Lulei Demistafina

It's a Sin!

2012-01-16T23:00:00.001-05:00

The other Motzaei Shabbos, it happened again. An accomplished, articulate, and learned man—in a shul full of accomplished, articulate, and learned people—took the amud to daven. Maariv passed uneventfully. Until the end, that is, when, in the extra pesukim we read after the Shemoneh Esrei, the chazzan concluded: “Orech yamim ashbi’eihu ve’areihu bishu’asi.”

“Ashbieihu”?

Arrgh. It’s a sin!

This was not the first time I’d heard this particular mistake, and I sincerely doubt it will be the last. Nor is this example the only mistake of its kind that my tender ears have been exposed to over the years. I hear it again in the concluding verse of the shir shel yom for Thursday: “…umitzur devash ashbi’eka”; or sometimes “asbi’echa”; or else the doubly wrong “ashbiecha.” For some People of the Book simply reading the Book correctly proves problematic.

Are people paying attention? Should someone say something?

The Tanach warns us of the problem. In the book of Shoftim, the people of Ephraim started up with Yiftach Hagiladi. War broke out and Yiftach’s side won. Subsequently, Yiftach’s men stood guard by the Jordan river and would not let the people of Ephraim cross back over to get to their homes. In order to determine who was from Ephraim, they seized upon a speech pattern unique to the Ephraimites—replacing a “sh” with “s.” When someone approached, “they said to him, please say shibboles, and he said sibboles for he could not pronounce it properly, and they took him and slaughtered him at the fords of the Jordan. Forty-two thousand from Ephraim fell at that time” (12:6).

While I’m not suggesting capital punishment for textual misreadings, it is clear that proper pronunciation does count for something.

And while we’re on the subject, am I the only one who cringes when the person saying Kaddish refers to G-d’s Name as "Shemei dekedushah Berich Hu," instead of "deKudsha." Here's another favorite from the birchas haminim in Shemoneh Esrei: "Vechol oh-vecha meheirah yikareisu." While I understand that there are people who are preternaturally incapable of pronouncing the sound,"oy” under any and all circumstances, there remains in the word a yud that demands to be recognized. Not to worry. As it is coupled with a sheva nah, it can be rendered, with a little effort, "oh-yehvecha, your enemies." Ovecha, on the other hand, simply means, "your necromancers." And while cutting off necromancers may not be a bad idea, it’s not the idea of this particular berachah.

Likewise, whenever I attend a siyum, I squirm in my seat, hoping it won’t come. But too often it does. Nearing the end, the mesayeim will declare, "Vehakitzosa hi teshichecha." Someone needs to give a shichah about this problem. It's wonderful to finish a mesechta in Shas or a seder of mishnayos, but would it hurt to first learn the pesukim?

I'm not even addressing the evils of slurring words or of alternating between muttering and mumbling while davening, or, worse, while leining from the Torah. Nor am I getting on anyone's case about the difference between the sheva na and the shva nach. Or the mapik hei. Not today anyway.

Today I simply want to point out that when a shin has a dot on the left end, it’s a sin.

Perhaps the best use of my perturbation (other than writing about it) is further introspection. For lest anyone think that I am Mr. High and Mighty, condescending upon the lowly, befuddled masses with their troubled tongues and marbly mouths, I have, on occasion, caught the malapropic bug myself. For instance, it was decades before I recognized that the phrase in the shir shel yom for Wedensday was "veyesomim yeratzeichu." For years, I had been saying (ahem) "yeracheitzu"—and while I’m quite sure that most orphans would far prefer to be washed than murdered, it was still incorrect.

Besides for watching out for my pronunciation and that of others I also should be careful with what I’m saying. I’m not talking about putting on “kavanah face”—but about increasing focus on pirush hamilos, or avoidance of daydreaming at the very least.

We all make mistakes—some more important than others. When it comes to tefillah, it behooves us to pronounce the words diligently, even if it slows us down. But when we catch someone else making an error, it also pays to be forgiving. After all, we are asking no less for ourselves from God.

9/11

2011-09-11T12:16:00.004-04:00

What I remember most about September 11 is not what I saw.

Though I did see—I stood several miles from the Twin Towers, on the corner of East Broadway in the Lower East Side of Manhattan with a beeline view of the buildings as they burned. It felt like I was watching a scene from a movie. This couldn’t be happening, really. This wasn’t an actual event.

But it was.

My neighbors and I were as close to the event as one could be without feeling any imminent danger. They mostly stood there, gaping, dumbfounded, incredulous. I headed to shul to daven. Not because I’m such a tzaddik, but because I had woken up late and hadn’t prayed yet that morning. When I came out, the buildings were gone.

But what I saw is not what I remember most.

As the day continued forward, there was nothing to do. No work to go to. No school, though my kids were too young for school. So we stayed at home and watched the news. But what good was that? What could they tell us that would improve the situation? Why did we have to watch video of the plane flying into the south tower over and over again?

It was early afternoon, and I had to do something. I was so close to the event, but I wasn’t in Hatzolah, I wasn’t trained in any capacity to assist in an emergency. So I told my wife I was going to the hospital. Surely they’d be bringing the injured there and they would need blood donors at the very least, maybe even volunteers.

I hiked to the hospital on 14th Street. It was a beautiful day. And quiet. Perfectly quiet.

When I arrived at the hospital, I saw hundreds of people outside waiting. Not patients, volunteers. They all had the same thought I had. We all stood waiting for the sound of sirens to break the stillness, ambulances arriving. But it never happened. The quiet continued.

I approached a doctor and asked him what was going on inside the hospital. Not much, he replied. It went unsaid: whoever walked away from Ground Zero was more or less okay. Everyone else was killed. “Anything I can do to help?” I asked. He suggested I try to get people to sign up to donate blood at a future date. The city always needed blood donors.

The silence enveloped New York for the next several days. Transportation to, from, and even within Manhattan was curtailed and to some extent shut down completely. People walked, but they did so gently, as if the very earth they stood on could crumble at any minute.

But the silence is not what I remember most.

The odor from Ground Zero quickly carried to our corner of the city. It didn’t leave quickly. It was the same smell as burnt rubber, but you knew it was more. It was—literally—the smell of death, of terror, of murder. Sharp and pungent, it burned your nostrils, and knowing the source, burned deeper than that.

But the smell is not what I remember most.

What I remember most is the people, the sudden bond that seized all New Yorkers, the silent brotherhood that was created by collective mourning. It was as if the entire city was sitting shiva. You passed people in the street but you didn’t talk. A nod of the head was all.

But nod you did. You didn’t ignore. People wanted to reach out to each other in ways they never did before. New York—noisy, arrogant, impersonal—suddenly became quiet, humbled, a family.

People kept saying that nothing would ever be the same again, but I found that more-or-less, life gradually returned to normal, albeit with heightened security in office buildings and airports. But I do believe that New York City became a nicer, gentler place. The proof came the following year. A blackout enveloped the city, and with the power out, people found themselves—once again—walking long distances home.

I walked home, from the bank where I worked to my apartment. Along with some colleagues, I trekked over the Brooklyn Bridge into lower Manhattan. It was late evening and the sun was setting. The bridge was packed with people in both directions. You couldn’t actually walk, so much as shuffle your feet forward a few inches at a time. But no one complained. Everyone behaved. No pushing, no shoving, no yelling, no screaming.

“At least it wasn’t a terrorist attack,” I heard more than one person remark. It’s what we were all thinking, as we crawled home, happy to be here, securely surrounded by family.

The New Normal

2010-08-26T16:20:00.000-04:00

Once, when I was in the eighth grade, the boys in my class were discussing what to do with their bar mitzvah money. One of the boys mentioned something called a money market, which he explained was just like a savings account, and paid around ten percent interest. To my young, impressionable, pre-teen mind, that number became the benchmark against which all other rates of return were judged; for years, I considered ten percent to be a normal passive rate of return on money.

Fast forward many years. I became a financial advisor. I had already learned that ten percent money market returns were an aberration. In fact, no relatively safe investment could be counted on to deliver a return approaching that number. One would have to take on the full measure of volatility in the stock market to potentially average ten percent over time.

Fast forward to today.

Bill Gross is the co-Chief Investment Officer of PIMCO, a Newport Beach, California money management firm. PIMCO’s flagship Total Return Fund, under the stewardship of Gross, has grown to become the largest mutual fund in the world. Last summer, Gross and company described the economic circumstances and market conditions that they believe will face us over the coming years. They called it “the new normal.”

What is the new normal? Among other things it means slower economic growth, high unemployment, low interest rates, and tepid, “half-sized” – that is to say, four to five percent – stock market returns. In other words, you know the financial crisis we’ve been trying to shake? Well, get used to it. “All investors should expect considerably lower rates of return than what they grew accustomed to only a few years ago,” Gross insists.

The new normal will naturally have ramifications in the Jewish world, and in particular, the frum world. Consider:

• Yeshivos today, most of which were never—even at the height of the economic bubble—flush with funds, are under enormous financial strain. Some are being starved out of existence.

• While Information Technology is poised to be one of the growth areas of the new economy (along with Healthcare and Biotech), many frum people who are “in computers” do not currently possess the knowledge and skills for these jobs. According to a friend of mine who works for a cutting-edge IT firm, many are only trained for obsolete systems and have not kept up with the rapid changes in this field.

• For awhile it seemed like every former yeshiva guy and his brother-in-law were mortgage brokers, working very long days and weeks financing and refinancing properties for anyone and everyone who came along—making terrific commissions along the way. No longer. Fewer people are buying houses, fewer people are qualifying for mortgages, and those who are and do are finding that some banks (Chase, for example) are not taking mortgage loan applications from independent brokers.

• The frum world will always have its share of entrepreneurs, but with the severe tightening of credit, many are not getting the chance to borrow the money required to build, or even expand, businesses. Established real estate investors are finding deals, and many have cash on hand to finance them. But many younger people who are trying to get started in that business have it tough.

• One of the biggest supporters of kollelim in Eretz Yisrael saw his fortune—in the hundreds of millions—evaporate in a matter of weeks. I happened to meet him briefly by chance when he was borrowing office space from a client of mine, and watched as he sat hunched over on his cell phone trying to keep his kollelim from going under. He will survive, but many of his beneficiaries are already leaving kollel and returning to America.

And the setbacks did not begin in the last two years.

In 2003, The Wall Street Journal reported how Indians were quickly replacing Jews as the premier diamond dealers in Antwerp, Belgium. The Jews, who had at one point controlled 70% of the trade, saw their influence dwindle to just 25% in a few years. That number is even smaller today. At the time, Henri Rubens, one of the community’s leaders, declared the end of the glory days noting, “We were too complacent. Now that we realize it, it's too late.” Mr. Rubens went into real estate.

These past few decades have been remarkable for the Jewish nation, and for the Orthodox in particular. We have grown both materially and spiritually, and the two often worked hand-in-hand. Much of our largesse was committed to building a strong infrastructure of homes, shuls, yeshivos and mosdos.

But the last couple of years have been challenging; the infrastructure is showing strain and even some cracks. Many feel that we simply have to get through this rough period before going back to “normal.” But what if we’re in for a new normal? What if we need to adjust our thinking and our budgets accordingly—not just for a few years but permanently?

God will surely provide us with what we need; but our definition of “need” may have to be adjusted. Should a more moderate financial future face us, we must not allow it to slow down our spiritual growth. Our commitment to Torah and mitzvos, to educating our children and feeding our poor, to learning diligently and working honestly, must not waver.

But what we spend on our homes, our cars, our vacations, and even our simchas may need to be reigned in considerably.

The Giving Pledge

2010-08-13T12:00:00.000-04:00

The Wall Street Journal last week publicized the names of those who had joined “The Giving Pledge.” This initiative, spearheaded less than two months ago by Microsoft founder Bill Gates and his pal, America’s greatest investor, Warren Buffett, asks all of the billionaires of America to donate “the majority of their wealth to the philanthropic causes and charitable organizations of their choice either during their lifetime or after their death.”

To date, forty have signed up. “Many of the names already were known,” wrote Robert Frankel in the Journal. “But the list also includes some notable new ones,” adding that “the list could become a strong financial force for philanthropy, if for no other reason than peer pressure, publicity and the inspiring example of others.”

Jews, religious Jews in particular, don’t need to look outside their own circles for inspiration or direction when it comes to charitable giving. We are, as the Sages put it, “compassionate, the children of the compassionate.” The mitzvah of giving charity is ingrained in us from a young age; even Jews who are not wealthy give charity, understanding that it’s a priority of Jewish living.

But a disturbing trend seems to have developed recently, if Dr. Marvin Schick, president of the famed Rabbi Jacob Joseph School in Staten Island, New York, is to be believed. Writing in The Jewish Press, Dr. Schick laments “the message that basic Torah education is not a tzedakah priority.”

I don’t want to quote Rabbi Schick out of context; obviously he knows about all the yeshivos and kollelim, both here and in Eretz Yisrael, which are supported by philanthropic individuals. What he is lamenting is the lack of a comprehensive funding model for Jewish day schools.

The most obvious reason for this is that the Torah education of children is an obligation, first and foremost, of their parents. Why, a philanthropist might argue, should my tzedakah dollars be spent on people who ought to provide for themselves? Priority is therefore given to causes where poverty “can’t be helped.”

Seemingly overnight, however, we are faced with a “tuition crisis.” The rising cost of yeshiva education (brought on to a large extent by good developments, such as limited class sizes and higher wages for mechanchim), coupled with factors such as the higher costs of housing in the frum community and the current economic downturn, has pushed the tuition issue to the fore. For most families, tuition is the single largest after-tax expense they face.

In response, some communities—notably Chicago and Bergen County—have set up “kehillah” funds to begin the process of moving the financial burden of education from parents to the community at large. As noble as these funds are, however, the money they raise is a drop in the bucket. I am told that the funds offset tuition, in their respective communities, by approximately $200 per child—hardly a game changer.

If we truly have reached a breaking point in the financing of Jewish education, then something more considerable must develop.

The most substantial, dollar-neutral way of lowering tuition is to convert post-tax dollars into pre-tax dollars. There are two ways to accomplish this. The first is through school vouchers. This is something that has been, and continues to be, lobbied for, without success. And with the current budget deficits facing all state governments, it is unlikely that school vouchers will happen anytime soon.

The second way to convert post-tax dollars into pre-tax dollars is for charitable contributions to supplant tuition. A family now spending $40,000 annually on tuition would save in the area of $10,000 in taxes if that $40,000 was a voluntary contribution.

Naturally, this won’t happen.

While it may work out on paper, human nature being what it is, people aren’t likely to give voluntarily the same amount they are currently giving “forcibly.” Yeshivos have tried this in the past—asking parents to donate more in exchange for lower tuition—and it hasn’t worked. This is a grand shame, because without spending one dollar more than they currently are spending, parents could save, collectively, millions of dollars in every community.

My feeling is that the weak response to these restructuring attempts is due to the fact that they don’t lower tuition immediately. They simply function as a promise for the future. In the meantime, people actually end up paying more—this year’s tuition, plus a pledge for next year.

But what if the concept were tweaked somewhat? Then could it work?

This is where the Giving Pledge comes in.

What if a group of Jewish super-philanthropists in a community agreed to fund the entire day school budget of that community for one year? The money would be raised before the school year began, with the understanding that the heretofore tuition-paying members of the community would be responsible to replenish the funds by the end of the school year. If they don’t, tuition reappears the following year.

The parents would pledge to continue funding the kehillah with the same amount they had heretofore been obligated to pay via tuition. They continue doing this every year. If the money runs out, or even runs low, tuition comes back—and they’re spending the same amount, but forfeiting a valuable tax-deduction.

I would hope that the looming threat of taxable tuition would keep the donations coming.

Now, who’s ready to pledge?

Have You Seen My Alps?

2010-07-29T18:20:00.001-04:00

Every day, as I walk into shul, I am confronted by a flyer hanging on the bulletin board, which greets me with, depending on my mood, varying degrees of annoyance. “SWITZERLAND”, the flyer declares. It then goes on to invite the synagogue membership (and, presumably, anyone else who happens to be interested) to join the Rabbi and his wife on a “Jewish heritage tour” of that European country.

Forgive my skepticism, but is there any—let alone any substantial—Jewish history to be found in…Switzerland?

The flyer promises “SCENIC AND FASCINATING SITES OF STUNNING NATURAL BEAUTY”; a stay at the “KOSHER HOTEL OF DAVOS”; “THREE DECLICIOUS GLATT KOSHER MEALS DAILY”; plus “SHIURIM AND MORE.” This all sounds like a wonderful, and wonderfully kosher, tour. But I’m still left scratching my head. How does all this qualify as “Jewish heritage”?

As it turns out, a google search of “Jewish Switzerland” gets 4 million hits. This compares to 13 million hits for “Jewish Jerusalem” and 37 million hits for “Jewish New York.”

Here’s what I came away with.

There are about 18,000 Jews in Switzerland, according to 2000 Census data. There are 38 synagogues. Ruth Dreifuss, a Jew, was president of Switzerland in 1999 (she served for one year, exactly). Albert Einstein spent his teenage years in Switzerland. Edmund Safra ran his banking empire from Switzerland. And…

Well, that seems to be about it. No baalei Tosafos, no famous acharonim, no major settlement after the Holocaust. Even among places with little Jewish history, Switzerland seems to have little Jewish history.

It used to be that Jews who wanted to travel in order to reconnect with their Judaism had one destination: Israel. Then, at some point, someone decided that it was not unreasonable to spend some time in Western Europe, walking the streets where the Rambam walked, looking at the house where Rashi lived. Jewish-themed tours of France, Spain and Italy became common.

More recently, the exotic locales of Eastern Europe have beckoned. In the past two decades, since the fall of Communism, Jews have made their way over to the Old Country to see what was there. The curtain had been lifted. Eastern Europe, which a few years ago was the stuff of stories and legends, something left completely to the imagination, was suddenly a plane ride away. Today, the pilgrimages to Uman during the Yamim Nora’im are legendary, but there are also smaller, lesser known destinations, such as the kever of the Noam Elimelech in Lizensk.

Personally, I am ambivalent. On the one hand I have friends who go to Uman for Rosh Hashanah every year. They tell me that it’s an unforgettable experience, something I must try at least once, a journey that will change my life. While still skeptical, the temptation is there, I admit.

In a not so similar vein, my former yeshiva takes their boys every year to Poland to visit the death camps. This, I am assured by the Mashgiach, has an undeniable impact upon them, inspiring many to recommit to a life of Torah and mitzvos. While I find it unfortunate that boys who come to Israel to learn Torah, must get back on a plane and visit Auschwitz in order to be inspired, I can't argue with the Mashgiach’s assessment. Apparently, there are some souls that are stirred to teshuvah by the dark horrors of the Nazi killing machine. Personally speaking, however, I’m fairly confident I’ll get through life without visiting Auschwitz and have no regrets about it.

Recently, another yeshiva I attended flew to Volozhin, to set up shop in the yeshiva "where it all began." They sat and learned, and heard shiurim from the rosh yeshiva on Reb Chaim's Torah. Their alumni newsletter and fundraising correspondence described the event in such rapturous language, you would have thought the Jewish people had returned to Sinai.

Again, I understand the nostalgia of such a trip, but let's not get carried away. The Torah of Volozhin is alive and well, thriving well beyond the borders of Belarus, in yeshivos from Brooklyn to Bnei Brak. There ought to be no need to hop on a plane in order to feel the thrill of Reb Chaim's Torah.

I am conflicted about these trips for another reason, as well. Jews are clearly giving financial support to people who are not necessarily lovers of Jews, and not that far removed from the butchery of the Holocaust. Is this justified?

But at least these places are legitimate, if somewhat unpleasant, destinations for thoughtful, searching Jews. And there is no doubting their credentials vis-à-vis Jewish history. But for a shul to organize a trip to Switzerland on the pretense of Jewish heritage? That simply strikes me as disingenuous.

Maybe I’m just envious because I haven't been outside of the U.S. in many years. Maybe I'm just kicking myself for not finishing my semichah and entering the Rabbinate so I could be the one invited on some of these tours as a guest lecturer. Maybe I fail to appreciate Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch’s concern that God would take him to task for not seeing His Alps.

But maybe we should ease up on the "Jewish heritage" moniker and just call these trips what they really are: kosher vacations. I'm not opposed to vacations. Everyone ought to assess their station in life and determine how much leisure, how much downtime, how much relaxation they need in order to propel themselves further and deeper into God’s Divine Service.

As for me, camping in Lake George usually does the trick.

Tri Again

2010-07-23T12:20:00.002-04:00

What will you be doing on Sunday, August 7, 2011?

I'll tell you what I won't be doing; I won't be participating in the Eleventh Annual New York City Triathlon.

A triathlon, for those who don’t know, is a race that combines swimming, bicycling and running. A colleague of mine from work had begun training for a triathlon, and recently a good friend of mine did too. So I thought, as I often do: Why not me?

For several years now I have been trying to fend off middle age with various attempts at whipping myself into shape. Racing in a triathlon became the big carrot at the end of a long stick. So for the past few years, on and off, I have been in "training." What this means, for an overworked, under-disciplined person such as myself, is feeble, inconsistent attempts at running, biking and swimming.

While I have been running for years, I'm down to about twelve miles a week, not nearly enough to compete in anything but the shortest of road races. As for biking, once I got my Driver License, biking had become superfluous. Just the other week I got (by "got" I meant "pulled out of my parents' garage") my first bike in twenty years. And swimming? Don't ask.

I had heard about the NYC Tri and figured that was the one I should aim for because (a) I am a denizen of New York City; and (b) who could pass up the opportunity to swim in the Hudson River? But, sadly, I discovered that the NYC Tri was being held two days before Tisha B'av, and decided not to compete. Is there a heter to swim competitively during the Nine Days, particularly during shavua shechal bo? I wasn't interested in finding out. Halachic considerations aside, I just wasn't comfortable with the idea of jumping into the Hudson two days before Tisha B’av.

So I figured, as I often do: There’s always next year. I was certain that with Tisha B'av in August next year being a leap-year, there would be no conflict, as these public events are usually set around the same time every year.

I was wrong.

Tisha B'av next year is on a Tuesday. The NYC Tri is the Sunday prior. Again.

I checked the dates for previous triathlons, and to my surprise and dismay, in four of the past five years, the NYC Tri always fell out the Sunday before Tisha B'av. The English dates were in a broad range; but on the Hebrew Calendar the dates were eerily consistent. What could account for that? Even I, a red-white-and-blue blooded American Jew, was beginning to wonder: Was it actually possible that the organizers of this event were discouraging Orthodox Jews from participating? What else could it possibly be?

So I emailed one of the organizers of the event. Why were the dates of the Tri so varied?, I asked. Her answer surprised me. The currents, she wrote back, have to be favorable between 6 and 9 in the morning. And you know this so far in advance? I asked. Years in advance, she responded.

It turns out that calculating the currents has a lot to do with the lunar cycle, the same lunar cycle that sets the Jewish calendar. So the organizers can not create the event around a certain date on the Gregorian calendar—as they do for the New York City Marathon and the U.S. Open tennis tournament; they have to take into account the moon’s position. Nothing to do with Jews.

I breathed a sigh of relief.

There is a tendency among some Jews to suspect anti-Semitism at the first whiff of anything that remotely interferes with, or even inconveniences, the Jewish community, a feeling that anything that can be chalked up to anti-Semitism should be chalked up to anti-Semitism. This mistrust is misguided—and potentially dangerous.

It’s not that I don’t believe anti-Semitism exists; it does, even in America. But a knee-jerk reaction—particularly when so many other factors are at play—is uncalled for.

The recent reaction to the arrest, conviction, and sentencing of Shalom Rubashkin is a case in point. Even assuming that he was singled out and punished overly harshly, there is no reason to insist that anti-Semitism is the cause. Was anti-Semitism at play? No one can know for sure.

“But what else can it possibly be?” some have argued. Allow me to explain.

People—and by people I include goyim—have motivations that go beyond sticking it to the Jews. Those motivations include career advancement, money, and fame. Rudy Giuliani was renowned for arresting people in extravagant fashion. He did so in order to achieve notoriety and advance his political career (PS: it worked).

Some judges are simply harsh, and hand down long sentences, for reasons that have nothing to do with the Jewish nation.

But one fact is incontrovertible: America has demonstrated little tolerance for anti-Semitism and anti-Semites.

Helen Thomas, the first lady of American Journalism, a woman so highly respected that she had a personal front-and-center seat in the White House press room made a short, awful, clearly anti-Semitic comment. Inside of 24 hours, she was gone. There was no question she would be fired. There was no question she would be banned from the White House.

Mel Gibson, for all his fame and money, makes known his hateful feelings toward the Jews, and is dismissed as a crackpot.

It isn’t fair and it isn’t smart to call people anti-Semitic if they aren’t. We should make absolutely sure we know people’s motivations—usually impossible—before playing the anti-Semitism card. If we don’t know for sure, we should not assume. Our place in American society certainly calls for being dan lekaf zechus. We owe America, as a malchus shel chessed at least that much.

And another reason: If we’re wrong, we may just create a self-fulfilling prophecy.

George Steinbrenner and the Art of Teshuvah

2010-07-15T18:00:00.003-04:00

The news this week that George Steinbrenner, principal owner of the New York Yankees, had died unleashed a spectrum of commentary, ranging from the begrudgingly positive to the excessively fawning. For the average baseball fan growing up in the 1970s and 1980s, familiar with the constant turmoil that surrounded the Boss and his beloved Bronx Bombers, the rehabilitation of Steinbrenner’s legacy is nothing short of miraculous.

It’s a miracle that he himself put together.

This is really the tale of two Steinbrenners. The first came along in 1973, when he led a group of investors to buy the Yankees for ten million dollars. The Steinbrenner of the early days was crass, callous, and cruel. The Yankees quickly improved and won two World Championships before the end of the decade. Whether they won because of or in spite of their owner’s behavior is debatable. It’s also beside the point.

George Steinbrenner excused his conduct as necessary in order to win. He put winning ahead of everything else. Winning was the ends that justified the means—and the meanness. “I sign the paychecks,” was his reasoning for treating employees as nothing more than disposable puppets in the grandiloquent theater that was Yankees Baseball. Sixteen games into the 1985 season, he fired the Yankees greatest living legend, Yogi Berra, after publicly promising him a full season to lead the team. And he didn’t even have the courtesy to tell him himself; the deed was done through another executive. Berra was humiliated and stayed away from the Yankees for over a decade.

He famously fired a stadium electrician for a malfunctioning loudspeaker, and a secretary for ordering the wrong sandwiches. “You live up to his impossibly perfect image of the New York Yankees or Steinbrenner would exact retribution,” wrote Joe Posnanski wrote in Sports Illustrated.

Harvey Greene, a former Yankees PR director, said, “The phone would ring in the middle of the night and you knew it was either Mr. Steinbrenner or a death in the family. After a while you started to root for a death in the family.”

Steinbrenner’s antics were tolerated for another decade until he finally crossed the line in 1990—paying $40,000 to a degenerate gambler to spy on his All-Star outfielder, Dave Winfield—and was banned from the game by then-commissioner, Fay Vincent.

But it turns out that there was another side to George Steinbrenner that was not as well known.

Just ask Ken Waldrep, who, in 1974, while playing football for TCU against Alabama, was hit on a play and became paralyzed. Steinbrenner was watching the game from the stands. He helped pay Waldrep’s medical bills and for a specially equipped van. He also kept up with him, lending moral, in addition to financial, support.

Ask Eddie Robinson, the famous football coach of Grambling University. When Robinson’s Urban League Classic football game, which raised funds for nearly 500 scholarships, was straining financially, Steinbrenner loaned them Yankee Stadium to host the event.

