Jewish Action Winter 2020

Winter 5781/2020

Vol. 81, No. 2

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Winter 2020/5781 | Vol. 81, No. 2

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FEATURES

DEPARTMENTS

INSIDE 20

26 35 42 45 46 47 48 50 53 54 56 60 66

TRIBUTE Memories of “Joe”

By Julius Berman, as told to Merri Ukraincik David Luchins and Stephen Savitsky THE JEWISH WORLD Why Data Matters: A Conversation with Social Scientist Matt Williams HEALTH AND WELLNESS The Age of Anxiety

By Ahuva Reich

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Parenting the Anxious Child

By David H. Rosmarin COVER STORY: RE-IMAGINING LIFE AFTER COVID RE-IMAGINING TEFILLAH Davening Behind the Shul

By Ya’akov Trump Va’ani Tefillah: Bringing the Self to Tefillah

By Debbie Greenblatt Tefillah from the “Days of Old”

By Zvi Engel Setting Realistic Goals for Tefillah

By Shmuel Silber Lessons from Being Shul-less

By Andrew Markowitz My Ideal Shul

By David Olivestone The Power of Tefillah

By Chaim Aryeh Z. Ginzberg RE-IMAGINING HALACHAH Speaking with Rav Hershel Schachter

By Shaul Robinson A New Post-Coronavirus Era of Halachah?

By Gil Student

84 89 97 106 108 110 112

RE-IMAGINING DATING Finding a Zivug on Zoom

By Merri Ukraincik A New Way to Date?

As told to Rachel Schwartzberg

LETTERS PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE Observations of a Kavod Maven

By Mark (Moishe) Bane FROM THE DESK OF RABBI MOSHE HAUER The New Normal: To Accept, to Reject or to Embrace?

THE CHEF’S TABLE Converso Cuisine: Chanukah Recipes Dating Back to the Days of the Inquisition Written by Barbara Bensoussan Recipes by Genie Milgrom LEGAL-EASE What’s the Truth About . . .

Breaking a Glass at a Wedding?

By Ari Z. Zivotofsky INSIDE THE OU Compiled by Sara Goldberg INSIDE PHILANTHROPY Compiled by Marcia P. Neeley BOOKS Glikl Memoirs 1691-1719 Presented by Chava Turniansky, Translated by Sara Friedman Reviewed by Judy Gruen Kanfei Yonah

By Rabbi Yona Reiss Reviewed by Benjamin G. Kelsen The Legends of Rabbah Bar Bar Hannah

By Rabbi Abraham Isaac HaKohen Kook Reviewed by Jack Abramowitz LASTING IMPRESSIONS Solo Shabbat

By Steve Lipman

Cover: Aliza Ungar

Jewish Action is published by the Orthodox Union • 11 Broadway, New York, NY 10004 212.563.4000. Printed Quarterly—Winter, Spring, Summer, Fall, plus Special Passover issue. ISSN No. 0447-7049. Subscription: $16.00 per year; Canadian, $20.00; Overseas, $60.00. Periodical's postage paid at New York, NY, and additional offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Jewish Action, 11 Broadway, New York, NY 10004.

Jewish Action seeks to provide a forum for a diversity of legitimate opinions within the spectrum of Orthodox Judaism.

Therefore, opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the policy or opinion of the Orthodox Union.

Winter 5781/2020 JEWISH ACTION

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LETTERS THE MAGAZINE OF THE ORTHODOX UNION jewishaction.com

THE MAGAZINE OF THE ORTHODOX UNION Editor in Chief jewishaction.com

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MAY YOU LIVE TO 120 Rabbi Dr. Ari Z. Zivotofsky’s fascinating article “What’s the Truth About . . .

‘Ad Me’ah Ve’esrim Shanah?’” (summer 2020) on the classic blessing of “May you live to be 120” highlights the reasons why people might not want to receive such a blessing, i.e., most people over the age of 100 suffer from a low quality of life. Furthermore, the blessing may be viewed as a curse as it limits the duration of its benefits to a fixed period of time. I have a proposal: one should wish people a full and productive life until at least 120, but add “b’vriut, b’tzlilut, ub’yedidut”—“May you live to be at least 120, in good health, with clarity of thought, and with the emotional and physical support of friends and relatives.”

Rabbi Aaron I. Reichel, Esq. Kew Gardens, New York ULTIMATE CHESED How delighted I was to see WellTab featured in your magazine (“Creative for a Cause,” by Rachel Schwartzberg [fall 2020]) as one of the many ways that Am Yisrael responded to the suffering of their fellow Jews.

My son Saadya, a”h, had been on a ventilator in a medically induced coma for four weeks when someone suggested I contact WellTab, an organization that provides tablets to enable families and patients to be connected during Covid. I called WellTab, and the gentleman who answered the phone asked for nothing more than my name and my son’s name.

He arrived at my door the next morning, peyos flying, and set up a tablet for me within moments. Despite the fact that the hospital was not allowing visitors or even packages, the WellTab gentleman reassured me that he would take care of it. One hour later, my screen lit up and there was Saadya—smiling despite the tubes—with a nurse in full PPE patting his shoulder.

Saadya, who had Down syndrome, had been taken out of the coma. He just had a tracheostomy and though he could not speak, we “conversed” for the next four hours; he responded to us by raising his arm and nodding his head and, of course, with his eternal smile. We had not spoken or seen him in four and half weeks. His sister took the tablet up to his room to show him that everything was in place, awaiting his return. We took the tablet to our front door and neighbors came running over to greet him. His siblings “spoke” to him. I called his counselor at Makor Disability Services, who turned on his smartphone so Saadya could see his apartment mates. We “visited” for four hours until he looked quite exhausted.

The next day, Saadya was undergoing a procedure prior to leaving for a rehab center. After it was over, the doctor assured me he was doing well. Less than half an hour later, I saw the hospital number on my phone. Saadya had gone into cardiac arrest and many attempts to resuscitate had failed. Our visit on the WellTab tablet was no longer just an act of chesed but, indeed, had become “chesed shel emes.” Mi K’Amcha Yisrael. Some acts of chesed are eternal.

Ahava Ehrenpreis Brooklyn, New York KEEPING THEM CLOSE I’m writing in response to to the anonymous letter writer who replied to your article on “Faith and Family: When A Child Leaves the Fold,” (spring 2020) with the following question: “Are there no behaviors that deserve a wall to be built and a firm goodbye to be said?”

As the mother of a young man who is currently not shomer Torah u’mitzvos, I have chosen to follow the precedent set by the Torah. Avraham Avinu put

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S H A lO m TA S k FO r C e

You Are NoT ALoNe Confidential Hotline: 888.883.2323 Call. Text. WhatsApp Call our Confidential Hotline to discuss any issues about relationships or domestic abuse. We provide a listening ear to all. Our referrals help our callers gain access to helpful resources, including legal assistance, counseling, and safe shelters. For more information and to speak with a trained advocate, please visit www.shalomtaskforce.org.

No oNe Deserves To Be ABuseD 4

JEWISH ACTION Winter 5781/2020

Yishmael out only when HaKadosh Baruch Hu ordered him to do so. I guess until one of us hears otherwise from HaKadosh Baruch Hu, a child should stay home with his or her loving parents.

Anonymous EXAMINING RESILIENCE Shana Yocheved Schacter’s article, “The Ability to Bounce Back: The Psychology of Resilience” (fall 2020), provides a list of “ways to become more resilient.” I would add prayer to the list.

We are in the habit of communicating our innermost thoughts, fears and desires to Hashem. We firmly believe that this is not a one-way dead-end conversation, but a means of asking for help.

Whether reciting Tehillim or consulting a book of techinot, observant Jews know the secret of baring our souls and finding resilience in the act of prayer.

Dinah Rokach Silver Spring, Maryland THE NEED FOR BALANCE “The Death of Nuance” by OU Executive Vice President Rabbi Moshe Hauer (fall 2020) on the need for balance was excellent! The article has more insight and intelligence than anything I have gathered from all the so-called experts and talking heads. It puts some wisdom into the current meshug’as we are all experiencing. It reminds me that all of us are yearning for the “good old days” back before March.

Ron Farbman Philadelphia, Pennsylvania BUILDERS OF ORTHODOXY In his interview in Jewish Action (“Life After the Holocaust: How They Rebuilt” [fall 2020]), Rabbi Berel Wein comments on figures in the post-Holocaust era who played a major role in helping the Jewish people build post-war American Orthodoxy. Mention should have been made of Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson (the seventh Lubavitcher Rebbe) and of his father-in-law, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn (the sixth Rebbe). The enormous contributions of these Torah giants speak for themselves.

Lee J. Shonfield, MD Cincinnati, Ohio Please note that transliterations in the magazine are based on Sephardic pronunciation, unless an author prefers otherwise. Thus, inconsistencies in transliterations are due to authors’ preferences.

This magazine contains divrei Torah, and should therefore be disposed of respectfully by either doublewrapping prior to disposal, or placing in a recycling bin.

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PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE

OBSERVATIONS of a KAVOD MAVEN

By Mark (Moishe) Bane

O

ver the decades my involvement in communal activities has shifted every few years from one specialized area to another, both within and outside the Orthodox Union.

While this eclectic approach has its benefits, it has also all but ensured that I have no genuine expertise in any single sphere of communal life, with one exception—the dynamics of kavod, typically translated as “honor.”

I have observed kavod graciously accepted by the pious and fallaciously declined by scoundrels, demonstrating that accepting or rejecting kavod is itself indicative of neither haughtiness nor humility.

I have discovered that bestowing kavod is sometimes obligatory, often optional and occasionally damaging.

Mark (Moishe) Bane is president of the OU and a senior partner and chairman of the Business Restructuring Department at the international law firm Ropes & Gray LLP.

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And most importantly, I now recognize that wisdom is required to convey kavod meaningfully.

Kavod is fascinating, perplexing and often amusing. It is a driver of both greed and generosity, both ostentatious frivolity and stunning self-sacrifice. Kavod and deference to communal leaders are foundations of communal stability. Competition for kavod among leaders, however, is a most common cause of communal strife and dysfunction, notwithstanding disguising the appetite for it as a stand on principle. Even our personal attitudes towards kavod are replete with inconsistencies and contradictions.

We view it as worthy of achieving but shameful to pursue. Those who overtly relish it are ridiculed, but those who don’t succeed in earning it are viewed as failures. And while the receipt of kavod is often portrayed as being spiritually harmful, we curiously strive to ensure that this supposedly dangerous and corrupting influence is, in fact, received by those whom we love or admire most.

On a very personal basis, many of us, myself included, confront an almost self-delusional struggle with kavod. We declare our absolute disinterest in receiving kavod but are disturbed when it is denied. And then, when honest with ourselves, we are forced to engage in painful introspection when recognizing that we actually find receiving kavod to be desirable and meaningful.

A student of kavod eventually realizes that while the zealous pursuit or manipulative bestowal of kavod may be harmful, there are numerous instances

when it has wonderful and even lofty purposes. Three such instances are when one extends gratitude, expresses values or imparts validation.

Gratitude Hakaras hatov, extending gratitude, is a fundamental Torah value. Not only is it a cherished practice, but through its performance we hone the important personality trait of appreciation. Conveying kavod in the proper measure and in the proper manner is often the most powerful vehicle of expressing appreciation in a sincere and meaningful way.

On the other hand, when philanthropists—or even those simply helping others—signal an expectation of gratitude, they are often disparaged as being small-minded and petty, as seekers of kavod in exchange for kindliness. Unless the amount of expected gratitude is unreasonable, this characterization is unfair since there is a valid and purposeful reason for a benefactor to wish to receive thanks. Though we help others through charity and assistance because we are good Jews and good people, we also do so as an expression of our inborn need, imbued

by Hashem, to be purposeful and relevant. This innate yearning to make a difference to others is satisfied only when we see that our efforts matter.

Sometimes the effect of our efforts is self-evident, but often we can only measure it by the degree of gratitude that is generated. When little or no recognition is granted, or an acknowledgement feels perfunctory or insincere, we suspect that the

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benefits we conferred were immaterial or misplaced. What we express as annoyance at the lack of gratitude may actually be our disappointment in failing to satisfy our urge to make a difference. Thus, gratitude transmitted through recognition and kavod actually conveys that the care or generosity received was truly meaningful.

our rabbis and institutional heads, and for the institutions themselves, has increasingly diminished. The supposed justification for this decline is a perceived increase in our leaders’ deficiencies and flaws. Perhaps our hyper-focus on our leaders’ weaknesses and missteps is attributable to the scrutiny and magnification afforded by

Most importantly, I now recognize that wisdom is required to convey kavod meaningfully.

While individuals must certainly extend appreciation and heightened respect to those who have helped them, communal institutions—the OU included—are often guilty of failing to do so adequately. Invaluable staff members are frequently denied the honor they are due, and even donors typically receive recognition only in proportion to the financial benefit the institution received, notwithstanding the often greater degree of sacrifice incurred by many donors of small gifts.

While the need to raise significant funds understandably informs this practice, institutions must ensure that proper kavod also be extended to those making generous, albeit modest, gifts.

Values A powerful way we reinforce our personal value system, as well as communicate those values to others, is in choosing to whom we show kavod.

In particular, we reflect the primacy of Torah and kedushah (holiness) by extending kavod to the Torah and its scholars, as well as to those whose lives exemplify reverence and piety. The same is true when honor is conferred upon institutions and those holding offices representing these values.

The Mishnah directs us, “Aseh lecha rav—Make for ourselves a religious mentor.” Perhaps part of this mandate is to ensure that we extend kavod as an affirmation of our values.

In all segments of American Orthodoxy, however, respect for 8

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technology. Or perhaps, it is due to our self-righteousness. Regardless of the cause, the lessening kavod we extend to those who represent our values not only undermines our leadership’s efficacy but also compromises our personal and communal allegiance to the values themselves.

Perhaps even more concerning is that kavod, when given to inappropriate recipients, may actually undermine our communal values. Just as our institutions’ need for significant funding regrettably skews gratitude disproportionately to larger donors, it sometimes pressures them to bestow kavod on donors with compromised ethical standards and sullied reputations. While such honor is undoubtedly awarded merely to elicit desperately needed funding, our young people, in particular, keenly absorb the criteria by which communal kavod is disbursed as well as which inappropriate behaviors we are prepared to overlook.

When asked how our communal culture might be imbued with a deeper commitment to honesty and integrity, Rav Ahron Lopiansky, shlit”a, noted that communal culture begins with our children’s perceptions of our values and priorities. He observed that while our children’s stories recount examples of remarkable Torah scholarship and extraordinary acts of piety, we rarely tell stories conveying the immeasurable kavod due to those who exemplify adherence to everyday

honesty and business integrity.

If we are to bestow kavod as a tool to solidify our values, how do the recipients avert susceptibility to misconstruing the kavod as due to them personally, rather than in respect of the values they represent?

I surmise that many holy individuals simply transcend this susceptibility.

Others may counter this risk by being particularly attentive to the kavod due to others also representing these values.

On a personal note, as president of the OU, I frequently receive significant “office holder kavod.” Though I recognize that my title serves as the conduit for gratitude expressed in appreciation of the impact of and benefits provided by the OU, I often fear personalizing this kavod. And so I try to counter this susceptibility by attempting to redirect the recognition to those truly deserving of the kavod—the exceptionally talented and passionate staff and volunteers who implement OU endeavors and those who provide the funding. Nevertheless, I abashedly concede that when complimented and thanked for the OU’s work, I cannot escape feeling that I deserve at least some of the credit.

Ultimately, however, I am shielded from thinking that the kavod is about me by my unapologetically candid chevra. They mercilessly ensure that I will not, for even a moment, construe the kavod as personal, or imagine that I will continue to receive White House invitations, speaking engagements or media inquiries for even a day after I conclude my tenure as OU president. Perhaps this is one of the objectives behind the Mishnah’s directive “kenei lecha chaver,” to acquire for ourselves a friend.

Validation A particularly potent feature of kavod is its power to provide personal validation—something we all crave.

I am often bemused when hearing disparaging assertions that a particular individual suffers insecurity. We all suffer insecurity. Even our limited self-confidence fleetingly evaporates when challenged. Though we often effectively mask our insecurities, we

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Genuine kavod is subtle, thoughtfully fashioned to recognize and elevate the essence of its recipient. are so vulnerable to doubting our worthiness as to be pained by even the most subtle personal slight. Kavod is the tool we are given to validate each other by imbuing others with a sense of self. * * * The day after Yom Kippur, a rabbi shared with me his dismay regarding a congregant. Rather than being elevated by the shul’s powerful Yom Kippur davening, the congregant, following the conclusion of services, remarked how hurt he was by being the only man in the congregation not invited to open the ark over the course of the High Holidays. In contrast to the rabbi, my dismay was that the rabbi himself was incapable of empathizing with the congregant’s pain. * * * Kavod in public display, or through pomp and ceremony, is often appropriate, but is actually the more superficial form of honor. Genuine kavod is subtle, thoughtfully fashioned to recognize and elevate the essence of its recipient. The sincerity of authentic kavod cannot be misinterpreted as flattery and is never in expectation of reciprocity. Examples of meaningful kavod include seeking and following consequential advice, and placing a premium on another person’s time.

Proper kavod leaves the recipient feeling that he or she matters.

Granting someone kavod should not be confused with basic menschlichkeit. Extending a pleasant greeting in passing is menschlichkeit. Calling someone during the bustling days before yom tov to convey sincere admiration and respect is kavod. Complimenting someone’s talent after a performance is menchlichkeit, but taking the time to call the individual the next day to convey appreciation is kavod.

While we are all empowered to 10

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validate and elevate others through giving kavod, the particularly potent capacity of prominent community members to convey kavod is commonly squandered. I often speculate that highly regarded individuals are simply unaware of their power to infuse others with an invaluable, increased sense of self through gestures, large and small.

I and many others observe the grace and elegance of imparting kavod in the manner of Rav Hershel Schachter, shlita, who among other things will frequently sit in rapt attention listening to the public Torah discourses of those significantly his junior. By contrast, I am pained by those who scamper out of shul when the rabbi rises to speak, thereby diminishing the rabbi personally, while also undermining appreciation of the Torah’s primacy, as the community silently observes a repeated public humiliation of the Torah’s representatives.

Within the Family Perhaps the most significant and consequential context for conveying kavod is within the family. This is highlighted by the inclusion of the mandate to honor one’s parents within the Aseres Hadibros, the Ten Commandments, and by the Talmud directing us to honor one’s spouse even more than one honors himself. While there is always room for improvement in these family dynamics, insufficient attention is paid to the honor that parents need pay to their children.

Honor and respect should not be confused with love. Certainly, emotionally healthy parents love their children, but even such parents are often inattentive to giving children proper kavod. While kavod, by its nature, provides an infusion of self-worth, such infusion has particular significance in parenting.

Every child relies on others to help

him develop a sense of self confidence and self-worth. Although these traits may also be advanced or crushed in a classroom or playground, they are most significantly nurtured or squashed by parents. Many parents fail to recognize that, by contrast to the embrace of love, kavod is conveyed only at arm’s length. Respecting one’s child requires seeing the child as an “other.”

Parents are due kavod for giving their children life, but the giving of life does not cease upon childbirth.

By imbuing a child with a gradually increasing, and always necessary, sense of self, an ongoing giving of life is occurring. Perhaps that is why in accordance with Torah values, “kol hamegadel yasom besoch beiso ma’aleh alov hakasuv k’ilu yelado—adopting and raising a child is akin to giving birth to him” (Sanhedrin 19b).

Well through a child’s adulthood there is no greater source of encouragement and validation than from a parent. Even now, years after my parents, a”h, are no longer alive, I still long for their approval and validation. I am a fundamentally diminished person by their absence, and I recognize that my mourning their passing is not only for the loss of my parents’ love, respect and guidance, but also for the part of me that is no longer.

A parent’s kavod to a child, like all authentic kavod, is most impactfully conveyed when sincere and when accompanied by no expectation of reciprocity. Kavod to a child, whether school age or adult, is expressed by asking the child for input and respecting the child’s views and ideas.

It is respecting the child’s privacy. It is also recognizing and acknowledging a child’s accomplishments, failures and dreams as the child’s own, rather than those of the parent.

Perhaps the most significant form of kavod that parents can give to children mirrors the most significant kavod that children can give to parents—conveying the joy in spending time together.

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FROM THE DESK of RABBI MOSHE HAUER

THE NEW NORMAL: To Accept, to Reject or to Embrace?

T

he pandemic has changed the way we do many things.

We meet differently, work differently, pray differently, celebrate occasions differently and experience our relationships differently.

Which of these changes will we reject, and which will we embrace as improvements and opportunities?

Which will we resignedly accept as the new normal, and which will we go along with only for now, forced by current realities, while we await a speedy return to the old normal?

These are critical questions that we as individuals, families, organizations and communities must approach and grapple with intentionally. Our responses may determine whether the pandemic will prove to be a transformational event or a passing blip, a growth opportunity or a harmful blow.

But how do we address these questions? What are the Torah values and considerations that should inform our approach to change?

Rabbi Moshe Hauer is executive vice president of the Orthodox Union.

Balancing Creativity and Tradition Orthodoxy is, by definition, conservative, yet it is, in fact, dynamic.

The Talmud1 famously notes that it is impossible for a beit midrash to convene without producing a chiddush (novel idea). Orthodox Talmudic training encourages even young students to go beyond collecting the ideas of previous generations of scholars by adding their own insights.

This creativity is not limited to the academic realm. In practice, Orthodoxy has instituted numerous innovations that were critical to its preservation and progress, including—but far from limited to—radical changes to the education system, such as the universal communal education mandate of Yehoshua ben Gamla, the creation of the paradigmatic modern-day yeshivah in Volozhin, and the models of formal women’s education initiated in nineteenth-century Germany and twentieth-century Poland.

Nevertheless, such innovations— whether academic or practical—are firmly rooted in tradition, as expressed elegantly in the Talmudic assertions, “Everything the worthy student will say to his teacher was already shared with Moshe at Sinai,”2 and “The practical innovations of future scholars were shown to Moshe at Sinai.”3 We root ourselves in tradition because our ultimate and unique gift as a nation was the revelation of Torah at Sinai. What we learned then through Moshe guides and shapes our lives, as it is our source of eternal truth and value. Our firm belief in the divinity and immutability of the Torah is such that there is no new revelation or insight that will ever surpass its word.

And while at its core this belief affirms

the eternity of the Written Torah and its received interpretation, the Oral Torah, halachic tradition extends essentially the same level of authority to the unchallenged statements made in the Mishnah and Talmud.4 Yet, as circumstances change, we are constantly charged with reacting to contemporary needs and challenges by creatively, sensitively and responsibly applying our eternal truths and values. A striking observation of the sixteenth-century halachist and philosopher Mabit (Rabbi Moshe ben Yosef di Trani, d. 1585) underscores the critical need for contemporary awareness in applying halachah’s eternal principles.

Mabit dwells on the Talmudic tradition that in Messianic times it will be Eliyahu the prophet, rather than Moshe the law-giver, who will resolve our halachic questions. He suggests that, as opposed to Moshe who has been gone from this world for centuries, residing in the world of the spirit, Eliyahu ascended to the heavens with both body and soul, and— according to tradition—maintains a frequent presence in this physical world, returning to communicate with great sages and to visit at every brit.

Eliyahu’s ongoing familiarity with the world makes him far more suited to apply the Torah’s eternal principles to contemporary realities than Moshe, who has been disconnected from our physical world for so long.5 Clearly, we must apply halachah with both absolute fealty to the eternity of its principles and concomitant awareness of contemporary realities.

This balance between creativity and tradition guides us to a more careful and mature integration of Continued on page 16

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To celebrate our 3oth anniversary, we pulled out all the stops.

BARONS EDMOND-BENJAMIN DE ROTHSCHILD 30

T H

A N N I V E R S A R Y

E D I T I O N

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Continued from page 12

change, within and beyond halachic matters. First, it rejects change that would turn its back on eternal values.

Second, by nature of its conservatism, it discourages hasty shifts following insufficient consideration and testing of new paths. And third, the tension between conservation and creativity encourages us to layer the new added value upon our previously held values, building the new without demolishing the old.

This may provide the beginnings of a framework for addressing some of the many potential changes before us. For example, it is well-established in Talmudic and halachic sources and in national practice that a central element of communal infrastructure— one that all community members are obliged to participate in constructing—is the beit knesset, a dedicated structure that is to occupy a physically prominent place in the city and that is in great measure designed to replicate the Temple of old.6 This halachic institution embodies several core values that impact the contemporary debates about public prayer. The pandemic forced the temporary closure of our synagogues, creating a prolonged period of solitary prayer, prayer at home and small block minyanim. Many people found elements of these changes welcome, appreciating the opportunity to create their own pace, to pray within their homes and undistracted by others, or to pray with a more intimate and convenient quorum on their block. These are certainly appreciable and meaningful values and sensitivities.

Yet the halachic institution of the communal synagogue and the mandate for individuals to pray there7 imply different priorities. A dedicated House of God is favored over a private home or backyard; a communal shul where our King is glorified b’rov am (in the presence of a broad community) is preferred to multiple small minyanim; and the majesty of shared communal praise supersedes the intimacy of private prayer. Clearly, we must be mindful lest the sudden experience of the genuine advantages of a different mode or venue of prayer cause us to lose sight of the alternate advantages favored by halachah. And while we mustn’t naively proceed as if this halachic declaration of principles will of itself silence the debate and end the potential trend of defections from communal shuls, we must work to address the deficiencies that the debate has exposed without abandoning timeless values.

Radical vs. Incremental Change Change must be approached deliberately. We must avoid rushing to reject a lasting paradigm for a relatively untested model. Did all who embraced the pace and beauty of solitary prayer in the first weeks still experience those heady advantages weeks or months later?

In May, in the relatively early days of the virtual classroom, one state governor empaneled a blue-ribbon committee to reimagine education, going so far as to question the future need for school buildings. Yet, by the end of the school year Zoom fatigue had set in and 16

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virtual learning was declared a failure. We may similarly question the phenomenon of large companies rushing to divest themselves of their office space due to the apparent success of the virtual workplace. Might it be a bit too early to tell?

Many changes that initially appear wise and promising will not provide an enduring alternative. Thus, the Anshei Knesset Hagedolah, the Men of the Great Assembly, who presided over a critical transitionary period in Jewish life, offered as their first words of counsel that we be deliberate in our decision-making.8 Such caution is surely advised before instituting a radical shift.

But change need not be radical. Zoom may not be able to replace in-person schooling, but it can add value to the in-person experience by providing greater access to high-level instruction. And while our eternal values clearly guide us back to the shul, there remains much that ought to be retained from what we uncovered during the times we prayed away from shul. Perhaps adjustments in pace and rhythm of shul services are in order. As individuals we may choose to move our personal reading of Tehillim to our homes, where— without any halachic compromise—we can recite it with the intimacy and pace that we found so refreshing. And while we may have returned to shul for Kabbalat Shabbat, we can more intentionally join our families for zemirot (songs) that honor Shabbat, for recitation of Shir Hashirim (Song of Songs) or even for an encore of Lecha Dodi.

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associate with the Nineveh story. It can be revolutionary without being radical or exhausting. It may not even involve discomfort and a drive to change but may come instead in the form of a revelation, a refreshing discovery of something that was always there but condemned to remain in that lowered often overlooked. Indeed, the Maharal state. Yet virtually all of humanity of Prague16 taught that the term accepted their lowered status with a “teshuvah” is chosen because it implies shrug. They had been chased from a return to our purer origins. Rather Paradise, and they did not look back. than adding responsibilities or creating Only one person refused to be resigned radical new directions, it restores to this new normal. Only one person perspective, bringing us back to a place recognized that the potential for return that is natural, comfortable and healing. was there and he would not rest until he The pandemic has been dramatic. would be restored to Eden. That person In many ways it has overturned our was Avraham, the father of our people. world. And it has given us perspective.

It was that tenacity, the repudiation of a Not new perspective but restored lesser version of normal, that led God to perspective. We have been granted the choose him, and therefore to choose us. opportunity to see our relationships A Jew may not despair regarding differently and our possessions anything. We must not resignedly differently; to value our connections accept a new lesser version of normal. more and our things less; to cherish Embracing Revolutionary both community and solitude. and Revelatory Change The greatest revolution will There is a form of revolutionary have occurred if we embrace these change that we ought to embrace. revelations, if we solidly enshrine This change is revolutionary yet not these perspectives as the drivers radical, simultaneously transformative of our decisions and lifestyles. and restorative. It is a change We can take the initiative to personified by the story of Yonah. emerge from this transformed. We Yonah’s prophecy stated that the may end up with basically the same city of Nineveh would be overturned shul, school and office. But we will in forty days, and—as the Talmud14 have a different perspective, one that teaches—the prophecy was precisely is natural and pure, which restores fulfilled. Nineveh was overturned. The in both our minds and our actions Nineveh of the past was gone. A new the primary values of our lives and city had arisen upon the ruins of the old. our faith, of family and of meaning.

The people of Nineveh had chosen well.

That would be truly and They had not waited for God to impose beautifully revolutionary. traumatic transformation; they instead Notes embraced positive transformation.

1. Chagigah 3a.

The people of Nineveh literally took 2. Yerushalmi Peiah 2:4. apart the buildings of the city, discarded 3. Megillah 19b.

4. Kesef Mishneh, Hilchot Mamrim 2:1. the stolen bricks and put the rest back 5. Beit Elokim Sha’ar HaYesodot, ch. 60. together again.15 They recognized the 6. Rambam, Hilchot Tefillah, ch. 11. flaws in the original structure, and— 7. Berachot 8a; SA, Orach Chaim 90:11. while they had become accustomed to 8. Pirkei Avot 1:1. living in those homes—they eagerly 9. Nedarim 40a. dismantled them. They had quite 10. Rashi to Vayikra 14:34. literally been living a lie. Turning away 11. Pesachim 87b. from the status quo was not going 12. Divrei Sofrim, no. 16. somewhere new and revolutionary; 13. Derech Hashem 2:4:2-3. it was restoring them to their natural 14. Sanhedrin 89b. home, to truth and genuineness.

15. Ta’anit 16a.

16. Netiv HaTeshuvah, ch. 2.

Teshuvah is the term we rightfully

We must never accept loss . . . with hopelessness or resignation.

“The young build by destroying; the old destroy by building.”9 Revolutionary change destroys what was there, and often fails to replace it.

Wisdom dictates that we proceed with incremental improvements, engaging in a sustained process of building that will ultimately prove transformative.

Replace Grief with Hope Our Sages were remarkably insistent on identifying significant added value even in our experience of loss. Thus, they spoke of the hidden treasure found behind the demolished walls of the leprous home.10 And, most remarkably, they wrote of the opportunity presented by galut (exile), where our dispersion allows us to reach the corners of the world as ambassadors of our faith.11 The premise of this attitude is that hope springs eternal, that history is a consistent march toward a better future such that even steps back are steps forward.

We must never accept change—or even outright loss—with hopelessness or resignation. In the words of Rabbi Tzadok Hakohen of Lublin:12 A Jew may not despair regarding anything, be it material—even if the sword lies across his neck, or spiritual— even if he has sunken to sin in an area that seems irreparable . . . he must never say that he cannot break out of this, for there is no such thing as despair for a Jew, and God can assist in any situation.

The Jewish nation was built after the total despair of Avraham and Sarah ever being able to have a child . . . purposely . . . so that this would become the essential character of the Jew, to believe that there is never room for despair.

Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto13 identified this as the quality of Avraham that led to him being chosen

by God. Though mankind had fallen dramatically from the lofty perch we had occupied before being banished from Eden, we could have potentially found our way back as we were not 18

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make every occasion

Winter 5781/2020 JEWISH ACTION

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TRIBUTE

Memories of

“Joe”

By Julius Berman, as told to Merri Ukraincik

J

oe Karasick, who passed away this past Elul at the age of ninety-eight, was my mentor, as he was to many who followed him into positions of leadership at the Orthodox Union.

Yet I never thought about him in those terms during our many years of friendship. He was the type of person you looked up to for everything, especially the way he went above and beyond in all his undertakings—as a rabbi, businessman, scholar, friend, father, husband and most notably, as a leader of the Jewish people.

One expected leadership of Joe and was never disappointed. It came naturally to him, so his trajectory to the presidency of the OU was no surprise. He had a dignified presence that conveyed authority, yet he was unassuming, without airs or ego.

Many predicted the demise of Orthodox Judaism in America in the middle of the last century. The OU, led by Joe’s esteemed predecessor Moses Feuerstein, together with a cadre of dedicated leaders who shared the organization’s mission, confronted our community’s challenges head-on in a concerted effort to turn the tide. With Joe at the Continued on page 24

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JEWISH ACTION Winter 5781/2020

Former OU President Rabbi Joseph Karasick, a”h (1922-2020), addresses attendees at the OU’s 1998 Centennial Convention. Rabbi Yisroel Meir Lau, then Chief Rabbi of Israel, is seen seated on the left. Courtesy of Mark Karasick Rabbi Julius Berman, a former president of the OU (1978-1984), is past chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and honorary president of the Conference of Jewish Material Claims Against Germany.

Additionally, he is a board member of the Toras HoRav Foundation, dedicated to the publication of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik’s unpublished manuscripts.

