By Jonathan Rosenblum, on March 19th, 2010 Returning from a successful run on the treadmill last week, I contemplated how much better I felt than when I dragged myself to the gym, after an early morning minyan. The most obvious reason was that I had made it there at all. Just showing up at the gym is its own triumph. The yetzer possesses an incredible number of ways to talk one out of subjecting oneself to pain.
No doubt the endorphins released by vigorous exercise also played a large role. There are few better guaranteed mood enhancers than exercise.
But the best thing about the gym, I suspect, is the feeling it gives one of growing. Whether one runs faster or farther or just stays the same while growing steadily older, there is measurable improvement.
Every run includes at least a half dozen conversations in one’s head, in which any number of strong reasons are presented why right now would be a good time to stop. One experiences the truth of Rav Dessler’s statement that ever since the Sin of Adam the yetzer hara speaks from inside us – “I want.” When the yetzer hatov speaking from outside us – “You should” – wins one of those arguments, there is a real sense of accomplishment.
What I derived from my morning run was the close connection between happiness and personal growth. Human beings are the only ones of Hashem’s creations whose actions are not determined by instincts common to every member of the species. Only we can contemplate the future and set individual goals for ourselves; only we can decide to forego immediate pleasure in pursuit of a long-range goal.
Hashem has planted in each of us a need to grow. That growth depends on overcoming our weaknesses, whether physical, emotional, or intellectual. The attraction of the gym is that it provides us with constant objective measures of improvement.
Recognition that human beings are hard-wired to seek growth has important implications for our role as parents. Most of us devote our parenting energies to shielding our children from pain and protecting them from experiencing failure. That desire to protect our children from failure has fueled the self-esteem movement of the last thirty years. My friend Rabbi Avraham Birnbaum wrote recently in Yated Ne’eman about the trend in our educational institutions to give every child not less than an A minus on their report card, regardless of either achievement or effort.
Instead of protecting our children from setbacks, our energies would be better spent on helping them develop the tools to overcome those setbacks and not give up in the face of adversity. Instead of inundating them in praise – which they, in any event, come to distrust when it is not linked to tangible effort or achievement – we have to teach them how to set goals and work towards attaining them. Let them experience the pleasure that comes from overcoming obstacles, both internal and external, while reminding them that growth is only measured in relationship to themselves and what they need to overcome, not in relationship to anyone else.
In short, our task as parents is to provide them with opportunities to experience the truth of Chazal’s statement: l’fum tzaara agra – according to the pain is the reward. As Rabbi Noah Weinberg used to say, the idea that the opposite of pleasure is pain is a product of Western decadence: Pain is often the precondition for true pleasure. He felt it important to speak frequently about all his many failures prior to founding Aish HaTorah.
WHEN I PRESENTED my gym-based insight about the innate human need to grow to my morning chavrusah, he entered an important caveat: Don’t confuse the moshol with the nimshal. The attraction of the gym is that it provides concrete, objective measures of growth. But such objective feedback is often not available in the most important areas of our striving. It is not easy, for instance, for a yeshiva bochur to measure his growth in learning b’iyun (in-depth). There may be indicators of growth – e.g., when one constantly meets “good friends,” in the form of Rishonim and Achronim, as one plumbs the depths of a sugya – but progress remains notoriously hard to quantify.
Faster-paced bekius learning offers more concrete measuring sticks in terms of the number of dapim (pages) covered. And it is easier to formulate tests of students’ command of the material in bekius learning. Those tangible measures of progress in bekius learning attract many to focus their energies there. I can still remember my rosh yeshiva warning me when I went off to learn the blatt, with regular tests, in the afternoon at Mirrer Yeshiva, “You’ll find bekius so enjoyable that you won’t be able to get back into iyun.”
Yet it is a tragic mistake to focus our energies in life based on the ready availability of objective feedback. Some areas are intrinsically more worthy of our striving than others. Not all improvement is equal. Otherwise, we would be well-advised to spend every available moment in the gym, where feedback is both objective and instantaneous.
Middos development, for instance, is not easily quantified. Situations like that described by the Rambam in Hilchos Teshuva, where one finds oneself in exactly the same situation in which one failed in the past, do not occur every day. Yet the difficulty of measuring our development in middos does not detract one iota from the necessity of constantly striving to improve.
