Category: Books

The Message of the Registration Quandary

24/8/2021

This post is a continuation of the previous post:
the-message-of-the-yellow-star.html

If you haven't already, it's important to read the preface at the beginning of the previous post there before continuing with this post.

To Register or Not?

Another ordinance within the Holocaust that caused a variety of responses was the order for Jews to register themselves to receive food ration cards.

Many Jews did so automatically.

After all, an alternative never occurred to them, both because they felt compelled to automatically follow the oppressive Nazi orders & because of the difficulty—or even impossibility—of obtaining food without the ration cards.

(Another aspect of the Holocaust many misunderstand is what stress & lack of food—combined with harsh physical labor for many—to do one's physiology by inducing lethargy, which makes it hard to think or function. In other words, if you have a full stomach, you probably don't get it.)

Yet some Jews hesitated.

They realized registration could mean death.

Once on the Nazi list, the Nazis knew to come after them.

Also, horrific consequences sometimes followed when the Nazis realized someone was missing.

But if the missing person wasn't on the list, then the Nazis would never know.

After intense deliberation, some felt they could not obtain food any other way, so they registered.

Yet others tried not to register.

Some exhorted their friends & relatives to avoid registering, insisting it would bring sure death.

Despite that pressure—and the very real danger of being registered—many simply could not afford to pass on the food ration cards.

Who was right?

For most Jews in that situation, both decisions brought death.

Again, as with the yellow star, an objectively "correct" decision did not exist.

So much depended on one's individual circumstances and mazal (Divinely orchestrated "luck").

In addition, both the external circumstances & each person's individual circumstances kept changing.

Whatever one chose to do, the results were never certain.

Story #1: Refused to Register

Many who refused to register were religious Jews who strove to depend on Hashem for their needs.

As Leichu recalls in her memoir, A Daughter of Two Mothers: "Mama decided nothing good could come of registering. Indeed, because we weren't registered, we didn't receive food ration cards. But Mama claimed that she was registered with our Father in Heaven, and He would take care of our sustenance."

In contrast, Leichu's mother insisted on Leichu sewing the yellow star onto her coat even before the official date, refusing to allow Leichu out of the house until she did it.

Because the Nazi soldiers were trigger-happy, Leichu's mother feared they might shoot a Jew without a yellow star even before the date of its official legalization.

And it seems that both Leichu & her mother shared a Jewish "look," which meant they couldn't get away with not wearing the yellow star.

So again, we see the terrible cheshbonot Jews needed to make—life-and-death decisions—each based on one's individual factors and subject to uncertainty regardless of how wisely one analyzed the factors.

Neither Leichu nor her mother seemed to suffer from wearing the yellow star (though they also avoided going out much).

Did wearing the yellow star save them from being immediately deported or shot?

Yes, it seems so. They were obviously Jewish, so not wearing the yellow star would bring them dangerous attention.

Did not registering save them?

Kind of.

The night before the deportation of Vinograd's Jews to a ghetto, a Roma/Gypsy woman knocked on the door to invite Leichu and her mother to escape with the Roma couple into the Carpathian mountains.

(The Roma woman, Leichu, and Leichu's mother all knew & liked each other from before.)

Leichu's mother, claiming she could not pose as a Roma woman, insisted that Leichu should go with the Roma couple; Leichu could pose as their daughter (especially since Leichu had mastered the Roma language).

Due to an infection from a splinter before antibiotics, Leichu's mother suffered an amputation just below her right elbow, something she worried would also interfere with their escape & hiding.

So at her mother's insistence, Leichu went with the Roma couple and survived while her mother entered the ghetto, then perished in the terrible conditions of the boxcars on the way to Auschwitz.

Because Leichu hadn't registered, did that stop the Nazis from hunting her or from harassing her mother when they came to deport her mother (i.e., if they'd registered, the Nazis could have said, "We have 2 people registered here—where is the other?")?

We'll never know, but it's possible.

The point is that many decisions needed to be made and while many people went along with the orders (because they had no other choice), others deliberated, and even exhorted, "No, THIS is the right decision! THIS will help; THAT will kill!"

And sometimes, they ended up being right.

And sometimes not.

Either way they decided & regardless of where their fate lay in the end, it wasn't their fault because of the unknown factors affecting each person's mazal.

Story #2: Initially Refused to Register; Did Not Register Entire Family

In Yaakov Astor's incredible biography of his mother-in-law, Rachel Blum, Nothing Bad Ever Happens: The Incredible True Story of One Young Girl Alone Escaping the Nazis, Rachel's father initially resisted registering because he felt doing so would make them more visible to the Nazis.

In other words, his deliberations concluded that registration seemed more dangerous than not.

However, as the situation worsened, the ghetto Judenrat convinced him that registering was more helpful than not.

Without registration, he could not receive food rations or a place to live.

Until that point, they survived mostly on Rachel's begging & obtaining food in other ways. They lived in abandoned cellars.

(Rachel was around 12 or 13 at this time.)

So her father registered, but this did not save him. In fact, it seems that as things deteriorated, survival was not possible for him either way.

For him, not registering did not help.

But registering did not help either.

His decisions were logical hishtadlut—but never the determining factor.

However, it appears that Rachel never registered.

She survived by escaping the ghetto and living with a non-Jewish family until the end of the war.

Did avoiding registration save Rachel?

It seems it contributed to her survival. It kept her name off the Nazi lists, so they weren't looking for her specifically.

But she nearly died several times, both before the ghetto and after.

So not registering was far from THE reason she survived.

So once again, we see how these decisions played a part in survival, but did not determine survival.

While Hashem remained hidden during this horrific time, He also remained intimately involved in less revealed ways, which is why—even in the most horrific & heartbreaking accounts—you see miracles in every survivor's story.

The Light of Mashiach: Unpredictability Encourages Reliance on Hashem

In our times, the world is rushing toward Mashiach.

As Rav Itamar Schwartz notes, the light of Keter started being revealed way back in the time of the Baal Shem Tov.

More recently we've entered the dimension of reisha d'lo etyada (the Unknowable Beginning/Head—meaning, the height of unpredictability—an idea also from Rav Schwartz).

Things will continue to become less reliable.

This comprises part of Mashiach because the entire Geula will occur with unpredictability.

Despite how stressful it is, this same unpredictability encourages us to rely on Hashem as it becomes increasingly clear we cannot rely on anything else.

Just one example:

A light will be unsheathed that will burn the undeserving while nurturing the deserving—much the same way how the same sunlight hardens eggs yet softens ice, or how the same sunlight whitens cloth yet darkens skin.

People who feel sure they're worthy will discover they aren't, while those unsure of their worthiness might discover they are.

It's the same light, but induces a vastly different effect on each one, all depending on the individual characteristics inside.

Unpredictable. The unknowable.

Because of this, it's vitally important to focus on the deeper messages & our own inner avodah, even as we must practically deal with the very real events going on around us.

For the previous post connected to this one:
the-message-of-the-yellow-star.html

For more about this Keter d'reisha d'lo etyada phase:
https://question.bilvavi.net/blog/2021/08/03/radla-the-unknowable-head/

For more about dealing with this phase, please see:
https://bilvavi.net/files/Bilvavi.Faith.and.Trust.In.Uncertain.Times.pdf
(It was originally put together several months ago, but the ideas & advice contained within still very much apply now.)