Ask Fay Vincent, the aforementioned baseball commissioner who banned Steinbrenner from the game. Vincent recalled the first conversation he ever had with Steinbrenner. Steinbrenner phoned Vincent, asking to “help him raise money for a former football coach at Williams College (which we both attended) who was ill in Florida with Alzheimer’s and needed full-time nursing. George and I shared enormous affection for this coach, and for years we and several others helped him and his wife in their old age.”

Ask Lorraine Blakely, who was almost killed, at age seven, in a freak accident that left her with a crushed skull. Steinbrenner wrote a check to cover the brain surgery of this young girl, after he learned from a newspaper that her father was between jobs and the doctor refused to operate until he was paid.

One former employee reminisced about the time his mother came to New York for a visit, and how Steinbrenner treated her like a queen during her stay. But his behavior toward the employee himself, remained cold. Lou Piniella, the former Yankees player and manager, summed it up: “George is a great guy, unless you have to work for him.”

But by the time Commissioner Bud Selig reinstated him in 1993, a new George Steinbrenner began to appear. By that point, the team (through general manager Gene Michael) had done much to rebuild its depleted minor league system—a system Steinbrenner had helped to deplete by trading away future talent for aging stars. As such, Steinbrenner became the greatest beneficiary of his own exile. Think Jeter, Posada, Pettite and Rivera.

Steinbrenner was still tough on his employees but the cruelty, for the most part, was gone.

Fast forward to 1999, a humbled Steinbrenner arrives at the Berra Museum and Learning Center in New Jersey to make amends. “You’re fifteen minutes late,” Yogi quipped, as Steinbrenner approached.

“Yogi, I’m afraid I’m fourteen years late,” Steinbrenner tearfully responded.

This split personality, which George Steinbrenner finally corrected late in life, is common to many of us. Too often, we can be very kind to guests, but not so nice to our own families. We can be the most charming people in shul, but too tough on our own children. We can smile at strangers but snap at our spouses.

On a national level, too, we are guilty of this dichotomy. Rav Berel Wein, shlit”a, often spoke of people who “love Judaism but hate Jews.” We criticize members of Klal Yisrael who don’t measure up to our standards. We may even belittle others for taking a different path toward Avodas Hashem.

And we tell ourselves that we do this for constructive purposes. It’s love of our families that make us so hard on them. It’s our love of Torah and Yiddishkeit that makes us so critical of others. The end justifies the means. Like George Steinbrenner, we just want to win.

Aharon Hakohein, whose yahrtzeit just passed on Rosh Chodesh Av, was known as the “oheiv shalom verodeif shalom—lover of peace and pursuer of peace.” Aharon pursued shalom relentlessly. As we get closer to Tisha B’av, the anniversary of the destruction of the Bais Hamikdash because of sinas chinam, we are reminded to take a page from Aharon Hakohein’s playbook and not simply look for opportunities of ahavas Yisrael, but to pursue them.

We, like Mr. Steinbrenner, already have it inside of us. We just have to shift a little bit, like a batter adjusting his hitting stance, and let it out.

What, Me Worry?

2010-07-01T17:00:00.001-04:00

The emails I receive daily commenting on the actions and attitudes of President Obama range from clever to cockamamie, but nearly all are disrespectful. These messages, conceived through a combustible combination of accessible technology, anonymity, and fear that often borders on paranoia, form a new and lethal poison in the domain of character assassination. Not since Jimmy Carter has the Jewish world—both Orthodox, and, increasingly, non-Orthodox—been so openly critical of a sitting U.S. President.

As an American, who believes in freedom of speech, I have no problem with these criticisms, ugly as they are. As a registered Republican, I find some of them humorous, and even find myself in agreement their efforts. But as a Jew I am deeply troubled.

Let’s be clear: I’m no fan of Barack Obama. No, I don’t believe government intervention in the financial markets will fix more than it will disrupt. Yes, I do believe that U.S. interests lie in a strong and stable Israel. No, I don’t think government-managed health care will lead to better and cheaper health care for me and my children. Yes, I am eagerly awaiting the November 2010 elections, not to mention those in 2012.

However...

These sorts of taunts, particularly those launched by purported Orthodox Jews, are wrong because they display a lack of conviction as to Who is really running the world.

Never mind the minefield of chillul Hashem, which is rarely considered by those launching attacks. Never mind the potential backlash against the Jewish community for protesting against a popular president. Let’s leave those concerns alone for a moment, and focus on another challenge: recognizing our true beliefs.

From the simple perspective of intellectual honesty, is it fair to leave G-d out of the equation? If we call ourselves believers, what or Whom do we actually believe in? Have we, too, been swept up in Obamania to the extent that we believe that its magical powers supersede those of our own—Torah, tefillah and tzedakah?

Question: To what extent does our belief that G-d is running the show prevent us from fretting over the current political landscape? Young children sing every morning “Adon olam…veHu haya veHu hoveh veHu yihiyeh—Master of the universe…He was, He is, and He will be.” Always. God is here, with us, every day. What, me worry?

We all know that we are charged with hishtadlus, that we must make “practical” efforts in this world. G-d makes this demand of us. And, no doubt, if we see our efforts in that light, they are holy actions. But it is also possible to cross the line. If our hishtadlus has us behaving in a way that breaches polite discourse, that goes beyond loyal opposition, that creates chillul Hashem, then it is not hishtadlus.

It is incumbent upon us to vote. But once the vote is tallied and the “wrong” candidate has won, isn’t it equally incumbent upon us to breathe a sigh of relief, knowing that the Almighty is still ultimately in charge?

“But,” the argument goes, “haven’t we learned from Jewish history that we are under constant threat? Wouldn’t it be naïve not to worry?”

Simply, my answer is, no. Because “worry” is the wrong action plan. The correct action plan is “concern.” Concern means we understand the problem and will take an intellectual course to try and solve it. Worry, however, is an emotion, which may or may not lead us to proper behavior.

Let’s look at Megillas Esther and follow the actions of Mordechai, who was dealing with nothing less than the survival of the Jewish nation. While the rest of the Jewish world partied at Achashveirosh’s palace, Mordechai stayed home. While everyone else bowed down to Haman, Mordechai resisted. Then, when Haman received Achashveirosh’s permission to destroy the Jews, Mordechai ripped his clothing and dressed in sackcloth. He stood before the palace, waiting for any news from inside. Reading the Megillah to this point, one would surmise that Mordechai is a very worried person. Worried about the Jewish people, worried about Esther, worried about his children’s future.

The verses, however, tell a different story. At the key moment, when Esther shows some reluctance to move forward and approach Achashveirosh to plead for her people, Mordechai tells her, essentially, “No worries.” “Revach vehatzalah yaamod layehudim mimakom acher— Rescue and salvation will stand for the Jews from another place.” That’s a pretty confident statement from someone who, moments ago, had been pacing outside the king’s palace.

The critical difference is this: Mordechai was concerned, but he was never worried. Mordechai wasn’t being naïve. He understood that everyone had to do their hishtadlus. He even suggested that Esther’s entire climb to the top of the political ladder was for this very moment.

But he was never worried.

It is incumbent upon every believing Jew say, at some point, “Enough.” I have worried enough. I have voiced my opinion enough. I have blogged and emailed enough. I have voted enough.

It’s time to hear what G-d has to say.

Shocking the System

2010-05-06T00:50:00.009-04:00

News out of Philadelphia this week was…well, complicated.

On May 4, a seventeen-year-old high school senior named Steve Consalvi did what many seventeen-year-old high school seniors do: He made a poor choice. Steve, who was observing the Phillies-Cardinals game at Citizens Bank Park, decided that his vantage point was not exciting enough for his temperament. So he hopped a fence in the top of the eighth inning and strutted around the outfield. This sort of benign tomfoolery happens every so often at a Major League Baseball game, and usually ends up with the perpetrator being tackled within seconds by one or more beefy security guards.

Not so in Philadelphia.

Watching the video—a widescreen shot of the playing field—Mr. Consalvi , waving a white towel, made it clear to the middle of the outfield (past Jason Werth, whom, we were assured, assumed a “defensive position”), before security personnel on both ends of the field can be seen running toward him. As the security men drew close, Mr. Consalvi made several quick turns in a successful effort to elude them.

But rather than tackle him, as they seem to have had several opportunities to do, the security team just surrounded him, presumably thinking he’d give himself up. Which of course he didn’t.

And then it happened. One of them—oh, wait, that guy’s not “Security”; his shirt says “POLICE”—pulls a gun, and fires. Down goes Steve, towel and all. Fortunately for all involved, it was a taser gun, which, while not fun to be shot with, ranks way ahead of real bullets or even rubber bullets on the scale of “Things I’d Like to be Shot With.” Steve stayed down, seemingly immobilized, as the officer cuffed him. Seconds later, he was being escorted off the field, a bit wounded and woozy, but coherent enough to shout “Go Phils!” as he is led off the field in handcuffs, to the roar of the fans.

Naturally, the internet and talk radio were asked to weigh in.

Overnight the debate raged: was the officer right to taser this kid? Personally, I think getting zapped by 50,000 volts of electricity and walking it off is a better deal than risking a meniscus tear in the knee after being jumped by an overweight security guy (though come to think of it, those fellows in Philly looked more like the grounds crew than any security team I’ve seen).

But that’s just me.

Many people wrote, blogged, and phoned in arguing that tasering was excessive, even Constitutionally untenable as “cruel and unusual,” and that the event was a harmless prank. Others were more hawkish arguing that (a) you never know the perp’s intentions until it’s too late (many pointed to the deranged fan who stabbed Monica Seles in the back in 1993); and (b) if harsh punishment is not meted out, order cannot be restored. (Although, this argument lost some heft when the following night another fan burst onto the field in Philly. He was not tasered).

Nevertheless, did the punishment fit the crime? Which underscores a different question: What is the purpose of punishment?

Many argue that the purpose of punishment is to reform, to reshape the criminal. This is why many prisons are officially known as “correctional facilities”—there to facilitate correctiveness. Unfortunately, particularly in the case of prisons, the opposite result is often achieved: prisoners become more hardened to that way of life, and leave more dangerous than when they went in.

Others see punishment as less concerned with what already happened and more concerned with what will happen next. Punishment, they argue, acts as a deterrent against future criminals. When they witness what happened to the criminal, they will be less inclined to follow his lead.

Some argue that when society punishes, it is less interested in the criminal—past or future—than in society as a whole. If the criminal is locked up, he can’t hurt anyone else. Still others take this argument one step further, believing that punishment exists as a form of vengeance, to “pay back” the victim in some way.

The Torah’s view of punishment incorporates all of these areas, as well as another. The Torah lists many if/then scenarios describing the good that will come from good behavior and the evil in store for bad behavior. The Navi, in particular, is replete with examples of “Shuvah eilai ve’ashuvah Aleichem—Return to Me and I will return to you.” God clearly wants us to behave and serve Him; even His punishments are toward that end: Rehabilitation.

The Torah also describes certain punishments and concludes with the phrase, “and all the nation will hear and see, and will not sin anymore.” Punishment as deterrent.

The Torah also defines capital crimes and commands the courts to “destroy the evil from your midst.”

But there is a fourth idea inherent in the Torah’s view of punishment: absolution—the notion that punishment cleanses a person spiritually. This concept was best described to me as a “spiritual workout.” A person with a heart condition who is ordered by his doctor to adopt a diet and exercise regimen, would not see that as “punishment,” even though giving up certain foods and drinks may be difficult, and forcing oneself onto a treadmill regularly can seem torturous.

Similarly, God’s “punishments” exist, generally speaking, to get our souls back “into shape.”

The beauty of Yom Kippur is that, through prayer, we can be absolved without the need for punishment. Although we do fast, at least we don’t get tasered.

Response and Responsibility

2010-04-30T10:07:00.016-04:00

Two media items involving two women, both of whom have been in the political spotlight, came out recently. The contrast is striking.

The first item concerns a woman who became intimately involved with former U.S. Senator and Democratic Party Vice Presidential nominee John Edwards, while he was running for President in 2007. Mr. Edwards is married man. Recently, the woman, Rielle Hunter, sat down with media queen Oprah Winfrey to discuss the affair and its repercussions.

Oprah: Do you think you hurt Elizabeth Edwards?
Hunter: She was hurt by the process.

Oprah: You didn't answer the question.
Hunter: Do I think I hurt Elizabeth? Um, you would have to ask Elizabeth that. I don't know.

Oprah: Do you regret being a mistress?
Hunter: No, because I learned a lot.

At the same time that this interview was taking place, a book, Spoken from the Heart, by former First Lady, Laura Bush, was being readied for publication. Excerpts from the book were released to the news media, and one story in particular, about a car crash, attracted attention.

Mrs. Bush describes how in 1963, at the age of seventeen, she drove through a stop sign and struck another car. The other driver, a friend of hers named Mike Douglas, was killed. Now, almost fifty years later, she records her feelings:

I can never absolve myself of the guilt. And the guilt isn’t simply from Mike dying. The guilt is from all the implications, from the way those few seconds spun out and enfolded so many other lives. The reverberations seem to go on forever, like the ripples from an unsinkable stone.

Two women, both of whom did bad things in their lives, albeit with different levels of intent, reflect upon their bad behavior. One is unrepentant, seemingly oblivious to the notion of wrongdoing. The other recognizes her wrong and acknowledges the impossibility of ever setting it completely right.

At stake are notions of guilt, forgiveness, judgment, and morality.

Two significant character flaws emerge from Ms Hunter’s statements. One, she won’t acknowledge that she hurt someone else, only that Elizabeth Edwards was “hurt by the process.” This viewpoint is adopted so that the perpetrator of a wrong can keep her distance from the victim of that wrong. The notion that events cause pain, rather than the people who trigger those events, is a classic failing of those with weak morality. “It’s not me who’s at fault,” they are saying; “it’s the times, the circumstances, fate which caused this to happen.”

Ms Hunter’s second flaw is her absence of regret. “No regrets,” is a popular refrain, particularly among those who ought to have many. This may be because people often confuse regret with all-encompassing, paralyzing guilt. We don’t want the guilt, so we abandon the regret. This is a mistake.

What our Sages term charatah al haavar is a healthy form of regret, meaningful only if it inspires us to improve. One who wallows in guilt cannot take corrective action, and sometimes can take no action at all, becoming bogged down in depression. That’s not the sort of regret that Judaism wants from a person.

What Judaism does want is expressed by Laura Bush, a response that begets positive, productive forward motion. While Mrs. Bush admits that she lost her faith for awhile after the accident, she recovered, persevered and became a role model for her husband and children.

Having propelled her life productively past her horrible mistake, she nonetheless understands that “the reverberations seem to go on forever,” that the consequences of her actions continue to this day—a stunning admission, one that might cripple a lesser person. Yet, she does not allow that recognition to consume her.

Often, in order to move on from past misdeeds, we “chalk them up to experience,” and talk about how we have become better people because of them. But this does not mean that we ought to deny the wrong that we did, or excuse the hurt that we caused. Sometimes, like in the death of Mike Douglas, the damage cannot be undone.

The baalei mussar teach that we must ask forgiveness each Yom Kippur not only for the sins of the past year, but also for sins of previous years—sins that were already expiated on previous Yom Kippurs. Although we received forgiveness for those sins, we become, with each subsequent Yom Kippur, a year older and, one hopes, wiser and better able to understand the consequences of our actions. By viewing our past behavior in a more mature light, we can reevaluate the fallout our wrongful behavior, and are required to request forgiveness again for the added dimensions of this new understanding.

Finding the right balance may be one of the most difficult challenges in personal growth. Too much regret, too much reflection on the past can lead to emotional overload that renders us powerless to produce productive change. Too little regret, too little reflection on our behavior and we won’t grow; in fact, we’ll make excuses.

Laura Bush seems to have gotten it just right. We can all learn from the former First Lady.

Repeat After Me

2009-11-06T13:28:00.009-05:00

Well, as Charlie Brown would say, there's always next year.

Or last year, for that matter. But it still hurts. My beloved Phillies did not repeat as world champions of baseball (though "world" is somewhat of a misnomer). They put up a good fight, I thought. They were reasonably competitive. One or two extra hits, one or two extra strikeouts, and it may have been a different story.

Nevertheless, it was a great season. The Phils were phun to watch all year (and thanks to mlb.com, I was able to do just that), and the Monday that I skipped work, scalped a box seat at Citi Field for thirty bucks, and watched Cliff Lee beat the Mets, 6-2, was one of the more enjoyable afternoons of the year for me.

But while last year the Phillies won their first title since my bar mitzvah, they didn't quite reach the goal again this year.

Which brings me to today's lesson.

In yeshiva we are constantly reminded of the importance of chazarah--review. In fact just as we learned in journalism class that "writing is re-writing," it is fair to say that in the Torah view, "learning is re-learning." In order to really understand a piece of Gemara you have to go over it again and again and again.

Recently, I commemorated my uncle's yahrtzeit with a siyum on all of mishnayos. All the while I was learning mishnayos, often breaking my head to understand them, I kept telling myself how much easier it would be the next time around. Wouldn't you know it though? Once you've made a siyum on something, it can be very difficult to go back to the beginning and start all over.

Fortunately, I learn mishnayos with two boys on a regular basis and that keeps me in the game. Otherwise, I fear that my learning of mishnayos, which was a steady part of my Torah diet for the past few years, would wane considerably. Let's be honest: it's always easier to start new, exciting projects than to rehash old ones.

But "been there, done that" doesn't cut it when it comes to Torah study.

It is for this reason, I suppose, that we declare at a siyum "Hadran alach vehadrach alan--We should return to you and you should return to us." We ask for the fortitude to go back and review, and in exchange for our determination, we pray for the material to return to us as well--that is, to avoid the frustration of having to re-learn what we thought we already knew, that the second time around should inspire new viewpoints and new ideas.

Years ago, when ArtScroll began its translation of the Talmud, a friend of mine, who was not from the learners in our group, began to study Gemara in a way I had not seen before. He was very determined and conscientious in his learning. Prior to this project of his, I had rarely seen him looking into a sefer.

(Sidebar: I have witnessed this with more than one person--ArtScroll really did "open up" the learning of Talmud for many people. That's the good half of the equation; the other half will have to wait for another post. End sidebar.)

Eventually, the day came when he finished all of Shas. I was shocked and proud at the same time. He threw a beautiful siyum for friends and family.

But the sad part was that I never saw him pick up a Gemara again. He had accomplished his goal, and he was done.

The Phillies players, while proud of their accomplishments this year, are disappointed. At the same time, they are excited about starting all over again in 2010 and beyond.

So like I said, there's always next year. Pitchers and catchers report in four months.

Baruch Dayan Ha'emes: William Safire, 5690 - 5770

2009-09-29T23:20:00.014-04:00

One could make a compelling case that my writing career took off one Saturday night when my parents received a phone call from a family friend.

"Is that your son in the Sunday Times?" he asked. My parents turned to me with the same question. Without uttering a word, I ran out of the house, hopped into the family car and sped down the street in the (I'll never forget) drizzling rain. I pulled into the driveway of a friend whose parents, I knew, subscribed to the Times (my parents did not) and finding their paper lying unopened on the blacktop, yanked it from its plastic sheath, and rifled through it in search of the answer.

There it was. In the Times Magazine, in the "On Language" column, just below William Safire's byline. My name.

A few weeks earlier, I had written Mr. Safire with a confession: a common phrase I had not previously understood had finally been explained to me, and I was surprised that I had managed to survive so long without being set straight. Mr. Safire dedicated his column that week to phrases that are regularly misheard, and therefore regularly misunderstood.

For a yeshiva boy, with aspirations of being a writer, appearing in William Safire's column, was more than a thrill. It was validation. On that rainy Saturday night, in the dark, on someone else's driveway, I whooped it up like I had just won the pennant.

William Safire, who died Erev Yom Kippur, taught me to love words and to appreciate their power. Moreover, he demonstrated how the right combination of words, arranged just so, could pack a powerful punch. (He would interrupt here, as he so famously did in his column—which was full of tangents, asides, and parentheticals—to point out that the phrase "pack a powerful punch" is cliche and ought not to be used. I know it's a cliche because I Googled it and got over 13 million hits.)

He knew how to connect words in such a way that they danced on the page. His most famous phrase, "nattering nabobs of negativism," which he penned for then-Vice President Spiro Agnew to describe the press corps during the Vietnam era, was the title of a recent post of mine. (Also, incidentally, a cliche by now. Over one million Google hits.)

But for all his seriousness, as a columnist and self-appointed Language Maven, he had fun with words and language. His rules of writing included:

Remember to never split an infinitive.
The passive voice should never be used.
Proof read carefully to see if you words out.
And don't start a sentence with a conjunction.
(Remember, too, a preposition is a terrible word to end a sentence with.)
Don't overuse exclamation marks!!
Writing carefully, dangling participles must be avoided.
Take the bull by the hand and avoid mixing metaphors.
Last but not least, avoid cliches like the plague; seek viable alternatives.

I have always maintained that if Klal Yisrael had just a handful of writers who could describe Yiddishkeit—its values, its history, its laws, its magic—in a way that was simple without being simplistic, dignified without being condescending, intimate without being intimidating, we would go a long way to bringing wayward Jews back into the fold.

William Safire never did make it back into the fold, but his daughter did. I met her once at a retreat for baalei teshuvah. One night the phone rang and I had the good fortune of answering it. It was for her.

"May I ask who's calling?" I asked.

"Her father," he answered.

I thought of introducing myself, but decided it wasn’t appropriate. He was looking for his daughter not a fan.

Tehei nishmaso tzerura betzror hachaim.

Hishtadlus: A Perspective Revisited

2009-09-28T23:37:00.007-04:00

One of the difficulties a writer faces is finding that small, self-effacing, soft voice that proclaims a valid, valuable opinion. At the same time, sometimes straight talk—rather than soothing tones—is required to make a point forcefully. A good writer aspires to inspire; he does not wish to come across as a callous, cavalier jerk.

So it was with dismay that I read the following response to a recent post, as it forced me to reckon with the knowledge that I may have missed that elusive mark. Here is what one reader wrote:

Baruch Hashem you were only hit by the recession/depression. You were lucky enough with Hashem’s help to make it out whole. This is a fabulous attitude to have and think about. But…What about the many who were KNOCKED OUT by the recession/depression, who have lost the shirts off their backs, are unemployed, and living life hour by hour? They don’t see the Hashem club benefits. What can those people hope for???

The purpose of my blog is not to preach to a choir. Nor is it to push people who are already suffering to feel worse about themselves and about their relationship with God. I am well aware, first-hand, of many of the difficulties of living life on God's world. Nevertheless, I have never felt anything less than blessed. Despite many travails, I have lived, so far, a fairly successful life. I was not abused as a child either physically or emotionally. I did not have poor rabbeim who sucked all the happiness out of Judaism and Jewish living. I have never missed a meal, never gone a night without a roof over my head, never wanted for clothing. I still have a job with one of the world’s leading financial firms. Aside from my Dad’s successful heart surgery, thank God, I have never had to face, a major medical emergency in my family, bli ayin hara.

But I haven’t quite climbed out of this economic crisis (yet); my earnings are off by more than half. Nonetheless, I recognize that I still have a job and I’m working my way back up. Meanwhile, there are many people whose income is down a hundred percent. I even know some people who, unfortunately, have been out of work and struggling financially since the 1991 recession.

Some people are destined to live a life of challenges. It is not my place to give mussar or even advice to such people. I can’t tell them how to feel or instruct them in a sure-fire way to overcome their obstacles. Yet, I do believe that if someone has something truthful to say, and can deliver that message in a deferential and motivating way, perhaps everyone can gain—either materially or emotionally.

My answer is that a Jew is simply not allowed to give up on himself. He must always have hope.

But the truth is that as long as you are living and breathing you are not “knocked out.” God is watching over all of us, and we are all playing a role, of one sort or another, in His Divine plan. Everyone is in the "Hashem club," whether or not they perceive the benefits at any given moment.

Prior to Rosh Hashanah, I received the following email:

Just imagine Baron Rothschild is suffering from amnesia. He's standing on a street corner, dirty and filthy, and he is begging for dimes from every shlepper who walks by. It’s crazy. The first thing this man needs is to remember that he is Baron Rothschild—then he can go wash up, change his clothes, and go back to his palace.

We are the same. All year long we suffer from amnesia. We forget who we are and how holy we are. We forget who G-d is. On Rosh Hashanah, when we blow the Shofar, we wake up and remember who we really are. On Yom Kippur, we wash up and all ourselves up from the dirt on our souls. Then, on Succot,h we move back into our Heavenly abode—the palace in which we are really meant to live. This year I pray that we never forget how beautiful we are, how beautiful the world is, and how much G-d really loves us.

In a Talmudic discussion over the monetary damages assessed for shaming another Jew, Rabbi Akiva disputes the notion that Jews have subjective measures of humiliation: “Even the poor among Israel are viewed as freemen, whose wealth was lost, for they are children of Abraham Isaac and Jacob.”

This is key. We must view ourselves as the Torah views us, as God views us: Freemen, whose wealth was lost. We are the Chosen People, as we say each day, “asher bachar banu mikol ha’amim—You chose us from all the nations.” If we saw ourselves in that light and not as people who have been permanently damaged by financial setbacks, no matter how debilitating, we would have a great deal more strength to deal with the challenges ahead.

Hishtadlus: A Perspective

2009-09-14T12:45:00.003-04:00

God has blessed me with, among many other things, wonderful friends who challenge me to think and provoke me to improve. During Elul, I called up one such friend and, simply to initiate conversation, asked how he was doing. He answered me in a grave tone: “The Director has me playing the role of someone who is having a bad day.”

My friend, whose hashkafah rests upon a bedrock belief that “all the world’s a stage,” sees himself as nothing more than an actor in God’s Divine play of life. He would never come right out and say “I’m having a bad day,” as that would, in his view, indicate a lack of faith that “Kol de’avad Rachmana letav avad—Everything God does is for the best.”

We all have our good days and our “bad” days, as well as plenty of nondescript days to round out the calendar, but my friend’s description of his day—his attitude toward what had been a setback in his livelihood—got me to rethink how to approach each day, and how to prepare for the new year.

The Talmud states, ”Mezonosav shel adam ketzuvim lo Meirosh Hashanah—A person’s livelihood [for the year] is set on Rosh Hashanah.” This alone should impel all of us to take seriously our prayers on the Yom Hadin. But more important than the actual words we read from the machzor is the attitude we need to reinforce on Rosh Hashanah and carry with us throughout the year.

Rav Chaim Friedlander, in his classic work, Sifsei Chaim, writes that the operative word on Rosh Hashanah is not teshuvah, but malchius. The main objective is not so much to ask for things or to beg forgiveness from God, but to acknowledge God’s complete control over the world. “First and foremost, we must desire that through us, through all our actions, His Kingdom will be revealed.” We spend much of these first two days of the year in prayer, declaring God’s sovereignty.

As a financial advisor, there is very little about my livelihood that I control. Rumors to the contrary notwithstanding, I have no influence on the daily direction of the financial markets. I cannot foresee when a client will drop a million dollars into my lap for investment, or when a client who had previously done so will ask for it all back.

All I can do is show up at the office, read the financial papers, talk to clients and prospective clients, and behave honestly and ethically. This is my hishtadlus, the sum total of how I “earn” a living. The actual dollar amount that flows from these behaviors into my paycheck is entirely at God’s discretion. Thus the greatest advantage of my occupation is that I am privileged to see the Hand of God supporting me every day.

As we begin to crawl out from last year’s economic meltdown, even those who earned the proverbial “steady” paycheck have lost their jobs, had their salaries reduced, or otherwise borne witness to the reality that we are all dependent solely on God for our daily bread.

Last year, after the market began its drastic decline, I had a significant setback with my biggest client, who liquidated his entire portfolio on the first day of chol hamo’eid Sukkos. I went into Simchas Torah without much joy, and tried very hard to change my mood, fully aware that whatever God had planned for me, I needed to embrace it. But the intellectual recognition of something does not induce an abrupt emotional response.

