Exodus Magazine - July 2021 by Exodus Magazine

#225 | July 2021 • Av 5781

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think! again. July 2021 • Av 5781

5 | JEWISH SOUL

On Democracy

9 | JEWISH THOUGHT

Universal Loss

The democratic system provides the process by which a multitude of diverse individuals becomes one entity, indeed one organism — be it in the form of a congregation, a community, a municipality, or a state.

The whole world is stricken and cannot return to its normal and rectified state until the city of Jerusalem and the Temple are rebuilt; for Jerusalem is the center point of the world’s existence.

— From the Rebbe's letters

— by Adin Even-Israel Steinsaltz

6 | MADE YOU THINK

10 | LIFE ON EARTH

editorial jewish soul made you think jewish thought life on earth ask the rabbi our community simchas

What Leadership Is (And Is Not)

Sacred Space

What is a leader? Who is a leader? Why do we need leaders? It seems as if everyone has a different idea and we need a leader just to answer all of our leadership questions.

Although the world is generally a binary place, there is a third factor, that which binds and unites all opposites together—even space and non-space.

— by Simon Jacobson

— by Tzvi Freeman

8 | JEWISH THOUGHT

18 | PERSPECTIVES

Even though the city has been besieged 23 times and captured and reconquered 44 times, Jews never ceased to pray for Jerusalem, about Jerusalem, and facing Jerusalem

A fascinating and cryptic Talmudic story takes us on a journey into the heart of the Jewish struggle for identity and survival some 1,900 years ago, teaches us about the secret of Jewish resilience.

— by Jonathan Sacks

— by Yosef Y. Jacobson

What Jerusalem Means to Me

July 2021 / Av 5781

perspectives marketplace memorials

4 5 6 8 10 12 13 17 18 21 25

The Secret of Jewish Resilience

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The evening sky is cool and clear, yet the air is thick with a buzzing energy – a strange heat that cannot be measured by temperature, but by frequency and rhythm. The city is on fire. You can feel the energy pulsating, not just of the thousands of people moving and gravitation toward the Temple Mount, but of thousands of years of yearning – the yearning of the Jewish people for their home, and the yearning of humanity for a better world, one which was crushed when these walls came down. It is all coming together at this single juncture in time and space, like a narrow precipice overwhelmed by sudden sunrise, and I am somehow right here at this moment, at this place, after all these years. It is chaos all around as people are moving and laughing and talking and shouting and praying in all directions, yet an uncommon peacefulness envelopes the throng. Like a blissful, choreographed symphony of bodies in joyous, purposeful motion and sound, they walk, each to their own song, yet in unison and in harmony, blending, forming a wondrous tapestry that paints the city. As the sun sets, emitting a deep glow, the multicolored streams of people begin to take on its hue and merge in the redness – flowing red now, like blood streaming through the city’s veins, the lifeline of Jerusalem, her children. In the narrow alleyways to the east through which many make their way, the Arab shopkeepers, ignored by the passing crowds, observe it all in silence – perhaps indifference, or a feigned indifference born of awe. What is this insane disruption to their evening routine? From where do they come, week after week, as the sun sets on Friday afternoon, illuminating the night with their shining, young faces? The prayers begin. The curtain lifts. Shabbat is welcomed. Reality shifts. Everything, and everyone, is beautiful. Or is it? Is this even real, or merely a facade that covers the true and sordid state of affairs? If not, then how could this moment exist so innocently when one day earlier, at this very place, we witnessed such blatant ugliness. Jewish brothers and sisters defied one another with angry disregard – throwing insults and bottles, spitting, hating, making mocking spectacles of themselves and one another. Most came to a holy place to

pray privately, to connect. But some clearly came packing ulterior motives hidden from plain sight by their professed piety, but laid bare by their callousness and insensitivity. They defiled the Torah they claim to safeguard and desecrated the God they allegedly serve in the one place where pure and untainted hope should still be found. They spew irreverence for the sake of self-preservation, make spectacle for the sake of politics, hijack religion for the sake of self-justification. It is easy to see why many think that not much is really all that sacred anymore. If not for the teachings of my Rebbes, I would most certainly think so myself. I search within for answers, but all I find is my patience wearing thin. I’m getting tired of blaming naiveté and ignorance to excuse the hypocrisy, because this very kind of hatred caused these walls to burn to begin with. Everyone has their prejudice, and everyone has an agenda. If we can admit it, then maybe we can get past it and embrace (or at least accept) the truth that unites us. If we lie about it, if we hide behind ideologies and idols of our own making, the resulting fragmentation will pull us further and further apart. In the fervor to defend a besieged Jerusalem from the Romans, the Jews, our ancestors, turned on one another because they disagreed on how to save the city. Is that to be our fate? Are there not enough enemies who want to destroy us that we have to defeat ourselves? After two thousand years of general misery that we are only just beginning to climb out of, let alone heal from, is this how we will define our collective direction as a people now that we have real power? Is this how we will evolve a better era? Is this how we will serve as a light unto the world? I used to find the Western Wall depressing. I thought, when one considers the truthfulness and majesty of what was once there upon the Temple Mount, how can one look at the pathetic, crumbling segment of a haphazardly reconstructed retaining wall that remains and feel inspired? Then I came to appreciate that it is not the Wall that makes the sanctity of the place. It is the energy of the people who come here, the precious souls of all colors who merge together in the fading twilight and become one, embracing the oneness and each other, if even for a brief momentary taste of what could be, of what must be. And if we lose that, what will we have left?

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© 2021 JRCC. Published monthly by the Jewish Russian Community Centre of Ontario. Issue Number 225 (July 2021) Mail Registration Number: 40062996 Circulation: 19,000 Subscription: $18 For submissions, please send articles via e-mail along with a biographical sketch of the author. Журнал Эксодус выпускается Еврейским Центром Русскоязычной Общины Онтарио. Журнал на русском языке можно приобрести позвонив по телефону (416) 222-7105.

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July 2021 / Av 5781

jewish soul

On Democracy From the Rebbe's Letters

ontrary to popular saying — all people are not created equal. (We are not talking about human rights, of course.) In His infinite wisdom, G‑d created the human race so that “no two persons are alike, nor are their opinions identical.” However, in a democracy this problem is resolved on the basis of the principle of majority rule (which is the law of the Torah). According to this principle, the members of a society, or the citizens of a country, delegate power to, and confer authority on, freely elected representatives to conduct the affairs of the entire group for the good of each and all. More than that. The democratic system provides the process by which a multitude of diverse individuals becomes one entity, indeed one organism — be it in the form of a congregation, a community, a municipality, or a state. In a free democracy, and seeing that no two persons think alike, no unanimity should be expected. There are bound to be more than one candidate for the elective office. But once the voice of the majority has spoken, the minority and every individual that voted for another candidate must readily and willingly submit to the will of the majority and accept the elected official as one’s personal candidate, as though one had voted for him. Nevertheless, this submission and acceptance is limited only to one’s actions, but does not imply the surrender of one’s judgment and reason, which one may freely express as before. And even in respect of control over the individual’s actions, it applies only in the realm of general public interests, not the individual’s rights of free religious exercise, his right to choose the kind of education for his children and his right to order his family life as he sees fit. Indeed, a true democracy has builtin constitutional safeguards to protect the individual’s inviolable rights, and the right of minorities to preserve their ethnic and cultural identities, each contributing to, and enriching, the society as a whole. On his part, every elected official must regard himself as the representative of each and every one, regardless of the voter’s personal preference at the ballot. Moreover, having been elected by the people, he exemplifies the unity of the multitude, rising above all division and discord. It is in this way that