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The Message of the Yellow Star

23/8/2021

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This post discusses on aspect of the Holocaust that I believe contains a message for us today.

Rav Avigdor Miller, Rav Shach, Rav Elchonon Wasserman, the Satmar Rav, and others considered much of the Holocaust unfathomable.

However, they also believed aspects of it contained messages for us.

Rav Avigdor Miller wrote a book about this called A Divine Madness. This book has helped many of us by explaining Hashem's messages & answering the existential questions that plagued us. And those messages continue to help us in our personal paths of self-improvement today.

On the other hand, other great rabbanim like the Lubavitcher Rebbe & Rav Hutner considered the Holocaust completely unfathomable and therefore turned away from the kind of analysis & mussar the above-mentioned rabbanim engaged in.

Many people find solace & meaning in this approach too.

Either way, all the above rabbanim were successful in their efforts toward rebuilding the Jewish people with enthusiastic authentic Judaism.

With that said...the following article discusses the messages according to Rav Avigdor Miller's approach.

And this approach may not sit well with people who hold like the Lubavitcher Rebbe & Rav Hutner.

But even though their approach is unquestionably honorable & valid, it doesn't mean the rest of us can't discuss things according to the approach of Rav Miller and others.

To see the view of the Lubavitcher Rebbe: https://www.chabad.org/therebbe/article_cdo/aid/62160/jewish/1939-45-The-Rebbe-on-the-Holocaust-Rebuilding.htm

For Rav Miller's view: https://torasavigdor.org/tag/holocaust/

The Yellow Star

We all know about the Nazi order for Jews to sew a yellow star-shaped patch on their clothing.

Many memoirs reveal the different responses to this command at that time.

Some did so robotically, feeling helpless against yet another Nazi law. They didn't think to disobey because the slightest upset meant some kind of torment or even death.

And with the yellow star sewn on their coats, some avoided as much as possible going out, so as not to suffer harassment as such an identifiable Jew.

Yet others went out as usual, feeling their obedience provided some kind of protection.

But many others weighed the risks of wearing or not wearing the yellow star.

Some decided, after great deliberation, to wear it. They wore it with pride or with fear—or with both pride & fear.

Many realized the yellow star invited harassment (or worse).

Yet if they went out without the star & others realized they were Jewish, this also invited harassment in the form of a violent arrest and possibly death.

There was no "right" answer because so much depended on mazal & how you looked—and regardless of coloring & facial features, many Jewish eyes during the Holocaust contained a sadness or hunted look, making them stand out from the non-Jewish population.

It depended on whether your former non-Jewish acquaintances would recognize you—and if so, whether they would betray you.

For some Jews, wearing the yellow star worked out; it saved them from arrest or immediate death.

In some areas, the yellow star did not even invite harassment from the locals.

For other Jews, wearing the star brought their downfall, making them a target for random Jew-haters, plus unexpected Nazi round-ups in the street utilized the yellow stars as a pointer from which the star-wearing Jew could not escape.

Furthermore, several Holocaust memoirs report the good deeds of a non-Jew saves a Jew wearing the patch & even encourages the Jew to take it off.

One Girl's Story: Better Off without the Yellow Star

For example, in Rosalie Lamet's Holocaust memoir City of Diamonds, she recalls how she and her best friend, Helene (also a religious Jewish teenager), encountered a Nazi parade as the girls stood window shopping in Belgium.

Fortunately, a non-Jewish shopkeeper called them into her store & then insisted the girls remove their yellow stars.

At first, the Jewish girls protested, expressing their fear of the harsh punishment in store for Jews who disobeyed the order to wear the yellow star.

But the non-Jewish shopkeeper related her experience of a similar march, which resulted in the capture of dozens of Jewish youth—young Jews easily identified by the yellow star on their clothing.

Tearfully, the shopkeeper said, "Can't you see? The star is condemning you! Without it, you still have the chance to be overlooked. So please, I implore you, let me cut that yellow emblem from your garments before it spells your doom!" (page 200)

When the girls still hesitated, the shopkeeper took their coats and started removing the yellow stars herself.

After wholeheartedly thanking the kind-hearted courageous shopkeeper, the girls walked home.

To their surprise, the two girls felt "no qualms about parading around without our stars. On the contrary, we felt relieved!" (page 200)

This was clearly Hashem telling them they didn't need to wear the yellow star. For them, life was safer without it.

How One Teenage Jewish Girl Saw the Message

But ultimately, the entire purpose of the yellow star (as Rav Miller describes it in his book) is to look at the message from Hashem, which is obviously to stop assimilating.

It's like you wanted to be like the goyim around you & blend in to be more goyish? Well, davka now you're going to be FORCED to unassimilate.

Now you're going to look like a Jew whether you want to or not—and now it's not going to be pleasant.

Despite her youth, this lesson was not lost on the teenage Rosalie Lamet.

On page 190, she recalls:

The first time Mama and I walked down the street wearing our yellow stars, I felt everyone's eyes upon us.

The words of the prophet Balaam crossed my mind: "The Hebrew people shall stand alone among the nations," words he had intended as a curse but had been transformed into a blessing.

Later (page 202), she recalls how after she returned home from the righteous shopkeeper, she gazed at the yellow star no longer part of her coat & reflect on the strong feelings it evoked in her.

She decided then:

Right now, that slip of yellow material was a badge of shame and disgrace, but I prayed that one day soon it would be reinstated to its rightful place — a place of honor, beauty, and holiness.

Then the Jewish star would shine like a blessing for all to see!

So what Rav Miller & many other Gedolim pointed out did not lie beyond the grasp of the Jews of that time.

Eighteen-year-old Rosalie got it.

And she wasn't the only one.

Yes, the Jews needed to pay attention to the world around them and the consequences for their actions (consequences often impossible to predict with any certainty—as noted above, mazal decided more than anything else).

Rosalie was raised in a religious Jewish home, but one not very different than a lot of highly Americanized mainstream Orthodox Jews. As committed as her family was to mitzvot, Rosalie also describes them as culturally very Belgian (though 2 of her brothers chose to become very yeshivish).

Rosalie describes herself as brought up strictly religious, but her Jewish education had been "neglected," meaning that by 18 years of age, she knew only the basics of Jewish history & how to read Hebrew.

Yet even amid all the terror & stress & lack of the deeper Torah hashkafah some Jews received, Rosalie still managed to notice the spiritual message within the terrible nisayon.

Looking Objectively (But NOT Atheistically) at the Yellow Star Law

Again, the yellow star was not the deciding factor for who lived or died.

It was a factor. But not the only one.

Yes, it often proved to be a life-and-death decision—but not the only one & not outside of Hashem's Plan.

For instance, while neither Rosalie nor Helene suffered any harsh consequences for not wearing the yellow star, only Rosalie survived Holocaust.

Helene, despite her innovation & dynamism, was caught in a Nazi raid on her own home.

The yellow star was only ONE factor in a whole web of factors—as is always true in life.

It hurts to say it when discussing horrific events, but Hashem is orchestrating everything.

HE decides—and ONLY He decides.

(And here, I'm reminding myself as much as—or maybe even more than—I'm reminding you.)

So yes—many Jews argued, deliberated, and agonized over whether to wear the yellow star.