During Yom Tov, the rav of my shul spoke of the verse in Devarim, with which we begin the hakafos—“Atah hareisa ladaa’s ki Hashem hu haElokim; ein od milvado—You were shown in order to understand that Hashem is the Lord; there is nothing but Him.” The rav encouraged us to focus on those three words as we sang them, “Ein od milvado,” and to imbibe its meaning—our need to rely on God exclusively.

The first question that one is asked in the afterlife is, “Nasasa venasata be’emunah?—Did you conduct your business faithfully.” The simple translation means, Were you honest in business? But I believe that emunah here is more accurately understood as faith in God. In other words, did you conduct your business dealings with the faith that God was overseeing your success? If so, you would have no reason to cut corners. You would not be anxious as to when your next client would arrive. You would not be overly worried by financial setbacks.

This year, may we all embrace the message of malchius, bowing before the crown of our Creator, recognizing that “ein od milvado.”

Desert Island Sefarim

2009-08-31T15:00:00.000-04:00

Remember "Desert Island Discs"?

The radio station in my hometown used to ask listeners to submit three songs that they would take along if they knew they were going to be stranded on a desert island. These would be the only three songs they would be able to listen to for the rest of their lives.

Along similar lines, I wondered: What if I knew I was going to be stranded on a desert island and could only bring along a limited number of sefarim. Which would I choose? I find the exercise helpful because I have this theory: If you are, like me, not engaged in full-time Torah study (and, perhaps, even if you are), you would be better off focusing on a few learning projects for the rest of your life than randomly learning this and that, perusing every sefer that happens to catch your eye, or even attending myriad shiurim.

Mind you, I'm not suggesting that you not learn everything you can. But time is finite, and I have come to the conclusion that most of us would be better off—that is, would accomplish more and become better talmidei chachamim—by focusing on fewer books. Keep in mind that "fewer" is still an enormous amount. If you told your chavrusah that you were no longer going to look at any sefer that was not on your "favorites" list, he might argue that you’re condemning yourself to a life of amaratzus, but realistically, it would be a tremendous accomplishment just to learn—and relearn—those favorites.

So for the past several years I have been randomly asking people I know, What sefarim (a set of sefarim –anything you can buy as one unit—counts as one) would you bring? Initially, I asked for a top-ten list, but then decided to put the pressure on and narrowed the number down to five. Nearly everyone included a Chumash on their lists. Ah, yes, but which one? Personally, I would be torn between the Toras Chaim and the Torah Temimah. I could take both but that would be 40% of my total. And then what would I do about Nach? In the end, I would have to take along a standard Mikraos Gedolos Tanach.

A certain rav, whom I polled recently, shared a terrific story with me, which only deepened my belief in this theory. He learned at Ner Israel in Baltimore. Once, a famous physicist came to Baltimore from the Soviet Union for a scientific conference. He was escorted all over by Russian police, but he was able to persuade them to let him visit the yeshiva. He spoke with the rosh yeshiva, Rav Ruderman, zt”l, who was duly impressed with the man’s knowledge, especially considering his background, living in such an anti-religious environment.

How did you become such a scholar? Rav Ruderman asked.

The man replied that when he was young he had a melamed, and when the communists took over his melamed died. He took upon himself to learn six hours a day in memory of his teacher (mind you this was on top of a very rigorous secular-studies schedule through which he developed as a physicist).

All he had in his possession was a Talmud and a few books of the Rambam. He had many questions on the Rambam that he brought to the attention of Rav Ruderman. The rosh yeshiva was able to show him that all his answers could be found through an examination of the volumes of the Rambam which he did not have access to.

I wish I could tell you that the story has the happy ending that the man got out of Russia, or that he at least was able to smuggle in the “missing” Rambams. But history rarely has such fairy tale endings.

In any event, my rav told me, after that encounter he recognized the power of staying focused on just a few sefarim. So what would he bring with him to the desert island? His most intriguing choice was a Ritva. “I can’t learn Gemara without one,” he said.

The most remarkable response I received, however, came from one of my cousins who offered that he didn’t really like sefarim; he was more interested in reading Torah articles. Hmmm.

But in the end, most people included a Tanach and a set of Shas on their lists. So assuming that the desert island shtibel has those sefarim in its library (along with a siddur, a machzor, a selichos, and a haggadah), here are the additional five I would bring along:

One, the Torah Sheleimah, the most thorough collection of midrashim on each parshah.

Two, a set of Kehati mishnayos. I cannot imagine learning mishnayos without my "chavrusah," Rav Kehati. One can argue that his thorough commentary is too much of a crutch, but because it’s in Hebrew (I never use the English version), I allow myself the “luxury” of utilizing it.

Three, the Rambam’s Mishneh Torah, preferably the Frankel edition.

Four, the Aruch Hashulchan. The closest thing we have to Kol Hatorah Kulah in one work. I am continually blown away by the work of Rav Epstein as he guides you from the Mishnah, through the Gemara and Rishonim, all the way to the practical laws and customs. The publisher, Oz Vehadar, recently did a magnificent job of republishing this masterpiece, including footnotes containing the rulings of the Mishnah Berurah.

Five, a Jastrow dictionary. It was a close contest between this critical reference book and the Alkalai dictionary. But as I need more help deciphering Aramaic than Hebrew, Jastrow is my pick.

So the reality is that I'm not headed for a desert island any time soon (I hope!), but I believe this is a good exercise in staying focused. If I spent all my learning hours with "only" these books, is that not a life to be proud of?

Eric Bruntlett's Elul

2009-08-23T18:05:00.010-04:00

One of the joys of being an "ex-pat" Phillies fan, living in New York, is that I can watch my team's games over the internet. This sure beats the good ol' days when, in order to listen to my favorite team play, I had to drive around the county in my car, with the radio set to 1210 on the AM dial, until I found a spot that picked up, all the way from Eastern Pennsylvania, a somewhat static-free signal.

Nonetheless, when the Phillies come to New York, I am, ironically, left without video coverage of the game. You see, the way it works is that the local cable companies pay enormous sums of money to reserve all broadcast rights within a team's market. So if you want to watch a game, in New York, featuring the Mets or the Yankees you first need to buy a cable television packages. In each market, Major League Baseball "blacks out" the local games from its internet service. So when the Phillies play the Yankees or Mets, I'm in a bind. It's either the radio or Kosher Delight.

Such was the case today as I drove back from getting a tooth filled at my dentist's office in Queens. The Phils were getting ready to take the field against the Mets at their brand-new home, Citi Field, just as I was driving past, my lower left jaw still numb from novacaine. I debated turning off the Grand Central Parkway and heading for the stadium parking lot to look for a last-minute ticket. But with more important things to do with my afternoon than invest three hours in a ballgame, I did the sensible thing and headed home, trying to convince myself that radio broadcasts are as good as the real thing.

The game appeared over as soon as it started. The Phillies hit two three-run homers in the first inning. But the Mets, down by six runs twice in the game, started to chip away at the Phillies lead. By the ninth, the Phillies were still in front, 9-6, but the momentum had begun to shift toward the Mets.

At this point my computer—through which I was listening to the game—informed me that the blackout had been removed for the bottom of the ninth inning, and the video feed commenced. This was great only briefly, as the first Mets hitter wound up on third, on a three-base error by the Phillies' first baseman. That play, coupled with an unreliable Brad Lidge and his 7.05 earned run average, on the mound for the Phils, made the phaithful understandably edgy.

That unease gave way to unbridled nail-biting after second baseman Eric Bruntlett muffed the next two plays—the first, scored an error; the second, charitably, a hit. Why was Bruntlett even in the game? Where was Chase Utley, the Phillies' perennial All-Star, and unofficial leader? He was being given—he never takes—a day off. Bruntlett, hitting .128 for the year, numbers that do not befit someone competing on a championship team, was subbing.

All of a sudden, it was deja vu all over again for the Phillies: holding a slight lead, the tying runs on base, the winning run at the plate, and nobody out—all being protected by Brad Lidge, who was carrying the weight of eight blown saves on his shoulders. We phans have been here before, we've seen this picture, and it doesn't always end pretty.

And then it did.

The next hitter, Jeff Francoeur hit a bullet up the middle. Bruntlett, moving to his right, jumped up, caught the ball and landed on second base, doubling up Luis Castillo, who had been running to third on the pitch. Bruntlett then engaged in an awkward two-step with Dan Murphy, who was just arriving at second base, before tagging him on the letters. And just like that, the game was over. Phillies win.

An unassisted triple play!

I had never seen one before. Not surprising since this was only the fifteenth time in Major League history that one had ocurred. It is the rarest feat in baseball.

Eric Bruntlett, who had been responsible for allowing the two runners to reach base safely to begin with; who was on the verge of being the goat of the game; who because of his awful hitting this year might have been cut from the team if they had gone on to lose this game, emerges as the hero and will have his name in the record books. He was in the right place at the right time and reacted decisively.

Life, like baseball, has many twists and turns—some of them sudden. Elul is a time when we all are asked to come to terms with our behavior throughout the year. Perhaps we are hitting a spiritual .128 for the season. Perhaps we made a couple of errors over the summer. Perhaps we are on the verge of blowing the Big Game.

Now we are in the right place at the right time. We, too, must react decisively. Eric Bruntlett reminds us: "Yeish shekoneh olamo besha'a achas"—it's never too late to turn it around. Redemption can come more quickly than you ever imagined possible.

See the play here.

Caring Enough to be Careful

2009-08-07T15:00:00.000-04:00

One of my fondest memories is the time I was traveling with a vanload of public school kids to some JEP or NCSY shabbaton, and we got a flat tire. Pulling over the side of the road, in a light rain, with traffic around us and limited time until sundown, I got that ominous feeling I sometimes get on Erev Shabbos when there’s a sudden wrench thrown into my erstwhile perfect plan. Also, I was a yeshiva bachur. What did I know about fixing a flat?

Fortunately, within a few minutes another car pulled up behind us and some other bachurim—who apparently went to a yeshiva that appreciated the virtues of flat-fixing—popped out. With a quick introduction they got to work. No sooner had they started than another car pulled over. More bachurim. More flat fixers. At this point I’m thinking that I attended the only yeshiva in America where basic auto maintenance was not an elective.

By the time the job was done, two more cars had stopped to see if we needed help. Both were helmed by what my father affectionately calls “frummies.” We were back on the road in twenty minutes, and made it to the shabbaton with time to shower. But what delighted me more than being on time for Shabbos was the reaction of one of the kids. Noticing that everyone who had stopped to pitch in wore a yarmulke, he asked, “Are all Orthodox Jews this nice?”

In an effort to ensure that the answer to that question is always yes, I offer the following ideas.

Every day starts with the morning. Most people are, like me, not morning people. This means they are a bit crankier, a bit more sensitive, a bit groggier in the morning. How refreshing it is, therefore, to be greeted by someone, a stranger, with a smile and a cheerful “Good morning.”

This simple, straightforward salutation invariably pays outsized returns.

In the bank where I work, I have developed a reputation for greeting all my colleagues at the beginning of the day with a cheerful “Happy Monday,” “Happy Tuesday,” and so on (Everybody loves “Happy Friday”; “Happy Monday” is significantly less popular). One morning, I walked into work distracted, and moved through the bank floor quickly to my desk to get started on what I knew was going to be a hectic day. At about mid-afternoon, I was feeling a lot less tense and made it over to the service desk. One of the associates gave me the cold shoulder, which I quickly picked up on. “Everything okay?” I asked.

“You forgot to wish me a Happy Wednesday,” she said.

Indeed I had forgot. But who would have thought that it mattered? Who would have thought that she’d be hurt by my innocent slip? It did. She was.

Benjamin Brafman, the famed attorney who spoke at a recent Agudath Israel asifa, made a comment that stuck with me for its simplicity and truthfulness: “If you are careful, it’s very easy to do a kiddush Hashem; if you’re not careful, it’s very easy to do a chillul Hashem.”

Recently, a major news magazine interviewed grocery store cashiers about the behavior of their customers. Most were appalled by the lack of manners. One of the biggest offenses was talking on the cell phone while checking out. Go to your local store and I'm sure you'll see plenty of your “nicest” neighbors doing this. They don’t mean anything by it, simply multitasking through a very busy schedule, but the message to the cashier is plain: “You aren't a real person to me.” Obviously most people don't intend it that way, but that's how it's perceived by the people who are on the other side of the counter.

Smiling, waving, nodding, greeting—these are all small, simple ways we can improve our lot, both personally and nationally.

On a stronger note, I am often asked by people starting out in my profession (financial planning and investment advice) what they should do to build a successful practice. I tell each of them, Jew and gentile alike, that if you strive to be the smartest person on Wall Street, you have lots of competition; if you try to be the luckiest person on Wall Street, that probably won’t happen either; but if you aim to be the most honest, ethical person on Wall Street, you have a pretty good shot at landing near the top.

The Talmud teaches that at the end of our lives we are asked four questions. One of those is, Did you deal faithfully in business? I would suggest that the emunah, the faith, that is under discussion is not merely the faith expressed between two business parties, but also the faith one must have in God that He will provide one’s daily bread. If we deal in business with the faith that God will give us what’s coming to us, then we are less likely to be tempted to cut corners in order to make ends meet.

The Rambam, in Mishneh Torah (Yesodei haTorah, chapter 5)¸ discusses the mitzvos of kiddush Hashem and chillul Hashem. His initial discussion revolves around the particular circumstances—idolatry, murder, and illicit sexual relations— requiring one to sacrifice his life, whereby doing so would create a kiddush Hashem, and not doing so would create a chillul Hashem.

But in the final halachah, the Rambam discusses more pedestrian concerns. He writes: “There are other matters which are incorporated into chillul Hashem. These are things that if done by someone who is great in Torah and prominent in piety, things that society will slander him because of them, even if they are not actual sins, he has desecrated the Name.” The Rambam goes on to describe activities that are on the opposite side of the sin spectrum, indiscretions much less severe than idolatry, murder, and illicit sexual relations. Things like paying bills late, hanging out with the riff-raff, and not speaking courteously.

I would argue that in our time, anyone who presents himself to the world as an Orthodox Jew falls into this category of “great in Torah” and “well-known in piety.” To the gentile world, to the non-Orthodox Jewish world, and even within the Orthodox world itself, we are the exemplars of Judaism. Whether we truly are “great in Torah” is irrelevant. Our behavior is seen as reflective of the Torah’s standard.

If we do not see ourselves this way, if we believe that we are not so different from the secular world, if we think that despite the yarmulkas on our heads we still “fit in” with everyone else, then we will—wrongly—fail to live up to this higher benchmark.

But if, on the other hand, we truly believe ourselves to be God’s chose nation, if we see ourselves as the touchstone of the Jewish people and if, above all, we are careful at all times, then we ought to succeed in our Divine mission of being a light not only unto the other nations but unto our own—our families, our communities, and our people.

It's Not Fair!

2009-07-29T15:00:00.003-04:00

My great-grandmother lived in a shtetl in a town called Rovno. One day, she was outside with her children when she heard shots being fired. A Cossack, drunk and on horseback, was galloping through town pulling the trigger aimlessly. My great-grandmother grabbed her girls and pushed them through the door to the house, but before she could get herself inside, the cossack shot her in the back. She died.

My uncle—through his marriage to the older of these two girls several years later—lived in a nearby shtetl. One day, there was a pogrom. A gentile thrust a gob of lard toward his face and told him to eat. He refused, and said "Shema Yisrael..." convinced that he was about to be killed. But the gentile let him go and instead went after an old man. The old man, too, refused to open his mouth to the lard, so the gentile lit his beard on fire. The old man died.

I live in New York City. My home is in Manhattan, a multicultural island comprising dozens of ethnicities, who live side-by-side in peace and tranquility. Jews in New York, even religious Jews, don't stand out any more than do the Sikhs, the Koreans, or the West Indians.

But the other day I woke up, walked to shul, and was confronted with the horrible desecration of a swastika painted on the front door of my synagogue. For no reason, some gentile hated us enough to vandalize our property. Now I'm thinking I should be afraid to wear my yarmulka in the street.

It's not fair.

My mother went to public school. Her Jewish education consisted of Talmud Torah at the local Orthodox synagogue. She never went to Bais Yaakov (though later she taught in one). Both my parents grew up out-of-town surrounded by gentiles and steeped in American culture. My mother met Elvis Presley and Eleanor Roosevelt. My father rooted for Ted Williams and the Red Sox.

My grandfathers, on both sides, were not Talmudic scholars. While they knew enough to pass on to their children the knowledge that knowledge—Torah knowledge—was important, they themselves never received a proper Torah education.

I grew up in the suburbs of New York City, in a very Jewish town, with a choice of kosher pizza shops and delis, a place where you rarely saw a car on the streets on Shabbos. I grew up in a house with a father who is a scholar, whose library is formidable. I can ask him almost anything Torah-related and he will have, or he will quickly find, the answer. My yeshiva education was K through 12, followed by seven years of beis medrash, two of them in Israel.

But yeshiva education today costs a fortune. As yeshivos have begun to pay their rabbeim a living wage and attempt to build decent secular studies departments and extra-curricular programs, tuition has increased dramatically. Who can afford to pay so much? My grandparents were never faced with these kinds of bills.

It's just not fair.

None of my grandparents went to college. It wasn't a "frum thing" for them; it simply wasn't on their radar. In fact, my maternal grandfather had to drop out of high school in his senior year to help with the family business. As for my paternal grandfather, I’m still not quite sure what he did for a living, but those were the years of the Great Depression, and no one back then made much money.

Things were even worse where they had come from. The shtetl was a place of dire poverty. "If we didn't fast every Monday and Thursday," the old joke went, "we'd have starved to death." Hunger drove them to leave for America's golden shores.

I have never missed a meal in my life. My college-educated parents always provided for me and my siblings. We grew up in a big house, with a big backyard, and we each had our own bedroom. My parents didn't give us everything we wanted but they gave us everything we needed, and then some.

But my cholesterol is too high. Even though I run four to five times a week, I still feel out of shape and I'm a few pounds overweight. I try to eat right, but there are so many temptations: frappuccinos, Ben & Jerry's, French fries. I have to deal with temptations my grandparents never had.

It's not fair. It's just not fair.

A Tale of Two Lakewoods

2009-07-22T00:22:00.003-04:00

I recently had the distinct American pleasure of attending a minor league baseball game. Though New York City boasts two major league teams, the greater New York metropolitan area has several minor league ball clubs, teams filled with kids still in their teens, dreaming of one day playing in “The Show.” Often watching these developing players is more exciting than watching their more able, higher-paid counterparts. Not to mention, beer that night cost a dollar.

In the third inning, I turned to one of my friends and marveled at the determination of everyone involved with this game: not only the players, but the coaches, umpires, even the announcers—were all chasing the same, highly unreasonable dream: that someday they would make it to the major leagues.

My friend wasn’t so sure. He postulated that perhaps they were simply there to have fun. So we put the question to one of the trainers, whom we met during a seventh-inning stretch tour of the locker room. “How many of these players still believe they will make it to the majors and how many are just playing for the fun of it?” my friend asked asked.

“All of them,” he replied.

“All of them play for fun?” my friend repeated.

“No. All of them think they can get to the big leagues,” he said. “To a man.”

This genuinely surprised my friend, but not me. To date, fewer than 17,000 people have played in the bigs. That’s 17,000 players in the history of the American and National Leagues, going back well over a century. To put this in perspective, I heard a Yankees announcer say once, if you took every Major Leaguer, alive or dead, and put him in Yankee Stadium, the place would still be two-thirds empty.

Yet, despite those astounding odds, so many continue to push forward, holding on to the belief that somehow they will be among the chosen few. For their efforts, they are paid as little as $750 a month; they earn in one full season what Alex Rodriguez earns in the time it takes him to tie one shoe.

A few miles down the road from the legendary Lakewood yeshiva, resides a single-A ballclub, the lowest rung on the minor league ladder. The Lakewood Blue Claws are one of 246 minor league teams comprising in the neighborhood of five thousand players. Every one of these players was drafted by a major league team and signed to a professional baseball contract. These kids were stars of their college, high school and little league teams. They know how to play ball.

But there are still too many of them. The fact remains that only a few of these minor league players will ever get called up to the big club—even for a day. And of those that eventually do get called up, few will become regulars. And of those who become regulars, few will play for more than a handful of seasons. And of those who do play for several seasons, few will become All-Stars.

Yet, "to a man," every player, since he was a young boy, aspires to be that one All-Star. Every one holds on to that dream.

What should we say about such dreamers? Should we mock them? Should we sit in the stands, sipping on dollar beers, and cheer their efforts, all the while laughing at them in the backs of our heads? How should we respond to this ridiculous scene of an entire ballgame, whose foundation rests on cloud upon cloud of false hope?

To Torah Jews, their behavior should be inspirational. For their dream is a mechayev. Our Sages teach that Rebbi was mechayev—he obligated—the rich, because he was one of the richest men of his generation, and still, despite all of his financial obligations and business commitments, he found the time to become a great Torah scholar.

Likewise, Hillel was mechayev the poor. Despite his impoverishment and constant need to earn a living wage, he still managed to spend his days occupied in Torah.

Minor league ball players are mechayev all of us, regardless of what we do for a living. If they can live in this “field of dreams” so can we. If they can hold upend their lives in the single-minded pursuit of an unlikely result, we can certainly adjust our lives to pursue a result that is guaranteed.

This guarantee is what differentiates us from them. In the words of the Sages, “Anu ameilim veheim ameilim—We toil and they toil." We all work hard at what we do. But unlike baseball players, we are guaranteed results. Just for trying. Torah study does not require us to become great scholars. We succeed with every word we learn. Torah study is not a means to an end but an end in itself.

Torah study is not for the select few (even if only a select few will excel at it). Too often, we push off learning as the realm of the rabbis. Too often we push off studying until we are prepared to sit for an hour or longer. Too often we push off studying on a basic level because we are too tired, too busy, too unmotivated to study in-depth.

Too many of us remain faithful to a practical approach. Our reach does not even approach our grasp. When it comes to Judaism, we become very modest about our abilities. This is tragic because it leaves so much on the table. We ought to take a page from the book of these dreamers, they of the impractical and the unlikely. We ought to imagine that we can become great talmidei chachamim, that we can become great tzadikim, that we can learn more than we currently learn and do more than we currently do. In doing so, unlike the ballplayers, we all become All-Stars.

Nattering Nabobs of Negativism

2009-07-15T17:23:00.005-04:00

A blogger whom I follow recently posted that, due to news coming out of Israel and certain events making headlines in America, he was "embarrassed to be a religious Jew." It was the second time in two days I had read such a statement, and it disturbed me greatly.

This awful sentiment is the result of the constant attention and amplification given to these scandals. Yes, these scandals are despicable. Their perpetrators are guilty of the worst sin possible, desecration of the Holy Name. Yes, these scandals are embarrassing. Those of us who are law-abiding citizens of Halachah pay the price, too, in public perception.

Nevertheless, the constant, sometimes exclusive, harping on these dirty deviants demonstrates the utter disaster that many Jewish blogs have become. Rather than being sources of inspiration and introspection, most of these blogs simply serve to depress and alienate. The unceasing barrage of bile and vindictiveness leads their readers, and their creators, away from Yiras Shamayim rather than toward it. People read and read and read this stuff until they throw away their yarmulkas in disgust.

But that's not how it should be. Mussar—particularly in our generation—should be about building up, not tearing down. Every time a religious-looking (notice I said "looking") Jew lands in the newspapers for evil behavior, I too am embarrassed. But rather than hide, I stand up. It makes me want to keep my yarmulka on, to mount a counteroffensive, to show the world—both Jewish and secular—how a Jew is really supposed to behave.

Unfortunately, however, any input on these blogs that's designed to bring insight, or even a bit of even-handedness (after all, not all scandals are created equal), to the conversation is met with dismissal at best and character assassination at worst. Essentially, these bloggers seem to be saying, "If you're not with us, you're against us." You are said to be sweeping the problems under the carpet, and deemed an apologist.

With that in mind, there are a few points that ought to be made.

One, there is absolutely no statistical evidence that the behavior of religious Jews as a group is worse than that of the general society, or, in fact, not significantly better. Empirical evidence, as demonstrated by newspaper headlines, says less about Orthodox Jewish behavior and more about how newspapers operate. Newspapers aren't interested in fair play. They are only interested in selling papers. To that end, "Man Cheats and Steals" isn't a headline. "Rabbi [or Priest, for that matter] Cheats and Steals" is.

To believe that media scrutiny is an accurate barometer of behavior patterns, is to believe that athletes, politicians and celebrities are more likely than the rest of society to beat their wives, cheat on their taxes, use illegal drugs, engage in illicit sexual behavior, and shoot people. It is also to believe that plane crashes, which are always reported in the paper, are far more common than automobile accidents, which are not—unless there is an athlete, politician or celebrity involved.

Second, the Jewish blogosphere is not consistent. Its righteous repulsion is reserved for a certain segment of Orthodox Jews, i.e., those who happen to be of the beard-and-black-hat variety. This only betrays the blinders of their bias.

The recent Bernard Madoff scandal involved a very prominent Modern Orthodox man, who was president of his Modern Orthodox shul, and head of the investment committee at the Modern Orthodox Yeshiva Universtiy. He has been charged with civil fraud by New York State, named in countless lawsuits, and has had his picture in the paper for months.

What sayeth the bloggers to this scandal? Barely a peep.

Third, there is a startling inconsistency in this group's trust of the media, which is vexing to the point that it can only be described as bipolar. The very same Jews who go apoplectic over the media's slanted coverage of Israel, trust completely that very same media when they are covering stories about Orthodox Jews. If certain people want to base their opinion of the frum world according to what's reported in the media, then, in fairness, they should base their opinion of Israel according to what's reported in the media as well.

Only they don't. Bloggers who throw fits, charging the media with bias and distortion, when news organizations refer to Israelis as a callous cabal of colonizers, stealing Arab land, violating Arab civil rights, and shooting Arab children—these same bloggers embrace whatever negativity the media reports when the subject is ultra-Orthodox Jews.

I'll say it again: Every time a frum-looking Jew creates a chillul Hashem it is a tragedy of great depth and proportion. But to think that such behavior is disproportionately occurring within the frum world because of the disproportionate number of media reports simply reflects a naive view of how the media work. The publication of stories, even a lot of stories, is not a condemnation of the whole community or an indictment of its values.

Which isn't to say that we should ignore these stories. We must face up to them and seek to restore our collective reputation. Rabbi Yakov Horowitz is very good at doing this in a positive, productive way. But, in many quarters, the conversation long ago degenerated from constructive criticism to a scorched-earth policy. We can and must do better.

“Who Really Runs Chareidi Israel?”

2009-07-07T18:11:00.012-04:00

Writing on a blog that I read regularly, one commenter asked, “Who really runs Chareidi Israel?”

The topic that spawned this question was the recent demonstrations in Jerusalem, protesting the opening of a parking lot in the Holy City on the Sabbath day. The presence of parking lot would enable—and thus encourage—more people to drive on the Shabbat.

According to media reports, the demonstration of several hundred Jeruselamites chanting, “Shabbos, Shabbos” turned violent, with some throwing stones, and a female reporter for ABC News claiming she had been cursed and spat upon.

This naturally, and deservedly, set off a firestorm of criticism in America, with pundits to the left and to the right decrying the massive desecration of God’s Name that this behavior brought about. Though many defended the Chareidi community in general and were careful to single out the scofflaws, others were less charitable, indicting the entire Chareidi community—their members, their leaders, and even their beliefs.

It was in this light that the question was posed: “Who really runs Chareidi Israel?”

I found the question naive, because it displays a fundamental misunderstanding of how societies function, and troubling, because it was asked by an educated person who ought to know better.

