Sentencing Yourself to a Good Life—by Deciding the Same for Others 
 
Along the lines of the last post, Dancing for Din, Likutei Moharan I:113 of Rebbe Nachman of Breslov presents an idea Rebbe Nachman heard from the Baal Shem Tov:
Before a person is given his final judgment about an issue or an act, the person himself is asked if he concurs with the judgment.
 
(He bases it on a verse from Pirke Avot 3:16: "...and they exact payment from a person, with his knowledge and without his knowledge...")

Of course, Rebbe Nachman continues, the person is not asked outright and with his awareness. If he knew he was being asked about himself, he obviously would not concur with any kind of harsh din against himself.

He gives the example from Shmuel II:12 of how Natan Hanavi approached David Hamelech with a story that paralleled one of David Hamelech’s actions. When David Hamelech condemned the character representing himself by saying, "As the Lord lives, the man who has done this is liable to death. And the ewe lamb he shall repay fourfold, because he did this thing, and because he had no pity"—he actually condemned himself.

This is a huge eye-opener because David Hamelech was known for his hitbodedut; the entire Book of Tehillim derived from David Hamelech’s intense communions with Hashem. Certainly, David Hamelech was a master of self-introspection and cheshbon hanefesh.

Yet he missed this one and never even realized it—even upon hearing the parable—until Natan Hanavi told him outright.
 
All the more so, any of us could be blind to our own faults and misjudgments.

So it follows that when someone behaves wrongly, it could be that the victim had once also behaved wrongly in the same way—albeit perhaps a far less severe way.
 
For example, if someone smirks at Reuven right in the eye and then makes some remark that cuts him to the bone, he’ll probably feel very angry and hurt. And if his nemesis has made a habit of it, Reuven may be brimming with resentment. Even if Reuven shoots back verbally, the person may still find a way to get at him. Therefore, Reuven may want the "sniper" to suffer for it or have the tongue cut out or be otherwise incapacitated so that he sniper doesn’t hurt Reuven or anyone else again.

Or maybe Reuven just wishes his nemesis would lose the job, ridding Reuven of the abuse.
 
However, it could be that this is Hashem’s way of asking Reuven if incapacitation or unemployment is the appropriate din for Reuven because Reuven unwittingly committed the same type of sin—even if it may have been much milder and only one time.
 
So when you ask Hashem to help your nemesis do teshuvah and grant your nemesis a refuat hanefesh (a soul-healing), you are saying that is the din you deserve, too.

It's Not Just a Story

Rebbe Nachman continues:

Interestingly, he mentions stories here—just like the scenario with David Hamelech.
 
Sometimes, people hear or read about some circumstance and respond with some variant of the following:

• Those people don’t deserve to have children!
• They should toss her in prison and throw away the key!
• He doesn’t deserve to get married!
• Why did they win the lottery? Others are more deserving!
• Well, what did they expect? What were they thinking? Of course [fill-in-the-blank] happened! That’s just what happens when you [do/say/think whatever the speaker deems “obvious”]!

You may have also noticed that envious, resentful people really do seem to suffer more: poor finances, infertility, accidents, bad health, and so on.
(Needless to say, not all people suffering poor finances, etc. are envious or resentful!)

There are also physiological and psychological reasons for bitter mazal in resentful, envious people, along with other spiritual reasons, but right now, we’re focusing on this one.
 
Again, WITHOUT justifying or whitewashing truly bad behavior, anyone can respond to any disturbing story by wishing that all involved do teshuvah and receive a refuat hanefesh.

Chana and Nellie
I know someone (let’s call her “Chana”) who gradually let go of a friend (whom we’ll call “Nellie”) that was becoming increasingly toxic. Chana recognized the poor upbringing and unhappy marriage behind Nellie’s bitterness.
 
Chana also recognized that Nellie’s long-term reliance on Prozac was likely behind the verbal onslaughts, but Chana also understood that being used for target practice helped neither of them.  
 
However, Chana decided to daven for Nellie, even as she avoided her. At her own admission, Chana didn’t engage in copious daily davening on Nellie’s behalf, but she did take opportunities to plead on her former friend’s behalf. In addition to davening for her former friend’s refuat hanefesh, simchat chaim (life-joy), and nachat from her children, Chana also begged Hashem to completely cure Nellie of a chronic illness plaguing Nellie for years.
 
“Perhaps if Nellie saw such a miraculous cure,” Chana told Hashem, “maybe that would inspire her to realize that You do love her...and that would inspire her to start improving. Yeah, Hashem, I really think You should just give her a total refuah.”
 
Now, I don’t know how Nellie’s doing, but Chana—despite being overweight, middle-aged, and living in a highly stressful environment—seems pretty healthy.
 
Is it because Chana averts a bad health din by basically saying, “No!" to Hashem and the Heavenly Tribunal? Is it because she basically tells them: "People who behave badly do NOT deserve illness—they should only be healthy!”?
 
I don’t know, but it is food for thought.

It's Not Your First Time Here

Finally, it’s very interesting what the above passage from Likutei Moharan said:

Is this a hint at past-life mistakes?
 
Even if you are absolutely sure that you didn’t and would never do this-and-such as you are now, can you be equally sure you never did it in another time as someone else?
 
May we all daven for the right things and may others do the same for us.
 _________
I request forgiveness if I have misled, offended, or in any way hurt anyone through this blog. If so, please know it was an oversight and not intentional, and I am very sorry.

This is the time of year when we invest more than usual in some intense self-introspection.

And as our Sages have been telling us for millennia, that as important as it is to treat Hashem with great honor and love, our treatment of each other is even more important to Hashem.
 
And so, we can hear shiurim and read modern-day writings that inspire us to apologize, forgive, and be connected with even very difficult people.

Unfortunately, it’s common for ordinary rabbis and rebbetzins to encourage us to not only forgive such people (which, if done properly, is extremely beneficial), but to give them the benefit of the doubt in a way that pretends they are everything they aren’t, and to keep up a relationship with them.
 
