, and the world
is influenced by what we do. Could a death cult like Hamas exist in prior
generations that didn’t have such a warped view of Torah, that didn’t turn
themselves into a death cult that destroys life for the sake of some imagined
afterlife?
But do such wild people
really have the self-discipline to engage in sacrificial action? Or is the
thrill of destroying life their real motive? Murder gives an ego rush. One usurps
a divine privilege by taking life. It’s a perverse thrill.
So they really aren't interested in the real after-life. Their conception of it is entirely worldly. They are interested in the ego rush of today.
Likewise, our version of
that. What fun it is to mock the world. What fun it is to hate everyone. What a
rush you get when you deem yourself smart enough to sum up all of life with one
sentence – study Torah! And the weirdos that engage in this aren’t exactly pleasant
to be around. They are crude, insensitive, undisciplined men and women. Does
that remind you of anyone?
He wasn’t an elite pitcher yet, but Nolan Ryan credits California Angels pitching coach Tom Morgan with playing a major role in turning around his career.
Ryan struggled in his early years with the New York Mets. He’s said he basically was told to “throw as hard as I could for as long as I could” by Mets coaches and left alone. He failed to improve as his 10–14, 3.97 ERA stats in his last season in 1971 with the team showed. Ryan was so frustrated that he told his wife Ruth after that season that he was considering quitting baseball if he wasn’t traded. So luckily he was.
In his first Spring Training with the Angels in 1972, Angels pitching coach Tom Morgan immediately recognized Ryan’s tremendous potential and started working with him on his erratic mechanics. Ryan’s more consistent delivery helped him improve that season to a 19–16 record with a 2.28 ERA, and go on to a Hall of Fame career with many all-time records including strikeouts and no-hitters.
As Ryan described to the LA Times while attending Morgan’s funeral in 1987:
“I remained pretty erratic (in 1972), but that was still the turning point of my career. Those mechanics gave me the basis on which to build. If it wasn’t for the interest Tom took in me and all that time he spent with me, I don’t know where I’d be.”
“It’s hard to put a value on what Tom meant to me. But he was more than just a pitching coach. He was a good friend to me as well.”
Rabbi Baruch Mordechai Ezrachi, Rosh Yeshiva of Ateres Yisrael in Jerusalem and a senior leader of the Litvish community in Israel, passed away. Rabbi Ezrachi had Chabad connections.
In 5732, he went to 770 Eastern Parkway in Crown Heights to participate in a farbrengen of the Rebbe on Yud Shvat, and was seated on the bima, near the Rebbe’s brother-in-law, Rabbi Shemaryahu Gurary (the Rashag). He also merited to go into Yechidus with the Rebbe at that time.
Over the years, he visited and spoke at Chabad institutions during his travels. He gave a shiur at the Chabad Kollel in Buenos Aires, Argentina, inaugurated the Chabad Mikvah in Drezden, Germany, and addressed the Yarchei Kallah in Kfar Chabad, Israel.
During a trip to Kivrei Tzadikim in Poland, he told his students that the world of Chassidus is a “marvelous world” and that “serving Hashem has been centralized in the world of Chassidus.”
Videos online showed him singing the Chabad nigun Tzama Lech Nafshi with his students.
The focus of the present letter is the distinctive value of studying the halachot, the laws of the Torah. The Sages deem these laws to be the "crown of Torah," because the Supernal Will is most fully revealed within the laws of the Oral Torah, inasmuch as they clearly spell out G-d's will with regard to the performance of the mitzvot.
In fact, as the Alter Rebbe explains, the Supernal Will as expressed in the mitzvot derives from an even higher level of Divinity than does the Chochmah ("wisdom") of the Torah. Indeed, it is this Divine Will that furnishes the "garments" which enable the soul to absorb the Divine radiance that is manifest in the Garden of Eden.
One also needs to understand the teaching of our Sages, of blessed memory, in ch. 11 of Menachot,8 that "even if one studied only a single chapter in the morning [and a single chapter in the evening], he has fulfilled his obligation to study Torah."