The perfection of our middos is ultimate goal of our lives. The more that we succeed in emulating the middos of HaKadosh Baruch Hu – just as He is gracious and merciful so must you be gracious and merciful – the more we are capable of bonding to Him, and the greater connection we will experience to Him in the World to Come. But we will only know our final score on the test when we reach the World of Truth.
From the gym we gain a sense of the close connection between our personal growth and our joy in living. Nowhere else do we so readily experience the pleasure of carrying on to reach a goal when part of our brain is screaming, “Quit.” But once the lessons have been learned (and the endorphins released), it is time to apply them to more important goals than running faster or longer.
This article originally appeared in Mishpacha, March 17.
By Avi Shafran, on March 19th, 2010 Despite the late hour and exhaustion (not to mention wine), many a Jewish mind has wondered long and hard during a Passover Seder about all the Haggadah’s “fours.” Four questions, four sons, four expressions of redemption, four cups. There’s clearly a numerical theme here.
While some may superficially dismiss the Haggadah as a mere collection of random verses and songs, it is in truth a subtle and wondrous educational tool, with profound Jewish ideas layered through its seemingly simple text. The rabbis who formulated its core, already extant in pre-Talmudic times, wanted it to serve to plant important concepts in the hearts and minds of its readers – especially its younger ones, toward whom the Seder, our tradition teaches, is aimed. And so the author of the Haggadah employed an array of pedagogical methods, including songs, riddles and puzzles, as means of conveying deeper understandings. And he left us some clues, too.
When it comes to the ubiquitous “fours,” we might begin by considering the essential fact that Passover is when the Jewish people’s identity is solemnly perpetuated; the Seder, the ritual instrument through which each Jewish generation inculcates our collective history and essence to the next. Which is likely a large part of the reason so many Jewish parents who are alienated from virtually every other Jewish observance still feel compelled to have at least some sort of Seder, to read a Haggadah, or even – if they have strayed too far from their heritage to comfortably confront the original – to compose their own. (I once joked before an audience that a “Vegetarian Haggadah” would likely appear any year now, and someone in attendance later showed me precisely such a book – though it lacked the “Paschal Turnip” I had imagined.)
And so the role we adults play on Pesach night, vis a vis the younger Jews with whom we share the experience, is a very specific one. We are teachers, to be sure, but it is not information that we are communicating; it is identity.
At the Seder, in other words, we seek to instill in our children the realization that they are not mere individuals but rather parts of a people, members of a nation unconstrained by geographical boundaries but linked by history and destiny. We impress them with the fact that they are links in a shimmering, ethereal chain stretching back to birth of the Jewish nation, to when our people was divinely redeemed from mundane slavery in Egypt and entered a sublime servitude of a very different sort – to God – at Sinai.
So, on Passover, as we celebrate the birth of the Jewish nation and plant the seed of Jewish identity in the minds of smaller Jews, we are giving life – giving birth, one might say – to the Jewish future. And, while it may be the father who traditionally leads the Seder, he is acting not as teacher but rather in something more akin to a maternal role, as a spiritual nurturer of the children present.
In Jewish religious law, Jewish identity is in fact dependent on mothers. According to halacha, or Jewish religious tradition, while a Jew’s tribal genealogy follows the paternal line, whether a child is a member of the Jewish people or not depends entirely on the status of his or her mother.
It’s only speculation, but the recurrent numerical theme in our exquisite Haggadah, employed each year to instill Jewish identity might be reminding us of that. After all, the book has its own number-decoder built right in, toward its end, where most good books’ keys and indexes are found. We’re a little hazy once it’s reached, after four cups of wine, but it’s unmistakably there: “Echad Mi Yodea” or “Who Knows One?” – the song that provides Jewish associations with numbers.
“Who knows four?”
If you don’t, you can look it up.
© 2010 AM ECHAD RESOURCES
[Rabbi Shafran is director of public affairs for Agudath Israel of America. The above essay was distributed in 2003]
All Am Echad Resources essays are offered without charge for personal use, sharing and publication,
provided the above copyright notice is appended.
By Avi Shafran, on March 12th, 2010 Dear Readers,
My posting this week is an essay from Agudath Israel of America’s executive vice president, Rabbi Chaim Dovid Zwiebel.
It was written in response to a lengthy and prominent editorial that appeared in The Jerusalem Post.
To its credit, that paper published Rabbi Zwiebel’s rejoinder, and has graciously offered permission for its republication, with due credit to where it originally appeared.