July 2021 / Av 5781

the “Public Domain” of the society can be transformed into a “Private Domain” of a higher order, where there is unity of purpose and interest, overriding the narrow, divergent, egoistic interests of many different individuals; or groups of individuals. We are indeed fortunate to live in such a democracy, and it is up to each and everyone, Jew and non-Jew, to make the most of it. What is true on the communal and national level is true on the universal level, — to achieve the ideal of “one world,” where all nations can live in peace and concord, and work in concert for their mutual advancement, both materially and spiritually. But before this can be achieved, there must be a recognition of a supreme overriding principle for all mankind. This principle will be found only in those basic values of morality and justice, including human rights of course, laid down by the Supreme Being, without which there can be no decent human society. Hence, in accord with Divine Providence and aided by it, it is incumbent upon each and all to work for the dissemination of these Divine laws and precepts. *

The Torah is synonymous with light (Prov. 6:23). It illuminates our everyday life, and teaches us how to illuminate the world around us, to achieve the truly good life. But the choice is left to the individual. Every person is free to choose the path of Life, or to turn in the opposite direction. “Choose life,” the Torah exhorts (Deut. 30:19). That a person should need exhortation where the choice is so obvious is due to the fact that a person is subject to the influence of two conflicting forces within him: one advocating the good, the other — under the guise of misconceived self-interest — often pulling in the opposite direction. In our sacred literature, these conflicting forces are called the good inclination and the bad inclination. In other words, the Divine in man and the animal in man. The path of life entails a sustained vigilance and effort; and not merely to conquer the animal that is in human nature, but also to ultimately refine and sublimate the lower passions to the good and positive — much in the way that a brute animal is tamed and harnessed in the service of man and thus helps him accomplish his human tasks all the better. In this sense our Sages interpret the commandment, “And you shall love the L‑rd your G‑d with all your heart,” (Deut. 6:5) to mean, “with both your inclinations.” EM

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made you think

What Leadership Is (And Is Not) Simon Jacobson

re you a follower or a leader? Are you compelled to initiate a journey or would you rather follow a template? There is, by and large, a general crisis in leadership. So dire is the situation that we don’t even have a clear definition of what exactly leadership consists of. What is a leader? Who is a leader? Why do we need leaders? It seems as if everyone has a different idea and we need a leader just to answer all of our leadership questions. Is leadership a political position, or perhaps a charismatic presence? Might the ultimate leader be tall and good-looking, or maybe intelligent and well-financed? The conventional approach to leadership has questionable results at best. Let us therefore take an entirely different approach, one that focuses less on what leadership is and more on what leadership is not. Perhaps by discovering what a leader is not we can come to understand what a leader is. By removing the rough we might just come to grasp the diamond. By removing the noise we might just hear the finest of songs.

A LEADER IS NOT A SCARCITY Every single human begin is a leader. Period. Simply knowing that leadership is not an exclusive club, but is at the core of every one of us, inspires us to lead. The challenge is not to become a leader. The challenge is to embrace the leader you already are, the aspect of leadership that is part of your inner self. For that, it is good to know that

A LEADER IS NOT ARROGANT Your ability to lead is not of your own invention. Like your ability to see, your ability to lead is a gift you are born with. Does eyesight make a person arrogant every time he or she sees something? Neither shall leadership make a person arrogant every time he or she leads. If anything, the more he or she leads, the humbler a leader becomes. Because...

A LEADER IS NOT SELF-INTERESTED A leader is not served. A leader serves. A leader’s own interests are inconsequential. A leader serves a higher interest. A leader’s job is to demonstrate to everyone he meets or everything she touches that there is something more here than meets the eye, a higher vision and a deeper purpose. By drawing on a higher source, a leader represents not what the world is but what the world could be. And the leader is confident in this because

is another link in the chain of existence; and every link connects to the links before and the links after. Leadership is embracing your role in this cosmic progression and sublime symphony. Knowing that you are not the first but part of a greater chain, also teaches you that... A LEADER IS NOT FOLLOWED A true leader does not desire followers. A true leader inspires others to find leadership within themselves. Leaders are not worshipped. Leaders worship a higher power. By inspiring more leaders...

A LEADER IS NOT THE FIRST A leader is a link in a chain of depth and reality. Every leader emulates the leaders that came before. Every one of us

A LEADER IS NOT A MANAGER Do not confuse the two. Managers —

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made you think

A true leader shows us that our world is indeed heading somewhere and that we control its movement. and most presidents and CEO fall into this category — are meant to ensure that massive enterprises, with many moving parts, work as efficiently and seamlessly as possible. Leaders are all about new possibilities. Pre-existing realities require management. Creating new realities requires leadership. Management is necessary, the same way traffic lights are necessary — they both facilitate efficient movement. But they are not movement itself. A leader moves with new perspective, inspiring the world to abandon a narrow field of vision. And yet, leadership is a not a fantasy; rather, the leader turns fantasy into reality.

A LEADER IS NOT ABSTRACT Especially in spiritual or soulful contexts,

July 2021 / Av 5781

utopian ideas can seem unrealistic. True leadership effects practical change in the real world. Leadership is a not a fantasy; rather, the leader turns fantasy into reality. To help concretize this, one should remember that...

A LEADER IS NOT EVERYWHERE As a leader, all that’s required of you is to begin leading in one thing. Perhaps give a class, or say something nice to your coworker. And lest you think, I don’t know anything about leadership, remember this:

A LEADER IS NOT AN EXPERT A person does not have to be a leadership

expert to lead, just as a person does not have to be an optical expert to see. When someone is parched with thirst, you do not attend a workshop on the nuances of water — you simply give that person a drink. We live in a very parched world, thirsty for purpose and meaning. You simply have to share the water you have. And by ‘you’ we mean you, because...

A LEADER IS NOT SOMEONE ELSE A leader is not many things: A leader is not a scarcity, is not arrogant, is not self-interested, is not the first, is not followed, is not a manager, is not abstract, is not everywhere, is not an expert, and is certainly not someone else. A LEADER IS SIMPLY ONE THING: YOU! A true leader shakes people from their reverie and tells them, “No, you don’t need to live a life of desperation and confusion. Yes, you do have the ability to find meaning in your life, and the unique skills to fulfill that meaning. You are an important link in a chain of generations past; you have a legacy worth preserving and a future worth fighting for.” A true leader shows us that our world is indeed heading somewhere and that we control its movement. That we need not be at the mercy of personal prejudices or the prevailing political wind. That none of us are subservient to history or nature — that we are history and nature. That we can rid the world of war and hate and ignorance, and obliterate the borders separating race from race, rich from poor. Leaders show us new ways and new perspectives. They teach and inspire us to lead in the same way, to show the world a new perspective and a sublime level. EM

Rabbi Simon Jacobson is the author of Toward a Meaningful Life: The Wisdom of the Rebbe and the director of the Meaningful Life Center (meaningfullife.com).

jewish thought

What Jerusalem Means to Me Jonathan Sacks

here has never been a love story like it in all of history. The love of this people for that city. Jerusalem is mentioned something like 660 times in Tanach. And even though the Temple was destroyed twice and even though the city has been besieged 23 times and captured and reconquered 44 times, Jews never ceased to pray for Jerusalem, about Jerusalem, and facing Jerusalem. Somehow it was where every Jewish prayer met and ascended to heaven. And there’s been nothing like it. Other cities, other faiths, they hold Jerusalem holy but they have holier places. Rome, Constantinople, Mecca, Medina. Jews only had this one city, a tiny city but somehow it was the place, said Maimonides, from which the Divine Presence was never exiled. In those critical and tense weeks before the Six Day War, I was just coming near the end of my first undergraduate year at Cambridge University. And for the three weeks beforehand, we all felt that something terrible was going to happen, after all the troops were massed on the Egyptian and Syrian borders. And all of my generation born after the Holocaust feared that we were about to witness a second holocaust. All the Jewish students, vast numbers of them, turned up in the little shul in Thompson’s Lane to pray. I’ve never seen so many people there before or since. The atmosphere was absolutely intense. And for me it was lifechanging. As soon as we saw the paratroopers, as soon as we heard the words, “Har HaBayit b’yadeinu” (The Temple Mount is in our hands), I knew I had to go there and see it for myself. I went there, and looking down from Har HaTzofim (Mount Scopus), down on the Old City, I suddenly realized that I was standing at the very place that the Mishnah and Gemara talk about, when Rabbi Akiva and three of his rabbinical colleagues are standing on Har HaTzofim looking down on the ruins of the Temple. And the other Rabbis are weeping, and Rabbi Akiva is smiling. And he says, “Why are you weeping!?” And they say, “Look the Holy of Holies, it’s all in ruins, a fox is walking through

