“Because I shall surely bless you and I will greatly multiply your seed like the stars of the heavens and like the sand on the seashore and your seed shall inherit the gates of its enemies.” (Beresheit 22:17)

The Kli Yakar points out that sometimes, the Jewish people are compared to stars, and sometimes to sand of the seashore, and sometimes even to dust: “Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth” (Beresheit 28:14).

Why?

He explains:

Stars represent greatness, both in quantity and longevity.

So "stars" represent the Jewish people at a time of tranquility and greatness for the Nation.

Sand on the seashore gets hit relentlessly by the sea, but ultimately, the sea cannot prevail over the seashore.

He says, “The waves rise up as if they wish to engulf the whole world, but as soon as they reach the sand, they break.”

The Kli Yakar further explains: “Sand corresponds to the times when the nations rise up against Yisrael to destroy them.”

​Yet he says that not only will the nations ultimately be unable to prevail over the Jewish people, but the Jewish people will prevail over their enemies.

Dust is a material that is “crushed to the lowest level.” Yet its nature is also to rise up and spread out everywhere. Davka because it’s totally crushed, it becomes so light and small, it can float and go anywhere.

So dust corresponds to times of degradation for Am Yisrael.

​The Kli Yakar remarks: “The reason for this is that Yisrael does not sincerely seek God except at a time when they are in complete degradation. This is well-known from the ways of past generations as well as today’s generation.”

So don’t despair!

Our lowliest state is precisely what gives us the ability to rise.

Note: Delightfully, my husband bought me Rabbi Elihu Levine’s translation of the Kli Yakar’s commentary on Beresheit I (Beresheit – Toldot) and it’s his excellent translation that appears in this post.

It’s a wonderful book with beautifully readable Hebrew and English fonts that include the Torah text, Rashi, and the Kli Yakar in Hebrew alongside Rabbi Levine’s marvelous translation of the Kli Yakar in English. It is footnoted with outside sources and explanations of what the Kli Yakar mentions in his commentary. The Kli Yakar’s style and Rabbi Levine’s translation are also conducive to just sitting down and reading it through.

Unfortunately, only Bereishit I, Shemot I, and Shemot II are available in English, but I highly recommend it. It’s available at Feldheim and Ohr Hachaim and I don’t know where else.

​What I post here is only a drop of the beautiful insights and lessons the Kli Yakar presents.
 
Rabbi Shlomo Ephraim of Luntschitz (1550-1619) lived in Bohemia (which is today Poland and Czechoslovakia). He served as rabbi and dayan and wrote several books, the most well-known being his commentary on the Chumash known as the Kli Yakar.  

​I can’t remember much about the biography I only started reading but never finished, but I do remember the description of Yitzchak Rabin as a 5-year-old coming home to….nothing. His mother was home, but she was busy holding Communist meetings with her colleagues.

Communism values workers, not little Jewish children in need of maternal nurturing.

Despite the heartless steam roller he later became, it’s hard to forget the image of little solitary unloved Yitzchak and so many neglected children of the Leftist kibbutzim of that time.

​It isn’t known whether Rabin gave the order or was actually the one who actually fired on the Altalena in June 1948, but it was another act typical of extreme Leftists – they didn’t want the Irgun to have guns. Ben-Gurion (Haganah) got Begin (Irgun) to agree to take only 20% of the weapons delivered on the ship with the fledgling Israeli army (Haganah) taking the other 80%. But Ben-Gurion back-paddled at the last minute and sent the arriving ship a threatening message:

They needed to turn over ALL their arms "to me."

The passengers waved white flags and the Irgun arranged a ceasefire with Haganah – a ceasefire which Rabin and his crew refused to honor. (Perhaps this is why he and his fellow Leftists weren't bothered by the Arabs breaking their agreements and ceasefires with Israel.) They even shot fellow Jews in the water.

​A friend and I were at Kever Rachel for the first time in our lives when a woman went running through the crowd crying, “They shot him! They killed him!”

Oy, I thought, the poor woman must be remembering some huge trauma she went through. I started davening harder for an end to all suffering.

Walking back to the bus, we overheard people talking about someone shot, someone killed. I heard Rabin’s name. Finally, we passed by some dati-leumi girls and one said soberly to the others, “Rabin is dead.”

I stopped and one of the girl's gasped, "He's dead?!" And a crazy laugh burst from her. The solemn girl looked at her and said, “It’s not funny.” The second girl immediately clapped her hands over her mouth, but a strangled giggle still escaped.

I understood her. She wasn’t amused or happy, it was a burst of relief. Many of us felt the same way.

It was over. The heartless relentless giant steam roller had finally been stopped.

Sitting at a bus stop in Geula on the way back, a man in a white van stopped in front of us and declared, "Rejoice! He's dead." Then he sped off.

The chareidi woman sitting next to me exploded. "How can he talk like that?! It's wrong, it's so wrong!" And so on. Her friend murmured soothingly, "Nu, nu, you know how he feels. It's been hard for all of us. And now it's finally over."

"Of course I've been just as upset as everyone else, but to rejoice over the death of a fellow Jew?!"
 
