The Stick

Most of us are familiar with the moshal that compares the way we react to the events in our lives, be they big or small, to a dog barking at a stick being wielded against it.

A dog is not blessed with a wide angle view of life, so it goes after the stick because it is incapable of seeing past it in terms of a cause and effect cheshbon.  We are, Boruch Hashem, cut from different cloth in that we clearly apprehend that everything in this world comes from Hashem.

So why is it that we are constantly angry at the stick?

Unlike the dog, we never see Anyone holding it.  If we did, we would no doubt do a lot better than a dog in zeroing in on the cause of our discomfort.  The “sticks” in our lives are physically detached from the One that wields them, and as a consequence thereof, we all too often fail to fill in the spiritual blanks in our field of visual understanding.  And so we lash out at the stick, be it a spouse, a neighbor, a flat tire, a boss or a migraine, missing the essential point of the encounter in the process.

And as Rav Brevda tells us, we also make the mistake of thinking that this is a world of smooth sailing and menucha, so when we hit a speed bump, the proper Torah hashkafa relevant to the situation at hand may well find itself on the endangered species list leaving all eyes locked on the “stick” bereft of the means of dancing around it.

But there is yet another reason.

The bomb craters of life notwithstanding, most of our “stick” encounters come in small doses, and Rabbi Lazer Brody tells us that we terminally fail to see the brocha inherent in these tiny tribulations, which he says are worth their weight in gold.

Where we see a stick we should be seeing a life preserver.

Instead of being upset at the petty irritations that have come our way we should be makker tov to Hashem for sending them.  Tosfos in Nedarim lists the four greatest requests that we should be asking Hashem, and one of them is that we shouldn’t be blind.

So what do you think about when your ophthalmologist tells you that you need stronger glasses?  The inconvenience of the visit and how much it cost you to park the car or that you can see, and when that prescription is filled you will see even better?

You sprained your ankle, and it’s in a cast?  A real bummer, isn’t it?  Are you fixated on your sprained ankle to the exclusion of being makker tov to Hashem for the fact that you don’t have diabetes and have not lost any toes on that foot?

It is an emotional imperative that we see Hashem in the “stick” of the tiny tribulations that invariably get to know us on a first name basis.  As Rabbi Brody relates, these tiny tribulations can run interference for us only if we accept them with a smile and emunah, and if we do so we are spared tribulations that are 5,000 times worse.

Truth be told, the moshal of the dog barking at the stick is somewhat anemic because a dog, for its part, is not endowed with the ability to connect the dots.

What exactly is our excuse?

Samayach B'Chelko

It’s one who is satisfied with his lot, is it not?

But Chazal teach us that if a person has one hundred he wants two hundred. And in another place they tell us that a person doesn’t leave this world with half his desires fulfilled.

So who then is really samayach b’chelko?

Rabbi Yaakov Weinberg z”l, explains that when Pirkei Avos asks, Who is Rich, it is a major mistake to translate it as one who is satisfied with his lot, because he says that one who is satisfied with his lot is dead.

Who is Rich more correctly refers to someone who takes pleasure and joy in his life.  He would like a little bit more to be sure, but he’s not suffering without it.  He is samayach b’chelko because he is joyous over his lot in life, though not necessarily satisfied with it.  His focus is qualitative, not quantitative for his thoughts are permeated with what he’s blessed with as opposed to the raw calculation of what he’s got, which might lead one to pine for what he’s missing.

Rabbi Yaakov Weinberg z”l, asks:  So how does one achieve the character trait of joyousness anyway?

We create it.

And with this we part company with the nations of the world, who look to outside stimuli to forge their happiness, because joyousness is not something external to ourselves.  It’s not to be found hither and yon in what comes to us from the outside world. It is rather in how we deal internally with life’s externalities that will define the parameters of our joyousness.

Rabbi Weinberg is telling us here that the essential ingredient of our happiness is not what happens to us but rather what happens within us.

It’s all about whom and what we are, and we write our own ticket.  And if we write it in indelible ink, then our sense of joy will be such that even when we suffer pain in any of its manifestations, be it physical, emotional, spiritual, financial, etc., we will not lose sight of the essential goodness of our lives.

One who is samayach b’chelko may well be dissatisfied with the pain in his life, but he doesn’t allow that pain to take over and become the center of his life.  The pain can be pain, but it doesn’t take way from the joyousness inherent in a life in which everyday blessings are counted like pearls. 

Why Me?

When was the last time you asked Hashem this question when things were going well for you?  Better yet, when was the first time?

But when our expectations take a left at the fork of Life’s road rather then the anticipated right, Why Me is the de rigueur kasha on what we perceive to be somewhat of an unjust breakdown in the order of things.

Virtually all of us suffer to one degree or another from Life Expectation Syndrome, which can be loosely defined as, something that usually happens is expected to continue happening with no questions asked.  

The fact is that most babies are born without incident so we expect no less.  For every car stuck on the Long Island Expressway with a flat or worse hundreds of cars are passing by unscathed (ever so slowly) toward their destinations.  And so on for every facet of our lives including ruchniyas.

And so we consider it quite natural to seek a normative existence, and in doing so we bottom out on a humongous speed bump called reality because in Hashem’s world, which just happens to be the only game in town, nothing that takes place should be considered as normal.

Rav Dessler tells us in Michtav Me-Eliyahu that the difference between nes and teva is the frequency of occurrence.  The caterpillar that morphs itself into a butterfly is nothing less than Techias Ha Meisim, and yet, our collective jaw doesn’t drop upon beholding this phenomenon because due to its predictability and frequency we consider it to be a phenomenon of Nature.

But Rav Dessler’s differentiation between nes and teva was only meant as a labeling mechanism for these two phenomena, for in reality the two are actually one because everything is a miracle.

You woke up today?  Is this not a miracle of miracles?  You were for all practical purposes dead because a person can’t live without a neshama and you didn’t get yours back until you woke up.

So did you say why me?

And even the Modeh Ani that you did say, when you said the words, were you makker tov to Hashem for yet another opportunity to make something of yourself or were you too preoccupied with yawning?

Life Expectation Syndrome has no application in a world where everything is a miracle because miracles follow no order of things within the realm of our understanding.  That they seem to is only to cover up the fact that they are, in fact, miracles.

If we truly understood that everything that happens to us is a nes, and I mean everything,  then our entire worldview would flip one hundred and eighty degrees, and we would be amazed when things went well, and not the other way round.  It may be one thing to expect to ride a Life merry-go-round that has been in motion forever, but it’s something else altogether to expect a nes to be done for one’s self as if it were an entitlement.  