there! The place that only the holiest man, the High Priest, could enter, only on the holiest day, and now it’s ruins. Of course we’re weeping. Why are you not weeping?” And Rabbi Akiva said, “Because there were two Prophets who gave prophecies. One, Michah, saw the city in its destruction and another one, Zechariah, saw it rebuilt, and saw it as a place where “Od yeshvu zekeinim uzekeinot birchovot Yerushalayim”, where old men and women would sit at peace in the streets of Jerusalem, and the streets would be filled with the sounds of children playing. “So if I have seen the fulfilment of the prophecy of destruction am I not convinced that there will one day come true the prophecy of rebuilding and restoration?” And as I stood where Rabbi Akiva stood 2,000 years earlier, I said to myself, “If he had only known how long it would take, would he still have believed?” And then I suddenly realized, of course he would still have believed, because Jews would never give up hope of Jerusalem. We never allowed it to escape our minds. In any of our prayers, at our weddings, we always remember Jerusalem. Every time we comfort mourners we say, “May the Almighty comfort you among the mourners of Zion and Jerusalem.” You know, Jews were a circumference whose centre was Jerusalem. And I realized that a people could never forget this holy city must one day come back. And as I stood there, soon after the SixDay War, I suddenly realized that faith brought back Jews to Jerusalem, and will one day rebuild its ruins. That is the most powerful testimony of faith I know. What’s special about Jerusalem today is that despite all the tensions, which are real, nonetheless it’s a place that is the holy of holies still to Jews. But also on the Temple Mount are two mosques. It’s a place of prayer for Muslims. There, in the Old City, are some of the holiest churches in the whole of Christendom. So it is nonetheless a city of peace. One of the very few places in the Middle East, one of the very few places in the world, holy to three distinct faiths where those faiths pray together in freedom and in peace. And that’s come only under Israeli

As I stood where Rabbi Akiva stood 2,000 years earlier, I said to myself, “If he had only known how long it would take, would he still have believed?” rule in the last 50 years. Somebody once said about Israel, and you could certainly say this about Jerusalem, that it’s not that long and it’s not that wide, but it’s very deep. Jerusalem is very deep. And somehow within its relatively narrow confines, it contains in Walt Whitman’s phrase, “multitudes“. The other incredible thing about Jerusalem is that somehow magic happens with our sense of time. So, for instance, the walls of Jerusalem were destroyed by every conqueror and then rebuilt using the stones from the previous wall. If you look at the stones of the walls around Jerusalem, they come from all the eras. Somehow past and present, the old and the new, are all jumbled together. And then you think of this city, the oldest of the old, and yet Time Magazine recently listed Jerusalem as one of the top five [cities] in the world which is an emerging centre of high tech. So it’s the oldest of the old and it’s the newest of the new.: The old new land, the old new city, for the old and renewed people. EM

Rabbi Dr. Sir Jonathan Sacks, of blessed memory, was the former Chief Rabbi of the UK and the Commonwealth and a member of the House of Lords. He was a leading academic and respected world expert on Judaism. He was the author of several books and thousands of articles, appeared regularly on television and radio, and spoke at engagements around the world.

July 2021 / Av 5781

jewish thought

Universal

loss

Adin Even-Israel Steinsaltz

n the night of Tisha B’Av, when the Jewish People devotes itself again to mourning for all that it has lost during its long exile; after everyone is seated on the ground and before the Kinot (lamentations) are recited, there is a custom that the prayer leader rises and proclaims to the congregation, “Today marks such-andsuch many years since the destruction of our Sanctuary.” The essence of the mourning over the great catastrophe, over the years of exile and all that they have entailed, returns to the focal point of this mourning — to the destruction of the Temple and city of Jerusalem. The destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple is more than the destruction of our historical capital and our most sacred site. It is not merely a memory of a tragic event that occurred long ago. Rather, it is a blow to the vital center of the Jewish People. Moreover, the whole world is stricken and cannot return to its normal and rectified state until the city of Jerusalem and the Temple are rebuilt; for Jerusalem is the center point of the world’s existence. The Midrash describes Jerusalem’s essential place in the world: Abba Hanan said in the name of Samuel the Small, “This world is like a person’s eyeball. The white of the eye is the ocean surrounding the world; the iris is the inhabited world; the pupil of the eye is Jerusalem; and the face [the reflection of the observer] in the pupil is the Holy Temple. May it be rebuilt speedily in our days.” Harm done to Jerusalem is therefore harm done to the apple of the world’s eye; the light of existence is diminished and obscured when the pupil of the eye is damaged. The whole world consciously or unconsciously feels Jerusalem’s destruction. As our Sages say, “Since the day that the Temple was destroyed, there has been no day without its curse…and the curse of each day is greater than that of the one before it” (Sotah 48a, 49a). “Since the day that the Temple was destroyed,” we are taught, “the sky has not appeared in its full purity, as it says: ‘I clothe the skies in darkness and

July 2021 / Av 5781

make their raiment sackcloth'” (Berakhot 59a citing Isaiah 50:3) The mourning over Jerusalem is universal; it is a tragedy from which the whole universe suffers. Even G‑d Himself participates in the mourning of Jerusalem. One of the Sages relates what he heard in a ruin in Jerusalem: “I heard a heavenly voice cooing like a dove and saying, ‘Woe to the sons because of whose sins I destroyed My House, burned My Sanctuary, and exiled them among the nations’” (Berakhot 3a). The Sage was then told that G‑d says, “What is there for the father who has exiled his sons, and woe to the sons who have been exiled from their father’s table” (ibid.) Thus, “Since the day that the Temple was destroyed, G‑d has had no laughter” (Avodah Zarah 3b.). The destruction of Jerusalem is for us the ruin of all of existence, and ever since, a curtain of sadness and darkness has covered the face of reality. The mourning over Jerusalem is more than a one-time memorial of a oncea-year day of mourning. All of Jewish life is continually suffused with mourning — in remembrance of the destruction). For us, the sharply worded verses “If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget its skill; let my tongue adhere to my palate if I fail to remember you, if I do not raise Jerusalem above my highest joy” (Psalms 137:5-6) are not mere oratory; they are a living reality, practical and actual guidance on the path of life, in remembering Jerusalem at all times. The memory of Jerusalem casts a shadow

of eternal gloom on the Jewish people. “One may not fill his mouth with laughter in this world” until the coming of the redemption, when “our mouths will be filled with laughter, our tongues with songs of joy” (Psalms 126:2.). Until then, everything is enveloped in sadness. Ever since the destruction of the Temple, all profane music and singing have been prohibited. This sorrow and loss should be recalled at all times, even in joyous moments. When the table is set to host guests for a meal, something should be left incomplete, in remembrance of the destruction. When a house is built, it must not be completed entirely; part is left unplastered, in remembrance of the destruction. The memory of Jerusalem should be raised at the forefront of every joyous occasion. Even amidst the joy of a wedding, ashes are placed on the groom’s head; even under the marriage canopy, before all the celebrants, a glass is broken. For it is impossible for us to rejoice fully, as long as Jerusalem lies in ruins. Thus, the mourning over Jerusalem has continued for nearly 2,000 years, like a thread of tears running through our lives. EM

Rabbi Adin Even-Israel Steinsaltz, of blessed memory, is internationally regarded as one of the leading rabbis of the last century. The author of many books, he is best known for his monumental translation of and commentary on the Talmud. To learn more visit his website, steinsaltz.org.