When we got back to the dorm, a group of us got together to say Tehillim. We'd learned that Gehinnom was worse than anything we could ever imagine. Even without knowing his past crimes, we figured that Rabin was now in a lot of trouble with the Heavenly Beit Din and we would do our part by saying a few prayers on his behalf.

The next day, we heard more about what happened: the 45-minute drive to a hospital 10 minutes away, the cries of “Empty bullets!”, and so on.

Years later, Rebbetzin Heller told of the time she spoke to a group of women during which she mentioned her derogatory opinion of Rabin.

Suddenly, an older lady cried out, “WHO ARE YOU TO JUDGE?”

“Excuse me?” said Rebbetzin Heller.

“Who are you to judge?” repeated the lady. “I was there. I grew up on his kibbutz. You have no idea what it was like. If you’d been there, you would have turned out no different than him.”

The thing is, despite this lady having grown up on that kibbutz, she still found herself in a Torah class.

Rabin never did.
 
Rabin’s real legacy is his demonstration of the depths to which a Jew can sink if he commits himself to any “ism” other than Judaism.
 
Note: Some of Dr. Uri Milstein’s writings have been translated into English and he is a great resource for understanding the truth behind many of modern Israel's so-called “heroic leaders.”

"I will bless those who bless you and the one who curses you, I will curse...." (12:3)
 
The Kli Yakar starts off by explaining the well-known Chazal that if a Jew intends to do a good deed, Hashem considers it as if he or she actually carried out that good deed. But if a Jew thinks about doing something wrong, Hashem does not regard it as having carried out the sinful thought.
 
Furthermore, the Kli Yakar emphasizes the importance of speaking with Hashem and asking Him for things even though Hashem already knows what you want. He simply enjoys hearing the sound of your voice.

This series is about books that impacted me so much, they carved a permanent transformation within me.
 
The American public school I attended catered to a large Christian population of different sects. The differences between the varied groups didn't interest me and their exact theologies remained unknown to me, except to notice that Mormons represented a large minority among them.

They all seemed basically nice, although kind of wacky due to their insistence on referring to the all-too-human founder of Christianity as "my god" or "my lord" and I was wary of their ambivalent and subtle attitude toward Jews, in that they seemed fascinated by and appreciative of Jews, yet perplexed and frustrated by us at the same time.
 
It was in tenth or eleventh grade that my friend Denise was talking to me. Denise was a Pentecostal. I didn't know what that meant exactly, except that at her church, they "spoke in tongues" and rolled on the floor during prayer. And Denise once expressed her outrage regarding a curious classmate who had asked her if she would give a demonstration on the spot of speaking in tongues.

"How dare he ask me to speak in a language I reserve only for talking to my lord!" she huffed.

I just nodded. Yeah. Whatever, Denise.

Anyway, this time she was gushing about how much her religion helped her deal with life and with me only half-listening politely to what seemed certified weirdness. She wasn't trying to convert me, just expressing herself in much the same way teenage girls talk about their favorite TV show.

Suddenly, she said, "Psalms help me the most. I mean, it's like King David understood everything I'm going through as a teenage girl."

I perked up. King David? I knew he was one of ours.

"What did you say?" I said. "What are in the Psalms?"

She happily explained.

I'd had no idea there was literal text in Torah that could directly relate to a teenage girl in America's Eighties.

[In case you're wondering....yes, I saw Psalms in the prayer books of the Conservative synagogue my family attended, but I didn't relate so much to what they were (although like everyone else, I liked #23 "Hashem is my Shepherd, I shall not lack...."). But when Christians talked about Psalms, I thought it was like when they said the word "Bible" or "Scriptures" - using these words, they didn't really mean the Torah, but the Gospels. So whenever they mentioned "Psalms," I always assumed it was some Gospely without really thinking about it.]

Anyway, the minute I arrived home, I went to my parents' bookshelf where the Jewish stuff was and sure enough, there was an English-language book of Psalms.

Taking it to my room, I started paging through it and was surprised and deeply moved to discover that Denise was absolutely right. Here was all my angst and hope beautifully expressed.

And even more gratifyingly, it was part of MY tradition, not that wacky Christian stuff.

As I went through it, I underlined the verses that resonated with me the most and marked those pages so I could find them later. When I asked if I could keep the book in my room, my mom said yes, because they didn't need it.

Like a lot of other girls in my generation, I experienced periodic bouts of depression and if I could get myself to open the book of Psalms and read the parts I'd underlined, it always made me feel significantly better. I knew nothing about reading Tehillim by the chapter or as a whole section, but just the verses plucked out here and there had a profound effect on me.

One night, my older friends who were already in college decided to go to a New Year's Eve party and didn't invite me because I was still in high school. I felt like everyone was celebrating throughout America - except me. I sat in my room, feeling sorry for myself and crying. Then I remembered the book of Psalms, opened it, and started reading my favorite passages. I soon felt better and started looking for something else to do.

Suddenly, the phone rang and it was my college friend telling me that she would come in twenty minutes to take me to the party.

"You don't look like you're still in high school," she said. "So just don't mention it."

I vaguely realized that Hashem had not only soothed my hurt feelings, but also responded positively to my initial desire.

The party ended up being boring and stupid and I regretted coming.

But the incident also showed me to what extent Hashem is willing to go to show you that He cares and that He is intimately involved in even the most meaningless details of your life: that He'll take you to a party based on forbidden pagan celebrations AND make it so unappealing that you never want to do it again.