Merri Ukraincik has written for Tablet, the Forward, Hevria, the Wisdom Daily, the New York Jewish Week and other publications, including Jewish Action. She is the author of I Live. Send Help, a history of the Joint Distribution Committee.

Winter 5781/2020 JEWISH ACTION

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OU—and NCSY—

Royalty

By David Luchins

“Vaymat Yosef v’chol echav v’chol hador hahu—And Yosef died, and all his brothers and that entire generation” (Shemot 1:6).

Rabbi Joseph Karasick, the last surviving member of American Orthodoxy’s “Greatest Generation,” was buried in Israel this past Elul.

I will leave it to others to describe his over seven decades of selfless communal service, his historic role as OU president (1966-72), as board chairman (1972-78), as the tireless champion of the OU (actively participating in board and commission meetings into his ninety-ninth year) and as the main architect of the OU’s outreach to Jewish communities around the world—from France to the historic World Conference of Synagogues that he twice convened in Jerusalem.

And I will leave it to others to try to describe his extraordinary relationship with his rebbe, the Rav, who made a point of attending the 1972 national dinner where Rabbi Karasick was honored (he was honored by the OU a few times). All this I leave to others. My hope is to express three points of hakarat hatov—one personal, and two on behalf of anyone who has ever benefited from the NCSY magic.

My wife Vivian and I have been active in NCSY since 1961. Many lay leaders deserve great credit, from Enid and Harold Boxer, who dared to dream of a national Orthodox Jewish youth movement in 1954; to OU President Moses Feuerstein, who agreed to try one more time, Dr. David Luchins is a national vice president of the Orthodox Union and founding dean of Touro College’s Lander College for Women.

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after several abject failures, and hire a charismatic young Rabbi Pinchas Stolper in the fall of 1959.

But it was Joseph Karasick who (as Rabbi Stolper said at our Ben Zakkai Honor Society Dinner honoring the Karasicks over two decade ago) “put the ‘National’ into the National Conference of Synagogue Youth.” It was President Joseph Karasick who both led the battle for consistent halachic standards on the chapter and regional level (and you had to be there to appreciate the intensity of that battle) and fought for the hiring of the first full-time regional directors, starting with Lee Samson on the West Coast (it helped that Rabbi Karasick came from California). The NCSY we know today owes so much to those two ground-breaking efforts.

Personally, I feel utterly bereft. When my father Dr. Abraham Luchins, a”h, taught at Yeshiva College, Joseph Karasick was one of his favorite students (1939-43). To all of us on the OU Board, he was a link to the OU’s salad days. To me, he was the last person who remembered when I was born. He was the man who gave my father the watch he wore for the rest of his life, (Rabbi Karasick was in the watch business) which was bequeathed to my son Moshe (still works; they made good watches in those days).

Twice a year (in the halcyon pre-epidemic days), Vivian and I would spend Shabbat at Lander Rabbi Karasick and his wife Pepa, circa 1968. Rabbi Karasick was the recipient of the Lifetime Leadership Award at the OU’s national dinner in 2006. The OU Department of Synagogue Services was named the Pepa and Rabbi Joseph Karasick Department of Synagogue Services around the same time.

Courtesy of Yeshiva University Archives

College for Women and I would walk over a mile each way, regardless of weather, to sit next to him in shul and be treated to a vort from the Rav or the Rav’s father. And NCSY. He always asked about NCSY. Pepa and Joseph Karasick were OU royalty. They came to every NCSY national convention (and how delighted they were when their son Mark married Linda Ulevitch, a public school NCSYer, whom he met when she chaired NCSY’s 1968 national convention). Suffice it to say that he was the only person on earth with two great-granddaughters elected to NCSY’s “Alumni Hall of Fame,” our Ben Zakkai Honor Society.

He will be missed—but his legacy continues in his wonderful family.

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Continued from page 20

Rabbi Karasick (second from right) with Rabbi Joseph Ber Soloveitchik (third from right) at a Yeshiva University lunch honoring Baron Alain de Rothschild (center) in 1967. Courtesy of Yeshiva University Archives

helm from 1966 to 1972, they did. He was determined that we would grow and thrive, and his efforts ultimately played a huge role in the flourishing of Orthodoxy we enjoy today.

American Orthodoxy lived then, as Rav Joseph Ber Soloveitchik zt”l, once said, “in our own closet.” It was a time when Orthodox Jews interacted mostly with other Orthodox Jews. The Rav felt it was important to engage with the broader Jewish community. Joe embraced this message, envisioning the bigger role Orthodox Jews could play in painting a more diversified picture of the American Jewish community. Joe became the first OU president to catapult the OU, and by extension, Orthodox Jewry, onto the American Jewish stage in a leadership capacity. Until then, the OU was known mostly for its touchstone initiatives, like OU Kosher and NCSY. Working with Executive Vice President Rabbi Dr. Samson Raphael Weiss, Joe also led the OU into world affairs and became the main architect of these efforts. At his initiative, the OU became a full member of the World Jewish Congress, raising the OU’s 24

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He lived the OU and loved the OU. international profile. He convened the World Conference of Synagogues in Jerusalem, which drew hundreds of delegates from various countries, and representatives from 484 synagogues in thirty-two states, strengthening the ties of Orthodox Jews around the globe. Additionally, these efforts helped position the OU as a player in the resolution of critical issues facing Orthodox Jews while finding its unique organizational voice on the world stage.

As a leader fully devoted to the advancement of the OU, Joe embodied the pasuk “Ziru lachem l’tzedakah— Sow to yourselves according to righteousness” (Hoshea 10:12). He planted giant seeds that blossomed and grew, influencing the OU’s institutional development and the services it provides to Jews everywhere.

That was uniquely Joe—having the foresight, ability and confidence to imagine what the OU could become

beyond its important core programs.

Where the OU is today, its stature and expanding reach, is a tribute to what he once envisioned.

At the heart of all of it was always Joe’s relationship with the Rav. He considered the Rav his rebbe, his moreh derech, his moral, ethical and spiritual guidepost. He also looked to him for leadership, both personally and in his role as president of the OU. Together, they were a gestalt that changed the organization’s direction, moving it forward down new and visionary paths. When Joe formally completed his tenure as OU president, it was the Rav he wanted by his side on the occasion.

Joe lived a well-rounded life. He raised a beautiful family with his adored wife, Pepa. He was wholly devoted to the Jewish people, a giant who took up the mantle of leadership at a critical and formative moment in the development of the Orthodox Jewish community in America.

“Chaval al d’avdin velo mishtakchin, Woe that there are those who are gone and no replacement for them is found.” He will be sorely missed.

Rabbi K: Mentor and Friend

By Stephen Savitsky With the petirah this past Elul of Rabbi Joseph Karasick, we at the Orthodox Union lost a giant and I personally lost a mentor, friend, colleague, cheerleader, critic and an incredible source of inspiration.

“Rabbi K” was one of a kind. He was a walking history book of American Jewish life. He had a story for every occasion and could delight an audience with his Torah, wisdom, erudition and charm. I loved to listen to him speak, give a Torah shiur or participate in a panel discussion.

I first met Rabbi K at an OU weekend convention. He made it his mission to persuade me to become involved in the OU. After spending many hours with him, at the conclusion of the

weekend, I couldn’t wait to join. Over time, my involvement with the organization increased, progressing from board member to vice president to chairman of assorted committees, and eventually to president. Rabbi K was with me every step of the way.

There is a very small, elite club of former OU presidents; we all understand the great privilege it is to serve as president of one the most significant Torah organizations in the world. Rabbi K taught me to thank Hashem every day for the zechut to serve in that position. “Cherish every minute. Enjoy it. It will be the best days of your life,” he used to say. He was right.

make a deal with him: I would tell him the latest OU news and he would provide me with life lessons he acquired as an influential lay leader in the Jewish communal world during 40s, 50s, 60s and 70s.

Up until the end of this life, Rabbi K was active in the OU. When he could not participate in board meetings in person, he would call in. He was always the first to ask questions of the presenters.

He lived the OU and loved the OU. Rabbi K, the OU will miss you.

Stephen Savitsky is a former president of the OU.

One of the main reasons I enjoyed visiting Florida in the winter was to spend time with Rabbi K. I never let him know I was coming; rather, I would go to the shul where he was davening, wait until the 8 am minyan was over and surprise him. I would

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coNtact uS for More iNforMatioN about our virtual opeN houSe: www.jct.ac.il/en | esp@jct.ac.il Winter 5781/2020 JEWISH ACTION

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THE JEWISH WORLD

WHY DATA MATTERS A Conversation with Social Scientist Matt Williams

Jewish Action recently spoke with Matt Williams, director of the OU’s research arm, the Center for Communal Research, which collects and analyzes data from the Jewish community.

Matt joined the OU after serving as the managing director of the Berman Jewish Policy Archive. He holds degrees in art history, English and Jewish studies from Yeshiva University, received a master’s degree in history and public policy, and is currently finishing a doctorate degree in education and history with a concentration in Jewish studies from Stanford University.

He and his wife Amy and son Emmett live in Irvine, California.

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Jewish Action: With a background in art history, what made you move into the field of social sciences, and what do you like about this field?

Matt Williams: In many ways, I struggle with the label of social scientist. It’s something that I do, but I really think of myself as a researcher who is more interested in questions. I’ve always been driven to ask questions: How does one learn how to be Jewish? How does that express itself within and alongside institutional Jewish life? And how do we, Jewish communal professionals, help or hinder that process?

JA: As director of the Center for Communal Research at the OU, can you explain the role and goals of the Center?

MW: Firstly, the Center aims to study the Orthodox community and provide the necessary data to better identify the challenges we face; opportunities we can take advantage of; and priorities in creating and implementing solutions.

Secondly, in addition to understanding what our problems are, we need to better understand what works and what doesn’t. What are the best approaches to fostering a commitment to observance, a relationship with Hashem?

What are the best ways to reduce poverty or address other economic issues facing our community?

Thirdly, in addition to conducting general communal research, the Center is responsible for evaluating OU initiatives in particular. We want to better understand the programs that we’ve put out into the field and to assess their effectiveness. We want to be able to determine the impact of an NCSY program or an Israel Free Spirit Birthright Israel program by delving into the lives of the participants as well as the educators, and studying the structure of the program, its materials and the pedagogies employed.

JA: For thousands of years, Jewish communities did not engage in any kind of self-study. Why is it necessary now to research Orthodox Jewish life and collect data?

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HOW LIKELY ARE YOU TO MOVE DURING THE NEXT 3 YEARS? 5.16%

11.79%

41.8%

26.15%

15.1%

Definitely Probably

Don’t know Definitely not Probably not

In a study by the CCR, which examined the effects of Covid on the Orthodox community, researchers analyzed four Orthodox communities: Atlanta, Dallas, New Rochelle/Scarsdale and West Hempstead. They received a 17 percent response rate from the over 700 households contacted. Of those that responded, approximately 17 percent would consider moving somewhere within the US or to Israel. With working from home as the new normal, many families don’t feel the need to live in the cities anymore. But most plan to stay where they are.

MW: The Orthodox community— every community in fact—has always engaged in self-study. We love talking about ourselves. If we’re going to talk about ourselves constantly anyway (at the Shabbat table, for example), and if those perceptions and opinions are going to affect our communal practices and policies, then wouldn’t it be sensible to conduct a cheshbon hanefesh in a rigorous way? Responsible communal leaders should use research to impact policy decisions on everything, from what’s the best way to run a Shabbaton to how organizations should allocate millions of dollars each year. One of the ways that we as a community waste funds is by investing resources in programs when we have no idea, beyond anecdotal evidence and customer satisfaction surveys, if they work or not, and then not learning if they do.

JA: The secular American Jewish world has been engaged in researching the Jewish community for decades. Why has the Orthodox community lagged behind?

MW: The secular Jewish establishment has engaged in research since the early 1970s. Hayim Herring [the well-known organizational futurist] wrote a famous article on the 1990 National Jewish Population Survey [“How the 1990 National Jewish Population Survey Was Used by Federation Professionals for Jewish Continuity Purposes,” 2000], in which he questions how the study was received by Jewish communal professionals. He found that the vast majority had heard of the study and could parrot its major findings but had never actually read the study. So the extent to which research is used to inform policy and decision-making even in the non-Orthodox community

One of the ways that we as a community waste funds is by investing resources in programs when we have no idea, beyond anecdotal evidence and customer satisfaction surveys, if they work or not.

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JEWISH ACTION Winter 5781/2020

is an open question. One of the things I’ve been most impressed about at the OU is the seriousness with which our lay and professional leadership takes data into the decision-making process.

And I say this after having worked not only in the non-Orthodox world but in the non-Jewish nonprofit sector as well.

The fact is that the Orthodox community in the United States was small up until fairly recently.

That has changed in the last several decades. The natural consequences of the high birth rate and rapid growth of the community are disconnection, diversification and variation. When a community of 500 families becomes 5,000 families, there’s a significant change in the culture; people grow apart.

The more we lose that personal knowledge and understanding of the communities in which Jews live, the more we have to approach the learning as a process.

The non-Orthodox American Jewish community was always a large community of unaffiliated Jews, so it needed to have those tools at its disposal for a long time.

For the Orthodox community, being a large community is a relatively new phenomenon.

JA: Interesting. How new would you say research and data collection are to the Orthodox community?

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MW: Social science research only and ‘70s, American Jewry consisted communal needs in different ways. began to enter the Orthodox of a large traditional community that In recent decades, NCSY started Jewish communal vernacular in a sat somewhere between Conservative focusing on two distinct populations: serious way at the beginning of the and Orthodox Judaism. We didn’t minimally affiliated Jewish kids twenty-first century. A few major have the day school system that we in public school and Modern outreach organizations, such as have now. So we created the “National Orthodox youth in day schools and Olami, Afikim Foundation and Conference of Synagogue Youth,” yeshivot in need of inspiration.

Ner LeElef, were very interested which had an outsized place in the Recently, the Center worked closely in obtaining data, which began to religious experience of teenagers’ lives. with NCSY to evaluate its Jewish influence the ways our community Things change. Nowadays, we Student Union (JSU) clubs. NCSY runs approached kiruv in particular. don’t have that large traditional more than 180 JSU clubs on public community anymore. In fact, Through these organizations, among and private high school campuses Conservative Jewry itself is shrinking a few others, research slowly filtered across the country. Over the past dramatically; the average Conservative year, we embarked on a study of into the Orthodox establishment (to member is over the age of sixty. It’s a the extent that we could talk about JSU in an attempt to redefine and community that in many ways is an an establishment in the Orthodox narrow its goals. We ended up helping artifact of the twentieth century. community in the same way we do to re-engineer the JSU model and The day school movement in the non-Orthodox community). I introducing the idea of surveying transformed the landscape, and the believe there’s a growing recognition participants in the beginning and end Jewish world continued to change. As that we need data to inform our of each school year. This will enable us the societal realities evolved, NCSY decisions; that we don’t fully to gauge the program’s effectiveness. evolved as well, and began meeting While the new JSU design was understand our community in the supposed to be rolled out in the spring ways we assume we do; and that there (plans were derailed by Covid), this is are areas in which we can improve. a very exciting new chapter for JSU. I The field of kiruv has always been a 2.58% can’t speak highly enough of NCSY’s medium for ideas to enter into the 4.45% leadership and staff in embracing this Orthodox community, for culture process and emerging as a model to be brought in in ways that youth service organization. the community finds more 15.49% palatable halachically and JA: Can you give an example hashkafically. It wasn’t of a study you worked on that surprising to me that has real-life implications the popularization of for the Jewish community? social science within MW: We just conducted a 44.34% the frum world came Covid study, a portrait of four through the kiruv world. different Orthodox Jewish

HOW SATISFIED ARE YOU WITH YOUR SHUL'S RESPONSE TO THE CORONAVIRUS OUTBREAK?

JA: Can you give a concrete example of how data 33.14% can be used to change or redirect an OU program?

MW: One basic question we like to ask is—do our programs work?

We actually have a fairly rigorous definition for “work,” which is: Do Very satisfied they make an impact? Do they alter Somewhat satisfied Neutral the trajectory of the community by Somewhat unsatisfied comparison to a similar community Very unsatisfied without that particular program?

In other words, can we attribute In the CCR’s Covid study, shuls scored change in a population to the well for measures taken to protect intervention we’ve provided? their congregants from Covid-19— Since the OU is a 100-plusenforcing mask wearing and social year-old organization, there are many distancing, providing outdoor minyanim departments that arose at specific options, et cetera. The study indicated times to solve specific problems. Take a satisfaction response rate of about 78 percent from surveyed households.

NCSY, for example. In the 1950s, ‘60s, 30

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communities in the United States: Atlanta, Dallas, and Scarsdale/New Rochelle and West Hempstead in New York.

We picked these four communities because they are similar to a range of other communities socioeconomically, which allows us to make some broader claims about what might be going on in similar communities. We have representative samples of each of those communities, and our study is longitudinal—in other words, we are tracking the same groups within the community over the course of three surveys, so that we see the change over time, which is really crucial.

We first sampled these communities in May, we finished round two in September, right before the chagim,

and the third round was done in middle of October. That gave us different social contexts and different calendar contexts for understanding potential changes over time.

Research often questions popular consensus. We have all heard, for example, that seniors who are alone and isolated at home are having a hard time due to Covid. That’s something I think we all suspected. But our research on the various groups and how their lives have changed under the pandemic has actually shown that seniors are better off than some other cohorts. In our study, older adults didn’t report as high as others in terms of isolation or mental health issues such as anxiety and depression.

This may be due to their being in a higher-income tax bracket or their having more assets, or more living space; they’re not sheltering in place in a small apartment with seven kids.

The population that’s doing worse by far are one-income households—single parents with a few young children or younger adults living alone.

While the fact that single-parent families are having a hard time was not a surprise, the disparity between the age groups was a big surprise.

Younger adults generally are doing worse. (See graph above.) While the OU cares deeply about the older adult population and while admittedly there are challenges among that population that need to be addressed, that cohort is, relatively speaking, doing okay despite the Covid challenges.

I do want to make one point very clear: the Center is not the arbiter of communal values. Those are theological, hashkafic and halachic decisions—which are for posekim and communal leaders to decide. What we at the Center can do is to inform the conversation by saying, “It’s great that we want to prioritize seniors, and we do, indeed, need to take care of that community, but in the context of Covid, it seems like depression, anxiety, stress and economic insecurity are hitting younger adults much harder than any other cohort in the American Orthodox world.”

JA: Why did you decide to do a Covid study?

MW: We are in a new, unfamiliar environment, and there is a recognition that we don’t understand it. We certainly can’t understand it from our dalet amot, our own small social milieu, so we have to use social science to get at it.

If the OU is going to adapt effectively to this new context, we need information that will help us prioritize our programming and allocation of funds. Not only do we now know that this particular cohort [single-parent families] is suffering intensely during this time period, we also know how and why. That is really crucial, because we can provide helpful resources for them, such as career help, child care, et cetera.

JA: Can you give me examples of questions you might ask to determine whether or not a program is effective?

Let’s assume a Jewish young adult goes on an Israel Free Spirit Birthright Israel program for ten days and then goes back to college in Wyoming. How would we know if there was an impact?

MW: There are a couple of ways you set up such a study. The most crucial aspect is to make sure you have a control group and a variable group. Birthright is great for this because there is a waiting list, so people on the list can serve as a perfect control group—a group of similar-minded people who are interested in the program but didn’t participate in it just yet.

We provide the control group and the variable group with a

ANXIETY AND DEPRESSION CLINICAL DIAGNOSTIC BY AGE 100%

Severe

80%

60%

Moderate

40% Mild 20% Unexceptional

0% 18-39

39-64

65+

Studying how Covid has impacted people’s lives, researchers found a surprising disparity between the age groups. While the majority of respondents are not experiencing severe anxiety and depression, note the significant difference in the “moderate anxiety” column between the 18-39 age bracket and the 65+ age bracket. The younger set reports experiencing higher anxiety levels, perhaps due to factors such as less career stability or parenting young children during the pandemic.

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pre-questionnaire and a post-questionnaire. Additionally, we offer the post-questionnaire multiple times— three months out, nine months out, and then two years out.

We are interested in many different aspects that can help ascertain the impact of the program. Take, for example, the issue of people’s perceptions of the Orthodox community. We might ask: Do you think an Orthodox Jewish life is compatible with contemporary American society? When we ask that question before the trip and then again after the participants have spent a lot of time with Orthodox Jews, we would hope that there would be a change.

JA: Is data commonly misused by the community, and if so, how?

MW: Yes it is, and in so many ways.

One way is what we call “impact washing,” which is the notion that a customer satisfaction survey will tell you the impact of your program. An example would be a question such as: Do you feel you have more tools to work on your marriage after taking the XYZ Marriage Workshop? But because you don’t have the context of a pre- and post-study or a control group versus a variable group, you don’t know how the participants behaved beforehand or how a similar group that has not attended the workshop behaves, so you really can’t tell if it was your program that actually produced that outcome.

We see impact washing all the time in the Jewish community and in the nonprofit world generally, because there is such a demand to

The Orthodox community— every community in fact— has always engaged in self-study.

We love talking about ourselves. produce data to prove to funders that your intervention works.

Another common way of misusing data is through online surveys that are used to make representative claims (an accurate representation of the extent to which a phenomenon exists in the community) such as, for example, “33 percent of Orthodox Jews are X.” You cannot make representative claims without a very deliberate sampling model. The population to whom you are asking the questions is as important as the questions you are asking. You have to define that population; you have to be able to say, this is how this sample relates to this population. But with an online link that people pass around, you have no real idea who the population is.

JA: In the Orthodox community, there are segments of the population that tend to not use technology. Is this an obstacle in your attempt to do accurate research?

MW: It’s definitely a challenge from a research standpoint. The question of who has access to a study is one of the first questions that researchers should ask. People who are retired

are generally easier to sample than those working two jobs, for example.

One of the ways that I’ve seen this challenge successfully managed—and this is just one example—is from an Australian Jewish study conducted a couple of years ago. A researcher went into the shtiebels and shuls in the Chassidic community there and set up a number of iPads, which had a brief set of instructions in Yiddish.

The survey was translated entirely into Yiddish, and they set different hours for men and women to come in and complete the survey on the iPads.

The researcher also spoke in advance with the rabbanim in the Chassidic community and asked them what they would like to learn about their community, so that their questions could be included in the survey.

In this way, the rabbanim could have buy-in to the process itself.

JA: It would seem that every study is limited.

MW: Every survey is somewhat limited, but if we’re talking about large surveys such as those done by the Pew Research Center or the UJA-Federation of New York population study that is

Pretty bad and getting worse

59.06%

Pretty bad but getting better

WHAT IS THE CURRENT STATE OF THE COUNTRY?

14.22%

Pretty good but getting worse Pretty good and getting better

22.41% 4.31%

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

In the four communities surveyed by the CCR in June, September and October, the majority of respondents (about 82 percent) feel that the current state of the US—societally, politically, et cetera—is only “getting worse.”

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conducted every decade. Those are generally fairly good studies. They have not only done their due diligence to tell you the representative nature of their sample, but they can tell you—and this is crucial—how wrong they might be.

Studying the Singles and Shidduchim Is there a “shidduch crisis” and, if so, where does it come from? What makes a good match? How does being single affect and shape singles’ understanding of Judaism and their relationships with Torah and God?

%

It was questions such as these that the OU’s Center for Communal Research (CCR) sought to answer when it launched “The Shidduch Crises” research project this past year. (Crises, in the plural, as the project seeks to underscore the multiple complex pieces of the shidduch crisis.) For the study, the CCR concentrated on five main areas:

1

What is the scope, size and structure of the Orthodox “marriage market” in the US?

4

How do singles and shadchanim define a “good match”?

How does being single affect and shape singles’ understanding of Judaism, their familial and communal interactions, and their relationship with Torah and God?

3

5

2

Where does the “crisis” come from— what is its history, and who may benefit from its perpetuation?

How do Orthodox rabbis and communal leaders view extended singlehood from a Torah perspective?

Through qualitative surveys and interviews with singles, shadchanim and religious communal leaders, data analysis of popular dating sites, and exhaustive reviews of existing literature, the CCR explored what it means to be single and Orthodox in America today. Results are expected to be released this year. For the study, CCR enlisted researchers from Baruch, Brandeis, Hebrew University, Indiana, the University of Michigan, the University of Toronto and Yeshiva University.

“We examined the behaviors and beliefs of those involved with the Orthodox marriage market—from singles to matchmakers to rabbis and rebbetzins,” said CCR Director Matt Williams. “We anticipate the results will help policymakers, practitioners, philanthropists and singles.”

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JA: What’s the most common question people ask you about your work?

MW: The most common question I get by far is: “How do you know you’re right?” I think many people are used to social scientists talking with authority about what it is they know. I’m actually much more comfortable talking with authority about what it is I don’t know.

Defining your margin error, how confident you are in your findings, and what your study’s limitations are all essential for a researcher. In many ways, social science really is a discipline of humility.

JA: Is there a final message you would like to share with our readers?

MW: Ask hard questions and read critically. Use data to develop your own professional skills and growth.

Bring due diligence to your work.

Questioning and reading critically are tools of reflection that enable you to work more methodically and rigorously, which is especially important when you are working on behalf of the Jewish people.

Those are the first two takeaways.

Also, it’s critical to remember that very few things happen without a backstory. There was Boy Scouts of America before there was NCSY. We, in the sense of humanity, have been doing youth service work for a long time. We’ve been teaching in schools for a long time. We’ve been serving college kids on campus for a long time.

For Jewish communal educators in particular, there is already existing evidence from other communities about what might work and what might not work for the communities you serve. So the third takeaway is: Don’t reinvent the wheel. Don’t be afraid to look at what other people have done—and learn from it. This outlook, which the OU embraced, is one that I would love to see cultivated throughout the community.

The Age of Anxiety

Even before the advent of the coronavirus, too many children were exhibiting signs of anxiety and stress.

What are schools doing to promote good mental health in our children in general and to help them cope with the stresses of Covid-19 in particular?

By Ahuva Reich

HEALTH AND WELLNESS

W

hen Rabbi Yitzie Ross, a fourth-grade rebbi at Yeshiva of South Shore in Hewlett, New York, started teaching this past September, he noticed that his students were very restless. “I never had a class Ahuva Reich is a freelance writer who lives in New York.

lose focus so quickly,” says the veteran rebbi. He generally encourages students to follow along in the siddur with their “fingers on the place” while they daven; during the first weeks of this school year, few were able to do so. In Chumash class, a number of children were distracted and had difficulty paying attention. Rabbi Ross realized that all those months of not being in a school setting caused many students to have a

hard time readjusting to the academic rigor of school. “The kids forgot how to sit in their seats and follow rules.

They are worlds behind. They have no idea how to behave in a classroom.”

But while the students’ lack of focus didn’t come as a shock to Rabbi Ross, he found the level of their anxiety surprising. A nine-year-old student, seated behind plexiglass and wearing a mask, went through a sixteen-ounce Winter 5781/2020 JEWISH ACTION

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Ohel created materials to help schools re-open this past September in a safe, comfortable way. Courtesy of Tzivy Reiter

Anxiety: How Much Is Too Much?

While anxiety is a normal emotion, there are times when serious intervention is necessary. When anxiety is severe, such as when it begins to interfere with one’s daily life, one should seek professional help.

At age nineteen, college student Ahuva (not her real name) began experiencing anxiety attacks. There were days when she was nauseous and tearful, and just wanted to stay in bed. “I couldn’t identify a trigger,” she says, although she admits to having been bullied relentlessly during elementary school.

Ahuva realized she needed help. She entered therapy and was eventually prescribed medication by a psychiatrist. It was a rocky adjustment until the dosages were fine-tuned. When things began to stabilize, her best friend got married and left town. Then her aunt died after a battle with cancer.

“After that, I had a breakdown,” she says. “I couldn’t get out of bed, had no appetite and cried all day.

My therapist thought I should consider going to a facility, because on a twenty-point scale of anxiety, I was a nineteen.” Ultimately, Ahuva was diagnosed with an anxiety disorder. Her medication dose was increased, and she attended more frequent therapy sessions. She also joined a support group for people who suffer from anxiety disorders.

“Your life is not over after you get diagnosed,” she says. “With anxiety you go up and down, but I’m in a good place now.” This fall, she started a master’s program in mental health counseling.

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bottle of hand sanitizer in two days after a student coughed near him. “There was real fear in his eyes,” says Rabbi Ross.

For some children, anxiety may be rooted in trauma; they may have experienced the sudden death of a grandparent or other relative, sensed their parents’ financial stress, or been subjected to a chaotic home environment for months on end.

“There are students who returned to school with genuine worries,” says Carly Namdar, an educational psychologist who serves as director of middle school guidance at Hebrew Academy of Long Beach (HALB) on Long Island, New York.

In recent weeks, Jewish day schools in certain zip codes in the tristate area considered “red zones” opened briefly only to shut down again and resume Zoom school, which further contributed to the apprehension students might have already been feeling.

“Kids have lost so much these last few months,” says Tzivy Reiter, a licensed clinical social worker who is the director of children’s services at Ohel Children’s Home and Family Services, a large social service agency in New York City. “They’ve lost skills— social-emotional skills. They’re under duress.”

Reiter herself has become an unintended expert in disaster relief in the last twenty years—she was an active participant in the agency’s post-disaster work in the aftermath of 9/11, Hurricanes Sandy and Harvey, and the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting. But nothing prepared her for the pandemic of 2020. “This is different than anything I’ve seen. Every acute crisis has a beginning, a middle and an end.” In the case of Covid-19, however, the crisis is going on for so long—“there is an open-endedness.”

Additionally, she notes that in many ways the Covid scenario has no rule book. It is unusual, for instance, that the helpers or mental health professionals are affected by the same trauma as those they are helping. “It’s a shared traumatic reality,” she says.

Rise in Anxiety Even before the onset of the pandemic, however, there was a noticeable rise in anxiety and stress among children and young people. “Anxiety disorders have become more prevalent, complex and severe over the past few years,” says psychologist Dr. David H. Rosmarin, an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School and founder of the Center for Anxiety in New York. “Approximately one third of teens today and one in six primary school–aged children have significant distress or impairment from anxiety symptoms.”

“Everyone agrees that kids are suffering from a higher level of anxiety,” says Rabbi Avi Landa, middle school mashgiach at Talmudical Academy of Baltimore (TA) and counselor at TA’s high school. “They feel stressed trying to stay on top of homework and tests. Principals cannot be referring students to therapists outside of the school en masse,” asserts Rabbi Landa, who has a master’s in counseling psychotherapy from Johns Hopkins University and a license in clinical counseling.

In fact, the rise in anxiety has not gone undetected by Jewish educators. While day schools and yeshivot have traditionally focused on academics way more than on students’ mental health needs, a shift had taken place in the

It used to be a stigma if a school had a guidance counselor. Nowadays, the majority of Jewish day schools and yeshivos have at least one mental health professional on staff. world of Jewish education, long before anyone ever heard of the word Covid.

“It used to be a stigma if a school had a guidance counselor,” says Shira Berkowitz, LCSW, who is based in Chicago and serves as the director of school-based programs for Madraigos Midwest, an organization that supports the emotional, social and spiritual health of adolescents and young adults and program director of Darcheinu and Our Path, two social-emotional learning curricula for Jewish day

schools. “Nowadays, the majority of Jewish day schools and yeshivos have at least one mental health professional as part of the school administration. We are way more open as a community to mental health issues, and this has filtered down into the schools.”

Rabbi Binyomin Babad, director of Relief Resources, the New York-based frum referral network for mental health services, says he’s witnessed a growing openness to addressing mental health issues even in the most insular yeshivot.

Many of these schools have mental health professionals on staff, though the students may not be aware of the actual role of those staff members.

(Some kids won’t speak to a therapist but will confide in a mechanechet [Torah educator] or mashgiach [spiritual advisor].) Relief Resources partners with Torah Umesorah, the National Society for Hebrew Day Schools, to conduct training for mechanchot and yeshivah mashgichim who serve in a quasi-mental health role. “The fact that such a program exists is evidence of how things are changing,” says Rabbi Landa.

Of course, there are still some pockets of resistance. Some schools, says Berkowitz, insist that their students “don’t have issues.” A classroom rebbi recalls that a parent once told him, “I have a rav. My child doesn’t need a counselor.”

But such resistance, says Berkowitz, is far from the norm. “In practically every school, there are at least one or two

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Students at the Hebrew Academy of Long Beach. Courtesy of Aliza Kalton/HALB

students out during the year because of mental health conditions.” As a result of the prevalence of mental health issues, “as a community, we have tried to stop sweeping problems under the rug. Frum publications discuss these issues openly.”

Covid has helped move Jewish schools along in this area, making teachers and administrators more aware of and attentive to mental health concerns. “A child is not available for learning if he’s in an unhealthy place,” says Namdar.

Skills for Life “Social-emotional skills are really skills for life,” says Reiter, who is a firm believer in “universal intervention,” the notion that schools must play a proactive role and provide all students, not only those who seem to be having a hard time, with social-emotional support. With this approach, it’s not just the stereotyped “problem child” who gets support. “All children get some level of support and social-emotional skill building,” says Reiter. “A school with a more progressive, resilience-based environment is going to have this mindset.”