And if we’re not so brazen as to take nissim for granted as we presently do Nature, then when things occasionally go south in our lives we won’t say why me because having no expectations, we will have no kashes.

And having no expectations, there can be only one response when one of life’s miracles puts a smile on our face:

Why me?

Living With Hashem

In EmunahSpeak: The Call of the Hour  we said that Rav Wolbe states in his sefer, Ali Shur, that emunah is a reality, not a concept.  It is the purpose of creation and the foundation of existence.  It’s our life preserver to which we cling with a vice like grip. 

And it’s also as close as we’ll ever get to Jewish body armor because a life with Emunah is a life that is not affected by death, by difficulty or by challenge.  There is always the knowledge that it’s with Hashem, and therefore it can’t be that bad.

In fact, Emunah is actually a way of thinking.  As Rav Wolbe also teaches us in Ali Shur, a person who looks at the world with the mindset of Emunah looks for the Hashgacha Pratis in everything.  He sees Hashem in “Nature” and in every historical event.

And as Rabbi Moshe Hauer puts it, if Emunah is the way we see the world in the tog taiglach of our every day existence then it will be there for us when we really need it, and the proposition that we are all going to need it sooner than soon was, after all, the premise of EmunahSpeak: The Call of the Hour.

Rabbi Hauer also tells us as per Rav Kook that the perspective of Emunah is the opposite of blind faith.  It’s a perspective of being able to see things with a perfect clarity because Emunah is not an intellectual conclusion.  It’s not even a regesh.  There is a live connection (Neshama) inside each of us that is part of Hashem that Hashem blew into us.  And that piece that is in us knows that there is Hashem out there.  It feels it and it knows it viscerally.  Navuah (Navi) means to be able to see Hashem, and Emunah is a piece of navuah.

It comes out that a ba’al Emunah is a person that knows with a certainty that Hashem is here, which culminates in a palpable feeling of living with Hashem.  Given Emunah’s spiritual essence,  he eschews the use of physical eyes and material yardsticks because a person can’t achieve Emunah in this world if he is holding up Hashem to material tests, nor should we measure our success in life by our physical experiences which tend to collide with Emunah.

Emunah also brings us to an understanding that this is not a happenstance world in which things occur solely by chance in an unending procession of “accidents.”

Appearances aside, we are not stuck in situations, we are placed in them. We are where we need to be.  The question asked by the ba’al Emunah is not, why this is happening to me, but rather what should I do now that it is.

The tachliss of this world as seen through eyes of Emunah is to turn fate into destiny.

Rabbi Hauer adds that when you walk around looking for Hashem, Hashem meets your gaze.  By seeking Hashem, and only Hashem, you are acknowledging Ein Od Milvado, that there is nothing other than Hashem.  And those who believe Ein Od Milvado in their bones will be provided protection when, in difficult times, they say Ein Od Milvado to maintain presence of mind.

Such are the rewards of those who walk this earth with the palpable feeling of living with Hashem.

Kol Isha

In "We’re Out of Stock" we ventured a few thoughts as to what may be driving at least part of the Shidduchim “crisis.”  Right or wrong, the focus of that piece was on a tevadik explanation of how we got to where we are, which for all too many girls is nebach nowhere r”l.  But tevadik explanations, as insightful as they may be on occasion, can not be expected to caress the bottom line of a problem that is solely a function of nissim without a shmeck of teva in sight.

It’s no less a nes for a top Brisker bochur, whose father happens to have more money than Bill Gates, to marry a Bais Yaakov princess charming than for a thirty-five year old dirt poor adopted girl in a wheel chair from twice divorced parents to marry a thirty-six year old Talmud Chochim who amazingly seemed to appear out of nowhere.  It’s all one and the same. 

Nissim only come in one size.  They're not easier nor are they harder.  They just are.

So how exactly does one caress the bottom line of a nes anyway? 

For this particular nes, the nes that will morph the angst laden tears of the Bnos Yisroel, both individually and collectively, into a baby’s tear trickling ever so slowly half way down his cheek, in juxtaposition to the smile induced by his mother’s soft kiss, we should be davening, and that’s pretty much all we should be doing.  After all, if it's all about nissim then it’s all about davening.  How else should one throw the Divine Presence into gear?

But isn’t everything a function of nissim?  As we said in EmunahSpeak: So Who are You Relying on…, doing one’s hishtadlus amounts to nothing more than answering “present” at Life’s roll call because Hashem does 100% of everything, not the 97% you didn’t do.

If everything is nissim, then what’s so special about the nissim inherent in the shidduchim process, and why is davening the only ticket to a destination, one stop past the shidduchim “crisis?”

The everyday nissim that Hashem causes to be subsumed into Nature are overwhelmingly not a contradiction to Teva, and that’s exactly the reason so few of us can see the Yad Hashem in the natural order of things.  At the other extreme are the Imahos who were more than barren.  They were actually born without reproductive organs.  The nissim that were done on their behalf didn’t go lost in Nature; they went into Nature’s face instead.  But no less miraculous was the means by which their nissim were put into play.  Hashem wanted to hear their davening.  And to that end He put the existence of Klal Yisroel on hold until such time as their davening broke Divine glass.

And it’s no different by shidduchim, or rather by the nes of shidduchim, because Hashem wants to hear the davening of those in this generation who are seeking a shidduch no less than He wanted the davening of the Imahos.  And like the Imahos, those who are davening for a shidduch are in essence davening for the ultimate fruits of that shidduch, the only substantive difference being the time frame, with davening for a shidduch commencing a little further upstream in the process. 

So it comes out that today’s Bnos Yisroel are standing in the shoes of the Imahos; they are also davening for children and they are not being answered.  But the problem, as such, is that while they may be standing in the shoes of the Imahos, vis á vis their respective madreigas it will take the davening of our entire generation (men included) to hit the high note of the Tefilla of the Imahos.

Not only does it qualitatively make sense that it would take all of us to replicate in some fashion the effect that their davening had in Shomayim, but it happens to be quantitatively seicheldik also.

After all, the Imahos were actually their entire generation, each one in her own Dor.

We asked above: “If everything is nissim, then what’s so special about the nissim inherent in the shidduchim process?”

