A Call to Us

By Rabbi Pinchos Lipschutz

We have experienced so many tragedies recently and they show no sign of letting up. Klal Yisroel was particularly affected by Covid, losing so many to the new disease that claimed millions of lives worldwide. Each death was a terrible tragedy, another stab in the community’s hearts.

Many who survived were left with lingering effects. People were left without jobs and businesses. Social mores were upended, and yeshivos and schools were forced to close, severely impacting many students. Many shuls that were closed for long periods have still not gotten back to normal. New opportunities were created, but many were lost.

On Lag Ba’omer of this year, a terrible tragedy thrust the Yiddishe velt into mourning. Without warning, forty-five people, who moments before had been davening and celebrating at the kever of Rabi Shimon bar Yochai, had the oxygen snuffed out of them. Nobody remembers anything like that happening before in their lifetimes.

On Erev Shavuos, bleachers collapsed in the new Karlin-Stolin bais medrash in Yerushalayim. Three people died and many more were injured. We all mourned.

An anti-religious government was established in Israel. It gets stronger day by day, as it plans to battle the religious community and take apart the status-quo agreement under which the state’s relationship with religion operates.

And most recently, last week, a 12-story apartment building near Miami Beach collapsed, potentially leaving as many as 160 people dead, many of them Jews. There was no warning, no bomb, and no loud boom. The building just imploded, and in seconds, the people in it were gone.

For some reason, the sense of awful foreboding, of communal mourning, the feeling that we have all been hit by a gut-wrenching tragedy is missing this time. Maybe we have become numb to disaster, or perhaps it is the fact that this one is slowly grinding out and there is room for hope that somehow people will be found alive amidst all that rubble. Or maybe we have suffered so much that we can no longer mourn. We have had the wind knocked out of us so many times that we don’t have the emotional wherewithal to sit down and contemplate what is going on, what is happening to us, and why.

Rav Yisroel Meir Lau frequently relates the story of his liberation from the Buchenwald concentration camp. I heard it from him. An American chaplain, Rabbi Hershel Schachter, who accompanied the liberating American soldiers, was gazing at a pile of dead bodies in the death camp when he thought he saw something move. Gingerly, he approached the pile and detected a young boy, barely alive, among the dead.

Like a malach shel rachamim, he tearfully stuck out his hand to the emaciated child. He told him that he is an American and that the Nazis were gone. Speaking to the boy in Yiddish, he tried to gauge if his mental abilities were intact after having suffered so many harrowing experiences and being near death.

“What is your name?” asked the kind rabbi dressed in an American army uniform, as tears streamed down his face at the pitiful sight.

“Lulek,” was the reply.

“Vi alt bist du, mein kind? How old are you, my child?” he asked little Lulek.

“Elter far dir. Older than you,” responded the child.

Fearing that the boy had lost his senses, the rabbi began weeping. Again he asked the skin and bones that resembled a young boy how old he was, and again he answered that he was older than the weeping rabbi.

The rabbi looked at the boy with great pity and tried one last time to get a sane response from the child who had been so badly affected by the horrific suffering he endured.

“Tell me, mein kind, why do you say that you are older than me? Isn’t it obvious that you are a young child and I am a grown man? Why do you insist on thinking that you are older than me?”

Lulek explained quite simply: “Git a kook. Du veinst. Ich ken shoin nit veinen. Nu, zogt mir, ver is elter? You are crying. I have already lost my ability to cry. Am I not older than you?”

Despite his youth and having experienced four tortuous years in a dark place where death and hunger were his constant companions, the youth spoke with wisdom beyond his physical age.

We are thankfully very far removed from the unspeakable horrors experienced during the Holocaust, but can it be that we have lost our ability to cry, to be impacted by sadness, to feel pain, to realize that we are living in an eis tzorah, and to recognize that we must do something about it or chas veshalom the tragedies may not end here?

Relatives hung pictures of their loved ones on fences near the collapse, reminding many of the pictures hung in the area of the Twin Towers after they fell. The grief is overwhelming, the human misery devastating.

What are we to do? While every situation is different and we should not act without being thoroughly familiar with the facts and the halacha, this week’s parsha provides an example of how to act in the time of a plague.

At the conclusion of Parshas Bolok, we learn that Bilam set up a situation that led Jewish men to sin with Moavite women. A respected leader publicly committed a sinful act with the daughter of Midyan’s leader.

The nation watched and wept, at a loss of what to do. A plague that had already killed 24,000 Jewish people was raging, showing no signs of ebbing.

One man was not confounded by the unprecedented outrage. He knew the halacha and what had to be done. Ignoring the cynics and acting with the koach haTorah, Pinchos ended the plague as well as the sad chapter of Bilam and Midyan.

By following the halachos he had been taught by Moshe Rabbeinu and intervening when nobody knew what to do, Pinchos merited the blessing of eternal peace. We commonly think that the man of peace is the one who doesn’t involve himself in communal issues. When there is a disagreement, he stays far away, though his inaction may be beneficial to anti-Torah causes. In fact, the Torah, in this week’s parsha, teaches us that the opposite is true. Because Pinchos acted when he did, throwing a spear into the practitioners of evil, he was able to end the challenge to halacha and restore Am Yisroel to its proper condition.

Hashem conferred upon Pinchos His bris of shalom and kehunah, empowering him to carry on the tradition of Aharon Hakohein as an oheiv shalom verodeif shalom. Peace is advanced by the pursuit of Torah and halacha.

Shalom, which means peace, and shleimus, which means complete, share the same root. When everything is performed properly and when everything is complete and whole, it is possible to also have shalom. The world was created with Torah, the absolute truth, and therefore the more complete the world is with Torah, the more peace and wholesomeness there is.

On Sunday, we fasted in commemoration of Shivah Assar B’Tammuz at the onset of the period we refer to as the Three Weeks. We mourn the loss of the Bais Hamikdosh, the place where we brought korbanos to cleanse and purify ourselves. With the destruction of the Bais Hamikdosh, we lost the center of kedusha in our world. From that time onward, we have been bereft and empty. Nothing in a Jew’s life has been the same since then.