Piggybacking on the national push to have social-emotional learning (SEL) in public schools, some Jewish day schools, in addition to having 38

JEWISH ACTION Winter 5781/2020

mental health professionals on staff who meet with students one on one, have begun introducing SEL into the curriculum. In these weekly or biweekly sessions, social-emotional skills, including managing emotions, developing compassion, knowing how to handle conflict, building healthy peer relationships, and responsible decision-making, are taught in a classroom setting.

Studies show that SEL programs not only improve social and emotional skills, they also improve academic performance. Even more importantly,

they give kids the keys to future accomplishment. “We believe that social-emotional skills are a greater predictor of academic success and life success than IQ,” says Reiter.

The Darcheinu web site states that students who have completed SEL programs are nine times more likely to report bullying, and fifteen times more likely to prevent bullying. Additionally, their grade point averages are thirteen percentile points higher than those who have not taken SEL programs.

Do the lessons stick? According to Reiter, there’s no question they do. She tells the story of a mother of a young child who participated in Ohel’s Smile Club, a weekly program held over Zoom several months ago when everyone was sheltering in place that helped children develop emotional regulation and problem-solving skills. The mom was having a hard day and looked somewhat down. Her daughter handed her a piece of paper and said with an air of authority, “Mommy, draw how you feel. It will make you feel better.”

Joining the SEL Movement Aiming to help schools “catch issues before they become problems,” Berkowitz is on a crusade to make SEL an integral part of every Jewish day school curriculum. She has helped bring Darcheinu and Our Path, comprehensive SEL curricula designed for fifth through twelfth grade, to thirty schools nationwide.

Schools in London and Melbourne have reached out to her as well.

Giving Up Control One way to alleviate anxiety is giving up your need for control and strengthening your belief that God is in control. “Nowadays we can predict markets, the weather, et cetera,” explains Dr. David H. Rosmarin, an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School and founder of the Center for Anxiety in New York. “We’re obsessed with control. We don’t realize that emotional fluctuations, unpredictability and failure are normal parts of life. We’ve lost tolerance for uncertainty and feel anxious when we can’t control every outcome.” Remarkably, clinical science points to the importance of giving up control and “accepting the uncertainty of life as the foremost antidote to anxiety,” he says.

Berkowitz says the SEL curricula currently used in public schools around the country are not appropriate for Jewish day schools, since many of the topics (teen pregnancy, youth violence and/or criminal behavior) do not relate to the day-to-day lives of average religious students. Berkowitz and her team have therefore customized SEL curricula for Jewish schools—Our Path for Modern Orthodox schools and Darcheinu for more right-wing schools.

The Darcheinu/Our Path curricula, explains Berkowitz, is preventative, addressing issues including bullying, peer pressure, self-esteem and body image, while incorporating Torah principles such as derech eretz (respect for others), hakarat hatov (gratitude), and being same’ach b’chelko (content with what one has), among others. The lessons also draw upon examples of personalities from Tanach when applicable.

“These classes can literally prevent

A child should never be made to feel guilty about his feelings.

Don’t respond dismissively by saying “you are fine” or “calm down.”

Instead, try “this seems really hard for you. Tell me what’s going on.”

Validate feelings, not necessarily behavior.

—Dr. Leah Haber, PsyD, a clinical psychologist practicing in Ramat Beit Shemesh

future mental health issues,” states Berkowitz, who has taught the curriculum in various schools since 2003. To illustrate her point, she tells of a class she once gave to teenage girls on the subject of body image.

After the class, a girl approached her and said that one of her friends is barely eating and is significantly underweight. Together they figured out a way to guide the young person in question toward help. Berkowitz tells her students that her classroom is a nonjudgmental environment and they can share anything they’d like and

she will respect their confidentiality.

However, if someone is in danger, confidentiality will have to be broken.

“If students have a good, solid sense of self, they can withstand peer pressure and are less likely to fall into negative behavior patterns,” she explains. “And if they learn how to manage their anxiety, a full-blown anxiety disorder can be prevented.”

“The classes have a direct impact,” says Rabbi Landa, who teaches an SEL-styled course at TA. “I can’t tell you how many boys come to me after class and discuss things they wouldn’t Continued on page 43

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Are We Coddling Too Much?

By Barbara Bensoussan Modern parents have become much more protective of children on every level. The result: children are emerging less able to cope with life’s stresses. “Not very long ago, 50 percent of people lived in dire poverty,” says Dr. Rosmarin. “It was normal for life to be imperfect, for people to struggle. Today we’ve become so accustomed to comfort that we’re hypersensitive to anything that isn’t just right in our lives.”

Baby Boomers will remember that during their childhoods no one used car seats or wore helmets to ride a bike, and kids were allowed to play outdoors for hours far from parental supervision as long as they showed up for supper.

Not very long ago, 50 percent of people lived in dire poverty. It was normal for life to be imperfect, for people to struggle. Today, we've become so accustomed to comfort that we're hypersensitive to anything that isn't just right in our lives.

Modern safety regulations have clearly been effective.

Dr. Mariana Brussoni of the Child and Family Research Institute in Vancouver told the New York Times that research bears out that “there’s never been a safer time to be a child" ("Making Playgrounds a Little More Dangerous," May 10, 2019). In the same article, however, she argues that modern playgrounds are so safe that children, who need to test their bodies and their skills, get frustrated and start engaging in more daredevil behaviors—which ironically leads to more injuries compared to “less safe” playgrounds. Similarly, a 2014 Atlantic article entitled “The Overprotected Kid” states that today’s helicopter parents are afraid to let their children explore on their own. “Failure to supervise has become, in fact, synonymous with failure to parent,” writes author Hanna Rosin. “The result is a ‘continuous and ultimately dramatic decline in children’s opportunities to play and explore in their own chosen ways,'" she says, quoting psychologist Peter Gray. Few children today play outside regularly, exercising their bodies and imaginations, or challenging themselves—even if the challenge is simply to catch a toad, climb a tree or make a fort with old branches.

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In the absence of the kinds of economic necessities known to previous generations of teens—putting yourself through college, earning your own pocket money, helping with housework and the care of younger siblings—few teens today are asked to take on significant responsibility beyond doing their homework. But responsibility is what builds confidence and resilience. “We have to ask, are teens being asked to step up to the plate?” says Rebbetzin Dr. Adina Shmidman, a longtime educator with a doctorate in educational psychology who currently serves as director of the OU’s Women’s Initiative.

“They need to be tasked with responsibilities if they are to develop a sense of control and confidence.”

Yet modern parents tend to be indulgent and permissive.

“Many kids don’t hear the word ‘no’ often enough,” says Rebbetzin Aviva Feiner, rebbetzin of Congregation Kneseth Israel (the White Shul) in Far Rockaway, New York, and a well-known educator and speaker. “So they don’t learn to deal with frustration or having to delay gratification.” Parents give their children plenty of positive stroking yet protect them from the challenges that would toughen them up and develop resilience. The result has been a “snowflake generation”—"Each one is unique, each one is beautiful, but if you touch them, they melt,” she says. A Jerusalem-based therapist draws a parallel with the process in which baby birds peck their way out of the egg. Doing so requires them to develop muscles that will later be crucial to their survival. If the mother bird were to “help” her babies by breaking the shell herself, those muscles would never develop.

“Parents have good intentions,” she says, “but kids need to struggle a little. If parents do all their kids’ dirty work, they never develop competencies of their own.”

The result of coddling is that children remain childlike much longer than they used to. Dr. Jean Twenge, a psychologist at San Diego State University, analyzed data from a survey of 11 million young Americans from 1976 through the present, looking at adolescent behaviors and development. Her data reveals that eighteen-year-olds today are less likely than previous generations to achieve milestones like getting a driver’s license or finding a summer job. They generally grow up more slowly. “They look more like fifteen-year-olds than eighteen-year-olds,” she says.

A longtime Jewish Action contributor, Barbara Bensoussan is the author of a food memoir entitled The Well-Spiced Life, describing her discovery of Sephardic food and faith, and Pride and Preference, a novel reimagining Austen’s classic in today’s Orthodox world.

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Winter 5781/2020 JEWISH ACTION

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Parenting the Anxious Child

By David H. Rosmarin We are living in an era of anxiety. In each and every calendar year, one in six grade-school children and one in three teens nationwide has anxiety symptoms that warrant professional attention. While point-prevalence rates in the Orthodox community are unknown, referrals for anxious children certainly are at an all-time high and severity of symptoms is increasing over time.

What should parents do when their children have anxiety? I have yet to meet an anxious child that does not have at least one anxious parent. This happens for a variety of reasons, including the well-known psychological phenomenon of social or vicarious learning—the process by which people adopt behaviors of others they look up to. But before any Jewish parental guilt sets in, consider the positive side of the equation: Overcoming your own anxiety could be all that’s needed for a child to overcome his or hers.

To that end, there is even more good news. The gold standard in anxiety treatment (for adults and children) is a relatively simple and typically brief psychotherapeutic approach known as exposure therapy.

While exposure therapy does not work for everyone and some individuals may benefit from medication as well, more than 80 percent of patients respond to treatment such that their symptoms no longer interfere with day-to-day life. In our clinic, we routinely observe such benefits by the end of just seven sessions.

The main method of exposure therapy is to face one’s fears over and over again until anxiety dissipates.

Worrywarts are encouraged to intentionally think the worst for a few minutes each day. Panickers are challenged to panic and “let go” until anxiety subsides on its own (typically panic attacks last less than ten minutes). Individuals with social anxiety are taught to engage with others and subject themselves to the possibility of negative evaluation and judgment.

And individuals with obsessive compulsive disorder are pushed to let their distressing thoughts come into their minds without engaging in repetitive compulsive behaviors. Children with any of these symptoms receive the same approach, but there are two main caveats for treatment to be successful: Kids typically require a bit more hand-holding in David H. Rosmarin, PhD, is founder/director of the Center for Anxiety in New York and an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School. His clinical work and research have been featured in Scientific American, the Boston Globe, the Wall Street Journal, and the New York Times.

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exposure therapy, and parents need to provide a unified front together with the therapist.

In these and other cases, the mechanisms of effect with exposure therapy are well established. By approaching anxiety-provoking situations, we increase our tolerance of uncertainty and our ability to withstand distress, and thereby strengthen our resilience against anxiety. Tolerating uncertainty is a life skill that, unfortunately, has fallen by the wayside in our current culture. Technological advancements have made us feeble and unable to handle being “out of the know” or out of control. We are so used to having information at our fingertips that when things are uncertain or unknown, we become easily unmoored.

As for distress, our culture is all but allergic. Our immediate resolve when faced with strain or pain is to resort to medications, or otherwise do anything we can to stem the tide of discomfort. These macro-level trends could very well be the primary reasons why anxiety is so widely prevalent and severe today.

Children need to learn to tolerate uncertainty. . . . Children don’t need to know everything and parents don’t need to explain everything to them!

To these ends, children need to learn to tolerate uncertainty. Beyond exposure therapy, which is typically reserved for cases where anxiety is causing significant distress or impairment for at least a month, it’s advisable to habituate children to not having all information at their fingertips. Putting the ubiquitous issue of technology access aside, children don’t need to know everything and parents don’t need to explain everything to them! Moreover, using the art of surprise has many benefits to children (e.g., taking a family trip without mentioning where you are heading).

Children also need to tolerate discomfort. Simply sitting with distress is a life lesson that can prevent anxiety from getting out of control. The reality of life is that it is uncomfortable at times, and sparing children from any degree of failure ironically increases the likelihood of emotional struggles down the line. Of course, don’t gratuitously cause harm, but when distress occurs it’s important to allow kids to struggle through it as opposed to always providing a bailout. Along these lines, it is important to teach and reinforce and reward bravery, courage, patience and grit. When children (or adults) face their fears, tolerate uncertainty and withstand distress or pain, it’s worthy of recognition and praise, since they are taking active steps to thrive in the era of anxiety.

Continued from page 39

discuss if not for this class.” Rabbi Landa, who worked with Berkowitz on the curriculum, has also created a special course called “The Kedusha Talk” for teaching boys about puberty.

Some schools create their own SEL curriculum based on their particular needs. Torah Academy for Girls (TAG) in Far Rockaway, New York, for example, has a team of social workers on staff, each assigned to a different age group, ranging from preschool to high school. Four years ago, Tova Bollag, a licensed social worker, was hired to work specifically with the junior high school students at TAG. “Since they’ve hired me, the mental health team has grown significantly,” she says. Initially, Bollag’s primary role was to work with students one on one; however, she noticed that many of the issues the girls were grappling with centered on social situations. With the support of the TAG administration, Bollag began teaching a course called “Social Thinking” to sixth graders. The TAG mental health staff customized the curriculum, based on the popular book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens

by Stephen and Sean Covey, to suit the particular needs of religious girls. The course covers topics such as developing self-awareness, cultivating personal growth, building healthy interpersonal relationships, managing time wisely, creating goals, and working together as a team. “Teaching about mental health issues in the classroom also helps destigmatize these issues,” says Bollag.

Another SEL program currently in use is Ohel’s Road MAPP to Success Program (Middle School Anxiety Prevention Program), which emphasizes giving students “social-emotional language,” explains Reiter. “We give them the language and tools to navigate how they are feeling. This is especially crucial during middle school, when a lot of mental health issues seem to crop up.”

In 2018, HALB and Bnos Bais Yaakov in Far Rockaway were the pilot schools for this program, with Ohel providing extensive teacher training. Geared for sixth grade students, the Road MAPP teaches practical skills such as self-talk, mind/body connection, and identifying strengths—all with a focus

To welcome students back to school, Margolin Hebrew Academy in Memphis, Tennessee sponsored a parade. Courtesy of Jessica Baum/Margolin Hebrew Academy

on resilience, which is at the heart of the curriculum. “Resilience is like a muscle; it can be developed,” explains Reiter.

“It’s the best sixth-grade life skills curriculum I’ve seen,” says Namdar, the director of guidance at HALB’s middle school.

In many ways, teachers this year have to function as social workers.

“The same way a rebbi knows if a child’s davening is off, he must be able to pick up if a child is emotionally ‘off,’ and not doing well,” says Rabbi Ross.

Cognizant of this, school administrators are offering teacher training in mental health. The well-known psychologist Dr. David Pelcovitz presented a session on recognizing anxiety among children and themselves to educators at the Margolin Hebrew Academy in Memphis, Tennessee. Dr. Talia Hindin, school psychologist at Ben Porat Yosef in New Jersey, says that over the summer there was an optional book club for faculty where they read books including Permission to Feel: Unlocking the Power of Emotions to Help Our Kids, Ourselves, and Our Society Thrive. “We

When Your Child Is Feeling Anxious

By David H. Rosmarin If your child doesn’t want to go to school or take a test, for example, due to his anxiety: Validate that he is having a hard time by conveying that you understand and appreciate how he feels.

Don’t bail her out; rather, find a way to help her engage. If she can’t or won’t do all of the task, encourage her do as much as possible.

When a child faces his fears, sits with discomfort or tolerates uncertainty, appreciate it and reinforce him with praise (catch him being “good”!)

When a child can’t or won’t engage in important aspects of life for a month or more, consult a mental health professional for guidance.

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also see the need to support our teachers . . . how do they balance their own emotional health? They have to take care of themselves so they can be there for their students,” says Dr. Hindin.

A Covid Curriculum Along with collectively spending millions of dollars this past summer on facilities upgrades, additional space, PPE (personal protective equipment) and additional staff due to the Covid crisis, Jewish day schools and yeshivot recognized the need to invest in helping students cope with the challenges of the past few months.

This past September, TAG increased the presence of mental health staff in the classroom, preparing teachers for the potential impact on students.

In addition, the mental health professionals on staff helped students process their experiences through creative expression, via journaling or art projects such as collages.

The Margolin Hebrew Academy took a creative approach to reducing kids’ anxiety as they returned to school: it sponsored a parade. Since the community is located within a relatively small area, head of school Rabbi Benjy Owen and other administrators stood on a flatbed truck, decorated with colorful posters and balloons, and circled the neighborhood. Teachers followed in their cars. As the truck passed each child’s home, the administrators waved and distributed popsicles and frisbees.

“We wanted to reduce kids’ anxiety and build some excitement for the start of school,” explains Rabbi Owen.

In the beginning of the school year, Reiter, as the director of Ohel’s

Anxiety, like most feelings, is contagious. Anxiety in our children can trigger a similar reaction in us.

Before you respond, make sure to give yourself space, don’t say the first thing that pops into your head.

—Dr. Leah Haber

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Overcoming Fears

By Leah Haber

Often, our instincts as parents are to “make things easy” for our kids and avoid uncomfortable situations. For example, if our child is anxious about going to sleepaway camp, we may simply allow him or her to stay home. However, by doing this, we bypass the problem rather than help our kids manage their anxiety. It’s more constructive to let our children experience some emotional discomfort, which implicitly gives them the message: “I know this is hard. I believe you can figure this out.”

When we say “fine, don’t go to camp,” a child might think: “I don’t believe I can do this and my parent doesn’t either.” A more productive way to deal with anxiety is to talk it through and possibly problem solve with a child. We might say: “I get that you’re nervous. Going away to camp is a big deal. Are there any specific parts of camp that you’re nervous about? What do you think might help you in that situation?

Would you like to hear what worked for me when I was a kid? “ Often, anxiety can be diffused just by talking things out and giving ourselves and our child enough time and emotional space to think, plan and problem solve.

Leah Haber, PsyD, is a clinical psychologist practicing in Ramat Beit Shemesh.

school-based programs, became a major force in helping schools prepare for reopening in a safe, emotionally comfortable way. She oversaw the development and dissemination of a school reopening toolkit that included lesson plans for different grades.

The lessons take students through various stages in an age-appropriate way, acknowledging the trauma (“What happened to us?”); allowing them to express their feelings (“How do we feel?”); and finally, bringing them emotionally to a place of hope (“Looking forward”). “There must be an acknowledgement of the trauma,” says Reiter. Some 140 schools downloaded the toolkit, made available by Ohel free of charge. Additionally, in conjunction with Metiv: The Israel Psychotrauma Center, Reiter produced a “Resilience Workbook,” an activity book for children in kindergarten through fifth grade that aims to help students build resilience. Based on the latest research on self-regulation, the workbook is comprised of various coloring pages where children learn not only to identify feelings but to understand that feelings “don’t just happen to them, they can

regulate those feelings,” explains Reiter.

Many schools are simply drawing upon their existing SEL programs to bolster students’ coping skills and resilience. “Some of the skills we teach in our Road MAPP program include mindfulness, relaxation techniques and self-talk,” says Namdar. The teachers at HALB, she says, are at an advantage since they’ve already received significant training in mental health awareness because of the pilot program. “Our faculty has a strong foundation in adolescent mental health. This is just continuing the conversation.”

Drawing upon the work of positive psychology guru Tal Ben Shahar, Namdar insists that there’s no rule book with regard to how one should be feeling at this time. Her advice for both children and parents? All emotions are okay. Express your emotions. Draw them. Paint them. Write them. Exercise regularly. Have some way to engage in self-care. And finally: Express gratitude.

Gratitude research shows that the more gratitude we express in our lives, the happier we are, she says. Keep a gratitude journal, she advises—there is always something to be grateful for.

COVER STORY

It is increasingly apparent that the pandemic is not a passing phase but portends a new and yet unknown reality. In our cover story, we asked rabbis and educators to reflect on how Covid has not only impacted our past and present but how it will impact our future. What will the new reality be like once the pandemic is over? What will our shuls look like? What will dating and shidduchim be like going forward? How can we, as Rabbi Zvi Engel asks in this issue, “return to normal . . . but with a renewed sense of purpose and spiritual energy”?

These are some of the questions our contributors ponder in the pages ahead.

Re-Imagining

Tefillah

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Davening Behind the Shul

By Ya’akov Trump Since the pandemic began, davening has been a new experience for all of us. We have had to acclimate to new venues and new approaches to tefillah.

I have now had the privilege of davening Minchah in the magical light of the almost-setting sun. I’ve welcomed the chilly breeze during the early Morning Berachos and coped through the humidity of the midday Mussaf. I watched the seasons of the trees and felt the bite of the mosquitoes—all through my tefillos.

Standing there davening from behind my mask, I had the privacy and time to contemplate this new, temporary reality.

One of the striking lessons I learned arose from the following gemara—I came across it while preparing to deliver my first Shabbos shiur once we were back in shul after months of distance Zooming.

The Talmud states, “Rav Huna said: ‘Anyone who prays behind the sanctuary is called an evil person’” (Berachos 6b). I admit that the first time I read this gemara, it made me feel very uncomfortable. Here we were davening in the shul parking lot in a tent right behind the shul, and then learning about the very thing we were doing.

The shiur I was giving that Shabbos afternoon focused on the work Ein Ayah by Rav Avraham Yitzchak HaCohen Kook, zt”l. Though he wrote the following idea in the 1890s in the Lithuanian shtetl of Zeimel, his words

comforted me in 2020. Sitting in the their new arrangement. This gemara shul tent, I learned two important challenges us to ask ourselves an messages hidden in this gemara. important question: to which group The ideas of “shul” or “behind the do we belong? Are we a community shul” do not refer to physical locations. united despite the physical distance The concept of “shul” in this context or are we “behind-the-shul” folks? represents the concept of community.

Rav Kook proceeds to elaborate, in The Gemara is criticizing an individual an even more profound way, on the who decides to exit from the community Gemara’s use of the terms “shul” and and pray “behind” (separately). Even in “behind the shul.” He explains that there adverse or solitary situations, one needs are two ways our prayer can operate. to be part of the larger community.

Firstly, prayer serves as a conduit for Conversely, there can be those who requests. We use it as we turn to the may technically be in a physical shul Almighty and beg for our many needs. structure but have no interest or Secondly, prayer is a vehicle for investment in the greater good or in the self-reflection and growth, forcing us klal. Rav Kook explains that the Gemara to examine our actions and aspirations. is teaching us a fundamental point: in As we pray, we recognize that it is order for our prayers to be accepted, through our actions that we represent, we need to be connected to something and ultimately earn, the things we larger than ourselves—we must be request from Hakadosh Baruch Hu. connected to the klal. True, during Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch times such as these, it may not feel like notes that the root of “lehispalel,” the we are physically connected with our Hebrew word for prayer, is pei, lamed, minyanim, especially with the slow, lamed, which means “to judge.” The incremental return to our sanctuaries. way this verb is conjugated in Hebrew But Rav Kook takes a more expansive makes it reflexive: lehispalel means to view of the “shul,” seeing it as something judge oneself. Every time one prays, that transcends the brick and mortar. one must question: Do I deserve This idea speaks to the many who, while the raise I am asking for? Have I still not back inside the shul, continue appreciated the gifts I have received? to feel connected to the community.

Do I really value the things I am Yet this idea also challenges us. asking for—such as the rebuilding of During this Covid period, there are Yerushalayim and the ingathering of different groups of individuals who Exiles? These are some of the tough are not in shul. There are those who questions one must ask oneself when have found different options for engaging in prayer, with the goal being davening out of a genuine concern meta-awareness and spiritual growth. for health and a legitimate fear of Indeed, this latter idea is the primary joining large gatherings. There are goal of tefillah. Only when we are also those who have found more willing to change ourselves, do we fast-paced and convenient settings for deserve what it is we are asking for. tefillah. Both groups do not currently Metaphorically, according to Rav daven in their usual shul, but those Kook’s explanation, prayer as a tool of in the first group wish they could self-improvement is referred to as “shul,” be back in shul but have no choice and prayer as a medium to submit our under the circumstances, while those requests is called “behind the shul.” Thus, in the latter seem quite content with the Gemara says that if our prayer is only “behind the shul”—that is, if our prayer is only about asking for what we need and not about what we owe the Almighty—then our prayer is deficient. Prayer is only effective if we remember that it must be a catalyst for self-change and improvement.

This more profound explanation is powerfully contemporary as well.

Rav Kook takes a more expansive view of the “shul,” seeing it as something that transcends the brick and mortar.

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Our return to shul is still very much incomplete; the elderly, the medically frail and so many others are absent, and the socializing, the kiddushim, the camaraderie and the shiurim are still sorely lacking. But with so much missing, we are forced to remember what tefillah is truly supposed to be about: being part of the larger transcendent community, as well as being the vehicle for personal growth and change. As we sit in our socially distant seats in shul wearing a mask that grants us privacy and obscures our facial expressions, we have the opportunity to meet ourselves in a private, personal fashion and to ask some important questions. May we grow from and through this experience and truly emerge as “shul” people in every sense of the word.

Rabbi Ya’akov Trump is rav of the Young Israel of LawrenceCedarhurst in New York.

Va’ani Tefillah: Bringing the Self to Tefillah

By Debbie Greenblatt

In the early days of the pandemic, the question loomed: If corona ended tomorrow (and we mostly thought it would—“surely they’ll figure this out!”), would anything really change? But after weeks turned into months with no end in sight, we realized that, in fact, something has changed. And like all change, its trajectory was unpredictable.

Since the destruction of our Temple, the synagogue has been the center of our communal existence. As the pandemic intensified, shuls stood vacant.

It looked so wrong. Our mikdash me’at had become hamikdash she’sha’sak (the sanctuary that became silent).

For those women who go to shul

In that quiet time while davening at home (even with kids around), many of us realized that tefillah could be something in which we truly engaged. Our own pace, our own songs, our own devotion. on Shabbos, the shift to praying exclusively at home was not such a dramatic change. Surely we missed hearing Kerias HaTorah and answering Kaddish (and, of course, seeing our shul friends), but our tefillos continued.

For many men, however, the change was more drastic, as they were displaced from their makom kavua (regular place of prayer). Those who were serious about tefillah carried on, despite finding the situation disconcerting. And then something unexpected happened: many men started to really enjoy davening at home, to the point that when shuls began to tentatively reopen, quite a few serious daveners did not return immediately, wanting to hold on to the more spiritually satisfying experience of davening at home.

What was going on?

Shul serves many functions in addition to serving as a makom tefillah.

It is social, informational and epicurean.

The non-tefillah roles fulfilled by the shul relate to the current culture of Judaism, a sort of bagels and lox on steroids. Along this cultural journey, we may have lost our way, becoming more deeply immersed in this culture while allowing the core of our Judaism—the relationship of a Jewish individual to his Creator—to be sidetracked.

The phenomenon of coming to shul JFK (“Just For Kiddush”) arose, with rabbis tolerating it because “well, at least they’re in shul.” Even where such a phenomenon does not exist, there is so much “hock” (shul news): What’s going on with so-and-so? Is his business still in trouble? The rabbi’s main supporter hasn’t been in shul for three weeks, did they have a falling out?

When davening at home, all of that

fell away. Likewise, the ego challenges to one’s kavod that shul sometimes presents—Who davened for the amud?

Who got the aliyah?—disappeared. The static was silenced, and each davener was left with his siddur and his thoughts.

This highlights an ongoing tension.

While the communal institutions of Judaism are integral and necessary, they cannot take the place of each individual’s avodah, which is uniquely private and personal. In that quiet time while davening at home (even with kids around), many of us realized that tefillah could be something in which we truly engaged. Our own pace, our own songs, our own devotion.

Jewish lore is filled with parables of a king sending his son out of the palace to wander as an unknown. The king does so generally because there is something the young prince needs to learn on his own, but as soon as he does, nothing makes the king happier than bringing his son back home to the palace. The King of Kings sent us out of shul, but perhaps not to wander.

Maybe He sent us to our homes so we could find our spiritual centeredness and mend our connection to Him without the distractions that often accompany prayer in the synagogue.

In the words of a serious ben Torah, reflecting on why he was not eager to return to davening in shul after a two-month Covid hiatus: “Maybe I was busy running to davening [prior to Covid], but I was not truly davening.”

Perhaps in our tefillah, the thread of connection had frayed. Covid has propelled us to re-examine that connection. In the I-generation, we need to also have I-tefillah, the bringing of the self to tefillah. Yet in the world we Winter 5781/2020 JEWISH ACTION

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live in, it is ever harder to be in touch with the real I, the self that is really you, the deepest self where all the external definitions of a person don’t apply. All we bring to any relationship is that inner self. Tefillah is the time we get in touch with Hakadosh Baruch Hu; it’s when we are investing in our relationship with our Father. Hashem is always there, like the constant rays of the sun, yearning for a connection with His children. We sometimes inadvertently draw the curtain across the window, blocking the light, and lose the sense of His presence, forgetting what it feels like to have that real relationship with Him. The curtain may be drawn due to the indifference that invariably develops when one takes a relationship for granted; the apathy that ensues after a significant period of having only superficial interactions; or the inevitable shallowness of a relationship when all one brings to it is one’s wittiness or tennis skills, but never the real self.

A kinah we recite on Tishah B’Av presents a litany of woes that have befallen our people, and the refrain is, “Eich enachem— How will I be comforted?” The troubles befell us collectively, but the question posed is, how will I be comforted? The root of enachem means to change direction, to change perspective, as when the Torah states: “pen yinachem ha’am— perhaps the people will reconsider” (Shemos 13:17). Maybe Hashem wasn’t sending us out of shul as much as He was sending us back into our homes, our batim. Maybe He was asking us to consider eich enachem, how will I change the direction of my davening?

When Hashem commanded Moshe regarding the building of the Ark of the Covenant that was to be placed in the Holy of Holies, He said, “And you shall overlay it with pure gold; from inside (mi’bayis) and from outside you shall

overlay it.” We see from this verse that bayis connotes “inside.” Commenting on this verse, the Kli Yakar explains that Hashem wanted the pure gold of the Ark to be on the inside. This is symbolic of what Hashem wants from us—He wants our inside, our penim, our heart, our deepest purest self. Perhaps that is what we felt when we were davening at home. It behooves us to internalize the words, attributed to Rabbi Elazar Azcari in Sefer Chareidim: “Bilvavi Mishkan evneh, I will build a sanctuary in my heart, ki Rachmana liba ba’i, because the Merciful One desires the heart.”

The synagogue is essential to Jewish life and to service of Hashem. It is a halachic imperative. Elaborating on this imperative, the Shulchan Aruch states that one should try and pray in a synagogue even if he could pray with a minyan in his home, and that one who lives in a place where there is a shul and doesn’t enter it is called a “bad neighbor.” The Maharal states in Gur Aryeh that as long as there are houses of prayer and houses of Torah study, the Divine Presence is with us.

So how should we not lose that which many of us have gained spiritually during this era of praying at home? Is there a way to transpose the more meaningful prayer that many experienced at home back to shul? I don’t know the answer, but I have a sense that it’s time to have the conversation.

Debbie Greenblatt is a senior lecturer for the Gateways organization and a teacher for over thirty years of both observant and not-yet-observant Jewish women.

Debbie’s lecture topics include Jewish texts, Jewish thought and relationships.

Covid-19 facilitated a cheshbon hanefesh, a soulful reassessment.

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Tefillah from the “Days of Old”

By Zvi Engel

They say the greatness of Montreal Canadiens hockey player Maurice “Rocket” Richard was his uncanny ability to skate at breakneck speed while holding in his mind’s eye a full awareness of what all the other players were doing at the same time. It was as if he was both on the ice and in the stands watching the players from above—in the action and observing it at the same time.

In a strange way, Covid-19 enabled us to do something similar with regard to tefillah. The pause on tefillah b’tzibbur in many shuls forced us all to step back and ask: What is working here? What is broken? What is it about tefillah b’yechidut at home that resonates, and why did Chazal ordain tefillah b’tzibbur in the beit knesset or beit midrash as the optimal form of tefillah?

Indeed, for all the loss, alienation, chaos and pervasive uncertainty, some members of my shul reported that the crisis enabled them to rethink their priorities, including their relationship to Hakadosh Baruch Hu as expressed through tefillah. Covid-19 facilitated a cheshbon hanefesh, a soulful reassessment during this time-out from communal Jewish life.

The coda to Megillat Eichah expresses our pining for a future infused with an idyllic past: “Chadesh yameinu k’kedem— Renew our days as of old.” The Megillah is referring to the arrival of Mashiach, but until the ultimate fulfillment of that vision, to what “days of old” do we seek to return today? In other words, when envisioning tefillah after Covid, do we want things to be exactly like they were k’kedem, pre-Covid, or can they perhaps be even better, based upon the lessons we’ve learned during these trying times? Can we return to normal shul life, as it was in pre-Covid days, but with a renewed sense of purpose and

spiritual energy? These questions apply to us as individuals and collectively in the communal centers where we gather together to meet Hashem. I believe the questions are less about discovering novel ways of engaging in tefillah as they are about rediscovering core elements of tefillah, elements we can recapture from “the days of old.”

Giving Up Our False Sense of Control While minyanim were on hold, two salient features of tefillah came to the foreground for me personally. While both of these will inevitably recede as we emerge from the pandemic, perhaps they can serve to inform us in the future.

First was a renewed awareness of our utter dependency on the Ribbono Shel Olam. As the fragility of the world order was rapidly exposed, a dull, amorphous feeling took hold; the world teetered on the edge of some kind of abyss. (In Chicago, weeks of slate-gray skies, cold rain falling in sheets, and even a freak hailstorm on erev Pesach did not help.)