Either way, they knew they were making a life-and-death decision.

And some people who wore the yellow star died.

And some people who wore the yellow star lived.

And some people who refused to wear the yellow star died.

And some who refused to wear the yellow star lived.

It was individual; some could get away with not wearing it.

But mostly, it was a matter of mazal (Divinely orchestrated "luck")—while wearing or not wearing the yellow star factored into their mazal, it didn't decide their mazal.

Other factors & other unknowable cheshbonot played a vital part in survival (or not).

Either way, the message of the yellow star (as intended by Hashem) remained & still remains for us today.

(Some, like Rosalie, immediately sensed the message in the Nazi order to wear a yellow star. It isn't impossible to sense a message in such an event.)

It all goes together.

Dealing with the Natural World while Absorbing the Divine Message

Finally, it's worth noting that the Holocaust and the whole process leading up to the actual deportations & slaughter were part of a great conspiracy.

It even had a documented name: "The Final Solution to the Jewish Question"—the official term used by January 1942 at the Wannsee Conference in Berlin.

(The term "the Jewish Question" has been around since the 1800s.)

Horrifically evil people wielding great power took over and, in a "war of nerves" (their name for an aspect of their "Final Solution" conspiracy), gradually imposed laws on the societies they conquered, all leading up to genocide.

During that time, it was hard not to notice anything else but how to survive.

And it's unfair to judge people for the decisions and responses they made at that time. Things weren't as clear as people now like to think and people who weren't there cannot say they would know better.

But the messages (according to Rav Miller, Rav Wasserman, the Satmar Rav, Rav Shach, and other Gedolim) were definitely there.

Sitting there in the Slabodka yeshivah in Lithuania with the Nazis nearly upon them, the young Rav Miller and all the others in yeshivah understood what was happening & they davened their hearts out to avoid it.

But as Rav Miller often emphasizes, the awareness & heartfelt davening was primarily just them in the yeshivah, not the rest of the town.

So even if great evil really is overtaking the world & even if the conspiracy theorists are right, we still should not lose our focus on the messages behind the actions.

Those messages are from Hashem trying to wake us up.

He wants to help us.

He wants to give us tons of chances & lots of time to both understand & incorporate into our lives His Messages to the best of our ability, each according to his or her own level.

We can't ignore the actual ordinances & events in our lives. They exist & we must deal with them however we see best.

At the same time, we must not ignore the messages contained within the events.

A continuation of this post:
www.myrtlerising.com/blog/the-message-of-the-registration-quandary

Related post:
http://www.myrtlerising.com/blog/covid-19-the-meron-tragedy-hamas-missile-attacks-rioting-yishmaelim-the-bleacher-tragedy-in-givat-zev-whats-the-underlying-message

Just a reminder regarding the new non-comment policy:
blog-update-of-2-changes-1-a-new-most-popular-section-and-2-no-more-comments-including-a-lengthy-explanation-of-why.html

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In-Depth Book Review: Sori's Story—An Amazing Life of Survival & Faith

28/6/2021

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I just read an extraordinary memoir called Sori's Story: An Amazing Life of Survival & Faith by Sori Kraus & Devora Gliksman, also based on interviews with Rosalyn Livshin.

(Devorah Gliksman also authored another of my favorites, a memoir of the Paneth family from pre-WWII until they reached America: The Sun & the Shield.)

Born in Czechoslovakia in 1933 to a loving regal mother and a father who was both a talmid chacham & the epitome of bitachon & exemplary character, Sori led a charmed life with her younger sister Ruti.

Sori & Ruti received an ideal upbringing from caring, frum, devoted parents.

Interestingly, Sori's mother's chassidish father decided to wed her to the Litvish Shmuel Juda Binyomin Bernfeld in an effort to save his daughter from the encroaching Haskalah & Reform Movement—the Sori's chassidish grandfather believed that by marrying off his daughter to a talmid chacham, she would be saved & protected from the poisonous winds of change.

And he was right.

Sori's parents enjoyed an idyllic marriage together, full of the richness of Torah.

Together, they succeeded in imbuing their children with yirat Shamayim, bitachon, and wholeheartedly joyful devotion to Torah & mitzvot.

Proof of Hashem's Hand: She Shouldn't Have Even Survived the Train Ride

This memoir, more than any other, portrayed Hashem's Hand in Sori's survival during the Holocaust.

Although stories abound of children who survived, I found Sori particularly striking because up to the point she separated from her parents, Sori led a very sheltered & genteel childhood with gentle & loving parents, maids & nannies, plus warm & loving extended family.

Sori herself was a very sweet, well-behaved, lovely, innocent little girl.

Pampered yet disciplined, Sori's parents continued to shelter her & Ruti with piety & gentility even after they were forced to move into the ghetto.

At age 8, Sori's father & mother suddenly told her she needed to wear peasant clothing, get on a train by herself with false identification papers (and a new identity which Sori needed to memorize on the spot, and travel all alone until she would see through the window a distant cousin leave the train from another car.

Furthermore, Sori was only told this right before she needed to actually do it! (This was the best way to handle this difficult situation.)

The family needed to escape to Hungary and they could not do it together.

As I read this, I found myself, How on earth...?!

According to all logic, a little sweet sheltered girl like Sori should never have made it past the train ride.

Usually, the children I read about had experienced more independence & responsibility before they found themselves on their own.

Or they were accompanied by an adult, even one from the non-Jewish underground.

Or they were a bit older than Sori—like age 10 or 12.

Or they possessed spunkier or bolder or shrewder personalities (like Sori's sister Ruti).

Sori was one of these quiet, sweet, guileless little girls.

Her parents had no choice & setting Sori off on her own was clearly agonizing for them (though they outwardly projected calm & resolve to Sori).

Such a sweet, sheltered, refined little girl like Sori should never have survived that journey (which, after successfully getting off the train, included a trek through the woods & a dangerous border-crossing on foot, plus nearly getting ravaged by pitchforks in the hands of Nazified Hungarians searching for Jews as she lay hiding under a stack of hay).

The fact that such a little girl like Sori managed the train journey displayed such a clear Hand of Hashem.

As a Child on the Kasztner Train with the Satmar Rav

Miraculously, Sori, Ruti, and their parents all survived.

The book describes Sori's experiences hiding in Hungary, moving to a different Jewish family (all wonderful) every 3 months, a stint in a Christian orphanage, and a horrific 3-day stay with her sister in a center for immigrants & homeless—including the criminal & mentally ill dregs of Hungarian society.

Hungarian law forced the girls to stay there for 3 days, during which the frum community of Budapest did their best to help the girls by providing them with kosher food & kind treatment.

Sori's family ended up on the Kasztner train with the Satmar Rav Yoel Teitelbaum, which included a stint in the inhuman Bergen-Belsen death camp.

It was fascinating to read the first-hand impressions of the Satmar Rav, whose purity & humble greatness even awed the secular Jews around him.

(Though not everyone. At one point, the Satmar Rav ended up in barracks with "mainly rough, secular people who gave him no rest," as Sori's father described it.)

The Satmar Rav made sure to eat only kosher food (though he permitted others to eat whatever food they could find, kosher or not), he fasted 3 times a week, gave Torah classes, learned privately with others, and made himself available for questions & advice.