Thanks, Hashem!

Since then, like so many fellow Jews around the world and throughout our history, I've turned to Tehillim countless times (with varying results, of course). There is truly nothing like it.

This is a continuation from a previous post of good things I've either personally witnessed or heard about first-hand in the frum community:

A young mother from a chashuv family that belonged to a mainstream Chassidus was sitting shiva for her young child who died only a few weeks after unexpectedly becoming ill.

She seemed at peace with everything and stronger for the experience, though she frankly admitted that she had been a terrified, confused wreck when it all first started. She spoke of all the kindnesses that had occurred amid the trauma and all the things she was grateful for during that harsh period.

The child and his medical situation had been a conduit for an outpouring of prayer and good deeds in communities around the world, indicating that he possessed a very special soul.

Someone asked her how she'd attained the emotional equilibrium she displayed during the shiva.

The young mother reached behind her and held up a book: Sha'arav B'Todah — Garden of Gratitude by Rav Shalom Arush in Hebrew.

"This book kept me going," she said. "I couldn't have made it through without this book."

I was awed.

Furthermore, I'd heard that in this young mother's Chassidus, Breslov -- while not despised -- was not appreciated and that having a copy of Likutei Mohoran in your home would be considered inappropriate.

Yet here was this frum-from-birth Ashkenazi Chassidish woman holding up a book written by a Sephardi Breslov baal teshuvah. (And if you're wondering, some of the people in the room did a double-take when she did that.)

Then another woman from that same Chassidus chimed in about how she'd received a lot of good guidance from that same book and another woman asked to see it.  

For all our talk of Erev Rav and everything going on around us produced by sick souls, both in the Jewish and non-Jewish world, it was inspiring and comforting to see the example of a true Jewish soul.

The Jewish neshama is so thirsty for Truth and closeness to Hashem, it doesn't care about the externals of the messenger as long as the message is authentic Torah. ​

A few scary-looking boys from local frum families who were now "at risk" (as they say) were loitering outside a residential building late at night in a very chareidi neighborhood, drinking beer and smoking and talking.

​A Chassidish man with a beard down to his stomach, whose apartment's windows were only a couple of meters from where the boys were talking, came out and asked them to please be quiet or move.

They did.

Later, this same man saw one of the boys and approached him, apologizing if he'd embarrassed them, or made them feel uncomfortable, or had offended them in any way when he asked them to move. This man has a prominent speech impediment and he is obviously uncomfortable and awkward when he needs to speak to people, giving an impression of shyness and insecurity.

It is not easy to talk to that particular group of boys, but one can assume his need for sleep overcame his usual lack of assertiveness. Yet in approaching the one of the boys later (on whom one resident called security because he thought the boy might be a terrorist - just to give you an idea how the kid looks), it could only have been from a sincere desire to see a fellow Jew as of equal worth to himself, regardless of the external appearance.

This Chassidish man was willing to brave his personal discomfort and risk being mocked for his fumbling speech just to treat this problematic teenager with dignity and consideration —​ when it was the teenager who'd been in the wrong! ​

In one chareidi building I lived in, it happened a couple of times that one or two of the apartments unexpectedly experienced expensive malfunctions that only affected that particular apartment and were not the responsibility or fault of the Building Committee or the other residents of the building.

Yet as a whole, the other families all decided to chip in to help pay for that apartment's repair because they felt that otherwise, it was too much of an expense for that family and the malfunction was to dysfunctional to live with without repair. And just for knowing, these were not families that could afford extra expenses themselves.

Yet their innate compassion compelled them to pay for repairs, anyway - and to do so more than once.
 
(See Part I or Part III)

May our collective merits greatly sweeten the coming Geula.

"And all the land was one language and of common purpose [devarim achadim] ...."
The event of Dor Haflagah/the Generation of Dispersion occurred in the days of Peleg who was born 101 years after the Mabul.

​And Noach and his sons certainly had only one language. And they had few "devarim." Sometimes, "devarim" means "diburim/words" and sometimes it means "inyanim/matters"…. From the days of Noach until the Dispersion, family life was serene and secure and their needs and assets weren't such a big deal, and their dealings and responsibilities were few and the same, common....

And Chazal states that what Dor Haflagah did wasn't clarified.

We only understand what their sin was via inferences from their story.
 
"It was at the time of their journey from the east...."
Then it occurred to the new generation to leave the previous path and family life, which was included in "their journey from the East" – from their previous customary behavior.

And Chazal said from the beginning of the world "and they found a plain" – they wanted to settle and establish a large kingdom and live the life of politicians with a king at their head who rules with vast governance. According to Chazal, Nimrod was their main adviser and he caused them to rebel against Hashem.

(Note: Please see here for the Kli Yakar's similar description of what "going East" really means.)

"And they said to one another, 'Come, let us make bricks'...."
The new innovations began with them building walled homes instead of being tent-dwellers, as they had until then. And they chanced upon earth that was suitable for bricks and also for building material, enabling them to erect buildings easily and with minimal toil. And that in itself was against the Divine Will; He wanted people to fill up the land as was written: "And you shall make the ark with compartments." [Beresheit 6:14]

And then they got the idea to build a large city and to establish a mighty kingdom. And within that kingdom, to build a tower that would reach the heavens – for by then, they'd forgotten Hashem. And they started to believe that their abundance descended from the heavenly fools and they wanted to erect a tall tower to set up idol worship – as if their abundance would descend via the tower from the astrological constellations.