In 2011, when mori v’rabi Rav Aharon Lichtenstein, zt”l, was asked about the diminished state of feeling dependent on Hakadosh Baruch Hu in the modern era, he acknowledged the many quills broken in attempting to capture the relatively newfound feeling of control over one’s surroundings, as compared to the feelings of insecurity that permeated much of premodern life. Reading one of the vivid descriptions of human vulnerability and finitude in Megillat Kohelet, he asked pointedly, “Let us ask ourselves honestly: does a person today feel ‘like a fish trapped in a net’? Or does he feel that he generally controls his own life?” After citing the former realities of high infant mortality rates and low life expectancy, he turned to the devastation wrought by plagues throughout the Middle Ages. “The situation,” he said, “was one in which a person could indeed feel the sharp sword literally resting on his neck . . . the lack of certainty was awesome and dreadful.”1 In the early days of the pandemic, if only for a limited time, some of that sense of palpable danger, of the precariousness of our entire global infrastructure, returned me back k’kedem, to those days of old. While I do

not hanker for a life of fear and terror, boredom. But streamlining tefillah risks breeding spiritual automatons. how about integrating this feeling of clinging to Hashem into life after Covid? Rather than invoking the language of transportation, tefillah should inspire Our tefillot seek to remind us of this daily: “Malchut’cha malchut kol olamim— the language of emunah and bitachon.

And this is the second aspect of Your dominion extends to all worlds,” tefillah that changed for me once from the expanses of the universe to minyan was no longer my day-to-day the mind-boggling intricacies of the reality: davening on my own each day microscopic plane, in all dimensions, transpired beyond time. Instead of a physical and spiritual; “Pote’ach et clock, the duration and pace of my Yadecha umasbia lechol chai ratzon— tefillot were guided only by the words You open Your hand, sustaining the life in the siddur. Speaking to the Ribbono and existence of everything”; “Ahallelah Shel Olam, poring over the words Hashem b’chayai—I will praise Hashem formulated and compiled by Chazal, all my life,” expressing thanksgiving became a deeply personal and private for life itself and reminding ourselves experience.

I imagined the Avot and daily not to take anything for granted.

Imahot, the architects of the embryonic, Tefillah That Transcends Time unstructured form of prayer—alone Due to the frenzied pace of our lives, in the world as ma’aminim and unable especially our pre-Covid lives, it to find a minyan anywhere—speaking sometimes felt to me as if shul was to Hakadosh Baruch Hu. Whether becoming reduced to a sort of religious or not the word daven is a cognate of train station where everything is the Aramaic word “d’avuhon—of the governed by schedules and the goal forefathers,” the earliest and ultimately is to arrive at the destination as the most enduring models for tefillah expeditiously and painlessly as possible. remain the Patriarchs. This is how we As the flywheel of efficiency takes over, introduce ourselves at the beginning spinning faster and faster with every of the Amidah: I am here because my passing minyan, it becomes a metric forefathers stood before You. Avraham for an activity whose true goal is to Avinu designated a place for tefillah.2 remind us of the constant presence Each of the Avot set a time in which to of Hashem in our lives. When Chazal encounter Hashem daily.3 But a clock describe avodah she’balev, service of did not govern the duration of their the heart, they mean that it ought to dialogue with Hashem. This, too, is an

While you can potentially have more kavanah while davening on your own, there is nothing as powerful as communal prayer. be sincere, emotional and engaged. Its rhythm must not be set by the ticking clock but by the beating heart. “How can we arrive (finish) faster?” “How can we improve our ‘words per minute’ rate?” “Are there any shortcuts or parts we can skip?” This is the language of transportation. It aims to palliate the pain of travel, to minimize

aspect of “k’kedem.” While the wish of Rabbi Yochanan, “Would that a person prayed all day long,” is impractical, the aspiration still leaves its mark.4 Even as we may yearn for the spontaneity and unstructured nature of our forefather’s prayers, we must not undermine the development and evolution of prayer that links our tefillah Winter 5781/2020 JEWISH ACTION

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Like everyone else, I was suddenly confronted with a new, shul-less life. to all previous generations. The bridge joining us to our Avot is built out of the sacred words of Dovid Hamelech, “minted in the forge of ” (Berachot 33a) the Anshei Knesset Hagedolah, codified in the courts of Chazal, and sanctified by all generations since.

The Role of the Beit Knesset The question of reimagining tefillah after Covid might center on first asking how we can retain a greater sense of dependency upon our Creator, and, second, how we can integrate a heightened reverence for, and a deepened personal relationship with Hashem in the future. On a communal level, it remains vital that we retain the pivotal role of the beit knesset.

Our batei knessiot stand today as our mikdashei me’at, miniature Temples.5 We dare not abandon them. Though Avraham and Yitzchak envisioned the Har Habayit (the Temple Mount) as a “peak” (Bereishit 22:14) and a “plain” (Bereishit 24:63) respectively—natural, aboriginal, untamed and organic—the Gemara in Pesachim declares that when the Beit Hamikdash is rebuilt, nations of the world will ascend to Yerushalayim seeking “the House of the God of Yaakov.” In contrast to the pastoral visions of Avraham and Yitzchak,6 Yaakov Avinu sees the Har Habayit as a physical building, built by human endeavor, a portal of encounter with the Ribbono Shel Olam involving fixity of structure, arrangement of tefillot, and set times for prayer. Whatever may be lost in spontaneity is gained in grounded permanence. Yet the construct of an actual structure, the Beit Hamikdash, need not supplant the earlier, pastoral, unscripted prayers of Avraham and Yitzchak; rather, these elements should be incorporated. After all, Yaakov Avinu is the offspring of the previous generations of Avot and Imahot, embodying all that he learned from them, and incorporating their teachings into the House of Hashem.

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In reimagining tefillah now, perhaps this is our challenge: how to integrate the lessons of Covid-19— our utter dependency on Hashem and our capacity for encountering Hashem on a personal level—into our avodah, keeping faith with the legacy of our forebears.

Notes

1. Rabbi Haim Sabato, Mevakshei Panekha: Sichot im HaRav Aharon Lichtenstein (Heb.) (Tel Aviv, Israel, 2011), 98-100 (translations mine).

2. Berachot 6b, and see Ha’amek.

Davar to Bereishit 13:14.

3. Berachot 26b.

4. Berachot 21a.

5. Megillah 29a.

6. Pesachim 88a.

Rabbi Zvi Engel serves as the rabbi of Congregation Or Torah in Skokie, Illinois.

Setting Realistic Goals for Tefillah

By Shmuel Silber

Ask a Jew what he does in a time of distress, and he will tell you, “I raise my hands and voice to my God and ask for salvation.” Ask a Jew what she does in times of success and joy, and she will respond, “I cry out in thanksgiving to the One Above.

At times, it may be through formal, organized prayer, and at times through spontaneous, unscripted prayer.

One of the most powerful prayer experiences I have ever had took place a few short years ago. I was spending a few weeks in Israel with my family, and we decided to take a

trip to Shiloh, the ancient site of the mishkan (Tabernacle). After touring, we sat down in a shaded area next to the archeological site, and a beautiful image of Tefillas Chana. It was in this very place, thousands of years ago, that a heartbroken woman came to pray for a child. She made her way into the mishkan, and all the pain that had built up over the years came pouring out of her. Herein lies the beauty of tefillah—the intensity, the emotion, the pain, yet at the same time, a belief that all could change if the Master of the Universe wills it so.

Tefillah is our personal opportunity to talk things out with God. Tefillah provides us with the platform to ask even if the answers will never come. But at those moments of sadness and despair, moments which should distance me from my beloved Father, tefillah brings me back. Do not go, the Ribbono Shel Olam whispers into the recesses of my heart. I know you are hurt; I know you will never understand, but our relationship is so much greater than any one disappointment or challenge.

Our relationship is what will give you the strength to get up and continue forward. When Chana entered into the mishkan that day, she was filled with the pain of years of unanswered prayers, yet confident that God would hear her and maybe this time give the great gift of a child. Chana understood that tefillah is the bond which holds us close to God and holds Him close to us.

To stand in a spot where such an intense dialogue had taken place moved me in a dramatic way. I walked towards the end of the mishkan area, the spot where the Kodesh HaKodashim (Holy of Holies) would have been, and I began to cry. I felt connected to my Father like I had never felt before. It was then that I finally understood what the essence of tefillah truly is—to speak to God. Real tefillah is an opportunity to talk to God and tell Him what pains me.

But it is not all about pain.

Tefillah offers us the opportunity to speak to God about our successes and insecurities. Prayer offers us the ability to just bear our hearts. We have the opportunity to tell Him about our pain and joy. We are often taught that

Dividers in the Kotel Plaza separate different minyanim to promote social distancing. Photo: Flash90/Olivier Fitoussi

kavanah is the most important part of tefillah. While this is unequivocally true, we must expand the definition.

Kavanah is understanding what you are saying, but it is also utilizing the prayer experience for what it is meant for, to come closer to God and closer to myself. Such is the power of tefillah.

Achieving a Meaningful Prayer Experience Rabbi Tzadok HaKohen of Lublin provides an incredible insight on achieving a meaningful prayer experience. He quotes the gemara in Berachos 3a (Tzidkas Hatzaddik 31): Rabbi Yosi said: I was once walking along the road when I entered the ruins of Jerusalem in order to pray. I noticed that Eliyahu, of blessed memory, came and guarded the entrance for me and waited at the entrance until I finished my prayer. When I finished praying and exited the ruin, Eliyahu said to me, “Greetings to you, my rabbi.” I answered him, “Greetings to you, my rabbi, my teacher.” Eliyahu said to me, “My son,

why did you enter this ruin?” I said to him, “In order to pray.” Eliyahu said: “You should have prayed on the road.” I said: “I was afraid that I might be interrupted by travelers and would be unable to focus.” Eliyahu said, “You should have recited the abbreviated prayer instituted for just such circumstances.”

Rabbi Tzadok understands from here that Eliyahu was teaching Rabbi Yosi a fundamental principle of prayer: “Tov me’at b’kavanah mei’harbeh shelo b’kavanah—It is far better to have a small amount of prayer with concentration than a large amount without.”

Truthfully, I often find it difficult to maintain proper concentration throughout davening, but if I focus on certain sections or recite parts of davening at a slower pace, I sacrifice quantity but gain quality. While I certainly aspire to daven the entirety of tefillah with focus, I have to start with small, more realistic goals. So I commit to reciting Ashrei with kavanah, I then progress to reciting the first berachah

of Shemoneh Esrei with concentration and work to increase the scope and breadth of my kavanah over time.

But there is another profound idea embedded in Rabbi Tzadok’s explanation. Rabbi Yosi went into the ruins because he did not want to be disturbed, as there were people on the main road. At times it may be easier to have more concentration praying alone.

Many of us discovered this during the initial months of the pandemic when all the shuls and batei midrash were closed. Accustomed to davening with a minyan, some of us felt conflicted in the beginning. But then something amazing occurred: Praying at home led many of us to experience some of the most meaningful tefillos we have had in years. We davened in our dining rooms, patios and backyards.

We sang Kabbalas Shabbos with our families. We felt uplifted by our prayers in a way we hadn’t felt before.

Some months later, we were granted permission to reopen our shuls and batei midrash. (Unfortunately, as I Winter 5781/2020 JEWISH ACTION

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write this in early October, some shuls have recently been shut down once again.) We had to remind ourselves of an important fact: While you can potentially have more kavanah while davening on your own, there is nothing as powerful as communal prayer. True, when you daven on your own or with a smaller group, you can choose the pace. But when you daven with the tzibbur (congregation), you become part of something bigger than yourself.

You may be interrupted, you may not enjoy the niggunim, but when you daven with your shul—the people in your community—you stand on their shoulders and they, in turn, can stand on yours. Eliyahu was telling Rabbi Yosi: Although your prayer may seem to be more effective when you daven alone, it is preferable to daven less but be part of the collective.

I often need to remind myself of this important lesson whenever I have the privilege of davening at the Kotel, particularly on Friday nights. My family and I have spent quite a few summers in Israel; on Friday nights, the Kotel Plaza tends to be packed with tour groups, Birthright participants, soldiers, and, it seems, every other resident of Yerushalayim. Inevitably someone steps on my foot or inadvertently pushes me as I’m trying to daven Minchah. As I recite Lecha Dodi with one minyan, a nearby minyan sings loudly, and I find myself struggling to concentrate. One of my children usually asks, “Wouldn’t we have more kavanah if we davened in a shul? Let us daven Kabbalas Shabbos in one of the many beautiful shuls in Yerushalayim.” I always give the same answer: “There is no more beautiful tefillah than one you daven with your people.” A most powerful and meaningful prayer experience can be created when we attach ourselves to a tzibbur, even though we may feel we are sacrificing the benefits of private prayer.

Preparing for Prayer The Ba’al Shem Tov is quoted as saying (Ba’al Shem Tov Hashalem 193), “A warm drink before prayer cleanses and purifies one’s thoughts.” The story is told that a chassid once came before Rabbi Yisroel of Ruzhin and explained 52

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that he had taken upon himself a more austere lifestyle, depriving himself of unnecessary pleasures. He told the Ruzhiner that he, for example, had stopped drinking coffee before davening. Quoting the above-mentioned statement of the Ba’al Shem Tov, the Ruzhiner told the chassid that if he chose to do away with extraneous pleasure, that was his prerogative, but a warm drink before davening cleanses and purifies one’s thoughts.

What was the Ba’al Shem Tov trying to teach us? That davening must be a pleasant experience. The Gemara in Berachos explains that the “chassidim harishonim,” the early pious ones, used to meditate for an hour before davening

to prepare themselves for a meaningful prayer experience. Preparation is a necessary component for any meaningful experience. For davening, that can mean giving oneself enough time to arrive in shul with time to spare.

It can mean finding a way to have a few moments of quiet before davening begins in order to clear one’s mind. To the Ba’al Shem Tov, the “warm drink” symbolizes the need to create a more serene and enjoyable tefillah experience.

Rabbi Yaakov Yosef of Polnoye, in his work Sefer Toldos Yaakov Yosef, explains that just as sacrificial offerings can be invalidated through certain inappropriate thoughts, prayer—which was instituted in lieu of the offerings—

Photo: FrocksinStock.com

can also be invalidated by impure thoughts. Meaningful prayer requires proper intent, and if one does not have the proper kavanos, the tefillah can be rendered invalid. He goes on to explain that these “invalidated prayers” reside in this world and in one’s heart; they cannot ascend due to their imperfections. But the moment one is able to muster up the necessary kavanah, all the incomplete tefillos ascend along with the complete tefillah. All it takes is one meaningful moment of prayer to redeem many defective and imperfect ones.

The Toldos Yaakov Yosef provides us with hope in the face of what often feels like an insurmountable challenge.

We often feel discouraged: how can we possibly muster the requisite kavanah each and every day for every single tefillah? While every prayer has some type of effect on who we are—the act of dialoguing with God changes us even if we do not see it or cannot measure it—some of us go for long stretches of time without a meaningful prayer experience. However, the Toldos Yaakov Yosef reassures us that all we need is one moment, one tefillah. And while this may sound a bit extreme, perhaps we do ourselves a disservice in trying to have total kavanah every time we pray. Perhaps each person needs to set individualized, realistic goals, such as having at least one meaningful tefillah experience a day, or once a week, or even less frequently.

We often think of tefillah as our daily obligation to pray. But in reality, tefillah is the wondrous gift of connection.

The gift of connection with our God, ourselves and our people. Our mandate is to create something meaningful, if not in every prayer, then at least in some moments of introspection, moments of conversation, moments of elevation. May all of our tefillos, both the whole and impaired ones, find their way to our Father Above.

Rabbi Shmuel Silber has served as the rabbi of Suburban Orthodox Toras Chaim in Baltimore, Maryland since 2003.

Lessons from Being Shul-less

By Andrew Markowitz

My installation as senior rabbi of Congregation Shomrei Torah in Fair Lawn, New Jersey was scheduled for March 17, 2020.

An installation is nerve-wracking.

Becoming a senior rabbi is a big step. I perfected my speech and knew exactly which tie I would wear. But just two days before this much-anticipated occasion, the installation, along with almost every other major event in the United States, was canceled. Our shul was closed. Whatever I had thought would be the shul, the community and the world into which I would be installed was no longer a viable reality.

Like everyone else, I was suddenly confronted with a new, shul-less life.

Our homes quickly turned into our shuls. If praying in a place made for prayer is difficult, davening at home, where we are surrounded by things to do—dishes, mail, bills and endless cleaning—is all the more so. As I began this new reality, I realized that my younger children had never really seen me daven since in the pre-pandemic days, I davened in shul. I struggled to balance chocolate milk requests and iPad troubleshooting during Birchot Keriat Shema with the desire to find and create a space for tefillah.

In the process, I have gained a great appreciation for mothers davening at home with their children around. A solution evaded me until I started speaking about tefillah differently to my children. Instead of saying, “I need to daven Minchah now,” I said, “Abba is going to the other room right now to talk to Hashem.” Surprisingly, I found that this helped (most of the time); there definitely was a decrease in chocolate milk requests and IT troubleshooting while Abba was talking to Hashem. On their level, my children were able to comprehend what I was doing. And

my davening took on greater meaning when I reframed how I spoke about it.

Despite the challenges, the pandemic created some special tefillah moments. One family shared how each Shabbat they had a kiddush after “shul”; every child took a turn picking parashah-related treats and giving a devar Torah. Some families made elaborate Shabbaton schedules with themes, while others expressed their enjoyment singing Kabbalat Shabbat together. Thousands of people continue to connect over WhatsApp Tehillim groups every moment of the day (I know, because I feel like I am in all of them). At my rescheduled installation in August, I spoke to an empty shul. Our communal family was live on Zoom.

Although it was far different from the installation I had expected, everyone was together. Being shul-less has given many of us a new perspective on tefillah.

It is true that we have created new ways of davening b’yechidut, alone or with our children. However, nothing can compare to the feeling of being part of a kehillah saying the words of the tefillah while physically being together.

We need to remember the feelings of loss we all felt when our shuls were closed. A dear friend shared his excitement over coming back to minyan for the first time. He shaved for the occasion, wore a suit that had stayed in the closet since he last was in shul, and specifically chose the same siddur he had used at his bar mitzvah . . . and this was for a weekday Minchah-Maariv.

We are a resilient people, and for the last few months we have made the best of this situation. As I write this in September, my hope is that we strive to be back in shul with our families and friends and demonstrate to our children our joy of return. Let’s pray for the time that our small minyanim once again become full minyanim where we can sit near each other in shul and share in its warmth.

Rabbi Andrew Markowitz is rabbi of Congregation Shomrei Torah in Fair Lawn, New Jersey.

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The writer’s socially distanced morning minyan in a playground near his home in Jerusalem.

MY IDEAL SHUL

By David Olivestone

H

ave you ever fantasized about your ideal shul? What kind of shul would it be? What would it look like? What minhagim would it follow? What would make it the perfect shul for you?

I am one of those people who cannot abide talking during davening.

Shuls seem to have so many ongoing distractions: doors opening and closing, people wandering through

the aisles, candymen handing out lollipops to the children and, of course, that one persistent reprobate who says every word so loudly that you can’t keep to your own pace. All that makes it hard enough for someone like me to achieve at least some fleeting moments of concentration, without having to try to close my ears to the needless conversations of some of my neighbors.

Although with the passing years I

David Olivestone, a member of Jewish Action’s editorial committee, belongs to what he describes as “really a very quiet shul” in Jerusalem. For more of his thoughts on talking in shul, see his previous article in Jewish Action, “What Exactly Is It that God Hears? (summer 2014).

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think—I hope—I have learned to be more tolerant and less judgmental, the talking still has a domino effect in my mind. Even if I can ignore what is being said, somehow I can’t ignore the fact that it has been said.

Inevitably my thoughts turn to why was it necessary for the offender to talk at all, and doesn’t he realize how much his chattering disrupts the kavanah of those around him?

Even if the spoken remark lasts only a second or two, the annoyance it causes tends to reverberate in my mind for much longer.

So sometimes I find myself conjuring up my ideal shul in my head.

There was no one close by whose talking could disturb me, no aisles for anyone to stroll along, in fact no one near enough to distract me at all.

The inspiration for my ideal shul came from a Shabbat morning davening I once experienced, many decades ago, in the Brooklyn, New York shtiebel of the Kopycznitzer Rebbe, Rabbi Moshe Mordechai Heschel (1927-1975). As I remember it, it wasn’t a particularly large or ornate shtiebel, nor was the crowd very numerous. But what struck me was the square cubicle that stood near the front of the shul to the right of the aron kodesh. Its wood-paneled walls rose about six feet high, leaving the top open, and there was a door on one side. This was where the rebbe davened, out of sight of his kehillah. The door remained closed except during the Amidah, when he would open it, presumably so there should be no doubt that he was part of the minyan at that point.

Rabbi Dr. Shnayer Leiman, professor of Jewish history and literature in the Department of Judaic Studies at Touro College, tells me that this is a well-established practice among certain Chassidic groups, and that not a few rebbes have davened in this way.

There was something about being part of a minyan, yet davening in solitude as the rebbe did, that appealed to me. What, I dreamed, if we could build a shul which was filled with maybe fifty or a hundred such cubicles, one for each member. Once inside our own makom kavu’a cubicle, each of us could daven quite alone, each in his own dalet amot. There would be no distractions, because all you could look at would be the four plain walls around you. Best of all, there would be no talking, because you couldn’t see anyone else to chat with.

As my friends pointed out when I described my plan, there were many,

many problems with it, but I tossed them off with the unencumbered zeal of a dreamer. Some halachic challenges were thrown at me, but by definition a fantasy doesn’t have to conform with reality, halachic or otherwise. Then there were the practical objections, each of which I rebuffed with unswerving confidence.

How would anyone know when the aron kodesh was open or when the Sefer Torah was in motion and they would need to stand? Obviously, the aron kodesh and the bimah would need to be built on high platforms, so that they could be seen above the walls of the cubicles. But how would the gabbai know whom he could call for aliyot and other kibbudim? He, too, would need a platform so that he could look down into the cubicles and see who was there. Where would the women sit? Each would have a cubicle of her own, in a section behind the men. (No one would ever question the validity of the mechitzah in my shul.) What about children? Sorry, not allowed. What would be the shul’s name? Kehillat Am Levadad Yishkon, of course.1 I carried this vision with me for many years, retreating into it whenever my neighbors in shul caused me some annoyance or other. But one of the ways the social distancing necessitated by the coronavirus pandemic affected me was that it made me realize that not only was my ideal shul just a dream, it was in no way ideal.

Suddenly, I found myself actually living out my fantasy, either alone in a room with my computer in a Zoom davening, or alone on my balcony in a “mirpeset” minyan with the chazzan high up on another floor.

There was no one close by whose

talking could disturb me, no aisles for anyone to stroll along, in fact no one near enough to distract me at all.

Even when outdoor minyanim became permissible in courtyards and gardens, the strict limit on the numbers of people who could gather in any one group and the enforced social distancing discouraged all except the most determined kibbitzer from bothering me during davening.

There is no doubt that davening alone in this way allowed, at least on some occasions and on some level, for greater concentration and introspection. But I began to actually miss the interaction with others.

Not the talking, of course, but the fraternity of joining in the responses together with those seated right next to me, the sharing of a slightly raised eyebrow if the chazzan went off key or mispronounced a word, the communal smile of recognition if he introduced an old and favorite melody.

I came to realize that there is enormous value in having the same familiar and valued friends around you, whose fellowship you trust to help carry your tefillot toward the heavens. That you can enhance your own kavanah by watching how others focus their minds, and that maybe you, too, might unconsciously be helping them. That Hillel did not say “Al tifrosh min hatzibbur”2 lightly, because the tzibbur has enormous value. And not least, as famed author Rabbi Berel Wein elegantly puts it in his commentary on Hillel’s timeless adage, “The community helps mitigate one’s tendency toward self-righteousness, selfishness, and narrow vision.”3 So Kehillat Am Levadad Yishkon is no more, a casualty of the coronavirus.

But what will I replace it with, what kind of shul should I build instead?

Notes 1. “A people that dwells alone.”

See Bamidbar 23:9.

2. “Don’t detach yourself from your community,” Pirkei Avot 2:5.

3. Pirkei Avos: Teachings for Our Times (Brooklyn, NY, 2003), p. 63.

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The Power of Tefillah

By Chaim Aryeh Z. Ginzberg

Rabbi Chaim Aryeh Z. Ginzberg in his home.

Photo: Naftoli Goldgrab Photography

T

here is an apocryphal story told about Lenin. In his younger years, he and his wife attended a lecture on socialism delivered by Karl Marx. Lenin returned home extremely excited about the lecture and shared his enthusiasm with his family. Concerned about his fervor, his wife said, “The problem with you is that while Marx only speaks about socialism, you actually believe it!”

There is one topic that I have discussed for decades in my shiurim and derashos; however, recent life experience has now caused me to actually believe it: the awesome power of tefillah.

Permit me to explain.

It was sometime after this past Purim that I began to feel unwell. My doctor Rabbi Chaim Aryeh Zev Ginzberg is rav of the Chofetz Chaim Torah Center in Cedarhurst, New York. This article was written l’zecher nishmas Sarah Chaya z”l bas Rav Chaim Aryeh Zev.

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suggested that I go to the hospital to take an x-ray of my lungs. A friend who is a Hatzalah volunteer assured me that I would not have to wait long for the x-ray. True to his word, he made arrangements and I was taken for the test right away. I told my wife when I left home that day that I would be back home in a few hours.

With Hashem’s infinite mercy, I did come home—six-and-a-half weeks later.

Apparently, I had contracted Covid-19, and my oxygen levels were falling lower and lower. My condition deteriorated rapidly, and within several days I was intubated and on full life support. The doctors in the ICU gave up on me. They called my wife on erev Pesach and told her to say goodbye to me; my kidneys were failing and the doctors were sure I had only hours to live.

At that point, the role of the doctors ended, and Klal Yisrael’s tefillos took over.

When I was hospitalized, my family and friends sprang into action.

Spreading the word through Tehillim chats and WhatsApp groups, they enlisted thousands—perhaps even tens of thousands—of people to daven for my recovery. Despite the doctors’ dire prognosis, or maybe as a result of it, the tefillos continued unabated.

Miraculously, instead of my major organs beginning to fail, which seemed inevitable on that erev Pesach, my kidneys began working again within a few days and my major systems began functioning.

Stunned, the non-Jewish doctor in charge of my care remarked to a local askan involved in my case: “There is not much that I believe in, but I now believe in the power of Jewish prayer.”

The doctor now believes it, but do we? Do we really?

How many times do we take a Tehillim in hand to daven for a sick

individual? Do we truly believe that it will make a difference?

When mentioning the names of sick individuals during the blessing of Refa’einu in Shemoneh Esrei or when thinking of people in dire financial straits while reciting the blessing of Barech Aleinu, do we genuinely feel that our tefillah has an impact?

I am living proof that it does.

Chazal gave us the secret formula to ensure that our tefillos make a difference. The Gemara (Rosh Hashanah 18a) cites a beraisa in the name of Rav Meir in which he describes two scenarios. One scenario concerns a case where two men were seriously ill with the same sickness. One was eventually cured, and the other was not. The second scenario involves two men who were condemned to die by hanging for a similar crime; one received a reprieve and was saved, and the other was not.

In both cases, the men davened to Hashem to be saved from this terrible decree. Asks Rav Meir: Why were the tefillos of only one of the men in each case accepted? He answers: In each scenario, only one of the individuals davened a “tefillah sheleimah” (complete tefillah)—which was answered. The incomplete tefillos were not answered.

What is a “tefillah sheleimah”? Rashi says one who prays a complete tefillah is one who has “kavanah.”

But Rashi’s explanation only amplifies the question. Is it even conceivable that a person standing on the guillotine with a rope around his neck, or one on his deathbed stricken with a terrible illness will not have the proper kavanah when davening? What else could he possibly be thinking about at such a terrifying time, if not his own prayers for recovery and redemption?

Rav Elya Lopian, zt”l, offers a dazzling explanation. When Rashi defines “tefillah sheleimah” as davening with kavanah, he is not referring to mere concentration

on the words of tefillah but to the individual’s emunah, faith in the efficacy of his prayer and in its power to save his life. The men whose lives were spared in the story cited in the Gemara truly believed that their prayers could, and would, effect change, and therefore their prayers did so. While the other men surely focused on the content of their prayers, they did not wholeheartedly believe that their tefillos would be able to save them; hence, their prayers were not effective.

For our personal tefillos to work, we must not only be mindful of the words (which is, of course, very important), we must internalize the idea that the words we recite can

Our tears and our tefillos are never in vain. If they are not used at that time, they will be used at another time or for another purpose.

truly make a difference between life and death.

Rabbi Avraham Yeshayah Karelitz, the Chazon Ish, zt”l, whose remarkable abilities in prayer were legendary, truly felt his tefillos could result in the salvation of Klal Yisrael.

In the spring of 1942, the Yishuv in Eretz Yisrael was in a state of great panic. General Erwin Rommel, considered one of Hitler’s greatest generals, had invaded Egypt and was only a few dozen kilometers west of Alexandria. It was clear that he was heading toward the Suez Canal and on to Eretz Yisrael. The mission was clear: the annihilation of the Jewish community of Eretz Yisrael.

The British army based in Mandatory

Palestine was prepared to retreat to Iraq. Only a miracle, it seemed, could stop Rommel. And then . . . a miracle happened. Inexplicably, the German forces were defeated at El Alamein— but, truthfully, it wasn’t inexplicable: the Jews had the tefillos of the Chazon Ish on their side.

Rav Yosef Shalom Elyashiv, zt”l, one of the greatest posekim in our generation, was known for his unmatched hasmadah, diligence in Torah study. As a result, it was difficult to engage him in small talk.

Many years ago, I did manage to do so when I attended the wedding of one of his granddaughters, and I used the opportunity to ask some questions about his family history.

There is a famous story surrounding the circumstances of Rav Elyashiv’s birth. His mother, the only daughter of the Leshem, a famous mekubal, was married to a tremendous Torah scholar. The couple was married for a long time and had no children.

After exhausting every effort to have a child, Rav Elyashiv’s mother agreed to travel from Lithuania to Warsaw to consult with one of the world’s leading medical specialists in the field. Unfortunately, he told her what other professionals had told her over the years—that she would never be able to bear children.

Returning home crushed and heartbroken, she wanted to spare her father, who lived with them, the terrible news. Quietly, she went to the shed in back of the house and began weeping tears of agony and frustration. All of her years of pain and longing were expressed in those tears. When her father heard her crying, she shared with him the grim prognosis. The Leshem gave her a berachah that not only would she have a child by the following year but that he would serve as the “light of the generation.” A year later, her only child was born—the future famed gadol Rav Yosef Shalom Elyashiv.

At the wedding I attended, Rav Elyashiv confirmed that the story was true. I then asked a follow-up question: why didn’t the Leshem Winter 5781/2020 JEWISH ACTION

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give his daughter the berachah years earlier and spare her the pain and suffering of going to all of the medical professionals and hearing the agonizing diagnosis over and over again?

Rav Elyashiv explained that only after all options were exhausted and all avenues were closed off would his mother’s tefillah be effective.

Once she felt that her only hope was from Hashem, her Creator, the tefillah became a different sort of tefillah, rendering her worthy of Hashem’s direct intervention.

This, in essence, is what the gemara in Sotah states when discussing why the Imahos were initially barren: “Hashem desires the prayers of tzaddikim.” According to the Mabit, Rabbi Moshe ben Yosef di Trani, Hakadosh Baruch Hu wanted the Shevatim, and thereby Klal Yisrael, to be the product of a higher level of tefillah. Similarly, meriting to have a son of the caliber of Rav Elyashiv required a higher level of tefillah as well.

Whenever I speak about the topic of tefillah, there is always at least one person, irrespective of the age or religious level of the audience, who asks the following: What about the times that we daven with all our heart and it seemingly goes unanswered? What about the times we dutifully recite Tehillim for an ill individual and that person dies?

I always provide this reply: In a rather bold statement, the Gemara declares: “Kol tefillah einah chozeres reikam—no tefillah returns ‘empty’ (unanswered).” Yet further down on the very same page, the Gemara states somewhat contradictorily that if at first one’s tefillah is not answered, he should daven again.

How do we resolve this seeming contradiction? Rabbi Akiva Grunblatt, rosh yeshivah of Yeshiva Chofetz Chaim in Queens, New York, explains that one must read the words carefully. The Gemara, he says, does not say no tefillah goes unanswered; it says, “einah chozeres reikam—no 58

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tefillah returns empty.” Which means every tefillah serves a purpose; it just might not be the purpose you wanted.

In other words, while you may not succeed in getting exactly what you desire, no tefillah is for naught.

We might, for example, pray that a certain sick individual be healed but Hakadosh Baruch Hu in his infinite wisdom, which we cannot fathom, decides to take our tefillah and direct it toward healing a different person, or maybe even to help ourselves.

Hashem uses all tefillos, even if some are redirected.

This concept is illustrated in a perplexing midrash elaborating on the difference between the plague of hail and all the other plagues

The tears of the Jewish people, gathered over the years, were too precious for Hashem to destroy. Hashem preserved the tears, setting them aside to be used throughout the ages when needed by Klal Yisrael.

that afflicted the Egyptians. In the case of every plague other than hail, when Moshe prayed for it to stop, it did. Conversely, when Moshe prayed for the plague of hail to end, the hailstones froze and remained suspended in midair. The midrash explains that this was because Hashem wanted to use the hail in the future in the battle between Yehoshua and the inhabitants of Yericho. The midrash goes on to say that any residual hailstones will be preserved for the Battle of Gog and Magog, which will usher in the days of Mashiach.