On Simchat Torah, the Satmar Rav managed to create an atmosphere of joy amid all the torment, leading everyone in singing & dancing. Sori found this accomplishment miraculous & rejuvenating.

The Satmar Rav risked his life for acts of caring & concern for every other Jew, whether he knew them or not.

A frum woman who dedicated herself to supplying the Satmar Rav with kosher food received his blessing for survival & his promise of a shidduch for her.

She merited to leave that horrible place before the Satmar Rav did.

Settlement in Eretz Yisrael, Plus Struggles against Esav, Yishmael, and the Erev Rav

In 1945, Sori's family made it to Eretz Yisrael and, after a brief stay in the Atlit detention camp, the family settled in Tel Aviv.

Sori's family settled in Eretz Yisrael for Torah reasons and distanced themselves from the secular Leftist Tziyonim.

Sori describes the tireless efforts of the secularists in Atlit to secularize the religious.

They insisted religious practices were no longer necessary & that life on a kibbutz would be perfect, painting a picture of "financial prosperity and communal living and utopia for everyone."

Note: In reality, the kibbutzim never achieved this—except for those that eventually turned to capitalist enterprises. The rest survived on government assistance or shut down.

Furthermore, many children who grew up on kibbutzim left due to their traumatic memories of waking up frightened in the children's house at night with no adult around—the person assigned to night duty in the children's house usually abandoned this duty to go to sleep—and their parents unreachable in another building. The children did not enjoy this communist lifestyle and later sought to create normal homes for themselves outside the kibbutz movement. Some "utopia."

These secular Leftist influencers approached the religious Jews with displays of compassion & tremendous concern for all they suffered.

They particularly targeted religious children, many of whom came on their own as Holocaust orphans.

Sori recalls how bad she felt for them, with no way to resist the constant pressure & wooing of the secular Leftists.

Despite the innate gentleness & kindness of Sori's mother, the Leftist onslaught forced her to speak sharply to the camp organizer & counselors, demanding that they leave her daughters alone.

But they ignored Sori's mother.

As Sori sums up on page 273:

"They continued to pester any religious person they encountered and we just had to put up with it."

Fortunately, Sori continued to enjoy the love & bitachon that always emanated from her parents, which made her impenetrable to the wooing of the secular Left.

The chareidi Agudah did its best to help them, and managed to succeed despite the Agudah representatives only allowed to visit (rather than join the staff as the secular Leftists did).

The family rebuilt their life in a suburb of Tel Aviv (later moving to Tel Aviv proper), and even brought a lovely new baby into the world: Yishaye Yosef.

Even before the UN voted to allow the Jews to create their own state, Sori emphasized that she and her family felt at home in Eretz Yisrael (page 291-2):

"We were so happy to be here. We felt we had finally come home...for Eretz Yisrael is the home of every Jew."

This beautiful feeling was marred by the Arab-sympathizing British occupiers and their suffocating limits on Jewish immigration to Eretz Yisrael.

During Israel's 1948 War of Independence, Sori's father felt so sure of Mashiach's imminent arrival, he laid out his Shabbat clothes every night so he'd be ready to greet Mashiach upon waking up.

(He continued to do this until the end of his life in I think the 1960s.)

The book does an excellent job of describing the mixed feelings the non-Tziyoni frum Jews experienced during that time.

On one hand, Sori felt that Hashem's Great Love for Am Yisrael would allow the Jews (despite the secular majority) to triumph. She & everyone else felt innate optimism, a feeling of unity with all other Jews despite their level of practice, pride in their Land & the Jewish soldiers fighting to defend both the Land & the people, plus they felt united with other Jews in the desire for the struggle to "culminate in a safe, secure haven for Yidden from all over."

She describes her initial perception of the Jewish victory as "a dream come true" and "To live in a place run by Jews, for our benefit, without being subjects of anti-Semitic rulers" and as a "harbinger of Mashiach's times."

Yet events in 1949 would mar than initial optimism, noted on page 304:

"Yet we soon found out that this 'dream' had some very disturbing twists and turns to it."

In other words, the secular Leftists now in charge did not share the same feelings of unity that the profoundly religious Sori & so many other Jews felt in Eretz Yisrael.

In 1949, the Israeli government brought 40,000 Jews from Yemen to Eretz Yisrael.

A Rare & Perceptive Inside View of What Happened to the Yemenite Jews

It's rare to come across an eye-witness account by a religious neighbor of the Yemenite Jews.

Fortunately, we have Sori's.

She remembers when they moved into her Yad Eliyahu neighborhood (a suburb of Tel Aviv) with nothing but the clothes they wore, optimism, and large families of children.

Sori found them very religious, very pleasant—and very poor. She describes them as "very simple, sweet people who were staunch believers in Hashem and in their mesorah."

Sori's fondness & admiration for her new neighbors made what happened next all the more painful.

The Tziyoni leaders began a campaign of pressure on the Yemenite Jews to change their ways.

These leaders & their minions actively worked to convince the Yemenites to change their views and compromise on Torah & mitzvot.

They confused the Yemenite Jews with lies, claiming that they—these secular Leftists—also kept Torah...just in a different way. These propagandists asserted that things had changed.

They insisted the Yemenites were "crippling" their children.

The pressure started in the maabarot tent camps & continued into this Tel Aviv neighborhood, where the large Yemenite families lived in impossibly cramped apartments in poverty with little food.

YEMENITE JEWISH CHILDREN IN THE BEIT LID MAABARA IN ERETZ YISRAEL, JANUARY 1950. — (By Zoltan Kluger - This is available from National Photo Collection of Israel, Photography dept. Goverment Press Office (link), under the digital ID D822-106., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=49697644 )

Note: Charedi activists struggled to intervene on behalf of the Yemenite Jews in the maabarot, but the secular Leftists blocked them at every turn, going so far as to beat up the young charedi yeshivah students who insisted on coming in to help their Yemenite brothers & sisters.

The secular Leftists boasted of their generosity regarding the cramped housing they gave the Yemenite Jews in Yad Eliyahu, insisting they could not give them larger homes & claimed they were trying to find jobs for the Yemenite husbands.

They promised to take the children to a place where the children would receive sunlight, nutritious food, spacious living, and fresh air.

(Remember, the journey from Yemen and the stint in the squalid maabarot prior to Yad Eliyahu greatly weakened the children's physical health, which they found difficult to regain living in cramped conditions of Yad Eliyahu without porches or yards, and without enough money for plentiful food.)

The Jewish Agency reps promised the children would return home "happy and rejuvenated."

After tremendous pressure over the long term on these impoverished people, most parents finally capitulated out of concern for their children's health & the reassurance of the observance of religious traditions.

The Jewish agency counselors cleverly showed up in conservative (though modern) clothing to take the children.

Sori & her family watched the scene with great foreboding.

She described the counselors as young men & women brimming with health & energy (something very attractive to young children).

As they took the Yemenite children to the waiting buses, Sori noted how the "Large, pale, white palms clasped the small chocolate brown hands tightly" and how the petite, undernourished "waifs" were dwarfed by the "ebullient counselors both physically and emotionally."

It foreshadowed what was to come later.

During the absence of the children, Sori felt pained by the infinitely sad eyes of the Yemenite mothers who remained behind without their children.