According to Rashi, even though all of Creation was set in place before Man was created, it was as if had been flash frozen.  Nothing happened until Adam davened for rain, and when he did his tefillos threw the whole Teva into motion.

Man  preceded the Teva as we know it; a Teva that is a study in divinely inspired animation. Therefore, a shidduch whose bottom line goal is to replicate the creation of Man is somewhat unique in its relation to nissim because it is part and parcel of a world that was nissim and only nissim without any Tevadik distractions.

Gotcha!

As the saying goes, or rather used to go, there’s nothing certain in this world except death and taxes.

And just because some of us have managed to somewhat dance around the latter there shouldn’t be any illusions as regards the former.  Be it in a hundred and twenty or next week, it’s going to be, period, so what better time to reflect upon this most uncomfortable of life’s imponderables than between Rosh HaShana and Yom Kippur.

While we all know the Chazal that says that the walls of a person’s house will testify for/against an individual after his temporary visa is revoked in this world, maybe we think we’ll get some rebuttal time so it doesn’t shake us up the way it should.  And what about the fact that every minute of one’s life is recorded and that you will have to suffer through the unedited replay of your entire existence here?  Even a low life can take solace in the fact that his suffering will be tempered as all of his simchas and other “good” moments of his life paraded in front of him.

So as we approach the day when the stenciled judgment we received on Rosh HaShana will be carved in stone, what exactly will put the fear of G-d in us?  What will give us pause to consider the consequences of our future actions if we are fortunate enough to have a future when the curtain comes down on this year’s Din at the close of Yom Kippur?

It’s well known that sometimes less is actually more, and we see this clearly in many forms of communication.

Have you ever noticed that in order to get someone’s attention, sometimes it is more effective to lower your voice rather than to raise it?  And even in cases where you already have someone’s attention, a stronger point can often be made by suddenly dropping your voice a few decibels.

And what’s true for sound based communication is no less true for the visual arts. 

Every photographer and filmmaker works in color today, and yet when a certain point has to made, or a unique attribute of a product needs to be emphasized, or a special mood needs to be created, it’s plain old black and white that’s called upon to highlight the desired effect in juxtaposition to a color saturated world.

And along the same lines, the old wisdom that a picture is worth a thousand words has held up nicely in a motion addicted world, with a photo being a classic example of less actually being more, and herein lies something that can go a long way in putting our ultimate imponderable in its proper perspective.

None of us needs to hear a recital of the names of those who were taken from us this summer under the strangest of circumstances without the slightest warning because their names are already seared in our collective memory.  Throw into this tragic mix all of the fatal automobile crashes, strokes, heart attacks, and other sundry fatalities and we have evidence aplenty that no man knows his time.

Fuhgeddabout the talking walls and the one hundred and twenty year long unedited video of your life.  Your whole life will be reduced to one split second, the split second just before you check out of this world.

The last move you ever make will be frozen forever in a Heavenly snapshot.  And as was said above, no man knows his time, which effectively means that whatever you’re doing now may be the last thing you’ll ever do.

You’ll only get one picture, and for any given word of loshon hora, or for any nasty word to your spouse, or for any lack of tznius etc. the last sound you hear could be CLICK.

Gotcha!

All That’s Left is the Emes

Abraham Lincoln said that you can fool some of the people all of the time, all of the people some of the time, but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.  His aphorism lets us know that while the emes can be successfully suppressed and subverted beyond recognition, it can’t be entirely eradicated.

This observation has stood the test of time for over one hundred and fifty years, despite the Left’s best efforts to prove it wrong, because it speaks to that spark of emes that is embedded in every human being, and as such it is very much connected to Rosh HaShana.

A person can spend his entire existence in a society like the old Soviet Union, in which emes and sheker have been inverted.  In such a place every word in the media, everything taught in the schools, every pronouncement of the government, and every societal value are all sheker.  And yet, if a shtick emes, in whatever form, creeps in from the outside world, be it even once in a lifetime, it will more likely than not be recognized for what it is.

Such is the power of emes. 

One can “successfully” run from the emes most of the year but not the whole year, because when the month of Elul comes a knocking at his door, a rational individual understands intuitively that he can no longer hide.  After all, with the Sifrei Chaim and Sifrei Mahves opened to his page, where exactly would he seek shelter?

Shiras Devorah, after reprising the death of the Canaanite general, Sisera, by the hand of Yael, then shifts to the image of Sisera’s mother waiting for Sisera to return home from the battle.  In the course of her vigil she gives out one hundred cries, and Tosfos in Mesechta Rosh Hashana quotes the Chazal that says that we blow one hundred kolos (sounds) with the shofar on Rosh HaShana for those one hundred cries:

Through the window she gazed; Sisera’s mother peered through the window.  “Why is his chariot delayed in coming?  Why are the hoofbeats of his carriages so late?” The wisest of her ladies answer her, and she, too, offers herself responses.  “Are they not finding [and] dividing the loot?  A comely [captive], two comely [captives], for every man; booty of colored garments for Sisera, booty of colored embroidery, colored, doubly embroidered garments for the necks of the looters.” 

These possukim reveal to us that Sisera’s mother is worried about her son’s fate, but that her friends and she herself make up excuses to explain away the delay of Sisera’s return.

Finally the truth sinks in that Sisera is not coming home.

Rabbi Shalom Rosner tells us that Rosh HaShana is about when all of the rationales in our life fall away and the emes hits us in the face.  We start out with all kinds of excuses:  I can’t do this or that, I’m too busy, this is not who I really am, this is not my derech etc.  We can pretty much fool ourselves most of the time, but not all of the time.  Especially not this time of the year.

We’re all looking out the “window” to a wishful thinking world of our own creation until, poof, we finally see ourselves, and at that point all our excuses dissipate like the morning mist and all that’s left is the emes.

It’s Okay with Me

There are any number of ways to explain Bitochon, but at its core it simply means that Hashem has a Master Plan, and that every facet of that Master Plan is subjectively good, as applied to you and every other you walking the Earth at any given time.

Objectively, however, as seen in the here and now of where one’s two feet are currently planted, it may be a different story, at least for Litvaks.

Whereas the Baal Shem Tov and those that follow in his derech in our time (i.e. the Lubavitcher Rebbe, z”l, the Biala Rebbe et al.) hold that our bitochon, as viewed in real time, should be that everything will turn out for the best (vet zein gut), the Chazon Ish, z”l on the other hand,  doesn’t promise us a rose garden.  In his view, which has become mainstream hashkafa in the Litvishe yeshivas, we should certainly have bitochon that the situation at hand could turn our way (ken zein gut) but we shouldn’t be focused on a fairytale ending.

