Heads and Tales

To say that it’s been a difficult week already rises to the level of a cliché.

Within days of each other we buried three of our kedoshim, we were on the receiving end of a group blood libel, and now watch in shock and horror as some of our youth stand accused of acting like Arabs.

Yet, from all of this darkness emerges a ray or two of something brighter.

Here are the amazing words of Rav Yaakov Roza Shlit"a, the rabbi of the Zaka Organization, which he gave over in his role as rabbi of the Pathological Institute in the Institute for Law Health in Abu Kabir in reference to the condition of the bodies of the three martyred kedoshim:

It appears we can add regarding the merit the boys had for 18 days.  For the first time in my life, I came across such an occurrence where bodies that were lying in the field in hot weather for 18 days and no worms were found on their bodies. I can attest that on the 3 Kedoshim, no maggots overtook them. Besides the gunshot wounds, there were no signs of abuse or injuries. According to the doctors at the Institute for Law Health, there is no scientific explanation for this phenomenon.

And there was the plane ride that Rabbi Shay Shachter took to Eretz Yisroel, to represent the White Shul of Far Rockaway New York as its shliach tzibbur, for the mitzvah of nichum avilim. In a flight that can be modestly described as one long series of amazing occurrences, one, in particular, jumps out at me.  Rabbi Shachter tells us that:

In the middle of our flight, the stewardess began to speak with me, and we got into a very pleasant conversation. She then inquired when I was planning to return back to the States, and I said I would only be staying until after Shabbos, and I would then be returning home. She said "just four days? What kind of trip is that?" And I proceeded to tell her that I was sent by our shul to visit the three respective families, to deliver our beautiful letters, and to let them know that the affection of their beloved brothers and sisters in America, knows no bounds.

She immediately began to cry uncontrollably, and said, this kehillah of yours is something unique and something incredibly special. For you to get on the flight is no big deal; but this speaks volumes about your kehillah, that this is what they feel is important. This is where their hearts are, and this is what is occupying their minds - how incredible!

So the stewardess proceeds to make an announcement in tears, to a plane filled almost to capacity with Birthright groups; "Rabotai! We have on our plane, a shliach mitzvah! Come meet a Rabbi who was sent by his Kehillah to perform the great mitzvah of nichum aveilim, for those whom they feel are their own brothers and sisters! Our plane is safe because we have a shliach mitzvah on board with us!"

This led to a whole pandemonium, and after I finally got to sit down again, the young man next to me informs me that he is 26 years old, from Seattle Washington; he works in a national zoo, and is going to Israel for his first time.

He then proceeds to tell me that he was so inspired by our kehillah, and that he would like to borrow my Tallis to do a mitzvah that he has not done since his Bar mitzvah celebration (at age 16) in memory of the three precious neshamos.

I gladly gave him my tallis and then proceeded to ask him if he knew how to recite a bracha. He said "sure I do", and went on to take out a small piece of paper from his pocket, and recited the "Tefillas Haderech". This was the one and only Hebrew Bracha that he was familiar with, so he decided to recite it as well on the tallis.

He then asked to borrow my tefillin as well, which was followed by a long conversation with the other members of the plane, who were all taking pictures of this highly unusual scene.

But that wasn't it; after a few minutes he turns to me and says "Rabbi, I am so inspired, but in Seattle Washington we don't have these boxes. But I want to continue to do something special for these three precious souls, even after I return home. So what would you suggest I do?"

I was in complete shock, and overwhelmed with emotion, so someone in the next row turns to this tattooed and pierced young man and says, "Sweet Jew, if you promise me you will try and wear these Tefillin each and every day, I promise I will have a pair sent by FedEx to your home in Seattle Washington by the time you get back from Israel!" They then exchanged phone numbers and information, and the deal was done.

That was probably the high point, achdus wise, of the wave much of Klal Yisroel had been riding these past three anguish ridden weeks, but high points spell nothing but trouble for the Satan so he proceeded to pop the achdus bubble with a reminder why we’re all in Golus to begin with as we headed to the low point by way of the following remarks that were publicly made shortly after the funerals:

Who gave them a heter to live in a place like that, where they were living among known murderers?  Is there no place in Israel to live and to learn other than in a place of tremendous danger?