To presume that Chareidim are “run” reflects an ignorance of how they live, attributing to Chariedi society a monolithic structure that simply doesn’t exist. The perception of the Modern Orthodox world appears to be that the Chareidim all think and act alike, and that they are “handled” by someone, be it a Gadol or a kano’i.

False.

None of those responsible for the actions being reported are doing so so under the advisement of their Gedolim. Think about it: If a pulpit rabbi can’t get his own congregant to stop talking during Chazoras Hashatz, how do we expect a rav, Godol or otherwise, to stop someone from acting like an idiot? The fact that the idiot dresses his violent behavior in Chareidi “levush” is not a reason to assume that he is doing so with the blessing of his rebbe. In his mind, he might even believe he knows better than the rebbe (If Parshas Korach didn’t teach us anything else, at least it should have taught us that much).

Many of the critics are saying that the numbers don’t matter—and that’s true. Even one boy throwing one rock is enough to create one front-page photo in the New York Times, and initiate a massive Chillul Hashem.

However, one person's behavior does not impeach all of Chareidi society. That some would indict all Chareidim based on the actions of a few says more about their personal prejudices than about the education of Chareidi youth, which they rush to impugn. Destructive behavior has nothing to do with Chareidi Judaism and everything to do with human nature. A thug is a thug.

It is good and necessary for the rest of us—Chareidi, Yeshivish, Chasidish, Modern Orthodox—to react against this behavior with a loud and unequivocal voice, by protesting against the protesters through blogs, emails, and letters to the editor, insisting that this behavior is not representative of Torah or its leaders.

However it is also important for us to recognize that the media do blow this out of proportion. It’s not necessarily anti-religious sentiment (though I believe that plays a role); it's simply what the media is trained to do. A journalist taught me long ago the mantra of journalism: Dog Bites Man isn’t news; Man Bites Dog is. So journalists are often, if not always, willing to sacrifice truth on the altar of melodrama.

I'm not here to defend the despicable behavior of certain Jews in Jerusalem. However, it behooves one to recognize that the number of such people is limited.

The Jerusalem Post reported that "several hundred haredim" protested this past Shabbos. That was in contradistinction to the "largely peaceful Friday night prayer vigil attended by tens of thousands of participants" last week. Notice the difference in numbers? Something like 20-to-1.

And what of those hundreds? When I heard the story of the reporter from ABC news, I went to its website to read it for myself. The account is reprehensible, a disgrace to anyone who is Torah observant. I was mortified, and scared to hit "play" on the accompanying video. But I did, and was relieved to see that the video painted a different picture. The Chareidim involved are not pushing, but being pushed. They seem to be chanting more than screaming, "Shabbos, Shabbos." No one looks violent, and no one is throwing anything.

None of which is to say that screaming, cursing, spitting and throwing rocks did not occur. Someone was hospitalized last week by a falling rock, so clearly the rock was thrown. But: if that video is representative of what occurred, it's quite tame.

Similarly, I saw another photo, a picture of a photographer walking past a crowd of Chareidim. The caption insisted he was being pushed. I studied the picture carefully and my eyes insisted otherwise.

Bottom line: Chareidim are “run” by God’s Holy Torah. When they have questions about the Torah they seek the counsel of scholars and leaders. Those who violate the law and spirit of the Torah, and in so doing shame the Chosen People are the exception and not the rule. The media would like to believe, and would like everyone to believe, that these exceptions are the rule. I hope the media will listen to the voices of Torah Jews who speak clearly, emphatically and proudly about what the Torah really demands from its adherents.

Will you?

(The ABC video can be accessed at: http://www.abc.net.au/reslib/200907/r394610_1846815.asx)

Stirring it Up

2009-04-27T21:37:00.017-04:00

The Wall Street Journal (which is, incidentally, one of two periodicals I read regularly; the other being The New Yorker) has made a habit the last few years of featuring a piece on its front page (bottom center) that is a bit whimsical, perhaps to take our minds off of the serious business of financial ruin and political chaos.

The other day it ran a piece on baseball stirrups, which are—or at least were, in the late Seventies, when I started following baseball—those thin lines of color atop the players' white socks that ran along the inside and outside of their lower legs. Today many players pull their uniform pants' legs all the way down to the tops of their shoes (Barry Bonds popularized this style); others wear their colored socks from the ankle all the way up, approaching the knee (see: Alex Rodriguez); still Major League Baseball retains a few players who strike a middle ground, showing some color around the shin and calf, with a little white peeking above the ankle and tongue of the cleat. That’s how the Phillies Jamie Moyer does it, a tradition that goes back to the days of Ted Williams and Joe DiMaggio.

This topic is something, I admit, that I have given some thought to—perhaps two minutes worth over the past thirty years. Nevertheless, I was startled to discover from the Journal article how much time people have invested into discussing, debating and dissecting this, um, issue. Paul Lukas, of ESPN, has blogged about it, lamenting that those responsible for the disappearance of stirrups, "dishonor baseball's hosiery heritage."

Did I mention that we're in the middle of a financial crisis?

Reading about hosiery and heritage reminded me of a conversation I once had with the great sage, Rabbi Shimon Schwab, zt”l, on the topic of tradition. How important, I asked him, is tradition in Jewish living. His response surprised and amused me. “My father,” he said, “wore socks with holes in them. Should I wear socks with holes in them because my father did? I buy new socks. So I don’t think tradition is very important at all.”

This is not to say that Rav Schwab, the great Yekke leader, was opposed to minhagei Yisrael. What I believe he was trying to impress upon me was the difference between minhagim and nostalgia. We tend to get all worked up about things Jewish that are not necessarily Jewish things.

For an example:

I live on Manhattan’s beloved Lower East Side. I am a fiercely proud resident and I’m in love with the place. I grew up in suburbia and when people confuse me for an “East Sider” I correct them. “You have to have been here for a century to be an East Sider,” I say. (In truth, my grandfather did spend a part of his childhood in a tenement on Houston Street. But I digress.)

Upon meeting someone new, the social niceties generally begin with “So, where do you live?” When I tell them, their eyes never fail to widen. “My grandmother [or uncle, or aunt, or cousin, or brother-in-law] lives there. I love going down there.” And then there’s talk of which relative was gabbai, or president, or rav of which shul or shteibel. And then comes the requisite mention of pickles and bialys, and how the Lower East Side is the only real place to buy such things. And then come the comments about Gertel’s and Ratner’s and Shmulke Bernstein’s.

I entertain all this gamely. I never get tired of it. Then they turn to the issue of living on the Lower East Side today. “I hear it’s making a comeback,” they say excitedly.

No, I tell them. The comeback came (toward the end of the Koch administration) and went (about the time Rudy Guliani turned the keys to the city over to Mike Bloomberg).

This brings on the inevitable sigh. The slow shaking of the head. What happened? What a shame.

But it’s not a shame. Not really. You want shame. Gush Katif. That was a shame. I’m no Zionist, yet I’m painfully aware that Jews losing their homes in the Holy Land is an unspeakable tragedy. But the Lower East Side? Brownsville? Canarsie?

I don’t think so.

Especially frustrating is the cult of shtetl-envy that pervades the Orthodox community. Poverty, plagues, persecution, pogroms—these are why Jews left for the Lower East Side in the first place. When we pray, “Hashivah shofteinu kevarishonah,” we are not referencing 19th century Poland. We can certainly celebrate all that our forebears achieved under the grueling conditions they faced in Eastern Europe without romanticizing what it wasn’t.

Often, Jews confuse the romantic with the historic. We mistake the holes in the socks of Jewish history for authentic Jewish tradition, longing for those days before Walmart replaced needle and thread. Instead, we ought to focus on our people’s relentless record of Torah study and mitzvah observance, an unbroken chain stretching back to Sinai, linking us to our past. At the same time we must be thankful for our current environment of material comfort, physical security, and political freedom, in which God allows us to continue to serve Him, to grow and evolve as individual Jews and as a nation.

Now don’t get me started on the Designated Hitter rule.

Crisisism

2009-03-25T17:00:00.009-04:00

I recently returned from a public forum to discuss the "tuition crisis" that purportedly plagues our population. I had earlier this month skipped the panel discussion about the "youth-at-risk crisis," and didn't even mark on my calendar the town hall meeting to solve the "shidduch crisis." Much of the reason why I don't attend these assemblies (aside from the long-on-problem/short-on-solution nature of these events) is that my time has become so constrained due to my personal involvement, as a financial planner and investment advisor, in the current "financial crisis."

Mi crisis es su crisis.

I don't mean to minimize any of the above issues. They are all important, alarming, disheartening and in need of solutions. But when every unfortunate circumstance that deviates from the relative comfort to which we feel entitled is labeled a "crisis," I do need to register some sort of protest by lending some perspective to the proceedings.

The rise of Nazism in Germany was a crisis. The displacement of Orthodox Jewry in the middle of the last century was a crisis. Even the sweeping assimilation before the Holocaust can rightfully be termed a crisis.

But having the privilege of paying for your children to study God's Holy Torah from committed, knowledgeable teachers can hardly be called a crisis.

I understand full well the prodigious pressure on parents to provide for an Orthodox Jewish family. According to my calculations, the cost is twice what it was a generation ago (that' adjusted for inflation). All in all, a frum breadwinner must put his family in the top 5% of American earners—at least $150,000 a year—in order to simply break even.

Nonetheless, it would do us all a bit of good to acknowledge all the advantages that we have today, advantages that bury the crises of the past. In terms of material comfort we are way ahead of any previous generation at any time and place in Jewish history. What would accurately be described as poverty today was an above-average lifestyle less than a century ago here in the United States, not to mention Eastern Europe. My grandfather's comment on shtetl life that "if we hadn't fasted every Monday and Thursday, we would have starved to death" is a great one-liner. Once upon a time, not so long ago, it wasn't funny.

Academically, in terms of Torah study—both quantitatively and qualitatively—we are far ahead of nearly every generation since Sinai. As lamentable as it is to watch yeshiva kids abandon their heritage, it's nothing new. In fact, it's the relative absence of such behavior that renders it a crisis. Two generations ago, staying on the derech was the odd decision. America was the melting pot and many a Jewish immigrant abandoned mitzvos or watched helplessly as his children did. That over ninety percent of Orthodox Jewish American teenagers behave as Orthodox Jews and not as American teenagers testifies to the success of our chinuch.

Anti-Semitism is at historic lows. In the United States it is virtually non-existent. When was the last time you were afraid to be seen in public wearing a yarmulka? We are a very long way from the days when pogroms were a regular concern.

Again, this is not to say today's problems are not serious and that we should not seek solutions to continually improve our lot. It is certainly not to say that we should rest on our laurels. Nonetheless, to refer to every challenge that confronts contemporary Orthodoxy as a crisis puts us in a mindset of weakness, when we ought to instead be working from a framework of success and strength.

Kaptain Kiruv—Revisited

2009-03-18T15:25:00.024-04:00

A friend recently forwarded to me the following email that went out to a particular mailing list he is on. I don't know the sender, but since his words stuck in my head for over a month, I decided to respond to him nonetheless, and to share both emails here: First him (in italics) then me.

Gentlemen,

Thank you to those of you who have helped me in my search for a rabbi position. I am happy to announce that I am ready to put my 10+ years of yeshiva education to work!

I opted to start an independent kiruv organization in Boston. With over 225,000 Jews, the opportunities are limitless. I am leaving from Israel to Boston on Rosh Chodesh Adar, and would appreciate any contacts that you have in Boston. The plan is to call your contact and ask for a meeting over a cup of coffee, to shmooze with them about life and Judaism, and to see if they would be interested in learning Torah in a class or one-on-one.

I hope to focus on young professionals and families, with the long-term idea of starting a kiruv-shul. Aside from having a full Shabbos table, short term I hope to begin an executive learning program, coupled with giving shiurim in offices, doctor clinics, and Jewish cultural organizations. One idea is to focus on doctors, to give them a social and job networking opportunity, and a chance for them to learn the beauty of Torah through discussions on medical ethics. I would love to hear your creative ideas. What attracted you to your first shiur? What excited you in your first steps towards Torah Judaism?

Anyone with non-frum contacts, or with contacts of community leaders would be much appreciated. Anyone who wants to send a note of chizuk would be doubly appreciated!!

I haven't decided on a name yet for the organization. Any suggestions?

As things get more organized, I would love to host guests, giving anyone interested an opportunity to inspire others by speaking about your own personal spiritual journey.

Thanks for the ongoing support this wonderful community has created! May we all continue our life journeys upwards and onwards, to give nachas ruach to the Ribono Shel Olam!

Gratefully Yours,
J.M.

Dear J.,

I don’t know you, so that makes this letter both easier and more difficult to write. More difficult because it is not my place to offer suggestions to someone whose background, talents, and personality I am unfamiliar with; and yet, easier, because the lack of personal connection will make me less squeamish about speaking the truth.

Rav Rosenberg, zt”l, used to warn us that idealism is a product of the Yetzer Hara. As a young man at the time, interested as I was in a career in kiruv, this struck me as an odd statement; I had no idea what he was talking about. As I got older, however, the message began to sink in. There is a terrible take on an old Woody Allen joke: “Those who can, do; those who can’t, teach. And those who can’t teach, go into kiruv.” What a terrible thing to say! And such nonsense. After all, Rav Rosenberg’s life was devoted to kiruv; as was Rav Noah Weinberg, Rav Shlomo Freifeld, and so many other deeply committed and talented rabbis, including our own Rav Gershenfeld.

At the same time, however, kiruv as a career does tend to attract many people who are long on idealism and short on the talent, persistence, and, perhaps most important, the scholarship that it takes to have even a modicum of success in the field.

For the fact remains, as Rabbi Ephraim Buchwald pointed out at the first AJOP convention about two decades ago, that the Association for Jewish Outreach Professionals had 3,500 members, while statistical studies were showing that approximately 2,000 people were becoming baalei teshuvah each year. This meant, said Rabbi Buchwald, that each kiruv professional was responsible, on average, for producing one-half of one baal teshuvah per year—not nearly enough. He predicted that if the numbers were not somehow increased dramatically, the door would close on kiruv in ten years.

It’s twenty years later.

But rather than dwindle, kiruv has become a cottage industry, with more and more people listening to the idealism whispering in their ears. For all the people involved in kiruv, for all the organizations, for all the fundraising letters I regularly get in the mail—the one thing I don’t see more of is baalei teshuvah. Maybe it’s because I don’t live in Passaic. Maybe it’s because they’ve been seamlessly integrated into the frum community. Maybe it’s because they’ve all run off to Israel.

And maybe, just maybe, it’s because, as I suspect, there just aren’t that many around. Perhaps, now, even fewer than two thousand “newbies” a year.

Yet, that doesn’t stop many people from believing in their soul of souls that they can be the one to turn it all around. And that’s the Yetzer Hara Rav Rosenberg was talking about.

As I already mentioned, I don’t know you. But after evaluating the words from your very own letter I would like to ask you a few questions—actually, I would like to know if you’ve asked yourself these questions.

You mentioned that you had been searching for a rabbinic position, and I vaguely recall an email blast going out some time ago to that effect. Question: Is this new plan of yours merely a default plan? Another question: What factors contributed to your unsuccessful search for a more traditional rabbinic role?

You say you “opted” to start this program. Question: Did you consult with your rabbe’im—not merely ask for their blessing— to help you arrive this decision?

You plan to launch this project in Boston. Question: What do you know about Boston, beyond the number of Jews in town? I would hope that you have more than a cursory familiarity with Boston’s Jewish landscape. Boston is a town of intellectuals (real and imagined) and can be rough on newcomers who come to give “instruction” on their way of thinking and lifestyle. Don’t forget, this is the town that gave Rav Joseph B. Soloveitchik a hard time.

Furthermore, Boston already has quite a number of educational resources in place. Your comment that you would offer doctors discussions on medical ethics reveals a sweet naïveté. Question: How will you distinguish your program? Did you consult with anyone from the Boston Jewish community to see where you might fit in?

I have seen so many people go into kiruv with high hopes, and despite never achieving a fraction of what they had hoped to, they stick with it—not because of the idealism, which has long since evaporated, but because they are too far along to do anything else with their lives. It is far easier to convince yourself that you are “not a quitter” and that you are “doing God’s work” and that “the frum revolution is right around the corner” than to come to terms with the fact that “it just isn’t happening” (at least not for you; and maybe not for anyone).

And, of course, there’s the issue of money. I was once recruited by Rav Berel Wein to head a start-up kiruv organization. I asked what my responsibilities would be. Although he had a major benefactor committed to half the budget, Rav Wein informed me that fundraising would still be one of my responsibilities. I turned down the offer.

If most of your time is spent raising money, I reasoned, and most of the money is spent on covering your salary, then essentially much, if not most, of your time is spent “schnorring.” I have friends in kiruv who have come to me asking for donations to their organizations, which are “experiencing a budget shortfall.” Translation: I can’t pay my mortgage.

Last summer, the New York Times ran a profile of Aish HaTorah’s Executive Learning Program. Though the article was mostly positive, it left me feeling sorry for the fellows involved, many of whom I know personally. Essentially, they are hired hands—and viewed as such by their “students.” And while I have no problem with the essential trade-off of money for Torah study (all of my brothers are in kollel; I’m what you might call the white sheep of the family), receiving such direct compensation from wealthy irreligious Jews, who don’t appear much interested in spiritual growth, demeans Torah. After all, are any of these Executive Chavrusas going to risk losing the ten thousand dollars a year they receive by being honest with their patrons, and telling them that despite their charity and their study, the Torah still demands that they observe Shabbos and kashrus, not to mention letting go of the non-Jewish wife or girlfriend?

At the end of the day, we are still responsible for supporting a family. Those of us who can do so while tending G-d’s vineyard are blessed. But it is critical that our dreams do not turn our Holy Torah into a “kardom lachfor bah.”

My friend, I wish you nothing but berachah and hatzlachah in your endeavor. I simply implore you to review the above variables in your calculation, and most important, that you consult rabbe’im who know you for their guidance and advice.

All the best,
ClooJew

Oaths of Office

2009-01-21T23:46:00.043-05:00

On the subject of the President of the United States, Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution states: "Before he enter on the execution of his office, he shall take the following oath or affirmation: —'I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.'"

And here's how it played out yesterday:

Chief Justice John Roberts: Are you prepared to take the oath, Senator?

Senator Barack Obama: I am

Sidebar: the chief justice refers to him as “Senator” (and I, following in his footsteps, do the same) because until reciting the oath, he is not yet president.

Roberts: I, Barack Husein Obama…

Obama: I, Barack…

Roberts: …do solemnly swear

Obama: I, Barack Husein Obama do solemnly swear

Roberts: That I will execute the office of President to the United States faithfully,

Obama: That I will execute…

Roberts: …the off… faithfully the Pres… the office of President of the United States,

Obama: …the office of President of the United States faithfully,

Roberts: And will to the best of my ability,

Obama: And will to the best of my ability,

Roberts: Preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.

Obama: Preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.

Roberts: So help you God?

Obama: So help me God.

Roberts: Congratulations, Mr. President.

Okay, a bit bumpy at first, but they managed to get through it. Nevertheless, the word faithfully was said out of order—and some thought that might be a problem. (Less of a problem was the chief justice’s reference to “the office of President to the United States,” as Senator/President Obama did not repeat that error.)

So this evening, 31 hours after the inauguration, they did it again—and the formula was uttered properly. Some found this silly; others found it necessary.

I found it instructive.

The conventional criticism against rigidity in Halachah is that precision shouldn't matter. After all, what does God care? Granted, certain prayers must be said, certain deeds must be done, certain behaviors must be avoided. But why is it so important to get it exactly right? If my intentions are pure and my behavior is in line, more or less, with those intentions—does meticulousness really matter? Is it really so important that my tefillin lay perfectly upon the designated areas of my arm and head? Is it critical that I eat so much matzah or that my lulav reaches a particular height? Does it matter whether every blessing I utter is pronounced clearly?

As you may remember, I am an investment advisor. I once received a call from a client, who was very excited about buying stock in Apple Computers. He was sure that that evening's earnings announcement by the company was going to send the stock higher, much higher, the following morning. And, as things turned out, he was absolutely right.

The only trouble was that he called me at about 3:59 and fifty seconds—a few moments before the stock market closed for the day. There wasn't enough time for him to give me his order and for me to enter it into our system. At the next morning's opening bell, the stock's price was significantly higher and he figured on waiting for it to come back down some before investing. That was seventy-dollars-per-share ago.

Had he called me even a half-minute earlier, he would have had his trade executed and been significantly richer (at least financially). Is that fair? Should the New York Stock Exchange care if I place an order at 3:59 or 4:01? Should the differential of a few seconds impact one's wallet so significantly?

We thus find—unsurprisingly—that Halachah mirrors life. Precision counts. Here's what White House counsel Greg Craig had to say: "[T]he oath appears in the Constitution itself. And out of an abundance of caution, because there was one word out of sequence, Chief Justice Roberts administered the oath a second time."

Once we accept that precision is critical to the proper performance of mitzvos, the question becomes more practical: can we hold ourselves to such high ideals? Can we maintain such unbending standards over the course of our busy day? In short, Can we do it?

I believe the new president would answer: yes, we can.

The TIDEs They Are A-Changin'

2008-06-29T16:00:00.012-04:00

The recent brouhaha at K'hal Adath Jeshurun's celebration of Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch's bicentennial overshadowed the miracle on display that evening, namely that two centuries after the birth of the man credited with bringing Judaism out of the ghetto without sacrificing its authenticity, his movement, Torah Im Derech Eretz, is the primary representative of 21st Century Judaism.

I do not know the new rav of KAJ, Yisroel Mantel. I don't know his hashkafos. I don't even know precisely what he said, because he said it on Shabbos and nobody taped it or transcribed it on the spot. What we have is a Jewish Press report summing up his point that TIDE "is not viable in the absence of its chief advocate." Many took this statement as a direct quote from the rav, which, in absence of quote marks in the article, it was not.

Be that as it may.

Ironically, what seemed to upset people was the rav's contention that Jews must be directed by "The Gedolim." This was seen as codeword for "We must kowtow to chareidi hashkafos." However, in line with the principle of "Dor dor vedorshov," that G-d provides leaders for each generation appropriate to that generation, Rav Mantel's remarks were unobjectionable.

Rav Hirsch himself describes TIDE as fluid, in effect, a moving target, based on the "developments of changing times." Even in his own generation, Rav Hirsch refused to endorse Rav Azriel Hildesheimer's program for an orphanage in Palestine, writing him, "Just as only in Berlin is it possible to determine what is the best and most advantageous course of action for Berlin, and only in Frankfurt can it be known what is best for Frankfurt, so also only our brothers in the Holy Land and their rabbis can know what is beneficial and a source of blessing for them."

I believe Rav Hirsch would take one look at the 21st Century American Jewish community and be overjoyed at the success of the Torah community from left to right. It may have taken the better part of two centuries, but Hirschian Orthodoxy has emerged triumphant and dominant.

Most of us attend minyan daily, study Torah regularly, and spend enormous amounts of money to educate our children in our holy heritage. At the same time, we go to work, speak unaccented English, and are friendly and honest with the "outside" world. Even in Lakewood, contrary to the conventional wisdom, the vast majority of heads of households are not sitting in kollel but hold jobs that require them to deal with, and participate in, the outside world. Lakewood is not the ghetto that it is perceived (and, perhaps, perceives itself) to be.

So if Hirsch is reigning champion, why all the gloom in Washington Heights?

Two reasons.

First, the incident is an embarrassment for the already fragile and fraying Washington Heights KAJ community. But the German-Jewish absorption into the melting pot of Orthodox Jewish America is tragic only in the nostalgic sense. It is time to recognize that TIDE is not necessarily the Yekkes' to define. As one of my rabbonim noted, let's not confuse the philosophy of TIDE with minhagei Frankfurt. If TIDE is an - some would argue, The - authentic representation of Torah living, then it never really was German to begin with. Even if it took a German rabbi to breathe life back into it.

Second, many, inside and outside the Yekke community, see TIDE as more, even much more, than the above description, and are dismayed to see its slide to the right. This version of TIDE, which includes a greater stress on secular studies and is akin to Torah U'Mada, and has been rejected by the KAJ rabbinate long before Rav Mantel came along, but his comments served to underscore the direction in which the community is going.

There is, however, a fundamental distinction between the two: While Torah Im Derech Eretz is a lifestyle, Torah U'Mada is a curriculum. That is why Torah U'Mada is the slogan of a university, while TIDE defines a community.

Even if one believes that Rav Hirsch was indeed a powerful proponent of secular studies in his day, it does not follow that he would have been equally passionate about the subject in our times. TIDE, by his own definition, evolves. To that end, several points are in order regarding secular studies.

I find that at work, I am the most educated and eloquent of my colleagues - and I barely went to college. I don't work in a factory or in a mall; I work for one of the largest banks in the world. Suit and tie every day. The secular world has been so dumbed down that one need not possess a classic Harvard education to fit in, or, even, to excel.

Furthermore, college today is not what it was even fifty years ago. Newsflash to the critics who disparage going to school "simply to make a living": that's precisely what the goyim are doing. The notion of studying for a higher purpose is happening at precious few institutions today - and one of them happens to be in Lakewood, New Jersey. Describing the "college experience," today's budding scholars are less likely to reference Kierkegaard and Newton, and more likely to focus on keg parties and Spring Break.

Lastly, the culture has deteriorated considerably. Few are rushing to see La Boheme at the Met. Instead it's the latest dreck from Judd Apatow & Co. that sells the tickets. America's crass culture is downright dangerous for the spiritually selective. Don't forget: the other side of Rav Hirsch's TIDE was his institution of Austritt. I'd hate to think what he might have said about youtube.

In the end, what we ought to glean from Rav Hirsch is his passion for uncompromised Judaism, his love of all Jews and his desire to reach out to them, and his positive outlook in the face of a picture much bleaker than the one we face today. He would be overwhelmed at the opportunities for outreach in America, both inside and outside the Orthodox community. With somewhere between three million and five million Jews lacking a basic Jewish education, and without any serious intellectual threat preventing their return, he would be ecstatic at the chance to impact them all.

Mark my words: if Rav S. R. Hirsch was brought back to this earth, the first thing he would do is learn to touch-type.

Humble

2008-06-19T23:14:00.000-04:00

As we, here in the United States, make our way toward electing a new President, we seek meaning in past actions and behaviors of the candidates as indications as to what sort of leader this one or that one will be. We dissect and assess the candidates' policy statements, voting records, public appearances, business associations, and personal relationships in order to gain an understanding of the totality of the person and how he or she will act as our political representative.

As Jews, we sometimes find ourselves in a similar predicament. When choosing a school to send our children to, or a synagogue to attend, we look for teachers and rabbis who we feel will do the best job. But how can we know what we are really getting? How do we know that the rabbi who gives the best sermon, or who teaches the most provocative class, will also be the one to answer our halachic questions properly or give us the best spiritual guidance when we seek his counsel?

I believe we only need to look for one thing: Humility.

After high school, I spent two years studying in Israel. As my second year drew to a close, I decided to stay past the end of my yeshiva's zman and continue learning at another yeshiva whose zman lasted into the summer. The rosh yeshiva of the new yeshiva welcomed me and placed me in one of the higher shiurim, but after a couple of weeks there - and with only a month left before returning to the States - I wanted to maximize my opportunity and asked to be placed in the rosh yeshiva's shiur for the duration of my stay.

The rosh yeshiva didn't merely deny my request; he exploded at me. "My shiur!?" he bellowed in the middle of a Jerusalem street, where I had followed him out during the lunch break. "You think you're ready for my shiur!?" He went on about how difficult it was to attain placement in his shiur and how much work was involved in arriving there - but I had pretty much stopped listening at that point. He had me at "my shiur."