NOT FEAR BUT FEALTY
Rabbi Chaim Dovid Zwiebel
An editorialist in the Jerusalem Post was greatly exercised by the fact that Orthodox rabbinic leaders, including most notably Agudath Israel of America’s Council of Torah Sages (Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah), have gone on record stating what is and is not acceptable for Orthodox congregations (“Women’s rabbinical rights”, 1/03/10).
So exercised, in fact, that the editorialist saw fit to distort the words of the rabbinic sages in an effort to score debating points.
The distortion begins with the editorial’s very first word: “‘Assertive’ Orthodox women are making some men very nervous.” The placement of quotation marks around the word “assertive” is designed to imply that the pejorative is taken from the mouths (or pens) of the “nervous” rabbis themselves – when in fact it is the invention of the editorialist.
In the scientific world, one invention often leads to another. So too, apparently, in the editorial world. The second sentence of the editorial informs readers that the Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah “has excommunicated the Hebrew Institute of Riverdale…for recognizing Sara Hurwitz…as a rabbi.” In fact, the rabbinic sages excommunicated no one and no thing. Stories of excommunication may make for interesting reading, but at least in this case it is absolute fiction.
What the Council of Torah Sages did say is that placing a woman in a rabbinic position is outside the bounds of Jewish Orthodoxy. The Council’s members, deeply respected senior rabbis and heads of American yeshivot, felt it important to make clear that Rabbi Avi Weiss’ conferral of rabbinical status on a woman, and her assumption of certain traditional rabbinic functions at the Hebrew Institute of Riverdale, represent a “radical and dangerous departure from Jewish tradition,” and that “any congregation with a woman in a rabbinical position of any sort cannot be considered Orthodox.” A strong position, to be sure – as befitting the gravity of the issue – but a far cry from excommunication.
The editorial then proceeds from distortion to armchair analysis with its assertion that fear of “challenge to their hegemony” motivated the rabbinic sages.
“The male-dominated rabbinic establishment seems to have a visceral (Freudian?) fear,” the editorial explains, “that female clergy will outperform them on the pulpit.” The rabbis’ rejection of the ordaining of women is further motivated, says the editorial, by their chauvinistic conviction that women should be relegated to their traditional roles of “cooking, cleaning and rearing children.” One can only marvel at the editorialist’s psychoanalytic prowess.
It is worth recalling, though, that the Torah itself establishes Judaism as a deeply role-based faith. There is a role for a Cohein, a role for a Levi, roles for men and roles for women. Contemporary feminism insists that women fill every conceivable role traditionally filled by men. And many are the Jews who have stumbled over one another in a rush to jump on that bandwagon. But from an Orthodox perspective, the Torah’s truths, including the role-assignments so deeply embedded in our tradition, transcend contemporary notions, today as in the past.
That Jews faithful to their religious tradition reserve the role of rabbi for men is no insult to women. What truly insult women are insinuations, like the editorialist’s, that the traditional roles of wives and mothers – including “raising children” – are somehow demeaning.
Anyone interested not in reacting to the Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah’s statement from a preconceived stance but in actually understanding it would do well to focus on what it said. To wit: that creating a rabbinic role for women is a radical departure from the Jewish mesorah, or religious tradition.
Now, to be sure, many in our anchorless world would react with a shrug and a “so what?”. But a refusal to jettison any part of the Jewish religious tradition is precisely what defines Orthodoxy. Yes, changes can occur, and have occurred, in normative Orthodox practice. But such changes are rare, and they are instituted only after the deepest deliberations of the greatest Torah leaders of a generation, not as fiats motivated by the Zeitgeist.
And so there should be nothing shocking about recognized rabbinic leaders rejecting a proposed radical change in Jewish tradition. The rejection is born not of fear but of fealty – to the tradition that is the heritage of all Jews.
AM ECHAD RESOURCES
[Rabbi Zwiebel is executive vice president of Agudath Israel of America.]
The above essay was published in the Jerusalem Post, which has granted permission for its republication with the appropriate credit.