A few months later, these formerly sweet refined children returned with shrieks & wild noise.

Sori described feeling ill upon seeing how the children appeared after a few months in the hands of the secular Leftists.

Yes, the children returned well-fed, happy, confident, and wearing new clothes.

But as Sori saw it (page 308):

"Gone were the shy, reserved, story-book children who had boarded the buses just a few short months earlier."

Also gone were the boys' payot & tzitzit and the girls' long braids.

Their mothers burst into weeping, and continued weeping even as the children reassured them they still kept Torah & mitzvot.

Yet the children only went through the motions of mitzvot out of respect for their parents.

The fathers looked stoic & upset, and Sori's heart ached for them all.

As time went on, Sori realized that the Jewish Agency representatives had "secularized those children beyond recognition."

She viewed their initial campaign to wear down the parents as "all but kidnapped" these Yemenite Jewish children.

She continued to see profound sadness in the eyes of the Yemenite mothers long after the return of the children.

Finally, Agudah received permission to send their own representatives to the maabarot for one summer.

Sori chose to go help.

Due to her former imprisonment in Bergen-Belsen, Sori did not experience the shock her friends experienced upon encountering the squalid conditions in the camp.

Sori described the children as "sweet" with "sunny personalities" despite the impoverished conditions.

The parents expressed their gratitude & pleasure over their children finally receiving a Jewish education in contrast to the "foolishness" taught in the secular schools infiltrating the maabarot.

Sori noted that most of the children participated eagerly with the Agudah counselors & even happily readopted some of their old traditions.

After their time was up, Sori and the other Agudah activists tried to maintain contact with these children.

Indeed, with this support, some Yemenite children managed to withstand the unrelenting onslaught of the secular Leftists—and remained religious.

People Who Truly Care about the Right Things Feel Differently & See Things More Accurately

However, the secular Leftism swamped the charedi efforts.

Sori acknowledges that the loss of most of the centuries-old Yemenite community to secularism caused her deep pain, especially as she was forced to watch the process while helpless to do much to stem the onslaught (despite her heroic efforts in the camp & her family's support of Agudah to help their Yemenite brothers & sisters).

On page 310, Sori's great love for her fellow Jews & for Eretz Yisrael cause her to muse:

"To think that here, in Eretz Yisrael, in our own 'free' land, fellow Yidden were coercing their own brothers to abandon their heritage. The realization was shocking and hurtful.

"And it made the formation of the State more bitter than sweet."

A lot of people dislike hearing such words & seeing these events in their true light.

However, Sori speaks from a great love & understanding of Torah, Am Yisrael, and Eretz Yisrael.

Listening thoughtfully & open-mindedly to her perceptions can help us understand where our true struggle lies & to whom & what we should really be aligning ourselves.

This is important & still affects us today.

A Healing Love for Eretz Yisrael

Sori's family remained in Eretz Yisrael for the rest of their lives, though Sori herself eventually moved to England (for reasons explained in the book), where she married, raised a family, and worked to enhance the Torah Judaism of England.

However, she looks back on that choice with some reservation.

A part of her regrets not settling in Eretz Yisrael after her marriage, but she acknowledges that everything comes from Hashem and that for some reason, she and her husband decided to settle in England despite her father's pleas for them to settle in Eretz Yisrael.

Despite her humility in describing herself & her accomplishments, reading between the lines indicates that Sori did a lot to build Torah Judaism in England, much of it via girls' education.

Nonetheless, a great love of Eretz Yisrael remains with Sori.

One of the most charming parts of the book lies in Sori's description of life in her family's new apartment in Tel Aviv.

Their apartment stood nearly on the seaside of the Mediterranean.

During the summer nights, the family dealt with the heat & humidity of Tel Aviv by sleeping on the sand of the seashore.

Sori remembers those nights on the sand & how much she relished the cool Mediterranean breeze, the sound of the waves, the spacious night sky filled with sparkling stars, and the salty smell of the sea.

The experience also brought a beautiful wake-up at dawn, accompanied by a dip in the sea, which Sori described as "my own private pool."

A Tel-Aviv beach on the shore of the Mediterranean Sea

Despite the length of this review, the book includes so much more than what's written here, such as:

the profound warmth & love Sori's parents managed to give her throughout her entire life, regardless of any traumas or distance
a vivid description of Jewish life in Pressburg/Bratislava, Czechoslovakia, prior to the Holocaust
the astounding bitachon Sori's father managed to cultivate & imbue in his family
the other wonderfully special & heroic people in Sori's extended family
Sori's experiences during the Holocaust
Sori's return to Czechoslovakia as an adult
Sori's years in England, plus her special marriage and raising a family
Sori's work in England
Sori's struggles with trauma & healing
Much, much more!

I'm very grateful to Sori and everyone involved with publishing this invaluable book.

It's very special & offers the reader so much, both as a memoir and as a beautiful & loving guide on how to cultivate a beautiful Torah-based family life & live your life with Hashem despite difficulties & traumas.

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"The Problem is Not Sin, But How to Cope with It."

15/4/2021

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I'm reading a book right now about Rav Shlomo Hoffman, translated into English from the original Hebrew:

Secrets of the Soul, Volume I: Self-Awareness & Dealing with Challenges

The book consists of a series of classes given by Rav Hoffman, recorded & transcripted.

Rav Hoffman wasn't well-known, but several Gedolei HaDor not only knew him, but consulted with him.

Other Gedolei HaDor served as his mentors.

I met Rav Hoffman a few times when he was around 80 and found him to be a sweet, gentle, patient person.

Though the book focuses on Rav Hoffman, the passages regarding Rav Isaac Sher of the original Slabodka Yeshivah really stand out.

A Brief Glimpse of Rav Isaac Sher of Slabodka

Rav Sher was Rav Avigdor Miller's rav in Slabodka and continued to be Rav Miller's rav throughout the rest of his life.

Rav Miller told people that when he didn't provide a source for an idea or hashkafah, then just know that it came from Rav Sher.

Initially, I assumed Rav Miller, in his humility, wished to deflect credit away from himself (and to a certain extent, that's true because Rav Miller certainly offered ideas of his own).

However, I'm pleasantly intrigued to discover how much Rav Sher's voice reminds me of Rav Miller—indicating that Rav Miller's humility really did allow him to be intrinsically influenced by great Rav Sher.

Rav Sher merited to survive the Holocaust, but he attributed his survival to one thing only (page 51):

"Do you know why I was saved? Among the millions who were killed, what merit did I have that HaKadosh Baruch Hu rescued me and brought me to Eretz Yisrael? The only reason I was saved, and the single merit I have, is that I have experience in 'smoothing down the sharp edges' of young students."

In other words, Rav Sher meant Hashem gave him the ability to assist young men in refining themselves and their avodat Hashem.

(Also, please note that Rav Sher attributed nothing innately to himself, but merely described himself as "experienced" in that particular area.)

But please, don't believe for one minute that was the only reason Hashem saved him!

Rav Sher was a tremendous Torah Sage and a wonderful person.

But in his humility, this is what he believed about himself and thus he dedicated the rest of his life to helping young men—including the young Rav Hoffman.

How to Cope with Yourself

"The problem is not sin, but how to cope with it."