life on earth

Sacred Space Tzvi Freeman

n any field of inquiry, the most interesting aspect is always thresholds. Interfaces between two systems. To an ecologist, mountains are interesting for their alpine forests and vertically oriented fauna. Plains are interesting for their grasses and swamps. But nothing is as fascinating as the foothills, where two ecosystems meet. One of the most interesting (and useful) fields today is that of “human interface”—the place where people and their machines meet. And then there is the study of chaoplexity— the fascinating border between rigid order and total randomness, where things such as amoebas, bond traders, Chabad House rabbis and the like occur. In Jewish law, there is much discussion on the status of twilight— the gray area between when day stops and night begins. A gateway is one of the most common metaphors of Torah: a place where you are neither in nor out, but part of both. Torah generally talks in terms of dual systems: heaven and earth; G‑d and man; creator and created; nothingness and something. So if we want to get into fascinating territory, we can ask: Where do they meet, and what happens there? The first description of such a place was given by Jacob, the third of the three fathers of the Jewish people. On his way leaving the land of Canaan he slept at a place and dreamt of a ladder with messengers of G‑d ascending and descending. When he awoke, he exclaimed, “Y‑H‑V‑H (we pronounce that ‘Havayeh,’ as the Torah instructs us not to pronounce the four-letter name of G‑d the way it is written; more about this name later) is in this place, and I didn’t realize!” Once this realization had hit him, he trembled and said, “This place is awesome!” (The classic Aramaic translation reads, “This is not a normal place.”) And then, “This could only be the house of Elokim, and this is the gateway of heaven!” It was more than seven hundred years before Jacob’s vision could be fulfilled, when King Solomon built the Holy Temple on that mountain, placed the Holy of Holies around that spot, and placed the holy ark on the rock where Jacob had laid his head to rest. The rabbis of the Talmud call that rock “the foundation stone”—because, they say, from

it the world was begun. Read that as “the origin of something from nothing, and the place where the two meet.” What happened in that space? It met with anti-space. This is how it worked: The chamber of the Holy of Holies measured twenty cubits by twenty cubits. The ark was placed in the center, measuring two and a half by one and a half cubits. From the southern wall of the chamber to the adjacent side of the ark measured ten cubits. The same measurement was taken on the north side of the chamber. You’re reading correctly: The ark took up no space. Or, to be more precise, from the frame of reference of the dimensions of the chamber, the ark occupied no space. The ark itself had to take up two and a half by one and a half cubits, because those are the dimensions specified for it by the Torah in order to be an ark that can go in this chamber and not take up space. To get to the point: Space and non-space met, but neither canceled out the other. Which is exactly what Jacob said, “Havayeh is in this space!” and yet, “This is the house of Elokim.” Jacob found himself in a place that expresses the essence of Torah. He found himself between two expressions of the one G‑d: Havayeh and Elokim. Pantheism and idolatry arose by separating these two manifestations of the same G‑d.

All people recognize that there are forces of nature. Some are smart enough to realize the unity of all these forces from observing how they harmonize together and are expressed in similar patterns. The ancients created from this understanding a sophisticated pantheon of divine beings. The more enlightened amongst them thought of these idols as mere reflections of the forces of nature. Yet, to this day, most people still accept these forces as being absolute and necessary. A world without gravity or electromagnetic waves is almost as unthinkable as a world without TV. Never mind the absence of time, space and logic themselves. G‑d as the force behind all natural forces is expressed by the name Elokim. When the Torah discusses the creation of the world by ten sayings, it uses this name, as in “Elokim said, ‘It should be light’—and there was light.” So this is G‑d expressed within time and space and all that we can observe. G‑d as He is immanent. But at the essence of everything is something that is beyond all of them. Something that cannot be defined as the perfection of them, nor as the absence of them. Something that cannot be defined at all. Havayeh is G‑d as He is beyond all that can be known. Transcendent. “I am Havayeh, I have not changed.” Beyond time and space and any reasoning we could apply. The very source of all being. As Maimonides writes, “If He is,

July 2021 / Av 5781

then all else is. But if He is not, then nothing else can be.” Miracles, Torah and tzaddikim are manifestations of Havayeh in the world. Interestingly, the ancient pantheons, from Egypt to Norway, generally included an original god from whom all things began. But that godhead remained entirely aloof from the whole hierarchy. After all, getting involved in the petty world that arose from his essential being would contaminate his perfect oneness. And so Pharaoh said to Moses, “Who is Havayeh that I should listen to His voice?” Pharaoh didn’t deny the existence of such a being, just the idea that He would care to mix into Egypt’s internal politics. Abraham was the first to smash this dichotomy. He introduced the idea that the same One G‑d who originated all things, He also has an intimate concern about what goes on down here. Until Abraham, the Midrash says, G‑d was L‑rd of the heavens. Abraham made Him G‑d of heaven and earth. Abraham said, “See all these forces of nature? All your gods of wind and fire and love and war and fertility and playfulness? They are no more than manifestations of a single, transcendent being who does not change and from whom all things come. As He can be found infinite and unchanging at the essence that precedes all things, so He can be found in the ephemeral, temporal world in which we live. Havayeh is Elokim. In truth, there is nothing else but Him.” Jacob, Abraham’s grandson, was delighted to find a place where there was no doubt as to his grandfather’s wisdom. He had found the place where space began, the one place which was not dominated by G‑d as Elokim, but where Havayeh is in this place. He envisioned a time when his own descendants would build a house there, a means by which such a revelation could be captured and projected out into the entire world. Until “No one will teach his fellow, saying, ‘Know Havayeh!’ because all of them will know Me, from their smallest to their greatest, says Havayeh.” Although that is a nice place to end, there is a question left that needs to be answered: Returning to the space of the ark that took up no space, you may ask: How could

space remain in the midst of a revelation of non-space? Space is a limitation. When all limitations are blasted away by a revelation of Havayeh, space should altogether disappear. Expecting otherwise is like expecting the shadows to remain when all the lights are turned on. An easy answer is, “It’s a miracle. G‑d can do anything.” However, that’s a lastresort answer. First we need to see if there’s something we can sink our teeth into, before declaring it out of our bounds. One way out is to ask, “Perhaps our understanding of space is not what space really is?” By acknowledging that there could be non-space, we have already cast away the impression that space is an absolute given, something that just is and must be. The same G‑d who created a world bound by time and space could have come up with something else altogether—although we creatures of time and space would be hard put to imagine such a thing. But we could go even further: Is space a static thing? Or is it an event which is continually being renewed out of the void? If we choose the second option, we can then see space itself as just another expression of that which is beyond space. The One G‑d expresses Himself as non-space and as space—but He is neither. And the very fact that the two can coexist is a demonstration of this idea: that He is neither of them, but rather that which is beyond both. This is the connection between this space and the third of the forefathers: Although the world is generally a binary place, there is a third factor, that which binds and unites all opposites together—even space and non-space. And that, too, is the revelation exemplified by the Third Temple, may it be built very soon, sooner than we can imagine. EM

Rabbi Tzvi Freeman, a senior editor at Chabad.org, is the author of Bringing Heaven Down to Earth and more recently Wisdom to Heal the Earth. To subscribe to regular updates of Rabbi Freeman's writing or purchase his books, visit Chabad.org. Follow him on FaceBook @RabbiTzviFreeman.