But many people see this often doesn't work.

For example, what about people who are so cynical, they can’t accept anything you say as sincere, and you can never do enough to prove your sincerity to them? 

Of course, you should treat everyone with courtesy, but that doesn’t mean that you need to answer their phone calls, host them, hang out with them, sit with them at a wedding, get caught up in their mind games, engage with them on social media or blogs, or help them in ways that hurt you.

(If possible, you can help them in ways that don’t hurt you.)
 
But unless you are a great tzaddik—or someone with extremely thick skin—it’s impossible to be around difficult people without suffering for it.

While you’ve probably experienced obvious consequences when dealing with difficult people—like resentment, low self-esteem, self-doubt, feelings of helplessness, confusion, depression, exploding at that person, exhaustion, unintentionally taking out your frustrations on people who are not the cause of them, nausea,  headaches, stomachaches, etc.—studies have proven the physiological effect difficult people have on their recipients.
 
For example, even “mere” anxiety creates a hormone called cortisol.
 
Actual fear creates an even harder impact.
 
(You can read here about how anxiety increases cortisol, which lowers physical immunity.)
 
And what are the physiological effects?

• Cortisol binds with dormant cancer cells, making it easier for those cells to invade and move around the body
• Cortisol weakens the T-cells and white blood cells necessary to fight disease
• The body experiences emotions as electrical currents. Each emotion has its own individual frequency and creates neuropeptides according to that frequency, which in turn create specific biological responses—negative ones in the case of negative emotions

Yes, giving the benefit of the doubt definitely helps.
 
But it only goes so far for people who either intend or don’t care if they hurt you.
 
In fact, pretending that people are good and well-intentioned when even they themselves know they aren’t will actually make things worse.
 
Although many do people intuit this on their own (but ignore this because they think that it's sinat chinam), the science of it shows that it's just not realistic to expect the average person to genuinely feel no anxiety (which gets the cortisol going) when dealing with difficult people (and denying or repressing the anxiety doesn't mean it's not there) or to fight the creation of negative neuropeptides and their consequences.

(Please see How to Avoid being a Pathological Pollyanna for more information on how to give the benefit of the doubt in an emotionally healthy manner that conforms to authentic Jewish sources.)
 
Yes, trying to maintain a compassionate attitude in such situations while reminding yourself that it’s all from Hashem and is for your own good does help, but most people can’t maintain such a lofty state for long or throughout frequent attacks.
 
Fear and anxiety are perfectly normal reactions to dealing with difficult people.
 
What many “Keep up the connection and just give the benefit of the doubt!” enthusiasts tend forget is that many people are already dealing with difficult people whom they can’t avoid—like a family member, a boss, a co-worker, a neighbor, etc.—and are already depleted from that.
 
Furthermore, voluntarily spending time with difficult people only gives them more opportunities to rack up transgressions (because they insist on transgressing numerous prohibitions which forbid treating others poorly—which is NOT doing them any favors) AND only creates unnecessary battles for you, like struggling (again!) to overcome your resentment and the natural dislike you end up feeling for them, in addition to the bad feelings that well up about yourself.

​Plus, dysfunctional people (like those with personality disorders) are so convincing and manipulative that they can make you feel very confused about yourself, or about what’s right and wrong (this is actually very dangerous, spiritually speaking), and so on.

Sorry to repeat myself again, but it's important to refute the common advice misunderstood as a mitzvah:

​So many ordinary rabbis and rebbetzins (not Gedolei Hador) mistakenly advise people to deal with difficult people by being well-behaved victims under the false notion that:

• Suffering and catering to bad behavior is a compassionate, merciful response to the victimizer
• Doing so increases the mitzvot & good middot for the victim.

• Assume (often wrongly) that, anyway, the victim will develop a thicker skin over time.

 
Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong.

Maltreating others (including covert maltreatment, like well-aimed verbal jabs, insinuations, and mind games) is FORBIDDEN by the Torah.

People who continuously engage in such behavior are SINNING.

Every blow they deal you as you play the part of their punching bag is yet another TRANSGRESSION on their part.
 
Furthermore, so many studies have shown that unkind behavior also affects the unkind person himself in a negative manner with all sorts of physiological problems.
​
So who is benefiting here?

NO ONE.

Not you, their convenient martyr. And not him or her, the malfunctioning avenger.

Basically, such a dynamic ensures that both you and they fail spiritually again and again and again.
 
Fortunately, there is a happier and MUCH more effective path!

It’s well-known in Jewish tradition that the evil Queen Izavel (Jezebel) did one thing right:

She danced, clapped, and shook her head to rejoice at weddings.
 
When she died, the dogs ate up her entire body...except for her skull, hands, and feet, which because of all her dancing, had become imbued with a type of spiritual protection—despite the fact that she was a sociopath.
 
This is the power of dance.

Rebbe Nachman of Breslov is famous for his emphasis on dancing and clapping as one of the most powerful ways to sweeten din.
 
Here’s a true story of its astounding potential that I heard from the daughter of one of the following group:

(Now, does dancing always work to sweeten a particular din? No. Tragically, there are many stories of Jews who danced into the entrance of the gas chambers and still died. But there is no doubt that their holy actions still sweetened the general din in as a whole over Am Yisrael.) 
 
And while I have no personal story as incredible as the above to share with you, my personal experience with this has still been pretty powerful.

So think about it: 

What’s better?

Sitting with the dysfunctional person as you clench your teeth in an effort to hold your tongue and then struggle with the lingering lousy feelings dragging you down as you go about the rest of your day, trying to be a good Jew, a good spouse, and a good parent and possibly making you sick?
 

Or avoid them as you prance (or waltz, if physical limitations don’t allow you to prance) around your living room, clapping your hands, and singing:

“Hashem, You’re so Great and You can do anything! Please make Aidel Faigel bas Taibel do complete teshuvah out of love! And please don’t punish her for all the garbage she’s done, but just wake her up gently to the error of her ways so that she can fulfill her true potential and rectify everything so that she can merit a fabulous place in the World to Come!”