The above quote was first said by Rav Yisrael Salanter, then passed down via the Alter of Slabodka, and on to Rav Isaac Sher, who made it a cornerstone of his work with young men.

Drawing on sources like Seforno, Targum Yonatan, the Vilna Gaon, the Ohr HaChaim, Targum Onkelos, and more, Rav Sher made the case of a positive attitude toward sinning & teshuvah.

(1) EVERYONE SINS.

This is a normal, unavoidable part of being a human being.

That's why these Slabodka leaders (and the ancient Sages before them) placed so much emphasis on dwelling on the solution, rather than on the sin itself.

(2) TESHUVAH REQUIRES OPTIMISM.

We need to be positive about our ability to change.

Here's Seforno on Beresheit 4:6, detailing what Hashem meant when He asked Kayin (Cain) why his face had fallen after he murdered his own brother (page 92):

"Why has your face fallen?"—When a fault can be repaired, it is not right to be upset about the past. It is proper to try to repair in the future instead.

This is not pop psych gobbledeegook.

This is authentic Torah wisdom. (Seforno lived in Italy 1475-1550.)

We need to look forward toward spiritual healing.

(3) DON'T LEAVE YOUR GOOD PLACE.

This is a direct idea from Targum Yonatan on Kohelet (Ecclesiastes) 10:4, who stated:
"...do not abandon the good place that you had until then..."

Because the above rabbanim focused on their work with yeshivah bachurim (young men), they (and the above commentaries) emphasized the importance Torah study as the remedy itself to sin.

They opposed taking on all sorts of stringencies, self-punishments, fasts, acts of piety, and the like.

Don't leave your good place! You were learning Torah? Keep going with that!

The book also mentions that not abandoning your good place means to resist the pull to drop all the good things you are doing.

Don't let despair and self-loathing cause you to spiral downward.

The good things you do still retain their goodness despite the bad things you've done.

(4) DON'T BROOD OVER THE SIN.

The Ohr HaChaim and others emphasize how thinking about the awfulness of your sin paradoxically brings you into temptation again.

In other words, all that brooding & self-recrimination lead you to dwell on the sin, which paradoxically reminds you of how alluring the sin was in the first place.

Rav Shlomo Hoffman states on page 102:

"Contemplation breeds desire."

Not good.

Focus on fixing, on problem-solving instead!

BTW, while regret is integral to teshuvah, you need not brood & mope over the sin.

Saying, "Gosh, I sure do regret that, Hashem!" is enough, especially if sinking deeper into regret will cause you unproductive pain and even paradoxically awaken the desire to sin again.

(5) FOCUS ON WHAT TO DO NOW.

In Parshat Metzora 33:8, the Kli Yakar (1550-1619) states:

"...there is no person on earth who is so tzaddik that he has not sinned in some minor folly."

This is an incredible statement from the Kli Yakar who himself was a tremendous tzaddik and Torah Sage and who personally knew & was taught by Torah giants—like the Maharal of "Golem of Prague" fame, who produced volumes of insights & mussar, plus Rav Shlomo Luria who produced Yam shel Shlomo.

In the original context, he uses this as proof of why you shouldn't indulge in fault-finding because you can actually find a genuine fault in everybody.

So what's the point?

NO ONE IS PERFECT & NO ONE CAN EVER BE PERFECT FROM BIRTH UNTIL DEATH.

So why bother picking people apart—including yourself?

Here's Rav Isaac Sher (page 108):

"Do not think about your sins. HaKadosh Baruch Hu created you with a yetzer ha'ra. It's natural. Everyone has a yetzer ha'ra. The only issue is how to cope with that, which is something you must learn."

Authentic Torah Guidance

The above provides scintillating advice, particularly in light of modern-day attitudes, which careen from ripping a person apart for the most minor "flaw"...to the "feel-good" approach of reassuring people that God understands and therefore, there's no need to move much out of your comfort zone.

These attitudes derive from the surrounding non-Jewish society, but we unfortunately encounter them among some frum people—including some of those whom we innocently turn to for guidance.

But the guidance presented in this post emanates from true talmidei chachamim throughout the ages—in other words, authentic Torah guidance.

About Secrets of the Soul

Secrets of the Soul was compiled by Rabbi Simcha Meir Stein & distributed by Feldheim.

In Europe, this book is distributed by Lehmanns.

In Australia, it's distributed by Golds World of Judaica.

I found it in the English section of my local Israeli bookstore (which hosts a limited selection of English books, but sometimes I get lucky—like with this book).

For me, its most valuable aspects are the sourced commentaries sprinkled throughout and the direct conversations of guidance & advice from some of the greatest Torah Sages of the 20th century.

Many of these Torah Sages are no longer among the living, so it's very precious to have access to their literal words featured in this book.

Rav Hoffman worked with a wide variety of Jews across Israeli society, including hardened criminals. The book also contains illuminating stories & observations & insights from Rav Shlomo Hoffman (including his own inner struggles), who was a talmid chacham in his own right.

The post on the Kli Yakar on Parshat Metzora (http://www.myrtlerising.com/blog/part-i-dealing-with-blabbering-fault-finders-or-the-kli-yakar-on-parshat-metzorah) came about after reading classic Jewish sources (Pele Yoetz, Orchot Tzaddikim, Kli Yakar, etc.), which offered advice on dealing with difficult people—advice that contradicted much of the well-intended advice popular today.

I found these Sages so helpful because following some of the popular advice can davka harm you with regard to certain kinds of difficult people—as happened to me.

It was also validating to read the timely words of these towering Sages. They definitely understood the pain & harm caused by critics, fault-finders, and snipers—the Pele Yoetz even describes such interactions as to "gore each other."

Anyone who has ever suffered from such a "friend" understands exactly what this means!

Modern English describes feeling "gutted" or "stabbed in the back" or "punched in the stomach." Likewise, the Pele Yoetz likens it to being gored by the horn of a bull.

Pretty descriptive—and accurate.

So I wrote up that post in the hope of providing authentic Torah validation & guidance to others via the actual words of our Sages.

In modern times, it seems the Kli Yakar's insights about blabber-mouthed fault-finders also apply to blogs & media outlets who indulge in that behavior.

But always remember this reassuring fact:

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Choosing according to One's Personal "Choice Box"

8/10/2020

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Following on the heels of the previous post, I wanted to look at another idea of Rav Dessler: one's personal choice box.

In the previous post, we saw how Mrs. Kanner avoided being completely crushed by the He'der Gehinnom on Earth due to the inner resources imbued from her commitment to Torah & mitzvot.

However, every person has a limit.

Different Choice Boxes for Different Folks

Note: Mrs. Kanner's Holocaust autobiography is available for free legal download here:
http://www.shatteredcrystals.net/files/SHATTERED-CRYSTALS.pdf

Within that same timeframe at the awful Nexon transit camp, Mrs. Kanner meets Rebbetzin Kremer, a profoundly religious woman who, with her husband, devotes herself to her people in the camp.

Rebbetzin Kremer took upon herself to attend to the purification ritual of the increasing number of dead Jews in the camp.

But being a one-woman chevra kadisha soon overwhelmed her and she turned to Mrs. Kanner for help.

Despite any prior experience in such a task, Mrs. Kanner agreed.

But ultimately, she couldn't tolerate it.