Obviously, Hakadosh Baruch Hu can

create hail whenever necessary.

Rabbi Moshe Sternbuch, vice president of the Rabbinical Court and the ra’avad (chief) of the Eidah Hachareidis in Jerusalem, provides a beautiful explanation by drawing upon another midrash. The hail used to afflict the Egyptians was comprised of the tears of Klal Yisrael. Every tear shed during the torturous years of slavery was collected by Hakadosh Baruch Hu and subsequently used to form the hail. This is why it could not simply disappear like the other plagues. The tears of the Jewish people, gathered over the years, were too precious for Hashem to destroy. Hashem preserved the tears, setting them aside to be used throughout the ages when needed by Klal Yisrael.

The deeper message of the midrash is clear—our tears and our tefillos are never in vain. If they are not used at that time, they will be used at another time or for another purpose.

When you are asked to say Tehillim for a choleh, or when you take a siddur in hand to daven for yourself, take a moment or two to reflect before you begin. Reinforce in yourself the belief that your tefillos truly have the power to effect a change. Even if that change may not be exactly what you davened for, rest assured that a change will nonetheless take place.

I am living proof of that incredible power.

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Re-Imagining Halachah Speaking with

Rav Hershel Schachter

Spending time this summer in the picturesque town of Tannersville, New York, where Rav Hershel Schachter—a rosh yeshivah at Yeshiva University, senior posek of OU Kosher and a leading posek in the Modern Orthodox community—has spent many summers, I had the opportunity to ask him to share his reflections on how Covid-19 has impacted the halachic process. In our hour-long discussion, we talked about the nature of the halachic questions that have arisen since the onset of the pandemic, the volume of questions, and the new way in which piskei halachos are being disseminated.

Interview by Shaul Robinson

Photo: Doug Plummer

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COVER STORY

Perhaps no adjective has been applied to Covid-19 more than the term “unprecedented.” In addition to the devastating toll the disease has unleashed in terms of deaths and illness, the challenges posed to every aspect of our religious lives came upon us without warning.

From the closing of shuls, schools and yeshivos to challenges in every aspect of halachah—including observing yamim tovim such as Pesach and Rosh Hashanah, keeping the laws of mikveh, attending levayos and visiting shivah homes—our community found itself requiring answers to questions we never thought we would need to ask.

And yet, during these months, we have been blessed with the most extraordinary leadership. Klal Yisrael’s senior posekim have not merely given us spiritual and moral encouragement but have ruled in matters of halachah in ways few could ever have imagined. As a member of the Rabbinical Council of America (RCA), I myself have benefited—sometimes on a daily basis—from the halachic guidance of Rav Hershel Schachter, shlita, and Rav Mordechai Willig, shlita. ******

M

y career as a rabbi, first at Cambridge University in England and subsequently on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, has brought me into contact with many Jews who question the capacity of halachah to respond to modern-day challenges. In those very fear-filled weeks when the pandemic first struck our community, a few Orthodox voices were heard on social media and in print media questioning if the halachic system could adequately deal with the impending crisis. “The Orthodox rabbinate has proven to be out of touch with the people they serve and unresponsive to their needs,” opined one journalist.

And yet, those dire, if predictable, comments proved to be completely wrong. Instead, we observed once again that “lo alman Yisrael—we are not a leaderless generation.” We are blessed with posekim, great leaders Rabbi Shaul Robinson is rav of Lincoln Square Synagogue.

who have spent decades immersed in learning and teaching Torah, who are able to grasp the essence of the situation and calmly and clearly issue guidance—halachic rulings that are, on the one hand, seemingly unprecedented but, on the other hand, rooted in our Torah and mesorah.

It was eye-opening listening to Rav Schachter’s insistence—an insistence I find astonishing—that from a halachic point of view, nothing in this Covid-19 situation is unprecedented! Only a posek who is familiar with every detail of the entire corpus of halachah, and experienced in answering questions of staggering complexity and significance on a daily basis, could possibly respond to the crisis we are experiencing.

Malcolm Gladwell speaks about the “10,000 hours” necessary to acquire the kind of expertise that prepares one to function in times of unique challenge. L’havdil, Chazal tell us, “You cannot compare one who has reviewed his learning 100 times to one who has reviewed 101 times.”

Like most people, I do not cope well under extreme stress. On

occasions when I have to deal with serious situations—such as, God forbid, a she’eilah pertaining to a life-and-death situation—I find that my emotions take over and thinking objectively and rationally becomes extremely challenging. Rav Schachter is famously a very emotional person, as is often evidenced during his speeches. But only a posek of his caliber can set aside his own emotions to calmly and unflinchingly lead in times such as these.

At the end of our conversation, Rav Schachter stated that great rabbanim can be considered as if “married” to the Torah, as they are able to intuit the correct answer to a question without deliberation. “Does that apply to you?” I asked. “No, that doesn’t apply to me,” he responded adamantly. “I don’t have that yet.”

It was in the word “yet” that I found encouragement. For I was sitting the day before Tishah B’Av, in the midst of a worldwide pandemic, with one of the greatest posekim of our time, who insists that not only does Torah have the answers to guide us through every difficulty but that the future holds promise. It became clear to me that even when everything has changed, fundamentally nothing has changed. We have our Torah. We can delight in it, we can learn it, and we can take strength in it. In order to meet whatever challenge we may be called upon to face, we can never allow ourselves to stop growing. Baruch Hashem, we have leaders and posekim to guide us every step of the way.

Rabbi Shaul Robinson: Did the Rav ever imagine that he would one day have to pasken that all our shuls and yeshivos should close? How does a posek cope with unprecedented times and with getting hundreds of questions from all over the Jewish world?

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Rabbi Hershel Schachter: Of course I never imagined this, but I don’t think I answer more questions now than I do during an ordinary week. In the course of a year, people ask me she’eilos all day long. Many of the she’eilos are very serious, some concerning life and death. I don’t think the recent she’eilos are more serious than those I normally get in the beis midrash.

RR: When did the Rav come to realize that the correct thing to do was to pasken that all the shuls should close?

RS: I was learning in the beis midrash on Shushan Purim, which was a Wednesday. The beis midrash was half empty, because many students had already gone home. Rabbi [Marc] Penner [dean of the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary] came in at around 4 pm and suggested I ask my doctor whether I should stay or not [due to the news regarding the virus]—I’m close to eighty.

I didn’t take it so seriously and didn’t call my doctor until around 5 PM. The doctor recommended that I go home and stay home. So I took my tallis and tefillin home, and I stayed home. I left all my sefarim in the beis midrash—I didn’t realize it was going to be for months and months.

RR: I understand there was a conference call with many leading rabbanim, which took place in the days after Purim. At that point, the scale of the developing emergency and risk was not yet fully known.

Most of the posekim, as well as medical experts, on the call felt that it was premature to close the shuls.

The situation was serious, but it was not year clear that this was absolutely necessary. Rav Schachter disagreed.

Why was it so clear to the Rav? RS: At first the consensus was to keep the shuls open. One of the doctors said it had not reached the point of [pikuach nefesh]. But I felt it was safek sakanah (a potential danger). I said, “You don’t have to wait until it reaches the point of pikuach nefesh. If there’s a possibility that it can reach that point, then you’re not allowed to go to shul. [Right now] it’s a safek sakanah [and that’s enough to warrant 62

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One should not rely on miracles.

Obviously, the Ribbono Shel Olam answers our prayers, but still, when there is a sakanah, a dangerous situation, we have to protect ourselves. closing the shuls].” Within twelve hours, everyone’s opinion changed.

Ein somchin al hanes. One should not rely on miracles. Obviously, the Ribbono Shel Olam answers our prayers, but still, when there is a sakanah, a dangerous situation, we have to protect ourselves.

It is said that Reb Velvel Soloveitchik remarked that he is not as great as his father Reb Chaim. Reb Chaim Soloveitchik had such keen insight with regard to political issues that he would be able to tell you what would happen in fifty years if you went to the right, and what would happen if you went to the left. “I don’t have that ability,” said Reb Velvel, “but I think I have a ma’alah [advantage] over my contemporaries—at least I can see what’s under my nose!”

I can see what’s under my nose. And it was clear to me that it was a safek sakanah.

RR: One of the great changes observed during the pandemic was an acceleration of the use of technology in the halachic process. Even before Covid, congregants had been e-mailing, texting and WhatsApping questions to their rabbis. But when a she’eilah needed to be asked of a posek, people most commonly sought an in-person meeting, or at least a phone call. The sheer number of she’eilos that communities have recently faced, along with the need for social distancing, meant that a different system was urgently needed.

I know, for example, that the RCA began holding regular Zoom meetings with senior posekim, where

questions could be submitted in advance. How did the process of receiving and answering many hundreds of questions work?

RS: Rav Reuven Taragin [dean of overseas students at Yeshivat HaKotel] would send me a list of questions, or the RCA would interview me. The questions were e-mailed to me. I would [hand]write a response in Hebrew. My wife would scan my response—I don’t know how to use the Internet—and e-mail it back.

[For the sake of clarity], a group of younger roshei yeshivah at the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary became involved in editing the teshuvos and adding mareh mekomos.

The teshuvos would then be translated into English and placed on a web site.

RR: Before Pesach we all thought this was going to last a few weeks, but it’s been going on for months and the she’eilos seem endless.

I’m on the WhatsApp groups that were feeding she’eilos to Rav Schachter. Would the Rav say that these unprecedented times call for unprecedented responses?

RS: There weren’t that many unprecedented she’eilos. I took most of what I paskened [rulings] straight from the Gemara or the Shulchan Aruch, or halachic opinions I heard b’ feirush (explicitly) from Rav [Joseph Ber] Soloveitchik. I was fortunate to have been in the Rav’s shiur for ten years, from 1957 to 1967. If you paid attention to the shiur, [you realized that] in many, many cases, the Rav was deriving the halachah from the Gemara and stating his halachic opinion.

RR: Rav Schachter has been teaching on Zoom multiple times a week, even during the summer. Who taught the Rav how to use Zoom? And does the Rav feel something is lost when teaching talmidim over Zoom?

RS: Every day I give shiur. Six days a week. I still don’t know how to use Zoom; my wife always sets it up for me.

A lot is lost when teaching over Zoom.

RS: There is a danger, but we have no choice. You can’t expect someone to go around reading the megillah for 1,000 people in their homes.

B’she’as ha’dechak (in an extenuating circumstance), you have to rely on kulos (halachic leniencies). So this Purim we paskened that one is yotzei Megillah (fulfills the requirement to hear the Megillah) via telephone.

RR: Is Rav Schachter concerned that some of the very novel rulings issued in these last few months might become the norm in certain communities even after the current crisis is over?

For example, what if people want to hold Megillas Esther readings via Zoom on Purim every year?

Or host a siyum Ta’anis Bechoros over Zoom? Or conduct mechiras chametz virtually? Isn’t there a danger in creating new halachic precedents? Is that something a posek has to take into account?

RR: Was there a havah amina (initial supposition) to say that we shouldn’t do Zoom Megillah readings, in order to prevent the ruling from being misapplied in the future, when people might consider it a new, viable option?

RS: No, I don’t think so. B’she’as ha’dechak we are meikil (rule leniently). There may be reason to worry that some might use the leniency when it’s not she’as ha’dechak, but we have no choice. If we want to be yotzei the mitzvah this year, what’s the alternative? Tell people

not to fulfill mikra Megillah this year? I don’t think that’s right.

RR: In a recent shiur, Rav Schachter mentioned that sometimes a posek knows intuitively what the answer is to a she’eilah. Does this reflect Rav Schachter’s own approach?

RS: That does not apply to me.

During his last few years, when Rav Soloveitchik was ill, he was not always able to discuss things at length. The head of the Kashrus Commission of the RCA called me up and asked me what the din is on a particular issue. I said, “I don’t know, I have to look it up in the Shulchan Aruch.” He said, “Before you look it up, what do you say?” I said, “I have to look it up.” [He persisted.] “But what’s your feeling before you look it up? The Rav used to say that he always has an intuitive feeling.” I said, “The Rav is the Rav. I’m not the Rav. I don’t have that feeling.”

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Halachah during a Pandemic Over the past few months, since Covid-19 first emerged, Rav H. Schachter Jewish communities around the world have turned to Rabbi Hershel Schachter, shlit”a, a leading posek in the Modern Orthodox community who serves as rosh yeshivah of Yeshiva University and senior posek of OU Kosher, for guidance in observing Jewish law during a worldwide pandemic. From answering she’eilot about semachot (how many men are needed at a wedding?) to she’eilot about death and burial (if a family is unable to use their burial plots in Eretz Yisrael due to Covid, can they perform a temporary burial and have the body reinterred?), from questions on how to observe Pesach during a lockdown (can one sell chametz virtually?) to how to properly daven on the Yamim Noraim (with so many more minyanim due to social distancing, can one serve as a chazzan twice on Rosh Hashanah?), Rabbi Schachter provided much-needed direction to medical professionals, rabbanim, members of the chevra kadisha, and community members on how to live as an observant Jew during these halachically challenging times.

The following is a sampling of Covid she’eilot that were presented to Rabbi Schachter, as well as general teshuvot that he issued, over the past few months.

Ed. Note: As every individual’s circumstances will differ, please consult with your own rabbi for a specific pesak.

Q: Can Hataras Nedarim (annulment of vows) be done over Zoom on erev Rosh Hashanah?

A: Hataras Nedarim may be done via Zoom, as long as the three members of the beis din who are matir neder are in the same location. The beis din members should be able to see the person or people requesting hatarah (annulment), or at least be aware of how many people are on Zoom requesting hatarah before they begin the process.

Source: Teshuvot from KolCorona. com/rav-schachter-official-pesakim, unless indicated otherwise

Q: Can an outdoor minyan daven Maariv before nightfall on Shabbos afternoon?

A: In a pressing situation (such as due to Covid-19), one can convene a minyan on Shabbos afternoon that will daven Minchah immediately before pelag haMinchah (one and a quarter halachic hours before the end of the day) and Maariv immediately after pelag, although melachah (forbidden work on Shabbos) is still forbidden until the actual conclusion of Shabbos. This is permitted if it will be difficult to convene a minyan for Maariv once it is dark. The local rabbi must determine if this is an appropriate practice for his community, as it may mislead some to conclude that Shabbos is over and melachah is permitted, when it is, in fact, still Shabbos.

Q: Can a rabbi refuse to officiate at a wedding that does not conform to the guidelines and standards that were set forth in terms of the number of people attending? (This question was asked at a time when New York State permitted gatherings of only ten people.)

A: The rabbi should refuse to officiate at such a wedding. By not conforming to the guidelines, those hosting the wedding are putting people’s lives in danger. The rabbi should therefore declare that he will not officiate at a wedding if the gathering exceeds a minyan metzumtzam (a very small number of people). The pasuk “Shomer pesayim Hashem” (God protects the simple people) does not apply in this situation, as people are fully aware of the risks and dangers.

Source: rabbidunner.com/coronavirus-qa-with-rav-hershelschachter/

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On Tuition Payments: Some parents have demanded refunds of tuition money paid to their children’s yeshivos and schools. This is certainly an improper approach. As it is, yeshivos and schools struggle to pay the salaries of the rebbeim and teachers. If we ask for reimbursements and remove our support, the schools will shut down due to the current and impending financial challenges. Rather, we must do our part to support Torah institutions to the best of our abilities in order to ensure that they will be available to serve our communities when the pandemic comes to an end. Doing so would be considered tzedakah for all purposes, and would certainly represent the attitude that our tradition demands [of being merciful and compassionate] at all times but especially in times of crisis and danger.

On Honoring One’s Parents: If the government and medical professionals have stated that it is not safe for parents and children to be together, then children may not visit for yom tov, even at the insistence of the parents. Disobeying parents’ wishes in this situation is not a violation of kibbud av va’eim.

On Cremation Due to the highly contagious nature of coronavirus, there are certain governments that have mandated either immediate burial or cremation (this is not the case currently in the United States). Under those circumstances, every effort should be made to avoid cremation. Therefore, if a Jew passes away on Shabbos, the burial should be done immediately (on Shabbos) by non-Jews.

Q: In a community where many people need to use the shul sukkah, can meals begin before nightfall in order to accommodate everyone?

A: Due to the important consideration of social distancing, there are many communal sukkos that will be arranging multiple shifts for their membership to have a chance to eat in the sukkah.

On the first two nights of Sukkos, we generally do not make Kiddush or eat the meal before tzais hakochavim. However, this year there is room to be lenient to allow the first shift to accept yom tov early and make Kiddush following davening. Ideally, the first shift should be sure to eat a k’zayis of bread in the sukkah after tzais hakochavim. However, if it is necessary to begin the second shift before tzais hakochavim, one may be lenient and the first shift may complete the meal entirely before tzais hakochavim.

If there are many who need to use a communal sukkah and the shifts must be very short, each shift may make Kiddush, eat bread and bentch, leaving the rest of the meal (fish, meat, vegetables, et cetera) to be eaten inside at home (without bread).

Q: Should one bentch Gomel after recovering from the coronavirus?

A: One should recite Birchas Ha’gomel when recovering from corona. Birchas Ha’gomel is meant to be recited in the presence of a minyan.

It is best to recite this berachah within three days of recovering from a potentially life-threatening situation, and it is improper to delay reciting the berachah beyond thirty days. If it becomes clear that due to the danger it will be impossible to be in the presence of a minyan within thirty days, then one should recite the berachah over Zoom or via phone conference with ten men watching or listening.

This is possible because the requirement for a minyan is not the same as for tefillah b’tzibbur or kerias haTorah, which are devarim shebikedushah and require a minyan gathered in one place. In the case of Birchas Ha’gomel, the purpose of the minyan is to publicize the miracle, and this can be accomplished even if the ten individuals are listening without being present in one room.

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By Gil Student

A New Post-Coronavirus Era of Halachah?

AP Photo/Sebastian Scheiner

T

he beautiful flow of Jewish life was tragically diverted by Coronavirus. The pandemic altered our experiences of communal worship, celebrations, mourning and the plethora of daily rituals that constitute a major part of Jewish life.

Many people were traumatized to varying degrees by the disruptions caused by the pandemic, without even discussing the great suffering and loss of life. These changes impacted halachah in ways that are both obvious and less evident—changes that are not revolutionary but perhaps express a sign of significant evolution.

Halachah represents the lived faith of the Jewish people, the practical application of our beliefs that Rabbi Gil Student is book editor of Jewish Action.

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strengthens our faith by incorporating sanctity into our daily lives. Even when we are under stress and duress, we need halachah in order to function spiritually. Halachah contains built-in mechanisms to address unusual circumstances when health concerns require alternative religious behavior.

We observed that process working robustly, as, for example, people prayed at home rather than with a minyan, sold new kitchen utensils rather than immersing them in a mikveh when the kelim mikva’ot were closed, and arranged with their rabbi for the sale of their chametz over the phone rather than in person.1 However, major shocks to a system often cause change and realignments, as Torah leaders are forced to adjust common practice for the unusual times, and these adjustments leave an imprint going forward. Based on

what we have experienced so far in this pandemic, what will—or should— halachah look like going forward after the crisis? I would like to divide this discussion into four sections: specific halachot, attitudes within halachah, the overall halachic process and the question of whether we have entered a new era of halachic history.

Specific Halachot Certainly, we already see many small changes which really amount to greater awareness. People now know that they can use liquid hand sanitizer on Shabbat, wear a mask properly in public on Shabbat even where there is no eruv and wash their hands on Tishah B’Av for strictly sanitary purposes.

These are not new halachot, rather there is now greater public awareness of existing halachot.

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One lasting contribution to halachic literature is the discussion of how, and under what conditions, men can form a minyan at a distance.

For example, under what, if any, circumstances can men pray from different porches and combine into a “porch minyan,” since technically they are in different domains? The extraordinary circumstances of the pandemic, the she’at ha’dechak, generated important analyses of what is allowed in different situations.

While history contains debates over this subject, the recent experience yielded substantive contributions that will become permanent parts of the halachic conversation.

Halachic Attitudes More than the halachot themselves, we find halachic attitudes expanding in one specific way that I think will have a permanent impact. We live in a time of widespread unease, with a prevalence of, if not mental illness, then mental stress. I am not sure how much of this is due to greater openness to and acknowledgment of mental health issues that people within our community have always experienced and how much is new due to the stresses of contemporary times. Regardless, anxiety, fear and emotional pain are just some of the many mental ailments that have become a part of normal life.

Halachah has always recognized the existence of these emotional states but I sense a greater awareness and, more importantly, a widespread acknowledgement that mental stress can be a serious health concern with attendant halachic implications.

In advance of the “three-day yom tov” at the beginning of Pesach, YU Rosh Yeshivah and OU Senior Posek Rabbi Hershel Schachter permitted people with medically recognized mental conditions that could become life threatening to communicate with family electronically over the holiday.2 I don’t want to overstate the permission because we are dealing, on the one hand, with rabbinic prohibitions that allow for more leniency than Biblical prohibitions and, on the other 68

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. . . Rabbis in general, and particularly leading halachic decisors tend to be late adopters of new technologies. The pandemic forced rabbis to experiment with new ways to reach the public. hand, possible suicide as determined by a doctor which creates great urgency as formally determined by a medical expert. However, despite the limitations on his permissive ruling, Rabbi Schachter used very strong language when discussing the concern for preserving life due to mental stress that I expect will be the start of an important ongoing conversation about preserving mental health without detracting from the sanctity of Shabbat, holidays and Jewish life in general. The rabbis with whom I have discussed this agree that they now incorporate more concern for loneliness and depression in their halachic considerations than they did before the pandemic.

The conversation is only beginning.

This can easily be taken too far to override nearly all of Judaism’s rituals due to common feelings of stress, which would be disastrous. The boundaries of these considerations require further study and debate, which I expect will take place over the coming years. Coronavirus seems to be an important step in this ongoing conversation among halachic decisors.

Halachic Process The process of halachic inquiry has undergone some change in terms of technology. When leading halachic authorities were isolated due to the virus, they utilized means of interacting with questioners beyond the usual face-to-face conversation, letter or phone call. The newly adopted means of communication include conference calls, WhatsApp groups and Zoom. These technologies existed before the pandemic, but rabbis in general, and particularly leading halachic decisors, tend to be late

adopters of new technologies. The pandemic forced rabbis to experiment with new ways to reach the public.

On the one hand, this shift gave laypeople greater visibility into the halachic decision-making process.

However, for some people this caused information overload. I help maintain a web site, KolCorona.com, that collects resources related to the crisis, particularly halachic decisions. Due to the productivity of Torah scholars currently living in isolation with access to vast technological resources, the library is enormous—containing over 150 halachic documents including multiple full-length books by a wide variety of scholars including Rabbi Hershel Schachter, Rabbi Asher Weiss, Rabbi Yitzchak Zilberstein, Rabbi Yosef Zvi Rimon and many more. In just these past few months, many volumes of responsa and recordings of interactive question-and-answer sessions were disseminated. Laypeople with the desire and requisite knowledge to explore intricate halachic discussions now have more direct access to leading halachic authorities, their reasoning and their conclusions.

However, most people are not that motivated. Instead, they continue to interact with their local rabbi.

In my assessment, in general local rabbis have responded over this time period with the nobility, foresight and care that their communities desperately needed. Setting aside the all-important issues of chesed and communal organizing, which are beyond the scope of this essay, rabbis have exceeded expectations in filling a crucial role in this unprecedented time by communicating halachic issues, answering specific questions and

guiding private and communal prayers.

I don’t see this changing any time soon.

Most people do not want direct access to posekim. However, those who want that access can now achieve it by joining the right WhatsApp group or e-mail list. What in the past was available primarily to those whose lives intersected with leading rabbinic decisors—perhaps by attending the same synagogue or living nearby—is now available to anyone with the right Zoom information.

A New Era Halachic history can be divided roughly into periods based on tragedy. After the destruction of the Second Temple and subjugation of the remaining community, the Tannaitic period ended. After further persecution, the Amoraic period ended. The era of the Rishonim began with the First Crusade and the era of the Acharonim began with the expulsion from Spain.3 In an intriguing essay in his work The Jewish Time Line Encyclopedia, Rabbi Mattis Kantor argues that the period of the early Acharonim— what he calls the Kovim and which includes the Shulchan Aruch and basic commentaries—ended with the Chmielnicki pogroms in Poland.4 This theory explains why later authorities generally defer to the Shulchan Aruch and standard commentaries, such as Shach and Taz, rather than treat them like relative contemporaries from the same era.5 If we accept this thesis, perhaps the global disruption caused by coronavirus signals the beginning of a new era.

This theory faces a few problems.

First, each of the tragedies mentioned above included the deaths of leading rabbis and the long-term disruption of communities, effectively the movement of centers of Torah learning from one country to another. Coronavirus does not seem to have caused anything like that. I don’t mean to imply that no great Torah scholars died from coronavirus. Quite the opposite, some great Torah scholars whom I knew personally died from the virus.

However, the majority of leading rabbis

across the Jewish globe thankfully continue functioning as in the past.

Additionally, integral to the change in eras, almost part of the definition of such a shift, is the attitude of scholars afterward to those before. Is greater deference given to pre-coronavirus authorities over post-coronavirus authorities? There does not seem to be evidence of such a trend.

That leads us to the most important point—what about the Holocaust?

Did the Holocaust start a new era of halachah? Do we defer to pre-Holocaust authorities like Acharonim defer to Rishonim? For the past few years, Rabbi Mordechai Tzion who teaches in Yeshivat Ateret Yerushalayim and translates, edits and publishes the teachings of Rabbi Shlomo Aviner, has been regularly sending unusual questions to great Torah authorities in Israel and Europe. His local post office overflows with letters to and from halachic scholars. He has published these correspondences in a number of volumes with varying titles. In Responsa HaSho’el, Rabbi Tzion asked whether the Holocaust marks a new era in halachic history.6 The answers he received show that there is not yet a definitive answer. Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky replied, “Perhaps.” Rabbi Avgidor Nebenzahl answered, “It does not seem like that in my view.” Rabbi Shammai Gross wrote, “Today we are called Acharonei Acharonim.”

Some of the other answers challenged the question: Many of the greatest Torah scholars of the past century lived for decades after the Holocaust.

Perhaps this very point answers the question and offers a new perspective on our current times.

Coronavirus has not started a new halachic era, but it might mark the beginning of the post-Holocaust era.

It is the first crisis requiring halachic boldness and creativity since the 2012 passing of Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv (b. 1910), who was the last of the top-tier Torah scholars who achieved scholarly greatness before the Holocaust. Rabbi Elyashiv’s passing marked the end of the pre-War generation. While thankfully we are

blessed with nonagenarian Torah scholars, they were young children during the Holocaust and received most of their training after the Holocaust.7 As we show deference to the great authorities who were trained before the Holocaust, such as Rabbi Moshe Feinstein (b. 1895) and Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Auerbach (b. 1910), we exhibit—perhaps—the behavior of a new era in halachah. More than once, I have heard the question, driven by more than just nostalgia, “Why don’t we have gedolim like we did a few decades ago?” Perhaps the answer lies in the shift to a new post-Holocaust era of halachah.

Whether this admittedly speculative theory withstands critique, and what implications and consequences emerge, will be seen over time as the full impact of the generational shift becomes clear. Perhaps it is not a coincidence that this unprecedented global disruption of coronavirus coupled with radically new communication technologies usher in a new generation. In this new era, one of great stress and anxiety, we need faith as much as ever. Faith in the Lord above; faith in our religious leaders below; and faith in our ability to enjoy vibrant Jewish lives in this new world.

Notes 1. I thank the many respondents over Twitter who offered these and many more examples.

2. A collection of Rabbi Hershel Schachter’s coronavirus responsa can be found at KolCorona.com/ rav-schachter-official-pesakim.

3. The exact times of the shifts have been debated, particularly regarding the shift from Rishonim to Acharonim in Ashkenazic lands.

4. (Northvale, New Jersey, 1992), Appendix D. 5. Although Rabbi Avraham Gombiner, author of the Magen Avraham, would be an outlier because his commentary is authoritative, yet he was roughly thirteen years old at the time of the Chmielnicki pogroms.

6. Responsa HaSho’el, vol. 3 (Bet El, Israel, 2019), no. 70.

7. Similarly, Rabbi David Ibn Zimra and Rabbi Yosef Karo were children during the expulsion from Spain.

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Re-Imagining Dating

Finding a

Zoom

on

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Experienced shadchanim and relationship experts reflect on this new era of matchmaking and dating

Ilana Brown is a Toronto-based dating coach with a degree in marriage and family therapy. Ilana has been involved in making shidduchim for more than seventeen years.

As told to Merri Ukraincik

W

hen the Covid-19 pandemic hit North America back in March, every venue for in-person social networking and dating—from restaurants to Shabbat meals, college campuses to shul kiddushim— shut down. Much of the frum dating world turned on a dime, moving almost entirely online.

Q. From your perspective, how did things first shift after the lockdown began in March?

Marjorie Glatt: We consulted with medical experts and Yeshiva University rabbanim, who advised online dating only, at least through June. Couples set up by our connectors began dating on Zoom, and we created group events called “Zoom with Whom?” with ten to twelve people each. Zoom dating became the vanguard of the new dating world, a game-changer for singles who feared their dating lives would be on hold for who knew how long. Even now, people are still asking: When is it worth possible Covid exposure for an in-person date?

Marc Goldmann: After Pesach, when we knew the pandemic would be with us for a long time, there seemed to be a greater openness in the Yeshivish and wider frum community to try online dating for the first time. We saw this in increased signups on SawYouAtSinai and the response through a new Zoom dating module we set up for both our own matchmakers and our partners, including YUConnects, Adopt a Shadchan, Chabad and JLIConnections, OU-JLIC’s online dating platform.

Lisa Elefant: Many singles felt isolated and trapped in time, and were left wondering “What’s going to be with shidduchim?” Their parents were worried,

Merri Ukraincik is a writer who has written for the Forward, the New York Jewish Week, Hevria, the Wisdom Daily, Tablet and other publications, including Jewish Action. She is the author of I Live. Send Help, a history of the Joint Distribution Committee.

Aleeza Ben Shalom is a professional dating coach and the founder of MarriageMindedMentor, which is geared toward personal growth mainly for older singles. She is the author of Get Real, Get Married: Get Over Your Hurdles and Under the Chuppah and Virtual Dating: Your Guide to a Relationship in a Socially Distanced World.

Marc Goldmann is the co-founder and CEO of SawYouAtSinai, a web site offering personalized matchmaking for Jewish singles that has facilitated 3,562 engagements since it launched in 2004.

Marjorie Glatt is the special projects coordinator at YUConnects, a dating resource that provides targeted matchmaking, social events, personal guidance and educational programs. It is housed at Yeshiva University’s Center for the Jewish Future and open to the general public.

Lisa Elefant is one of the founders and driving forces behind Adopt a Shadchan, which partners with shuls and communities to create a more sustainable shidduch process for singles. She has been involved in shidduchim for over a decade.

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O U WOM E N’S IN ITIATIVE “Zoom with Whom?” events, which became very popular during the peak of the pandemic, allow for a small group of singles to meet virtually in a fun way. YUConnects staff sorted through applicants to match their ages and hashkafah, and then grouped them into four Zoom rooms with about five women and five men in each. A facilitator joined every Zoom room, encouraging discussion among the participants about various topics and leading ice breakers. “Zoom with Whom?” has drawn more than 600 singles since it was first launched.

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too. Almost overnight, the reality of corona quarantine pushed people to get comfortable online, even if they had never considered it before. Zoom was something when there was nothing else.

Q. Can you elaborate on Covid-era approach?

Aleeza Ben Shalom: It was important not to let the corona quarantine become a shidduch shutdown. I continued working in tandem with shadchanim, coaching singles on dating and relationship management. I also began offering free ninety-minute webinars instead of my large in-person events, delving into topics like “The Art of Commitment” and “Tips for the Anxious Dater.”

Marjorie: Under the guidance of Dr. Efrat Sobolofsky, director of YUConnects, we expanded the resources we offer, tailoring them for Zoom dating. For example, we created a guide to fun virtual activities, tips on Zoom room lighting, and a PDF of venues open for in-person dates in various communities. Additionally, we have been hosting online “Meet the Matchmaker” events and popular webinars like “How to Build Wealth during the Pandemic,” which move participants into Zoom The goal of any singles event is to grab every opportunity to set people up. It’s hard even in person, since organizers can’t always pick up on the energy between two people in a crowd, or they have to track them down after an event.

For Zoom room dating, we launched a tracking system that makes it easy for participants to notify the moderators when they are interested in someone. The moderators can follow up right away, getting the shidduch moving forward without losing opportunities. As a result, we now see a lot of couples dating, and three have already gotten engaged.

—Marc Goldmann

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breakout rooms where discussions are facilitated by a shadchan. It has been wonderful to see couples meet this way.