Subsequent to the destruction of the Bais Hamikdosh, a sinner is forced to find his way back to Hakadosh Boruch Hu without the benefit of the mizbei’ach and a korban. Ever since the churban, Klal Yisroel has had to adapt to a world of hester, darkness.

Pinchos earned the blessings of shalom and kehunah because he returned shleimus to Am Yisroel and thereby reconnected them with Hashem. That was the task of the kohanim: to bring Jews together and to bring them together with Hashem.

When the kohanim brought korbanos in the Bais Hamikdosh, they created harmony in the cosmos and shleimus in the world. Chet, sin, creates a division between the Jewish people and Hashem. The offering of korbanos erases the divide. In our day, we can no longer bring korbanos to erase sins and return us to Hashem’s embrace. Instead, we must work much harder, as it is dependent upon us and our teshuvah and maasim tovim to restore our connection as well as shleimus to a world sullied with sin and tumah.

We know that the Bais Hamikdosh was destroyed because of sinas chinom, which was prevalent among the Jewish people at that time, and we know that a primary reason it has not been rebuilt is because we are still afflicted with that fault. We are judgmental, unforgiving, and disrespectful of people we differ with, and we don’t love every person as much as we should.

When we calculate the recent communal tragedies and all the personal and private tragedies that so many people are going through in so many areas of their lives, it can be said that we are living in a period of mageifah.

An apocryphal story is told of a rosh yeshiva whose talmidim were accepting everything he was discussing in his shiur. He remarked that today people accept everything in Torah but question and try to understand the acts of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. In the past, people would question and work to understand Torah, while accepting everything that Hakadosh Boruch Hu did, knowing that it was beyond their ability to grasp.

We do not know why specific tragedies befall our people. The ways of Hashem are beyond human comprehension, but we all know that our world is not one of shleimus. We know that people are suffering. We know that adults are suffering from illness, poverty, loneliness, and issues brought on by social and financial pressures.

We know of children who are in pain, of youngsters who feel that they are not given a chance and are failing. Some feel unloved, while others perceive themselves to be under crushing pressure. Some young adults have problems finding shidduchim, while others are dealing with abuse. Apathy keeps us from getting involved, even on a minor level, in hearing and perceiving problems and then reaching out to offer help.

We have to seek to achieve shleimus in our personal lives as well. Rectifying sinas chinom and helping others is a great place to start.

An eis tzorah is a call to us to help return the world to a condition of shleimus. In times of tragedy, people find within themselves untapped reservoirs of inner strength and courage. Let us be like Pinchos, utilizing those deep inner strengths to bring shalom and shleimus to the world by loving and helping people, and by caring enough to do something.

Every act we undertake to make the world a better place by helping people and seeking perfection brings us closer to the day when Pinchos, who lives eternally as Eliyohu, will announce that the mageifos have ended, that golus is done, and that the geulah is here.

Bameh Atem Yehudim?

By Rabbi Pinchos Lipschutz

Balanced and clear vision is necessary to navigate life’s paths. We live in a world where things rarely are what they appear to be.

In this week’s parsha, we learn how Bolok was worried about the size of Am Yisroel and that they would conspire to destroy him and his nation. He reached out to Bilam, a known sorcerer, to curse the Jews, whom he hated and feared (Bamidbar 22:5). From a simple reading of the dialogue between Bilam and Bolok’s messengers, it seems that he was not willing to undertake the job and would have to consult with Hashem on it. However, it was all a charade. When he was promised sufficient money and fame, he arose early in the morning, saddled his donkey and set out to plot the destruction of the Jewish people.

His posturing is reflective of today’s time, when people mouth pious expressions as they pronounce reassuringly that they are driven by pure intentions, motivated to fulfill Hashem’s will. They simultaneously engage in behavior designed to be detrimental to the future of Torah Judaism. Regrettably, we are familiar with people who act that way, as they engage in improper agenda-driven conduct, couching their wrongheaded actions and intentions in religious terms.

Politicians often act that way, promising that everything they are doing is for the communal benefit and then engaging in activity that benefits themselves and their party and is detrimental to the citizens. The Democrats talk of restoring justice and cities, yet implement policies that have the exact opposite effect. By crimping police and enacting legislation that frees criminals soon after their arrest and bans arrest for crimes such as stealing less than $950, all they accomplish is to increase crime and unsettle the very people they are claiming to help.

The gang in power in Israel does the same, speaking tough about battling Hamas terror and not permitting Iran to procure nuclear weapons, yet when incendiary balloons are flown into Israel from Gaza, they basically do nothing, afraid to shake their rocky boat. They have also already signaled that they will not fight the American administration’s efforts to make a deal with Iran, though the fresh prime minster says that he and others will attempt to convince America not to do it.

As they were inaugurated, they made it a point to offer reassuring words to the religious community, though everyone knows that they are an anti-religious coalition that has, in their first week in power, already set sight and put into motion actions to destroy the status-quo under which state and religion operate in that country and have begun dismantling religious accommodations and influences.

It is no wonder that in his response to the installation of the new government, MK Moshe Gafni, speaking from the Knesset floor that day, uttered words similar to those that Rav Elazar Menachem Man Shach cried out in his famous message 31 years ago in Heichal Yad Eliyohu which captured the attention of the entire country. I’m paraphrasing: “Bameh atem Yehudim? How are you Jews? Nothing is important to you. You have no Shabbos, no Yom Kippur, no Torah, no Shema Yisroel, nothing. In what way is this country different than France, than the United States, than any other country in the western world?”

It was true when Rav Shach said it, and it is true now. “Bameh atem Yehudim?” Without Torah, without Shabbos, without shemiras hamitzvos, there is nothing that separates them from the other nations of the world.

But it is also a question relevant to us. When we act improperly, when we don’t display love to other Jews, when we don’t treat old and young people with respect, when we don’t appreciate what other people are going through and act in a heartless and cruel manner, when we aren’t careful to properly observe Shabbos and other mitzvos, when we look at shemiras hamitzvos as a burden and not as a zechus, we need to look in the mirror and ask ourselves if that is the way Yehudim should behave.