We recognize that things that we perceive of as bad happen sometimes, and in extreme circumstances (such as terminal illnesses and the like) they happen more often than not.  Stage four cancer patients on respirators who are severely jaundiced because their kidneys are shutting down are not expected to check themselves out of the hospital to attend a chasana fifteen hundred miles away.  The only checking out for them is to the next world because the truth is that they die close to one hundred per cent of the time.

The problem is that while most of us understand, as an intellectual proposition, that Hashem has a Master Plan and that everything that transpires in this world is subsumed within it, the route this understanding takes from the brain to the kishkes follows the proverbial slow boat to China.

When we inevitability hit one of life’s more serious speed bumps, the amelioration of which cannot be expected to be found within Teva, we dutifully remember that Hashem has a Master Plan and that sometimes our tefillahs are answered with a resounding NO, and, Boruch Hashem, we accept it.  And in cases of death, we say Boruch Dayan HaEmes with kavanah, acknowledging that Hashem wasn’t away for the weekend.  He was on the job, and that nothing that happened passed undetected under His radar.  We grin (maybe) and bear it to be sure, but we are often at a loss as to how to emotionally relate and dialogue with it at street level.

For this we need Rabbi Mordechai Schwab, z”l.

Rabbi Paysach Krohn relates that he visited Rabbi Schwab when he was very ill.  He could no longer put on tefillin nor could he even daven.  Rabbi Schwab could see from Paysach Krohn’s face that he was empathizing with his inability to do the basic avodas Hashem that we all take for granted.

So he set him straight.

“If Hashem wanted me to put on tefillin now then He would provide me with the ability to do so.  And if he wished to hear my tefillahs he would endow me with that capability also.” And then Rabbi Schwab gave over something that represents the paradigm of how we should speak to our issurim.  He said, “The way we have to look at life is that whatever happens to us say to Hashem:

‘If that’s what you want, Hashem, it’s okay with me.’”

Tefillah Chronicles

Reflections on the DIVINE Dialogue

Three steps back, a perfunctory nod to the left followed by one to the right, a few mumbled words facing forward and you’re but two words away from shlepping through yet one more Shemoneh Esrei.  Those two words are V’eemru ahmain, and at this point Shlomo Zalman Auerbach z”l suggests that one reflect on the kind of Amidah he just davened.

Reflect?

Most of us, nebach, were mentally past the last two words before we even uttered the first two.  So now with but two words to go to the finish line we’re supposed to slam on the brakes to bring the express to a halt and reflect, as if we were philosophers, on the davening we just blew through at warp speed.

What’s so important about these two words anyway?

If people actually understood that they were addressing melachim (one good and one bad), and asking them to say AMEN to the nineteen pit stops that served as way stations during their five minute trek across the expanse of their spaced out universe, they might be too ashamed to finish the Shemoneh Esrei.

More specifically, we are asking the melachim to sign off on our ruminations over the stock market in Boreich Aleinu, our reflections on the Yankees in Shema Koleinu, the deal that slipped through our fingers in Re’ay, and the deal we hope to make today in Modim, to name but a few of our imaginative wanderings.

Okay, so most of us are somewhere else when we’re davening Shemoneh Esrei, and we’re not that picky about it either.  Apparently, anyplace will do, the only criteria being that we wind up “there” as opposed to “here.”

The irony, of course, is that those who are focused on their davening are also someplace else.  Proper d’veikus and kavanah means going to another planet.  Those who do it right aren’t here during that time either.

It’s quite unbelievable when you think about it.  We call it Tefillah B’Tzibur but everyone’s “there” in one form or the other, except for the two malachim.  They’re here, and they are waiting for those last two words.  The good news, however, is that they aren’t all that makpid.

If your mind took you to a place where you talked to Hashem, they will answer your Amen with one of their own.  But if you drifted off to a place (or rather places) where the whole world talked to you, fugetaboutit.

You’ll get another chance to change addresses at Mincha.

A Real Deal Teshuva (2)

According to the Rambam, the mitzvah of Teshuva is one of growth, and accordingly in EmunahSpeak: A Real Deal Teshuva we laid out Teshuva as a growth process in very broad strokes.  But the devil’s in the details.

Only a small portion of Teshuva is about crying and being sorry.  It is more of “I would like to be this” as opposed to “I’m sorry I was that,” not that you shouldn’t be.  You certainly should, but the emphasis should be positive rather than negative, looking forward instead of glancing backwards.  It’s about you and your future, not your past.

And when you consider that the reason we’re in this world to begin with is to grow, then Teshuva, accurately viewed, becomes a reset button for life’s purpose.

Real growth is a function of time and effort with its tempo set to slow and easy in the context of both Elul and Teshuva.  If you build a roof in Elul in lieu of a foundation, instead of growth you’ll end up with a levitation act which will predictably succumb to the laws of spiritual gravity.

And the Teshuva driven growth of Elul speaks of substance, as in a lot of substance as opposed to very little form.  Like the Chofetz Chaim said: “It’s the person whose heart hits him a little bit who will get a good kvittel, not the one who hits his heart.”

The growth inherent in Teshuva applies across the board because there are no growth-free zones in life.  You have a sweet tooth induced poor diet?  That’s prime time grist for the Teshuva mill, as are your deleterious choices in music, reading matter, and anything else that you would be embarrassed to stand by when you eventually have to give a din v’cheshbon after a hundred and twenty years of playing hide and seek with your purpose here.

And as we also said in EmunahSpeak: A Real Deal Teshuva:  “it’s not enough to do Teshuva for the sins we have done. We also have to do Teshuva for who we are if we’re not who we should be, because a lot of life’s challenges reside within, in the form of bad character traits, which also require Teshuva,” and to this we’ll even add attitudes.

“You got angry,” asks Rabbi Yitzchak Berkovits, “but controlled yourself?  Mazel tov! You’re a tzaddik, but you still have to do Teshuva for the fact that your adrenalin was pumped.”

And how exactly does one with gaiva problem grow out of it?

Rabbi Avraham Brussel says that you work to see the value of other human beings, and there is no such thing as a human being without value.  He derives this from a kal v’chomer as follows:  If it’s not only assur for a Jewish king to even think that he’s more valuable than an ordinary Jew, but in addition he is actually obligated to say that they are equal, so how can one Jew even entertain a passing thought that he is better than yenem?