Lisa: From the beginning of lockdown, I wanted to offer a model that was different from the typical one-on-one shidduch date. So I organized Zoom rooms of five men and five women, all the same age range and religious background. Later, I went big, setting up multiple rooms together with other shadchanim, which allowed us to expand the number of singles meeting one another to fifty or sixty a week. We hosted speakers, ran game nights as well as events that focused on dating skills, and moderated low-pressure, roundtable discussions. Thank God, dates and relationships followed. We have one couple married already, three engaged and others dating seriously.

Q. What are some of the silver linings of Zoom dating?

Marjorie: Expanded possibilities.

Singles from around the globe

We have seen more engagements during the pandemic than we did this same period last year. It’s not a coincidence. —Marjorie Glatt can connect without leaving home. They get a good sense of one another through Zoom before deciding whether to take it to the next level and meet in person.

Marc: Zoom room events provide a middle ground between big in-person mingling activities and a one-on-one date, which means there is a chance to meet people you might not have met otherwise but with less pressure. In addition, the shadchan moderators are there to follow-up, which helps move a match forward. Even now, with more in-person dating becoming possible, many couples are still Zooming first.

Ilana Brown: In the current Zoom dating culture, many singles are now embracing the you-never-know! philosophy of dating. They are more trusting of the process, schmoozing and listening to one another in Zoom groups, and saying yes to dates with people they would have rejected on the basis of a resume.

We asked participants to commit to a twenty-to-forty-minute follow-up Zoom call with one person he or she met during an event (it could be more than one person as well!). A Zoom call is less pressure and less of a time investment than a usual date, which could run three or more hours. We

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Zoom leveled the playing field.

No one could say there was a shortage of men when we had even numbers in the Zoom rooms. It also broke down some of the walls of frum dating, introducing people who might never have met if left solely to the details on their resumes. —Lisa Elefant

Almost overnight, the reality of corona quarantine pushed people to get comfortable online, even if they had never considered it before. Zoom was something when there was nothing else.

—Lisa Elefant

found singles to be more open to suggestions they may have previously felt weren’t an exact fit in terms of age, background or personality. Some of them have said to me, “What do I have to lose? I’m already trying something new by dating on Zoom.”

Lisa: I’ve watched Zoom room groups become small communities.

Friendships have developed. Some of the men have become roommates.

Several of the women have traveled together. They help one another find jobs and try to make matches with friends outside the group. For those singles who grew up in a very sheltered religious environment, this atmosphere also gives them the chance to learn how to communicate in a healthy, comfortable way with members of the opposite gender.

Aleeza: Lockdown has reminded us how important it is to create a culture that helps couples find one another.

Dating and matchmaking are not static, and we have to take advantage of all the tools available to us at any

given time. Many singles—even those who were apprehensive about online dating—have told me how grateful they are that Zoom has kept the shidduch world going during the pandemic.

the mettle of their chemistry online.

When they finally meet in person, they may have to reset before they can move forward. Rarely can they pick up where the last Zoom call left off.

Q. How would you describe the limitations and challenges of Zoom dating?

Marjorie: FaceTime and Zoom don’t always capture the nuances of facial expressions or the power of a live smile. In long-distance relationships, sometimes a phone call is just as engaging. The biggest challenge now is that people are feeling “Zoomed out” and prefer meeting offline as soon as feasible.

Aleeza: The biggest hurdle—how to meet the right person—has remained the same. The Covid situation has only changed the options and deepened the desire not to be alone, especially while sheltering in place.

Marc: Most of the challenges are the same as they are for in-person events.

You need a good moderator who can bring together compatible singles and track who is interested in whom in order not to lose match opportunities.

And, regardless of the forum, you need to create an event where singles leave feeling good about having participated.

Ilana: Zoom offers a great way to start a relationship. But it is hard for a couple to establish real closeness or test

Keeping things interesting takes creativity. Couples ordered takeout meals and “ate together” while speaking on Zoom, simulating a restaurant outing. Others took online courses together to learn a new language, did a remote tour of the Great Wall of China, or participated in Virtual Escape rooms. As restrictions eased (but with museums and other major indoor venues remaining closed), we heard about dating couples having scavenger hunts in Target or working on tie-dye projects outdoors. Some even donated plasma together. —Marjorie Glatt

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Q. Has the dating mindset shifted during the pandemic?

Marc: Many singles have reprioritized finding a spouse. Some went home to their parents at the height of quarantine, where seeing family life underscored the benefits of building their own families. Others remained in their apartments, where they were lonely without the distractions of their usual social lives, Shabbat meals with friends, and so on. I wouldn’t say there has been a sudden sense of urgency, but the realities of quarantine have certainly struck a chord.

Aleeza: The shutdown meant fewer distractions. Other commitments— career, school, friends, hobbies— were shifted out of the top spot.

In our physically isolated world, finding a soulmate has become the number-one priority for most singles.

One of the single men I know described how isolated he felt when he suddenly began working from home.

It motivated him to focus on finding his bashert by meeting people online. A single woman who moved back to her parents’ home during the pandemic told me that as much as she loves her parents, she needs her own space. She’d rather be in lockdown with a marriage partner than alone or with her family.

Q. Will frum dating return to the way it was before Covid once the pandemic is over?

Marc: There is nothing like an in-person date. But even in a non-Covid world, Zoom dating has its place. Singles can meet five or six new faces a night on two separate events from the comfort of home.

Zoom also offers flexibility to those who travel or work late, which makes it hard for them to attend weeknight in-person events. They can always take an hour off while at their desks to participate online.

Marjorie: I believe that the genuine focus on committing to a relationship and settling down to build a life with another person will stick. Similarly, I think singles will remain more open-minded about who they are willing to go out with. We have seen more engagements during the pandemic than we did during this same period last year. It’s not a coincidence.

Chana clicked with Meir when they met in a Zoom room one month into the Covid lockdown and they dated for a while online. Because she is from Canada and he lives in the States, they were first able to meet in person only after restrictions eased. Chana has now been traveling to the US (Canada remains closed to Americans), and quarantining the required fourteen days each time she returns home. Since Covid-era dating has slowed their months’ long relationship, they have had to be really committed to one another to make it work.

After the “Zoom with Whom?” sessions ended, we had an astounding 60 percent match rate of participants interested in pursuing a date with someone they met in the Zoom. Though we have temporarily suspended the “Zoom with Whom” program to focus on other programming, we intend to offer the sessions again. —Marjorie Glatt

Ilana: Even though groups and organizations here in Canada are still relying on Zoom, most individual shadchanim have returned to setting people up on individual dates. I am still open to planning Zoom-speed dating events in the future, especially for singles living in out-of-town communities.

Aleeza: I expect Zoom dating will remain an option.

The benefit is that couples have a more “tachlis” mindset long before they meet in person, asking themselves the hard questions from the beginning of the process: Do we have a future together? Are you my person?

And there have been quite a few successes. One couple who met over Zoom is still dating between continents (the US and Europe). Both sides said they would never had considered such a long distance relationship. They dated much longer than expected via Zoom due to travel restrictions, and finally met in person. Thank goodness, they like each other even more in person than via Zoom. While they don’t want to rush into making a wedding, they know travel will be complicated so they are working out those details right now.

They are so relieved to finally have met and have confirmation that what they felt virtually worked in person as well.

Another couple has been dating since May. They started off on Zoom and gradually made in-person dates too. Now they alternate between Zoom and in-person dates. While they haven’t gotten engaged yet, they are committed to one another and are headed in that direction.

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A New Way to Date?

As the pandemic struck, Zoom dating became quite popular in the shidduch world, but singles have different views on whether or not it works.

Greater Connections

By Avi, as told to Rachel Schwartzberg I’m thirty-one and live in an “out-of-town” community; most of the girls I date are in the New York area. Since I’m in school full-time, I didn’t know if I’d be able to date much during the spring and summer semesters altogether. But when the pandemic hit and flying was restricted, I realized I definitely wouldn’t be able to date, since, with my tight schedule, flying is the only option.

And with no one able to travel from New York to the city where I live, I knew I’d have to consider alternatives.

Of course, back then, nobody thought the pandemic would last this long.

In the past, I had spoken to girls over the phone before meeting them in person. So I thought, why not try video conferencing—whether Rachel Schwartzberg works as a writer and editor and lives with her family in Memphis, Tennessee.

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WhatsApp video, Skype, Zoom or a different platform?

It’s all in the hands of Hashem, but I have to do my part.

I was speaking to a relative who is a shadchan and she suggested I join “Zoom Room,” (sponsored

by Adopt a Shadchan), which I did. The program had about forty guys and forty girls divided into Zoom break-out rooms with groups of four guys and four girls. The guys stayed in their respective Zoom rooms while the girls moved from room to room.

This experience opened my eyes. I met many girls in the Zoom room who had been previously suggested to me. By meeting them this way, I could decide for myself who I wanted to get to know better.

The pandemic forced me to be involved in something I otherwise wouldn’t have considered. While I had been open to attending singles’ Shabbatons, to be honest, I tended to avoid them. Participating in a Zoom room is more comfortable than attending a singles event. At an in-person singles event, if there’s no one who clicks with you, you’re stuck there alone for hours. By contrast, a Zoom room was a great way to meet in a group and get things off the ground.

Mask or No Mask: The “to-wear-a-mask-ornot” debate has become the central focus of my dating life. I dated one guy who refused to wear a mask while walking through a restaurant, violating the restaurant’s policy, because wearing a mask goes against his political beliefs. So now, when I check into a guy, I ask about hashkafah, personality and whether or not he wears a mask.

—Rachel Leff, twenty-something

It’s not an issue for me, but I can see how quieter types might have a harder time in a Zoom room— that is drawback. They might not have a chance to get to know anyone in a group setting if others who are louder dominate the conversation.

The Zoom room also had an “after party,” open to anyone who wanted to stay on and have discussions or play games. I’d never done that sort of thing before. I realized it was a chance to get to know people better, in a more casual way. It’s much easier to make connections this way.

I dated two girls I met through Zoom rooms. Neither worked out in the end, but both were good experiences.

I dated one girl via phone and video-chatting and I traveled to New York to date the other one.

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The Zoom Date One-on-one video dating is interesting. You still get dressed up if you want and you can build a better Winter 5781/2020 JEWISH ACTION

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Tips for the Ultimate Zoom Date •

Make sure you are in a location with good WiFi

•

Turn phone notifications off—give your date your full attention!

•

No gum chewing!

From the Adopt a Shadchan’s Instagram

Zoom took away the idea that our dating life had to be put on hold. It was a solution for what we hoped was a temporary nisayon. Our lives were hijacked—what were we going to do?

—Bracha T, twenty-five

emotional connection than over the phone because you get to see the girl in her own space. On my video dates, I have only chatted. But I’ve seen lots of ideas on social media for activities to do or games to play on virtual dates.

That would definitely require creativity, but it seems like it could be a lot of fun.

One drawback to video dates is that the connection can be spotty, regardless of which platform you use. It’s hard to get chemistry going when you keep freezing up or losing connection.

Going Forward Thanks to the pandemic, many people who wouldn’t have thought about dating virtually will be more open to it, creating opportunities for people who may not have connected otherwise.

I hope that because of this, we’ll start seeing more diverse matches.

Yes, virtual dating is different than what we are used to and it’s not an end in itself. But it’s a way to broaden your horizons and I’m hopeful it will work and make shidduchim.

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Missed Connections

By Leah, as told to Rachel Schwartzberg I am in my mid-twenties and live in an apartment in Brooklyn with three roommates. During the pandemic, when it became clear I would be working remotely anyway, I left New York and traveled home to stay with my parents in the out-of-town community where I grew up.

From the beginning, when people were very cautious about meeting in person, I was not interested in virtual dating. My friends were doing virtual dating events, but I did not want to participate. Back then, we didn’t know how long this pandemic would last. I thought I would wait it out.

At one point, someone suggested

that I meet a guy who lived in a different state, so I relented and we met over Zoom. I found I really wasn’t comfortable with the experience.

We ended up traveling to date in person. But if the choice had been to continue on Zoom or to stop dating him, I would have stopped.

I’ve given this a lot of thought, because I myself was surprised that I felt so strongly about not wanting even one more Zoom date with this guy.

What’s so different about meeting in person versus meeting online?

I think it’s the small gestures, like when a guy opens the car door or gets a drink for you. It helps you warm up to someone to see him showing even small acts of caring. It’s not that I need someone to open a door for me, but these little gestures add up. None of this can happen through a screen.

Another way you can get a feel for

someone is by observing him. You can learn a lot about a person by observing how he treats a stranger, and how he reacts to things. Your own perception of who he is might not match what you see in real life. When you date virtually, there’s nothing happening so you don’t get to see the guy’s reactions. In real life, there’s just so long people can put up a front. But in a virtual setting, one can theoretically continue that for much longer. (Just look at social media.

Everyone’s life is perfect online!) If I were to date online, I’d never be able to feel like I really know the person.

And then there’s the awkwardness.

When you’re talking to someone through a screen, there’s nothing going on to help fill in gaps in the conversation. It feels completely contrived; the forced face-to-face conversation feels like you’re conducting an interview. I could probably tell if the guy is completely wrong for me, but I wouldn’t be able to tell if there’s real potential.

A Last Resort Even talking on the phone is more comfortable than video-chatting.

You’re not worried about dressing up or about sitting somewhere appropriate and cleaning up the background.

A friend of mine who was engaged went back to stay with her family during the pandemic. She continued to see her chassan only virtually. In that situation, they were maintaining a relationship from a distance, not trying to create a relationship.

As long as I’m still out of town, I’m being more discerning about potential shidduchim. I won’t pursue a shidduch if it will only be possible (because of the travel restrictions) to date virtually. I would, however, use Zoom as a screening tool before going through the effort of traveling to meet someone in person.

I really think most people prefer dating in person. I think they’ll agree to virtual dating if they feel that they have no choice—like now, because of the pandemic. But in the future, I’m assuming people will abandon virtual dating. We will all be relieved when we can date normally again.

Where Have the Singles Gone? I live in Washington Heights, a popular singles neighborhood in New York. In late March and early April, many of the singles in the neighborhood went back home to avoid being alone for Pesach. Over the summer, many were able to return, but not all. I have three friends, all originally from out of town, who had to give up their apartment in the Heights because they were unemployed due to the pandemic and could not afford to go back to the city. They all look forward to moving back to the Heights again. One commented, “Unless I get married in the interim, I’m heading back to New York.”

Finding roommates this summer was also slimmer pickings. With the student population mostly online for the start of the semester, the need to live closer to campus was eliminated. And for those normally coming in from out of town, I think there was some reticence to go to a metropolitan area that, while doing much better, was an epicenter of the virus. —Ahuva

Shadchanim need to decide if Zoom dating is a legitimate form of dating or not. A shadchan will tell me to go on a Zoom date and will list the couples she knows who met over Zoom. Then, after the date, when I get back to the shadchan and say, “I don’t think we are compatible,” she’ll say “How could you know? You only met over Zoom!”

—Rachel Leff

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THE CHEF’S TABLE

Converso Cuisine: Chanukah Recipes Dating Back to the Days of the Inquisition

Finding a stash of old recipes, Genie Milgrom discovered the truth about her family’s Jewish identity, hidden for generations.

Written by Barbara Bensoussan Recipes by Genie Milgrom

And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place or the first time.

—T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets

T

hese poetic verses perfectly characterize the journey of Genie Milgrom, author of a new cookbook entitled Recipes of My Fifteen Grandmothers: Unique Recipes and Stories from the Times of the Crypto-Jews during the Spanish Inquisition.

Born in Havana and raised in Miami, Genie never felt in sync with her family’s upper-crust Catholic, Spanish-Cuban milieu. Her grandparents had emigrated from Spain to Cuba in 1917, where her mother’s family manufactured silk stockings and her father’s family sold pharmaceuticals. Extremely successful, they were able to flee to Miami nine months after Castro came to power in 1959, when Genie was four.

A long-time Jewish Action contributor, Barbara Bensoussan is the author of a food memoir entitled The Well-Spiced Life, describing her discovery of Sephardic food and faith, and Pride and Preference, a novel re-imagining Austen’s classic in today’s Orthodox world.

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She was educated in top Catholic schools and universities, where, frustrated by her teachers’ inability to answer her questions satisfactorily, she was regarded as a gadfly. After befriending a Jewish girl in day camp, Genie developed a fascination with Judaism that grew as she learned more about it during college, where she devoured Jewish books.

In her thirties, divorced with two children, she could no longer ignore the prompting of her soul, and undertook a process of conversion that lasted more than five years.

It was a long, lonely road. “When I left Catholicism, I lost my Catholic friends,” Genie says. “I started with Reform, but when I left that and moved to a Conservative synagogue, I lost my Reform friends. Then, when I moved to Young Israel, I lost my Conservative friends!” But it was at a shtiebel that she finally found her comfort zone.

She didn’t stay in the wings for long.

A successful businesswoman who is by nature a mover and shaker, Genie exudes warmth and enthusiasm.

She became a vital member of the shul, eventually serving as treasurer and president of the sisterhood.

A few years after her conversion, Genie remarried. Her new husband, who has Chassidic roots, had attended

Comprised of recipes from family lore, this unique cookbook reflects the flavors of Spanish and Sephardic cooking.

Mesivta Tifereth Jerusalem under Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, zt”l, and subsequently, Telshe Yeshiva. His mother, children and numerous grandchildren lived in Israel, and Genie was thrilled by her first encounter with the Holy Land and her new family.

When Genie’s grandmother died on a Friday morning, her mother insisted—based on some nebulous “family tradition”—that the burial had to take place right away, within eighteen hours, which is highly unusual for Catholics. Despite Genie’s protests, her parents made the funeral on Shabbat, and she was unable to attend. When she came to her parents’ house soon after the funeral, her mother handed her a small box her grandmother had insisted she receive.

Inside, to Genie’s surprise, was a pair of old earrings with a Magen David and a pendant with a hamsa.

Genie had an epiphany: “My ancestors must have been Jewish!”

She asked her mother for family records, but her mother insisted none existed. At last, her mother yielded and brought out some old boxes of

papers, which contained no hints of Judaism. But at the very bottom, Genie found a family tree drawn up by her grandfather twenty years prior, going back to the 1800s. Finally, a lead!

Spanish census reports, available online, brought her a couple of generations further back. She began researching Fermoselle, the village of her grandparents, located on the border between Spain and Portugal, and discovered that two of the family names, Ramos and Garrido, were originally Jewish. She located a genealogist heading to the region and paid him to search for records.

Church records brought her as far back as 1545, but then stopped. Even Inquisition records led to a dead end.

When Genie and her husband met Rabbi Nissim Karelitz in Meah Shearim, he told her husband, “You don’t have to turn salt into salt. Your

wife is Jewish!” But the beit din in Jerusalem told her she needed to trace back even further to prove Jewish lineage. She had to find a Jewish woman at the top of her family tree.

Genie and her husband finally went to Fermoselle themselves. Although the locals were initially evasive when she asked about signs of a Jewish presence, it was a deeply moving trip. Little by little, she discovered that the town had been Jewish prior to the Inquisition; she learned of the existence of an underground synagogue and mikveh, writings on walls in Hebrew letters, subterranean tunnels connecting the houses. (She would later produce a short documentary about the town’s Jewish heritage.) Genie was even more shaken by a feeling of soul recognition she experienced while in the town; she came upon a street she had seen numerous times in her dreams.

The village of Fermoselle is situated on the banks of a river separating Spain from Portugal. It finally occurred to Genie that she had probably lost her family’s trail because they hadn’t remained in Spain! Like so many others, they had fled to Portugal when the Inquisition began. She turned to the National Archives of Torre de Tombo, the Portuguese national archive, for records and family trees from the Portuguese Inquisitions that had been digitized. Now she hit pay dirt. Here was the rest of her family tree, confirming what she’d always felt in her bones: She had really been Jewish to begin with!

The records showed that her maternal grandmothers in the sixteenth and seventeenth generations were Jewish.

“I finally succeeded in going back twenty-two generations,” she said in a National Public Radio interview. Genie

Churros, a fried-dough pastry snack that is traditional in Spain and Portugal.

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managed to trace her Jewish roots back to the year 1405 on her mother’s side and to 1110 on her father’s side. But the Inquisition records in Lisbon told horrifying stories. Forty-five members of her family had been burned at the stake, including a fifteen-year-old girl named Michaela. She discovered she was related to Luis de Carvajal, the governor of a Spanish province in present-day Mexico who was persecuted along with his family by the Inquisition (his grandmother was Genie’s fourteenth great-grandmother).

The family tree revealed her family’s determination to keep the Jewish line pure. “It’s what genealogists call a ‘collapsed’ family tree,” Genie explains. “Within the family, people married among themselves, cousins to cousins.” She noticed that the babies had rarely been baptized or were supposedly baptized by the midwife; the records often noted, “child is deathly ill,” even though later records suggested the child had been perfectly healthy. Recorded dowry agreements read suspiciously like tena’im (terms of a Jewish marriage).

Genie eventually wrote a book, My Fifteen Grandmothers (Jerusalem, 2012), about her search for her Jewish roots.

Her journey rendered her a beacon for people who suspect they have Jewish lineage and wish to trace their family backgrounds. She now receives hundreds of e-mails, mostly from South America but also from the Philippines, Portugal, and even Hawaii and Iceland.

With the help of an Israeli company, she is working on digitizing all of her family records from Spain from the time of the Inquisition, so that others can search their roots without having to travel or hire a genealogist as she did.

The Crypto Kitchen There had always been hints of Judaism in her family’s kitchen practices, if you knew where to look for them.

“My maternal grandmother, who taught me to cook, always checked eggs for blood spots, and would wash and check vegetables and rice for bugs,” Genie says. “When she baked in quantity, she’d take a small piece of dough and throw it into the back 82

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of the oven—‘para buena suerte (for good luck),’ she’d say.” These practices were attributed to “family tradition.”

Genie’s mother, as if held back by an ancient, residual fear of being discovered, had always resisted Genie’s efforts to probe into their family background. But when her mother became ill and had to leave her home to an assisted living residence, Genie discovered a suitcase containing family trees, birth and death certificates, and baby books—“originals of all the documents I’d spent ten years trying to find!” In addition, she found scraps of paper and old books filled with pages of recipes handwritten in tiny letters, left by generations of the family’s women.

Over the years, the recipe ingredients sometimes changed, reflecting the family’s migrations. Not every recipe was strictly kosher. But never did any recipe combine meat and milk, and there were many that replaced flour with potato starch, as if to make them kosher for Passover. Quite a few recipes suggested Jewish holidays, such as orejuelas, or “ears” for Purim (like today’s Israeli aznei Haman). A recipe for chuletas, pork chops, was actually a recipe for a sort of French toast designed to look like a pork chop.

“The Crypto-Jews would eat them while burning a piece of pork in the fireplace to make the neighbors think they were eating treif,” Genie explains.

Genie took this trove of domestic family lore and began entering it into her computer. She recruited friends to help her test out all the recipes. Many had to be modified; for example, eggs today are substantially larger than eggs a hundred years ago, so many recipes they tested came out too “eggy.” Some tasted too strongly of olive oil, which, in a region famous for its olives and olive oil, was used even in recipes for desserts and cookies.

When everyone had finished testing the recipes, Genie invited all her testers for a potluck Shabbat meal to sample them. It was “a rich and fun night of sharing,” Genie says. Recipes of My 15 Grandmothers was born from these efforts.

The cookbook reflects the flavors of Spanish and Sephardic cooking,

using ingredients like peppers, tomatoes, almonds and anise. At Genie’s suggestion, I tried making the garbanzo empanadas, which were eagerly devoured by my family, and the anise torticas, a biscuit similar to Syrian sweet ka’ak. As is often typical of informal family recipes, there are no estimates for time of preparation (although Genie classifies them as “easy” to “difficult” in her book), and often no “yields.” But the value of this cookbook is as much historical and family document as it is modern cookbook.

Never one to rest on her laurels, Genie is now finishing up a sequel entitled Salsa! It represents her efforts, over the past thirty-odd years, to create kosher versions of the Cuban and Caribbean recipes she grew up with.

But it is her grandmother’s Spanish recipes that influenced her most strongly, and she treasures her memories of preparing foods like periquillos (a fried dough recipe from Fermoselle) with her. Jewish food, it seems clear, is absorbed not only in our stomachs but in our souls. You can suppress Jews from practicing their religion, but as Recipes of My Fifteen Grandmothers suggests, our recipes continue to transmit our heritage long after formal observance has disappeared.

Recipes adapted from Genie’s Milgrom’s Recipes of My 15 Grandmothers.

Periquillos (Parrot Beaks) Yields about 40 small periquillos Different than the usual Chanukah fare, these fried “balls” are perfect for the holiday!

6 large eggs 3 ½ cups sugar ¾ cup olive oil 6 tablespoons anise liqueur 2 one-ounce bottles anise essence 5 ½ cups flour, plus up to one cup more Oil for frying Mix the eggs with the sugar until the sugar is dissolved. (Genie mixes this by hand.) Add the oil, liqueur and anise essence and mix well.

Bollo Maimon, a light and fluffy Bundt cake.

Add the 5 ½ cups of flour slowly, and mix until you can start molding small balls with your hands. Add only enough flour to make small balls, about 1 to 1 ½ inches, the size of a ping-pong ball or a bit smaller. Keep your hands well-oiled to make it easier to form the balls. If more flour than necessary is used, the balls will be too hard.

Heat the oil in a saucepan with deep sides, and drop the balls in one by one. Deep fry until they are golden brown and a small “beak” opens up.

Place on paper towels to drain.

To retain their crispiness, periquillos should be stored in tins. If covered with aluminum or plastic, they will become sticky.

Garbanzo Empanadas 1 cup freshly cooked or canned chickpeas 1 cup flour 2 tablespoons margarine 1 teaspoon baking powder ½ teaspoon salt 2 tablespoons olive oil Seasoned ground beef (½ pound) or ground chicken or a vegetarian option Oil for frying

Grind the chickpeas finely in a food processor and blend with the flour, margarine, baking powder, salt and olive oil until the dough is soft and pliable. Roll onto a floured surface to about ¼ inch thick, and cut into 2-inch rounds. Place a tablespoon of the meat on the round, cover it with another round, and pinch the edges together like ravioli. Alternatively, you can make larger circles (3 ½ inches or so), place the meat in the center, fold one side over to make a half-moon and seal the edges with the tines of a fork.

Fry until golden brown on both sides.

Bollo Maimon Try this light and fluffy Bundt cake—you won’t regret it!

10 medium eggs 1 cup cornstarch or potato starch 2 teaspoons baking powder 1 cup confectioners’ sugar, plus extra for decoration Separate the eggs, and in a separate bowl beat the whites until they form stiff peaks. In the bowl with the egg yolks, add the other ingredients and mix well. Fold the egg whites gently into the mixture and place in a

greased Bundt pan (according to the grandmothers, it is preferable to use a copper pan, but a Teflon Bundt pan works well too). Bake at 350°F for 30 to 40 minutes, or until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean. Sprinkle with confectioners’ sugar on top.

Churros Ideal for Chanukah, churros are a fried-dough pastry snack that are traditional in Spain and Portugal. These trendy treats are crispy on the outside and soft and tender on the inside.

3 cups water 1 teaspoon salt 3 cups all-purpose flour Olive oil for frying Granulated sugar for dusting the churros Place water with salt in a saucepan on the fire and bring to a boil; slowly add the flour and stir until combined. Remove from heat and continue mixing by hand until well blended. Form the mixture into long snake-like shapes. Heat the oil in a deep-sided pan and deep fry until golden brown. Drain and dust with sugar.

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LEGAL-EASE

WHAT’S THE TRUTH ABOUT. . .

BREAKING A GLASS AT A WEDDING?

By Ari Z. Zivotofsky

Misconception: A glass is broken at the end of the wedding ceremony zecher l’Churban—to remember the loss of the Beit Hamikdash.

Fact: The Gemara describes breaking an expensive glass during the wedding feast in order to instill an air of solemnity to the sacred event, and also records putting ashes on the groom’s head to remember the Churban. However, in subsequent years, the breaking of the glass, the timing of which has varying customs, took on the additional role of serving as a reminder of the Churban as well.

Background: One of the most iconic features in a Jewish wedding is the groom stomping on a glass, followed by joyous shouts of “mazal tov.” This nearly universal1 practice has an interesting history and symbolism.

Tosafot (Berachot 31a, s.v. ay’tei kasah) and the Gra (OC 560:2, s.v. v’yeish) suggest that two Talmudic stories (Berachot 30b-31a) are the source for breaking a glass at a wedding.2 In the course of discussing praying with the proper reverence, the Gemara (Berachot 30b-31a) emphasizes the need to temper joy with seriousness and cites two wedding-related stories. Mar, the son of Ravina, made a wedding feast for his son, and when he noticed that the rabbis were excessively jovial, he brought a

Rabbi Ari Z. Zivotofsky is a professor of neuroscience at Bar-Ilan University in Israel.

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precious glass cup worth the huge sum of 400 zuz and shattered it in front of them and they became sad.3 Similarly, Rav Ashi made a wedding feast for his son, noticed the excessive levity and broke a white glass4 to make the mood somber.

Based on these sources, the breaking of a glass is for the purpose of maintaining a somewhat solemn demeanor in the midst of a joyous occasion. This is a fulfillment of the verse (Tehillim 2:11): “Ivdu et Hashem b’yirah, v’gilu bir’adah—Serve the Lord with fear and rejoice with trembling,” which the Gemara understands to mean, “In the place where there is rejoicing [e.g., a wedding], there should also be trembling.” Thus, it would seem, the breaking of the glass is unrelated to mourning for Jerusalem. Even as late as the thirteenth-century, Rabbi Eleazar of Worms (Rokeach, sec. 353, 355) offers the Gemara’s reason for breaking a glass at a wedding, which has nothing to do with remembering the Temple.5 The Temple, however, is not to be forgotten at the pinnacle of happiness, a wedding. The Mishnah (Sotah 9:14 [49a]) describes a series of decrees, cited in Shulchan Aruch (OC 560:4), pertaining to the style of crown and jewelry that the bride and groom may wear as well as the kind of musical instruments that may be used at a wedding, all to ensure a consciousness of the lack of the Temple.

Rabbi Yosef Dov Soloveitchik says that because it is difficult to identify the exact ornaments listed in the Mishnah, the custom in some parts of Europe was

for the bride and groom to not wear any jewelry at their wedding (Nefesh HaRav, p. 256; cf. Pitchei Teshuvah, EH 65:4 “standard” jewelry was worn). Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky (Shoneh Halachot 560:7) takes a more lenient position, permitting a bride to wear certain kinds of jewelry, even if made of gold and silver.

In fulfillment of the verse (Tehillim 137:6), “If I do not place Jerusalem above my chief joy,” the Talmud (Bava Batra 60b) prescribes and the Rambam rules (Hilchot Ta’anit 5:13) that ashes be placed on the groom’s head on the spot where tefillin are worn.6 The Tur (Even Haezer 65), in the context of describing the great mitzvah of rejoicing with the chatan and kallah, writes that something should be done to remember the mourning of Yerushalayim. He mentions that in Ashkenaz the custom was to put ashes on the groom’s head in the place where the tefillin are worn, and in Sephard the custom was to place a crown made of olive branches on his head, because the olives’ bitterness evokes mourning. The Shulchan Aruch (OC 560:2; EH 65:2), who usually presents the Sephardic practice, says that one is obligated to place ashes on the chatan’s head. The Yemenite practice (Halichot Teiman, p. 139) was to place the ashes on the groom’s head before the chuppah while reciting Tehillim 137:5-6, a ritual described as evoking tears among the assembled.7 The Aruch Hashulchan (EH 65:5) states that one should place the ashes on the groom prior to the chuppah, and then immediately remove

of tablets, given quietly, did last, marriage them. Rabbi Soloveitchik (Nefesh HaRav, p. 256) would not place the is based on a private relationship, ashes on the groom’s head until after hidden from public view, and not on the chuppah, when he officially became the public wedding celebration.13 a chatan. The Taz (OC 560:4) records Non-Jews have commented on the that among some communities, a cantor ritual as well. In 1787, Dr. Benjamin would recite Tehillim (“If I forget you, O Rush (1746-1813), a non-Jewish Jerusalem. . .” [137:5-6]) and the groom physician and a signer of the US would repeat after him word for word.8 Declaration of Independence, attended Rabbi David ben Levi of Narbonne a Jewish wedding in Philadelphia. In (late thirteenth century; Sefer Hamichtam, a letter to his wife, Rush wrote: “The Berachot 30b [p. 54 in 5775 ed.]) says that groom after sipping the wine took the a glass is broken at a wedding to instill glass in his hand and threw it upon a sobriety, a requirement which, he notes, large pewter dish which was … placed some say is only necessary at a time at his feet. Upon its breaking into a when there is no Temple.9 Commenting number of small pieces, there was a on the Tur’s description of how to general shout of joy and a declaration remember the Churban, both the Beit that the ceremony was over. I asked the Yosef (EH 65) and the Prisha (65:6) cite meaning . . . I was told . . . the breaking of the circa-fourteenth-century work Kolbo the glass . . . was designed to teach them the brittleness and uncertainty of human (62) as saying that since there was a great life and the certainty of death, and deal of laxity with regard to the mitzvah thereby to temper and moderate their of tefillin,10 it would be inappropriate to present joys” (Letters of Benjamin Rush, put ashes in the spot where tefillin are 1761-1792, edited by L. H. Butterfield worn. Instead, the custom developed to [Princeton, New Jersey], p. 429-432). place a black cloth on the heads of both Esoteric reasons are also given for the the bride and groom and to break a glass custom. Some view the ritual as a means following the sheva berachot under the of “appeasing” the sitra achra—the “other chuppah, zecher l’Churban. The Rema forces,” or demons, thereby warding off a (OC 560:2; EH 65:3) describes similar potential ayin hara (evil eye) that might customs. He adds that in Krakow, his be present at such a happy occasion.14 hometown, the custom was to both use ashes and break a cup (Darkei Moshe, If anything bad was destined to befall OC 560:2). Thus, while the breaking the couple, the shattering of the glass of the glass may not originally have is meant to take its place (Minhag been linked to mourning the Churban, Yisrael Torah 4: 184-185, quoting the connection has been made over fourteenth-century Recanti, Shoftim, the years, with some commentators s.v., vehayah [Devarim 20:2]; Rabbi Uri merging the two reasons.11 Feivel, Ohr Hachochmah, part II, Derush Other symbolic meanings have L’Chodesh Adar [p. 26 in 2016 ed.]). been associated with this ritual. Rabbi While the custom of breaking a Solomon Luria (the Maharshal, d. 1573; glass at a wedding is widespread, the Yam Shel Shlomo, Ketubot 1:17) notes details of the ritual are quite varied. In many parallels between the “marriage” the Talmudic foundational story, one between God and the Jews at Sinai of the wedding guests breaks the glass. and a typical Jewish wedding.12 The According to Rabbi Chaim Hezekiah breaking of the glass, he states, represents Medini (d. 1904), the Sdei Chemed (Ma’arechet zayin:12, p. 106), the practice the breaking of the Luchot. While the in Eretz Yisrael in the late nineteenth Maharshal does not explain the reason century was, in fact, for one of the for recalling the shattering of the guests to break the glass. Nonetheless, Luchot specifically at a wedding, Rabbi the Rema writes that it is the chatan Soloveitchik explains [Divrei HaRav, p.