Those words still ring in my ears.

Even then, still a teenager, I was not disappointed or hurt or embarrassed. I was simply shocked that this rosh yeshiva - this man - could speak in such a way about himself, and about others in relation to him. He could have gently told me that he felt the shiur I was in was appropriate, that he believed his shiur would prove too difficult for me, and that with so little time left until I went home he didn't want to risk spoiling my stay. Instead, he taught me a very valuable lesson.

To this day, he is a highly-respected rosh yeshiva and a world-class talmid chacham. I can personally testify to his erudition and his hasmadah. But if that sense of self-importance is the price I would have to pay to achieve his level of Torah scholarship, I would decline. It is too high a price.

Last week's parshah does not say that Moshe was the most learned of men though he surely was; it does not say he was the most pious of men, though he certainly was that, too; it says he was the humblest of men. And for that - perhaps because of that - he spoke with G-d "face-to-face," as it were.

A few weeks back, I began attending - via satellite - the Saturday night shiur of Rav Yisroel Reisman. I had heard of the shiur and its popularity, and, due to an awful quirk in my personality, avoided it for just that reason. But one day I received a fundraising letter in the mail accompanied by a CD of one of his shiurim, and, with precious else to listen to while cleaning for Pesach, I popped it in the player.

I can't say that I was blown away by the shiur, but I appreciated it enough that when I discovered that a local shul shows a video simulcast of his shiur, I decided to try it out. Last week was the final shiur of the "season" and only the third one I attended. But even after just three lectures, listening and watching him up close (the video feed places you right in front of him; I'm told about two thousand people attend the live version), what struck me most was his humility. He sees himself not as a great rav (though he is) with a huge fan base (by Orthodox standards), but as a very fortunate Jew who is Divinely blessed with the capacity to spend his time studying and teaching Torah. For someone who could allow himself a pat on the back every now and then, he does not leak even a whiff of pretension.

Years ago, I visited Rav Shimon Schwab, zt"l, for some guidance. He responded to one question I posed to him by telling me, "you need to ask a gadol beYisrael that question." I stammered, "But I believe I am speaking now to a gadol beYisrael."

"I'm not a gadol beYisrael," he said simply. And, as nonsensical as it was, for a nanosecond I believed it. Though I do remember getting an answer to my question, after pressing a bit further, I don't recall what the answer was. Nor do I recall the question. What I really took away from that exchange was more fundamental: the picture of humility.

Random Acts of Achdus

2008-06-01T16:00:00.002-04:00

Several summers ago, on a Friday afternoon, I was driving up to the Catskills to join some friends at a camp when my car overheated. I had to pull over the side of the road to allow the car to cool down. After a few rounds of this - watching the gauge hit its limit, pulling over, pacing nervously by the side of the road watching the sun begin it’s slow descent toward the horizon - I determined that my car is done for the day (and for the rest of days, as it turned out).

I got off at the next exit, about twenty miles from my destination, and pulled into a gas station-slash-convenience store. I rushed inside and asked the guy behind the counter if he knew the number of a taxi service. I was in Monticello, New York. A chasidishe guy, buying a newspaper, overheard my plight and seeing my yarmulke and asked me where I was going. I told him. “Here,” he said, flipping me his keys. "Take my car.” I was stunned. It took me a second to process what he had said: Take my car. My instinct was to decline his offer, but Shabbos was coming! I accepted, and, after driving him back to his nearby bungalow, I hot-footed it to the camp, racing into the driveway with about two minutes to spare.

When I arrived at the camp, and told the tale, people were amazed. “What terrific luck," one said, "that you ran into a friend of yours at a gas station in Monticello.” "But you don't understand," I said. "I never met the fellow before in my life." Jaws dropped. While they understood the concept of doing nice things for people, they could not comprehend that degree of kindness. A level that does not so much transcend selflessness as redefine the sense of self to encompass the members of one’s nation. This attachment we call achdus.

Random acts of achdus, manifested by acts of chesed, abound. In my experience they are systemic to the Jewish people. What is strange is not that they happen but that they happen with such frequency that no one seems to notice anymore. Groups such as Hatzolah, the various Tomchei Shabbos, and countless Bikur Cholim organizations in communities across the country testify to the commitment that Jews feel to one another.

Beyond chesed groups, the world of business also testifies to this connection. One of the largest Modern Orthodox employers, Howard Jonas of IDT Corp., is renowned for hiring and training thousands of people from yeshivish and chasidishe backgrounds, both in the United States and in Israel. Similarly, the chasidishe-owned and highly successful B&H Electronics in midtown has Jewish employees of all backgrounds.

And then there's the matter of all the dollars and manhours spent on kiruv programs aimed at people who are completely unaffiliated with Torah Judaism. I have heard many debates on the merits of different programming and forms of outreach, but never a word on the wisdom of the overall effort. That the effort is worthwhile is axiomatic. It’s called achdus.

Which is why it's so difficult to swallow the constant chorus of critics who regularly bash Jews for not displaying enough achdus. Many seem to be afflicted by the media's bad habit of always focusing on the exception and never the rule.

Furthermore, Judaism is not always homogeneous, and critics seem to pick up on this when lamenting their perceived lack of achdus. But it would be improper, not to mention imprudent, to confuse divisions with divisiveness. To the extent that there are divisions in Klal Yisrael, they tend to be normal, healthy, and part of the Master game plan. The Jewish nation was initially divided into twelve tribes. As Jacob’s varied blessings to his sons makes clear, this division was not simply logistical. Each tribe was charged with a different mission. Today the tribes break down among different communities with differing customs: Sephardim and Ashkenazim, chassidim and misnagdim, yeshivish and modern orthodox, kollel students and Torah im derech eretz-niks. Each brings a unique and valid approach to serving the Creator. While these approaches will sometimes clash on the playing field of Halachah and society, rarely have they gotten bloody.

Chasidim play a role, Zionists play a role. Kollel students play a role, professionals play a role. That these groups promote their own beliefs, sometimes at the expense of the other, is a tribute to the passion of their positions. And though these distinctions may at times flare into an unethical machlokes, bridges are generally not burned.

Davening in a shtibel in Monsey recently, I watched a chasid reading the latest Rav Soloveithcik release. How did I know that it was the latest release? Because I had seen it the week before at Eichler’s in Flatbush. Prominently displayed. It was also available at Eichler’s in Boro Park. Browsing the main seforim store in Lakewood, I was pleasantly shocked to see the Gutnick Edition Chumash—featuring the commentary of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, zt”l.

That Friday afternoon, speeding through the Catskills in the borrowed car of someone whose name I no longer remember (and almost forgot to ask), I felt the unity of Klal Yisrael. I was - and remain - fiercely proud to be a small part of it.

The First Time I Ever Cried on Tisha B'Av

2007-07-23T09:31:00.001-04:00

(Please excuse the repeat, but I felt this was worth re-posting. Originally posted August 11, 2005.)

Tisha B’Av is right around the corner and the days and weeks leading up to it are structured halachically to evoke a certain sense of pain, sorrow, and yearning for better times. This is a difficult task for most of us. In 21st century America, it’s hard to “get in the mood” for Tisha B’Av. We live, more or less, in comfort. Some of us live in great luxury.

I imagine it was easier to be mournful in Nazi Germany, or in Stalanist Russia, or during the time of pogroms, or the Crusades or the Spanish Inquisition. Yes, then Jews could sit on the floor and cry out to G-d to redeem us and bring us to a better place and time.

But today? You must be joking.

It is difficult to legislate emotion. Therefore, the halachic strategy (as a good friend of mine terms it) legislates behavior, which, through proper analysis and understanding elicits (one hopes) the requisite emotion.

Many of us have gone without shaving and bathing these past nine days. We have shut off our radios and i-pods. We have curtailed certain joyous activities. But while these behaviors may make us uncomfortable, we are still far from grief-stricken. I doubt that many of us feel truly despondent over the lack of a Temple in our midst. We go through the motions of mourning, but the emotional component—which is the point of it all—remains elusive.

One Tisha B’Av, I was sitting on the floor in shul, the lights dimmed, and I thought, Why am I here? Why are any of us here? Because a building was destroyed? What does that have to do with me? How does that affect me?

I acknowledge its tragic place in Jewish history. I am willing to go through the routine of recognizing the catastrophe. Yes, I want to feel badly about it, but try as I might I can’t conjure up any real sense of pain, loss and longing.

I decided to focus instead on something sad that had recently occurred in my own life. That year I had discovered that a friend of the family had married a non-Jew. I was devastated. How could this have happened? Here was someone who had a Jewish education, a strong connection to Judaism—strong enough to question why other Jewish friends had forsaken Torah—yet, who ran off and did the same thing.

It dawned on me that this was the great tragedy of Tisha B’Av. I wasn’t just mourning the destruction of the Temple; I was also mourning the aftermath of the destruction of the Temple, the real destruction which continues to this day—the fallout of that terrible time, the consequences of our people being uprooted from the Holy Land. Our people were exiled. They moved from place to place. Life became increasingly difficult. Jews dropped off. Without the Temple, the Jewish people became unmoored, lost in a harsh and hateful gentile world.

My friend was destroyed by these aftershocks. This betrayal would not have happened in a properly functioning Jewish society. The temptations of the outside world would have been muted rather than amplified. The greatness of Torah and the Jewish Nation would be blatant. But instead my friend struggled, and ultimately rejected this lifestyle. My friend’s departure from Torah marked the end of a long series of events that began not at birth or at high school graduation, but centuries earlier, when our ancestors were forced to leave their homeland, when G-d estranged Himself from His people.

And then I cried.

First I cried for those Jews who were no longer sitting on the floor on Tisha B’Av, those Jews who got up, dusted themselves off, and abandoned their faith for the pleasures and freedoms of this world. Next, I cried for those Jews who never knew to sit on the floor, whose grandparents threw their tefillin overboard on their way to Ellis Island, whose connection to Judaism is so tenuous it would take the Messiah to bring them back.

Then I cried for those of us who remain—the frum Jews. Are we really living the way G-d intended us to? Are we lost in the triumphalism of our own success? What of those we’ve left behind? I cried for those of us who have the talent and resources to do something to stop the outflow of young Jews from their heritage, and promote the inflow of baalei teshuvah back to their heritage.

Finally, I cried for myself. What if I had grown up down the street from the Temple in Holy Jerusalem, living in a Torah society framed and legislated by the Word of G-d, instead of in a foreign land, where temptation “crouches at the door”? Would I not be a holier person? Would I not be a more complete person? Would I not indeed be a happier person?

This Tisha B’Av while you are sitting on the floor in shul or at home, think of all the people who are not there to join you—your neighbors, your colleagues at work. Ask yourself where their Yiddishkeit has gone. It no doubt went up in the same flames that burned the stones of the Bais Hamikdash.

Is your Yiddishkeit not far behind?

I wish everyone a mournful and meaningful Tisha B’Av.

10,000

2007-07-17T21:15:00.001-04:00

It's one for the books.

Monday night, my beloved Philadelphia Phillies lost their ten thousandth game in franchise history, and for a change, Philly gets to relish in it's role of the loveable loser. Poor Philadelphia. Long ago, she lost her place, to New York, as the nation's foremost city. Then, the capital was moved to Washington, D.C. Today, she's not even a close third on anyone’s list of East Coast cities to visit. That distinction would go to Boston, or even Baltimore.

But as slippery slopes go, Philadelphia wasn’t finished. The Phillies (then known as the Quakers) started their run at futility in 1883, three years after the birth of W.C. Fields, who, having been born in Philadelphia, appreciated the town enough to (allegedly) quip: "There once was a contest. First prize: a week in Philadelphia. Second prize: two weeks in Philadelphia." And the hits just keep on coming.

I've noticed that people who grew up in Philly (such as myself) have this certain "Phillyness" to them—a feeling of not being cool enough; a sense of being underrated and an underachiever at the same time; a suspicion that any impending success will slip away at the last second.

Charlie Brown, I am convinced, is from Philadelphia.

During Monday night's game (on Rosh Chodesh Av, for those of you keeping score at home), Joe Morgan (who played for the Phillies during their 1983 penant-winning season) told the tale of Phillies' owner William Baker, who extended the height of the outfield wall with a fifteen-foot fence in order to limit his own player, Chuck Klein's, home run production. Seems he didn't want the slugger—who once hit four home runs in a game—to compete with Babe Ruth for records and, ergo, remuneration.

Typical, Philadelphia.

But then again, you probably never heard of Chuck Klein. In fact, the city's most famous athlete is an invention: Rocky Balboa.

But the Phillies did one thing right. They won their first and only World Series in 1980, when I was but a wee lad. Those Phillies—Mike Schmidt, Steve Carlton, Pete Rose, and, my favorite player, the Bull, Greg Luzinski—took the crown when I was old enough to appreciate it and young enough for it to mean everything to me (I cried when the Eagles lost the Super Bowl three months later).

So now, as a mature young man, how do I view my Phillies? Well, first off, I think they still have a good chance of catching the Mets and making the playoffs this year. They’ve got their most solid team in years—terrific hitting combined with some young, solid starting pitchers (though they could use lots of help in the bullpen).

But on a deeper level, I’m simply proud that they’ve been at it for so long. The plight and pain, the struggle and stigma that is the Phillies, along with all the other Philadelphia sports teams, and, by extension, all Philadelphians, calls to mind the genius of President Theodore Roosevelt, who famously stated:

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

This is the mussar behind my team. This is the lesson we each must learn from the Philadelphia experience. We’re not here to always win. Not only will we lose sometimes, we may indeed lose far more often. But we must show up every day and play the game. We must do what we can when we can as best we can for as long as we can.

And never give up.

Last night the Phillies lost number 10,001. And the hits just keep on coming.

Meet the Beadle

2007-07-05T21:09:00.001-04:00

Once upon a time, there was a beadle, who worked very hard on behalf of his shul. His job was to open the shul in the morning and lock it up at night. In between, he would choose people to daven for the amud, call up the aliyos to the Torah, and assist the occasional wandering Jew with saying Kaddish and donning tefillin.

But this beadle was not satisfied simply fulfilling his duties. Because he is so special a Jew and so dedicated to his shul and its mission, he would look for opportunities to make a good shul great. And one fine day, when he noticed that a particular member had missed services several days in a row, rather than ask around after his well-being, the beadle decided to pick up the phone and find out first-hand how he was feeling.

He dialed the congregant’s number, and the congregant's wife answered the phone. The beadle explained why he had called and inquired as to the welfare of the absentee member. The response was not what he had expected. Rather than thank him for his concern, Mrs. Congregant rebuked him.

“Now you ask how he’s doing?” she said. “A member is sick and you wait three days to call? What kind of a shul is this?!”

The beadle backpedaled. Stammering, he offered that he hadn't been worried up to that point, noting that missing a day or two of shul was not necessarily an indication of ill health or trouble. But no explanations or apologies would mollify this woman. She was incensed.

The beadle felt terrible, and slumped glumly in his chair. “You try to do a good thing…,” he muttered, shaking his head, and then summing it up: “Calling people isn’t even part of my job.”

Poor fellow. It’s the hardest combination in the world: being sensitive to others while being a sensitive person yourself. Here he is: a thoughtful, caring person—and those very traits turned on him; he was accused of the opposite.

I weighed this for a moment before recognizing that the beadle had actually accomplished something rare and difficult: he had performed a mitzvah lishmah. Lishmah—for its own sake—is a term that gets tossed about effortlessly, when in fact it is a very tough standard to achieve. Every mitzvah we do is usually tainted by some ulterior motive—we keep the Sabbath, but enjoy the relaxation it provides; we study the Torah, but take pleasure in our newfound knowledge; we give to charity, but bask in our reputation of being charitable.

Even when we believe that we have achieved this lofty level, the pride we feel in its accomplishment diminishes its purity. So how is one to achieve lishmah?

I often joke, half seriously, that the only people learning Torah lishmah these days are the young men at Yeshiva University. There once was a time when admitting you were a yeshiva bochur brought insult and scorn. Those days are, thankfully, gone. Even those who believe that one should eventually earn a living accept the notion of a young man's learning full-time for several years beyond high school.

But with the stigma gone the lishmah aspect has disappeared as well. People take pride—and are given honor—for studying Torah. So when people ask a 21-year-old, “Where are you learning?” and he responds, “Mir. Brisk. Lakewood,” his answer is met with smiles and nodding heads.

But if the young man answers, “Yeshivas Rabbeinu Yitzchak Elchanan,” the questioner might look at him quizzically and say, “Oh. So what’s your major?”

YU bochurim are the Rodney Dangerfields of the yeshiva world. They could be learning day and night off in their corner of Washington Heights and never receive so much as an acknowledgment of their efforts.

Now that’s studying Torah lishmah.

And our beadle, too, I believe accomplished this goal. By being insulted for his good will, by having his fine intentions backfire, he was actually performing a mitzvah that was pure. After explaining my position to him, I concluded, “Therefore, you should celebrate.”

He smiled wanly, proving that even my valiant efforts at making him feel better were not going to sully the purity of his mitzvah.

Spending Wisely

2007-05-28T16:07:00.000-04:00

If it weren’t for Biblical and Rabbinic mandates to carry them out at predetermined times, there are a lot of mitzvos that I would never get around to doing. This is certainly true of Shabbos, which quite literally forces me out of the office for 25 hours each week, but it is equally—and somewhat surprisingly—true of seemingly “fun” mitzvos, whose performance would seem welcome, but are nonetheless deferred, due to the natural inertia of life, until that elusive “free time” makes a rare appearance. This bleak reality is what transforms an otherwise spirited mitzvah like mishloach manos into a chore that requires prioritizing and planning.

(For the purposes of this essay, I will employ the textual term “mishloach manos” rather than the more popular, ”shalach manos.” Nevertheless, I reserve the right in the future to refer to the third Shabbos meal as “shalashudos” over “seudah shelishis.” Sorry if that bothers some of you.)

From the beginning, I never gave mishloach manos its proper due. I have always prided myself in being able to fulfill mishloach manos on the cheap—looking to spend under three dollars per unit, including the packaging. The key to success for this strategy is finding those bulky, yet inexpensive items; bags of popcorn, for example.

My justification for such thrift is that, four weeks before Pesach or no four weeks before Pesach, no one really needs or wants the junk. (Particularly unnecessary are the ever popular chocolate Laffy Taffys, which seem to mysteriously appear in kosher markets in late February/early March for the exclusive purpose of inclusion in everybody’s mishloach manos. They have become the tribbles of Purim, but I have never met anyone who actually buys them to take home and eat.)

So you’ll forgive me if I tend to think of mishloach manos—beyond the strict fulfillment of the obligation of “two foods to one person”—as a waste of money. I’d rather spend my hard-earned dollars on the other half of the verse, and put it toward matanos la’evyonim.

And, in fact, that’s exactly how halachah prioritizes our obligations.

The Rambam, quoting the verse, underscores the superior importance of matanos la’evyonim “to revive the spirit of the downtrodden, to revive the heart of the depressed.” And I have always followed this path in planning my Purim priorities, always committing toward matanos la’evyonim at least twice the dollar amount spent on mishloach manos.

Then there’s the matter of The List.

How many people actually need to receive my cheapo package? My best friends? My very best friends? Neighbors? Shul acquaintances?

So I began this Purim season with every intention of further whittling down last year’s already-scaled-down mishloach manos recipient list. I began by pulling up last year’s list: 38 names. No problem, I thought. I’ll easily get it below thirty.

But at the end of the day, my vanity prevailed, preventing me from jeopardizing all the good will I had built up over the years with three-dollar, sans Laffy Taffy, gift bags. My list, like most people’s, is the social network I see daily, or at least every Shabbos. We talk, we joke, we shmooze, we kibbitz. The wheels of social grace greased by the transfer of meaningless nosh. I can’t cut those people.

I did manage to trim the list to 37, but only because one of my friends had moved to Philadelphia.

But then I began thinking about the people who weren’t on my list—those I smile at, but don’t shmooze with; those I may say hello to, but don’t kibbitz with. What about them? Why weren’t their names on my list? I’m not talking about the people with large social circles who were in the same predicament as me. I’m talking about the people who had a small or no circle, whose network of friends didn’t reach double digits. After all, wouldn’t they better appreciate the small gesture of friendship and recognition that mishloach manos confers?

Mishloach manos tends to be a paradoxical mitzvah: those you give to generally could care less. But those who would really appreciate the thoughtfulness of a small package—single people, older people, secular people—generally aren't thought of.

I daresay that in today’s day and age—and I speak strictly as an American; the story in Israel and other countries may be very different—the downtrodden are not poor of money, but poor of company. The depressed are not lacking food and shelter, but friends and social attachment. The true measure today of reviving the heart and spirit of these people, therefore, is to extend the hand of friendship. Mishloach manos would accomplish that nicely.

So in the end my list grew. In fact, it pretty much doubled. So much for cutting back; instead I cut forward. My mishloach manos budget tripled, as I hired some local kids to help with the deliveries. Oh, and I eschewed popcorn and gave dried fruit with grape juice. Healthy stuff.

The results were immediate. At eleven a.m., the phone rang. It was a fellow from shul. He called to say how much he appreciated the mishloach manos. The warmth and gratitude he conveyed was wholehearted. I have never, in my thirty-something years or Purim related exchanges, received such a phone call. A thank-you card from another beneficiary of my new policy arrived two days later. Another first.

One more first: Despite my donations through my two regular shiluchim, as well as my handouts to everyone who asked (even though nine in ten were collecting for the very same charity), I still managed to spend less on matanos la’evyonim than on mishloach manos this year. But I did so with the full confidence that Mordechai and Esther would have approved. And while I can’t be certain I fully succeeded in reviving the spirits of the downtrodden and depressed, I’m glad I made the attempt.

And did so, I might add, without the assistance of chocolate Laffy Taffys.

I'd Like to Thank the Academy...

2006-03-06T14:30:00.000-05:00

The Strangers Among Us

2005-12-14T23:55:00.000-05:00

I met someone last night and...wow!

Have you ever come home after that first evening with someone new, overwhelmed by the feeling that all is right with the world, that it's open to all sorts of possibilities, that happiness will never leave your side again?

That was me last night.

The initial awkwardness of meeting a complete stranger dissipated quickly and the conversation flowed naturally from work to family to Judaism. Probing questions; profound answers. I have to admit that I rarely meet someone—particularly over 25—who is so open to new ideas. How refreshing.

As the evening ended, we put on our coats, walked outside, and said goodnight in the damp and cold New York air—agreeing to meet again next week and pick up where we left off. I walked home with an extra spring in my step.

And so begins another successful venture for Partners in Torah.

Ivan is an institutional equity trader, which means that, like me, he "works on Wall Street." Unlike me, his clients aren't millionaires—they're billion-dollar hedge funds. Nevertheless, we share a common bond for two stock jockeys.

Ivan is from Odessa, in the Ukraine. He arrived in this country fifteen years ago at the age of fifteen. When the first Jews began to trickle out of the former Soviet Union, in the late Seventies, Odessa's population was a majority Jewish. By the time Ivan left, he was the only Jew in his high school. Singled out as a zhid, he was hassled, harassed and hit. Although he is way north of six feet and broad, he never hit back. He simply learned to avoid trouble. Like every good player on the Street, Ivan knows when to hold 'em and when to fold 'em.

Upon arriving in this country, Ivan was not dumped into one of the Russian Jewish yeshivos that sprang up a quarter century ago. By the time he arrived in Brighton Beach, the neighborhood had become homogenized, no longer intimidated by the foreignness of America, eager to take advantage of their new democratic homeland. Attending a Jewish school was no longer a necessity and, consequently, Ivan never received even a rudimentary Jewish education.

When I mentioned the Book of Esther, Ivan didn't know what I was referring to.

What he did know is that he is a Jew. And he wanted to know what that meant. And God sent him to me.

Several years back I was called by my neighborhood’s local director of Torah Umesorah’s Partners in Torah program to give up one hour, one evening a week to study with a young man newly interested in Judaism. I agreed. We studied for a year and then he moved away and I got my Wednesday nights back.

Apparently, interest in the program waned because it wasn’t until last week that I got the call again. Would I be willing to study with Ivan?

Bear in mind: Ivan wasn’t looking for proofs; he wasn’t looking for an argument; he wasn’t looking to be convinced of anything. He simply wanted to know: What is a Jew?

Ivan is, quite literally, tabla rasa.

It is difficult to describe the privilege of being singled out by the Almighty to be the vehicle through which another one of His cherished, chosen children is introduced to the Torah. A great privilege and a grave responsibility.

So rather than open a book and start teaching from a text, I decided the best thing would be to give him a tour of the beis medrash—to show him the development of Jewish history and knowledge through the books on the bookshelves.

We began with the Five Books of Moses (Moses he had heard of—he had seen the Charlton Heston movie). I stated that the Chumash was written by God, that God had dictated every word to Moses, who wrote them down. I expected him to ask me how I knew this, but he didn’t. He simply nodded.

I then explained that there is another Torah—an oral transmission that was taught to Moses by God during the forty days he spent atop Mount Sinai. This Torah Shebaal Peh is the companion to the Torah Shebeksav, interpreting, explaining and expanding upon the words of the written text.

“But why,” he asked, “would God risk all the potential misinterpretations that come from not writing it all down? It’s like a game of telephone.”

“Because God doesn’t want the Torah to exist only on bookshelves,” I explained. “The point of the Oral Torah is that it should continually be analyzed and assessed, discussed and debated.

“It wasn’t written down,” I told Ivan, “in order that 3300 years after Sinai, you and I should be having this conversation.”

Strange Days Indeed

2005-12-08T23:00:00.000-05:00

I'm not sure what the point of this post is exactly—unless, of course, that is the point.

I went to a bat mitzvah the other night. In preparation for what promised to be a heckuva soiree, I didn't eat anything after breakfast that day and went to the gym for good measure. I arrived hungry, thirsty, and ready to socialize.

A glass of champagne, a shot of single malt, and a plate of sushi later, I was chatting and laughing at the shmorg with some close friends, generally enjoying life. I know that there are those out there who despise the conspicuous consumption—even for simchos—of the wealthier classes within the Jewish community. But I am not one of those people. And while I do have mixed feelings on the subject, the bottom line with me is: feel free to spend your money any way you want; just be careful how you spend your time.

We moved along to the dining room, where after an appetizer of duck crepe, I was served a bowl of asparagus soup. I had never had asparagus soup before, but I'm happy to report that it has vaulted past the newly-kosher Campbell's Vegetarian Vegetable soup to the number one position on my list of favorite soups.

Then came the requisite dancing, followed by speeches. In keeping with the spirit of the bat mitzvah, no men spoke. Instead, the bat mitzvah girl spoke, the rebbetzin of the shul spoke, and finally the mother of the bat mitzvah spoke.

Our host talked about her own mother and how much she loves and admires her. In a world where you hear a lot about the strife between parents and children, it is heartwarming to hear a daughter describe her mother in such glowing terms—as a role model and a best friend. I was moved close to tears, and went over to her afterward to tell her how beautifully she spoke.

The main course was served, followed by desert and more dancing. I had another shot of scotch. My table-mates and I were in deep discussion, when I sensed something odd. The music had quieted suddenly and there was some shuffling going on. Then I heard crying.

The grandmother of the bat mitzvah girl was lying on the floor. She’d had a heart attack.

I asked someone if he had the number for Hatzolah, and he told me that they’d already been called. A few people were administering CPR. Someone said that a cardiologist was with her. A woman was asking, to nobody in particular, “Why doesn’t anyone have an aspirin?” One of the other granddaughters was sitting, weeping, saying Tehillim.

Slowly, people filed out.

Twelve hours later, the funeral began.

It was hard to ignore the circumstances under which this woman, whose tzidkus in the neighborhood was legendary, left this world, and indeed the eulogists all made reference to her dying among family and friends, surrounded by Yiddishe nachas.