Chazal writes that it was a denial of the Supreme Divinity.

And they wanted the talismans and the worship they concocted for themselves to include every person, as we see when 200 years later, Hashem was already forgotten from among them.

And Avraham, who denied all the idol worship, was thrown into the fiery furnace. And if Hashem hadn't dispersed them at that time when there was no hope, when they said "let us make a name for ourselves" – meaning that every person will be bent under their authority and forced to believe in their beliefs – in doing this, they denied Hashem and would basically say, "Not Him."
 
"And Hashem descended to look at the city...."
Meaning that He saw the outcome that resulted from the whole initiative, from the whole matter of the city to their political assembly; the increase of violence, banditry, theft, and murder among the people; and how both malice and the government of notoriously mighty officials grew more powerful.

With the tower incident, they meant to oppose the mighty tower of Hashem's Name.

They made a tower for themselves in the name of alien worship as is hinted in "and let us make for ourselves a name." And Hashem saw that they would ultimately corrupt every human being.
 
"And Hashem said, "Behold! They are one people, and they all have one language, and this is what they have commenced to do. Now, will it not be withheld from them, all that they have planned to do?"
Hashem wanted to stop them from removing the idea of Hashem's power in three ways:

1. They shouldn't be united in their behavior, like 2 separate nations (as I [the Malbim himself] define "Am/Nation" – meaning, a group with particular customs and a particular ruler). Previously, they were "one nation." 
2. Nations are separated by language in order to make a division between them. Previously, they had "one language for all."
3. If they still hadn't started their actions when all beginnings are difficult, as indicated in "this they began to do" – meaning that they were already busy with building "and now, it should not be withheld from them?" Indicating that Hashem put a restraint on them...."He initiated and plotted" (Iyov) is based upon a profound idea of great depth, in that sometimes an issue is too lofty and out of reach. He said that He won't withhold....that He won't hold the matter out of their reach and they won't accomplish everything they desire.

And therefore, "Let us descend...."
We won't wait until they corrupt every person; we will make a division now between them by differentiating their language....and this is for the general good because a gathering of evil-doers is bad for them and bad for the world.

Because they split up and dispersed throughout the entire land, their heresy didn't spread to all the nations.

Shem and Ever and other special individuals found refuge in Eretz Yisrael as Nimrod's reign didn't reach that area. In that area, there was a kohen l'Kel Elyon/priest to Hashem Above, Avraham called out in the Name of Hashem publicly, and many people learned from Avraham even as the Dispersion was messing up everyone's language.

Even the idol-worshiping nations split ways and as it says "chose for himself new gods." And in this way, they admitted that there is a God of gods, a First Cause, and a Kel Elyon.

However, regarding that which the Torah didn't expound on – Dor Haflagah/the Generation of Dispersion – take note regarding what the story prefaced compared to what it says later: "These are the descendants of Shem."

One will notice the view of their history of longevity and in the time they were having children. And in their days, there wasn't much of a need for the Torah and the emuna.

After careful reflection, it clarifies the truth of the new beliefs versus that of the Divine Torah on faithful and existent foundations. And countless books have already analyzed whether the languages were ingrained within the people naturally or whether each nation agreed to establish a language for itself.

And those scholars were befuddled by the different arguments. And Moshe came in the year 2448/1456 BCE and informed us that in the year 1556/2205 BCE, all the people were wiped out in the Flood and only Noach and his three sons remained. And everyone was speaking Hebrew.

​One hundred years later, in the generation of Peleg, 70 [languages] have suddenly been invented through Hashem and His supervision.

With this, we can reply with a victorious answer to those who don't believe the words of the Torah that if a man would come right now and claim that 800 years ago, there wasn't one person in the world except for a father and his three sons, and that 700 years ago, there was only one language in the entire world, they'll deny his claim by showing him ancient tombstones from 3000 years ago with inscriptions in different languages.

And that will be proof that there were many people and different languages. Egypt was already a large kingdom in Moshe's days and they had sages and writers as is well-known.

​And who would dare say such things so recently after it supposedly happened?

"And it was that all the land was one language and of common purpose." (11:1)
The Kli Yakar quotes Gemara Sanhedrin:
The gathering of reshaim is bad for them and bad for the world; the dispersion of reshaim is good for them and good for the world. And regarding tzaddikim, the exact opposite is true."

Chazal defines reshaim as people who intentionally do bad things, with the Malbim defining them as people who intentionally sin against both Hashem and other people.

The Kli Yakar explains that when reshaim get together, they think up bad advice for others while at the same time getting into fights with each other. This is because they don’t share the same goals. He gives examples: One desires wealth and honor, another desires an abundance of food, while another desires an abundance of illicit relations.

​And so on.

The Kli Yakar explains that the people claimed to want to build the Tower in order to preserve their unity.