It’s not enough to look frum and speak frum. We have to also act frum.

Bilam spoke frum, but his actions belied his words. Sometimes, people get confused and wonder how they can tell those who are like Bilam apart from those who not only preach fidelity to Hashem’s will, but actually follow it. How do we know who speaks with a glib, cynically forked tongue and who is honest, holy and deserving of respect and support?

The Mishnah in Pirkei Avos (5:19) asks what the difference is between the talmidim of Avrohom Avinu and those of Bilam.

Purveyors of sheker often use some truth as a means of gaining credibility and spreading their messages, making it difficult to tell apart the genuine from the phony. With some patience, the intentions of the leaders become obvious. Avrohom gave birth to a nation of rachmonim, bayshonim and gomlei chassodim, paragons of decency and virtue. He showed the way for all time for how a Jew is to behave and conduct himself. When we act today as Yehudim, we are following in his ways.

Bilam became the role model of their antagonists, the hero of those who governed by ayin ra’ah, ruach govoah, nefesh rechovah, pettiness, greediness of soul and arrogance. Foolish people don’t need people to teach them how to be craven and wicked, but they like to have a hero to show the way for them to aspire to and to imitate his swagger and bravado. Most people don’t want to be viewed as loners or evil-doers. They want to feel part of a club or a larger unit that justifies their thoughts and actions. Bilam is their leader. He is the guy they can look up to and consider themselves followers of.

Today, as well, people who engage in conduct that was considered deviant until a couple of years ago create the fiction that they represent large groups. They give themselves catchy names and come up with innocent slogans to promote their agenda and convince people that they are legitimate members of society. They are the talmidim of Bilam. They are present everywhere, seeking to blend into society and upend it.

The Mishnah that teaches us about Avrohom and Bilam tells us that if we want to know whether a leader is a force for good or not, we should ignore their sweet words and the way they present themselves, but should examine their actions and the people who follow them, for in that way you can tell what they are really all about.

Today, thanks to modern technology, every person has a platform and can gain followers. Foolish people who spend their time unproductively troll about seeking podcasts and posts to occupy their time with. They read and hear silliness, perfidy, and ideas that cause them to think and act in an imprudent and thoughtless fashion, leading to spiritual and moral decline. The ideas sound nice, the concepts convincing. Just as Bilam had a convincing tongue and he used it to cause destruction and calamity to the talmidim of Avrohom Avinu, too many people who are clever wordsmiths use their talent to mislead and harm innocent people. Like Bilam, they achieve fame, fortune and adulation, but it won’t last.

Even as the talmidim of Bilam insist that they have come to help advance and promote us, we know that somewhere down the line, a malach will stand in their way. Sometimes they will perceive him standing there, blocking them, and other times they won’t. The result will be the same: “Vehi lo sitzloch.” They will not succeed. 

Bolok was upset at Bilam and brought him to view the Jewish encampment from a different angle, thinking that perhaps he would succeed in finding fault with them. Bolok failed. The posuk (24:2) relates that as Bilam looked out and viewed the tribes of Klal Yisroel in their camps, the spirit of Hashem rested upon him. He uttered the immortal words of “Mah tovu ohalecha Yaakov.”

Rashi (ibid.) quotes the Gemara (Bava Basra 60a) which states that as Bilam looked out at the Jewish people from afar, he saw that their doors were not facing each other, so that they would not peer into their neighbors’ homes. Seeing this caused him not to curse them.

What was so special about the fact that they didn’t look into each other’s dwellings that it caused Bilam to bless the Bnei Yisroel instead of cursing them?

Instead of blessing his backers, Moav and Midyon, to advance their cause, he sought to curse their perceived enemies. He wasn’t satisfied for his side to win, and neither were Moav and Midyon. They wouldn’t be satisfied to achieve victory until the other side was destroyed. Such is the way of Bilam and his ilk. They cannot rejoice if their enemy is allowed to survive and preserve his dignity. Witness the way Trump and Netanyahu are treated by those who defeated them at the polls. They continue to belittle them at every opportunity and engage in actions that would ensure their total destruction.

The answer may be that, by this time, Bilam recognized that he was lacking in his personal ethics and that he was a person with a shesum ayin (Bamidbar 24:3), an afflicted eye. He knew that because he had an ayin ra’ah, he was jealous of others, and this led him to want to curse them for their success and achievement. When he looked at the Jewish tents and saw that they didn’t face each other because the Jews didn’t want to look inside the homes of their neighbors, he knew that they were people of ayin tovah and recognized that such people are deserving of brocha, as they personify the greatest blessing.

Bilam perceived that the reason for the positioning of the doors was not because the Jews were afraid of other people peering into their homes, but rather because they did not want look into other people’s homes. He saw that they were not beset by jealousy and gossip. Each person was happy with his lot and did not feel a necessity to peer into his neighbor’s door to see what was going on there, thinking that he could catch them doing something wrong and then broadcast it to all the neighbors, so they would destroy and besmirch the family. Bilam saw people who minded their own business and only sought to help each other.

Even he had to admit that such people of ayin tovah are deserving of brocha.

Mah tovu oholecha Yaakov. How great are the tents of Yaakov, filled with Torah and chesed, maasim tovim and shalom, brotherhood and ayin tovah. Let us remember: Bameh anachnu Yehudim? What sets us apart as bonim and talmidim of Avrohom Avinu? Let us not be quick to judge and condemn. Let us look at others with love and appreciation. If a child makes a mistake, let us not destroy him or her. Let us give them another chance. Let us do what we can to make Yiddishkeit beloved and praised as Avrohom did. Let us show our children and friends that the ways of the Torah are peaceful and kind, as the posuk (Mishlei 3:17) states, “Derocheha darchei noam vechol nesivoseha shalom.”