Yet that didn't take away from the weirdness of it all, nor did it deflate the notion that there had to be a message in it for all of us. I was eerily reminded of the words of my Rosh Yeshiva after a bochur died on Purim—that his death was a signal for the whole yeshiva to do teshuvah.

Thus, I was left with two conflicting thoughts.

The first was severe: Was this a message from Above cautioning us to be more careful? A warning that too much whiskey, too much dancing, too much socializing was not the reason we were put on this planet? What ever became of the verse, “Az yimalei sechok pinu—Then [when the Temple is rebuilt and not before] our mouths will be filled with laughter”?

The other consideration was more serene: Perhaps she was given extra time on this world (yes, it turned out she had had a heart condition but kept it quiet) to attend her granddaughter's simchah. She died surrounded by family and friends, the culmination of a lifetime of achievement as a builder of a bayit ne’eman beYisrael. If one must go—as we all surely must someday—isn’t this a glorious way to do it? Weren’t the sweet words of her daughter still ringing in her ears as she moved on to the Next World?

Was what happened a manifestation of G-d’s displeasure? Or was it a manifestation of his kindness?

Or was it both?

The Whole Ten Yards

2005-11-30T23:21:00.000-05:00

When I was younger, so much younger than today, football, according to the experts—or, in any event, the old-timers—took a turn for the worse. Players began doing strange things after scoring or making a big play. They would dance; they would jump into the stands; they would cluck like a chicken. Simply spiking the ball (the first recorded instance of which, according to my Google search, came in 1965) was passé.

This development did not please many a football sage, who felt that when players reach the end zone, they ought to “look like they’ve been there before.”

And I had always agreed with this line of thinking. Even as I enjoyed the short-lived antics of Terrell Owens, I wondered: Who needs this nonsense? The high fiving, the helmet banging, the chest thumping, the arm pumping on each and every play was overkill, I felt. Since when does a tackle on second-and-seven, making it third-and-four, deserve any sort of recognition, let alone a festive gesture?

But then I got to thinking.

Is it really so bad to celebrate every moment in life—even if the moment really isn’t that big? To put it another way aren’t the “small” victories also big? Aren’t they valuable too, deserving of celebration?

Watching the game the other Sunday, I saw an ad for ESPN with the slogan, “Living Life Ten Yards at a Time.” Those NFL players have it right after all, I thought. They celebrate every play as if they had just won the Super Bowl, because in some small way they have. Each and every play brings them that much closer to gaining the ten yards needed for a first down. The accumulation of first downs ultimately leads to a touchdown, or at least, a field goal. The touchdowns and field goals, if there are enough of them, add up to a victory. And the victories are what get a team to the playoffs and on the road to the Super Bowl.

So, in point of fact, each and every well-executed play deserves celebration.

Certainly in the world of sports, where tenths- and even hundredths-of-a-second can mean the difference between the gold medal and fourth place—between immortality and obscurity—there is no such thing as a small event. In a society where obscure statistics are tracked and measured, where every move a player makes contributes to his coach’s opinion of his performance and determines whether or not he ought to be paid hundreds of thousands of dollars—every single play counts.

In life, every day, every hour, every moment has value. Especially as Jews, who live a life under G-d’s Divine direction, we must recognize the value of our time and not simply be motivated by the “big” events.

I once heard a story about two friends who wanted to know what the Afterlife was like. They made a deal that whoever died first would report back to the other (no, this is not the “bad news is you’re pitching tomorrow” joke). Eventually one of them died and the very next evening appeared to her friend in a dream.

“I can’t begin to describe what Heaven is like. It’s simply not possible to understand on human terms the reward that awaits us for our mitzvos,” she said. “But I can give you a small understanding. Do you remember the time we were delivering food to that old lady and it was dark and we couldn’t find her house? We circled and circled the block and eventually I spotted the house and pointed to it. The extra reward that I received for simply pointing is beyond description.”

Two years ago I decided to try and learn a perek of the Rambam’s Yad Hachazakah every morning after davening. That’s a thousand perakim of Rambam, and based on my calculations, I ought to have been getting ready for a siyum this summer.

But wouldn’t you know it, I’m not on track for that. Heck, I’m not even close. Some days I had to run off to work and didn’t have time to finish the perek. Sometimes the perakim were so long and arduous that they took a week or more to complete. Thus, after two years and two months working on this project, I’m only about a third of the way done.

Pitiful? Hardly.

Despite my dawdling, I know more Rambam than I did last year, and I’m learning more than I was last year. In fact, I’m so pleased with my small victories that tomorrow morning I may just high five the gabbai and do a little jig in the back of the shul.

Although, admittedly, spiking the sefer would probably be inappropriate.

Haftorahs and Hollywood Endings

2005-11-23T23:30:00.000-05:00

I don't know how it works in most shuls, but in mine they generally give you the heads-up that you're reading the Haftorah somewheres around Revi'i. And so it came to pass that, midway through the Torah reading, the gabbai hands me a laminated card that reads "MAFTIR."

Now I don't get nervous, mind you; I kind of like being asked to read the Haftorah. It means they think (a) I can read Hebrew pretty well, and (b) my voice isn't lousy. For this I am grateful. But in order to avoid the embarrassment of a meltdown—in the event that there are some strange words or trupp combinations—I take a sneak peak before the aliyah.

The first thing I notice is that there is a break in the Haftorah. According to the Knower of all things Jewish, Rabbi Arthur J. Scroll, the Sephardim, Chabad Chasidim, and German congregations, end the Haftorah early. We Ashkenazim, however, go the distance.

And what a distance it is. Quite a long read. And with a fairly impatient shul behind me, I knew I'd have to rush it a bit to make sure that my vocal chords wouldn't wear down before the chatter in the back spread to envelope the entire sanctuary. Would asking the rabbi if we could be German for a day be appropriate? I thought not.

The Haftorah is about the prophet Elisha and the woman from Shunam, who prepared a room for him to stay during his travels to her area. She was childless, so Elisha blessed her and her husband that they should have a child. Sure enough they do. But one day the child dies. The woman goes to Elisha for help, and Elisha sends his attendant, Geichazi, to revive the child using his staff. But that doesn't work, so Elisha has to go himself and lie upon the child, bringing him back to life.

It's a beautiful little story with the perfect ending, yet if you attended shul last week in Crown Heights or Washington Heights or certain areas of Flatbush, you'd never have known the outcome. If you take a look to see where the aforementioned Sephardim, Chabad Chassidim and Germans end the story, you'd be perplexed. The final verse read by these three communities comes as the woman is preparing to seek out Elisha after her son dies. Her husband, unaware of the tragedy, asks, What’s the occasion? To which she simply says, “Shalom—It will be well.” The End.

How strange.

Why stop the story at the declaration of the Shunamite woman, "Shalom—It will be well"? It wasn’t well—the child was dead! This would seem to be the absolute worst place to end the story.

I discussed my confusion with one of the baalei keriah in shul (he read the Haftorah at the first minyan) and he, too, was at a loss. "I could understand," I confessed to him, "if the Litvaks stopped there. That's a stoic group for you. But the Sephardim? The Lubavitchers?"

Perhaps, I thought, that was the point. You don't need the happy ending for the story to work. What if, for instance, the child had remained dead. Tragic as we may find it to be, would it not also be G-d's will? What if, in the parshah we had just read, G-d had not stayed the hand of Avraham at the Akeidah, and he followed through and slaughtered Yitzchak? Wouldn't Avraham have carried out G-d's will just the same as if Yitzchak had lived?

Just because we want something to happen doesn't mean that G-d agrees with us. Ultimately, as difficult and painful and hidden as it may be, G-d's will is the ultimate good.

I brought my question to the rabbi, and before I could share with him my answer he beamed. "I discussed that very question in my lecture Wednesday night." (I hemmed and hawed, trying to think of a good excuse as to why I wasn't in attendance that evening, when he informed me that it was a class for women only. Whew!)

When Elisha sent Geichazi to revive the boy, the rabbi explained, he told him, "Gird your loins and take my staff in your hand and go....and you shall place my staff on the lad's face." The Meshech Chochmah explains the symbolism: Elisha believed that the woman was meritorious because of her kindness toward him. She prepared a place for him to stay and to rest. Elisha's staff—upon which one leans and rests—symbolized the mitzvah the woman had done. Surely that would revive the boy.

But it wasn't her kindness that merited a child; it was her devotion to the prophet and her faith in his word as the word of G-d that merited a child. She displays this devotion again when she approaches Elisha. He inquires: "'Are you well? Is your husband well? Is the child well?' And she said, 'Shalom—We are well.'" Once again, her simple expression, “Shalom,” speaks volumes about her convictions. Elisha recognizes this, continues the Meshech Chochmah, he understood that he would have to use himself—the symbol of her faith—to revive the child.

It was her faith in G-d and in His prophets (the sixth of Maimonides' thirteen principles of faith) that brought her this blessing. When the child died she knew that the prophet would guide her correctly. When he asked how she was she simply answered, "Shalom—we are well." Whatever happens, it is the will of G-d, and therefore the ultimate good.

Yes, the story does have a happy ending. So does the story of the Akeidah. The child lives. Yitzchak lives. It's the classic Hollywood ending.

But not all our stories end that way. Sometimes the child dies. Sometimes the parent has to grieve. We don't understand why. But what we must know is that it is part of G-d's plan and we need to embrace that faith in order to sustain ourselves, in order to live our lives on a higher plane. We need to recognize that under G-d's protection, despite what we may feel, despite what we don’t understand, we are always well.

(translations courtesy of http://www.chabad.org/library/article.asp?AID=15910)

Fannies in the Seats

2005-10-17T11:00:00.000-04:00

The New Year began with a bit of a disappointment.

Our synagogue, like many Orthodox shuls, offers a beginners' (we call it "explanatory") service for those whose backgrounds are more limited and wish to have a better understanding of what's going on during the High Holy Days. The service is given by a very respected member of our community, a man who is knowledgeable and explains thing well. For our community, which is aging and showing signs of a demographic dwindle of its traditional Jewish population in favor of younger, more secular Jews, the service should have been a boon.

Only problem is, no one showed up.

Well not quite no one. First day Rosh Hashanah there were three; second day, one. Ouch.

Now I know that every Jewish soul is an entire world and that I should celebrate the small victories as well, and in fact the lone gentleman who came both days was extremely appreciative of the opportunity. Still, I was perturbed.

I took a walk that morning from our shul to another a few blocks away. A friend had told me that they had just finished renovating the building and I should stop by to check it out, so I did. I was amazed. Here was this old, formerly decrepit, sanctuary that had been restored to its former glory. The anteroom was all polished marble. The terrace outside was landscaped. Downstairs, a chapel, classroom, and kitchen were brand new and begging for use. I was awestruck.

Yet the problem persisted. Upstairs, attending services, on the Jewish New Year, were fewer than thirty people. Perhaps there were a paucity of Jews in the neighborhood, I thought as I walked back. Just then, my thoughts were interrupted by a young man on a cell phone. "Happy New Year," he said as he walked by me. Two other people offered New Year's greetings on the six-block walk back to my shul. Clearly the people are there.

And the shuls are there, the programs are there, the classes are there. All that's missing is fannies in the seats.

I shared my experience with two members of the shul whom I ate lunch with. They, too, were livid. And we resolved to do something about it.

That Sunday night I got a call from one of them. Could I come over and take a look at a flyer she had put together inviting people to services on Yom Kippur? We worked on the flyer for awhile and then I went about my business—still backlogged from all the midweek holidays. Monday passed, Tuesday came. Erev Yom Kippur.

I got to shul and found out what happened with that flyer, and what happened was this: While I was spending late nights at the office, my two friends—who also have full-time jobs, mind you—were printing and distributing this flyer all over the neighborhood and beyond. Under people's doors. On telephone poles. In a local newspaper. Forty-eight people had responded. Forty-eight! If even half showed up, and that was a stretch considering the torrential rain we were having, it would be, to borrow my father's phrase, a major victory for the Allies.

We waited eagerly as the eleventh hour approached (Literally. The service was called for 11:00 AM). Almost instantly they appeared. Drenched from the downpour, they came. They came carrying umbrellas and pocketbooks. They came with their cellphones and attache cases. But they came. By ten past the hour, the place had filled up. Thirty-one people had showed up.

And we were ecstatic.

Many chose to stay after the explanatory service. By Ne'ilah, at least ten were still in shul. As soon as the shofar blasted, we ran for pen and paper to get phone numbers and email addresses. Many of our guests simply handed us their business cards. We hope they'll come back for more; we certainly need them.

It's Not That Easy Being Green

2005-09-27T20:00:00.000-04:00

"Did you read the story about your neighbor in yesterday's Post?" a friend asked.

I hadn't.

As it turns out, this neighbor—a man whom I knew was in real estate because I hear him on his cellphone in the back of the shul sometimes—had sold all of his real estate holdings, and made some money. Okay, not some money, a lot of money. How much?

How does five hundred million dollars sound?

It was all right there in the paper. And I daven with the guy. While I had always assumed he was wealthy, I never imagined he was that wealthy. So how do I react to the news? I’m jealous, of course.

And it's not the first time either. Every time I hear about someone who made a fortune—through investments, an invention, a top-40 song on the radio—my initial reaction is a pang of jealousy. Why not me? I’m smart enough. I’m talented enough. Where’s my fortune?

My second response, coming quickly on the heels of the first, is to disparage the wealthy. They’re corrupt. They made their money dishonestly. Sure, anyone can make a bundle—if they lie, cheat and steal. But since I don't do any of those things—because I am a prince among men—it’s not a level playing field. If I need to be poor in order to prove my virtue, then so be it!

But what if I know the person in question, and I know that he’s not corrupt. What if I’m pretty sure that he’s actually a good guy, who makes an honest living and shares his wealth with the schools, the shuls, the community organizations? What then?

Third response: Money isn't everything! I then proceed to recollect all of the terrible things that happened to wealthy people who I know. The kids who ended up on drugs. The ones who died when their private jet crashed. The money ruined them, or at least it didn’t save them.

If that doesn’t do the trick, I think of all the reasons why I’m a better person. Yes, they may be richer—but I'm better looking. I have more friends. I'm more religious. I'm more learned. I’m more talented. I have more to offer the world.

Petty, petty, petty.

Why can’t I simply say: G-d bless.

G-d bless them and their wealth. I'm sure they were given it for a reason, and I hope they makes the most of it. I'm confident that if and when G-d decides that there is a good reason for me tobecome rich, He will rain millions down my chimney, posthaste.

But until then, I ought to remain as content as if I actually had the money.

Admittedly, it's hard. No, not hard, near impossible. With bills to pay. With work to go to. With tuition bills coming due. With the holidays, and their concomitant expenses, upon us. There are financial reasons to worry. How is that fair?

How is it fair that I should struggle while they don't, that I should wonder if I can afford a new tie while their biggest concern is which of their six new thousand-dollar suits to wear on the first evening of Yom Tov?

Their problems are not my problems, because—to my mind—they have no real problems.

And yet.

Aren't all these thoughts a challenge to G-d's Infinite Wisdom? Aren't they a rebellion against His Supreme Authority? Am I not simply indicating my displeasure at how He runs His world?

Should I not be ashamed?

But here's a better question:

I’m walking down a street in Lakewood or Monsey or Baltimore and I see a man walking toward me. His jacket is rumpled, his hat dusty, his shoes scuffed. Scurrying to or from the beis medrash, the look on his face shows that he’s a bit oblivious to the world around him. Assuming this person has a tremendous wealth of Torah knowledge, do I feel the same instant pang of envy that I do when I see the wealthy guy in shul?

Do I start to think the same disparaging things?

Do I start to make the same comparisons to myself?

Do I actually feel jealous of the guy?

Why is it that I am immediately jealous of another man's money but not of another man's Torah? Particularly when I know that the money will eventually leave his hand, but the Torah will never leave his soul.

Making It Personal

2005-09-22T23:30:00.000-04:00

As life moves along its merry path, I’ve begun to notice a paunch developing around my midsection. As someone who used to run six miles a day since high school and who’d always been thin, this was nothing short of a debacle. I never imagined the day would come when I might need to lose weight. But more than the issue of pounds is the issue of health. Quite frankly, I’m out of shape.

So I joined a gym.

Along with my new membership came a complimentary (as in free, not flattering) session with a personal trainer. I’d never worked with a personal trainer before, because I’m what you might call the self-starting type. Even with a free session waved in my face, I was reluctant to turn my body over to a professional. I kept pushing it off, preferring to begin on my own—some bike work, weights, swimming. But eventually, I relented, and got around to booking an appointment.

What a world of difference.

The level of workout you get with a trainer far surpasses that which you would achieve alone. A trainer motivates you, pushes you, and simply witnesses your workout. Sure you could probably put together for yourself an exercise regimen from a fitness book, but when you have someone else telling you what to do, showing you how to do it, coaxing and goading you to do those last two or three reps, and then calming you down when you think you’ve seriously injured yourself—the quality of your workout, and thus your overall health—improves dramatically.

The trainer also makes working out easier. First, even if you want to skip the gym, you can’t because (a) he’s expecting you and (b) you’ve already paid him for the session. Moreover, the psychological aspect of the workout is less stressful, in the sense that all you have to do is show up, shut up, and do as you’re told. No more worrying about the quality of your workout.

I don’t know about you, but, I’m always concerned with my workouts. With weights for example, am I lifting too little and not building muscle, or too much and risking injury? Is that extra rep the one that’s going to give me the chiseled torso I covet, or send me to the hospital with a herniated disc? Are ten more minutes on the treadmill going to enhance my cardiovascular health or give me a stress fracture? Is this workout going to motivate me to come again tomorrow or make me so sore that I’ll never step foot in a gym again?

Am I pushing myself too much or too little?

With the right trainer, these questions disappear. I know if I surrender myself to his regimen that in three months I’ll be a dramatically different person.

So I got to thinking: What if I had a personal trainer for my whole life—work, learning, writing, family?

It's not such a wild notion. The Mishnah advises us, “Kenei lecha chaver—Acquire for yourself a friend.” This friend, explains Rabbeinu Yonah, has a three-fold purpose: Someone to study Torah with, someone to look after your religious observance, and someone to consult with and advise you on all matters of life. Rabbi Efraim Epstein once suggested getting a personal mashgiach—a paid professional, to follow you around during your day and motivate you, encourage you, steer you, rebuke you. Whatever the situation calls for.

Imagine someone who wakes you up in the morning, hauls you out of bed and drives you to the synagogue. After services, he studies with you, then serves you a nutritious breakfast. He escorts you on the subway ride to work, elbowing you when an elderly woman gets on—a subtle nudge to give up your seat. At the office, he listens in on your phone calls, lifting a finger as the conversation begins to veer off into loshon hara and slapping your wrist when you accidentally let slip a profanity. He scrutinizes your interaction with your colleagues—making sure you don't stare at the woman whose blouse is a bit too low cut, even by Corporate America's declining standards—all the while scribbling notes in his mashgiach notebook.

Wouldn’t your life—spiritual and otherwise—improve dramatically?

We need partners in every area of life. A spouse, a chavrusah, a best friend. It's one of G-d’s ways of saying He doesn’t want us to be alone. We should always have someone to keep an eye on us, someone to lift us up when we’re down, someone to set us straight when we're on a bender, someone to bounce ideas off of. And we must also assume that same role for our friends and colleagues. It may not take a village, but that certainly doesn’t mean that we can go at it alone.

If you need me, I’ll be at the gym.

My Basketball Diaries

2005-09-15T22:30:00.000-04:00

I am not one of the world’s better athletes. In fact I’m part of the reason why people picture Jews as accountants and lawyers, not hockey players and NASCAR drivers. Nonetheless, despite—or perhaps in celebration of—my mediocrity, I enjoy a game of basketball here and there. I can jump, pass, and run around. Everything except shoot. I can’t shoot for beans.

But one thing I’ve noticed: when I’m going all out on the court, my whole team plays better. Even if I’m the weakest player and not making any statistically significant contributions, we seem to win (or come closer to winning) when I push myself. I may not be scoring any points or stealing the ball from the opponent, but still somehow my hustle is making an impact on the court.

I take this as a message from On High that, even on the basketball court, the good L-rd wants me to move my tuches.

When I try harder, I succeed more often. Even when my efforts are not yielding direct results, results are nonetheless filtering through, seemingly on their own and out of the blue. Somehow the effort finds its reward.

The Talmud states, “Don’t believe one who says, ‘I tried but did not succeed’; nor believe one who says, ‘I did not try, yet I succeeded’; only believe the one who says, ‘I tried and I succeeded.’” Though the Talmud is referring to Torah study, I find those words apply to much of life.

Let me give you another example.

At work, I’ll sit down to make phone calls to clients and prospects. I pick up the phone, begin dialing—and good things start to happen. Sometimes, those results are direct. I dial, my prospect is home, he picks up the phone, we speak, he’s interested. An account is opened.

Other times, it doesn’t happen that way at all. I call a few people. They’re not home. I leave messages. I get a hold of a few of them who can’t talk just now. I get frustrated.

And then the phone rings.

It’s a client calling to ask me how to wire money into his account. Or it’s a banker calling to introduce me to a high-net worth prospect. These productive calls coming in have nothing to do with those fruitless calls going out. They could have just as easily come in while I was twiddling my thumbs.

But when I’m twiddling my thumbs, they usually don’t.

Don’t get me wrong: the reciprocity isn’t perfect. Not even close. Believe me, I’ve known much failure and frustration in my life—even when I’ve expended myself. I could tell you about the NCSY chapter that never panned out, the yeshiva in Israel that I had to leave, the aborted attempt at a writing career. But I have generally viewed those failures as a sign to move on, pocketing the “learning experience” for whatever it may be worth.

When I’m onto something that’s working, however, it always works better when I’m pushing myself.

G-d certainly wants us to work. We recite the Kiddush each Friday night declaring that G-d created the world “la’asos—to do.” Often people answer the question, “What do you do?” by stating what they are: “I’m a doctor/lawyer/florist.” That may be their job, their title, their degree, but it really doesn’t answer the question—it doesn’t describe what they do. Or even if they do.

Working for a large firm, I know plenty of people whose job description is “don’t lose your job.” They aren’t really contributing anything. But they show up, keep their heads down and their noses clean. I’m not offended by them; I simply feel bad for them. They’re not really doing.

Even those of us who are doing, may not be doing it to the best of our abilities. Are teachers constantly looking for ways to reach the kids who don’t seem to be learning? Are parents unfailingly searching to improve how they raise their children? Are financial advisors steadfastly seeking to safely grow their clients’ portfolios?

Are we moving our tucheses?

It’s up to us not simply “to do,” but to do so aggressively—to utilize our talents, skills, and energies to help create a better society, both Jewishly and generally.

Truth and Consequences

2005-09-08T16:30:00.000-04:00

I’m not the biggest fan of what my family likes to call “Hanoch Teller” stories—those feel-good tales that always end happily ever after. My aunt, in a moment of levity, once wondered aloud about the man who, after missing his flight in order to daven Minchah with a minyan, catches the next plane—which promptly crashes. Where’s his story?

Keeping that caveat in mind, what follows is a bona fide Hanoch Teller story.

A couple I know was having difficulty getting pregnant. Over the course of their eight-year marriage, they tried every fertility therapy imaginable, they sought the counsel and blessings of great rabbis and scholars—but to no avail. They were on the verge of resigning themselves to being childless, accepting that perhaps parenting was a blessing that G-d, in His infinite wisdom, was not going to bestow upon them.

Then one day, my friend’s brother had a brainstorm. He thought of somebody whom he was confident could help. He approached this person and asked him to pray for his brother and sister-in-law. The person accepted the brother’s plea and pray he did. One month later, she was pregnant.

Who was this great rabbi who blessed the couple?, you ask. What was the name of this holy mystic whose prayers pierced the Heavenly gates? You probably never heard of him. Because, actually, he isn’t a great rabbi or a holy mystic. He’s just a regular person like you and me. Well, almost regular. You see, he had once been engaged to the woman for whom he prayed.

In the immortal words of Dave Barry: I am not making this up.

When my friend’s brother tracked him down, he found this young man married with children of his own. No, he said, he bore no anger toward his former fiancé. He harbored no ill will toward her.

But that didn’t satisfy the brother. He reiterated the importance of his mission. The life of a family was at stake, children were being withheld from this couple. Could he, the former fiancé, acknowledge that perhaps deep down there remained some lingering disappointment, traces of anger, resentment, pain? Could he concede these subconscious emotions and release them? Could he wholeheartedly forgive the person who caused them? Could he then pray for her?

He could. He did. He forgave. He prayed.

All our actions have consequences. In the physical world, if you drop an egg, it will fall, break, and leave a mess—regardless of your intention. Every day the paper has a story about a traffic “accident.” Someone got hurt or killed by someone else who wasn’t paying attention. Did the driver intend for the accident to happen? It doesn’t matter. In the physical world, actions—whether done maliciously or absentmindedly—have reactions.

So, too, the “physics” of interpersonal relationships dictate that our behavior will always leave an impression.

The Talmud tells the story of a Sage named Rebbe Yochanan, whose eyebrows were so long that they covered his eyes. He once met up with another Sage, Rav Kahana, whose lip was split in such a way that he looked like he was smirking. Rebbe Yochanan thought that Rav Kahana was smirking at his eyebrows, and became dispirited. Immediately, Rav Kahana died.

It goes without saying that Rav Kahana was not trying to hurt Rebbe Yochanan’s feelings. Nevertheless, the pain he felt, however inadvertent, was real. And Rebbe Yochanan was a Torah giant of such stature that his pain produced punishment. Even Rav Kahana’s similar stature as a giant of Torah was not enough to mitigate the consequences. If anything it amplified them, for the greater a person is, the more he is held liable.
But wait. There’s more.

Sometimes even doing the right thing and having a positive effect, causes negative fallout. The final verse in the Book of Esther describes the prophet Mordechai, who had just saved the Jewish people from annihilation, as “liked by most of his bretheren.” Most? Not all? Rashi explains that some of his colleagues distanced themselves from him because his involvement in politics had interfered with his Torah scholarship.

Even a man as great as Mordechai, who saved the Jewish nation, whose name lives on to this day, was, in some respects, demoted for his heroic behavior. Does that mean that he shouldn’t have acted as he did? Of course not. But the fact remained: while he was busy rescuing the Jews, he wasn’t keeping up with his studies.

Actions—even necessary ones—have consequences, too.

Where do we go from here? Well, for one thing, we must be ever vigilant about the negative effects—miniscule though they may be—that our behavior causes. Whether it’s cutting someone off in traffic or forgetting to wish a neighbor good morning. But even when we do a good thing, a necessary thing, which requires a little pain—disciplining children, rebuking a friend—we must realize that unintended consequences lurk.

After the “Kol Nidrei” service on Yom Kippur eve, there is a prayer that follows called “Tefillah Zakah.” In it, we forgive everyone who caused us harm, however slight, however unintentional, and even with good intentions in mind. Let’s get a head start on the upcoming Days of Awe and begin pardoning today.

Wah, Wah, Wah

2005-08-30T22:00:00.000-04:00

One of the greatest mussar sefarim one can study, Rav Mendel Kaplan, zt”l, was purported to have said, is the daily newspaper. While I don’t usually consider The Wall Street Journal to be part of my daily learning experience, I do find that every once in awhile a story strikes me, leaving Rav Mendel’s words ringing in my ears.

And so it came to pass the other day that pharmaceutical giant Merck was found liable, by a Texas jury, for the death of Robert Ernst.

The trouble began with a relatively new drug produced by Merck, called Vioxx, whose function is to kill pain. But in doing so, it has been accused of killing patients, including Mr. Ernst. The reasoning behind the allegation is that Vioxx causes blood clots, which can lead to heart attacks. Mark Lanier, the family’s attorney, argued that just such a scenario killed Mr. Ernst.