They realized that as people disperse, they tend to form countries, which then go to war against each other; the Dor Haflagah wanted to preserve the brotherhood and unity they were experiencing. They wanted the Tower as a rallying point because “every man has the desire and the aim to come to dwell in a big city, a place of gathering for many people.”

He further explains that had they not declared, “to make ourselves a name,” their plan would have worked because the erection of the Tower would have been for the purpose of peace. But in making that declaration, they revealed their underlying intent for building the Tower: to make a name for themselves.
​
In other words, it was about self-aggrandizement.

Needless to say, we see this today.

The Western world blathers on about peace and unity while Islam constantly promotes its ideal of unity and brotherhood among Muslims.

But the Western world’s brand of “brotherhood” has actually been used to wage war on the human mind and soul while the Islamic brand of “brotherhood” has been used to wage war on the human body.

And behind the scenes, the same people who blather on about peace and unity among themselves are actually at each other’s throats.

​In the Western world, there is no real friendship among leaders beyond using each other for personal advancement while in the Muslim world, assassinations even among brothers who share the same mother and father, have always characterized Muslim rulers.

Basically, they would anyway end up persecuting each other because their true goal wasn’t really peace and unity, but self-aggrandizement.

In such a situation, the Kli Yakar comments that people end up more united after forming different groups because within separate groups, people focus more on developing their own language and nationality rather than pursuing the goal of making a name for themselves.

​This naturally occurring focus on their own self-preservation automatically leads to more unity and less envy and competition.
​
The Kli Yakar points out that the building of the Tower was actually the beginning of their end.

​Once they were gathering into one big city, their innate desire for self-aggrandizement would start to express itself.

"Now, will it not be withheld from them, all that they have planned to do?" (11:6)
The Kli Yakar now writes as if Hashem is speaking:

Then the Kli Yakar brings the whole story around to precious mussar for us in our times:

See Part II or Part III

The Rambam in Hilchot Taanit explains that in the face of calamity, teshuvah is necessary.

We need to find the message in the suffering. If we don’t and instead ascribe the suffering to randomness and the natural order of the world, the Rambam defines this as “a cruel response.”

In a previous post, I already discussed what I think the terror attacks have come to show us.

To you, they may say something different.

Perhaps you see parallels with lashon hara, Shabbat transgressions, or other halachic issues. Each person can see what he or she needs to work on personally. The main point is to search for the message and then apply it to yourself. (I did this based on what I wrote there, but am not discussing it on this blog because that kind of thing is pretty personal.)

But as I’ve also written before, the frum community is the most self-critical of any other group. Yet at the same time we have some very serious problems, we are also doing much better as a whole than any other community in the world.

Yes, I know it doesn’t always seem that way.

For example, a non-Jewish community may feature a state-of-the-art facility to treat, say, eating disorders or a secular Jewish school may have an excellent program to treat learning disabilities.

Sometimes, certain non-Jews can be much nicer than certain Jews.

It can also depend on what type of frum community you’re in. Different communities have different styles, flavors, and emphasize different things.   

Because much of Western society is Esav, a lot of the stuff that looks good isn’t really so amazing or effective on the inside.

America, especially, is very into self-promotion, puffing itself up like a big balloon with only air on the inside and very little substance on the inside. Esav is always the pig that extends its split hoof to show that it’s kosher on the outside while being completely treif on the inside.

I’m going to list some really good stuff about the frum community. 

Of course, you may have had negative experiences — so have I. In fact, you may have had the exact opposite experience to something I list here, and unfortunately, I know just how disappointing and even devastating that is.

To make things even more challenging, part of Western society’s mentality is its presumption that “being honest” is about always emphasizing the negative.

Emphasizing the positive is often seen as “wearing rose-colored glasses” or being “Pollyannish” or being naïve or childlike or stupid or dishonest. There is also the concept that "man bites dog" is news, but that "dog bites man" is not. And certainly, an entire week in which no dog or man bite anyone will never be reported. But really, being honest is seeing the good along with the bad, especially in Am Yisrael and Hashem.
 
You Guys are Great and Here's the Proof:
​
So here it goes:

• I have seen numerous times on Mehadrin buses that women seat themselves in the designated men’s section (sometimes sitting so far forward that they leave only 8 seats for the men) and do it in a way so that there is one woman for every pair of chairs. And NO ONE SAYS ANYTHING. The men don’t start yelling, hitting, proclaiming, throwing bleach, nothing. The men just crowd quietly in the aisle. Sometimes, a man quietly asks a woman if she would move to sit with another woman so that the men might sit down, too.

 

• I know several divorced women and men who were greatly helped by their community (and even the divorcees’ themselves acknowledged this; it’s not just my observation). Whether they needed money, a place to stay, childcare, rabbinical intervention, emotional support, a job, tefillot on the days they met with the beit din – they got it and it was given whole-heartedly and without fanfare.

 

• There are communities in which the women are very knowledgeable about and committed to keeping the laws of lashon hara to the point that even when “interesting” stuff happens, you’ll never know about it. In fact, there was a warm and friendly woman I would run into regularly at the park or grocery store for 3-4 years, and I never knew she was separated and then divorced during that time, even though we had many mutual friends.