By Guest Contributor, on March 7th, 2010 by Dovid Landesman
I have often speculated to myself whether cynicism, of which I have been blessed with an inordinate amount, is in any way an exemplary or positive middah and I should thus try to direct it toward positive use, or if it might not be just another disguise employed by my yetzer ha-ra in which case I should do all that I can to suppress it. On the one hand, the Torah clearly expects us to demonstrate respect in ascribing purity of motive to our fellow Jews; the ideal of being dan l’kaf zechus even when an action appears to be incorrect or foolish. On the other hand, Chazal made it abundantly clear that they had little patience for behavior which fell within the parameters of the chassid shoteh. Given this unresolved apparent paradox, I allow myself to castigate not only those who sin, but also those whose actions clearly point to an abysmal lack of kavannah when reciting ata chonen l’adam da’as. To those who might feel that sarcasm has no place in the lexicon of bnei Torah, I point to the familiar words of Eliyahu ha-Navi in confronting the prophets of Ba’al [Melachim I 18:27]:
and Eliyahu teased them … call out loudly to him [Ba’al] … perhaps he is sleeping and he will [thus] awaken …
To those who contend that this form of speech was only permissible because it was addressed to idolators, I suggest perusal of the following comment by Rav Shamshon Rafael Hirsch [Shemos 14:11 s.v. ha’mibli ein kevarim]:
This sharp irony, even in moments of deepest anxiety and despair, is characteristic of the witty vein which is inherent in the Jewish race from their earliest beginnings.
In that I am fully cognizant of the need to be exceedingly careful not to engage in rechilus or anything that is avak lashon ha–ra, I assure the reader that what I write is meant entirely l’toeles. This posting is not simply an attempt to entertain or at self-aggrandizement; rather, I respectfully request that you take this missive as an effort to effect change by subjecting the actions of certain organizations and public figures to public scrutiny. I pledge not to mention specific names of people unless it is permissible to do so and also undertake to discuss each of the awards with experts in the field of lashon ha–ra before publication.
My general inspiration for the creation of a reward is the late Senator William Proxmire of Wisconsin.
Proxmire was famous for issuing his Golden Fleece Awards, which identified wasteful government spending between 1975 and 1988. The first was awarded in 1975 to the National Science Foundation, for funding an $84,000 study on why people fall in love. Other Golden Fleece awards over the years were “awarded” to the Justice Department for conducting a study on why prisoners wanted to get out of jail … [Wikipedia]
The inspiration for the name of the prize comes, of course, from the statement made by Achish [Shmuel I 21:16] in regard to the somewhat peculiar behavior of Dovid.
Despite repeated efforts, I have never been able to determine if the awardees are separate tzedakah organizations, or a single group raising funds under two different names [d.b.a.s (doing business as) in legal terminology]. Both organizations are, as far as I know, entirely legitimate. Trust me. I have conducted extensive inquiries about them out of an intense distaste for their publicity campaigns and in hopes of discovering that they are fakes and cheats. Not only are these real; they are quite effective and provide a great deal of relief and help in our communities. They do, in fact, enjoy the support of many gedolim.
That said, and pretend that you hear the drumrolls, the inaugural Achish Melech Gat award is presented jointly to Kupat Ha-Ir and Va’ad ha-Rabbanim who have raised the bar and set new standards of challenging the Guinness records for most advertisements by a single organization using various and varied media forms, including but not limited to mass delivery of multi-colored flyers that fill our mailboxes and all adjacent areas, inserts included with every major Jewish publication featuring full colored portraits of gedolim in a variety of interesting poses as well as endless columns of advertisements appearing in all Jewish media.
The award takes note of their great level of expertise in use of various media; specific reference being made to our recognition and applause for their demonstrated proficiency in the use of photo-shop in their campaigns. The award is presented to them based on the following outstanding achievements:
saving many Jews the need to actually pray for themselves or for others by offering the possibility of having a number of erstwhile talmidei chachamim do so on their behalf for a given period of time for a set, low cost price.
reintroducing the concept of segulos to a generation that had somehow forgotten about the efficacy of these time honored practices.
providing countless trips for many important rabbanim who can now actually go to the kever of the Noam Elimelech without depleting their bank accounts.
providing endless stories about yeshuos to a generation of children thus providing them with Torah true, kosher reading materials [I trust that no-one above the age of ten reads the stories].
publicizing the pictures of gedolai yisroel doing something other than learning – e.g., writing checks or reading computer printouts of names – proving that our Torah leaders are flesh and blood and that we can therefore aspire to be just like them.
reducing the welfare rolls by providing employment possibilities [for at least forty day periods] for out of work or underemployed tehillim zoggers and kotel visitors.