And so on.
 
Of course, this is light years more effective than hanging out with them while grinding your teeth and fighting the bad middot that threaten to overwhelm you!
 
THIS is what Hashem wants us to do.

Furthermore, you don’t have to do this for a long time (though you can if you wish).
 
But even dancing while davening for the other person for, say, only a minute is very powerful.
 
Seeing as everything is from Hashem (including Aidel Faigel bas Taibel’s toxicity), it’s a great act of emuna to turn to HASHEM about fixing the behavior.

​It is also a very powerful act of ahavat Yisrael to beg Hashem NOT to punish a fellow Jew who has harmed you.

We keep hearing about how sinat chinam destroyed the Second Beit Hamikdash and is preventing the Third from being built.

A famous story accompanies this idea:
 
The story of Bar Kamtza (in which Bar Kamtza mistakenly receives an invitation from someone who hated him, is rejected in a manner Bar Kamtza finds humiliating while prominent rabbis sit by silently, and then goes on to slander the Jewish people to the Roman government, leading to genocide and Exile).
 
Now, like everything else in the Talmud, the story can’t be taken at face value alone and there are disagreements as to the actual virtue of Bar Kamtza and the main rabbi involved, what the names imply, and so on.

But putting all that aside for a moment, what if Bar Kamtza had decided to accept the humiliation as a kaparah instead and daven, either for himself or the Jewish people?

What if he had gone home and started dancing and davening for his resentful host and the rabbi?
 
He would have brought blessing upon Am Yisrael instead of destruction.
 
And this works regardless of your personal level.

For example, I am just as flawed as anyone else, and yet I still saw very good results from dancing and davening for people, rather than just trying to “make nicey-nice” until it killed me.
 
In fact, I’ve consistently seen better and faster results from davening for people than I have when trying to “help” them in other ways, including being “patient” (i.e. forcing myself to be on a level that is actually very far from me) and giving wildly inaccurate benefits of the doubt.
 
And yes, getting up to dance can sometimes be very difficult.

If you’re feeling very heavy, lethargic, or bitter, the initial attempt often feels like climbing a mountain.
 
And while this post focuses mostly on dealing with difficult people, dancing and davening is also a very powerful effort for:

• Freeing unjustly imprisoned people
• Enabling/Speeding up healing
• Preventing anything horrible, like terror attacks and wars
• Overcoming a negative middah or an addiction
• Bettering your financial state
• Dealing with challenging offspring
• Getting your baby to sleep through the night
• Anything else

The spiritual and physiological benefits of dancing and davening are very real:

• Expressions of joy—ESPECIALLY dancing and clapping—sweeten even the harshest Heavenly Judgments (this is the most important).

 

• The exercise creates endorphins in your brain, which increases joy and lessens depression.

 

• Dancing can propel you to a state of joy, causing your electromagnetic spectrum to resonate at the highest and healthiest frequency.

 

• Dancing while davening about the issue alleviates the obsessive pondering many people find themselves trapped in after dealing with a dysfunctional person.

 

• It breaks through lethargy, including the lethargy of chronic depression.

​

• It burns off the excess energy that was making you jittery and restless.

 

• It releases some of that cortisol, a release which boots your immune system.

 

• If you have a very young child around, they’ll find it amusing and join you.

So to sum up, in dealing halachically correct manner with difficult people:
​

• If you can’t avoid them, then healthy compassion, accepting insults with love (and an opportunity to daven for something you really want), plus intelligent favorable judgement is the halachically ideal way of dealing with them.

 

• However, voluntarily spending time with them is HARMFUL to BOTH of you, both spiritual and physiologically.

​

• Dancing while davening for them, even for a very short while, is one of the most powerful things you can to do help both them and yourself, both spiritually and physiologically. 

 
As stated above, this can be much easier to say than to actually do.
 
But if you must make an effort on behalf of sweeten din and building the Final Beit Hamikdash, then this is definitely the way to go.
 
May we all succeed in reaching our full potential & sweeten the din for all time.

In the Kli Yakar on this week's parsha:

• The great ease Hashem creates for us in doing teshuvah
• The purpose of life
• The root of all sin (stay on top of this and you're winning most of the battle!)​

Here, the Kli Yakar states that every mitzvah contains two aspects within it:

1. The actual performance of the mitzvah
2. The kavanah of the mitzvah, to understand and become learned in the secrets of the Torah, which Hashem hid from the other nations.

​He ends up connecting this to teshuvah, saying:

The Kli Yakar goes on to say that no one need ascend to Heaven to find out whether Hashem will accept our teshuvah; the answer to that secret is already known to us.
 
But, the Kli Yakar asks theoretically, what if you claim that your transgressions were of the type that chased away the Shechinah from the Lower World, causing it to go far up into the Heavenly Heights? The Kli Yakar poses the logic of despair:

In other words, it's all my fault, so I deserve to be punished.
 
And I don't deserve a second chance.
 
But no, the Kli Yakar reassures us. Even from you - you, the one at fault - the matter of teshuvah is not concealed. 

In other words, if you're ready, then Hashem is more than willing to meet you more —much more — than halfway.
 
It all has to do with your heart.
 
What's in there?
 
And what do you really want?

Why does life proceed love of Hashem here?

This is quite beautiful.

​He's basically saying that the only purpose of your life is to love Hashem. What else do you need your life for?
 
Being in love with another person is highly romanticized in the world at large.

It's often accompanied by a feeling of being high, of joy, of feeling like nothing in the world can go wrong or bring you down.

​It's hard not to start humming or to hold back the silly little smile that keeps trying to spread across your face.

But this is how we should feel about Hashem.
 
And it seems like the Kli Yakar, based on his own words, did achieve this.
 
It sounds pretty nice, doesn't it?

Despite present-day warnings to avoid temptations, the Kli Yakar emphasizes that the biggest gateway to sin and eventually destruction is...idleness.
 