The first time Mrs. Kanner assisted the rebbetzin in this chessed shel emet, she needed to run outside to vomit.

Then, biting her lip, she forced herself to work for another hour, fighting nausea the whole time until she ran out to vomit again.

Two days later, Mrs. Kanner forced herself to return to help the rebbetzin, but again, found herself rushing outside to vomit.

In Mrs. Kanner's words (page 175):

“Rebbetzin Kremer, I cannot do it. I am not strong enough.”

“But, my dear, it is a mitzvah.”

“I know, I know,” I moaned. “I want to help. I am a religious woman, but this I cannot do.”

In her sincerity, Mrs. Kanner looked for a replacement, but never found one.

The last time she saw Rebbetzin Kremer, the rebbetzin was helping two elderly ladies walk to the train deporting Jews out (which prevented these ladies from being maltreated by impatient Nazis).

Now.

Do you think that anyone should compare Mrs. Kanner to the rebbetzin?

No.

Do you think that in Shamayim, there's judgement on Mrs. Kanner for not being able to do what the rebbetzin did in those circumstances?

No.

You can't compare the two at all.

For Rebbetzin Kremer, attending to the needs of the dead lay in her personal choice box.

It was difficult in such awful circumstances, but she was able to do it. She was able to choose to do it.

And while Mrs. Kanner behaved heroically when she volunteered to assist the Red Cross nurse in her rounds, helping with the taharah ritual was simply outside Mrs. Kanner's choice box.

As Rav Dessler notes, we aren't judged for that which lays outside our choice box.

Some things really are beyond our present level & are simply not realistic for us where we stand now.

As the book Shattered Crystals shows, Mrs. Kanner was a devoted, courageous, resourceful, and heroic Jewish woman.

Her inability to help with this particular mitzvah doesn't minimize her personal greatness.

No Comparisons

And the above is only one example of why you can't batter others with comparisons.

Yes, something might be important. It might be a big mitzvah.

But what if you simply CAN'T?

We can only achieve what lies within our choice box.

And, through our inner growth, we can expand our choice box over time.

But we can't accomplish what lies outside the range of realistic choices available to us.

You can break a person by pressuring them to perform what lies outside their personal choice box.

Real chizuk means encouraging a person to choose correctly according to his or her unique level & personality.

May we merit to always make choices that elevate us.

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Exploring the Ladino Torah Anthology Known as the Me'am Lo'ez: Its Impact Yesterday & Its Benefit Today, Plus a Bit about Ladino & Why We'll Probably Never Know the Complete Original Content

9/9/2020

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Years ago, I started going through the Me'am Loez by borrowing volumes from a friend who owned the entire set in English translation.

The Me'am Loez is an astonishing masterpiece of Torah scholarship—written completely in Ladino.

Initiated by Rav Yaakov Culi & first published in 1730 in Turkey, it sparked a revolution amid the deteriorating spiritual situation of Sephardi Jewry in the Mediterranean countries.

Reportedly, tens of thousands of families who'd neglected religious observance embraced full religious adherence after reading just the first volume of Me'am Lo'ez.

With the heartfelt goal of giving his fellow Jews a positive answer for the Heavenly Court on the day of death, Rav Culi reassured them that as long as they studied the Me'am Lo'ez every day, they could claim before Heaven that they had learned the whole Torah because the Me'am Lo'ez covers all aspects of Torah.

Its English translator, Rav Aryeh Kaplan, likens its restorative influence to that of Chassidus on Ashkenazi Jewry.

What is the Me'am Lo'ez and what was its power?

Ladino Power

First of all, Rav Culi decided to write in the vernacular of those times—Ladino (Judeo-Spanish).

Many Sephardi Jews of that time either did not understand Hebrew or did not understand it well, making much of Jewish scholarship inaccessible to them.

The best way to provide them with knowledge was via their spoken language of Ladino.

With a development similar to that of Yiddish, Ladino consists of a strong Spanish base with many Hebrew words mixed in & Hebrew also influences Ladino's syntax. Aramaic, Arabic, Portuguese, Turkish, and Greek loanwords also appear in Ladino.

For centuries, Ladino remained the common language for Jews of Spain, Portugal, Turkey, Greece, the Balkans, the Middle East, and North Africa.

The wife of my husband's brother grew up speaking Ladino because her mother never learned Hebrew well, and Ladino was what she spoke in Spanish Morocco (Tangier). A Moroccan cousin of my husband also attended a school for religious Jewish girls in Tangier, and Ladino was the language of instruction.

Hardly anyone speaks Ladino today and the few who know Ladino or learn it do not use it as their primary language of communication.

However, a Ladino song with a wonderful melody about Avraham Avinu remains popular even today: El Rey Nimrod — King Nimrod.

This song (including an English translation) is easily found today, and several modern singers have recorded it. I first encountered it years ago on a cassette of songs by Yehoram Gaon, and immediately fell in love with it.

A deeply religious song, it's one of the last vestiges of Ladino in popular culture.

What is the Me'am Lo'ez Exactly?

The Me'am Lo'ez is commonly referred to as a commentary on the Torah.

And it is.

But it's also much more than that.

Though written according to the chronology of the verses of Torah, the Me'am Lo'ez reads much like a novel.

And therein lies part of its great power of influence: The Me'am Lo'ez provides enjoyable & fascinating reading.

Throughout the masterpiece, Rav Culi (and the Sages who continued the Me'am Lo'ez after him; Rav Culi passed away after completing all of Beresheit & two-thirds of Shemot) brings a wealth of Torah scholarship written in a conversational manner.

In fact, reading an English translation of the Me'am Lo'ez, it's astonishing to see the breadth & depth of Rav Culi's knowledge.

Even if one studied copiously for 200 years, how could one know so much, both of well-known & copiously studied works and also little-known midrashim?

Tanach, Talmud, mussar, halacha, midrashim, Zohar — Rav Culi not only knew these works with amazing familiarity, but also knew all the commentaries associated with these works.

And although it's thought of a Sephardi work, only its halacha is specifically Sephardi (although in translation, scholars added the Ashkenazi variations in brackets).

The rest of the Me'am Lo'ez reaps from a wealth of universal scholarship: Talmud, Zohar, Midrash Rabbah, Kli Yakar, Yalkut Shimoni, Rashi, Rambam, Ramban, Ralbag, Magen Avraham, Abarbanel, Pri Chadash, and much more.

If you read the Me'am Lo'ez on any parsha or book (like, say, Shoftim/Judges), you will not only end up knowing that parsha or book well, but you will learn a lot of halacha, mussar, kabbalah, and just plain fascinating information.

In its heyday, a bride's family purchased a set of the Me'am Lo'ez for the groom, much like the bride's side purchases a set of the Talmud for the groom today.

And much like today's Jewish man commits himself the the program of Daf Yomi (a page of Talmud per day), Jewish men were also expected to learn a portion of the Me'am Lo'ez every day.

Those who could not afford a set of their own or who could not read attended public readings in synagogues.

(Readings, both public & private, plus discussions, enabled women to also learn the content of the Me'am Lo'ez.)

And the reading of the original Me'am Lo'ez is where we struggle today.

The Story of the Hebrew & English Translations

The Me'am Lo'ez was originally printed using Hebrew letters.

Like Yiddish, Ladino was originally written with Hebrew letters.