May Hashem bring brocha into Yiddishe homes. May He help us conduct ourselves as talmidim of Avrohom Avinu and may we merit the brachos afforded to them, “ochlim ba’olam hazeh venochlim b’Olam Haba” (Avos, ibid.), in this world and the next.

Holy Stones

By Rabbi Pinchos Lipschutz

It was a year and a half since I had been on an airplane or gone on a trip. I didn’t miss it. I got used to staying home and enjoyed it. The last time I took a trip anywhere was to Eretz Yisroel, and that was during January of last year. Staying home was nice, but we all need a change of scenery once in a while.

Much has happened since that January. There were good times and times when everything looked bleak. Life since the onset of corona has been like a roller coaster. There have been many ups and downs. There was much sickness and there were many tragic deaths. Hopefully, we are beginning to rebound from economic losses and many financial pressures. Government leadership has been upended here and in Eretz Yisroel, and people worry about what the next day will bring.

Like many others, I have been trying to get into Israel for the past few months. My batteries needed to be recharged, and for me, at least, that happens at Mincha in Zichron Moshe, walking through Geulah and Meah Shearim, and, of course, davening at the Kosel.

Finally, we were able to get all the paperwork, shots and tests in order. We rented an apartment a stone’s throw from Kikar Shabbos, and after finishing the newspaper last week got on board a plane and took off.

Thursday, we took a trip up north, stopping first at the village of Pekiin. There, we visited a cave where, according to local legend, Rav Shimon bar Yochai and his son hid from the Romans for thirteen years while plumbing the depths of Torah.

It is hard to know whether that cave has any historical significance. Today, the cave’s hollow is tiny, with barely enough room for one man, certainly not two. Legend has it that an earthquake several hundred years ago caused large boulders to collapse into the cave. A very large and ancient carob tree grows at the mouth of the cave, giving some support to the idea that Rav Shimon studied there, for we know that he subsisted on the fruits of a carob tree that grew outside the cave he was in.

We davened there and took some pictures before moving on. Whether it is his cave or not, there is something comforting and very special about standing in a place where it is possible that the two holy Tannoim studied the deepest secrets of the Torah and wrote them down for future generations to study in the Sefer HaZohar.

From there, we went to meet Margalit Zinati, a 96-year-old woman who tells a fascinating story. She claims that she is the heir to three families of kohanim who escaped the Roman clutches after the destruction of the second Bais Hamikdosh and settled in the mountain village known as Pekiin.

She says that she has a tradition passed down to her from her parents, who heard the story from their parents, that for two thousand years, those families remained in Pekiin. Through all the changes that took place in that land, all the different conquerors and conquests, there was a constant: the Zinati family of kohanim.

We speak to her and bid her farewell. “Remember Pekiin,” she says. “Remember the kohanim of Pekiin. Soon Moshiach will come and return the kohanim to the Bais Hamikdosh.”

She is the last Jew to live in Pekiin. In the 1920s, there were still some fifty Jewish families remaining in the village, but Arab pogroms in 1938 and 1940 caused everyone to leave and the local school to close. Only the Zinati family returned, hoping to keep alive their 2,000-year legacy. With the school closed, the children were sent to study in Yerushalayim, the son married and did not return, and the daughter Margalit who stayed in Pekiin never married.

She is the end of the line of the two-thousand-year chain of Zinati family members living in Pekiin. When she goes, it’s over. There are other chains and other links, and she has a nephew who will carry on the Zinati name, but not in Pekiin. He lives elsewhere and comes to town to maintain the shul and the small museum there.

We visited the small shul, which is said to be built on the foundation stones of the original shul that was erected following the churban. Who knows how long there has been a shul at that location? It gives added meaning to the posuk, “Netzach Yisroel lo yishaker.”

We took a detour into an Arab village to say a few kappitlach of Tehillim at what is said to be the kever of Rav Yochai and his wife, Sorah, the parents of Rav Shimon bar Yochai. It is located in between two Arab houses and is actually well maintained.

From there, we continued on to Meron to daven at the kever of Rav Shimon bar Yochai.

Being there, you can’t help but think of the awful tragedy that took place there on Lag Ba’omer. The memory is so fresh, the pain so raw. You see the place where the 45 korbanos met their end and the enormity of the sorrow overwhelms.

You stand on that slippery slope, silent in your thoughts, and you can almost hear the muffled voices proclaiming “Shema Yisroel” with their final breaths.

You stand there transfixed, mourning and wondering how so much sadness emanated from the place where you stand. You think about what you can do to help improve the world so that future korbanos will not be necessary to atone for our sins.

You think about the people who lost their lives in that very spot and then you think of their grieving families. You recite some perokim of Tehillim, make silent kabbalos, and slowly move on.

So many emotions in one day, feeling the golus and being reminded that Klal Yisroel is the eternal nation. We have been through so much, yet we persevere and our mission remains the same throughout the ages.

Friday morning, I was up early. The sun hadn’t yet risen, but I looked up at the sky and it was glowing yellow. An amazing light was coming forth from the east, and as I watched, the sun began climbing up from the horizon.

The light was bright, overwhelming and gorgeous. It looked as if the sun was giving it all it had, emitting powerful rays of brightness and beauty in the hope that today would be the day that we all await and daven for, when the great light will shine upon Yerushalayim with the arrival of Moshiach. The sun returns to Yerushalayim every morning, hoping that today will be the day of “ohr chodosh al Tzion to’ir.”

Davening at the Kosel, from where the Shechinah never departed, gives a charge to every Jew. We don’t have the Bais Hamikdosh, and we have lost so much over the centuries, but when we come here, we feel connected again. When we daven here, we can feel our tefillos soaring to Shomayim.

We stand there and are reminded of what stood at the other side of the wall. We think of what we had then and what we have now, and while the void is vast, we take comfort that Hakadosh Boruch Hu left us this place where we can approach the location of the kedusha rishonah. He tells us that wherever we gather to learn and daven, He hears us.

Through limud and shemiras haTorah, we can rise above the muddle and become kedoshim and tehorim, concentrating on the important, while forgoing that which is not and avoiding the pettiness and strife that bring us down.