future tense

MOSHIACH MUSINGS

In general, there are three eras, in this sequence: the present era, the era of Moshiach, and the era of the Resurrection. The present era is a time of conflict between the material and the spiritual, the good and the bad. “The might shall pass from one to the other.” Sometimes, the side of good will be victorious and sometimes.... The era of Moshiach will take place after the Jewish people will have completed this conflict, having refined the good from the bad, separated the bad from the good, and departed from exile. They will then reach the perfection of man’s [potential], as man existed before the Sin of the Tree of Knowledge. Then the Jewish people will no longer be under the dominion of the Tree of Good and Evil. Nevertheless, evil will still exist in the world, in the “mixed multitude.” It is understood that, as a consequence, the perfection of the Jewish people will also be lacking. Therefore all those who are alive in the era of Moshiach will die and only afterwards, be resurrected, as will be explained. It is possible to explain that this level of perfection can be attained by a person by virtue of his own Divine service and through the reward that is given him which is correspondent to that Divine service. Throughout the era of Moshiach, through their Divine service, the Jewish people will continue to ascend the ladder of perfection. Therefore, the era of Moshiach will still follow the motif “Today to observe them,” to practice the Torah and its mitzvahs. On the contrary, it is the fundamental time for this observance and the era when it will reach its ultimate perfection. The era of the Resurrection will be characterized by additional [refinement]. The spirit of impurity will be removed entirely from the earth, and there will be no sin or death in the world. For “the Holy One, blessed be He, will slaughter the evil inclination,” which is “the angel of death.” Then man will reach his ultimate state of perfection, a level not at all proportionate to his Divine service or the reward for it.

ask the rabbi

The Temple and Us Rabbi Yoseph Y. Zaltzman

I have some questions about the contemporary status of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Is it permissible according to Judaism to ascend the Temple Mount today? And in the event that we (the Jewish people) have the opportunity to start rebuilding the Temple, are we supposed to do so, or are we supposed to wait for Moshiach or some kind of Divine instruction first? Since the Divine Presence is still present on the Temple Mount and the Temple area, all the laws prohibiting the ritually impure from accessing the Temple remain in effect. We all are presumed to be impure due to contact with corpses (either direct contact, being under the same roof, or the possibility of having trodden on an unknown grave), and therefore are barred from entering the Temple area. Although the actual Temple area doesn’t encompass the entire area of the Temple Mount, still, since we are uncertain of the exact location of the Temple area, most Rabbinic experts agree that it is forbidden to enter the entire walled area of the Temple Mount today. There is an essential disagreement among authorities as to how the Third Temple will be built. According to the Rambam (Maimonides), in his work, the Jewish people are commanded to construct a House for G‑d. The Rambam lists this as one of the 613 eternal commandments of the Torah, relevant and obligatory whenever the Temple is not standing. He derives this from the verse, "And they shall make for Me a sanctuary, and I will dwell among them." According to the Rambam, the Jewish people must build the Third Temple any way they can, at any time they can accomplish the task. In the Laws of Kings, the Rambam states that the Messiah, an earthly, Jewish king, will build the Third Temple. And, in fact, he states that the only conclusive proof of the identity of the Messiah is that he will be the one to build the Temple. The other view on the subject is derived from Medrash (a book of homiletic expositions from the time of the Talmud), which teaches that G‑d Himself will build the Third Temple, and it will descend out of the fire from Heaven. Rashi (the chief and classical bible commentator, circa 1200 C.E.) and Tosefot, (an academy of European scholars circa 1300 C.E.) and many other authorities subscribe to this view, and this has become the popular view of the Jewish people. As to the verse, "They shall make for Me a Sanctuary," this opposing view teaches that the directive was already fulfilled with

the building of the Sanctuary and the first two Temples, and is no longer applicable. Although the two views appear to be contradictory, since both are the word of G‑d, there must be a perspective in which there is no contradiction at all. Among the many explanations which resolve the argument is the teaching that the redemption (and therefore the Third Temple) can come in one of two ways, in its appointed time or suddenly, at any moment. The appointed time is the end of the fifth millennia, the Jewish year 6000 (2239). If final redemption does not come before then, the Jewish people, led by Moshiach, will build the Third Temple. This is consistent with the Rambam position. But if the redemption comes sooner, it will be replete with manifold miracles, incomparably greater than during the Exodus from Egypt, and the Holy Temple will suddenly appear out of the fire of Heaven atop Mount Moriah in Jerusalem. This is the opinion of Rashi and Tosefot, and the hope and dream and yearning of the Jewish people. This explains the contradiction, but it does not resolve it. There are several scholarly logical discourses exploring this topic, which are definitely worth studying but are beyond the scope of this article and publication. When the G‑d is going to bring about the Holy Temple, He is going to do it in answer to the prayers of the Jewish people. As we say in our daily prayers, "May it be Your will, L-rd our G‑d, and G‑d of our fathers, that the Holy Temple be speedily rebuilt in our days." Our prayers and yearning for the Temple, will arouse the Will of G‑d. Without this, the Temple would surely never be rebuilt. And the Arizal, Rabbi Isaac Luria, teaches that, according to Kabbalah, our prayers create the spiritual channel of light by which the Temple will descend. That is the part we can play right now – expressing yearning for the Temple and the era of redemption through our prayers, thoughts, words and deeds. EM

Мой вопрос имеет свою предысторию. Я - любитель готовить и время от времени смотрю на YouTubе кулинарные программы разных поваров – как евреев, так и неевре-ев: ведь если блюдо содержит некошерные продукты, их почти всегда можно заменить на кошерный эквивалент. Но в этот раз меня как-то по-особому задело, когда повар (не-еврей, кстати) сказал, что баранину он по-ливает соусом из сливок. И я подумала: «Евреям запрещено смешивать молочные продукты с мясными, и об этом напрямую указывает Тора. Почему же неевреям такое смешение не запрещается? Значит, Тора, данная нам на горе Синай, относится только к евреям?» В связи с этим, рабби, я хочу за-дать вопрос: Тора – она только для евреев или для всех? Даруя нам Тору на горе Синай, Вс-вышний раскрыл смысл Творения Мира. У каждой части-цы громадной Вселенной есть своя задача, ко-торую надо выполнить, чтобы воплотить Замы-сел Вс-вышнего. В организме человека имеется 613 частиц – 248 органов и 365 сухожилий - нервных окон-чаний. Когда хотя бы один из них не в порядке, человеку трудно ходить, или спать, или думать, или переваривать пищу, одним словом... The article above is excerpted from the Russian edition of Exodus Magazine. To subscribe, please visit exodusmagazine.org or call 416.222.7105.

Rabbi Yoseph Y. Zaltzman is the Senior Rabbi of the Jewish Russian Community Centre of Ontario. You can Ask the Rabbi at jrcc.org or fax to 416.222.7812. To meet with Rabbi Zaltzman in person, feel free to call 416.222.7105 to book an appointment. Appointments are generally available on Wednesday evenings after 7pm. Rebbitzin Chiena Zaltzman is also available for private consultations by appointment on Wednesday evenings from 9 to 10pm by calling 416.222.7105.

July 2021 / Av 5781

‫ב”ה‬ ‫ב''ה‬

COMMUNITY CALENDAR

J U L Y 2 0 2 1 18

KISLEV 5781

T H E M O N T H I N R E V I E W. U P C O M I N G E V E N T S & P R O G R A M S .

JULY 2021 | AV 5781

SUN

Our

Community

НОЯБРЬ 2020

TISH'A B'AV

A GLOBAL GATHERING Gimmel Tammuz, the third day of the month of Tammuz (Sunday, June 13, 2021) marked the 27th yahrzeit of the Rebbe. It is a special day that is auspicious for connecting to the Rebbe’s Torah teachings and life’s work, and drawing them into our lives. In lieu of the JRCC’s annual community “Journey to the Rebbe” trip to New York, a global Virtual Trip to the Rebbe was organized. The JRCC local virtual community event was combined with a larger international event taking place simultaneously. The theme was “Lessons of resilience and self empowerment from the life and teachings of the Rebbe,” a thought-provoking and empowering journey into the Rebbe’s optimistic worldview. It was an opportunity to bring the light and warmth of the Rebbe in our lives, with all the wisdom and blessings that comes with it. We tuned in together to hear from renowned guest speakers from around the world and enjoyed the fine work of internationally acclaimed musicians Izhak Perlman and Shalom Lemmer, all while interacting together in our local community Zoom group BAR/BAT MITZVAH PACKAGES