 

• I have been in Eretz Yisrael's most chareidi areas and seen women and girls dressed with an extreme lack of tsniut (in some cases, a really shocking lack of tsnius), and NO ONE SAYS ANYTHING. No one even looks at them. No bleach, no cries of “Shikseh!”, nothing. Actually, in one case in Geula, a young girl in jeans was walking through looking terrified, and I saw several Chassidish women stop and look at her sympathetically and try to catch her eye and smile at her or approach her nicely, but she was too frightened to notice.

 

• In a Yediot Acharonot article published around 15 years ago, a secular female journalist wrote a report on her experiment of going into Meah Shearim dressed very secularly while smoking and chewing gum. To her dismay, the chareidim were really nice to her, so she made herself behave more and more obnoxiously, even yelling at a little chareidi girl. Twice, Meah Shearim women came running out of their homes to offer her a modest robe to wear, insisting, “You’re my sister! I don’t mind at all – you don’t even need to return it! Really, you’ll feel comfortable.” They kept warmly insisting that she was their sister. Only at the very end of her little journey, as she was exiting Meah Shearim, two men asked her what she was doing there (to which she responded with self-righteous anger) and then requested that she not come back unless she was dressed appropriately. And that was it.

 

• When one of my children got injured (when not in our care), the French Breslov nurse who treated him cheerfully advised me to do things to make him happy in order to speed the healing, like telling him jokes and playing happy music.

 

• When they were young, my children and their friends found a cave to play in that was also used as a room for hitbodedut and chevruta learning by some local Breslovers. Rather than getting upset at the evidence of rowdy little boys having been in their private holy space, the men would often leave candies with a note telling the boys that the candy was for them and to enjoy themselves, while also adding a cheerful directive to leave the place neat and be careful not to knock over or mess up any books left there.

 

• Many frum people are very kind and understanding toward the teenagers who are obviously having issues, and they don’t respond in kind when the boys are rude or provocative toward them. It is not at all unusual for frum men to engage them in conversation, greet them with Shabbat Shalom, and so on.

 

• There is no other group in the world that has gemachim anywhere near nor anything like the level of that which exists in the frum community.

 

• In our frum neighborhood, we have gotten used to that whenever we lose a bus card (Rav-Kav) or wallet or money, we just wait until it is advertised in the the Lost-and-Found section of the local neighborhood magazine. This almost always happens.

 

• In frum neighborhoods, it is common for the storekeeper to invite you to pay him later if you happen not to have enough money to cover your purchase. A lot of times, they don’t even write down your name or amount owed because they just trust that you’re a decent person who cares enough not to forget or exploit the situation.

 

• In my experience, the frum community’s respect for women (especially women with small children or who are pregnant) and the willingness to judge you favorably (or at least not go out of their way to judge you unfavorably too much) is unparalleled. In fact, when I was dealing with young children and dealing with non-Jews or secular Jews, I really found the men to be condescending or disdainful or rude (and not because my kids were behaving wildly or something; they weren’t). Men with a yeshiva background were nearly always understanding, respectful, and courteous.

 

• A lot of secular American men also have a lot of hostility toward women who uphold the laws of tsniut, no matter how gracious and accommodating the frum women is. (Interestingly, secular Israeli men treat tsniut with a great deal of respect and appreciation.)

​

• I also could not stand the level of lashon hara common even among very nice people in the secular/non-Jewish world and I found it very hard to deal with the complete lack of any attempt to judge favorably. Especially nowadays, Americans love to interpret your words and intentions in the worst way possible. For me, despite its weak points, the frum community (despite its flaws and Erev Rav) is a kind of refuge from the poor middot of the secular world.

 

• I once knew a giyoret from Germany. God only knows what her parents and grandparents did during the Shoah. She didn't speak about them much, but she clearly had very little contact with them and really disliked going back to visit Germany, hinting that her family didn't approve of her Judaism. None of her family (not even her parents) came to her wedding, despite the fact that a trip between Germany and Israel is relatively short and affordable. She performed astounding acts of chessed, like regularly spending the night in dorm for autistic children so they could have adult supervision — and doing so without any payment. She once spent Shabbat at the Tel Aviv airport in order to escort another girl in a situation of pikuach nefesh to that girl's flight. There wasn't time to leave the airport before Shabbat, so she stayed there until Motzaei Shabbat. The girl she escorted was not some friend of hers and I'm not sure whether they even knew each other prior to this event. This German giyoret wanted to join the Meah Shearim community and was warmly accepted by these Yerushalayim despite their number of Holocaust survivors and her obvious German accent.

Obviously, I could go on and on. And I’m sure you could, too.

(Continue to Part II or Part III)

 May our collective merits greatly sweeten the coming Geula.

So…most of us have either read about or listened to the video of a 15-year-old Israeli boy named Natan who died for 15 minutes on the first day of Sukkot this year.

One thing I found very interesting is that when Natan discussed the most serious transgressions that were considered very, very bad in Shamayim (1:01:00), and the audience asked him to be more specific, Natan immediately said, “Gaava” – haughtiness, pride, arrogance. “Gaava is a very, very big sin.”

He mentioned this even before mentioning murder, lashon hara, illicit relations, and so on. And at 1:09:00, he mentions that as severe as gaava is for men, it’s even more severe for women. (Just like tsniut is more severe for women, but guarding one’s eyes and personal holiness are more severe for men.)