We are all born with much potential, which can be attained if we live every day with halacha as our guide, not succumbing to the yeitzer hora’s efforts for us to chase after fantasies that only exist in the imagination, for when you chase after the objects of your desire, then, very often, when you obtain them, you are left wanting and as empty as before.

Over Shabbos, I davened in the Meah Shearim shtieblach. Walking through Meah Shearim to get there, you are enveloped by the calm and beauty of Shabbos. A special feeling comes over you as you walk there. There are no concerns, no worries, and nothing besides Shabbos.

Entering the shtieblach, there is an aura of serenity and holiness. Walk into a shtiebel and notice how the rooms are appropriately painted in a variety of colors and with designs that add to the feeling that people care about and respect these rooms of tefillah.

There are no signs hanging there admonishing people not to talk during davening; that would be superfluous. Nobody talks. In fact, in the shtiebel, nobody does anything but daven. Davening is a serious undertaking. There is no grandstanding. Every person is in a world by himself, alone with Hashem.

People barely even look at each other, and nobody greets anyone or acknowledges their presence until davening has ended. Then it is but a brief gut Shabbos. The shul is not a place for socializing. It is as if everything has stopped and parked at the entrance to the building.

It sounds strange, but after davening there four times over Shabbos, I felt that this was one of the closest places to Kelm that I had ever seen.

No place is perfect, and I am sure that they have their issues, but I came looking to get recharged and reconnected, and that place certainly accomplished that.

There were visits to my rabbeim and other gutteh Yidden, as well as the opportunity to spend time with family members in Yerushalayim.

There is something I noticed while in Eretz Yisroel. I didn’t hear anybody anywhere talking about the new government and what it means for Yahadus Hachareidis. Now, that doesn’t mean that people weren’t discussing it, and you can’t base the opinions of the entire community on the anecdotal evidence of what I heard or didn’t hear, but emunah and bitachon are part of the way of life in a country where survival depends on miracles.

Too often, we try to make sense of everything, analyzing and seeking explanations for things that happen. In the land where “Einei Hashem Elokecha bah meireishis hashanah v’ad acharis shanah” (Devorim 11:12), people appreciate that everything that happens is because Hashem willed it so, quite often for reasons that are beyond immediate human comprehension.

When things happen that send lesser people into a tizzy, maaminim realize that the Yad Hashem is directing everything. They don’t fret and worry about what will be, because they have faith that Hashem will care for them and what He desires is what will happen.

By razor-thin margins, successful leaders were toppled and replaced with men who are radically different, effecting changes nobody could have predicted. Politicians deliberately lie, distort, plot, scheme and engage in demagoguery, but when we sit around discussing why this one lost, how that one won, how long he can stay in power, what he can accomplish, and whether the one who lost can have a comeback, we are simply wasting our time.

We learn in this week’s parsha (21:5-9) of the mageifah that plagued Am Yisroel in the midbar. The Bnei Yisroel were regularly complaining against Hashem and Moshe. They found fault with their food, the heavenly monn that fell daily. They complained that they didn’t have bread or water. They complained to Hashem and Moshe that they were taken out of Mitzrayim to die in the desert.

Hashem sent poisonous snakes to bite them. Whoever got bitten by a snake died. After many died, the people went crying to Moshe, saying that they realized that they had sinned for speaking against Hashem and Moshe and asked for forgiveness. They begged Moshe to daven to Hashem to remove the poisonous snakes. In response to Moshe’s tefillos, Hashem told him to fashion a snake and place it on a pole. Whoever was bitten by one of the poisonous snakes and had done teshuvah looked up at Moshe Rabbeinu’s copper snake and lived.

Chazal explain the curative power of the copper snake that Moshe made. The Mishnah (Rosh Hashanah 29a) states that it was not the snake image that healed those who had been bitten. “Vechi nochosh meimis oh nochosh mechayeh? Elah b’zeman sheYisroel mistaklim klapei maalah umeshabdim es libom l’Avihem shebashomayim hayu misrapim.”

The simple explanation of the Mishnah is that when the Jews looked towards heaven and placed themselves in the care of Hashem, they were healed. Rav Chaim Volozhiner (Nefesh Hachaim 3:12, hagah) expounds further that when the people recognized that Hashem is the healer and had complete faith in His ability to heal them, they became well.

If we want to be protected and healed and cared for, for a positive outcome in all matters, political, communal and personal, it is incumbent upon us to strengthen our emunah and bitachon and ascertain that our priorities are in line with the will of Hashem.

It wouldn’t hurt any of us to make a cheshbon hanefesh every once in a while, discarding anything that could cause machlokes or chillul Hashem. We should seek to do things that make us better people and the world a better place, ignoring all the rest.

We don’t have to understand everything that happens. We don’t have to analyze everything in the now. Our task is to do things to bring us closer to Hashem and find favor in his eyes. What we should concentrate on is doing things that will help bring about the geulah.

May we all merit the trip al kanfei neshorim very speedily and may Tisha B’Av this year be a day of great celebration.

A World of Lies

By Rabbi Pinchos Lipschutz

The Chovos Halevavos, in discussing the ongoing battle with the yeitzer hora, writes that his objective is “le’ameis hasheker,” to make what is false appear to be the truth. In pursuit of that goal, he uses everything we encounter to convince us that what is untrue is fact. Once we buy in to what is not real as reality, it is smooth sailing for him and he can easily convince us to sin and go down the wrong path.

The novi Yeshayahu (59:15) foretold that in the period leading up to the revelation of Moshiach, “vatehi ha’emes ne’ederes,” the truth will be missing.

We are living in that time. The yeitzer hora seems to have perfected his game. We are living at a time when the fiction is so pervasive that it is very difficult to discern truth from lies. Wherever you look, whether in our communities, in this country, or in Eretz Yisroel, many disagreements and machlokes are brought about by people who simply lie to advance their agenda and career.