To become great in the spirit of a Teshuva saturated Elul, adds Rabbi Brussel, you have to grow tall and your ability to see below you has to match your height lest you look down on another Jew as having less value, which is a severe crime and destroys the soul of a human being.

So who are you, growth wise, anyway?

In Elul you are what you want to be.  You are the sum total of all the aspirations and kavanas you have for growth in the ensuing year.  During the rest of the year, however, you are what you do on a daily basis, with the reality check of what you aspired to in Elul being what you do on a daily basis in Shevat.  If your growth was real enough to take root then it will still be around to blossom in Shevat.

If it was stunted, it won’t.

Small Stuff and Big on the Road to a Meaningful Life

So in this run up to Rosh HaShana 5772, what’s meaningful life anyway?

It is pretty much the opposite of what one would think because it has nothing necessarily to do with accomplishing BIG things, being a poster boy for gravitas or spending one’s time in nosebleed country gazing from the summit upon those with less than “meaningful pursuits.”

The heimishe version of meaningful life deals with the 95% that isn’t, as if it were, by not sweating the small stuff. 

Rav Yitzchak Berkovits tells us that “there is no such thing that is simply a nuisance to be gotten out of the way because everything that comes our way is either a challenge or a lesson.”  It is very important that we learn to deal with the mundane, with the mundane running the gamut from the volitional “small stuff” of our everyday existence (paying the bills, car pool and such) to Hashem’s “marching orders,” in the guise of the de rigueur vicissitudes of life that put in, what we perceive to be, an untimely and terminally inconvenient appearance, be it a car that doesn’t start, 23 inches of snow or a myriad of other unanticipated horrors guaranteed to trash our plans.

As we said in EmunahSpeak: PLAN B:

“Our self-absorption notwithstanding, the truth is that this is a theocentric world, which requires us to understand that what we propose to do is actually Plan B.  All that other stuff: the flats, the medical emergencies etc. is in reality Plan A, because it obviously reflects the Yad Hashem which is manifesting itself in our lives.

“It’s all a matter of focus.

“It’s all about looking at life’s curve balls as the real Plan A rather the ruination of what we thought was Plan A,” or as Rav Berkovits puts it, “if you really believe that Hashem sends everything, then the small stuff (of Plan A, that flies under the radar of our anticipations) is no less important” than what we perceive to be meaningful activity at any given time.

And given that the small stuff is part and parcel of our daily existence, shadowing us at every turn, the way in which we deal with it will govern whether or not we get our ticket punched for a successful life, as defined by how much real meaning will be subsumed into our “meaningful” lives.

Rav Berkovits tells us that if we do it right, and build from the “small stuff” as opposed to simply enduring it with a pasted on erzatz smile (which is also a madreiga), “then everything is meaningful because there is no goal of greatness that is not built from the bottom,” on its way to the top.  “And if you live for something meaningful Hashem will reward you with a meaningful Eternity.”

While patience laced with a positive attitude is usually all one needs to deal with the small stuff that hangs out on the lower end of meaningful life’s continuum, the big stuff at the higher end calls for a gut rehab.  The reason why our annual Rosh HaShana plans and goals are basically dead on arrival is because our ability to effectuate them is missing in action from the cheshbon.

And that’s why we keep spinning our wheels year after year with resolutions and plans meant to infuse our lives with meaning on the high end, all of which go nowhere.  Last year we took on to learn three hours a night, the year before we sincerely intended to get up every day for the Vasikan minyan, and this year mum’s the word because we’re not budging an inch from Sefer Chofetz Chaim.

“If your goals/plans", says Rav Berkovits, "do not include a systematic approach to changing you, and making you the kind of person that’s going to be able to bring them to fruition then it’s all worthless.”

This isn’t small stuff, and with Rosh HaShana approaching we should be sweating buckets.

A Real Deal Teshuva

Teshuva is not a once a year spiritual form of Pesach cleaning or something to be pulled out of the bull pen on the ruchniyas equivalent of rainy days, to level out the speed bumps that we invariably hit as we navigate our way through the minefield of life’s challenges.

And, according to the Rambam, it’s not enough to do Teshuva for the sins we have done. We also have to do Teshuva for who we are if we’re not who we should be, because a lot of life’s challenges reside within, in the form of bad character traits, which also require Teshuva. 

Teshuva is a growth process.  It’s the growth process for which we were created.  And according to the Vilna Gaon it’s even more than that.  The Gra says that Teshuva is the process of living in and of itself.  It’s not about taking on some more things and refraining from others as if culled from a checklist of dos and don’ts.

       

The bottom line here is that we don’t just change our actions and call it a day. 

It’s not simply that yesterday I did, while now I no longer do, but rather that yesterday I was, while today I no longer am.  The growth process of Yom Kippur, says Rav Yitzchok Berkowits, is about changing you.

Change your desires.  Change your ideals.

He also says that Hashem invented Teshuva to allow today’s bechira to re-arrange the effect of past free will decisions, which is another way of saying that when you take on not to do something anymore it’s only the real deal, Teshuva wise, if the you of your aspirations has changed to the extent that when faced with yesterday’s tests, as woven into the situations, environment, and understandings that obtained then, you would have been different enough to have survived.

And then there’s the credit of Rabbeinu Yona.

Credit?

Rabbeinu Yona says that once you have seriously accepted upon yourself to make a real Teshuva, it is accounted to you as if you already did it.  You have activated something that will carry you forward.  As Rav Berkowits puts it, “it’s a post dated Teshuva that can be cashed out now.”

And that means that anyone who takes on in Elul to do a real deal certifiable Teshuva, will have a brand new life license for the coming year, with all points removed, to put on the table when the roll is called on Rosh HaShana.

A Divinely Pulled Punch

Hurricane Irene or Tropical Storm Irene or just a rainy day named Irene depending on where one lives and the condition of one’s basement, has (almost) come and gone leaving most of us a little wetter, no wiser, and maybe even less so.

While there was plenty of water to go around in upstate New York, Northern New Jersey, and Vermont to mention but a few of the waterlogged venues visited by Irene, these and most of the others severely affected by the storm were victims of fresh water flooding courtesy of voluminous amounts of rain that overwhelmed storm sewers and sent local rivers over their banks.

The flooding in parts of Westchester County was such that if not for the occasional sighting of a guardrail ever so slightly poking out above the water line, it would have been impossible to distinguish the Saw Mill River Parkway from the Saw Mill River.