When pressed by the audience about sinat chinam, he just shook his head. (Sorry I couldn’t find that bit again.)

We know that every mussar sefer addresses the issue of gaava and how Hashem cannot stand a baal gaava. And every sage who has written about this has described how gaava is the root of the most severe transgressions.

And the truth is, the less gaava you have, the less likely you are to hate, get angry, behave cruelly or immorally, and so on.
 
Connection Confusion: Mixed Signals
Since I’ve become frum, I feel like I’ve been inundated with the need to give the benefit of the doubt in even the most extreme situations, to love beyond all limits, and to forgive generously and apologize profusely. I took this very much to heart as have many others.

But it got to the point that some people were doing very bad things and other very good people insisted on burying their heads in the sand about it, allowing innocent people to be abused or robbed and more.

One very common example of this is with shidduchim or shalom bayis, when one partner starts noticing warning signs or actual abusive behavior and is rebuffed by their friend, rav, or rebbetzin who insists that they must give the benefit of the doubt and even encourages them to blame themselves for the other person’s dysfunctional behavior. Another common situation is in the workplace, where a boss or employee is behaving abusively or unethically, and YOU must give the benefit of the doubt or “buck up and deal with it because all bosses act like that” or because of someone’s position in the company, they have a “right” to treat their co-workers or employees “that way.”

There are unfortunately many more examples I could give. Those were just a couple I've been told about.

Maybe (hopefully!) this hasn't been your experience, but this has been what I and many others have seen.

Any mitzvah can be warped into something anti-Torah. 

It got to the point that if I expressed any upset feelings to a frum person about a non-Jewish family member who has never been a nice person, the frum person would start turning cartwheels to get me to give that person the benefit of the doubt when there is absolutely no mitzvah to do so. Once, one person who did this later gave me a vague albeit sincere apology, which was admirable. But I was still left perplexed as to why she felt such a desperate need to get me to view my Esavite relative positively in the first place.

The truth is that over the years, I've been running more and more into people who knowingly hurt others (usually passive-aggressively) and who just aren't sorry. They think they're funny or clever or allowed to avenge whatever terrible sin they imagine you've done (usually the "sin" is not giving them enough kavod, like not agreeing with them when they are wrong or something). It isn’t always clear whether someone actually has Narcissistic Personality Disorder, but narcissistic qualities can definitely be identified.

Most of these people were fine and decent people at one time, people who genuinely strived to do the right thing. But at some point, they just gave up and started taking out their aggravations on innocent people. Yes, they have genuine challenges: shalom bayis problems, chinuch problems, fertility problems, problematic parents or in-laws, financial problems, problematic neighbors, health problems, and so on.

There is definitely room for sympathy.

Obviously, Hashem has been whomping us from all sides and it’s exhausting.

But the whole point is to get us to turn to Him, not to turn against others.
 
Another category consists of people who lash out "just for a moment" and only in situations in which they "just couldn't take it anymore." Except that these "momentary" lapses actually occur with great frequency. (I'm not talking about truly occasional lapses.) While I'm the first to admit that maintaining constant awareness of Hashem every single waking moment is extremely challenging, the fact is that the more you can remind yourself that this person and his or her aggravating behavior is from Hashem and a way to strengthen your emuna, the more you will make unbelievable strides in self-control.

And the current wave of terror in Eretz Yisrael represent both these dynamics.

In fact, psychobabble even calls passive-aggressive comments “sniping.” In the current uprising, Yishmaelites have been coming up to Jews from behind and plunging in a knife. They have been sniping, hitting little Maoz in Lod and a teenage girl in Kochav Yaakov.

On a psychological level, this is exactly what people have been doing to each other.
 
Yes, it’s true that many of these difficult people suffered difficulties themselves. Some of them have truly heart-breaking life stories.

Yes, it’s true that they don’t really realize how badly they are behaving; they feel truly justified on some level. They feel truly victimized.

But they are still very wrong.

(And some of them are anyway Erev Rav.)

Chazal to the Rescue!
Fortunately, we have Chazal to help us out. I really believe that one major reason why Hashem has whapped me with this kind of thing so frequently was to get me to turn to the original sources, i.e. the Truth.

So...we know that you can't hate them because everything is from Hashem and they are just shalichim, but you aren't really allowed to have anything to do with them, either.

In her book on talking to God, Rivka Levy brought to attention that the first Tehillim warns against associating with reshaim (intentional sinners), chata'im (unintentional sinners), and leitzim (mockers/scoffers).

(Please check out Radak and Malbim’s commentary on the perek for further elucidation.)

Yes, reshaim. Even though they’ve had hard lives and deprivations.

Yes, even chata'im. Even though they don’t know or don't understand.

And yes, even leitzim. Even though they’re just kidding.


Nonetheless, STAY AWAY.

This concept is so important that David Hamelech put it at the forefront of Sefer Tehillim.

Despite all the modern exhortations to remain connected to people (even if they only want a toxic connection) and to forgive people (even if they aren’t sorry) and to give people the benefit of the doubt (even when they mean to hurt you or simply don’t care) and apologize to people (even if they won't forgive or will use it against you, and even if what they did was worse), and to work out differences (with people who cannot compromise or bend), reading original sources told me something very different.