Who gave them permission for themselves and for their children to live and to learn Torah in the midst of the lion’s den?  To put their lives at risk, and the lives of their families at risk?  It is all because of the yetzer hara and the desire for Jews to inhabit the entire State of Israel.  It is Zionism for the mehadrin min hamehadrin.”

It is incumbent upon us to say that these parents are guilty.  They caused the deaths of their sons and they must do teshuva for their actions.”

Both the high and low points are two sides of the same coin.  The tzaddik who promised to buy a pair of tefillin for the not yet observant Jew from Seattle was a Satmar Chossid.  He’s heads.  The remarks that rang somewhat hollow in terms of Ahavas Yisroel were made by someone also associated with the same chassidus.  That was tails.

One of the ways that ideology is defined is: as a body of doctrine, myth, belief, etc. that guides an individual, social movement, institution, class, or large group.

When any given ideology ceases to be a guide, but rather morphs into a filter through which all of life is viewed, by definition it also ceases to be an ideology.

It has become instead an ideological straight jacket.

The One-Liner

Reb Gutman Locks is a very busy man. 

He can be readily found at the Kosel Hamaravi doing his tefillin thing.  And if you look like you’re Jewish and off the reservation as far as the aforementioned tefillin are concerned, Reb Gutman Locks will more likely than not readily find you.

Tefillin thing?

Reb Gutman spends a lion’s share of his waking hours enabling his co-religionists in spiritual need to fulfill the mitzvah of laying tefillin, if but what once in their lives.  But it doesn’t have to be this way.  For the fortunate few it leads to a life time commitment.  

Just ask Reb Gutman Locks.

A few decades ago he made his first visit to the Kosel searching for who knows what, but what he found instead was a Chabadnik who asked him if he would like to put on tefillin.

But rather than simply walk off into the sunset with the mitzvah of tefillin already in the past tense as applied to him, he allowed it to become the turning point of his life and he’s been returning the favor ever since by bringing this mitzvah to literally tens of thousands of others.  

For the why of it all one need go no further than a comment that he recently posted on Mystical Paths, the blog to which he regularly contributes, where he wrote as follows:

“If I had to choose just one line of advice that best sums up what a person should do with his or her life, I would quote the Rebbe Maharash.  If you focus only on this line of advice your entire life, you will die with a smile on your face, and you will keep smiling in the World to Come, too.

“Try it for a few days and you will see what I mean.

“‘Everyone ought to know the route to the supernal chambers, though that is not essential.  All you need is the main thing; to help your fellow with a complete heart and with sensitivity, to take pleasure in doing another person a favor.’”

And he was talking about a lot less than the great mitzvah of tefillin.

The Alarm Clock

I tend to be a steady mispallel at the Minyan Vasikan in my neighborhood, which means that at 3:30 A.M. this time of the year I am groping for the alarm clock to shut it off.

But that’s only if it was ringing to begin with.

And when it isn’t, my day has been turned on its head before I have even had a chance to distinguish it from night.  That this is so is beyond dispute.  That this is the ruination of my purported plans is a different story, as was spelled out in EmunahSpeak: PLAN B.

With all of this in mind we can better understand the bad run I had a few weeks back when my alarm clock and I went our separate ways three days in one week.

The first piece of brilliance on my part was forgetting to turn on the ringer.  As one can readily understand, a ringer that does not go off at 3:30 A.M. as expected is not a poster boy for on time vasikan attendance.  I had relied on it and it had failed me.

I’m not one to repeat such mistakes and I didn’t.  What I did do was to mess up a second time in one week in a totally different way.  Apparently, my alarm clock wasn’t programmed with any wiggle room for minor indiscretions so when I set it for 3:30 P.M. instead the usual 3:30 A.M. the alarm went off about nine and half hours after the vasikan minyan was over.  Again I had relied on it and again it had failed me.

By my third try that week I had the clock thing under control. I was very careful to turn the ringer on and to make sure that it was set to 3:30 A.M. and, Boruch Hashem, the alarm went off at 3:30 A.M. exactly as I had planned it with only one caveat.