Boredom.
 
With all the panic about guarding eyes, and avoiding bad influences, and so on, the root of it all seems to be something seemingly mundane.

This is very interesting in light of our generation.

Issue #1
Technology has freed us up in ways unimaginable a century ago.
​
Just as one of many examples: Getting breakfast ready no longer entails a walk to the well for water, heating up coals or chopping wood, grinding coffee by hand, or going out to the chicken coop to hunt down some eggs.
 

But what do we do with all this extra time? And despite this lightening of burdens, many people feel terribly stressed and busy.
 
People often feel they have less time, not more.
 
We've filled that technologically created vacuum with other things -- and not necessarily spiritual ones.
 
Technological advances have also placed increased expectations on us. You're expected to be available, to stay on top of things, to make it to remote locations if necessary, and to just plain know an incredible amount of information.
 
If there's any possible way to do something, and you can theoretically do it, then you are expected to do so.
 
But it's not necessarily meaningful or even truly essential.

And it also leaves many gaps of idle time, like sitting in traffic, and waiting.

Waiting for that call, waiting for that message, waiting for that email, waiting for that tweet, waiting for a reply, waiting for a person, waiting for the bus, waiting for the light to change....
 
Rabbi Avraham Twerski once mentioned that before microwaves, a baked potato took an hour in the oven.

So you found something meaningful to immerse yourself in for an hour (in his case, he learned Torah).

But now it takes minutes.

So you find yourself waiting idly because it's hard to think of something meaningful to do in just, say, six minutes.
 
In some ways, we have time, but it's broken up into such short increments (not to mention all the distractions inherent in modern-day life).

Or else it's mixed with something that takes your attention just enough to kind of hold it, but doesn't allow you to do anything else useful, that the time becomes less useful and takes much greater discipline to deal with.

Issue #2
While the frum community's severest issue with the Internet is its easy and even unintentional access to unwholesome content, it has also been long observed that the Internet is like one long unending magazine that you can never stop reading.
 
For example, you can spend so much time looking for a good chicken-walnut recipe that you end up with no time to make it and order take-out instead.

You can also spend forever checking your emails repeatedly, checking the news (in non-crisis situations), updating your Facebook page, texting and tweeting, and so on.
 
This includes seemingly educational videos, too: science, TED Talks, DIY, presidential debates, etc. Not ALWAYS, but it's wise to take a step back each time and ask if you really need it.

Maybe you do need a little of it.

Maybe you really do need one specific lesson given over in that video.

But maybe not?

And despite the businesslike usage of smartphones and other gadgets, they became yet another way to remain connected.

It all feels very important at the time.

But taking a step back, how much if it is really necessary?

How much of it is just away to pass time?

Some of it may be essential, but exactly how much?

How much of it is to get that electromagnetic "hit" to which many people have become habituated?
 
I can't tell others what to do. I have my own issues to work on. And different people are on different levels with different needs.

​What works well for one is a disaster for another, and so on.
 
But it's good general advice to at least consider one's possibilities for those mindless empty minutes and to consider one's purpose for a moment before surfing or tapping on autopilot.

Growing up under the strong Ashkenazi influence of Jewish America, I always thought that chicken soup, gefilte fish, matzah balls, kugels, etc, were THE traditional Jewish foods.
 

But Sephardim have a whole other tradition of foods associated with Shabbat and the chagim [Jewish holidays]. And to my happy surprise, the food is generally more colorful, healthier (except for chicken soup, of course), and more delicious than its Ashkenazi counterpart (although I still love gefilte fish and a really good carrot kugel).
 
Anyway, a Moroccan staple for the major chagim is basar v'shizifim -- meat and prunes.
 
Yeah, I thought that sounded really unappetizing the first time, but the first taste changed everything and now I make it every Pesach and Shavuot and Sukkot.
 
And it's also a Rosh Hashanah classic.
 
Usually, Moroccan food isn't sweet, unless it's a dessert. But this is a delicious exception.

I'm giving you the recipe, along with its variations, but please note that even though it's pretty easy, I learned it by watching my mother-in-law and neither of us use exact measurements. So this is a Cook-on-a-Wing-and-a-Prayer recipe.
 
Basar V'Shizifim (photo at the very bottom of the post)
Ingredients:

• Meat (whatever part you like, preferably one that gets really soft while cooking)
• Prunes (however many you all like and preferably without pits)
• Oil (a nut oil is particularly nice in this recipe)
• Onions
• Turmeric (or saffron)
• Peeled almonds (a handful or more, depending....my mother-in-law insists that the almonds don't taste good unless we peel them ourselves by soaking them in hot water and then popping them out of their skins, but I think buying whole or slivered skinned almonds works out just fine)
• Cinnamon

 
Directions:
(I'm going to explain the authentic Moroccan way, but feel free to cook the meat the way you're used to, if that's easier.)

• Place the meat in a pot of water and bring to a boil, then just let it simmer for hours (being careful that it doesn't burn) or until whenever it seems soft enough.
• After it's cooked enough, put the meat in the freezer (wrapping it in a plastic bag or something like that) until it is kind of frozen, but not rock-hard because you'll need to cut it.

In the meantime, slice or chop the onions and saute them in oil until they smell and look really good.

• Wash the prunes in soapy water (to avoid bugs)
• Toss them in with the onions.
• Add however much water, like maybe just enough to cover the prunes. (Be careful that the oil doesn't snap the water back up at you.)
• Add honey, turmeric, salt, white pepper, and cinnamon in whatever amounts you find most delectable. (If you're not used to using turmeric, its smell and taste are strong and I personally don't it them pleasant, but you can't beat the color and the health benefits turmeric provides. You can start off with a teaspoon and see how that you like it.)

Let that all simmer while you deal with the meat.