229] based on a Midrash Tanchuma, that who breaks the glass, which is the breaking a glass conveys a message to the custom most widely practiced today.

It is also standard today for the young couple—just as the first Luchot, chatan to step on the glass.15 However, given with great pomp and ceremony, were not sustainable while the second set early sources describe the chatan

One of the most iconic features in a Jewish wedding is the groom stomping on a glass. throwing the vessel against a wall. In some communities, an “even chuppah,” a chuppah stone, in the outer wall of the shul was set aside for this purpose. The stone was appropriately decorated with a Star of David, a lion’s head, verses, or some other drawing, and it was against this stone that the glass vessel was hurled.16 The timing of the breakage also varied. The Gemara relates that the glass was broken during the wedding feast. The twelfth-century Machzor Vitry (470, 476) and the Rema (EH 65:3) Winter 5781/2020 JEWISH ACTION

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describe breaking the cup at the end of the sheva berachot that conclude the chuppah ceremony, and Rabbi Ovadia Yosef (Yabia Omer 4:EH:9) states that his custom is the same. Similarly, according to Maharam Mintz (fifteenth century; siman 109, p. 100a in 1851 ed.) the custom of his teachers was that after the sheva berachot were recited under the chuppah, the chatan would take the cup that had been used for kiddushin and smash it. However, an increasingly popular custom, mentioned in some Acharonim (e.g., Ben Ish Chai, year 1, Shoftim:11), is to break the glass after the kiddushin before the ketubah is read. Rabbi Shlomo Zvi Schick (1844-1916; Shu”t Rashban EH: 268) describes observing a Jerusalem wedding in 1905 where the cup was broken immediately after the Birkat Erusin, and he was told that such is the Jerusalem (Ashkenazic) custom.17 The overwhelming majority of sources describe breaking a vessel made of glass, as described in the Talmud. Notable exceptions are the Rema (Darkei Moshe, OC 560) and Ben Ish Chai (Shoftim:11), who relate that the local custom was to use a cup made of pottery. Many sources stipulate (see e.g., Peri Megadim Mishbetzot Zahav 560:4) that the vessel must be glass. Rabbi Ovadia Yosef (Yabia Omer 4:EH:9) points out that the gematria of “hachatan hakallah” is the same as “kli zechuchit” (523).

Additionally, another reason for using glass specifically is that it alludes to the “groom’s gate.” Shlomo Hamelech made two gates in the Beit Hamikdash, one for chatanim, and one for mourners and for those who were excommunicated.

According to tradition, the “groom’s gate”—where the masses would bless the grooms with “May the One Who dwells in this house gladden you with sons and daughters”—was made of white glass (Pirkei D’Rebbi Eliezer 17; Radal 17:70). Breaking the glass serves to remind the chatan that the groom’s gate and the Temple are still not rebuilt.

A contemporary posek, Rabbi Pinchas Zvichi (b. 1960; Ateret Paz, 1:OC:15), criticizes wedding hall managers who provide chatanim with wrapped light bulbs18 to break. He asserts that a proper glass vessel be broken by the 86

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chatan so that a real sense of loss is felt.

Until recently, the custom was to break one of the cups used in the ceremony under the chuppah. Rabbi Yechiel Michel HaLevi Epstein (d.

1908; Aruch Hashulchan, EH 65:5) describes the chatan breaking the cup upon which Birkat Erusin was recited.

In some locales, the cups would be shattered while still full of wine, while in others, the wine would be spilled out first (Minhag Yisrael Torah, vol. 4, p.

188). The first source in modern times to mention breaking a glass that was not used as part of the ceremony is the eighteenth-century Peri Megadim.

The Sdei Chemed laments miserly individuals who use a chipped or inexpensive glass. The Mishnah Berurah (560:9) states that one should use an intact cup and that there is no concern of bal tashchit, wanton destruction,19 because the act of breaking a glass serves an important purpose.

A widespread but much more recent (first mentioned in the seventeenth century) Ashkenazic custom entails having the mothers of the bride and groom break a plate at the signing of the tena’im, the pre-marriage document, an act which the Aruch Hashulchan (EH 50:26) views as the formal acceptance of the tena’im. The shattering of a plate is also intended to decrease the joy and serve as a zecher l’Churban.

Since this is, however, a less popular custom, some recommend using an inexpensive or chipped plate to avoid any concern of bal tashchit (Sha’ar Hatziyun 560:20; Shoneh Halachot 560:6, both citing Peri Megadim).

Rabbi Aharon Lewin (Birkat Aharon, Berachot, ma’amar 262:3) disagrees, maintaining that since the breakage is done for a purpose (zecher l’Churban), it does not constitute bal tashchit.

Various meanings have been assigned to the material from which the vessel is made. Rabbi Yisrael Chaim Friedman (Likutei Maharich, vol. 3, p. 129a) explains, in the name of the Rabbi Chaim Mi’Volozhin, that earthenware is broken at the tena’im because once broken it is irreparable, while glass is broken at the wedding because glass can be repaired. This is because, in his view, it is worse to break a tena’im than

to divorce. The Maharsha (Chiddushei Aggadot, Berachot 31a, s.v. kasa) says that like glass, man originates from earth and is destined to die and return to earth.

The Tzlach adds that similar to glass that is repairable, when man is broken by sin he can be “fixed” with repentance.

One aspect of this custom that is widely criticized among halachic authorities is the incongruous shouting of “mazal tov” immediately following the breaking of the glass The Sdei Chemed (Asifat Dinin, Ma’arechet Zayin:12) lists breaking the glass at the time of the chuppah among the customs done zecher l’Churban. He then bemoans that the masses trample this custom and turn sorrow into joy because when the glass breaks, instead of feeling the loss of the Beit Hamikdash, wedding guests are full of laughter and mirth. He says if he had the ability to do so, he would abolish the custom.

Former Israeli Chief Rabbi Ben-Zion Meir Hai Uziel (d. 1953; Mishpetei Uziel 5:EH:89 [pp. 444-445]) decries the fact that this beautiful custom has evolved into a ritual in which the chatan often “shows off ” his physical strength when smashing the glass. In its present form, it would be better to abolish the custom, he asserts, while praising the Sephardic custom in which the cup is broken after the sheva berachot and the assembled respond by saying, “Im eshkachech Yerushalayim . . .” as opposed to “mazal tov!”

This standpoint continues until today. Last year, in light of the frequent levity after the breaking of the glass and following an incident in which a chatan cut his leg on the glass, Rabbi Dr. Ratzon Arusi, a member of Israel’s Chief Rabbinate Council, called for abolishing the practice and employing the Talmudic practice of placing ashes on the groom’s head. Rabbi Ovadia Yosef had, in the past, opposed abolishing a venerable practice but posited that the rabbis should educate people against shouting “mazal tov” immediately after the glass is broken.

Others have justified the cries of “mazal tov” following the breaking of the glass. Shulchan Ha’ezer (Simla L’Tzvi 8:3:26) defends it by stating that because the glass is broken at the very end of the chuppah, it is followed by the “mazal tov”

wishes so as to end the ceremony on a positive note. However, Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Auerbach is reported20 to have said that he could not comprehend how people had become accustomed to cry “mazal tov!” in relation to an act commemorating the destruction of the Temple. He felt that one needs to pause first to reflect on the Churban, and only after, a “mazal tov” wish is appropriate to encourage the chatan and kallah on their special day and not have them dwell upon sadness during their moment of joy.

Each act done as a zecher l’Churban is an indication of the Jewish people’s attachment to Jerusalem and the Temple. And Chazal (Bava Batra 60b, based on Yeshayahu 66:10) assure us that all who mourn for Jerusalem will be privileged to share in its joy. May it be speedily in our day.

Notes 1. It is such a deeply rooted custom that the Mexican Marranos, who had lost nearly all of the Jewish customs, preserved the custom of breaking a glass at a wedding (see Cecil Roth, “The Religion of the Marranos,” JQR n.s., 22 (1931-32), p. 30, n. 116, citing autos de Mexico, p. 205).

So too the Bene Israel of India maintain this custom, breaking a glass by hand.

Yemenite Jews do not have this custom and even suggest it may have non-Jewish roots (Rabbi Yosef Kafich, n. 26 to Rambam, Hilchot Ta’anit 5:13; Ovadia Melamed, Mesoret Hatefillah V’Shoresh Haminhag L’Eydat Yeshurun, pp. 405-6).

The closest non-Jewish ritual seems to be “Polterabend,” a German wedding folk custom in which, on the night before the wedding, guests bring the couple new dishes as gifts. They then smash them all, making a lot of noise that is intended to ward off evil spirits.

Rabbi Yosef Shaul Nathansohn (Shay L’Moreh, EH 65:3) notes that the Ra’avan (d.

1170; Ashkenaz) questioned this custom.

2. See Rabbi Aharon Lewin (the “Reisha Rav”; Birkat Aharon, Berachot 262:1-2) for why one story did not suffice.

3. The Gemara also recounts that at this wedding Rav Hamnuna dampened the mood by singing a dirge. Unbridled levity is prohibited (Berachot 31a; Shulchan Aruch, OC 560:5) because it can lead to immorality (MA 560:12; Shitah Mekubetzet, Berachot 31a). See also Yabia Omer 4: EH: 9:1 for an analysis of the concept “not to fill one’s mouth with laughter in this world” (Berachot 31a).

4. White glass was expensive (Moed Kattan 27a), rare in post-Churban times (Tosafot, Shabbat 20b, s.v. ve’anan; Sotah 48b; Tosafot, Bava Metzia 29b, s.v. b’zechuchit; Tosafot, Chullin 84b, s.v. b’zu’gayta), and fragile (Bava Metzia 29b).

5. Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Auerbach reportedly believed that this was also the motivation behind the decree promulgated about 150 years ago to ban instruments at Jerusalem weddings other than a drum (Hanoch Teller, And from Jerusalem His Word: Stories and Insights of Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Auerbach, zt”l [New York, 1995], 354-356). He said the ruling regarding musical instruments was not related to mourning the Churban, but rather to contain what was perceived as inappropriate behavior at weddings.

Rabbeinu Bachya (Devarim 16:15) finds an allusion to restraining one’s joy in this world in the Torah’s use of the word “ach,” a word implying limitation, when describing the joyous feeling on Sukkot (“ach sameach”). He notes that this applies to celebrations of mitzvot, as Chazal derived from Tehillim 2:11.

Sefat Emet (derashah on Sukkot, 1876 [5637]), also sees “ach” as a limitation but interprets it to limit oneself to rejoicing that is wholly “l’shem Shamayim” and also without non-Jewish participation.

The archetype of this attitude was Rav Zera who was reluctant to ever laugh (Berachot 30b; Niddah 23a).

6. The custom of placing ashes on one’s head was used on other occasions as well. In describing public fasts, the Mishnah (Ta’anit 2:1) discusses placing ashes on the aron kodesh and on the heads of the nasi and the av beit din, and then the assembled placed ashes on their own heads. Ashes were also placed on the head of the shaliach tzibbur on Tishah B’Av (Sofrim 18:4).

7. Rav Kafich (Collected Writings [Ketavim], Yosef Tovi, ed. [5749] vol. 2, p. 924-927) suggests that Chazal had not indicated a particular point during the ceremony at which to put the ashes. Rather, it was to be done at the height of the joy, as determined by each community.

8. It was the practice of Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Auerbach (ibid., p. 335) to recite this verse after the breaking of the glass.

9. Note that Rav Ovadia Yosef (Yabia Omer 4:EH:9) erroneously gave the reference as Ta’anit 31a and stated that Rav David ben Levi had said the reason was “zecher l’Churban.”

10. This laxity is mentioned in Tosafot, Shabbat 49a, s.v. k’elisha. For a fuller

discussion, see Ephraim Kanarfogel, “Not Just Another Contemporary Jewish Problem: A Historical Discussion of Phylacteries,” Gesher (5) 1976: 106-121; idem, “Rabbinic Attitudes toward Nonobservance in the Medieval Period,” in Jewish Tradition and the Non-traditional Jew, edited by Jacob J. Schacter (New Jersey, 1992), 3-35, and especially 7-14.

11. For example, Yam Shel Shlomo, Ketubot, ch. 1, 17.

12. There are many examples. An interesting one mentioned by Rabbi Moshe of Przemyśl (d. 1606; Mateh Moshe, Gemilut Chasadim, 3: Hachnasat Kallah:1) is that not only were candles carried in front of the kallah but fires were thrown, reminiscent of the lightning at Sinai (Shemot 19:16).

13. For an elaboration on this theme, see Rabbi Hershel Schachter at https://www. torahweb.org/torah/2005/parsha/rsch_ yisro.html. Peri Megadim Mishbetzot Zahav 560:4 gives a totally different explanation for the link between breaking the cup and the breaking of the Luchot.

14. The Gemara (Berachot 54b) says that a chatan and kallah require “guarding,” and Rashi says it is from demons. See Jacob Z. Lauterbach, “The Ceremony of Breaking a Glass at Weddings,” HUCA II (1925): 351-380.

15. There is no requirement that the glass be broken by stepping on it, and thus a chatan with a disability can break it in another way.

16. See Daniel Sperber, Minhagei Yisrael, vol.

4, p. 96-98, for descriptions and p. 120 and p. 123-127 for pictures of such stones.

17. He also cites the custom that before the erusin, the bride circled the groom three (not seven) times and that the ketubah included the stipulation that the groom may not leave the Land of Israel without permission from his new wife and the local beit din.

18. Wrapping the glass is actually a good idea. The Ben Ish Chai notes the potential danger from shards, and Rabbi Ovadia Yosef says that is why the glass is usually wrapped.

19. This is the widely held position. Ben Yehoyada (Berachot 31) suggests that the “expensive” cup in the Talmudic story was actually a damaged cup that the observers thought to be valuable.

20. Hanoch Teller, And from Jerusalem His Word: Stories and Insights of Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Auerbach zt”l (New York, 1995), 334.

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INSIDEthe PROGRAMS OF THE ORTHODOX UNION

OU Compiled by Sara Goldberg

OU Kosher Tapped by the UAE to Oversee Kosher Food

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istory was made in August as the United Arab Emirates (UAE) became the first Gulf state to establish diplomatic relations with Israel. A key area of interest for Emiratis is creating travel and tourism opportunities, which for the Jewish community means access to kosher food.

In preparation for the first delegation of Israeli officials to visit the UAE following the announcement of the Abraham Accords, CEO of OU Kosher in Israel Rabbi Yissachar Krakowski traveled to the St. Regis Hotel in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the UAE, to ensure that all of the food served met kashrut requirements. Working with a local kosher caterer, Rabbi Krakowski and his team oversaw the preparation of 300 kosher meals over the course of the two-day event.

Rabbi Yissachar Krakowski overseeing the kashering of utensils in the kitchen of the St. Regis Hotel in Abu Dhabi.

Since the announcement that the UAE and Israel would be normalizing relations, the interest from kosher-observant Jews in visiting has increased dramatically. In September, the leadership of the UAE asked OU Kosher to be the leading kosher certification agency within the Emirates; the following day, the Abu Dhabi government instructed all hotels to offer “kosher food and beverage options on room service menus and at all food and beverage outlets in their establishments.� The Abu Dhabi government has turned to OU Kosher to play a role in this process, which would make Jewish tourism to the UAE more comfortable and accessible.

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Most recently, in mid-September, the UAE’s flagship airline Emirates tapped OU Kosher to provide kosher supervision for its new in-flight meal service for flights out of Dubai. The meals with be provided by Kosher Arabia (an Emirati-based kosher caterer) and produced at a special kosher facility in the UAE under the supervision of OU Kosher, in collaboration with the South African Union of Orthodox Synagogues. The program is set to launch in January 2021. While kosher-observant Jews have been able to get kosher food on Emirates flights from the US or Europe going to the UAE, they’ve never before been able to order kosher meals on the return flight. The UAE serves as a hub for many flights from Europe to the Far East and having a kosher commissary available to provide food for those flights will positively impact Jewish travel to other parts of the world.

“As the Jewish community in the UAE continues to grow, and due to the influx of Jewish tourists, there is a need for kosher food and a certification that is internationally known,” said OU Kosher CEO Rabbi Menachem Genack. “We thank the UAE government for reaching out to us to provide this service and are looking forward to partnering with the local Jewish community to provide kosher food and certification.”

OU Applauds Historic Abraham Accords OU representatives attended the White House ceremony in September marking the Israel-UAE “Abraham Accords” and Israel-Bahrain “Declaration of Peace.” In a statement to the press, the OU “saluted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Emirati Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan and Bahraini Foreign Minister Dr. Abdullatif bin Rashid Al Zayani for coming together to usher in a new era of peace, prosperity, hope and security to the Middle East.”

Teens Rebuild in Long Beach This past summer, fifty Jewish teens from NCSY, in partnership with Habitat for Humanity and the Long Beach Martin Luther King Center, brought renewal to Long Beach, New York as part of the OU’s Project Community 2020.

The teens helped rebuild the home of the Long Beach Martin Luther King Center’s chairman, worked with volunteers to help feed local residents, beautified the neighborhood, and enhanced the MLK Center’s library offerings.

“By working together with members of other communities and helping the underprivileged, our teens gain understanding of the needs of others and will be better able to partner with other communal groups as the next generation of Jewish leaders.”

—OU Executive Vice President Rabbi Moshe Hauer

Teens worked to rebuild the home of the Long Beach Martin Luther King Center’s chairman, which was destroyed by Hurricane Sandy. Photo: Josh Weinberg 90

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AskOU Goes Virtual More than 1,100 people from twenty-three countries on six continents joined OU Kosher for its annual Harry H. Beren AskOU Virtual seminar. Held virtually in August, the weeklong program included sessions on bedikat tolaim (checking for insect infestation) with real-time closeup video of bugs on vegetables, checking and identifying issues in chickens, actual kashering of industrial plants, and the cheese making process, among other topics

Focus on Wellbeing Aiming to strengthen individual and family wellbeing and provide coping strategies and tools during these challenging times, in August the OU launched Project Resilience, a four-week series of free virtual courses presented by mental health professionals to encourage healing from the anxiety, depression and trauma experienced by so many over the course of the pandemic. Over 1,200 people registered for the live series.

Archived videos are accessible to all at ou.org/resilience.

OU Provides Holiday Toolkits In preparation for the Yamim Noraim, thousands visited the OU Department of Torah Initiatives’ “Chag at Home,” a groundbreaking online Torah learning platform featuring hundreds of presentations and Torah source sheets on timely topics from renowned Torah educators. Building off of the success of “Sinai at Home,” the site will update with new content for each upcoming chag in the months ahead.

NCSY Education presents “Box O’ Jewish,” a new monthly box series of Jewish content for the whole family, launched with a Tishrei-themed box containing learning and activities, including the popular mini machzor packet detailing the prayers and practices of Rosh Hashanah. They have since produced a box for Cheshvan, and a Chanukah-themed box for Kislev is set to be delivered in time for the holiday.

Addressing their members’ needs, Yachad mailed approximately 275 Rosh Hashanah kits to individuals with disabilities. The kits contained a learning packet and activities that paired with Zoom programming during week leading up to Rosh Hashanah.

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Inspiration from Yerushalayim More than 2,350 people worldwide joined the OU Israel Center for the annual “Torah Yerushalayim,” a three-day learning event during the Aseret Yemei Teshuvah. Held virtually due to Covid-19 precautions, the program, in memory of David and Norma Fund, z”l, featured a blue-ribbon list of forty-nine rabbinic scholars, educators and Jewish communal leaders. Pictured, OU Israel Director Rabbi Ari Berman addresses participants at last year’s event. Photo: Moshe Biton Photography

Nusach 101 As a result of Covid-19 precautions, many shuls created multiple smaller minyanim for the Yamim Noraim, leading to a shortage of qualified ba’alei tefillot to lead davening. Enter Ba’al Tefillah Bootcamp, a project of the OU’s Pepa and Joseph Karasick Department of Synagogue and Community Services in partnership with the RCA and UJA-Federation of New York, which provided nusach training to more than 235 ba’alei tefillot from 136 Jewish communities worldwide. Chazzan Yitzy Spinner of Great Neck Synagogue in New York (pictured) led the virtual seminars with Rabbi Gedalya Berger, Adult Education Coordinator, OU Synagogue Services.

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WOMEN IN ACTION Spotlight: Torat Imecha

In January, the OU Women’s Initiative (WI) launched Torat Imecha, a Nach Yomi initiative where women scholars deliver a daily podcast on the Books of Prophets (Nevi’im) and the Writings (Ketuvim) at the pace of a chapter a day. The shiurim are geared toward learners of all levels who would like to participate in the two-year study cycle.

Since its launch, participation has grown, with over 1,500 women across forty states and thirty-three countries taking part. A number of participants spoke with WI about what makes Torat Imecha so meaningful to them.

Listening to the pesukim from Yeshayahu made Tishah B’Av seem so relevant and immediate, as if the Churban happened yesterday. The messages of hope in Nach have played a big part in carrying me through this pandemic, reminding me that though we have been through so much, hope is always on the horizon."

—Keshet Starr, Attorney and CEO of the Organization for the Resolution of Agunot (ORA), Hillside, New Jersey

A friend had e-mailed me a collection of videos from the Siyum HaShas. As the men spoke about their commitment, and I watched them participate in daily study groups on the screen, I thought, "I wish there was something like that for me." Literally the moment the thought crossed my mind, an e-mail announcing Torat Imecha popped into my inbox! Pure hashgachah pratis!

I’ve been zochah to apply my background in hi-tech to open new channels of communication between the women participating in the program. Back in January, I spearheaded our first Zoom siyum on Sefer Yehoshua (before Corona, when Zoom was still a novelty), where many women delivered beautifully prepared divrei Torah. This has now become the norm for each sefer that we complete."

—Fonda-Fayga Weiss, Jerusalem, Israel

Shortly before I started Nach Yomi, I named my newborn son Shaul, after his great-grandfather. When we started learning Sefer Shmuel, suddenly the story of Shaul Hamelech—which I had learned many years before—seemed all the more tragic and poignant.

—Aliza Agress, Los Angeles, California

I have been nurturing the hope of completing Nach since attending seminary in Israel. To be able to accomplish this deeply held aspiration, taught by extremely knowledgeable women, is extraordinarily fulfilling. Each teacher is unique, broadening links between text and context."

—Deborah Schick Laufer, OU Board of Governors, Silver Spring, Maryland

Torat Imecha is dedicated by Eta Brandman Klaristenfeld, Chair of the WI, in memory of her aunt Malka Nussbaum, Malka Esther Bat Tzvi Yoseph, who developed a love of Tanach and Eretz Yisrael from her school days in Poland ninety years ago.

To subscribe to the daily Torat Imecha shiur, receive the weekly newsletter and access more content, visit https://www.ou.org/women/ torat-imecha-sign-up/.

—Shifra Zais, Anchorage, Alaska Winter 5781/2020 JEWISH ACTION

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NEW POSITIONS & PROMOTIONS Welcome to . . . . . . Rabbi Michoel Druin, who has assumed the new role of Head of School, IVDU Schools. He will be working on developing and promoting the schools’ educational vision and enhancing the policies and procedures involving all four IVDU divisions.

Rabbi Druin has over twenty years of experience in educational leadership. He has led schools with over 1,000 students, as well as startup schools in South Africa, Miami, Atlanta and New York, and holds a master’s in educational leadership. . . . Debbie Harris, who serves as Yachad Chicago Regional Director. Debbie is

excited to grow the Yachad Chicago community by developing social and recreational programing to enrich the lives of individuals with disabilities. Passionate about inclusion, employment and self-advocacy, Debbie brings thirty years of experience in special education to Yachad Chicago. After starting her career as a special education teacher, she moved into the adult sphere, where she has spent the past eighteen years learning and growing with her students. She holds a bachelor’s in special education from the University of Evansville and a master’s in educational leadership from National Louis University.

Congratulations to . . . . . . Rabbi Eli Eleff, OU Kosher Rabbinic Coordinator, on his appointment as

Managing Director, OU Kosher Community Relations and Education. In addition to his OU Kosher roles, he serves as a professor of nonprofit management for the Touro College and University System. Rabbi Eleff studied at Mir Yerushalyaim, is a musmach of Yeshivas Ohr HaChaim and holds advanced degrees from Touro and the University of Pennsylvania.

. . . Becca Zebovitz, on her promotion to Assistant Director of Yachad. Becca will be assuming responsibility for Yachad’s operations, talent development, data management and compliance. During her eight years at Yachad, Becca has held positions in both administration and development, and has staffed Yad B’Yad, Yachad’s inclusive summer Israel experience. Becca earned a bachelor’s and master’s in public policy at the University of Maryland. . . . Michael Appelbaum, on assuming the role of Assistant Director, Communal Engagement for Yachad, where he will oversee programming in multiple regions, as well as the Yachad Resource and Referral Center and advisor engagement. Prior to this position, Michael was the Chief Compliance Officer for Yachad, and the OU’s Director of Participant Privacy. He received his bachelor’s in political science from Brooklyn College and a master’s in public administration from Baruch College with a concentration in nonprofit management.

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NEW FROM OU PRESS Judaism’s Life-Changing Ideas: A Weekly Reading of the Jewish Bible

By Rabbi Jonathan Sacks OU Press and Maggid Books

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n his newest collection of insights on the weekly parashah, Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, zt”l, reorients our view of Judaism to focus not merely on the commandments and beliefs it entails but on the ideas it embodies. These “life changing ideas” have shaped not only Jewish history but the history of humanity as a whole, and Rabbi Sacks identifies such ideas in each parashah. To give one example, in Rabbi Sacks’ words: Judaism was and remains a dazzlingly original way of thinking about life. Take one of my favorite examples: the American Declaration

COMING SOON FROM OU PRESS

of Independence (1776) and its most important sentence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” This is arguably the most important sentence in the history of modern politics. It was what Abraham Lincoln was referring to in the opening of the Gettysburg Address when he said: “Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.” The irony of this sentence, as I have often noted, is that “these truths” are very far indeed from being “self-evident.”

They would have sounded absurd to Plato and Aristotle, both of whom believed that not all men are created

Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik’s driver, transporting him weekly from La Guardia Airport to Yeshiva.

In this charming and edifying book, Rabbi Adler records some of the conversations he had with “the Rav” during these trips and the relationship they developed.

These discussions relate to halachah, teaching and studying Torah, the wellbeing of Israel and the Jewish people, lessons

By Rabbi Aaron Adler in ethics, and more “mundane” topics, revealing a more personal OU Press and Urim Publications dimension of a scholar known abbi Aaron Adler, a communal for his demanding intellect. This rabbi and rosh yeshivah living book is also a fulfillment of the Talmud’s directive that “even the in Israel, attended Yeshiva University as a student. While there, ordinary conversation of Torah scholars require analysis” (Sukkah he had the privilege of serving as

Vayehi Bi’nesoa Ha’aron: Seventy Conversations in Transit with HaGaon HaRav Joseph B. Soloveitchik zt”l

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equal and therefore they do not have equal rights. They were only self-evident to someone brought up in a culture that had deeply internalized the Hebrew Bible and the revolutionary idea set out in its first chapter, that we are each, regardless of color, culture, class, or creed, in the image and likeness of God. This was one of Judaism’s world-changing ideas.

Rabbi Sacks was rightly regarded as one of the most articulate spokespeople for Judaism today.

Those accustomed to Rabbi Sacks’ breadth of knowledge, eloquence and acuity will not be disappointed.

21b). Rabbi Adler ably draws out the implications of the Rav’s comments and provides the context necessary to understand the chiddush in the Rav’s views.

The Gemara derives the importance of attentiveness to even the ordinary conversation of a talmid chacham from a verse in Tehillim (1:4): “He is like a tree planted beside streams of water, which yields its fruit in season, whose foliage never fades, and whatever it produces thrives.” A generation has gone by since the Rav’s passing but, as this volume demonstrates, his words continue to produce fruit, and his towering persona continues to provide shade.

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De-Light-ful Gifts for

CHANUKAH

THE LIGHT THAT UNITES: A CHANUKAH COMPANION

Rabbi Aaron Goldscheider’s engaging illumination of this beloved holiday, accompanied by original artwork from Aitana Perlmutter, provides a new appreciation for Chanukah’s message of light and unity.

BIRKON MESORAT HARAV: THE WINTMAN EDITION

Containing the unparalleled commentary of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, the Birkon Mesorat HaRav is a singular companion for the blessings and rituals of Shabbat and Yom Tov, special occasions, and every day.

NEW

THE CROWNS ON THE LETTERS

Rabbi Ari Kahn’s immensely learned and deeply creative interpretation of fundamental aggadot relating to the intellectual biographies of the Tannaim and Amoraim and major themes in Jewish thought.

JUDAISM’S LIFE-CHANGING IDEAS

In his uniquely erudite and accessible way, Rabbi Jonathan Sacks introduces readers to one life-changing idea in each week’s parasha.

THE TORAH ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE ANIMAL KINGDOM (VOL. 1)

NEW

In a lavish volume replete with stunning photographs, Rabbi Natan Slifkin presents a detailed survey of the animals discussed in Jewish tradition.

THE PERSON IN THE PARASHA: DISCOVERING THE HUMAN ELEMENT IN THE WEEKLY TORAH PORTION

A collection of essays, based on Rabbi Tzvi Hersh Weinreb’s popular column of the same name, which offers an original point of view that brings biblical personalities to life.

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Order online at OUPress.org Books of Jewish thought and prayer that educate, inspire, enrich and enlighten

Inside

PHILANTHROPY

Compiled by Marcia P. Neeley

Portrait of Philanthropy

DR. RALPH AND JUDY MARCUS GIVING WITH A PASSION

By Pnina Baim

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r. Ralph and Judy Marcus are big fans of OU Israel, which is not surprising, considering the fact that they made aliyah not once, but twice!

In 1976, Dr. Marcus established one of the first rheumatology practices in Bergen County, New Jersey. Throughout his prestigious career, he served as Chief of Rheumatology at Holy Name Medical Center and at Hackensack University Medical Center. He is a leading clinical researcher and a noted expert in the diagnosis and treatment of arthritis and osteoporosis.

In 1985, while their children were young, the Marcuses made aliyah from Teaneck, New Jersey; a few years later, the family returned to the States so that Judy, an only child, could care for her aging parents. In 2015, once the five Marcus children were mostly grown, the family made aliyah a second time. It is their aliyah experiences that are behind the family’s support of OU Israel and its programs, most notably, NCSY Israel.

“When we came to Israel in 1985, things were very hard for American olim, especially for the children of olim,” explains Dr. Marcus. “They did not feel like they fit in anywhere, and some kids went off the derech as a result.”

Indeed, if there is one issue that animates the Marcuses’ giving, it is this—helping teenage olim integrate successfully. “NCSY Israel is the only organization that provides for observant American teen olim, giving them opportunities for religious growth, socializing and leadership skills that are so critical,” says Dr. Marcus. “Kids who come to Israel must get the spiritual and social support they need.”

Currently, Dr. Marcus, who lives with his wife in Jerusalem, continues to

practice medicine at the Wolfson Medical Center in Jerusalem as well as at a local kupat cholim. He also commutes to the States on a regular basis to see patients in his Teaneck office.