The JRCC will soon begin sending out gift packages in honor of Bar Mitzvahs and Bat Mitzvahs in our community. The packages will include engaging literature explaining the significance of Bar/ Bar Mitzvah, together with a selection of related Judaica items. If you have an upcoming Bar or Bat Mitzvah in your family, please share it with us so we can send a gift package. The project, which we hope to launch in the coming weeks, is part of the JRCC’s efforts to make every person feel connected to their community and their heritage. Similar gift packages are already in place for other lifecycle events such as births, weddings, and bereavement, and additional programs are in development. For more information or to register, contact our Program Director Dovid Faynberg at 416-222-7105 ext. 245 dovid.faynberg@jrcc.org

VOLUNTEER OPPORTUNITIES The JRCC is seeking volunteers throughout the Greater Toronto Area to distribute our holiday packages and Birthday cakes. Currently, there is a need for the upcoming High Holidays. Through it’s JRCC Connect project, JRCC volunteers distribute thousands of packages for Jewish holidays and birthday cakes for people’s Jewish birthdays. This past Passover, over 12,000 homes received packages containing handmade Shmura matzah. The inspiration behind this volunteer-based initiative is the Rebbe’s vision that, “each individual has the capacity to build communities and endow communities with life... So that every community member becomes a source of inspiration.” Each and every individual has the ability, and therefore the responsibility, to take an active part in making life better for others in their community. You can do your part by volunteering to deliver in your neighborhood. For more information or to register, contact 416-222-7105 x291 or email Elizabeth.chernokov@jrcc.org. PROMOTING JEWISH IDENTITY

CANDLE LIGHTING TIMES Friday, Jul 2, 2021

8:45 PM

Friday, Jul 9, 2021

8:42 PM

Friday, Jul 16, 2021

8:38 PM

Friday, Jul 23, 2021

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The Jewish way of life is a revolutionary force that transforms ordinary lives into lives of meaning. Judaism teaches lessons that the world urgently needs to learn, but often the observance of Jewish practices also costs money, and cost can often be an obstacle to furthering ones commitment and connection to Judaism. In order to help mitigate this obstacle, the JRCC offers several Jewish Identity Grants for things like Tefilllin, Mezuzah, Koshering one’s home, and Jewish Yeshiva scholarships, seeking to grow Jewishly, and are met with a financial barrier. Any Jewish resident of Ontario whose family comes from the FSU can apply to the JRCC for the following grants to enhance their Jewish identity by speaking with one of our rabbis and completing the appropriate application form at jrcc.org/grants.

Photo of the Month

JEWISH IDENTITY GRANTS Teffilin, Mezuzah, Kosher, Sheitel and Jewish Education grants available for members of the Russian-Jewish community. For eligibility requirments, information and to apply

www.JRCC.org/JIG

The JRCC on Wheels was a hit at the Solidary for Israel event held last month at Mel Lastman Square. Our very own Rabbi Shmuel Neft, Rabbi Avrohom Yusewitz and Rabbi Yisroel Zaltzman were joined by Rabbi Yossi Vorovitch of Chabad Georgina and other local members of the community to take part in the Rebbes Tefillin Campaign by putting on Tefillin in honour of Israel.

WHY EVERYONE NEEDS A CERTIFICATE OF JEWISH IDENTITY 1. Confirmation of Jewish Identity is needed throughout life for school registration, weddings, burials and variety of events. Instead of going through the process of proving your Jewishness each time, all you need to do is present your signed Certificate of Jewish Identity.

2. It can get complicated as time passes.

Birth Kit

PROGRAM For all the newborn Russian Jews

Information, witnesses and documents become harder to track down over time.

3. Don’t leave it for the last minute. The confirmation process takes time – don’t wait until you actually need one.

YOUR PASSPORT TO JEWISH LIFE Just like it’s best to always have a valid passport so you can travel when you need to, every Jew should possess an official Certificate of Jewish Identity. An official Certificate of Jewish Identity signed by certified Rabbis is

√ Necessary even if you have a birth certificate or Israeli ID card (teudat zehut) √ The only way to ensure that your Jewish identity will not be questioned √ Becoming a standard that resolves many Jewish identity questions and issues Apply for your Certificate of Jewish Identity today: For your peace of mind. For your children and your grandchildren. For the future of the Jewish people. For more information or to apply, contact: Jewish Identity Verification Service 416-222-7105 x237 | jewishidentity@jrcc.org | jrcc.org/jewishidentity October 7, 2014 / 13 Tishrei 5775

Certificate of Jewish Identity BASED UPON CAREFUL INVESTIGATION IT HAS BEEN

Jewish Identity

DETERMINED BY OUR RESEARCHERS THAT

Anna Slotkin

DATE OF BIRTH: OCTOBER 23, 1948 (MOSCOW) IS JEWISH, AS SHE WAS BORN TO A JEWISH MOTHER. THIS NUMBERED CERTIFICATE IS ON PERMANENT RECORD IN THE JRCC DATABASE, AND CAN BE VERIFIED BY CONTACTING THE JRCC OFFICE OR THE UNDERSIGNED RABBIS.

_____________________________ Rabb Yoseph Y. Zaltzman JRCC Senior Rabbi 416-222-7105 x278

416-222-7105

_____________________________ Rabb Levi Jacobson JRCC Rabbi - Weﬆ Thornhill 416-222-7105 x240

jrcc@jrcc.org

NO 985770

A Genealogical Family Tree is also available as part of this service.

Because proof of Jewish identity is an essential service, it is provided free of charge by the JIVS to the Russian Jewish community in Ontario. Suggested donation to cover research and administrative costs is $250 per applicant. A donation in any

Did you just give birth? Did you become a grandparent? Do you know any of your friends who just gave birth? JRCC is ready to deliver a baby package right to the house. It includes: baby diapers, body suits, napkins, baby cream, kids cup, baby powder, shower gel, Jewish soft toy, blessing for a child and a mother, Jewish educational book, baby blanket.

Contact JRCC office for more info

416.222.7105 ext.245

July 2021 / Av 5781

VOLUNTEERS NEEDED!

We’re looking for volunteers to help with distribution of High Holidays packages and birthday cakes. Get your community hours.

cares

connect

grants

CONTACT: Elizabeth.chernokov@jrcc.org or 416.222.7105 x291

JRCC VEHICLE DONATION PROGRAM Get a Tax deductible receipt for your Vehicle and help the JRCC.

IT’S A WIN WIN SITUATION! More info: 416-222-7105 x601 • www.jrcc.org/vehicledonation

