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Lessons of the Omer about Unity and Complementarity from HaRav Aryeh Levi shlita
"These are the days of Sefira," are the opening words of HaRav Arye.
They are days of introspection of how to mend the accusation against the disciples of Rabbi Akiva "who lacked mutual respect due to one another." There are at times certain points which are not at all incidental but actually very inherent, if they are examined closely, and will surely uplift and clarify the concept of 'mutual respect.'
I will explain what I mean: Every person has an area in which he excels and has the power to affect others singly as well as his surroundings. This is true regarding the creation of Man: that each individual is unique in a particular capacity, either through his grasp on life or through his special strengths. No two people are alike.
The advantage of a yeshiva is that it unifies many different students and gives them the opportunity to learn from one another and complement each one with what he lacks. If it can be maintained that this may cause a crisis to a student for not being on a par with his fellow student, the answer is the very opposite. It comes from his not appreciating his own merits and strengths. We are speaking about an intelligent student who is aware of his advantages.
Allow us to refresh some quick history from an excerpt of a booklet which appeared in 5719, when the question of establishing a 'religious front' prior to elections would have united all of the religious and chareidi parties into one list. It was written by a follower of the Brisker Rov and expressed the latter's view on certain subjects.
A visitor to the Rav's house at the time was given a pile of these pamphlets to distribute at a gathering which he was about to attend. It was written dozens of years ago and reflected the views of the national religious devotees who had always been against those who studied Torah purely and exclusively. All of those devotees who present excuses and arguments determining that this present war behooves a draft of yeshiva students are false and fabricated and have no connection to the war itself and to the painful fact that many of the fallen soldiers belong to that camp. They have always been against the holy yeshivos, even when the latter were a puny marginal minority — numerically, of course.
Part II
This article was originally published in 1996, 29 years ago.
With the petiroh of the Sadiger Rebbe Reb Mordechai Sholom Yosef Friedman zt"l on the 29th of Nisan 5739 (1979) the fourteenth day of the Omer, came to a close the life of one of the most remarkable tzaddikim in modern times. According to Kavonos Ha'Arizal the date of his petiroh—the 14th of the Omer—corresponds to the middoh, 'Malchus Shebegevurah.' No two words could more aptly describe his life, for over three generations the Rebbe led Klal Yisroel with malchus and gevurah, guiding Yidden through two World Wars, all the while faithfully tending to their needs in every situation.
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In 1934 the Rebbe decided to leave Vienna and to move to Pshemishal where he could be closer to his many chassidim. In Pshemishal the Rebbe established a large 'court' to where his chassidim would come in their masses. Here he was able to truly lead his chassidim as in Sadiger before the War. Every time he left his house to go somewhere, he would be accompanied by scores of his faithful followers. The large Beis Hamedrash was constantly full of those who came to see and be seen.
Here free of the many constrictions that living in a big city like Vienna had imposed on him, he was able to truly lead his chassidim in honor and dignity. From far and wide many flocked to Pshemishal to bask in his presence. The streets around his house were never quiet for a minute, as one group of chassidim left another group would arrive in its place. The Rebbe established a close relationship with the bochurim in his yeshiva testing them regularly and overseeing their progress.
Seeing his great hatzlocho with his own mosdos haTorah, Reb Meir Shapiro approached the Rebbe asking that he assist him in opening Yeshivas Chachmei Lublin. Already close friends for years they now became even closer as the many exchanges of letters between them testifies. The Rebbe spared no effort in helping the yeshiva get on its feet successfully raising large sums of money on its behalf.
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Opinion & Comment
The enthusiastic support extended by the media to Israel's Supreme Court, and the full backing offered by the secular camp for its rulings, should be carefully studied by us. We are not referring to the hooligan style declarations loudly aired by the Leftist Camp, but to what is hidden underneath them.
What likewise interests us is the basis for remarks made by various people who normally do not see undermining and degrading those loyal to the Torah as their aim in life. They sincerely fear that the authority of what they call law will be torn up by the roots, and that it will lose the esteem that (they think) it deserves because of the Torah- observant's publicly-expressed contempt for it in their criticism of the judicial activism of the Israeli Supreme Court.
When we hear this familiar line about submitting to the authority of the State's judicial system emanating from people who ordinarily despise any authority at all, we must take some time out and study it carefully. Our need to analyze their stand is intensified when we realize that the judicial system itself is consistently trying to shatter numerous accepted axioms, beginning with hitherto forbidden sexual relations and ending with promoting "mercy killing," as they term it.
Anyone who thinks about the evolution of social values in the "enlightened" society during the last fifty years easily senses the progressive erosion in their perceptions of what is permitted and what is prohibited. This lately took an extreme turn when a political party was founded with the declared goal of legalizing the use of mild narcotics. These "learned" politicians claim that you cannot define as a violation of the law something that many people need (they say). We assume that these people too are part of "enlightened" Israeli society.
The obvious question arises: Why do they need any system at all of law and order? What good are manmade values that constantly change?
Home and Family
Once, passing by a jewelry store
On Ben Yehuda St.
To her rich-looking companion:
"Now, they-uh's a ring Ah really ad-mi-uh!"
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Once, I watched a lady eating creamcake.
She closed her eyes, savoring its lusciousness.
"This cake is a dream!" she said.
*
Once, I knew someone who had
A coin collection,
Each coin carefully catalogued,
Every detail lovingly recorded.
*
Once,...
IN-DEPTH FEATURES
Part I
The Conservative and Reform Number Game
An Orthodox reader of contemporary Jewish demographic studies better come equipped with a good sense of humor and a large dollop of disbelief, otherwise; the somber reports about the future of Orthodox Jewry are liable to send him off to his local funeral home to order a set of shrouds while the supply lasts.
Even though every year we know that we have to chase after principals whose schools are overflowing to accept our children, even though almost monthly we're informed of a new housing project going up for another religious neighborhood in Israel or in New York, and even though kosher food services and Orthodox publishing houses have burgeoned beyond belief in the past few years -- the demographic savants are still predicting that we're on the way of the dinosaur.
How can the university statisticians and sociologists make such a grave error when all one needs to disprove their conclusions is to just walk through Williamsburg or Monsey, Jerusalem, Bnei Brak, Ashdod or Kiryat Sefer -- or dozens of other such communities?
To a large degree, the experts were misled by the conclusions of the National Jewish Population Survey (NJPS) carried out by the Council of Jewish Federations (U.S.) in 1990, which until today is the most authoritative source for statistics about the American Jewish community. The study's findings showed that while 11% of the respondents came from Orthodox homes, only 7% are Orthodox today. The obvious conclusion: the Orthodox are decreasing. For instance, in Jewish Choices, published by the State University of New York in 1998, the distinguished authors (who include a professor emeritus of Sociology at Bar Ilan University, professor of sociology at Connecticut College, and professor of Sociology at the University of Connecticut) conclude:
"The major problem for the Orthodox denomination is how to stem its historically heavy losses to other denominations, especially to the Conservative movement." (p. 133)
How are the savants so off-base in their analysis of the situation?
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