On the other hand, the threatened Storm Surge that put to flight thousands of residents of the South Shore of Long Island and forced the evacuation of the entire Rockaway Peninsula failed to significantly materialize, and as a result my neighbors and I still have where to live, Boruch Hashem.

  

In the aftermath of Irene,Weatherdom, by means of satellite tracking, high speed computers, and specialized software modeling, all of which comprise the heart and soul of weather forecasting, has every answer to any conceivable question as to what did or did not happen, storm wise, to the New York Metropolitan area between Friday and Sunday the week before last.

It’s all a matter of timing.

After the fact, we are treated to cutting edge sophisticated analysis.  And before the fact, like when it might count for something, one could do just as well by flipping a coin.  It’s the high tech version of drawing the bull’s eye around the arrow wherever it lands. 

It’s bad enough when the Weatherman attempts to explain away weather in general and Hurricane Irene in particular in the language of teva.  But as insufferable as the Weatherman’s teva babble may be to the ears of those whose heads are screwed on according to the Manufacturer’s specifications, it’s beyond inexcusable when those of us who profess to see through the teva smokescreen begin to think and speak in the tevadik language by which Weatherdom and the rest of the secular world defines its existence.

As I look out across the street to the peaceful ocean beyond I am less troubled about reports of another hurricane forming south east of the Bahamas that will put the entire coast from North Carolina to New England definitely at risk than I am by the general response to Irene, or rather lack thereof. 

In advance of the storm, some of us went to the Catskills, some to Queens, others to Brooklyn, and a number of us sought refuge in Monsey.

But where did Hashem go?

To hear people talk, one would think that at the same time many of us were packing out of the area in a hurry, Hashem was also heading for the high ground to points north and west of the city.

While most of us correctly see the Yad Hashem in devastating manifestations of “Nature” we seem to have a blind spot with the flip side of the equation which, in the absence of the predicted devastation, leads all too many of us to see no more than another "mistake" by the Weatherman, and "mistakes" by the Weatherman tend to preclude the perception of a hatzala which in turn is not particularly conducive to a teary eyed Modim.

The weather people tell us that in the last twenty years or so they have made great advances in tracking violent storms, and indeed, the predicted path of Irene was almost spot on to the tract the storm actually took.  Hashem allows them to follow His Shadow around as He flashes them the picture He wants them to see, which is accurate at its inception.  And then, not being bound by the teva that is driving the computer models that are trying to make sense of the storm, He does as He pleases.

Had Hashem stuck with the original picture of Irene that He revealed to the weather satellites, the storm would have whacked us pretty good.  But at the end of the day rather than devastating most, if not all of the kehillas stretching from Baltimore to Boston, He withdrew His Hand and threw water in our face instead.

And all we saw was rain.

Who Do You Put in the Center of Your Picture?

Reflections on the DIVINE Dialogue

No small question, this.

When we’re talking tefillah, Rabbi Dovid Gottlieb says that there are three ways in which we can frame the canvas of our life.

While the what of tefillah (let’s say good health and parnossa) denotes the substantive basis of our requests, our concern here is with the how of tefillah, which bespeaks of the way we approach Hashem in our thrice daily Q and (hopefully positive) A.

We can choose to put ourselves front and center, and title the picture, ME, as in only ME.  And if we so choose, that’s the picture that will be before our eyes when we daven as opposed to that other one.  In such a scenario our tefillah will track the picture we have created, and the thrust of our bakoshas will be, “give me (good health and parnossa) because I want.”  Not a blockbuster of an argument to be sure, as we previously noted in EmunahSpeak: The King and I, but as we said above, the weakness as such is in its presentation, not its essence.

But instead of pushing our way into the center of the picture, we can choose to move a bit to one side or the other and leave the bulk of the center for Hashem, thereby morphing ME into Hashem and ME.  And even though we are making a request identical to the one we made in the guise of MR. ME (good health and parnossa), in the context of this “picture” we are beseeching Hashem for a means to serve Him.

It’s all in the asking.

All of the things that one asks for should be for the purpose of serving Hashem.  “Give me a means (good health and parnossa) to serve you better.”  We are servants who are simply asking for a better tool to do a better job, and that is why we can express ourselves as servants of Hashem although we are asking for something.

And then there is the third way to frame our picture.

Rabbi Gottlieb says in the name of the Nefesh HaChaim that we have to understand that transgression hurts Hashem.  Every time we perform a transgression we are causing the Shechina to scream.  As such, the essential fear of transgression is not the fear of punishment, but rather the fear of causing Hashem pain which is something that we can’t stand.  Moreover, Hashem also shares our “pain” in all of its manifestations, and herein lies an opportunity for greatness for the very few who will choose to remove themselves entirely from the picture in deference to Hashem and say with a lev shalom, “take away my pain because I know it gives You pain.” 

Those on this rarified level entreat Hashem by saying, “give me (good health and parnossa) because it hurts You not to give me.”

In the first of Rabbi Gottlieb’s three approaches to framing our picture we put ourselves in the center and say “gimmie,” which is for our benefit.  In the second, which is a very high madreiga, we practically remove ourselves from the picture in favor of Hashem, and say “give me” so that we may benefit Him. 

In the third, Hashem is center stage in the picture, and we say “give me” solely for His benefit. 

Who do you put in the center of your picture?

Red Alert!

On Motzoi Shabbos Parshas Eikev, Rabbi Lazer Brody posted the following news update on his LazerBeams blog:

My beloved city of Ashdod has been under siege this morning.

The first Red Alert siren was at 5:45 AM - we could here two muffled explosions from about a mile outside of town in an open area.

The second Red Alert was at 7:45 AM; I was praying Shacharit with the Melitzer Rebbe's minyan. Again, we heard another muffled explosion from about a mile outside of town, once more in an open area.

The third Red Alert was at 8:14 AM; this time we heard two strong explosions and a third which made the floor shudder. The second explosion was a GRAD missile that landed about 800 meters from my home in the courtyard of the "Lev Simcha" Gerrer Yeshiva. At this time, we know of two very seriously injured and 8 more with light shrapnel wounds. The third was a miracle - a GRAD rocket that went through the roof of a Gerrer Synagogue and crashed through the floor in the middle of morning prayers, but didn't explode! The magnitude of this miracle is mind-boggling - one shudders to think what would have happened if it had exploded."
  