• Take out your not-too-frozen meat and slice it up, being careful not to slice thin slices because you want the slices to hold their shape. (I didn't know this at first, but the whole point of freezing the meat is to facilitate nice and neat slicing.)
• Place the meat slices on the prune and onion mixture.
• Add more water, maybe just to cover.
• Let all that simmer until it looks and smells fabulous, being careful to add more water if necessary. (Maybe at least half-an-hour? I usually make it longer because I like my cooked fruits and veggies VERY soft and mushy.)
• Toast the skinless almonds either in the oven or in a frying pan, probably with a little oil. Watch and stir them well so they don't burn. (This part is only a minute or two.)
• Just before serving, sprinkle the meat-prune mixture with the toasted almonds. (If you do it long before, the almonds get mushy.)

You can serve the meat and prunes side-by-side, or in a mixture over rice or whatever.
 
Variations:

• Moroccans also use veal or lamb or chicken in place of the meat. When using chicken, you don't need to freeze it, so you can skip that whole step.
• Moroccans sometimes add dried apricots to the prunes. This makes for a pretty dish.
• Moroccans also sometimes add dried figs. (Just make sure you open them up and check them for bugs or worms first.)
• You can add wine with the meat when it's first cooking or later, with the prunes.
• If you don't mind cutting up uncooked meat, you can just do that at that beginning and skip the freezer step.
• You can leave the prunes (or dried apricots or dried figs) whole or cut them up.
• You can change the order written here and place the meat slices on the onions and THEN add the prunes and spices and water.
• You can leave out the salt and pepper and turmeric, if you wish.
• You can substitute the honey for sugar, brown sugar, or molasses -- or just leave out the sweet stuff.
• You can substitute the almonds for any other kind of nut -- or just leave them out.
• You can substitute the cinnamon for nutmeg or any other spice you like -- or just leave it out.

Feel free to play around with this dish and fine-tune it to the tastes of yours and your family's.

Chag Sameach & Shanah Tovah!

Over Shabbat Parshat Shoftim, I was getting all nervous and paranoid about something that had happened toward the end of that week.

Strangely, going into Shabbat didn't do much to calm my fears.

​I could tell I was overreacting and that it was just my imagination going into overdrive, but I still had a very hard time letting go of the whole thing.
 
Finally, I forced myself to sit down and read the Haftarah.
 
(I can't manage to get to shul, so I just read it on my own.)
 
The very first verse (Yeshayah 51:12) knocked me between the eyes:

Not only did I find the verse immediately soothing, but the messages implied were also encouraging and can set you straight if you've veered off.
 
First of all, Rashi and Metzudat David teach us that when someone has lost their emuna to a certain extent and is crying out or otherwise behaving in a fearful or desperate manner, the proper reaction is to build them up — remind them who they are.
 

• "Hey, you're not some bum off the street, remember: You're the child of tzaddikim! You're inherently special. You're genetically programmed to be more than whatever you feel you are right now. That's right; you can't really do anything to nullify that specialness, regardless of how low you've sunk. It's just an innate part of who you are, no matter what."

 

• "Also, aside from your lineage and genetics, you yourself are just brimming with zechuyot and all sorts of goodness!"

 
And once you've set things in their proper perspective, then you confront them with pure logic:
​

• "Those other guys — the Erev Rav, the Esavniks, the missionaries, the jihadi Yishmaelim, and all the rest? They've got nothing over you. N-O-T-H-I-N-G. You've got the whole package. In fact, not only are they going to just drop dead at some point, but they'll also just dry up before their time. Yeah, they look like lush strong grass, but guess what? They're not. It's all an illusion. Just keep up your courage and bide your time, and you'll see."

Interestingly, the Malbim's definition of chatzir implies a process.

The chatzir doesn't just go from its peak lushness to dead grass within a moment. 
 
It dries up.

(mityavesh — מתיבש — literally: "becomes dry")
 
It starts off all lush and green, but then it gradually yellows and looses its vitality — and it does so before its time.

So why fear the people compared to chatzir?
 
Courage, all you fabulous brothers and sisters — and don't let the baddies get you down.
 
You have the power — because you have Hashem.

Remember who you really are.

Before we discuss rejection in the frum community, it’s important to know where I’m coming from:

• I grew up pretty assimilated because of the local Conservative and Reform communities, then became Modern Orthodox, then religious Zionist, then Litvish-charedi, then Sephardi-charedi after I married—which I still am, but with a hefty dose of Breslov at this point.
• My husband was born in Morocco, but grew up dati in Eretz Yisrael and became yeshivish-Litvish-charedi later before returning to his Sephardi customs within the charedi world. 
• Our children attend Sephardi schools and yeshivot.

 
And coming to Israel so young enabled me to pick and choose among the American and Israeli mentalities, i.e. keeping the aspects of each that facilitate spiritual development while flinging out the rest. Needless to say, marrying an Israeli also contributed.
 

• This means that while I’m not Israeli and never will be, I also no longer fully identify with Anglos.

 
Being not fully part of any group, while yet being a part of every group, I fit in everywhere and nowhere—which is actually a very pleasant place to be.
 
It means that I can relate to almost anyone and almost anyone can find some common denominator with which to relate to me. But at the same time, I have the flexibility to grow at my own pace and in the direction Hashem takes us. We can do what’s actually best for our children rather than kowtowing to the pressure of others, including well-meaning family.
 
I also hear a lot of what people really think because people forget who they are talking to when they talk to me and tend to talk to the part of me with which they identify and forget about the other parts. ;)

And we’ve also faced rejection.

It’s very, very painful to run smack into a closed door for something you can’t do anything about and in many cases, is even something positive that shouldn’t be “fixed.” For example:

• It’s good to be Sephardi. (It’s also good to be Ashkenazi. In general, it’s good to be a Jew, regardless of ethnicity.)
• It’s good to be a baal teshuvah or a convert; either status means that you volunteered for hefty spiritual development, which says something very positive about you.
• And it’s fine that you are an Anglo living as a minority nationality in Eretz Yisrael—again, it means that you ignored the easy way and went straight toward meaning and spiritual development.