Yet Mr. Ernst’s autopsy says he died of an irregular heartbeat, called arrhythmia, not a heart attack. No problem, countered Mr. Lanier: The arrhythmia had been triggered by the heart attack, which had been triggered by the blood clot, which had been triggered by the Vioxx.

Okay.

According to that line of reasoning, however, Mr. Ernst must have had a heart attack prior to contracting the arrhythmia, which killed him. But that never happened. Mr. Ernst had no record of ever having had a heart attack. And lest one argue that this theoretical heart attack had gone undetected during his lifetime, the autopsy—the very autopsy that blamed the arrhythmia—would have revealed the telltale damage to the heart muscle that a heart attack always leaves in its wake.

Except it didn’t. The heart muscle was sound.

Nevertheless, this simple syllogism—no heart damage means no heart attack; no heart attack means no evidence of clotting; no evidence of clotting means no liability for Vioxx and Merck—was lost on the jury, which awarded the Ernst family $253 million in damages. Ouch.

What astonished me most, however, was not so much the conclusion of the jury, but the fact that one of the largest corporations in the world, with far-reaching financial resources, with sound science on its side, and with hundreds of millions of dollars on the line, could have blown what should have been an open-and-shut case.

Then I read the newspaper, and it quickly became clear to me how one simple mistake is now threatening to bring down a great American corporation.

Speaking to reporters, juror John Ostrom explained the judgment of the jury. The problem was that, despite a highly paid legal team, Merck never made its argument. Mr. Ostrom compared Merck’s lawyers to the adults in the Charlie Brown cartoons, whose voices are unintelligible. "Whenever Merck was up there,” he said, “it was like ‘wah, wah, wah.’ We didn't know what the heck they were talking about."

Merck’s mistake was its inability to break down complex scientific analysis and legal language into layman’s terms. Reading Mr. Ostrom’s comments in the Journal the next morning, brought to mind Paul Newman’s line in Cool Hand Luke: “What we have here is a failure to communicate.”

Communication failures happen all the time. In the corporate world, we now see that they can cost a quarter of a billion dollars.

But in the world of Jewish education the loss is no less steep. I once had a rebbe who said the laws of Shabbos could be listed on one side of an index card. Today’s teachers would howl—in protest or in laughter—at such a suggestion. But in teaching the minutia of the 39 melachos, are they forgetting to convey the radiance of Shabbos? In teaching the dos and don’ts of halachah, are they neglecting to transmit the majesty of Torah and the privilege of mitzvah observance? Are students simply hearing wah, wah, wah?

One wrong word, one misspoken phrase and children can become discouraged to the point that they abandon observance entirely. The blogosphere carries the testimonies of many such people.

The other great tragedy is that we are barely communicating outside of our own community, standing by while millions of Jews remain unlettered, oblivious to their golden heritage. Those who practice Torah observance are keenly aware of the misconceptions non-observant Jews have. It is heartbreaking that we have not been able to convey the beauty, breadth and brilliance of Torah to a wider audience.

Even among those who show an interest, few commit themselves. Why is that? Why doesn’t the message of Torah inspire them to declare, as King David did, “I rejoice in your words, as one who finds a great treasure”?

What we have here, I believe, is a failure to communicate.

More than once, I’ve sat in on classes geared for the non- or newly-observant and had a hard time staying awake. People visit a class, for possibly the first and only time, to gain some insight into Judaism, and often all they get in return is wah, wah, wah. Speakers carry on about mysticism, hidden codes, halachic extremities—and don’t focus on the simple, salient issues of Judaism.

Communication need not be complex to be deep. It can be simple without being simplistic. “In the beginning, G-d created Heaven and Earth.” Stop there and you could spend a lifetime delving into those Divine words. But at its surface, it still makes sense. The story is understandable to a child.

The beauty of Torah is that it can be studied by five-year-olds and ninety-five-year-olds. The stories of the Chumash can be understood simultaneously on the simplest and deepest levels. The Mishnah, too, with its simple structure and clipped clauses, is easily memorized and triggers deeper understandings. The Torah is designed to grow on its students and with its students.

The state of Jewish education today leaves plenty of room for speakers, writers and, yes, even bloggers to make an impact. But in order to do so they must, in the words of many a communications coach, “keep it simple, stupid.” There is a way to transmit Torah to a generation thirsting for guidance. There are many ways not to. Let us choose wisely.

Feeling Bullish

2005-08-17T23:00:00.000-04:00

One interesting consequence of human interaction in general, and posting on a blog in particular, is that people don’t always seem to pick up the message you’re sending. For a writer this can be especially frustrating, because his raison d'être is to communicate, which fundamentally is about being understood. But as former Boston Celtics head coach Red Auerbach would put it: “Communication is not what you tell them. It’s what they hear you say.”

Recently I posted about how a friend of mine had decided to stop keeping Shabbos because she saw it as an inconvenience. I countered with a thought that sometimes Judaism isn’t all fun and games. My point—or so I thought—was that sometimes you have to go through rough patches, sometimes you have to roll with the proverbial punches.

But reading through some of the comments to the post, I got the sinking feeling that I had unearthed a dormant feeling of negativism: “Let's face it, being an orthodox jewish person can be really HARD. IS really hard,” wrote one reader. “This is what most people who are honest to themselves do—clinch their teeth and drag along, hoping for better in the future,” wrote another. And worst of all, one stated: “I never understood what would motivate a person that grew up unreligiously to change their lifestyle.” Perhaps I am making too much of these comments.

Perhaps I am quoting them out of context. But they struck me as a response to something I said but didn’t mean. Because, with very limited exceptions (see my post, “Siz Shver Tzizein Ah Yid”), I don’t believe that following Halachah is terribly difficult. Uncomfortable at times, yes, but not overly grueling. I fully understand why a secular person who discovers Torah would embrace it, restrictions and all.

So I began to think. And I happened upon a helpful analogy.

Although sometimes I wish that blogging was my full-time enterprise, I do actually have a day job, and that is as a financial advisor. The other day (in the shower, I believe, where most of my best ideas hatch) it occurred to me that being a Torah Jew is a lot like investing in the stock market.

Why do we invest money in the stock market? Because we want to get rich. Sometimes our expectations are unrealistic and we get disappointed. But if we have a proper understanding of investments, of the ups and downs of the market, of the expanding global economy, of P/E ratios and dividend yields, we begin to understand the wisdom of investing and we don’t let the down days discourage us.

Furthermore, we are willing to delay gratification—spending our money now—in order to fund a long-term, disciplined investment plan, the benefits of which may not become apparent for decades.

Sound familiar?

I am absolutely confident that this is what King Solomon had in mind when he wrote, in Mishlei, “Im tevakshena kakesef, vechamatmonim techapsenah—If you seek it like silver, and like hidden treasure you search for it, then you will understand fear of G-d and find knowledge of the L-rd.”

Being a good Jew is a lot like being a good investor.

When clients ask me if a particular investment is a good idea, I give them a litmus test, which I call the Pillow Question. “If you do this, how will you sleep at night?” I ask them. “In other words, even if a particular investment is a great idea objectively, statistically, but you’re not personally comfortable with it, and it’s going to keep you up at night worrying, then it’s not worth doing.”

“But,” I add, “If it really is a good idea, part of my job is to help you become comfortable with it, to make you understand why it makes sense and why it’s a sound investment.”

Torah observance is similar. When we don’t understand what we’re doing, it can be uncomfortable. We may be plagued by questions and doubts. But by studying the mitzvos, we gain a better appreciation of each one. By studying Torah generally, we gain insight and wisdom, and are better equipped to handle our responsibility to serve G-d and observe His Torah.

Experience is another factor. People who have been in the markets for awhile know how to distinguish between the noise on the financial channels and the truly important stories. They have witnessed the bulls run, the bears sleep, and the pigs get slaughtered. These folks tend to be the most comfortable of clients—regardless of how their portfolio is doing. When the markets fall, they aren’t fazed. In fact they invest more. They know (although they can’t really prove it!) that over the long-term they’ll be in good shape.

With Torah observance, as well, experience is a guiding light. The longer you observe the more you learn to distinguish between the noise and the real issues. You tolerate the ups and downs of life and you’re aware that when things get rough it’s a good time to “buy low”—to pray more, to study more, to contribute more to charity. We can all be good Jews when we’re comfortable; when we’re being knocked around a bit by life, that’s how we prove our mettle and dedication.

Long-term—not just in the next world, but in this one as well—we know we’ll be in good shape.

But wait.

Don’t there exist people who have been observant their whole lives yet are still miserable? How do we explain that?

I blame it on poor investment strategy. Perhaps their Judaism simply “follows the herd,” by mimicking the outward behavior of others, without any depth. Perhaps their Judaism is heavily concentrated in just a handful of positions, and lacks a fully diversified portfolio of mitzvos—both bein adam lachaveiro and bein adam laMakom. Perhaps their Judaism has been unduly harmed by bad brokers (teachers). Perhaps they inherited a distorted worldview from their parents.

And so they wallow in misery and frustration.

But they can change that.

I know a lot of people who got creamed in the stock market crash of 2000 and now keep their money exclusively in FDIC insured certificates of deposit. But I also know a great deal more people who saw it as a learning experience. They are still open to learning the proper way to invest. They’ve given up on their methods—not on the markets.

Like the personal finance section in Barnes & Noble, the bookshelves at your local Judaica place are filled with good advice. And if you don’t like to read, you can always listen to tapes. It’s all there “if you seek it like silver, and like hidden treasure you search for it.”

Finally, it’s all a matter of trust. My best clients generally do whatever I recommend without question. They don’t do that because they’re idiots. They do it because they understand that I have their financial well-being in mind and a vested interest in the success of their portfolios. Over time, they have learned to trust my judgement.

The Torah observant Jew, who studies, who practices, who prays, who struggles, who succeeds, who fails, who repents, who grows, develops a trust in Torah that sees him through the good times and the bad times. We may not see the logic, we may not appreciate the goodness, but we know that G-d has intended the best for us, and we are willing to surrender our short-term depressions and anxieties to the greater long-term good of a Torah lifestyle.

We Interrupt Your Regularly Scheduled Blog for This Important Announcement

2005-08-15T12:00:00.000-04:00

With the disengagement today, there is a possibility, Rachmana litzlan, of Jews pointing guns at other Jews.

I think it's important that everyone, regardless of your position, take a moment today and over the next few days to say one chapter of Psalms to beg the Good L-rd not to allow any bloodshed.

The First Time I Ever Cried on Tisha B'Av

2005-08-11T19:30:00.001-04:00

Tisha B’Av is right around the corner and the days and weeks leading up to it are structured halachically to evoke a certain sense of pain, sorrow, and yearning for better times. This is a difficult task for most of us. In 21st century America, it’s hard to “get in the mood” for Tisha B’Av. We live, more or less, in comfort. Some of us live in great luxury.

I imagine it was easier to be mournful in Nazi Germany, or in Stalanist Russia, or during the time of pogroms, or the Crusades or the Spanish Inquisition. Yes, then Jews could sit on the floor and cry out to G-d to redeem us and bring us to a better place and time.

But today? You must be joking.

It is difficult to legislate emotion. Therefore, the halachic strategy (as a good friend of mine terms it) legislates behavior, which, through proper analysis and understanding elicits (one hopes) the requisite emotion.

Many of us have gone without shaving and bathing these past nine days. We have shut off our radios and i-pods. We have curtailed certain joyous activities. But while these behaviors may make us uncomfortable, we are still far from grief-stricken. I doubt that many of us feel truly despondent over the lack of a Temple in our midst. We go through the motions of mourning, but the emotional component—which is the point of it all—remains elusive.

One Tisha B’Av, I was sitting on the floor in shul, the lights dimmed, and I thought, Why am I here? Why are any of us here? Because a building was destroyed? What does that have to do with me? How does that affect me?

I acknowledge its tragic place in Jewish history. I am willing to go through the routine of recognizing the catastrophe. Yes, I want to feel badly about it, but try as I might I can’t conjure up any real sense of pain, loss and longing.

I decided to focus instead on something sad that had recently occurred in my own life. That year I had discovered that a friend of the family had married a non-Jew. I was devastated. How could this have happened? Here was someone who had a Jewish education, a strong connection to Judaism—strong enough to question why other Jewish friends had forsaken Torah—yet, who ran off and did the same thing.

It dawned on me that this was the great tragedy of Tisha B’Av. I wasn’t mourning the destruction of the Temple; I was mourning the result of the destruction of the Temple. The real destruction continues to this day—the fallout of that terrible day, the consequences of our people being uprooted. Our people were exiled. They moved from place to place. Life became increasingly difficult. Jews dropped off. Without the Temple, the Jewish people became unmoored, lost in a harsh and hateful gentile world.

My friend was destroyed by these aftershocks. This betrayal would not have happened in a properly functioning Jewish society. The temptations of the outside world would have been muted rather than amplified. The greatness of Torah and the Jewish Nation would be blatant. But instead my friend struggled, and ultimately rejected this lifestyle. My friend's departure from Torah marked the end of a long series of events that began not at birth or at high school graduation, but centuries earlier, when our ancestors were forced to leave their homeland, when G-d estranged Himself from His people.

And then I cried.

First I cried for those Jews who were no longer sitting on the floor on Tisha B’Av, those Jews who got up, dusted themselves off, and abandoned their faith for the pleasures and freedoms of this world. Next, I cried for those Jews who never knew to sit on the floor, whose grandparents threw their tefillin overboard on their way to Ellis Island, whose connection to Judaism is so tenuous it would take the Messiah to bring them back.

Then I cried for those of us who remain—the frum Jews. Are we really living the way G-d intended us to? Are we lost in the triumphalism of our own success? What of those we’ve left behind? I cried for those of us who have the talent and resources to do something to stop the outflow of young Jews from their heritage, and promote the inflow of baalei teshuvah back to their heritage.

Finally, I cried for myself. What if I had grown up down the street from the Temple in Holy Jerusalem, living in a Torah society framed and legislated by the Word of G-d, instead of in a foreign land, where temptation “crouches at the door”? Would I not be a holier person? Would I not be a more complete person? Would I not indeed be a happier person?

This Tisha B’Av while you are sitting on the floor in shul or at home, think of all the people who are not there to join you—your neighbors, your colleagues at work. Ask yourself where their Yiddishkeit has gone. It no doubt went up in the same flames that burned the stones of the Bais Hamikdash.

Is your Yiddishkeit not far behind?

I wish everyone a mournful and meaningful Tisha B’Av.

Where Do You See Yourself In Nine Hundred Years?

2005-08-05T19:30:00.000-04:00

A friend of mine tells the story of the fellow on a job interview who is asked, “Where do you see yourself in five years?” Without missing a beat, he opens his day planner, flips through the pages, and looks up. “I’m free,” he says. “What did you have in mind?”

But seriously folks.

Today marks the 900th yahrtzeit of Rashi. What this means to the casual observer is that Rashi has been gone for nine centuries. But to the thoughtful Jew it means that Rashi has been with us for nine centuries.

I was told that several decades ago, on the occasion of the Rambam’s 750th yahrtzeit, several students approached Rav Yoshe Ber Soloveitchik, zt”l, for his thoughts on the event. He looked at them with utter bewilderment. “You mean the Rambam is dead?” he asked.

We are aware of the famous aphorism of our Sages that the righteous, even in death, are considered alive, but it often takes a milestone to bring home the truth of that statement. Rashi is alive this very day. Rashi, if we had the advantage of an elementary Jewish education, has been with us from our youngest years, and, if we kept up with our studies, remains a staple in the diet of Torah learning. Rashi will grow old with us.

Rashi’s accomplishments are practically beyond human comprehension. His commentary on the Written Torah is the very first stop when studying Chumash and his commentary on the Oral Torah is also the very first stop when studying Talmud. Imagine that! Forgive a crude sports metaphor (lehavdil!), but that would be like Babe Ruth and Wayne Gretzky being the same person.

And Rashi does it so simply. A word here; a quote there. For this reason children are able to learn and understand Rashi almost as soon as they learn to read Hebrew. A great rabbi once likened Rashi to an adult who holds the hand of a child and helps him cross the street through traffic.

But Rashi’s simplicity is also deceptive, for it masks a deeper intention. Why, for example, does Rashi quote one midrash and leave out another? Why does Rashi define a word by referencing a similar word in a verse in Nevi’im, when he could have quoted a more primary verse from Chumash?

Several years back, a scholar wrote a book called, What’s Bothering Rashi? where he tackles these sorts of problems. The hidden genius of Rashi is that you didn’t recognize that these even were problems until the answers were pointed out to you.

And while Rashi is envied for his brevity, the sheer volume of his work is awe inspiring. Rabbi Berel Wein, shlit”a, tells the story of his days as a high school principal when he once punished a misbehaving freshman by having him write out all the Rashis of a certain parshah. Simply copying all that Rashi was enough to bring the boy back to the straight and narrow.

Speaking of Rabbi Wein, he published a small synopsis of Rashi’s life in the Summer issue of Jewish Action magazine. I located it online and printed it out this afternoon at work. But before I could pull it off the printer, a colleague approached me, holding the document. “This would either be yours or mine,” he said, judging from the context, “and I know I didn’t print it.”

Until that moment, I hadn’t realized he was Jewish.

“Oh yes, I’m Reform,” he said. “But I have a friend who’s trying to upgrade me.”

I laughed. “Keep the article,” I said. “It’s about one of the greatest Jewish scholars in history. He died nine hundred years ago, but his work is studied in every Jewish school to this day.”

So if you’re free, here’s what I have in mind: pull out a Chumash or a Gemara and learn a little bit—with Rashi.

In Praise of Small Things

2005-08-01T18:00:00.000-04:00

With the period of the Three Weeks that culminate with the anniversary of the destruction of the Temple (Sunday, August 14, this year) upon us, it behooves us to reflect on our values and our behaviors and to see what we might due to improve ourselves as Jews and as human beings.

One of the strategies utilized in this effort is known as the kabbalah. No, we’re not talking about Madonna here. Without going into the etymology of the word, this kabbalah means a commitment—a commitment to do something different going forward, to better oneself in some fashion.

One might think that in order to foment a real spiritual awakening in oneself, that this commitment ought to be something spectacular. Perhaps one ought to fast every Monday and Thursday. Perhaps one ought to rise each day at dawn and recite the entire book of Psalms. Perhaps one ought to give fifteen or even twenty percent of his or her earnings to charity, rather than the traditional tithe.

Yet, we find that the great giants of Judaism, when looking to make such a kabbalah, always picked something seemingly small.

For example, many years ago, when the Intifada had first broken out in Israel and religious Jews were looking for ways to connect with G-d, Rav Elazar M. Schach, zt”l, the pre-eminent rabbi of the day, made known his latest commitment—to always recite the Grace After Meals from a text rather than by heart.

At first blush this seemed almost silly. What exactly was the big deal there? Couldn’t Rav Schach do better than that? What was he really “committing” himself to exactly?

But the Torah has always maintained that it is far better to commit to something small and keep your word than to commit to something larger and risk not doing it. So in that sense a small commitment is safer.

The larger point, however, is this: G-d likes the small stuff.

A commitment, even a small commitment—even the smallest commitment—is, nonetheless, a step in the right direction. G-d is less interested in how big that step is than in the actual creation of the step. When we make a small kabbalah, we are taking that step, we are announcing our intentions to move in a better direction, we are acknowledging our need for improvement and demonstrating a willingness to better ourselves.

We may not take these baby steps seriously, but G-d sure does.

How so?

By making an improvement in our behavior, even the smallest improvement, we are exercising our humanity. G-d gave people free will to choose between Good and Evil. He made no such accommodation for the plant world or the animal kingdom. A tulip cannot decide to make any adjustments in its daily routine. The tulip cannot do anything to “improve” its lot. It is a tulip and a tulip it shall remain.

Animals, as well, have no free will. True, an animal can be tamed and trained by humans; but the animal itself cannot wake up one morning and decide to be a charitable monkey, a more compassionate dog, a more studious goldfish. What separates us from the animals, from all of G-d’s other creations, is our ability to change on our own, to recast our destiny, to determine in our own minds who we want to become and then set the trajectory of our lives accordingly.

Speaking of trajectory:

When NASA sends up a spaceship, the trajectory they establish must be perfect. If the engineers calculating the angle of the launch are off by so much as an inch, the error will inflate to thousands of miles up in space. The same is true of our efforts to become better people, better Jews. The smallest adjustment in our behavior today has repercussions for our future—both in this world and the next—that are immeasurable.

So if you’re looking for improvement, small is beautiful. Commit to saying one blessing a day with concentration. Study as little as one verse of Torah before heading out to work. Give blood once a year. Put a penny in the pushka.

Do something small because, after all, in Judaism, there really is no such thing.

Shiny Happy People Holding Hands

2005-07-27T23:30:00.000-04:00

“Hello you!” I said when I saw her. “How’ve you been?”

She said she was on a new path in life and feeling very good about it. She had broken up with her boyfriend and was looking for someone new, someone real.

“You look terrific,” I commented.

“I feel great,” she told me. “I’ve been working out, getting in shape, and I lost fifteen pounds since I stopped keeping Shabbos. All I did on Shabbos was sit around and eat."

I was disappointed. And, in uncharacteristic fashion, I let her know I was disappointed. Because I believed she knew better. She was better. “How could you do a thing like that?” I asked. “How could you just give up Shabbos?”

“Well, you know,” she said cheerfully, “Shabbos just wasn’t doing it for me anymore.”

Aha. I see.

It seems that for the last several decades, the Jewish outreach establishment has been guilty of a certain amount of deception. They’ve been selling Torah and Judaism under a pretext—the doctrine of happiness. “Become religious and your problems will vanish,” they all but shout. “Living a life of Torah is true freedom, true happiness.”

Well, yes it is. But.

Here’s a hard fact to swallow: Judaism is not always pleasurable, not always convenient, not always spiritually uplifting. Sometimes even—brace yourselves!—Judaism is a real drag. It’s burdensome. It’s inconvenient. Sometimes Judaism just doesn’t “do it” for us.

G-d will always challenge our commitment to His Torah. Sometimes those tests will be small (a little loshon hara here, a little angry outburst there); sometimes they will loom large (Do the Rabbis really have the authority to tell me what to do? Does G-d really care about every little thing I do?)

If we are intellectually honest with ourselves, we will acknowledge the irrationality of questioning God when we are feeling down and out, but not when we are feeling positive and motivated. However, that’s not the way many of us operate. As long as Judaism is “working” for me, I’m in. I believe. But as soon as it gets to be “too much,” as soon as that emotional high departs, I’m done.

Our relationship with G-d is compared to a marriage, and in marriage, love begins where infatuation leaves off. Love is a result of commitment, and G-d challenges that commitment. That’s not to say that G-d wants Judaism to bore and burden us, but He does want us to run that gauntlet every so often.

The Torah identifies these two poles. On the one hand is the Living Torah, the Torah of good clean living, which gives us a structured lifestyle—the troika of Shabbos, kashrus and taharas hamishpachah—that is conducive to long-term happiness. At the other end is the Torah of Truth, the vision of G-d’s world that we subjugate ourselves to His word and will—whether we understand it or not, whether we feel like it or not.

There are many descriptions of the Torah given in Scripture. Yet the word “Toras—the Torah of,” which to my mind is a distillation of the essence of Torah, happens only rarely. Sometimes the Torah is called Toras Hashem, the Torah of G-d; sometimes it is called Toras Moshe, the Torah of Moses. But the only two descriptive (as opposed to possessive) terms for the Torah are Toras Chessed and Toras Emes. These are the two sides of Torah.

Many times in life, G-d blesses us with kindness, with charity, with His everpresent love, and we feel the radiance of His closeness. Toras Chessed—literally, the Torah of Kindness—stands for that facet of the Torah which makes life warm and wonderful. Our days feel shiny, bright, and full of hope. Our classes are inspirational, our friendships motivate us to be good and to do good.

Then there’s the rest of life.

Often we don’t feel a thing. We don’t feel moved we don’t feel motivated, and we certainly don’t feel spiritual. Instead, we feel drained, put upon, frustrated, even angry. Judaism “just doesn’t do it for us anymore.” That’s where Toras Emes comes in.

On Sinai we swore our allegiance: “Naaseh venishmah—We will do and we will hear.” Sometimes the doing has to come before the hearing. Sometimes we observe even when we don’t “hear” what it’s doing for us. Sometimes we do what the Torah asks us through clenched teeth because the truth is it is the Word of G-d. And even when we’re not fully convinced that we know exactly what the truth is, we do it because we believe in the essence of Judaism. We believe in the Torah.

To quote those nice Jewish boys from California, “Wouldn’t it be nice…” Wouldn’t it be nice if every mitzvah we did gave us instant spiritual gratification? Wouldn’t it be nice if every Shabbos was a 25-hour period of emotional bliss? Wouldn’t it be nice if every time we sat down to study Torah we were overwhelmed by intellectual stimulation? Wouldn’t it be nice if every time we prayed we felt instantly connected to G-d?

Yes.

But that’s not life—not even most of the time. So when those moments do come, savor them. But when they don’t come, just do the best you can. And never give up.

30 Tammuz

2005-07-14T23:30:00.000-04:00

This is a post I have been working on in the hopes it never gets published...

Somewhere in the back of my mind I always felt it was a question of “when” not “if.”

Despite the fact that I had witnessed 9/11, despite the fact that I had ridden the New York City subway on the very day that her London counterpart exploded in three places, despite the fact that I often think of my cousin's narrow escape from a bus-bombing in Jerusalem—despite it all, I never allowed my imagination to wander too far down the "what if?" path of a cold, cruel reality.

That it could happen to us. Not just here in New York, but to us here. And now my imagination doesn't have to wander. It's focused. The pain is palpable. Wrath, grief, regret all swim around in a hodgepodge of confusion. It happened. It actually happened.

Now, alongside 9/11 in the United States, alongside 7/7 in England, we add 30/Tamuz, using the Hebrew date to signify the uniquely Jewish aspect of the tragedy.

The terrorists were obviously planning this for some time. How could they not be? Brooklyn is as multi-cultural, multi-racial, multi-religious as it gets. People of all shapes and colors pass through her daily, people from all walks of life, in all modes of dress. No one would have ever noticed, let alone suspected, a young man riding the D-Train, reading intently from a dog-eared Koran that sat atop the bulging knapsack on his lap.

It all makes perfect sense.

Where else would Palestinian sympathists—furious over the treatment of their co-religionists overseas, furious at the Zionist-American government for supporting the oppressors of their bretheren, furious at their Jewish neighbors here in America who feel closer to the Jewish settler six thousand miles away than to the non-Jew living next door—find such a deserving target? Brooklyn. Plety of Jews, plenty of Jew-haters.

These kids watch the news. They see it every day on television; see how the martyrs are honored; see how their own families and communities react with hidden admiration. Did we really believe not one would step forward. They found twenty willing to climb on a plane, why not one to hop a subway?

One youth, valiant or disgruntled—take your pick. Someone not afraid to die and not afraid to kill. A kid like so many others in the world—except this one lives on our side of the Atlantic. How did we actually fool ourselves into thinking that not one such teenager existed? How did we fool ourselves into thinking that, with all their efforts in spreading radical Islam, they would fail to find one recruit to drop the bomb?

One young man (or woman) to climb on a subway with a knapsack full of explosives, promises of Paradise ringing in his ears. One young man to tuck the Koran in his pocket, sling the knapsack over one shoulder, get off the train, and walk leisurely toward a kosher deli in Boro Park. One young man, who looks like your average Middle Eastern Jew, to order his last meal: a burger, fries and coke, before taking a seat in the middle of the crowded restaurant and waiting. Waiting for the place to fill up.

What hurts the most is how easy it was.

