To Dwell in the Palace: ‘I Am a Different Person Than I Would Have Been Writing Ad Copy on Madison Ave’

Here I Am!

By Tzvia Ehrlich-Klein, Yerushalayim.

It’s many years since little ol’ regular me, a third-generation American, first came to Israel. As with so many turning points in life, I didn’t realize that it was one.

I just came for one year — a Junior Year Abroad study program at Hebrew University. But something happened as my suitcases were thrown off the truck and fell down a dusty hill alongside my dorm building.

Somehow I just fell in love with the Land, and felt, instinctively, that this is where a Jew really belongs.

No, I wasn’t a “Zionist” who had been waiting to return to the Land. And I wasn’t raised on halachic values of residing within it’s holy borders. I was merely a college student who came to study for a year, complete with my dozens of shoes and matching pocketbooks, and suitcases full of Villager skirt outfits.

But somehow, once here, I just knew, deep inside, that, though I didn’t know the language or anyone who lived here, somehow I just knew that this was where a Jew truly belonged.

So the next year I made aliya. To this impossibly crazy country where everything was so different from my little Jewish princess world that I had loved (here, no one but me noticed or even cared if the color of my shoes matched my outfit!). But I just knew that it was important to be here. Here, where 3000 years of Jewish History comes alive, and I, little ol’ nothing-special me, get to be a living, active part of it!

Amazing! Here, where King David wandered in the hills that are just outside my window. The very same hills where I now sometimes get stuck in a traffic jam. He wandered, and I ride. But they’re the very same hills! It’s the same Land, the same sky overhead.

And it’s not just King David. It’s also Abraham and Isaac, and Rivka, and Rachel, and King Saul and Resh Lakish, and the prophet Samuel…. And me?

Isn’t it amazing? The Land that Moses was not allowed to enter, I can, and have?! Unreal! He didn’t get to live here, but I do? What an amazing honor! How totally, unbelievably, stupendously unbelievable! (And sometimes I wonder, what would my great-great-great grandparents have thought? They were probably in pogroms somewhere, able to dream, but certainly not able to visualize, the actuality of living in a land surrounded by other Jews — and yet here I am.)

No, it’s not just the holiness. And it’s not just the landscape. And it’s not just the history, going back thousands upon thousands of years. And it’s even not just being in the front-row seat of history-in-the-making. It’s the people, the People of Israel, all around, everywhere, concurrently bringing to life the concept of an ingathering from “arba kanfot haAretz” [from the four corners of the world], while allowing me to be immersed amidst this amazingly holy people and place.

Are there problems? Irritations? Disappointments? Of course. But it has always been that way. This is the way HaShem made it. One of three things “acquired through difficulties” (Torah, the World to Come, and the Land of Israel). Disappointments and problems are built into the system. Jobs, apartments, the language, and differences.… So my Ashkenazi daughter likes spicy Yemenite harissa, and I get freaked out the days before Yom Kippur when many women are carrying live chickens on the public buses, in baskets, in order to do kapparos the real way, like their mothers did, at home (rather than my way, with money in a sanitized white handkerchief). My “Yankee ingenuity” and efficiency is appalled by “Russian-socialist” bosses standing around and passively allowing lines of waiting people to get longer and longer, and I’ve come to appreciate “Israeli rudeness” which is really a wholesome counterpoint to the phony politeness that existed (exists?) in Germany and England. Here, in our Jewish Homeland, we are all part of the beautiful mosaic called Am Yisrael, the Jewish People.

No, I never learned the language. And I have no brothers or sisters or aunts or uncles here. But I do know that this is ‘home,’ and that, just by living here, I am doing something important with my life. Even if I never do anything else. I know that just by living here I am an active part of Jewish history, contributing to and doing something important for our People.

Continue reading…

From Naava Kodesh, here.

‘Askinu Se’udasa’: The Minhag to AVOID Saying Things You Don’t Understand

Askinu seudasa – The minhog NOT to say/sing it – אתקינו סעודתא – המנהג שלא לומר או לזמר אותו

אתקינו סעודתא, a Kabbalistic zemer in Aramaic from the Arizal, which is a few hundred years old,  is widely sung these days at Shabbos seudos, even in some non Chassidic places. Especially at סעודה שלישית. How many people understand it is another matter.

It  may be less well known that there are those who specifically have refrained from, or opposed such a practice.

It is hard for people to abstain when a group is singing something, with a lively tune, especially in our culture that puts such value on being part of a tzibbur and going along with the group. But people should know that there are differences of opinion about this practice.