 
And in other situations, don’t children with learning difficulties, or who come from problematic family situations, or who struggle with ADD deserve just as much of and just as a high a quality of Jewish education as anyone else?
 
Of course!
 
Personally, my heart winces every time I hear about another case of rejection—especially when it’s followed by blaming the rejected and nitpicking at or about them. Anyone who faces rejection deserves our empathy and compassion—yet scratching the surface, it’s also clear that too many people overlook the core reasons behind the rejection.
 
Hashem causes the rejection—and despite how painful it can be, He only does so for your ultimate benefit.
 
Hashem only does what is for our absolute best. If an institution or community doesn’t want you, then it is not good for you to be there, regardless of what you presumed or what anyone else advised.
 
At a closer glance, the second reason is more obvious than Hashem’s hidden Kindnesses usually are:

• If a school looks down on Sephardim, then why do you want to send your children there?
• If a community looks down their nose at dedicated baalei teshuvah and geirim, then why do you want to live there?
• If the school couldn't be bothered to make sure your non-Hebrew-speaking child learns the language and feels comfortable or couldn't be bothered to deal with your child's learning disability (or whatever), why do you want to send your children there?

(And yes, I realized that some people are stuck in places with limited options. That will be addressed below.)
 
Unfortunately, the chareidi community is the favorite whipping boy for anti-rejection activists. However, personal experience shows that EVERY community can fall prey to rejectionism. At the other end of the spectrum, a secular Leftist (whether Jewish or not) shows more outright prejudice and censorship than any other type I’ve encountered. Many others noted this, too.
 
And among frum Jews, chareidim are unfortunately not the only culprit in the problem of rejection—again, speaking from personal experience.
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Rejection: A Personal History
When my husband graduated his government-religious high school, he deferred his army service to go to yeshivah. He went to apply at a prestigious religious Zionist yeshivah, but met with rejection because he hadn’t attended a yeshivah for his high school years.
 
This led him to a charedi Ashkenazi yeshivah, which decided that this Moroccan boy wearing a knit kippah and taupe pants who arrived at their yeshivah instead of enjoying his post-graduation vacation showed the commitment necessary for yeshivah learning. And my husband spent many wonderful years there.
(His religious Zionist relatives still mourn that rejection from the original yeshivah—“If only they would’ve known!” his relatives lament.)
 
When we first searched for a school for our oldest, we met with rejection. A self-hating Sephardi told us there were no good Sephardi schools in our area. The main Ashkenazi school rejected us saying they were too full, but everyone else got in, so of course we understood the real reason…
 
I can’t tell you how embarrassing it was as an insecure young mother to sit at the park or walk down the street and have friends say things like, “So, you’re sending to [name of school] next year, right?” And then when I said, “Well...no,” they looked surprised and said, “Really? Why not?” in total innocence because it never occurred to them that we’d be rejected, so they assumed it was our decision.
And then I had to say that the school didn’t want us.
I wouldn’t care now. But back then, it was torture.
(And I held no and hold no resentment against the inquirers because they based their words on their positive impression of us.)
 
But it taught me a big lesson in sensitivity that I would not have otherwise realized.

We also got rejected from a Sephardi-Litvish school for not being the “right” kind of Sephardi.
 
Finally, we discovered a relatively new Sephardi school and got accepted. All of our children have learned there and for almost all of them, it has been a very positive experience. For our needs, this school is actually superior to the schools that rejected us.
 
For example:

• Most of the teachers are children or grandchildren of olim who don’t speak Hebrew as a first language. I felt like the teachers dealt with me with extra consideration and understanding because I, like their beloved parents/grandparents, was an immigrant with a different mother-tongue and a different mentality.
• You have descendants of Sephardi gedolei hador sitting side-by-side with the children of baalei teshuvah and gerim.
• Sephardim are a diverse group. In addition to differences in customs between, say, Moroccans and Persians, you also have Breslov and Chabad children in the classroom. The students grow up learning to respect and be friendly with Jews of different legitimate traditions and don’t develop a narrow-minded arrogance about their own group’s customs and gedolim.
• While my children hardly have classmates from English-speaking homes, they do have classmates from French-speaking and Russian-speaking homes. Some of their teachers speak Farsi to each other in the hallway between classes. Other teachers speak Arabic to their parents on their cell phones. Most of the teachers are born-and-bred Israelis, but some hail from Syria, Iran, France, and Argentina. Such exposure reduces the importance of regional and ethnic differences— whittling them down to the level of, say, differing hair color or eye color.
• The teachers are diverse in others ways, too. One year, my child sat in a class taught by the grandson of Rav Tzadka with a huge picture of Rav Tzadka hung on the wall. The next year, he sat in a class taught by a Moroccan who’d learned in Torah Ohr and a huge picture of Rav Sheinberg on the wall. The year after that, he sat in a class taught by a Yemenite baal teshuvah who’d played professional soccer and now was Breslov and taught them Breslov songs and told them Rebbe Nachman’s stories. (He also took them out a lot to the local park for soccer games.)  Then at a Chumash party at the end of first grade, the boys acted out a chassidish play based on one of the Baal Shem Tov’s stories. Likewise, my husband and I also respect all gedolei hador equally; ethnicity is not a factor for us.
• Because expectations are different in the Sephardi world, Sephardim feel free to interweave their methods with those of others—basically, doing whatever works. For example, our school adapted some of the methods of the Zilberberg method. They also added a second year of Mechinah before first grade to give late-bloomers a chance to catch up. The boys also learn the taamim (the melodies by which to read Torah). The school provides resource rooms with teachers trained to advance struggling students in reading or Gemara.

This is our shitah, too: You do what’s best for the child’s needs.
 
Words cannot express how grateful I am for the rejection of those other schools, despite the initial pain, desperation, and humiliation.
 
But at one point, even this school didn’t work out with one child.
So he was dismissed by mutual consent. Then he went to a worse school and that didn't work out either.
This led to us finding a wonderful yeshivah where he happily stayed until graduation, even though it meant a 3-hour commute each way.
 