For those living in the environs of Israel’s southern coastal plain, a Red Alert is not to be trifled with. When the sirens go off everyone goes to a shelter without being told.

An obvious no-brainer, is it not?

The truth is that the odds of the rocket hurting anyone in general are statistically low, while the odds of any specific person suffering an injury or worse are beyond extremely low.  Nevertheless, anyone with an ounce of sense seeks a place of safety.

So if it’s all a matter of common sense then how come so few of us run for shelter when the shofar sounds the Red Alert of Elul? 

And we’re not talking statistical probabilities here.  The Red Alert of Elul is all about the 100% life and death certainty of the Yom HaDin.  And yet, the stampede heading for cover toward Hashem’s gift of Teshuva is somewhat less than life threatening.

From this we learn that common sense is not all that common nor is it always sensible.

The give and take of our daily existence has been something of rocky road as of late.  Tragic murders committed by our own, terrorist murders committed by the usual suspects, the placement of what was once the world’s richest and greatest country on a road leading to a Third World existence, and a seemingly unending spectacle of the Ribbono Shel Olam’s koach as manifested in “Nature” all over the world, including a local appearance in the form of an earthquake, with the serious possibility of a devastating hurricane following in its wake only 72 hours down the road, have all taken a toll on our equilibrium.

In EmunahSpeak: Now We Know,  we said in response to the murder of little Leiby Kletzky, a"h:

“Everyone seems to be in agreement with the suggestion that we should all take on something, be it increased tzeddakah, a commitment to work on a given middah, Shimiras HaLoshon or anything else that will strengthen our Yiddishkeit." 

To that we added the following:

“Maybe we should be taking on two somethings rather than one.  The first, which is reactive to the potch, conveys our understanding that Hashem is very upset with us, our present confusion as to the details notwithstanding.

That second something is proactive and carries a simple message:

Please, Hashem, let there be no next time.”

In light of all the tragedies that have both subsequently befallen us and are presently hovering over us (Hashem should protect us) coupled with the very unraveling of the secure world we have known these past sixty plus years, “taking on something”  doesn’t quite hack it anymore.

Events have moved so rapidly that even the suggestion to take on “two somethings,” a suggestion which I thought was a big deal at the time (merely a month ago) doesn’t come close to addressing our predicament as it presently exists at street level.

The days where we could throw Hashem a bone so to speak and go about our business are over.

On Tisha B’Av I was zoche to hear Rabbi Paysach Krohn say something that can be applied to the situation at hand.  He said, "that there are no "one size fits all" solutions to what we lack as a community.  Rather, everyone has a unique knowledge of oneself and knows exactly what he or she needs to work on."

Sometimes the simplest things are in reality the most profound.

The Red Alert of Elul speaks to our heart not our ears, and given the tenor of the times in which we live, it requires each of us to put more than a little “something” on the table.  Taking our cue from Rabbi Krohn we all have to look within ourselves with laser like penetration at everything, not just something, and then take on as much as we can handle, each and everyone according to his strength of character.

Sanctified Banality

Reflections on the DIVINE Dialogue

We began EmunahSpeak: The King and I with:

“We are exhorted that our davening should not be an attempt to trigger a voice activated ATM machine.  On the other hand, we are told with equal authority that we should ask Hashem for everything, even a paperclip or a tissue.”

And ended with:

“All you have to do is ask, and you shouldn’t be bashful about it either.”

While we spoke there about what to daven for and why we should be davening, we didn’t dig too deeply into the why of the what, or simply put, why should we be asking for this stuff to begin with?

Which stuff?

Not the big stuff, to be sure.  We don’t have to ask why we should be asking for big things because we understand our taivas all too well for such a question.

Query:  What do bleach, baby wipes, napkins, salt, toothpaste, bottled water, toilet paper, pampers, soap, and plastic cups have in common?

For our purposes they are shopping list chevra, and boring ones at that.  So much so, that one would be hard pressed to conjure up a more banal representation of American consumerism, and yet these very humdrum everyday household items leave the realm of the physical and morph into the metaphysical when they are removed from the Costco shopping list and inserted into the tefillah because even the mundane things we ask for in the bakoshas are infused with kedusha.

This is the kind of stuff that gets Hashem’s attention, and the reason we are called upon to ask for it is because it is Hashem’s Will that we should be 100% dependent upon Him, which means that everything we think we need we have to ask for in tefillah if we want to get it through the proper channels.  The flip side of His Will that we should be 100% dependent on Him is that nothing works unless we daven for it.

It’s like a ruchniyess version of easy come easy go.

If you didn’t daven for something that came your way, what you see is what you get.  Think of it as Heavenly sent grey market goods that will end up somewhat south of the expected shelf life however one wants to define that.

The things that come to us by way of davening, however, have staying power because they come through the proper channels.  They were sanctified from the get go just for the asking.

"We’re Out of Stock"

Despite the plethora of columns and reader responses in heimishe publications seeking to identify the cause of the shidduchim crises, we are “cause wise” still collectively empty handed.  And what’s worse is that we have made Hashem part of the problem.

When a column carries a title something like: Too Many Girls and Not Enough Boys, we would suspect the writer of not having the proper Torah hashkafa if we didn’t already know that he was an erliche yid and a Ben Torah.

When we state that there are too many girls are we not in fact saying that Hashem messed up even if we don’t mean it as such?  Is there even one amongst us who would claim that Hashem made even one girl too many or one boy less than the perfect number? 

The whole demographic argument falls of its own weight because it simply isn’t Jewish.  Even if the numbers are correct, they are meaningless because this is not about a census in the Midbar.  We are talking shidduchim here which means nissim, not teva, and there is therefore no causal link between those dry numbers and the fact that there are many girls without a proper shidduch.

Okay, so Hashem can count, but we are also told that there is a problem because boys tend to marry girls that are several years younger than themselves.  The Gemara states openly that girls marry earlier than boys but omits any discussion of a shidduchim crisis.

And what are we to make of the maimorei Chazal that say that Hashem busies Himself making shidduchim and that making shidduchim is as hard as Krias Yam Suf?  Nice vertlach to say over at a sheva brochos?  Chazal use the language of nissim because shidduchim are a function of nissim.  In the same way that one should not count one’s money if not necessary so as to allow an opportunity for Hashem’s brocha to rest on it, we should not get too involved with the “numbers” vis á vis shidduchim so as to allow Hashem wiggle room to make it work out despite the numbers.  If we insist on running the numbers then Hashem will leave us to our own resources, and as the demographers tell us ad nauseum, the numbers don’t compute.