What if your minhog is not to sing it? What if your father didn’t? Which is the case I found myself in. I felt that it was not my minhog, but didn’t fully understand why (beyond perhaps a vague feeling that ‘we don’t get into that heavy Kabbalistic stuff’, at least not in public). And then some could say, hey, your father didn’t sing it, but was he opposed to it, or maybe he just didn’t grow up with it? Is abstaining from something a minhog davka (specifically) not to do it, or just a neutral stance, no minhog on the matter either way, which would not be in opposition to someone adopting it if he wishes?

Recently, while glancing at a Torah journal by the name of צפונות, from ארץ ישראל in תשמ”ט, א, לד-ה, I noticed a piece there with a תשובה (responsum) from the  מהר”ם שיק, senior talmid of the חתם סופר, who was asked if it should be said.

The  מהר”ם שיק says that he doesn’t say it and neither did the חתם סופר. The reason he gives is that we are not on that level, just as it is brought down in Shulchan Aruch (שו”ע או”ח סימן ג, הלכה א)  that we nowadays do not say התכבדו מכובדים before entering the בית הכסא, so kal vachomer this שיר, which is even holier.

I asked רב בנימין שלמה המבורגר שליט”א about it and he furnished me with additional information on the matter, as follows.

The Chasam Sofer’s son, Rav Shimon Sofer, the מכתב סופר, reported that the Chasam Sofer did not say the zemiros of the Arizal אסדר לסעודתא, אזמר בשבחין, ובני היכלא because “עס איסט צו פיעל ארויסגעזאגט”  it expresses too much openly of matters that should be more hidden (brought in באר מרים introduction to מכתב סופר). Esoteric, Kabbalistic manners are not for every person. One should be on a high level, a holy person to get involved with such things.

מהר”ם א”ש, the famous talmid of the Chasam Sofer and Rav of Ungvar, didn’t say it either, as brought down here, a little less than halfway down the page, in the paragraph starting קודם סעודת צהרים, where it states לא מלאו לבו לומר האתקינו סעודתא ולומר דא היא סעודתא.

The בן איש חי brings (בן איש חי, שנה ב’, פרשת חיי שרה, סעיף יג) that even among Sepharadic mekubbalim there were those that refrained from saying it due to פחד. And he concludes by saying that ‘we are not נוהג to say it at all‘!. And he was a great מקובל!

Western European Sepharadim, in London and Amsterdam, also didn’t say it, as reported in sefer כתר שם טוב of רב שם טוב גאגין, חלק א’ עמוד רא

So quite a line up of gedolim there who didn’t say it, for various reasons. So there are definite grounds for a practice/מנהג to refrain. And if you refrain from it for the reasons mentioned by the above גדולי עולם, I dare say that you are definitely מקבל שכר על הפרישה (are rewarded for refraining).

From Treasures of Ashkenaz, here.

Against Sin-of-the-Spies Maximalism

Some see the “Sin of the Spies” wherever they look. For example, they quote Sanhedrin 94a:

אמר רבי יוחנן מפני מה זכה אותו רשע לקרותו אסנפר רבא ויקירא מפני שלא סיפר בגנותה של ארץ ישראל שנאמר עד בואי ולקחתי אתכם אל ארץ כארצכם… אבל ישראל ספרו בגנותה של ארץ ישראל כי מטו שוש אמרי שויא כי ארעין כי מטו עלמין אמרו כעלמין כי מטו שוש תרי אמרי על חד תרין.

Rashi there:

אבל ישראל, כי אגלינהו סנחריב ספרו בגנותה של ארץ ישראל, דכי מטו לאותו מקום ששמו שוש אמרו שויא לארעין זאת הארץ שויא לארצנו, וכשבאו למקום ששמו עלמין אמרו כי עלמין זה המקום שוה לירושלים שנקראת בית עולמים.

כשבאו למקום ששמו שוש תרי אמרו על חד תרין, כלומר זה יפה פי שנים כמקומנו, ועל שם כך נקראו כל אותן מקומות כך.

So, I can’t say Eretz Yisrael is worse than China. I can’t even say it’s the same. All I can say, in this view, is Eretz Yisrael is better… Haven’t they heard of the custom referring to Vilna as the “Jerusalem of Lithuania“, and so on, as a term of endearment?

Sounds like non-stop Hasbarah to me!

The sin of the spies constituted many things, including denying prophecy, etc. It seems the terms “Lashon Hara” is metaphorical, referring to Hashem, himself. I think the Chafetz Chaim hardly mentions Dibas Ha’aretz (the Sin of the Spies) as practical halacha (I can’t find it now).

The truth is, there is no proof for any of this in this Gemara, because everything depends on the context. איכא דניחא ליה בבקעה ואיכא דניחא ליה בהר. Even if I’m wrong, the Chazon Ish used the same logic in response to those who tried to derive halachic rulings (Rabbi Hirsch’s Austritt, various interactions with the incipient state of Israel) from Chazal’s homilies on keeping our distance from the wicked.