Look at this country and all the lies that were implemented in an effort to bring down Donald Trump. He coined a name for the fiction that was peddled as fact by the mainstream media. He termed it “Fake News,” and because the name had much truth to it, it stuck and defined the era. This article is not about Trump. It’s about the phenomenon.

For years, Trump was accused of all types of things, from colluding with Russia to get elected to falsely blaming China for the virus which upended the world, disrespecting the arch-expert Dr. Fauci, and a host of other sins. By now, they have all been proven to be lies, untruths concocted by his political enemies to rid themselves of the greatest threat they had ever faced.

When the Russian communists began publishing a newspaper and wanted the people to believe what it said, they called the publication Pravda, which is Russian for truth. Of course, there was no truth there. It was all lies. They were ahead of the times, as today much of what appears in the mainstream media is false.

Until a little while ago, opining that Covid originated in a Wuhan lab was enough to get you cancelled and derided as a conspiracy freak. No more. Evidence is mounting that the virus escaped from a Chinese lab, and even Dr. Fauci does not discount it anymore. The personification of trust himself is no longer perceived by people of truth as the paragon of virtue, he has been felled by the facts and his personal emails. He and his ilk claimed it was all about science and now we are finding out that very little of it was.

Trump’s term in office was cut short by a man very few people gave a chance of winning the election. He rarely left his home to campaign, did few interviews, and hardly ever addressed serious issues publicly. The campaign sold him as the moderate versus Bernie Sanders, the socialist. People voted for him, thinking that by doing so they were staving off the Democrat socialists. But it was a ruse. Once he got into the White House, there was little difference between him and the Left.

In Israel, a man who fashioned himself as the savior of the Right, the settlements, and the Religious-Zionist community swore prior to the recent election that he would never join a coalition with the anti-religious Leftist Yair Lapid and Islamist Mansour Abbas. That man, Naftoli Bennett, went on national television the day before the election and pledged that he would never join with them. He also signed a document affirming the pledge. And then, the election came. On election night, as the numbers were coming in, he said again that his heart was with the Right.

When Netanyahu encountered difficulty in forming a right-wing coalition, Bennett promised that he would not and was not negotiating with Lapid. He would and he was. He lied. His lieutenants lied. His voters were deceived. They had empowered him because they believed he was on their side. Then he clinched the deal with a group of left-wing parties, and for the first time, an Arab party would be part of the coalition. And he is slated to become prime minister.

The coalition came about through lies and is built on lies. And there is nothing anyone can do about it.

Because we live in a world of lies.

There ought to be a law against lying to people throughout a campaign in order to con them into voting for you, but there isn’t, because lying is part of the system. Everyone lies, they say, so when one politician lies a little more and a little better than others, it is not that big an aveirah.

Korach acted as a politician, using cunning to spin the people against Moshe Rabbeinu and Aharon Hakohein. Using demagoguery, he portrayed Moshe as heartless and cruel to the poor, forcing people to do silly things, such as putting tzitzis and techeiles on a tallis shekulo techeiles. With deceit and sleight of mouth, he was able to gather around him serious leaders of the Jewish people and present a serious challenge to Moshe’s leadership.

The power of the lie is so potent that not only the known troublemakers Doson and Avirom rallied to Korach’s side and joined his attempt to supplant Moshe and Aharon, but also people who should have known better, the 250 nesi’ei ha’eidah, were convinced to go against everything they had stood for until then and join the revolution to topple Moshe.

How can people be so foolish? How can people who saw how Hakadosh Boruch Hu redeemed the Jewish people from Mitzrayim through Moshe forget what they had seen and experienced? How could people who stood at the foot of Mount Sinai as Moshe alighted to Heaven and returned with the Luchos then go and turn their back on him?

That is the power of a lie.

That is why the yeitzer hora works “le’ameis hasheker,” because when that is accomplished, people lose themselves and fall for anything.

This is why Korach and his clan were heard shouting from their group burial site in the desert, “Moshe emes veSoraso emes. Our insurrection was based on lies. Moshe pursued and is all about the truth. We were all about lies.”

There is room for legitimate debate and discussion, but that is when the dispute is, as Chazal refer to it, a machlokes Hillel v’Shamai, when each side arrived at its point lesheim Shomayim. Both sides arrived at their position via an honest search for the truth and the quarrel centers on arriving at the truth.

Chazal say that sometimes, talmidei chachomim become so engaged in Talmudic discussion that, as they debate, they appear to be enemies, but when the conversation ends and they exit the bais medrash, it becomes obvious that, in fact, they love each other.

This is because they were never enemies. They were arguing with each other because they wanted to gain a true understanding of a sugya. Each one cares so deeply about the truth that they are unable to tolerate the other’s misconception and misunderstanding of the issue.

Each one throws his energy into his attempt to convince the other of the way to understand the Gemara. Both combatants are united in their love of Torah. They continue going back and forth until they are satisfied that they have arrived at the proper conclusion and interpretation of the Gemara. They embrace and a smile breaks out across their faces. “Boruch Hashem, yogata umotzasa,” that smile exclaims. “We now understand the p’shat.”

The new insight that each one has given the other in understanding Torah is what engenders love between them.

If truth is our goal and we remain loyal to it, even when that means swimming upstream and against the tide, we will reach safe, calm waters. The storm will blow over, and the sun of victory and righteousness will shine upon those who remain loyal to the causes of truth and Torah.

If the truth is what inspires us to act, we will never meet the fate of Korach and his followers. If ever we have the need to enter into a machlokes lesheim Shomayim, we will be seeking to advance the cause of truth and not be consumed with bitterness and dissension.

People who get involved in petty fights and are quick to judge others without giving the matter much depth of thought become enmeshed in battles with no positive objective. What is plainly obvious to everyone else escapes them. They become entwined in their pursuit of victory and fail to appreciate the virtue of their opponent, losing their objectivity. They stumble, they fall, and they go down to bitter defeat.