Moreover, if we buy the demography argument we can’t have it both ways.  If we are locked into the numbers in relation to all of the twenty-three year old boys marrying girls several years younger, what words of encouragement will we be able to give to the hundreds of girls above the age of twenty-five who are seeking a shidduch?  Sing them the siren song of Siata D’shmaya?  According to the numbers their marriage prospects are toast, plain and simple.

No, it’s not about numbers, and it’s not about money either.

The money argument is an effect of whatever is causing the supply/demand imbalance, not a cause.  If there were “too many boys” chasing fewer girls, the boys in question wouldn’t have the leverage to make the demands that are being made in some circles.  It’s only because there are fewer good boys (shvaker bochurim are not presumed to be in a position to make demands) due to a yet to be determined reason, that such demands are able to be made.

The smoothing out of the present imbalance will take some time, possibly a generation, hopefully less, assuming that we focus on the real problem, and not the sideshows like demographics and money issues.  Small comfort indeed to those girls who are looking for a shidduch today.

While attempts are being made to deal with the problem in the short term, most of these are simply stop gap measures that remove the problem from one girl and place it on another.  Whether we are talking about giving financial incentives to shadchonim or encouraging boys to marry older girls, if the boy in question would have gotten married in any case then we have only exchanged one girl for another with no net gain.  If a twenty-three year old boy marries a twenty-four year old girl instead of twenty-one year old girl that he otherwise might have been expected to marry, then that twenty-one year old girl may well be one day a twenty-four year old girl in need of a shidduch.  But with that said, even if in numerical terms these measures are a wash, they may be beneficial nonetheless because they target the girls that are most at risk of never finding a proper shidduch.

So how do we achieve a net gain?

With men at a premium, every man who never marries is a double tragedy, both for himself and for the unnamed girl that will never marry.  There are frum men, many of them Bnei Torah who make decent livings and, if given the chance would make fine husbands, and yet most of those who aren’t married by forty will never marry.

Why is no one talking about these people?

In our collective angst about the shidduchim crisis as it affects girls we have forgotten that there are hundreds of men similarly situated who would like to get married but can’t find a shidduch. 

Forget about those who have serious life issues.  We are talking here about normal men who simply gave up over time and became old, and most women would rather not marry at all than share married life with someone that doesn’t meet a minimal threshold of physical attractiveness however that may be defined in each case.

I personally know several such men in their forties and fifties who I also knew back in their twenties, and there was nothing wrong with them.  The worst that could be said about them then was that they may have been on the shy side.

What a waste.

The only thing keeping many of these men away from the chuppah is that they don’t feel like men and don’t carry themselves like men.  What they need is not yet another fruitless singles weekend or the name of a shaddchan who will want nothing to do with them.

They need a heimishe form of boot camp.

For some it’s already too late, but not for most.  Anyone who is otherwise normal, who will gird himself and commit to a serious regimen of physical training appropriate to his circumstances for three to six months, can be married within a year.  They will lose that “old” look and become younger again. They will feel better both physically and emotionally and regain long lost self esteem.  And the girls will react accordingly.  Although some physical fitness programs have already been set up, those with the greatest need, shidduchim wise, lack the necessary motivation to participate.

And as far as the below thirty group of unmarried girls is concerned, the amelioration of their situation will have to come from elsewhere.  I know a very bright girl out of town whose dream was to marry a Talmud Chochim who would learn in kollel many years.  When she wasn’t married by age thirty or so she married a working guy who was not much of a learner.  She basically gave up on her entire dream except for one thing.  Her husband’s hashkafa was rock solid and he agreed to give her a free hand with the children.   Moreover, he wanted each of his yet to be born sons to be the serious Ben Torah that he himself never was.  This girl gave up on the dream of marrying a Talmud Chochim for the opportunity to raise numerous Talmedei Chochimim.

The tragedy here is not that a very bright and serious Bas Torah had to marry beneath her station in life.  The tragedy, as such, is that there are not enough girls who think this way and boys like this to go around.

So if it’s not about numbers and not about money then why are hundreds of above average girls who were raised to marry Bnei Torah davening their hearts out into tear stained siddurim and tehillims without a shidduch in sight?  And to bang one more nail into the demographic coffin, most, if not all of these girls have gone on shidduchim, some of them numerous times, and more times than not they were the ones to say no, their desperation for a shidduch not withstanding. 

Reb Aharon Kotler z"l has been quoted as saying that if not for Rebbitzen Kaplan and her Bais Yaakov there could never have been a Lakewood Kollel.  From the vantage point of fifty years of hindsight viewed within the context of the current shidduch crisis, Reb Aharon’s statement is somewhat of an understatement.

Bais Yaakov in the United States and Canada has succeeded beyond anyone’s expectations in inculcating into our daughters the desire to live within the framework of a Torah lifestyle.  For many girls a Torah lifestyle has come to mean marrying a serious Ben Torah who wants to learn in kollel for a number of years. 

In her thirteen years or so in Bais Yaakov, even an average girl can be transformed into a Bas Torah who can think of nothing better than building a life with a Ben Torah.  No one tells her that it has to be this way.  It’s simply a natural manifestation of a mindset that has matured at an even pace from nursery until twelfth grade with seminary being simply the makeh b’patish.

A Bais Yaakov girl whose dream is to marry a Ben Torah has paid in advance by dedicating her youth to becoming a Bas Torah worthy of her dream, and in many cases that decision is made by Bas Mitzvah, if not before.  So what happens to so many of these girls?

It goes something like this:

“Hi, I’m here to claim my chosson.”

 

“What chosson?”

“You know.  The one I lived my whole life for.”

“Sorry, we’re out of stock.“

“We’re out of stock” is the leitmotif of the shidduchim crisis for all too many of our very best girls. 

The reason that there are so many of the finest girls of all ages not married is that Bais Yaakov as a whole has done a significantly better job than the Yeshivas.  Simply put, the Yeshivas haven’t produced enough serious Bnei Torah with good heads to marry all of the girls who are worthy to marry such boys, and therein lies a good piece of the shidduchim crisis as it impacts on many of our girls. Or as a prominent Rosh HaYeshiva told me, “It’s not that Bais Yaakov has done a better job than the Yeshivas, but rather that it’s much easier to produce a frum Bais Yaakov girl with a 99 average than a Talmud Chochim.  Either way the result is the same.

“We’re out of stock.”