Nearly one hundred people died in the explosion, most of them under the age of eighteen. The two shops adjacent were destroyed as well. So were the windows of many of the stores across the street. The cars on Thirteenth Avenue were ripped open like tuna fish cans.

Hatzalah trucks came wailing nearly immediately, their sirens pouring out the emotion of a whole community. The Post photographer captured the image of a fourteen-year Hatzoloh veteran, sitting on the sidewalk, weeping. Hatzoloh members, recently trained in Israel by Zaka, were spending more time picking body parts from the debris than administering CPR. There were so few left to save.

The helplessness that gripped me on September 12 rushed back full force as I entered shul that evening, Rosh Chodesh Av. What could we do? What could we have done? What could I have done?

And then I remembered.

I remembered how I had left the same shul that very morning in such a hurry. I had walked out before the shliach tzibbur was finished. Oh yes, he had finished the traditional prayers, but afterward he began to recite some Tehillim. Our shul had been doing that now for years. Ever since the Intifada erupted, many congregations had added the recitation of just two or three chapters of Psalms at the end of the service. An extra five minutes, tops.

Initially, we all pronounced these additional words with great deliberation and feeling, imploring the Good L-rd to watch over and protect us and "Acheinu, kol Beis Yisrael—Our brothers, the entire Congregation of Israel." But the fervor didn't last. As the advent of homicide bombers abated, so did our concentration, and then our interest. After a while it was rote. The chazzan would rush through those Psalms while the congregation began to discuss the upcoming day: How did the market look? Was rain in the forecast? Were the Yankees at home or in Boston?

By evening the bloody boom from the bowels of Brooklyn cleared those thoughts. The market is down, the weather is dreary, and the Yankees do not exist.

But the Good L-rd still does.

And while those poor families are mourning, making arrangements for funerals and shiva; while the pundits are pontificating, second-guessing homeland security and analyzing religious divides; while the terrorists are celebrating, toasting their latest martyr and seeking their next one; I will be back in the synagogue, saying those Psalms. Only this time I will recite them as I should have in the past, slowly, with feeling, trying to grasp their meaning and depth. I will listen to the words leaving my mouth.

I pray He does too.

The Big Tipper

2005-07-12T20:45:00.000-04:00

I had one of my more memorable "Costanza" moments the other day when I bought a computer at Circuit City. Along with the computer came a monitor and a printer. All in all, a great package, $300 for the whole deal.

So I pull out my credit card, sign on the dotted line, collect my receipt and no less than four rebate coupons, and wait for my computer to arrive at the customer service counter. In no time a goliath of a man appears with three large boxes stacked on his dolly.

“Where to?” he asks.

I led him to my car, which was parked right outside, and he loads the boxes into the back. While he’s doing this, I open my wallet. Four twenties and a single.

What to do? Must tip the man—but a dollar? Should I just give him a twenty? Ask if he can break a twenty? Give him a handful of quarters from the change compartment under the dash?

Arrgh!

So I gave him the single with a nod that said, “Good job, ol’ mate!” pretending to be completely oblivious to the social contract I had just broken. I became, and will forever remain, in that man’s eyes: A Bad Tipper.

I have several vices but none of them so irksome—especially to people who land in the unenviable position of dining out with me—as my penchant for overtipping. Curiously, this habit was borne not out of magnanimity but out of fear—the fear of appearing cheap. Welcome to the wonderful world of Yarmulke Boy (a moniker given me by a Merrill Lynch stockbroker, who for no apparent reason felt the need to call out to me one morning, “Hey, Yarmulke Boy!”). Yarmulke Boy goes through life with the knowledge that every one of his actions—good, bad, or ugly—is a reflection, fairly or unfairly, on the Orthodox Jewish community.

And I want that community to look good. I want me to look good. So I overtip.

Some have argued that overtipping is as crude as undertipping, but I disagree. Having been a waiter myself, I know that the urge to say, “Look at that fat, lazy zhlub with all the money, throwing it around like it has no value,” is completely submerged by the more polite and heartfelt, “Thank you ever so much, sir. Please, do come again!”

Perhaps the most frustrating aspect of this practice is when it comes to taxicabs. Sometimes, usually late at night, I’ll take a cab rather than wait for the subway or bus, rationalizing that it’s worth a few extra bucks to get home a bit earlier and grab a few more minutes of sleep. But then I realize that the five-dollars-and-change cab fare swells to eight or nine based on my generosity. Suddenly we’re talking real money.

Just do the math: A $5.40 fare generates a 20% tip, which comes to $1.08, for a total of $6.48. But you can’t (you simply can’t) ask for change at that point so you round it up to seven dollars. Then Mr. Generous, Yarmulke Boy, comes along and says, “Hey, he’s a poor hack, out here late at night on a twelve-hour shift, with gas costing nearly three dollars a gallon. He’s trying to support a family. Probably has a dozen mouths to feed and an elderly mother who needs her medicine but has no health insurance. Give the guy a break. An extra buck won’t kill you, but it will make his evening.”

So you hand the man eight bucks. And there you have it: a 48% tip.

Bob Hope was a great comedian but a hopeless tipper. Not the way you want to go down in history. People explain away his behavior as a consequence of his going through the Depression.

Frank Sinatra, on the other hand, was, by all accounts, a monster of a man, but as great a tipper as they come. The story is told that Frank once walked into a hotel and asked the bellhop what was the largest tip he ever got. “One hundred dollars,” he replied. Frank promptly took out three hundred-dollar bills from his wallet and handed them to the young man. As he turned to leave, Frank stopped him. “Hey kid,” he asked, “who was it that gave you the hundred?”

The bellhop replied, “Why that would have been you, sir.”

So the next time I’m faced with a crisis like the one outside Circuit City, all I need to do is ask myself, “What would Frank do?” and the answer becomes obvious: give him the twenty.

Especially if I’m wearing a yarmulke.

Dependence and Independence

2005-07-03T23:00:00.000-04:00

Next to April 15, when I have the annual privilege of furthering the financial fortunes of this great country of ours, the Fourth of July is my favorite national holiday. Independence Day, the day on which our Founding Fathers signed away their allegiance to Mother England and went off on their own merry way, is an uncommon day of celebration.

American Jews live in a great country, arguably the greatest man-made society in human history. For Jews, exiled, since the destruction of the Temple, for nearly two millennia, America has been an historical anomaly, a haven of hospitality for a people to whom persecution and pogroms were the normative way of life.

It is incumbent upon every American Jew, therefore, to reflect annually, on this great day, and appreciate what this great country has given us—Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness: The right to build synagogues and schools, the ability to pray and study Torah unobstructed, the simple freedom to walk down the street wearing a yarmulka without any fear whatsoever.

Of course, I speak of today’s America. These freedoms were hard to come by in the America of yesteryear. Men of my father’s generation did not wear yarmulkas at work or in the street as many of my generation do. The world—even the American world—was not so kind to Jews. Firms would not hire us. Neighborhoods would not welcome us. As recently as seventy years ago, a radio personality named Father Coughlin, the Rush Limbaugh of his day, publicly preached for the expulsion of the Jews—and much of America agreed with him.

Granted, this sort of discrimination was not strictly anti-Semitism. It was across the board. "No Irish Need Apply" signs littered corporate America. And we certainly don’t need to revisit the terrible treatment of non-whites in our national history.

Nevertheless, even with all the obstacles, the American Dream persisted. Jews persisted. The sheer quantity of opportunities inherent in our country’s composition allowed our people to rise above discrimination and take advantage of American liberty. Our nation was able to live, work, study, and lay the groundwork for the demographic upsurge—numerically, religiously, influentially—that took place in the second half of the twentieth century.

But this upsurge had one negative side-effect. It got us thinking more like Americans and less like Jews. We began taking our liberty for granted. We began to speak the language of Freedom and Rights. Our tone became emboldened, even obstinate. We no longer feel lucky to live here. We no longer thank G-d every day for sparing us the horrors experienced by so many of our ancestors. We forget that we are dependent every day upon G-d’s good graces.

Instead, we feel entitled.

And this sense of entitlement causes us to forget who we are and the duties we are charged with. Last month, a certain rabbi won a lawsuit against a restaurant that made the grave, anti-Semitic gesture of refusing to serve him coffee in a paper cup. The restaurant insisted that he drink his coffee in a ceramic cup like everyone else. But the rabbi, who had studied Jewish law for many years and knew that drinking coffee in a non-kosher ceramic cup was a sin of the highest order, was petulant. Upon refusal, he held high the banner of discrimination—and its concomitant suffering and mental anguish—and called his attorney.

Were this man’s actions improper? Should he have been more forgiving? Even if the waitress was clearly discriminating against him, was hitting her employers with a severe fine unreasonable? Does the image of the victim’s smiling face in the morning newspaper seem smug?

As an American, one might answer No to all those questions. And rightly so—he certainly was well within his rights. One might argue that his actions were, in fact, noble, another cobblestone laid on the road to freedom, an act worthy of Rosa Parks.

But as a Jew, was his behavior correct?

Judaism preaches qualities that are often at loggerheads with the conventional American approach. Instead of freedom and rights, the Torah demands restraint, discipline, courtesy, compassion, and most important, fealty to G-d Above. As Jews, we need to be more concerned with Kiddush Hashem, sanctifying G-d’s Name, impressing people—Jews and Gentiles alike—with our ethics.

As independent as we may feel here, we can not forget that we are forever dependent on G-d to sustain us and the country in which we live. G-d has given us America to provide for us opportunities and freedoms. It is now up to us to utilize those opportunities and freedoms to become great Jews, to develop ourselves within the framework of Torah and mitzvos.

May G-d bless our great nation, and may G-d bless the United States of America.

Siz Shver Tzizein Ah Yid

2005-06-23T23:00:00.000-04:00

There is a famous Yiddish expression, which, like all Yiddish expressions, is more of an emotive groan than a declarative statement: "Siz shver tzizein ah Yid--It's difficult to be a Jew." The expression may not be ubiquitous today, but decades ago it was a catchphrase of American Jewry. It is said that Rav Moshe Feinstein, zt"l, recoiled when hearing the expression; he felt that the attitude it presented led many Jews astray.

Rav Moshe believed that the joys and privileges of Judaism were being ignored by well-meaning parents, who did not understand why what they saw as noble sacrifice was viewed by their children as fruitless toil. Children, hearing their parents krechtz over their religion, were being trained to view Judaism as a burden. From there it was a slippery slide down the slope of assimilation. After all, who in their right mind would want to embrace a burdensome life? This was America! Consequently, these parents were rewarded with non-Jewish grandchildren.

Nevertheless, the fact remains that Judaism does present its difficulties. But what are they? Not working on the Sabbath Day--which was the ultimate test for an American Jew in the 1920s and 30s--is no longer one of them. Neither, for that matter, is keeping a kosher home. With the proliferation of hundreds of thousands of kosher products over the last thirty years, it's more difficult to avoid kosher foods than to embrace them.

So what's our problem?

The following is a list of the five most difficult charges that a Torah Jew faces:

1. Limiting, delaying, or otherwise squelching sexual urges: According to Maimonides, "there is nothing in the entire Torah that is more difficult for most of the nation than separating from arayos and illicit sexual encounters. The Sages teach that when the Jews were prohibited from arayos, they cried and accepted the command with trepidation and tears."

2. Being completely honest in all financial dealings: Robbing banks is not the only method of stealing. If you run a business or work in a sales capacity, you are constantly faced with gray areas. Did you give the discount as promised? Does the quality of the product meet its advertised standards. But it’s not only businessmen; everyone is confronted with corner cutting—especially on April 15. The mishnah states that one may wear kilayim to avoid appearing before the tax collector laden with goods. The commentaries all rush to point out that the mishnah must be referring to a disreputable collector, because one is not allowed to cheat the legitimate taxman, as "Dina demalchusa dina—The law of the land is the law." Yet, how many of us agree to get paid "under the table"—and then talk about it as if it's a legitimate way of making money? How many times has a store owner told you, when you pull out your credit card, "If I take that I have to charge you tax." I remind them that they have to charge me tax when I pay in cash as well.

3. Avoiding Chillul Hashem. You don't need to commit fraud or molest children to give Jews and the Torah a black eye. Whether it's cutting someone off in traffic, acting rudely in public, or simply forgetting to say thank you, your behavior reflects on the G-d of Israel. When you wear a yarmulka or a long skirt outside, you are advertising yourself as a member of the Chosen Nation, and you need to behave accordingly.

4. Praying. I don't know about you, but I find prayer to be one of the hardest mitzvos to perform properly. Here I am talking to G-d and I'm thinking about everything from movies to business to the phone call I have to make once I've taken my three steps back. A person of my educational background ought to remember that "Everything is in the hands of Heaven, except the fear of Heaven." When praying, one ought to pray. And sincerely so. Do you really believe that your life is in G-d’s hands and that you are talking directly to Him? I once heard a rav explain that one's day doesn't begin at 9 a.m.; by 9 a.m., it's effectively over—the die has already been cast through your morning prayers. Phoning in your prayers is not only a worthless exercise, it's also damaging because it's so disrespectful.

5. Not speaking loshon hara. We have seemingly come a long way on this one, what with the Chofetz Chaim Heritage Foundation and all. Certainly this prohibition has been taken seriously by the education system. Nonetheless, the proliferation of communication devices, from telephone to internet, has created endless opportunities for chatting. And chatting leads to chatting about people. Other people. Combined with a secular culture that revels in trash talk and gossip, the sin of slander doesn't always impress us as the evil that it is. One solution, however, when confronted by such discussions is to do what I do. Simply say, "I’m sorry, but I would much rather talk about myself."

Russell Crowe Meets the Baal Shem Tov

2005-06-12T20:00:00.000-04:00

I stayed up the other night to watch David Letterman interview Russell Crowe. Crowe surprised me with a sincere appeal for teshuvah.

For those of you who don't live in New York and/or don't follow entertainment news, Russell Crowe was arrested last week for throwing a telephone at a hotel employee. Not that throwing a phone is a crime in New York, but this particular phone hit the man in the face, sending him to the hospital for stitiches. Crowe was upset because, while paying $4000 a night to stay at the Mercer hotel (note to Russ: I'll let you stay at my place next time for half that), he was not able to get a phone call through to Australia, where his wife and young son are.

Crowe was contrite but tried to give people some insight to his thought process that evening. "There's nothing you can say to people to explain the combination of jet lag, loneliness, adrenalin.... [N]ot being able to tell your wife that you're home and safe and you're okay is frustrating, particularly with the time thing. I'm, you know, trying to fill my basic obligations to my wife who needs to know that I'm at home, I'm in bed, I haven't had too much to drink and, primely important, that I'm alone," he said.

Still, Crowe was not making excuses. "One thing that I don't want to do is imply that I'm trying to make out it's somebody else's fault," he said. "It's not, I know it's my fault, I've got to face up to it and deal with it. This is possibly the most shameful situation I've ever gotten myself in in my life, and I've done some pretty dumb things in my life. So to actually make a new number one is spectacularly stupid."

"I'm at the bottom of a well. I can't communicate how dark my life is right now," Crowe said. "I'm in a lot of trouble. I'll do my best to solve the situation in an honorable way. I'm very sorry for my actions."

So far so good. Despite being an Academy Award-winning actor and possessing a famously volatile temper, I genuinely believed he was repentant. But what really stunned me was a comment not quoted in most papers. That moment came when Dave, doing his best Dr. Phil impression, tries to analyze how Crowe will go from feeling sorry to making the necessary changes in his life.

Then Dave asked, "How can we change the behavior? You say you can sort it out – I mean, how will you do that now, because I know that changing human behavior is the most difficult thing a person can do?"

So there's Dave quoting the Baal Shem Tov, who famously said that breaking one character trait is more difficult than studying the entire Talmud.

And to this Russell Crowe answers: "I don't think it's necessarily a matter of change; it's a matter of emphasis." And I thought, "Wow. He really has something there."

The Torah teaches us that G-d "created the evil impulse and created the Torah as it's antidote." At least that's how it's taught in most yeshivos.

But the Hebrew word used in this oft-quoted phrase does not mean "antidote." The word is tavlin, which literally means "spice." In other words, Rav Shimon Schwab, zt"l, once explained, the Torah is not a medicine, per se, for the elimination of the yeitzer hara, but rather a "spice," a means of changing the "flavor" of one's natural, "evil" impulses.

The Talmud states, for example, that a violent person should become a butcher. It's a matter of emphasis! Where do we place our passions--for good or for evil?

I don't know where Russell Crowe will end up. Will his teshuvah be accepted or will he land in jail? My guess is he won't be named the mashgiach ruchani of a yeshiva anytime soon. But for now he has taught a valuable lesson.

Make Aliyah, Not Parades

2005-06-03T18:20:00.000-04:00

I am actively opposed to the Salute to Israel Parade.

There, I've said it.

Now, I'm not trying to start trouble, nor am I an anti-Zionist. But every year, when June rolls around and the buzz for the parade begins to grow, with ads appearing in Jewish periodicals and announcements being made by Jewish organizations, my usual warm 'n fuzzy self begins to fade and I feel my ire start to pique.

I do not like this parade one bit. There are two reasons for this.

First, it is wrong to fly the flag of a sovereign nation on United States soil. Let me say that again: It is wrong to fly the flag of any country other than the U.S. here in the U.S. State flags are fine; so are the flags of Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, American Samoa, and even the little-known Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. The flag of an organization or trade group may fly with pride anywhere in our land. So may the ubiquitous black flag proclaiming allegiance to American soldiers supposedly Missing-in-Action.

But not the Israeli flag, not the Czech flag, not the Australian flag, not even the Canadian flag should fly in front of one's home or inside one's synagogue.

These United States of America have been a land of religious freedom, a haven for many Jews for centuries, and home for many Jews today. The same is true of all immigrant groups. No, this country doesn't have a perfect record in accepting immigrants, both before and after they land on these shores, but the U.S. has the best record of any nation in the history of mankind when it comes to accepting foreigners.

Jews, who adhere to Jewish standards, must respect the blessing they have received in being allowed to be a part of this great country, and it is a slap in the face to this country—and a chillul Hashem to boot—to wave the flag of another. Root for Israel in the Olympics if you so desire. Dye your hair blue and white. But the flag you wave in public better be the Star Spangled Banner.

Don't misunderstand—I'm not saying it's illegal to do so; I'm not even saying that it should be illegal. I'm just saying that it's wrong.

Plain wrong.

I used to work on Fifth Avenue in midtown Manhattan and often I would work on Sundays. It seemed that every weekend there was another parade. One Sunday, I was trying to get to my office and I had to wade through the crowd assembled along the sidewalk for the Polish Day Parade. Throngs of young Poles, presumably Polish-Americans, were waving the Polish flag and screaming "Polska!" at one another.

And what did I, a man with nary a xenophobic sinew in his system, say to myself? "If you love Poland so much, why don't you go back?!"

Because, dear friends, they don't love Poland. They love Polish culture; they love the stories their grandmothers tell; they love the nostalgia. They, too, may even root for Poland in the Olympics. But the political entity of Poland they don't love as much as that of the United States. That's why they are here and not there.

And that's why you are here.

Which brings me to my second point: The Salute to Israel Parade is an exercise in intellectual dishonesty.

Can someone really claim to be "supporting" Israel by marching in Central Park? Does wearing a t-shirt and carrying a banner fulfill the mitzvah of making Aliyah?

Proponents argue that the parade shows our support for Israel and shows the world that the Jewish State is not the monster that many in the foreign media portray her to be. I find this argument weak. If AIPAC, the O.U., Agudath Israel, and CAMERA can't do that job effectively, I really can't see how hanging out in Central Park is going to do it.

And I don't thnk I'm alone. I have a sneaking suspicion that Ariel Sharon, sitting in his Knesset office, watching footage of the parade on Israeli television, snickers. "You call this support?" he thinks. "My life has been on the line for decades in the service of my country, and you guys are listening to Soulfarm on the Great Lawn?"

Let's face it. Jewish Americans who don't take Zionism seriously come to the parade the same way that Jews who don't take Judaism seriously show up to shul on Yom Kippur. It's a once-a-year guilt-off-my-chest event. And then we can go back to doing whatever it was we were doing with the lazy, comfortable knowledge that we’ve done our share for the Holy Land.

Well.

You haven't done your share. Not even close.

I have never marched in the parade here in New York (though growing up out-of-town, I did march in our city’s version), but I am sorely tempted to go. I would carry my own signs and pass out my own t-shirts. They would say:

MAKE ALIYAH, NOT PARADES

IF YOU’RE SUCH A ZIONIST, WHY ARE YOU HERE?

I'M SORRY, DID YOU THINK "WEST SIDE" AND "WEST BANK" WERE THE SAME THING?

PUT YOUR BODY WHERE YOUR HEART IS. MOVE TO ISRAEL

and my personal favorite,
MY CHAREIDI BROTHER-IN-LAW LEARNING IN KOLLEL IN YERUSHALAYIM IS A BIGGER ZIONIST THAN YOU

For those of us stuck here in America for reasons real or imagined, there are many things you can do to support Israel. You can buy Israeli products. You can visit Israel. You can learn and daven for the welfare of the chayalim.

But don’t think that showing up to the parade on Sunday earns you your stripes.

The Baby, the Bathwater, and the Rest of Us

2005-05-31T15:15:00.000-04:00

On Seinfeld, George’s father, the irascible Mr. Costanza, invents a holiday he calls Festivus, which, among other requirements, calls for an “airing of grievances.” As I travel through the Jewish Blogosphere, I often wonder if I am trapped in a Seinfeldian—er, make that a Costanzian—universe, where it is perpetually Festivus, a constant airing of grievances.

It was ever thus.

Jews have always aired their grievances; we—the Divinely named “stiff-necked people”—never were the grin-and-bear-it type. “We remember the fish we had in Egypt!” our forebears cried to Moses, days after being released from bondage. You’d think we’d have been happy to leave the fish behind with our captors. Indeed, the whole story of the wilderness is a litany of complaints. Even the unflappable Moses becomes unnerved.

Today’s complaints center around the perceived rigidity of Orthodox society, it’s foibles, it’s hypocrisies—both real and imagined. In truth, we have little to complain about. The bitter poverty that many of our ancestors experienced a century or two ago, deficiencies meant not mere discomfort, but starvation, are completely foreign to us. The anti-Semitism of yesteryear—not the vandalizing of tombstones, but the attack of living people: pogroms, rapes, beatings, murders—these are off our radar screen.

And yet.

The critical soul, like nature, abhors a vacuum. So we find what to complain about. Despite our collective wealth; despite our historically unparalleled educational system; despite the social security networks we have put in place; despite our acceptance socially, economically, and politically by the non-Jewish society in which we live; despite the triumph of the Torah lifestyle in twentieth-century America, after having been wholly dismissed and ridiculed at the start of that century—lamrot hakol, despite it all, we find reason to complain.

Not that all our objections are illegitimate, but we must keep them in perspective.

It pains me deeply to see many of today’s youth shucking off the mantle of Torah, a mantle for which their grandparents sacrificed flesh and bone, for reasons that are, for the most part, unreasonable. If you believe everything you read on the blogs, it seems that a lot of kids today are fed up with the stiffness of the yeshiva system and the lack of satisfactory answers to legitimately perplexing questions.

But what is more astonishing is the reaction of these self-proclaimed “searching” youth. Lacking a sound answer to a troubling question, many will ride the question off into the sunset. If the rabbi can’t answer my question satisfactorily, they reason, then the question must be stronger than the answer. Ergo, I have found my way out of the confines of this religious stranglehold. I’ve stumped the Torah!

Not quite.

In reality, this track is intellectually dishonest. If you believe the rabbi to be the supreme know-it-all, the voice of Torah, and the interpreter of all its mysteries, then, by definition, his answer represents the complete, authentic Torah response. And if that is the case, like it or not, you must accept it as such.

If, on the other hand, you suspect that the rabbi is mistaken, or not fully knowledgeable in the matter, or lacking the means to understanding where you are coming from—then you admit that the Torah remains perfect and pristine, and does indeed possess your answer. It’s just that the rabbi does not. In this case—and 99 percent of the time, the underlying feeling of most youth is that it’s the rabbi who falls short—then the proper response is to toss out the rabbi, not the Torah.

In fact, such disappointment ought to stimulate a higher respect for, and a stronger commitment to, the Torah—as if to say: “Rabbi, your answer is shallow; it’s unreasonable. Surely, the holy, perfect Torah cannot be adequately represented by your inadequate analysis!”

And yet, that’s not the response. We toss out the Torah alongside the rabbi—the proverbial baby with the bathwater. Why is this? Again, it is the warped, intellectual dishonesty of the yeitzer hara, the product of an outsized desire to let oneself off the hook.

For some reason this is not what happens in the business world. Every year, thousands of businesses fail. Statistics show that four out of every five start-up businesses will not succeed. And yet, every year people take the plunge—they start new businesses. They take an idea, invest time and money, even go into debt, just to give it a try. And some people do this many times over. They never give up.

Why?

Because they believe in capitalism. They believe that they can become rich. Their business may have failed, but their faith in business never fails. Not once have I witnessed a failed businessman become a communist!

The verse in Mishlei tells us, “Im tevakshena kakesef, vechamatmonim techapsenah—If you seek it like silver, and like hidden treasure you search for it, then you will understand fear of G-d and find knowledge of the L-rd." If our quest for the ultimate jewel of Torah is unwavering, we wouldn’t let poor responses get in the way of our questions; we wouldn’t let poor teachers absolve our obligation to find the truth; we wouldn’t allow our baser desires to mask themselves as intellectual rigor.

No.

We would, instead, search for and seek out satisfactory answers; we would pursue and promote rabbis who understood us at our own level; we would dig and dig in the minefield of Torah, knowing that all is contained therein, and carve for ourselves a unique niche in the bedrock of Sinai.

You Are Now Entering the Blogosphere!

2005-05-23T23:33:00.000-04:00

Like standing on the diving board above the swimming pool in the early days of summer...waiting...for that first plunge into the deep, blue water. I know that the initial shock of cold will last only a few seconds, and then yield to the headrush that invariably follows. Yet, I wait. And wait. Nothing changes except my age by several minutes, but it feels like if I wait, I will suddenly feel more prepared. That, of course, never happens, and eventually, I am able to block out all thoughts and simply...jump in.

Splash!

Here I am. Having waited months to begin my posts, my thoughts on the world--particularly the Orthodox (or, if you prefer, Torah observant) Jewish world. What difference does it make what another Jew thinks and writes? Isn't this all simply an exercise in self-aggrandizement? Isn't this quite the opposite of my point above that everything should be done with humility (hence the name of the blog)?

Perhaps.

Yet, I am reminded of the comment of one of the Gedolei Mussar who said that it was worth travelling to another city to speak to the congregation even if only one person listens--and even if that one person is the speaker himself. So, as I enter middle age, kicking and screaming, I begin this blog mostly for me, as an archive of my thoughts and observations. Of course, I hope others will read it, comment on it, talk about it at the office water cooler and in shul (between services, of course). Yes, I want to be well-known.

Famous, even.

But, barring that I think I will still feel satisfaction from getting it all out. Or most of it anyway.

First, I want to establish some rules here. One thing I've noticed--and dislike--about blogs is that they are updated continuously, often with short, sometimes meaningless, additions. At times, the blogger has a spurt of good ideas, followed by a fallow period, when the blog starts to get stale. Moreover, the comments section on these posts are a bit all over the place, with people adding their thoughts on posts that are weeks or months old. I find it hard, and worse, uninteresting, to follow.

My idea, therefore, is to post once a week, every week, no more, and hopefully, no less, on a subject of interest that will hopefully lead to a productive discussion. I will try to get each post out early in the week. Then, I would allow a two-week period for comments to the post before shutting down that section. What can I say? Even though I'm a recovering Type-A personality, I still like order.