One humble suggestion to the organizations. Given that you have determined that the holy ends you seek to achieve gives you license to stretch the limits of good taste, may I raise the following proposition for your consideration. You are undoubtedly unfamiliar with a major source of revenue used in Hollywood and on Madison Avenue known as product placement. Advertisers are invited to place their product in a visible but subtle manner within the framework of a scene, not detracting from the main message itself, but strong enough to create an association in the viewer’s mind. In our case, can you imagine the bidding war between Coke and Pepsi if a can of either’s product was placed on the table next to Rav Chaim’s shtender. Just think what the Bank Leumi would be willing to contribute if readers would see that name on the checks that Rav Aron Leib writes to these tzedakos. I am certain that with the proper planning, the revenues of the charity funds would double or triple. Those funds could then be applied toward the granting of yeshuos to those who cannot afford to contribute the requisite amount necessary to being included in the list read by a major league gadol.
Readers are invited to suggest further reasons why these two organizations deserve to be honored as well as to nominate candidates for future awards. It should be noted that Kolel Shomrei Ha-Chomos was a close second in the judges voting, based on their remarkable decision to publicize the creation of a gemach [free loan fund] in memory of an executed murderer whose memory they canonized by affixing the suffix hy”d – an acronym reserved for those who die al kiddush Hashem
[Dovid Landesman resides in Israel and comments on the foibles of his fellow Jews. His recently published There Are No Basketball Courts In Heaven will shortly be available in bookstores in the USA and Canada.]
By Avi Shafran, on March 5th, 2010 It wasn’t the most exciting or terrifying tale of the war years I had ever heard, or the saddest or the most shocking. But somehow it was the most moving one.
The man who recounted it had spent the war years, his teenage years, in the chilling vastness of the Siberian taiga. He and his Polish yeshiva colleagues were guests of the Soviet authorities for their reluctance to assume Russian citizenship after they fled their country at the start of the Nazi onslaught.
He had already spoken of unimaginable, surreal episodes, fleeing his Polish shtetl with the German advance in 1939, of watching as his uncle was caught trying to escape a roundup of Jews and shot on the spot, of being packed with his Jewish townsfolk into a shul which was then set afire, of their miraculous deliverance, of the long treks, of the wandering refugees’ dedication to the Torah’s commandments. And then he told the story.
We were loaded onto rail cattle-wagons, nine of us, taken to Novosibirsk, and from there transported by barge to Parabek, where we were assigned to a kolchoz, or collective farm.
I remember that our first winter was our hardest, as we did not have the proper clothing for the severe climate.
Most of us had to fell trees in the forest. I was the youngest and was assigned to a farm a few miles from our kolchoz. The nights were terribly cold, the temperature often dropping to forty degrees below zero, through I had a small stove by which I kept a little warm. The chief of the kolchoz would make surprise checks on me to see if I had fallen asleep, and I would recite Psalms to stay awake.
One night I couldn’t shake the chills and I realized that I had a high fever. I managed to hitch my horse and sled together and set off for the kolchoz. Not far from the farm, though, I fell from the sled into the deep snow and the horse continued on without me. I tried to shout to the animal to stop, to no avail. I remember crying and saying Psalms for I knew that remaining where I was, or trying to walk to the kolchoz, would mean certain death from exposure. I forced myself to get up and, with what little strength I had left, began running after the horse and sled.
Suddenly, the horse halted. I ran even faster, reached the sled and collapsed on it.
Looking up at the starry sky, I prayed with all my diminishing might to G-d to enable me to reach the relative safety of the kolchoz. He answered me and I reached my Siberian home, though I was shaking uncontrollably from my fever; no number of blankets could warm me. The next day, in a daze, I was transported to Parabek, where there was a hospital.
My first two days in the hospital are a blur, but on the third my fever broke and I started to feel a little better. Then suddenly, as I lay in my bed, I saw a fellow yeshiva boy from the kolchoz, Herschel Tishivitzer, before me, half frozen and staring, incredulous, at me. His feet were wrapped in layers and layers of rags – the best one could manage to try to cope with the Arctic cold, without proper boots. I couldn’t believe my eyes – Herschel had actually walked the frigid miles from the kolchoz!
“Herschel,” I cried, “what are you doing here?”
I’ll never forget his answer.
“Yesterday,” he said, “someone came from Parabek, and told us ‘Simcha umar,’ that Simcha had died. And so I volunteered to bury you.”