ENGLISH CLASSES ON ZOOM LEARN ABOUT MOSHIACH with CHIENA ZALTZMAN EVERY MONDAY AT 8PM ZOOM ID: 83834122371

TORAH AND TEA

with CHANIE ZALTZMAN EVERY MONDAY AT 8PM ZOOM ID: 770 613 7608 PW: 770

SECRETS OF THE WEEKLY TORAH PORTION with Rabbi MENDEL ZALTZMAN EVERY TUESDAY AT 8PM

ZOOM ID: 770 613 7608 PW: 770. zoom.us/my/jrcceast

CAFFEINE FOR THE SOUL for women only

with SARALE ZALTZMAN

EVERY THURSDAY AT 11AM ZOOM ID: 770 613 9699

July 2021 / Av 5781

Faces of the Community Joel Yakov Etienne Lawyer, Entrepreneur, Film/ TV producer How long have you been living in Ontario, and why did you choose to live in York Centre? I moved here over twenty years ago. The initial focus of my law practice was immigration and York Centre has one of the most diverse populations in the country. I am currently running for Parliament in the same area that my business has been in for over fifteen years, and where I spend the majority of my time. Where does your family come from? My mother was born in France after the war. Her father was from Hungary and her mother was from Poland. My grandfather, the late Rabbi David Feuerwerker z”l, was a rabbi in Paris. During the war, he worked against the Nazis and collaborators in the French resistance, and after the war he became the Chief Chaplain of the French Navy. My grandmother, Antoinette Gluck Feuerwerker, was a law graduate who also fought in the French resistance. After the war, my grandparents worked hard to rebuild the downtrodden Jewish community. My grandfather was a pulpit rabbi in Paris (Place des Vosges), and my grandmother raised six children. In the end, my grandfather received great support and help from the Lubavitcher Rebbe, with whom he had a correspondence. They had both studied at Sorbonne University in Paris. The family lore tells us that the gold bars to buy a ship to transport countless refugees to the Promised Land (the famous ship knows as “The Exodus”) were hidden under my aunt’s baby cradle. My father, Dr. Gerard Étienne, who accepted Judaism, was expelled from his home country of Haiti for fighting against communism and fighting for democracy and human rights. What do you do in your free time (or study)? Do you have any hobbies? I don’t have a lot of free time, but when I do, I like to spend it with my two children. I am also the president of my synagogue in Thornhill, the Zichron Yisroel Congregation, and I like to jog and exercise to keep happy. I also like to learn Torah and Jewish History when possible. If you had the opportunity to make a “lechaim” with: a historical character, a modern politician, a writer and art worker, or just a friend, who would you choose? Why? In terms of ancient figures, I would like to meet our forefather Jacob. He is my favorite hero. What a hard life he had! He had to flee as a very young man from his brother who wanted him dead. His father-in-law made him work for fourteen years to marry Rachel, the woman he loved. But she, after the birth of her second son, Binyamin, dies during her return journey to the Promised Land. Yaakov loses his beloved son Yosef and for many years believes he is dead. In his declining years, when he is forced to believe that he will also lose his second son from his beloved Rachel, he is forced to leave the country because of famine. Yet his faith was unshakable, and he continued to live a G‑dly life. To me, this is the essence of Jewry! In terms of more modern figures, I would like to meet Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The ideals that he described at his March on Washington speech in 1963 are still the ideals that North America is striving towards today. When did you start participating in JRCC programs? I attend religious services that are run by JRCC rabbis. I find them very spiritual and very uplifting. I have been attending sporadically for decades. I met Rabbi Zaltzman several years ago and have a lot of respect for the work he does for the Jewish-Russian community both personally and through JRCC programs. I consider him and his family to be a Kiddush Hashem [a sanctification of G-d’s name and source of blessing]. What are your plans for the future? My immediate plans are to win a seat in Parliament for the beautiful riding of York Centre so that I can help all Canadians recover from this pandemic and improve their post-pandemic security and prosperity. We should never again have to wait for vaccines or PPE, which is why I want to work to ensure that our country is more equipped and prepared to deal with these kinds of challenges in the future.

JRCC Directory

JRCC Program Spotlight

416-222-7105 | www.jrcc.org Jewish Russian Community Centre of Ontario

A HOME FULL OF BOOKS What makes a house into a home? A container is defined by what it contains. Take a carton of milk, for example. If it’s empty, you’ll say, “Pass the carton.” But

Some of the classics to start any great book collection include: The Chumash (The Five Books of Moses) is the original written Torah that was transmitted by G-d Himself and transcribed Moses transcribed by Moses that will enable you to read the basics and study the weekly Torah portion (parsha). Tehillim, the Psalms of King David, contains beautiful poetic prayers and mystical insights, and is the book your great-grandparents poured their hearts and tears into.

if it contains even a little milk, you’ll say, “Pass the milk.” So too, your home is defined by the most important things inside it. And some of the most important items in your home (aside from those who live there, of course) are the Jewish books lining the shelves and scattered about. Just one of those books is enough to redefine the entire environment. The home is transformed from just another house to a shining source of wisdom. The books we buy and place in our homes are one of the ways that establish who we are—for ourselves, and for those who visit our homes. Filling the home with Jewish books creates a Jewish environment and identity for you and your family. Having Jewish books in the home will also encourage Jewish study, expanding our Jewish knowledge, strengthening our connecting to our heritage, and building a strong Jewish family and community. It also invites the authors of the books, who put their life energy into their work, into the home – from Maimonides to the Baal Shem Tov to Moses himself.

The Siddur, the Jewish Prayer Book, was originally composed by the Sages and prophets to compose one way for all Jews to talk to one G‑d. You can get one with English or Russian translations and transliterations. Kitzur Shluchan Aruch, the Abridged Code of Jewish Law,” is a highly popular guide to Jewish practice for the everyone. The Tanya is the most important work of chassidic teaching, blending and balancing the mystical and practical aspects of classic Jewish thought, authored by Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi, founder of Chabad. These are just a few of the thousands of volumes of Jewish books published over the centuries. The JRCC Bookstore (see ad on page 2) carries many of them, and features the best selection of Russian language Jewish books in North America. We also carry many popular English and Hebrew titles, and a selection of Judaica. A newly launched bookstore website at jrccbookstore.org makes it easier than ever to browse and purchase the books of your choice.

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perspectives

The Secret

of Jewish

Resilience

Yosef Y. Jacobson

he Talmud recounts a fascinating confrontation that occurred between the Wise Men of Athens and the great sage of Israel, Rabbi Yehoshua son of Chananya, which took place during the first century CE, only a few years after the destruction of the second Temple by the Romans in the year 68 CE. Athens was known in the ancient world as the seat of wisdom and philosophy, and its sages saw themselves as the deepest and wisest thinkers of the time. Amongst the sages of Israel, Rabbi Yehoshua stood out as the sharpest and most quick witted, able to best anyone in an argument. The impoverished Rabbi Joshua was a fearsome debater and a brilliant scholar, though to earn a livelihood he would sell charcoal. He was a Levite who played music back in the Second Temple (the Levites would perform a daily morning concerto in the Temple) and witnessed the destruction. In the following decades, one of the worst moments in all of our history, Rabbi Joshua served as the most prominent spokesman for Judaism and the Jewish people. So when the Roman Caesar demanded to test who was wiser, the Jews or the Greeks,

Rabbi Yehoshua was the clear choice to represent the Torah of Israel. Sixty sages of Athens challenged the Jewish sage and the battle of wits began. The Talmud records the back and forth between these sages, that took the form of a cryptic exchange of riddles. The Athenian sages would throw a challenge in front of Rabbi Yehoshua, and Rabbi Yehoshua would come back with an answer each time, usually in the form of a counter-question. The exchange went like this: The sages of Athens asked: ‘If a chick dies while in the egg, before the egg is hatched [and it is sealed from all sides], from where does its soul escape?’ Rabbi Yehoshua’s response: ‘The soul escapes through the same place it entered [into the sealed egg].’ They asked him, "When salt gets spoilt, what do we use to preserve it?" His response: "We use the afterbirth of a mule." "Do mules have afterbirth?" they asked. [A mule cannot give birth.] "Does salt spoil?" he retorted. Each one of these exchanges – and there were many of them — begs explanation. What do these bizarre questions really mean, and what lies behind the sharp answers? What wisdom is being displayed here? Here is one

more, equally strange. The Sages of Athens showed Rabbi Yehoshua two eggs, and asked him, "Which of these eggs came from a white hen and which from a black hen?" In response Rabbi Yehoshua presented before them two pieces of cheese and asked, "Which of these cheeses is from the milk of a white goat, and which from the milk of a black goat?" This response silenced the Athenians. They were defeated. But why? What were they asking, and how were they answered? They came with eggs, he responded with cheese. What’s going on here? The various Talmudic commentaries all agree that the conversations between the Rabbi and the Greeks were allegorical. They were discussing lofty issues of the spirit, the meaning of life and death, G‑d’s role in the universe, human destiny, the meaning of existence. They spoke in symbolic terms, the language of wise men, and their words are not to be taken literally. This discussion was not about eggs and cheese. So what were they talking about? The great 16th century Polish Talmudist, Rabbi Shmuel Eidels, known as the Maharsha,