In a world of falsehood, in the almah d’shikrah, we must endeavor to always find the truth and not be taken in by sweet talk, convincing arguments, appealing demagoguery, and clever marketing. The truth is not always comfortable or popular, but we must always pursue it if we wish to feel fulfilled and successful. Quick gains and phantom popularity are fleeting and have no staying power. Ultimately the truth wins out and sustains those who cling to it.

Before going after someone, before jumping to conclusions, before thinking that you understand everything, hear out the other side, and because there are always two sides to a story, the one you heard first is not necessarily the correct one. Everything has to make sense. If it doesn’t, despite how many proponents it has and in how high a position they may be, don’t give up until you understand it. Before taking a course of action or getting into an argument with somebody, think it through to the end and make sure that you are right and your understanding is correct.

We have to make friends with the truth. We have to side with the truth and always champion those in its camp. If we are able to ignore the barbs of people blinded by hate, conceit, corruption and falsehood, we will prevail and eventually our cause will triumph.

Korach had great yichus and a fine reputation, but his judgment was clouded. He was overcome by jealousy and used his intelligence to swing others to his side. They went down with him and earned eternal shame and a tragic death.

Torah represents the ultimate truth, so if you find fault with it, you are lacking understanding.

Don’t fight the truth. Embrace it. Pursue it, fight to understand it, and fight to be part of it.

The yeitzer hora is quite clever. He’s older than you and me and has been at this for a very long time. Don’t fall for his tricks. Don’t let him paint for you false impressions. Don’t let him present you with false narratives. Don’t let him lead you to take part in a machlokes shelo lesheim Shomayim. Don’t let him lead you to impugn the character of fine people. Don’t let him convince you to accept false p’shat in a Gemara - or anything else.

Before making a call, undertaking an action, sending a message, or mouthing a retort, consider whether it will bring about a kiddush Hashem, and if it won’t, don’t pursue it.

Remember that we are students of Moshe and Aharon, children of Avrohom, Yitzchok and Yaakov. Go in their ways and the ways of your rabbeim and zaides and bubbes who lived through much more difficult times than we do. When in a situation, think of what they would have done. When an issue arises, think of what the proper course is for a ben and bas Torah with an individualist mission to make the world a better, holier, more loving place.

A Different Perception

By Rabbi Pinchos Lipschutz

This week’s parsha of Shelach is one of the most perplexing and tragic parshiyos of the Torah. A group of twelve leaders were selected to check out the land Hakadosh Boruch Hu had promised the Jewish people centuries back. Now, as the Jewish nation was prepared to enter the coveted area, the people decided that they had to send a delegation on their behalf to see how difficult it would be to capture the land, what type of people lived there, and the quality of its crops.

Hashem allowed Moshe to send the group. He charged them with their mission, and after davening for his talmid, Yehoshua bin Nun, Moshe sent them to scout the land Hashem promised they would be able to enter, enjoying the benefits of the land that flows with milk and honey.

We all know what became of the twelve meraglim and we wonder what type of people they were and how it could happen. All of the twelve leaders, Rashi says (13:3), were kesheirim when they departed for their tour. Upon their return, however, Rashi (13:26) says that just as they left b’eitzah ra’ah, with bad advice, they returned with bad intents. We are left wondering whether they were good people or bad people. If they were bad people, why did Moshe send them? And if they were good people, where did they go so wrong?

The Zohar (cited in Mesilas Yeshorim, Middas Hanekius) states that at the root of the sin of the meraglim was their concern that when Klal Yisroel would settle in Eretz Yisroel, they would be replaced by others and would lose their leadership positions.

The Zohar doesn’t say whether this was a conscious fear or a subconscious fear, and it is possible that the meraglim did not realize that their inner fears were influencing their judgment of what they were seeing as they traversed the land.

Often, we see people acting in ways that damage themselves and others. They get into fights with people over silly things and ascribe to them bad motives for things they said or did. Their ego clouds their judgment and leads them to get entangled in arguments. Their underlying jealousy of certain people causes them to lash out when uncalled for, bringing misfortune onto themselves.

Subconscious fears, even of great people such as the nesi’ei Yisroel who were well respected when they set out, led them to fail. Without regular study of mussar and steady self-improvement, a person can never be sure of himself and whether he is acting properly. We must always examine our approaches and thoughts, ensuring that we are not being led astray by the yeitzer hora, which conjures up different scenarios to entrap us in behavior that damages us.

It happens all the time. A glance at the headlines portrays how politicians, such as those in Israel, promise that they will undertake a certain direction if elected, and then, when the election is over, they do exactly what they promised they would never do.

Naftoli Bennett promised that he would not join with Yair Lapid and the left. Bennett signed an agreement with his potential voters, affirming that his new party, which he named Yeminah - Right, would be loyal to the right and would never empower the left or Yair Lapid. Yeminah’s voters never would have supported the party had they known that it would empower the left. But ever since the election, Yeminah’s founder and leader has been focused strictly on negotiating a rotation agreement with that very same Yair Lapid.

Though he claims to be religious and his voters are largely religious Zionists, he agreed to the rabid anti-religious agenda his partners seek to implement. In a poll released this week, only 34% of his voters said they would vote for him again. He had no problem delivering a speech to the nation on Sunday night acknowledging that the deal was about to be signed, acting as if this is for the betterment of the country.

How can a person be so dishonest? How can he jeopardize his career by going against everything he purportedly stood for?

It is because of his overarching ego and need to be prime minister. Not that he was a big tzaddik to begin with, but after he signed an agreement that the new coalition would go to war with the religious community, he lied and said that this government will be one of unity, embracing all and not cancelling out any sector.

Joe Biden did the same thing, running in the primaries and election as the moderate candidate. Upon solidifying the election, he veered all the way over to the socialist left, empowering the ultra-leftists in every aspect of government, advancing their ridiculous agenda and guiding the country on a path towards moral and financial bankruptcy. He forsook his five decades of moderation in government to earn the accolades of the media and the leftists he ran against. 