But yes, the whole period of struggle (which lasted around two years), before we found that school, was grueling and increased our compassion and empathy for families going through the same struggle.
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Weary Wanderings
Sometimes, rejection is Hashem’s way of saying that you need to move to a different community. I’ve experienced this personally and seen others do so, too.
 
When discussing the need to move, it’s not done blithely. Moving is a royal pain and a mess for many reasons.
 
It is also not a pragmatic solution when school is about to start.
It’s Elul/September already and if you can’t find an appropriate school, how are you supposed to completely relocate within the next two weeks?
Of course that’s a logistical nightmare.

But at the same time, I can’t help seeing that relocation can be the best response to rejection. It’s like Hashem uses the rejection to get the person/family to relocate to a much better situation.
 
Even if you can't do it immediately, you could still just look into it.

For example, I love my community, but it’s not for everyone.
 
I watched as one family struggled here, unable to fit in. And despite tens of schools from which to choose, they found satisfaction with none. Because I liked this family so much, it was hard to advise them to find another community, but all the signs were clear. (Been there, done that.)
 
Anyway, they found a wonderful little community with a bus that comes every two hours (and they had no car) with only one school for each gender and guess what? Those two little schools were perfect for their children! So transportation is a pain in the neck, but everything else is great.
 
And yes, sometimes rejection means that a child lives in a dorm or faces a huge commute. I don’t know why, but that’s how it is sometimes.
 
And what about the people who finagled their way into schools or communities, either by tremendous acts of protexia or misrepresentation (i.e. lying or hiding the fact that you are Sephardi or not FFB or whatever) or extreme pressure?
 
It just doesn’t work.

Well, maybe sometimes it does, but I don’t personally know of any.
 
There is a big price to pay for ramming yourself in to where you are not wanted (and where maybe Hashem doesn’t want you to be for your own good).

What's the price?

• People face tremendous pressure to be like their coveted group.
• Sometimes, children face rejection or bullying within that coveted school by either their classmates or their teachers. (Which means it is NOT a good place and does NOT have an authentic Torah hashkafah, regardless of its shiny reputation.)

In one case, an entire family fell apart after spending years in a system that did not suit them. The parents divorced, one of the parents and some of the children became totally secular while everyone else slid, and some left Eretz Yisrael.
 
I don’t blame their choice of community and schools for the divorce because there were shalom bayit issues before, but I honestly believe that had they chosen a community and schools that actually suited them, they would all be frum (well, maybe except for one) and living in Eretz Yisrael today.
 
Also—and I feel silly stating the obvious, but apparently a lot of people get stuck in this idea:
Just because a school or community seems very frum or even speaks Yiddish does NOT mean that they do everything according to authentic Torah hashkafah.
It could mean that, but not necessarily.
I've seen so many people stumble over the Yiddish issue, especially in Eretz Yisrael, with very bad consequences.
Some well-meaning people sink into unwarranted sentimentalism and idealism, leaving their children to pay the price.
So let me repeat: Language does NOT reflect or affect middot or hashkafah.
HOW you use that language reflects and affects middot or hashkafah.
But the language itself does not.
So please, do not try to force your children into a school ONLY because it's in Yiddish.
(No, I'm not bashing Yiddish schools. I'm bashing superficial standards. More on this in a future post.)

There is a lot of confusion today and you find Erev Rav/personality disordered leaders in every group—no exceptions. Also, good Jews have picked up bad habits along this interminable Galut.
 
Every community has its good points and bad points; no one is spared.
 
I wouldn’t say one group is better than another; I’d only say that one group suits your needs more than another.

Finally, your needs can change. What was good for you at one point may no longer benefit you. For example, I’m glad I started out as Modern Orthodox. I could not have handled even watered-down charedi when I was seventeen and yanked between the corrupt Leftist world of mind control vs. the soul-cleansing world of Torah and Eretz Yisrael.
 
Also, it gave me insight into the Modern Orthodox world I wouldn’t have had otherwise. I’m also grateful that Hashem didn’t leave me there in that world. It was a good stepping stone to get to where I am now. Not everyone needs it, but I did.
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It’s Not Me, It’s My Spouse
Deciding on the most suitable community and school can create huge tension in a marriage, depending on the positions of each spouse and the firmness of each one’s position.
 
Maybe you’re ready to look outside the box and go according to your family’s actual needs, but your spouse is still living in a state of hyper-idealism.
 
The best way to handle this situation varies from couple to couple, but copious prayer and discussions with Hashem certainly help.
Hatzlacha rabbah!
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The flip side of this is choosing a community or school whose hashkafah you already don’t like, moving there, and then criticizing it every time you run into it—which is all the time.
 
If you wear tangerine nail polish or va-va-voom shaitels, intend to send your sons to the army, and watch Disney movies, please don’t look down your nose at communities and schools where this is considered inappropriate.
 
Just live and send your kids learn in a place where such things ARE acceptable.
 
For Anglo olim, this can be a huge adjustment. Maybe you were considered superfrum back “home,” but Israeli charedim consider you mohderni.
 
This can also happen within your country of birth when you move from, say, Oregon to Lakewood.
 
At the outset, it seems odd for people to davka settle in a place that doesn’t suit them. But the truth is, people get very idealistic about Torah life.
Because it doesn’t occur to them that others interpret Torah values differently than they do, it doesn’t occur to them to research communities and schools first.
 
Or perhaps their spouse insisted on it and they don’t want to say because they don’t want to badmouth their spouse. Or maybe there’s another reason.
 
Other times, the place and schools suited them when they first arrived, but then things changed, which isn’t their fault, but it does mean they need to reconsider things.
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Pot Calling the Kettle Black?
One thing I find amusing (or annoying, depending on my mood), is how the same baalei teshuvah who complain of rejection refuse to send their children to a Sephardi institution because, well, it’s Sephardi. They may do the same thing with regard to Chabad institutions. Now, if the local Sephardi or Chabad school isn’t good, then that is a good reason not to send your child there.
But if it IS good and it suits your needs, then why not?
 