July 2021 / Av 5781

perspectives

interpreted this enigmatic exchange in a profoundly moving and original way. The Greeks were communicating, in a rather sophisticated way, one of the key ideas in Greek philosophy. They were also making a dire prediction. They were warning of the imminent extinction of the Jewish people. Israel was about to disappear. And they could prove it. Here is how the Maharsha explains it: It takes 21 days for a hen egg to hatch. For three weeks, the mother hen sits on her eggs to keep them warm (she sits lightly on them, so as not to squash them, and she covers the eggs with her thick fluffy feathers and wings), until the chicks hatch from the eggs and nothing remains but an outer shell. The "life-span" of an egg is three weeks (unless the egg is taken from the hen to be eaten.) This was the metaphor of the two eggs in our narrative. The two eggs that the Sages of Athens presented before Rabbi Yehoshua represented two 21-day periods in the Jewish calendar. Firstly, there are the 21 days between 17th Tammuz and 9th Av, the annual three weeks of mourning for the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem. This time period — in which we find ourselves right now — commemorates sadness and tragedy. It starts on the day that the walls of Jerusalem were breached by the enemy, and ends on the day that the Temple was burned to the ground. These 21 days are represented metaphorically by an egg that was laid by a black hen – a three week period which brought darkness and gloom to the Jewish people. But there is another "egg" in the Jewish calendar, another three week period on the Jewish calendar: the very first 21 days of the Jewish year, beginning on Rosh Hashanah and culminating with Hashanah Raba. These are festive and purifying "white" days. On Rosh Hashanah our souls are renewed and made fresh, on Yom Kippur we are cleansed and whitened from our sins, receiving atonement for each and every sin. On Sukkot we dance and celebrate, and on Hashanah Raba we rejoice with the final judgment for a year of blessing and good. This 21 day period is like the egg laid by a white and pure hen, a time of purification, whiteness, cleansing and

July 2021 / Av 5781

The Jewish response to life’s challenges is to make them a springboard for positive change. positivity. These are the two eggs, from the white hen and from the black hen. With this imagery, the Greek sages presented Rabbi Yehoshua with a grim proposition. You can’t tell the difference between the two eggs. The egg that was laid by the black hen is identical to the egg laid by the white hen. So too, your days of celebration and purification have been equaled by your days of mourning and blackness. Your 21 days of joy have thus been neutralized by the 21 days of mourning. Darkness is akin to light; despair is as powerful as hope; gloom is an equal to happiness. The world is essentially a random, hopeless, meaningless arena, where fortune and misfortune share an equal chance of victory. Evil is as powerful and potent as good. Your times of light do not even get one additional day over your period of darkness. What is more, the Greeks were intimating, this egg experiment demonstrated that there is no hope for Israel. In times gone by, the Jewish people could claim that they had a special place in G‑d’s eyes, for G‑d granted them three weeks in the year to be elevated and purified. But now, in the aftermath of the Temple’s destruction, that special relationship has been eclipsed, for 21

days of pain and sadness have come to cancel out the 21 days of celebration and joy. The egg from the black hen looks the same as the egg from the white hen. G‑d’s love of the Jews is a thing of the past. Darkness has fallen over Israel. The Jewish moment is over. This was the challenge the Athenian sages lay before Rabbi Yehoshua. And indeed they had a point. From the looks of things, the grand majestic history of the Jewish people was coming to an end. The nation that left Egypt with miracles and wonders, received the Torah from the hand of G‑d Himself, settled the Promised Land to create a kingdom of priests, and built the Temple as a home for G‑d on earth, this once extraordinary nation was now beaten and exiled, their land conquered by a foreign invader, their religion outlawed and their Temple reduced to a disgraced pile of rubble. Millions of their people were massacred. Any observer would predict that the end was near. The era of the white hen, the 21 days when G‑d finds favor with the Jewish people, seemed to have been pushed aside by a new era, the era of the black hen. The sun had set on Israel, and the darkness was descending all too fast. But the Athenians were wrong. And Rabbi Yehoshua showed them why. He took out two pieces of cheese, one from a black goat, the other from a white goat. They too were indistinguishable. With this he taught them something that even Greek wisdom could not fathom: the Jewish message of hope after tragedy; rebirth after destruction. Where the Greeks saw an egg coming from a black hen, Rabbi Yehoshua saw cheese curdled from a black goat. Even from the black goat white cheese was born. The two goats alluded to the goats that were used in the Temple on Yom Kippur, just several decades before this debate took place. The Torah (Leviticus 16) commands us to bring two identical goats on the holiest day of the Jewish year. One of them is brought as an offering to G‑d, its blood sprinkled in the Holy of Holies and on the sacred altar; the other goat is cast off a cliff in the desert, a symbolic casting away of negative energy and sin. (The famous term "scapegoat" is taken from this biblical instruction to select a goat

perspectives

that would "carry" away the sins of Israel. The word "scapegoat" has come to mean a person, often innocent, who is blamed and punished for the crimes or sufferings of others, often as a way of distracting attention from the real causes.) These two goats are opposites. One goat is an expression of the deep bond between G‑d and His people, an offering of repentance brought on His holy altar on the holiest day. The other goat, cast away to the wilderness, represents the darker side of this relationship, the fact that humans have the capacity to betray their loved ones, their soul, their G‑d, themselves, and need to rid themselves of the negative energy created through betrayal and evil. Metaphorically speaking, one goat is white and the other black. One goat represents our "whiteness," our ability to enter into the holy of holies; the other goat embodies the darker side of our personality, which can take us to the abyss. And yet, white cheese comes from both! While a white goat and black goat look very different, the cheese that they produce is indistinguishable. The source may be different, but the end product is the same. The darker side of our life, the sins we commit, the mistakes we make, the "downers" we experience, are not fun or pure. But their ultimate objective is to allow us to reach a depth in our relationship with G‑d which we could not appreciate without these mistakes. Even a black goat is capable of producing pure white cheese. Here Rabbi Yehoshua revealed one of the great ideas which gave the Jews strength for thousands of years. Just as the cheese from black goats is as white as the cheese from white goats, and you can’t distinguish between the two, so too, the pain and suffering that the Jewish people witnessed at the destruction of the Temple during the black three weeks was not random and meaningless; it was not a demonstration that evil is as potent as good and that the sun has set on the people of the Divine book. No! No, beneath the pain there was a streak of whiteness; at the core of the "black hole" there was infinite light. Even the black goats of life are there to produce white cheese; even the hardships we face are there to help us get where we need to be.

We have all seen it, in or own lives and in the lives of those around us. The illness that brings us a deeper perspective in life, the relationship breakdown that allows us to find true love and humility, the passing of a loved one that gives us new appreciation of our short time in this world and the spirituality of life. What Rabbi Yehoshua understood, what the Jewish soul understands, is that there are two forms of light – light that appears as light, and light that appears as darkness. The good times are good. The tough times are there for us to make them good. "Problems are only opportunities with thorns." Sure, we would rather not have to go through the tough times. We don’t seek out suffering, even if it will make us stronger. We would rather learn the lessons and gain the inspiration we need through pleasant and comfortable means, not through pain. It would be wonderful if all eggs could be born from white hens. But the reality of life is that we all have our share of challenges, difficulties and trials. And as long as that is the case, the Jewish response to life’s challenges is to make them a springboard for positive change. It is during this time of year, the three weeks

of mourning for the Temple, that we focus on this powerful idea. Destruction is a step toward rebuilding, and failure is a chance to regroup and get our strength back. We all go through black times, we all get knocked over and we all fall. But "failure is not falling down, it is staying down." As Jews we know that we must get back up, shake off the dust and keep on laying eggs. The Three Weeks, from a Jewish perspective, are like the Black Hole in modern physics, which is filled with endless light, but does not allow it to escape its pull. (A black hole is a region of space in which the gravitational field is so powerful that nothing, including light, can escape its pull.) Our job is to penetrate the black hole and reveal its inner light, the light of Moshiach. EM Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak (YY) Jacobson is one of America’s premier Jewish scholars in Torah and Jewish mysticism. He is a passionate and mesmerizing communicator of Judaism today, culling his ideas from the entire spectrum of Jewish thought and making them relevant to contemporary audiences. Rabbi Jacobson founded and serves as dean of TheYeshiva.net.

July 2021 / Av 5781

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