The need of the meraglim to maintain power caused them to veer sharply from the lives they had led until that point. Anoshim chashuvim, they set out to map the land that Hashem had promised to their forefathers generations before. Twelve leading men of the Bnei Yisroel were given a mission to appraise the Promised Land. As they crossed into the land that Hashem had promised their forefathers years before, they should have approached every town with the perspective that they were finally meriting to be in the land of destiny, where Avrohom, Yitzchok and Yaakov had lived. They had the merit of being the first members of the Bnei Yisroel to return to the eternal home of the Jewish people.

Had they done so, they would have viewed everything there in the proper perspective. Because they feared that when the Jewish people would follow them into this land, they would lose their positions, they viewed everything with a jaundiced eye.

Most things that we encounter in life can be perceived positively and negatively. We must not permit our biases to taint our vision and perception. We can have firmly held beliefs by which we lead our lives for decades, and then, because of a negiah, we let it all go to waste and sharply veer away from what we know is good and true. Hakadosh Boruch Hu promised this land to us and vouched for its quality and that we would inherit it, because it was created for us.

Had they not permitted their egos to spoil their vision, wherever they would have turned they would have seen the realization of Hashem’s promises. They would have seen a beautiful land that gave birth to strong people and luscious fruits. Instead, they saw people dying and food that was impractical to carry.

They didn’t hear Hashem’s promises reverberating as they traveled throughout the land. Instead, they found fault in everything they saw. They denied the greatness of the land and they denied the Divine promise. They were thus resho’im.

With this, we can understand how Rashi says that at the time they left, they were honorable people, and then he writes that just as they returned with evil advice, they left with that same evil advice. They were honorable people when they left, but their advice was evil because it was tainted by their yeitzer hora and their bad middos, such as gaavah, arrogance.

One day, a chossid of the Chiddushei Horim is said to have come to the rebbe complaining that he was depressed. “Rebbe,” he cried, “the parshiyos the past few weeks have been too much for me to bear. One week we read about the misonenim, the complainers. Then we learn about the meraglim. Then we read about Korach and his followers. Rebbe, I can’t take it. It’s so disheartening.”

Week after week, we read of the challenges facing a new nation struggling to come to terms with the reality of its own existence. We read the stories, we study them, and we wonder how people who were so smart, so gifted and blessed, who had witnessed and experienced unprecedented miracles and salvation, had strayed so far off course.

Since there is an obvious connection between the stories, Chazal wonder about the placement of the account of the meraglim in Parshas Shelach. They ask what the tale of spies dispatched to tour and report on the most splendid country on earth has to do with the story at the end of last week’s parsha pertaining to Miriam.

Parshas Beha’aloscha ended with the story of Miriam, who was punished for speaking ill of her brother, Moshe Rabbeinu.

Chazal explain the connection: “Resho’im halalu ra’u velo lokchu mussar - The wicked ones saw what happened to Miriam but didn’t learn a lesson from it” (Rashi, Bamidbar 13:2, quoting the Tanchumah).

On a simple level, the lesson they should have learned from Miriam’s experience relates to the aveirah of lashon hora. Miriam was punished for speaking negatively about her brother. The meraglim, unaffected by her punishment, spoke lashon hora about the land.

Upon further examination of the two parshiyos, another pattern emerges, adding a deeper dimension to the connection between Miriam’s sin and that of the meraglim.

The meraglim were leaders, prominent and sincere people who apparently set out to do good. They returned with graphs, maps and demographic details that were factual and accurate. Their reports regarding the land were correct and were not disputed by Yehoshua and Koleiv.

Miriam had spoken to Aharon and questioned their brother Moshe’s decision to separate from his wife. “Al odos ha’isha hakushis asher lokach…ki isha kushis lokach.” The conversation continued and they said that Hashem had spoken to Miriam and Aharon as well and they remained married, so why did Moshe think he was different? What Miriam said was true. There were no lies in what she said and no fictitious defamation. So where did she go wrong?

The Torah comments on their conversation, stating, “Veha’ish Moshe onov me’od mikol ha’adam asher al pnei ha’adamah - And the man Moshe was extremely humble, more than any person on the face of the earth” (Bamidbar 12:3).

In the middle of the parsha of Miriam, the Torah informs us that Moshe Rabbeinu was the embodiment of humility and modesty. The mention of Moshe’s anavah seems to be unrelated to what transpired. Why is it here?

The Torah is saying that a person such as Moshe, who is most humble, cannot be accused of acting improperly. Moshe achieved the highest levels attainable by man. How could anyone think that he had acted improperly? The only way he could have done something not in keeping with Hashem’s wishes and commandments would be if his yeitzer hora utilized his unperfected middos to cloud his judgment. A person who has perfected his middos and is fully humble cannot be misled by his ego, for he has none.

Thus, the Torah is informing us that Miriam was wrong for insinuating that Moshe had acted improperly in an interpersonal situation. This is the lesson that the meraglim should have learned from the incident. They should have perceived that in defending Moshe, the Torah discusses his humility, because a person who is humble is not misled by subconscious needs for gratification and supremacy. They should have learned that lesson, but the wickedness in their heart did not allow them to discern that.

The quintessential shliach for his people was Moshe Rabbeinu, whom the Torah testifies was onov me’od, free of personal ambition and calculations. Perhaps it was this that made him the most effective shliach and leader the Jewish people have ever been blessed with.

In our lives, there are inevitably ups and downs. There are good times and times when the good is not perceptible. There are rainy days and sunny days, days when the kids are kvetchy and days when they are adorable. Problems tend to crop up. We can either deal with them or be overwhelmed. Whatever happens, we need to bear in mind that nothing happens by itself just because. It happens for a reason and was willed so by Hakadosh Boruch Hu for a higher purpose.

If we view and understand everything that happens to us as being caused by Hashem, then we can appreciate that even when something seems to be the greatest tragedy imaginable, there is blessing there, there is goodness there, and something positive will come of it. That perception would help us in so many ways in the many different scenarios we encounter in life almost on a daily basis. It will allow us to remain positive no matter what comes our way, difficult as it may appear. Nothing should be able to get us down. With emunah and bitachon, we can conquer all.