Guess what the rejected BTs say?

• “Oh, it’s just not for us.”
• “They’re different culturally; it just wouldn’t be a good match.”
• “I’m afraid my child wouldn’t fit in. He looks different and has a different last name…”
• “They have different customs and daven in a different nusach.”
• “Oh, I know that Sephardim learn in Ashkenazi institutions, despite different customs and nusachim, but that’s different. It’s okay for them.”

Hmmm….gosh, that all sounds so familiar.
Aren’t those the same reasons why FFB institutions reject baalei teshuvah?
“They’re just different, ya know!”
 
I once recommended my son’s non-mainstream yeshivah to an Anglo BT friend whose son was struggling. She said, “Oh…hmm…aren’t they mostly Sephardi there? Hm…I don’t think it would be a good fit. No offense, it’s just that it’s too different—I mean, it's fine, but it's just not us.”
 
But after her son did miserably at another place, she sent him to where my son learned and her Ashkenazi-Anglo son did amazingly well in that Sephardi-Israeli environment, both scholastically and socially.
(I want to say that this Anglo BT friend is an exceptionally fine person. Some Sephardi institutions are indeed blah and that’s what she’d seen and was afraid of.)
 
I guess I’ll just leave it like this: I can’t tell you how many Ashkenazi Anglo BTs and FFBs look down their nose at Israelis and Sephardim, while considering themselves so open-minded and full of ahavas Yisroel at the same time. It’s certainly not everyone, but it’s just an issue that each person needs to examine on their own.
That’s all.
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Looking Good vs Being Good
Also, I see struggling parents, whether BT or FFB, who pound their head against the wall in order to find the “right” yeshivah for their struggling child.
They run around the entire country—or even visit other countries—and twist a hundred arms of protexia and try this or that medication and this or that “expert” and so on.
 
I don’t claim to know all the reasons for why someone might suffer years like this, but we know that any kind of suffering begs a cheshbon hanefesh on our part. I can’t help seeing that sometimes, parents insist on a specific type of framework for their child, when maybe the child (i.e., Hashem) has something better in mind.
 
In fact, I’ve seen some well-reputed Ashkenazi charedi institutions catering to boys who don’t manage within mainstream yeshivahs accept one or two students who are really corrupt and icky just because their parents have money and/or connections. And other parents knock themselves out to get their son accepted there because they think it will save their son.
 
I’m always sympathetic initially, but when it gets extreme, I sometimes think that if these well-intentioned parents pound their head hard enough, they might eventually knock out the undercurrent of sinat chinam and narrow thinking that may be holding them back.
 
I know of one family who refused to compromise on strictly charedi Ashkenazi options and it’s sad to see 3 boys from one family off the derech. Obviously, I can’t know the details of what happened, but an Ashkenazi-strictly-charedi-or-bust attitude can be a child's undoing. It depends what Hashem wants from you and for your child.
 
And what Hashem wants may not be what you originally thought He wanted, nor what simple rabbis or rebbetzins told you He wanted.
 
Narrow-mindedness and sinat chinam sometimes appear under the guise of “high ideals.”
 
I’m not saying that looking outside the box is always the solution, but it’s worth investigating when other options aren't working.
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Hashem’s Message in It All
One of the annoying things about rejection is the blame game.

• Why did you move there?
• Why didn’t you lie?
• Why did you lie?
• Why didn’t you do your research?
• Why did you believe the ads/the hype/that person?
• What on earth were you thinking?
• Well, what did you expect?

And so on.
 
For example, maybe you didn’t do your research. Well, guess what? Your impulsive idealism was from Hashem, something your critics fail to acknowledge. No one is perfect and if you hadn’t made that mistake, you would have made another. Your critics aren’t perfect either.
 
Anyway, part of your job here calls for searching for the message Hashem is telling you. You can look at what you could’ve done and see how to avoid that mistake in the future.
 
Done properly, this generally leads to discovering a certain middah you need to work on, and not that you should hyper-focus on the actual action.
People who hyper-focus or who encourage you to hyper-focus on a particular action end up missing the point.
 
For example, self-flagellation about why you didn’t do your research or ranting about how nasty frum people can be both result from hyper-focusing on the externals.
(And both are perfectly natural initial reactions, but if you stay stuck there, then things can get really dysfunctional.)

Also, some things remain incomprehensible and we suffer through excruciating experiences as a kaparah.
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And Yes, I Put My Money Where My Mouth Is
Please know that we sent one of our children to an institution run by extremely fine frum people, but it was not our hashkafah or our derech, although there are many aspects of this group that we respect and admire.
 
Anyway, it was the only place suitable, and that child flourished.
 
And now that child identifies strongly with that group, entailing us to buy hechsherim and stuff according to that group.
 
But so what?
 
Had we been all narrow-minded about it, we would have lost that child—and lost that child in a particularly bad way.
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Validation and Emuna
Finally, while I strongly encourage empathy and compassion when hearing of someone’s experience with rejection, I equally encourage people to see Hashem’s Guidance in the whole disappointing disaster and to look for the open window near the closed door.

This is a little bit late seeing as many students are either set or have already started school already, but I only thought of this just now.
 
Maybe you know the following prayer already, but if not, it's a very powerful one from which people have seen wonderful results. And it's never too late!
 
It's from the prayer collection called Tefillat Chana Hashalem. It is one of the many prayers you can say after lighting Shabbat candles (pg. 17), but you can also insert it at the end of Shemoneh Esrei or after giving tzedakah or just say it on its own.

And just so we know really know what we're saying, the Malbim defines the following:
 melamed (teacher): One who teaches those who don't know
 madrich (guide): One who teaches those who are unable
 mechanech (educator): One who habituates them little by little
 
May the above tefillah be answered l'tovah for all our precious children.