The narrator paused to collect himself, and the reflected on his memory:
The dedication to another Jew, the dedication… Had the rumor been true there was no way he could have helped me. He had immediately made the perilous journey – just to see to my funeral! The dedication to another Jew …such an example!…
As a shiver subsided and the story sank in, I wondered: Would I have even considered such a journey, felt such a responsibility to a fellow Jew? In such a place, at such a time? Or would I have justified inaction with the ample justification available? Would I have been able to maintain even my humanity in the face of so doubtful a future, not to mention my faith in G-d, my very Jewishness…?
A wholly unremarkable story in a way, I realize. None of the violence, the tragedy, the horrors, the evil of so many tales of the war years. Just a short conversation, really. Yet I found so valuable a lesson in the story of Herschel Tishivitzer’s selflesness, unhesitating concern for little Simcha Ruzhaner, as the narrator had been called in those days: what it means to be part of a holy people.
The narrator concluded his story, describing how Hershel Tishivitzer, thank G-d, had eventually made his way to America and settled in New York under his family name, Nudel. And how he, the narrator himself, had ended up in Baltimore, where he married the virtuous daughter of a respected Jewish scholar, Rabbi Noach Kahn. And how he himself had became a rabbi (changing many lives for the better, I know, though he didn’t say so) and how he and his rebbetzin had raised their children in their Jewish religious heritage, children who were continuing to frustrate the enemies of the Jewish people by raising strong Jewish families of their own.
And I wondered – actually, I still do – if the slice of Simcha Ruzhaner’s life had so affected me only because of its radiant, blindingly beautiful message – or if perhaps some part was played by the fact that he too, had taken on a shortened form of his family name, Shafranowitz, and had named his second child Avrohom Yitzchok, although everyone just calls me Avi.
© 2010 AM ECHAD RESOURCES
[Rabbi Shafran is director of public affairs for Agudath Israel of America.]
This essay was distributed in 2006.
Rabbi Simcha Shafran’s memoir “Fire, Ice, Air” has just been published by Hashgacha Press – hashgachapress@gmail.com]
All Am Echad Resources essays are offered without charge for personal use and sharing, and for publication with permission, provided the above copyright notice is appended.
By Yitzchok Adlerstein, on March 5th, 2010 I have so little athletic ability, that I can’t be a good Monday morning quarterback – not even weeks later. Despite all that people have written – including most of my friends – I cannot fault the campaign that attempted to stop the execution of Martin Grossman. Moreover, I believe that the kernel idea behind it is absolutely essential to the survival of the State of Israel.
To be sure, readers have expressed valid concerns, especially with the advantage of hindsight.
Should the community ever work on behalf of a convicted murderer, or allow the secular courts to enforce the punishment that he deserves? This is a halachic question with an accompanying literature. R Yaakov Emden (Even Bochein 1:73), for example, finds within halacha a license for non-Jewish authorities to execute a Jewish criminal. Shut Chasam Sofer 6:14 strongly disagrees. I will leave the psak to others.
There were non-halachic concerns as well. Some were concerned with the perception by the family of the victim that our community was callous to their loss. Others were concerned with the idiot factor. Some of the messages sent to the Governor Crist present a strong case for substituting their authors for the perpetrator … Read More >>
By Shira Schmidt, on February 26th, 2010 Each year we try to cut down on the number of mishloach manot/shalach manos we send, and either give more matanot l’evyonim to the needy, or find indigent Jews who really need mishloach manot . As inspiration, I reread a chapter about real mishloach manot in the historical novel by Rav Haim Sabato, Boi HaRuach, a bestseller in Israel two years ago. This month it came out in English as From the Four WInds translated by Yaacob Dweck, Toby Press (and available on amazon, bookstores,etc). The chapter about mishloach manot can be a lesson for all of us and it is on the Hadassah Magazine website’s Purim section: “Making the Rounds in Beit Mazmil” a Jerusalem immigrant neighborhood in the 1950s. I added five discussion questions which you can see if you scroll down to the bottom of the excerpt. Try the link in question 5, to the Hungarian cake for Purim described in the excerpt. The chapter and questions might enrich your seudat Purim or Shabbat Zachor table talk.
As the child Haim in the chapter says at the end,
When we were done, I hurried home to Mother. I had … Read More >>
By Avi Shafran, on February 25th, 2010 Is ending a life of pure contemplation less objectionable that ending one that includes physical activity? … Read More >>
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