Two of the Marcuses’ sons, Eytan and Akiva, who are physicians as well, live in Boca Raton, Florida. Their daughter, Eliana Marcus Aaron, who holds a doctorate degree in nursing, moved to Israel in 2002, where she established Ema Care, an organization that helps Americans navigate the Israeli medical system. Their son Yigal, who moved to Israel in 2015, serves as Vice President of Bernstein Global Wealth Management. Their younger daughter, Ariella Agatstein, who holds a doctorate in Jewish education and administration, moved to Israel shortly after the family’s second aliyah and has served as a Torah lecturer and as a member of the faculty of Matan.

The strong convictions of the Marcuses are evident in their actions, not only in their words. They have been ardent

“NCSY Israel is the only organization that provides for observant American teen olim.”

—Dr. Ralph Marcus supporters of NCSY Israel, especially during its recent “Giving Days,” when the organization surpassed its goals and raised over $57,000.

Supporting the OU is a family affair. Yigal Marcus is the Board Chair of NCSY Israel, and his daughter Yael, a high school senior, is the Israel representative on the NCSY National Board. Judy herself enjoys the programming offered by the OU Israel Center, based in Jerusalem. “We find the inspiring OU shiurim, even on Zoom during this pandemic, to be superb, as were the OU tours before the present restrictions,” she says. “And would Shabbos be complete without a copy of Torah Tidbits?”

As part of a long history of supporting organizations that assist American olim, the Marcus family also helped found Raishit Geula, the first religious group-aliyah organization of its kind that aimed to create communities for religious American olim. Dr. Marcus worked to create the city of Efrat with Rabbi Shlomo Riskin and Moshe Moskovits, the city’s first mayor. “With their passion for Zionism and religious growth, the members of the Marcus family serve as true role models,” says Gaby Novick, Director of Regional Development, NCSY Israel.

“Most impressively, they give to the causes that matter to them.”

We invite you to join us and make a difference.

Contact Arnold Gerson at agerson@ou.org or visit ou.org/giving.

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SUMMER OF GIVING WITH

PROJECT COMMUNITY 2020 When Covid-19 threw summer plans to the winds, the OU’s signature programs—NCSY, Yachad, Teach Coalition and OU-JLIC— responded with an array of programs through Project Community 2020 (PC20) that gave thousands of teens, college students and individuals with disabilities an impactful summer of chesed and connection. This was all made possible by the generous support of foundations and individual donors across North America, who collectively raised over $320,000 for PC20 programs.

INCLUSIVE SUMMER FUN

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aising more than $150,000 for its PC20 programming across North America, Yachad provided over 350 Jewish individuals with special needs with recreational activities, Torah learning and volunteer opportunities with the assistance of roughly 150 volunteer teenagers and college students. Yachad members enjoyed virtual events, small-group in-person activities, and outdoor visits thanks to the support of dozens of donors, including the Community Chest of South Shore, UJA-Federation of New York, the Jewish Federation of Northern New Jersey, the Nancy Lurie Marks Family Foundation, Combined Jewish Philanthropies (CJP) and the Ruderman Family Foundation.

From left: Yachad member Sarala Hershkovich and staff member Razel Bornstein enjoying fun PC20 activities in Long Island, New York.

Photo: Abbie Sophia Photography

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Inside PHILANTHROPY

ENGAGING TEENS IN CIVIC ACTIVISM

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ith a $12,500 grant from the Hertog Foundation, Teach Florida’s Advocates of Tomorrow Fellowship, a project of PC20, trained twenty college students in community organizing and voter outreach. Over the course of the month-long program, fellows successfully added more than 1,000 Floridians to Teach Florida’s voting rolls and processed more than 1,500 vote-by-mail requests. “This program brings new meaning to the idea of Jewish activism,” said Roger Hertog. “It should be a model for every Jewish community in America.”

“So much of our own children’s growth and development has been impacted by the various summer camps and programs that they have attended over the years. The fact that almost all of these programs were cancelled this year meant that so many of our community’s children would be deprived of an enriching and fulfilling summer experience. When we learned about Project Community 2020, we knew that this was something we wanted to support.”

—Michael and Elissa Katz, supporters of NCSY New Jersey PC20 programs

“It was beautiful to see how the teens absorbed the richness of this mitzvah and, in just five weeks, enabled 120 homes to have mezuzahs on the front doors.”

—Manette Mayberg, Trustee of the Mayberg Foundation; Founder of MyZuzah PC20 joined forces with with MyZuzah, an initiative of the Mayberg Foundation that partners with Jewish outreach groups and funders to bring mezuzot to under-affiliated Jews worldwide.

“We were thrilled to see NCSY and Yachad running impactful programs even during the pandemic. It is so important to us that teens be meaningfully and safely engaged during these times, and we are proud to support future Jewish leaders!”

—Debra Hartman, NCSY and Yachad PC20 donor in Chicago Pictured: Debra and Robert Hartman

Pictured: Louis and Manette Mayberg

We invite you to join us and make a difference.

Contact Arnold Gerson at agerson@ou.org or visit ou.org/giving.

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NCSY Director of Development Jeff Korbman riding for Bike NCSY with his mother-in-law, Billie Lederman, in Upstate New York.

RECORD-BRAKING RIDE

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ue to the pandemic, NCSY Director of Alumni Rabbi Yehoshua Marchuck and his team had to find a creative way to make the much-anticipated Bike NCSY happen. For the first time in its history, Bike NCSY went cross-country, with 190 riders traversing over thirty routes in eighteen cities across the US, raising over $160,000 in scholarship funds to enable teens to have a transformative gap year of Torah learning in Israel. “Bike NCSY is everyone’s ride, for all ages and skill levels,” says Rabbi Marchuck. “We look forward to building on this success by creating even more routes across the country.”

FULL MOON HIKE FOR THE ZULA

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n August, twenty-three participants hiked nine hours overnight from Tekoa to the Dead Sea—a strenuous sixteen miles—in a unique fundraiser supporting OU Israel’s The Pearl & Harold Jacobs Zula Outreach Center (“the Zula”). A drop-in center in downtown Jerusalem, the Zula provides a safe, nurturing environment for at-risk teens and young adults. The hike was the brainchild of recent oleh and Zula donor Meir Raskas and raised $10,000 toward renovating the Zula’s new premises.

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Hikers take a break around a campfire in the Judean Desert.

Inside PHILANTHROPY

STRENGTHENING JEWISH LIFE ON THE WEST COAST

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ontinuing ten years of dedicated support, the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles provided a $65,000 grant to OU-JLIC West for programing that will provide for student mental health and wellbeing, Jewish learning, and leadership training for students at UCLA, Santa Monica College (SMC), and California State University, Northridge (CSUN).

“Providing for a vibrant Jewish life during the college years is especially crucial this year, when the pandemic has changed the landscape of the college experience,” says Sharona Kaplan, Director, OU-JLIC West. “Whether our students are attending college virtually or in person, we want to ensure that that they feel like part of a community.”

Rabbi Nick and Orit Faguet (OU-JLIC at Santa Monica College) greet students outside their home at OU-JLIC’s fall kickoff event.

PUTTING TO VICTORY FOR NCSY

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espite the threat of Covid-19 setbacks, the 19th Annual Kishka Klassic Golf Tournament went off without a hitch!

Held at the Copper Creek Golf Club in Kleinburg, Ontario, seventy-two golfers enjoyed kishka and BBQ as they putted and chipped in support of NCSY Canada and Torah High.

From left: Winning team members Larry Ker, Salvy Trojman, William Trojman, and Justin Lesnick on the green.

Photo: Jack Beker Photography

We invite you to join us and make a difference.

Contact Arnold Gerson at agerson@ou.org or visit ou.org/giving.

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The OU Women’s Initiative is Proud to Present

TORAT IMECHA

PARSHA AUDIO SERIES

LEARN unique perspectives on the weekly parsha SHARE the knowledge and inspiration UNITE in Torah study

Register for weekly emails at

ou.org/women/parsha

To sponsor a shiur, go to OU.ORG/WOMEN/DONATE email sohne@ou.org for more information.

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OU Benefactor Circle members form the cornerstone of the Orthodox Union.

Their partnership and deep commitment to our mission allow us to accomplish so much on behalf of our community.

We applaud and thank all those who lead through their philanthropy and whose names appear here, as well as those choosing to remain anonymous.

If you are not yet a member, we invite you to join us in making a difference.

To learn more, please call Arnold Gerson, Chief Institutional Advancement Officer, at 212-613-8313 or email agerson@ou.org

AMBASSADOR $1,000,000 + DAN AND EWA ABRAHAM DRS. FELIX AND MIRIAM GLAUBACH DR. SHMUEL AND EVELYN KATZ THE MARCUS FOUNDATION INC. IN MEMORY OF ANNE SAMSON A"H

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EMANUEL AND HELEN ADLER DENNIS AND DEBRA BERMAN AARON AND MARIE BLACKMAN FOUNDATION MARCUS Z"L AND DORIS BLUMKIN THE CHARLES CRANE FAMILY FOUNDATION PETER AND LORI DEUTSCH LINDA AND MICHAEL ELMAN MARK AND CHERYL FRIEDMAN ROBYN AND SHUKIE GROSSMAN LANCE AND RIVKIE HIRT JOAN AND PETER HOFFMAN ED AND ROBYN HOFFMAN/HOFFMAN CATERING JACK ALBERT KASSIN DANA AND JEFFREY KORBMAN CHAIM AND BARA LOEWENTHAL LYNN AND JOEL MAEL DR. RALPH AND JUDITH MARCUS STEPHEN AND EVE MILSTEIN CAL AND JANINE NATHAN YEHUDA AND ANNE NEUBERGER ISABELLE AND DAVID NOVAK MARC PENN ALLEN AND MIRIAM PFEIFFER THE REFUGE - A HEALING PLACE HENRY AND GOLDA REENA ROTHMAN GEORGE AND IRINA SCHAEFFER TOBY MACY SCHAFFER MENACHEM AND RENA SCHNAIDMAN BARUCH AND SUSIE SINGER MORRIS AND RACHEL TABUSH TRAVEL INSURANCE ISRAEL

PARTNER $10,000 - $17,999 ALISA ABECASSIS DANIEL AND LIORA ADLER AARON AND TAMMY ATTIAS

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SARA AND LAURENCE RICHARDS DR. WESTON AND DENISE RICHTER GAIL AND BINYAMIN RIEDER DR. JAY AND MARJORIE ROBINOW IRA AND DEBRA ROSENBERG YITZHOK AND TAMAR ROSENTHAL JOSHUA AND ALYSE ROZENBERG ZVI AND SHARONNE RUDMAN LARRY AND SHELLY RUSSAK MILTON AND SHIRLEY SABIN MARVIN AND ROZ SAMUELS DAVID AND ROSLYN SAVITSKY TAMMI AND BENNETT SCHACHTER LISA AND JONATHAN SCHECHTER JERRY AND BARBARA SCHRECK SHLOMO AND GITTY SCHWARTZ MALI AND STEVE SCHWARTZ ANDREW AND STEPHANI SEROTTA RUTH SHANKER JAYNE SHAPIRO DR. MORRIS AND SHARON SILVER MICHAEL SMITH JAIME AND MARILYN SOHACHESKI RUTH BRANDT SPITZER AVI AND DEENA STEIN MR. AND MRS. ABRAHAM J. STERN DR. DAVID AND DOROTHY STOLL AARON AND ARIELLA STRASSMAN ABRAHAM SULTAN MARILYN AND ROBERT SWEDARSKY MATT TEICHMAN TAL TOURS JOSHUA AND LESLIE WANDERER ESTHER AND BARUCH WEINSTEIN LENNIE AND JESSICA WEISS JORGE AND TAMMARA WOLDENBERG FRAN AND DAVID WOOLF

We apologize for any omissions.

If you wish to be acknowledged, please contact Elaine Grossman at grossmane@ou.org.

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BOOKS

Glikl Memoirs: 1691-1719 Presented by Chava Turniansky Translated by Sara Friedman Brandeis University Press Waltham, Massachusetts, 2019 375 pages

Reviewed by Judy Gruen

“T

his whole book of mine . . . was written to stave off my pointless melancholy thoughts when sorrowful brooding distressed me so.” The accidental literary celebrity who penned these words was Glikl bas Leyb, born in Hamburg in 1645 and deceased in Metz, Germany in 1724. The “seven little books,” as she referred to her memoirs, were written exclusively for her family. Fortunately, they became a remarkable historical and literary legacy for the rest of us.

A previously published edition of the work, titled The Memoirs of Gluckel of Hameln, was issued in 1977 by Schocken Books, based on a 1932 translation by Marvin Lowenthal. This widely read edition is a greatly condensed version of Glikl’s memoirs, which nearly always include historical context for her stories, numerous references to God’s involvement in all their lives, as well as fables and stories that Glikl included as moral and spiritual lessons to her children and grandchildren.

For example, in the Schocken edition, Book 2 begins, “My father had me betrothed when I was a girl of barely twelve, and less Judy Gruen’s latest book is The Skeptic and the Rabbi: Falling in Love with Faith (2017).

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than two years later I married.”

But in this new and fully restored version of the memoirs, Glikl doesn’t mention her betrothal until after twenty-five pages of background information, such as her estimation of when she was born, lavish praise on her late husband and father for their piety and generosity, the Jews’ expulsion from Hamburg when she was three, the subsequent war between “the Swede” and the King of Denmark and how this incursion enabled the Jews to return to Hamburg, and a very long folktale that Glikl seems to have copied from a Yiddish book whose moral lesson is never to lose faith in God. Realizing how much fuller an experience this new book would provide, I rushed to get Glikl Memoirs: 1691-1719, translated by Sara Friedman and published by Brandeis University

Press in 2019. This new edition not only includes all of Glikl’s writing, but also a fascinating introduction by Chava Turniansky, professor emerita of Yiddish literature at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and an Israel Prize laureate. Turniansky also provided the extensive annotations that give historical confirmation and context for the events and people Glikl writes about. The new translation is also livelier, providing fuller expression to Glikl’s vibrant personality.

Glikl was born in Hamburg to an upper-class Jewish family, betrothed at twelve and married at fourteen. Despite having fourteen children, thirteen of whom lived to early adulthood, Glikl was a full partner with her husband Chaim in their business of buying and selling precious gems and pearls. They also loaned money at interest. Glikl’s shrewd analyses of business deals earned her husband’s total trust in her judgement. On his deathbed, he told those closest to him, “My wife is in charge of everything.”

After Chaim died, leaving Glikl with eight young children, she attended the commercial fairs in Leipzig, Frankfurt-am-Main and other towns, buying, selling and trading.

Not only was she now the family’s sole support, she was determined to marry all her unmarried children into other “respectable” families, which required substantial dowries and the promise of support afterward. Her business acumen was acute, and eventually she rescued one son from his failing, debt-ridden fabric business.

When I first read the memoirs, Glikl’s numerous references to plague—or the fear of it—seemed so antiquated as to be almost other worldly. Now they carry an eerie resonance.

She bought the business and made it a success. She writes unabashedly about business dealings, profits and losses and her knowledge of other families’ financial affairs. What would appear unseemly today must have been acceptable in Glikl’s time.

Glikl’s memoirs provide a candid and remarkable window into late seventeenth-century European Jewish history. She recalls her father hiding ten refugees who had fled Poland during the notorious Chmielnicki massacres in 1648-49— at great personal risk. He sheltered and cared for them in their attic, though they were ill with infectious disease. Glikl’s grandmother died as a result of helping to care for them.

When I first read the memoirs, Glikl’s numerous references to plague— or the fear of it—seemed so antiquated as to be almost other worldly. Now they carry an eerie resonance. Glikl and Chaim had to send their four-year-old daughter into hiding with a maid for many weeks when women of the community (whom Glikl calls “such big cowards”) were convinced the child had plague. Glikl never believed it and was eventually proven correct: “Indeed, the child was healthy and well, gamboling around the field like a young ram. We said to the Hanoverians: ‘What was the point of your nonsense? You see that our little girl is healthy and well, thank God, and presents no danger whatsoever. . .

Let the poor child come back here.’”

The townspeople still refused until more time passed, and their fear was understandable considering that the Jews’ rights to live and conduct business anywhere was precarious and could be revoked at whim.

Any suspicion that a Jewish home contained plague would guarantee their immediate expulsion.

Shabtai Zvi and his messianic promises had mesmerized Jews worldwide. Following so closely after the massacres in Poland, the fraud was emotionally devastating. Glikl’s father-in-law had sold his home and packed his belongings, waiting only for the letter indicating the time had come to move to the Holy Land.

Glikl’s memoirs are filled with colorful characters and dramas involving the Jewish community.

Glikl writes, “Ah God, Lord of the Universe, we were hoping that You, compassionate God, would have mercy on Israel, Your wretched people, and redeem us . . . ” But as she does for all of life’s difficulties, Glikl calls on her unshakable faith to sustain her: “Your people do not despair; they await Your mercy daily that You may redeem them. Even though he may tarry, still I await him every day.”

Anti-Semitism was treated as a basic fact of life. The Jews’ focus on having liquid assets was a logical extension of being subject to onerous and discriminatory taxes and sudden expulsions, such as when Jews lost the right to live in Hamburg and had to move to Altona, traveling each day back to Hamburg to conduct business.

Jews could never expect justice from the authorities when they were victimized. One of Glikl’s most dramatic stories involves a young widow named Rivka, who daringly set out to prove that her husband had been murdered by a gentile who robbed him. It was an extraordinarily dangerous undertaking, because if Rivka’s mission failed, the local authorities warned, “Beware, if you do not find the body, you are all lost, you know the rabble here in Hamburg.

We won’t be able to stop them.”

Fortunately, Rivka’s sleuthing paid off.

Glikl’s memoirs are filled with colorful characters and dramas involving the Jewish community, such as shifts in rabbinic leadership; shidduch negotiations, business successes and reversals; family joys and sorrows; road trips to fairs or to weddings; and worries over the ever-changing, fickle political arena and how sudden power shifts affected the Jews.

In writing about one shidduch,

Glikl records that a dispute over the amount of the dowry she promised to the bride’s family caused “major arguments” and ended up in the rabbinical court: “. . . my future in-law, the distinguished Reb Moshe, thought he could squeeze a little more out of me. But when he saw he could squeeze nothing more out of me, . . . the wedding took place in mid-Tammuz, as respectable and splendid an affair as we Jews can manage. Prominent householders from all over the country attended the wedding” (p. 240-241).

When describing emotional losses, she writes with florid emotion, reminiscent of old-time Yiddish dramas. Glikl was a woman of exceptional storytelling talent, and given the timelessness of her concerns, it is easy to relate to many of her life’s challenges, joys and sorrows, even though she lived 300 years ago.

Glikl gave this work no title. In fact, she referred to it only as “dos vos ich shrayb,” (“this that I am writing”).

While Glikl’s high level of literacy was not surprising in this early modern period, when Jewish women wrote letters and literary compositions and consumed a thriving literature of mussar works written for them, these memoirs were sui generis, utterly different than anything published until then in Yiddish or Hebrew.

An entry in the Metz community Memorbuch (German for memory book) describes Glikl as a pious, generous woman who was “most wise in the trade of precious gems and also most learned in the rest of the respectable virtues.” No mention is made of her writing, yet these memoirs are not only a rare historical gem, but also a captivating and emotionally riveting read.

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Kanfei Yonah

(Hebrew)

By Rabbi Yona Reiss Chicago Rabbinical Council Chicago, 2018

Reviewed by Benjamin G. Kelsen

I

n the past few decades, there has been a significant increase in the number of works published about laws addressed by a beit din. These halachot are found primarily in two of the Shulchan Aruch’s main sections, Choshen Mishpat and Even Haezer, with some in Yoreh Deah. Issues within this rubric include torts, matrimonial and family law, contracts and interest. There has also been an increase in the number of published proceedings of batei din

(rabbinic courts) in books, journals and newspaper articles. These generally involve very technical issues that require considerable Talmudic background to appreciate. Yet the Torah community has reached the point where there is a critical mass of sufficiently learned members who comprehend these complex topics and are thirsty for further study.

Historically, rabbinic literature regarding these topics has either been in the form of responsa to specific questions, or expositions and commentary on the corresponding sections of the Shulchan Aruch. The recent surge in publication follows that trend. Enter Rabbi Yona Reiss, av beit din of the Beit Din of the Chicago Rabbinical Council, who recently published a unique volume elucidating these areas of halachah. Utilizing his background as the former executive director of the Beth Din of America and dean of the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary (RIETS), as well as his experience as a practicing attorney, Rabbi Reiss provides an in-depth analysis of many halachic issues that arise for modern batei din and posekim.

Rabbi Reiss divides his work into eight sections, each focusing on a different area of halachah, which are then divided into smaller chapters. His first section addresses matters of dina d’malchuta dina, the intersection of secular civil law and halachah, and general contract issues. Under this heading, Rabbi Reiss discusses bankruptcy, land ownership and inheritance. Each

Rabbi Reiss offers readers a new means for exploring and understanding areas of practical halachah.

Rabbi Benjamin Kelsen, Esq., is an alumnus of Kerem B’Yavneh and a musmach of the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary (Yoreh Yoreh/Yadin Yadin).

Additionally, he earned a law degree from the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law. He currently practices law and is engaged in a variety of Jewish communal and political issues on a local and national level. He has appeared in state and federal courts as well as batei din.

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section is organized in a progressive format, starting with a problem or question and ending with a summary of the opinions and rulings cited.

This work is noteworthy for its methodical approach and straightforward presentation, much like Rabbi Reiss’s public shiurim. He presents the information in a clear and concise manner, such as when he sets forth a brief overview of issues involving hilchot geirim (the laws of conversion and converts). Rabbi Reiss’s remarkable ability to utilize a wide range of sources and to organize them into a fluid and logical rendition is highlighted in this volume. An example of this can be seen in his analysis of the halachic issues involved in the renting and purchase of real estate in Yerushalayim.

Also included in this volume is a collection of Rabbi Reiss’s teshuvot (responsa) addressing some of the most pressing issues facing the Torahobservant world today. These include important topics related to agunot, hasagat gevul (unfair commercial competition) and mamzeirut (legitimacy of birth). These responsa are, for the most part, responding to actual inquiries that were made or cases presented to the Beth Din of America. In the secular world of jurisprudence, these teshuvot are analogous to opinions issued by a court. Since batei din do not often release opinions, and these responsa deal with topics of great significance, it is a welcome opportunity for understanding the methodology of rabbinic courts.

Throughout the volume, the reader will sense the influence of Rabbi Mordechai Willig and Rabbi Hershel Schachter, as well as the analytical and comparative approach of Rabbi J. David Bleich, particularly in Rabbi Reiss’s style of presentation. This chain of mesorah offers additional weight to this unique volume.

With this sefer, Rabbi Reiss offers readers a new means for exploring and understanding areas of practical halachah which present themselves on a daily basis in our world. It will be a resource for batei din, posekim and rabbanim for many years to come.

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The Legends of Rabbah Bar Bar Hannah with the Commentary of Rabbi Abraham Isaac Hakohen Kook Introduction, translation and notes by Bezalel Naor Kodesh Press New York, 2019 354 pages

Reviewed by Jack Abramowitz

T

he Talmud and Midrash contain a number of outlandish tales.

Neophytes may take such aggadot at face value, while detractors will point them out as untenable. More seasoned students, however, will recognize these as esoteric ideas encoded in fanciful metaphor. There are a number of reasons why our Sages might have chosen to encode such principles, such as to avoid incurring the wrath of the secular authorities or to limit advanced ideas to students possessing sufficient background to understand them.

Over the centuries, subsequent Torah authorities have unveiled numerous layers of depth to such tales, with many more strata no doubt remaining to be explored. Among these aggadot, probably none are better known than Rabbi Yehoshua’s debates with the scholars of Athens in tractate Bechorot and the “Rabbah Bar Bar Hannah tales” that appear in tractate Bava Batra. The present volume represents the commentary of Rav Kook on these latter allegories, translated into English Rabbi Jack Abramowitz is Torah content editor at the OU. He is the author of six books, including The Tzniyus Book and The Taryag Companion. His latest work, The God Book, is available from OU Press as well as on Amazon.

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and annotated for the first time.

The Rabbah Bar Bar Hannah tales have been compared to the legends of Sinbad the sailor, in that, on the surface, they involve his travels to exotic locales and the phenomena he encountered there, such as a newborn antelope the size of a mountain, a fish so large its back is mistaken for an island, the smoldering crevasse where Korach and his followers were swallowed, and the place where Heaven and Earth meet.

In some of these tales, Rabbah Bar Bar Hannah is traveling on a sea voyage with a crew of sailors, while in others he is escorted on a desert journey by an Arab guide. (There is some discussion as to how to understand tay’a, with Bezalel Naor opting to translate it as “Bedouin.”)

In several of these tales, Rabbah Bar Bar Hannah describes his rabbinic colleagues criticizing his reaction to the phenomena he encounters, requiring still further thought beyond our initial interpretation of the metaphors.

The most well-known commentary on these lessons is probably that of the Vilna Gaon, so it’s interesting to see how this familiar interpretation differs from that of Rav Kook. In the Gaon’s explanation of these tales, for example, Hormin the son of Lilith—a trickster ultimately executed for his shenanigans— is a metaphor for hedonism, a lifestyle for which one will ultimately be judged.

In Rav Kook’s interpretation, Hormin represents the drive for wealth and power; one is ultimately sentenced to death due to the refusal to give charity, which, as per Proverbs 10:2, has the potential to extend one’s life.

Most of Rav Kook’s interpretations of these tales involve the proper methods

for the acquisition of Torah and for one’s spiritual perfection, with a healthy focus on kabbalistic concepts. I must confess, however, that the very first chapter nearly put me off the work. In the tale of the wave that threatened the ship, Rav Kook identified the threat as a metaphor for Christianity, for which he had a few harsh words. The theological chasm between Judaism and Christianity is indeed irreconcilable, but I imagine that few of us consider the Church to represent the existential threat to Judaism that it once did. I also question how much this interpretation reflects what Rabbah Bar Bar Hannah had in mind in telling this particular tale, but it certainly reflects the tale’s lesson when filtered through Rav Kook’s experience and interpreted for his audience. Rabbah Bar Bar Hannah might have had more reason to contend philosophically with Zoroastrianism than with Christianity, but such a contrast would no doubt have been less meaningful for Rav Kook’s audience a century ago. Despite understanding why he might take this approach, I did experience some initial discomfort and was relieved to discover that the work did not comprise a continuous stream of anti-Christian polemic. In fact, this particular theme does not reappear until a brief appendix involving “Rav Kook, the Messiah, and the Vatican.”

It is gratifying to see Rav Kook’s thoughts on these classic allegories brought to light in a format that makes

clear both the original text and his commentary as rendered by Bezalel Naor, who has previously translated many of Rav Kook’s other writings.

Let us not sell short, however, the contribution of Naor’s notes. As a Kookian scholar, Naor has invaluable insights into Rav Kook’s thoughts, writings and process. Consider, if you will, the lengthy footnote that appears on page 145. There Naor notes the curious phrase in Rav Kook’s manuscript, “yir’at harom ha’onesh,” transcribed in previous printings as “yirat ha’onesh” (fear of punishment). This phrase was redacted thus by earlier editors who assumed that Rav Kook started to write “yirat haRomemut” (awe of God’s sublimity), realized his error and truncated the mistaken word in progress. Naor, with his expertise in Rav Kook’s works and kabbalistic literature, is able to suggest an alternative. While he acknowledges that his hypothesis is not the most likely scenario, it does invoke a reference to the Zohar, lending it

As a Kookian scholar, Naor has invaluable insights into Rav Kook’s thoughts, writings and process. greater weight than mere speculation.

The analysis of the Rabbah Bar Bar Hannah tales actually only occupies about two-thirds of the volume, with the work also appearing in its original Hebrew starting from the back of the book. The rest of the pages are filled with a variety of appendices, one of which was alluded to earlier, and most of which have little direct bearing on Rabbah Bar Bar Hannah and his allegories. Rather, they shed further light onto the life and philosophies of Rav Kook, as well as on kabbalistic thought in general. Among these, one will find an eyewitness account of how Rav Kook exorcised a dybbuk; the Vilna Gaon’s thoughts on the three levels of the soul; a kabbalistic theory of personality; and Rav Kook’s

critique of the Musar Movement. (Those who are the product of musar yeshivot might wonder, “What’s not to like?”

While not a die-hard opponent, Rav Kook did raise some valid concerns with the nascent movement.) Each of these appendices is appended to in turn by Naor’s trademark endnotes, further illuminating each topic.

My interest in reading this book was to discover another approach to these most profound of Talmudic lessons. This goal was most certainly met, with additional benefit derived from the varied appendices. For those whose interests lie primarily in the works of Rav Kook and kabbalistic thought, however, this work may be even more indispensable.

For more info, please contact Anna Krausz, program director, at krausza@ncsy.org.

MAZAL TOV TO THE 2020-2021 COHORT OF SHEVET GLAUBACH FELLOWS NCSY’s Shevet Glaubach Fellows are passionate leaders, innovative team-players, and are driven to inspire Jewish communities around them. Through offering unparalleled opportunity for hands-on engagement with Jewish communities across the United States, and leadership development and training with experts in their fields, our mission is to shape and support the pipeline of future Jewish Leaders.

Thank you to Drs. Miriam & Felix Glaubach and family for their vision and support of The Shevet Glaubach Fellowship.

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Solo Shabbat

By Steve Lipman

“So,

LASTING IMPRESSIONS

who’s your latest victim?”

That was the sarcastic question a colleague at work—a Sabra who has picked up the snarky US sense of humor— would ask me every Thursday or Friday when he spotted me rolling a suitcase into our office.

It meant I was going away for Shabbat.

Single, I am blessed to have friends, typically married with children, who welcome me into their homes in the Greater New York area, or a bus-ride or train-ride’s distance. Sometimes from Friday afternoon to Saturday night, and in the case of out-of-towners, an Amtrak ride away, from Thursday to Sunday morning. In each home, I’d watch the kids, help with errands and often share a devar Torah.

For many years, that was Shabbat for me.

That ended, as did many routines for many people in this country, when Covid-19 struck.

The pandemic’s social-distancing constraints meant no time with friends. Since March, when health precautions and prudence became the norm, I spent every Shabbat (including the two Pesach sedarim) in my apartment. I made Solo Shabbat.

Not particularly social by nature, I have no problem spending extended periods of time by myself. I consider Steve Lipman is a freelance writer and a frequent contributor to Jewish Action.

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myself excellent company—for myself, at least. But a Shabbat alone, week after week, as winter morphed into spring and then summer, meant an adjustment.

I would not have to buy my customary bouquets of flowers for every girl of every age in the families I was visiting; dress up for shul or a Shabbat tisch; wait for late-arriving guests to appear at the hosts’ home or for the kids to settle down or be put to bed. I would not find the “welcome” sign on the front door or a box of chocolate mints—a nod to the mints provided at fancy hotels— on the pillow of my bed. I would not have the chance to peruse the selection of sefarim found on my hosts’ bookshelves or that week’s Jewish newspapers and magazines scattered on their couches, or engage in spirited discussions about religion, politics and myriad other subjects.

On the other hand, I would not have to adjust the time of my pre-Shabbat shower to the needs of the family members or answer the predictable small-talk questions—“Where are you from?” “What do you do?” et cetera— from guests who don’t know me.

On balance, I lost more than I gained, and I learned what Shabbat is supposed to be. It is all of the above and more that creates lasting memories and friendships.

I did my best to make a proper Shabbat.

How does one maintain kavanah while davening alone? Fortunately, I have a small library of books about

tefillah; Covid-19 afforded me the time to read them. And I was forced to create new, atypical Shabbat memories (the old friendships will endure).

Since all my neighborhood synagogues were closed for several months, davening with a minyan was not an option. Some folks participated in minyanim in backyards or on the porches of adjacent apartment buildings, but my neighborhood offered neither. I davened by myself, trying to maintain a proper level of kavanah in my apartment—which was often easier than in many shuls, because of the absence of distracting talkers around me.

How do you stay Shabbos’dik when the usual signs of Shabbat are missing? You read or print out the many commentaries on the parashah available online in preparation for Shabbat. You prepare your own divrei Torah, sharing them by e-mail instead of in person. You e-mail “Shabbat shalom” greetings to your friends—including those with whom you have shared a Shabbat seudah. You play some Israeli music before Shabbat enters to get you in the appropriate mood. You make a proper Shabbat meal—grape juice, challah, some chicken and a side dish— for yourself, food ordered from a kosher supermarket because you’re avoiding shopping in stores. You read the Judaica books that have sat unread on your shelves and the many Jewish periodicals that are available at your local newsstand. You go for a Shabbat walk— wearing an appropriate mask, of course.

When I was unable to pray in shul during the pandemic, the mizrach wall of my apartment uplifted me spiritually. I’ve hung about a dozen photos and drawings—framed or laminated—of the Kotel there. They show the Western Wall from different perspectives, in different seasons. When I pray at home, I’m facing the Kotel.

My favorite photograph is the one I took during the 1991 Gulf War, when most visitors had left Israel and few people ventured outside their homes. The enlarged photo shows a chassid, dwarfed by the deserted, towering wall. He would understand my matzav. He’s davening alone.