I didn’t hear it.

I’m quite sure that I’m not the first person in this world to make such mistakes nor will I be the last.  But I’m not just another guy from the shuk.  I’m the guy who laid out this very scenario almost three years ago in EmunahSpeak: So Who are You Relying on… where I pointed out that we foolishly rely on our cars to start when we turn the key in the ignition.  We rely on that same car to go when we press down on the gas pedal and to stop when we do likewise to the brake.  We rely on our fridge to keep our food fresh and the mailman to deliver the mail every day.  We rely on the government to deposit our Social Security checks directly into our bank accounts on the third of the month.  We rely on El Al to get us safely to Israel.  And we expect Hatzalah to show up within two minutes of our call, if not sooner.

All of this reveals that the lives that most of us live could be characterized, at their core, as lives of misplaced reliance on machines that break, people that are unreliable, on events over which we have no control and a Weatherman that is right less than fifty per-cent of the time.

I also referenced foolishly relying on crock pots to keep the cholent warm and in another place I did the same vis á vis coffee pots.

And I wasn’t just talking the talk.  For the past three years I have been making a concerted effort to keep in mind that Hashem is taking care of all of the things that I mentioned in EmunahSpeak: So Who are You Relying on… 

Unfortunately, my alarm clock wasn't one of them.

And There it Was

“…Amar Rabbi Binyamin…,” are the first three words of the Segulah that countless Jews have relied on for generations to re-connect themselves with their lost objects.

In free translation it goes something like this in English:  

Rabbi Binyamin said: All are in the presumed status of blind people, until the Holy One, Blessed Be He, enlightens their eyes. {Bereishis 21:19}

It’s a real Segulah as opposed to the other kind because its use is not in lieu of our proper reliance on Hashem to take care of business.  For as we said in EmunahSpeak: So Who are You Relying on… The avodah of bitachon is to train oneself to rely only on Hashem. 

Properly understood, the Segulah to find a lost object reinforces our reliance on Hashem.  It reminds us of the miracle that was performed for Hager by the well in the middle of a desert, and as such it serves as a template by which Hashem makes it all happen.

There are people whose level of bitachon in Hashem, as expressed by the formula of the Segulah, was such that for them it was not a question of whether or not they would find what they were seeking, but rather when they would find it.

About a year ago this point was driven home when an acquaintance told me that he had once lost his car keys.  His father was leaving the house for work when he heard what had happened.  He reminded my acquaintance to recite the Segulah for the lost object three times.   When he arrived at his office he called and asked very matter-of-factly: So where did you find it?

And by that time, of course, he had.

My own experience has been somewhat less pronounced.  When I lose something, I usually recite the Segulah and put some money into a pushka and then tear the house apart until I find the object that was missing.  And while I was surely appreciative of my find, I could not help but think to myself why should I not find it? Did I not just rip the house apart?

But that was yesterday and all of the other yesterdays in my life.

Today, however, was a different story.

When I cleaned off a certain bed before Pesach to make room for expected guests from Eretz Yisroel, one of the objects that I removed from it was a DVD documentary that was still in its shrink-wrap.   As soon as Pesach was over I looked for this DVD but I could not find it.  After fruitlessly searching for it in every conceivable place in the house that I could have possibly placed it, I assumed that it must of accidently been thrown out with the de rigueur piles of pre-Pesach junk.

My wife kept nudging me to recite the Segulah and put a dollar in the pushka but I was too lazy to go to the kitchen to read the Segulah off the magnet on the side of the refrigerator.  And in any case I never had more than two quarters in my pocket at any given time. 

After a week of looking everywhere I finally relented and trekked to the fridge to put the Segulah into play.  Although the financial situation had not improved, I solved that problem by taking my wife in as a partner as I proceeded to float a loan of one dollar from her pocketbook.  After stuffing it into the pushka I decided to tear apart a pile of odds and ends that was in my bedroom.  I had already looked there but I decided to give it a more thorough once over.

As I contemplated the unwieldy pile while trying to divine whether or not my DVD was buried underneath it, my eye caught hold of something sticking out of it near the top.

And there it was.