Please don’t misunderstand me: Of course we should judge fellow Jews favorably. And of course we shouldn’t hold grudges or hate in our heart knowing that everything is from Hashem.

But it doesn’t say we should be co-dependent enablers. (That goes into the area of chanifah/flattery and against “in the way of the chataim, he didn't stand.”)
Both the Pele Yoetz (in Chevruta - Friendship as just one example) and Orchot Tzaddikim use proofs from the Gemara and Mishlei to very clearly stress that one should associate with people on a higher level in order to be positively influenced by them while avoiding people on a lower level unless you have the ability to influence them to do teshuvah.

(And you need to be honest with yourself about how much you can really influence them. Frankly, I’ve messed up on this more times than I care to admit. You know why? Because I confused feeling good with actually being good.)

The Kli Yakar even goes into a whole discussion in Parshat Metzora of how people who are both fault-finders (baalei ra’atan – from the word ra’eh, seeing) and discuss the faults they find with others (AKA lashon hara) are actually suffering from a highly contagious incurable brain parasite discussed in the Gemara called ra’atan (Ketubot 77 and Kiddushin 70).

The chances of infection were so high that the Gemara talks about the lengths different sages took to avoid baalei ra’atan, such as not even eating eggs from an alley where such a person lives. There was no cure for this terrible disease except surgery to remove the parasite.

Only Rebbi Yehoshua ben Levi was immune because he was a great talmid chacham and learned Torah with the baalei ra’atan.

Fortunately, the Kli Yakar reassures us that there are still ways in our days to fight ra’atan. He says that one can be cured through a great deal of Torah learning while an am ha’aretz can be cured through a broken spirit – meaning sincere regret and a humility that comes from knowing that everything he has is a chessed from Hashem, that impels him to do true teshuvah and turn from his bad deeds – the opposite of gaava.

There is a lot more to say about this subject. But this post is long enough as is. I plan to write other posts about this in the future.

Some excellent advice regarding this whole subject can be found in the Pele Yoetz under the chapter Love of Friends - Ahavat Re'im.

Hava HaAharona has got some brilliant insights and advice regarding sinat chinam that are well-worth checking out (along with lots of other good stuff).
 
Stabbers, Snipers, and the People Who "Love" Them
Again, I want to emphasize that what is happening in Eretz Yisrael is only a reflection of what we are doing to ourselves. A lot of people resist doing a real cheshbon hanefesh. A lot of people, even chashuv people, genuinely cannot see the reality of their problematic behavior.

They deal with their frustrations via passive-aggressive sniping and behaviors. They plunge in the knife then flee the scene so they don’t get caught. (These are the people who try to twist out of accepting responsibility for their behavior and it’s very hard to pin them down in a discussion with them.)

The rest of the world is standing by or actively defending them by calling them “freedom fighters” or “extremists,” or insisting that each terror attack is just a “one-off” and not representative of a collective Yishmaelite mentality or the rest of the world is actively demanding compassion because the terrorists have “suffered” and have had “hard lives” or and are “angry” or that the terrorists “don’t understand” that what they’re doing is wrong.
 
Final Points

1. Avoid people who pull you down.
2. Daven for those same difficult people. (This awakens compassion within you and actually helps them.)
3. Develop an enjoyment of helping people rather than hurting them through sniping and other tactics.
4. When faced with difficult people, remind yourself that it's from Hashem and deal with them from that angle. 
5. If you’re already pretty nice, be VERY careful that you don’t enable or support people who are hurting others. Falling all over yourself to defend a dysfunctional person because he or she has had/is having a hard life or because you’ve been told to honor this person is not a mitzvah but the aveira of chanifah. This includes your parent or rav or rebbetzin, by the way. It feels good to be all pseudo-compassionate, but it may not actually be a good thing to do. (The halacha is also clear that you may not accept non-toelet lashon hara from such people, either.) This is one of the biggest stumbling blocks I’ve seen with kind-hearted people who are otherwise well-intentioned and sincere.
6. Associate with people who are on a higher spiritual level than you.
7. Turn to Hashem rather than turning on others. 

And coming back to Natan: It’s reassuring to see how true teshuvah really does erase the sin.

Of course, we don't need Natan or anyone else to tell us this because Chazal already tell us this.

But it was still nice to hear around 1:14:00, Natan mentions that there were sins he committed for which he already repented and they weren’t shown in his Heavenly trial, despite the fact that every second of his life was shown to him and judged.
 
May we all merit to do true teshuvah and avert these terrible decrees.

And may we suffer no more tragedies.
__________

Related Link:
Guarding the Eyes (Wish I'd read this YEARS ago. It perfectly addresses the exact issue brought up in the post.)

The Kli Yakar explains "East" as a beautiful metaphor:

Notice that the Kli Yakar doesn't emphasize a lot of chest-pounding, self-recrimination, toxic shame, and the like. His point is that if you did something wrong, then: "Go East." Put your energy into fixing it, not grieving it (or denying it).
 
There is a tikkun for everything.

Furthermore, the Kli Yakar advises you to focus on a mitzvah that is the direct opposite of the sin committed. This is especially true for sins that cannot actually be repaired (like murder).
 
There is no need for despair or denial or wallowing. Just get moving "East."