And the script used was similar to Rashi-script.

Who knows Rashi-script today?

Only frum people, and not all frum people can read it. And it's not as easy to read as regular Hebrew script.

Furthermore, as noted above, hardly any Ladino-speakers remain to understand, let alone translate the Me'am Lo'ez.

You also need to be a real Torah scholar in order to both understand & explain the concepts elucidated in the Me'am Lo'ez.

Fortunately, such a person was found in Yerushalayim in the late Sixties: Rav Shmuel Yerushalmi.

Interestingly, it was an Ashkenazi Jew, Rav Chanoch Eliezer Wagshal, who initiated the first Hebrew translation project.

After hearing Sephardi Sages discuss the Me'am Lo'ez & seeing Sephardi shopkeepers learn from it during pauses in sales, Rav Wagshal decided (with the support of another Ashkenazi Jew, Rav Asher Zelig Margolius) to seek its translation into Hebrew.

Actually, even before these Ashkenazi rabbanim sought to produce a Hebrew translation, the greatest Sephardi Sages of that time already spoke with Rav Margolius about a Hebrew translation to prevent the Me'am Lo'ez from being completely lost to the Jewish people.

A decade later, Rav Wagshal approached Rav Aryeh Kaplan with the goal of translating it into English.

Despite Rav Kaplan's Ashkenazi-sounding surname, Rav Kaplan's family originates from the Spanish city of Carmona and Rav Kaplan's grandfather was fluent in Ladino. Though he taught Ladino to Rav Aryeh Kaplan, it happened early in his youth and much had been forgotten.

Not to mention, many Ladino words known among Sephardi Jews of the 18th Century failed to remain in use over the centuries.

For these reasons, Rav Kaplan reluctantly conceded to utilizing Rav Shmuel Yerushalmi's excellent Hebrew translation (rather than translating exclusively & directly from the original Ladino), though his English translation also follows & utilizes the original Ladino.

(The above information is found in the Translator's Preface to the English translation of Beresheit-Noach in Volume 1 of the Me'am Lo'ez.)

However...

Neither the Hebrew nor the English translations reflect a complete translation of the Me'am Lo'ez.

Especially in the books following the Chumash, it's questionable how closely the Hebrew translation follows the original Ladino.

Certainly, both translations are fascinating & enriching masterpieces, which retain much of the original content of the Ladino Me'am Lo'ez.

However, the Hebrew translation of Beresheit/Genesis omits several paragraphs dealing with Kabbalistic interpretations.

However, Rav Kaplan restored some of them into the English translation.

On the other hand, the English translation omits some scientific discussion.

Rav Culi made those scientific interpretations according to the most brilliant knowledge of the 18th Century, but at the time of Rav Kaplan's translation, those same interpretations were outdated and Rav Kaplan feared they might diminish appreciation of the Me'am Lo'ez in full.

(I couldn't help wondering about this, knowing how science ebbs & flows throughout time. I remember reading another translation of a book about Jews in Yemen, with the translator's apologetic disclaimer regarding certain natural medical practices of that time as being what they considered helpful back then — only for such techniques to make a comeback in our times, with evidence to back up their efficacy.)

Note: Like Rav Yaakov Culi, Rav Aryeh Kaplan passed away before completing the English translation, and so the English translation was completed by others.

Reading the above brought me to the sad realization that the best a non-Ladino speaker could do is read both the English & the Hebrew translation, but even then, you still won't get the full original, whether the supposedly outdated science or the deep Kabbalistic interpretations or other deviations.

(Also, I found it intriguing that Rav Culi had no problem including certain Kabbalistic interpretations for the most ignorant of his time, but both Rav Yerushalmi & Rav Kaplan concluded that at least some of them are not appropriate for us, even we frummies. How times have changed...the 18-century am haaretz could apparently handle what the the 20th-century educated frummie could not)

However, with all the Spanish comprising Ladino, couldn't one of the many frum Spanish-Hebrew-speaking rabbis of today produce at least a full Hebrew translation—and really, there are even rabbis who know Spanish, Hebrew, and English too.

Can't we have a complete translation of the original in both Hebrew & English?

Furthermore, how about a transliteration of the original Rashi-script to the Latin-based script used by all Spanish-speakers today? Wouldn't that make the original Me'am Lo'ez accessible to at least Spanish-speaking Jewry today (plus make it a lot easier for non-native-Spanish-speakers to work it out)?

The Obstacles Standing before Transliteration & New Translations

As stated above, you really need a full-fledged Torah scholar to translate the 3 million words of the Me'am Lo'ez.

While this whittles down quite a bit the number of available candidates for the task, they certainly exist.

The problem is that with Rav Yerushalmi's skillful translation, there isn't much impetus to re-invent the wheel.

Just to figure out the omitted sections—sections which really might not be appropriate for the average reader today—and other deviations from the original?

No, it's an overwhelming task for such minor reasons.

Ditto with an English translation, even though we have rabbis knowledgeable in Spanish & English.

And what about a transliteration? Shouldn't that be easy enough if Ladino is anyway based on Spanish?

Well, actually, no...

Why not?

Because...

Disclaimer: Different regions of Spanish-speakers pronounce the same words differently. I chose one & lack the knowledge to include all the variations. In fact, I never learned Spanish; I only tried to learn some to understand the original Ladino of the Me'am Lo'ez. Anyway, please keep the above in mind if you're used to a different pronunciation.

It seems that Ladino adopted a—let's call it phonetic, maybe?—pronunciation of Spanish words.

For example, the Spanish word for "people" is gente.

Gente is pronounced "hen-teh."

However, in the original Me'am Lo'ez, gente is spelled:

ג'ינטי

In English transliteration, that's probably pronounced "zheenty" — which is how one might pronounce gente without knowing the rules of Spanish.

(Imagine the "zh" pronounced like the "s" in "pleasure." It's a j-z sound not found in English, but common in European languages.)

On the other hand, it depends how the tet-yud ending are voweled. Is there a chirik (ee) under the yud or a tzereh (eh)? It doesn't say.

But even if the Ladino-speakers pronounced it with a tzereh under the yud, making the pronunciation "zheenteh," it still isn't how the Spanish gente is pronounced.

Yet it would make sense to transliterate ג'ינטי as gente.

But in doing so, you would lose the original Ladino pronunciation.

Once you do that (and if you do that throughout), it's not really Ladino anymore.

Likewise, the Spanish que (than, that) is pronounced "keh."

Ladino spells it קי.

Is that pronounced "keh" or "kee"?

I'm not sure, but if it's "kee," then you couldn't spell it que, right?

Other words like ella (her), which is pronounced "eyah" or "ayah," are spelled phonetically in Hebrew-scripted Ladino: אייא

Likewise, there are words like:

פרוב'יג'ו

This was likely pronounced "pro-vee-zho."

It only takes a bit of research & guessing to figure out this is the Spanish provencho — pronounced "pro-beh-cho." (It means "advantage" or "benefit.")

But again, how would you spell it according to the Spanish alphabet?

So that's a major complication in coming up with a good Spanish transliteration.

And just for kicks, here is a phrase from the original Ladino Me'am Lo'ez:

נו טיינין הצלחה קי פלאנטאן ארב'וליס אי נו טיינין פרוב'יג'ו די אייוס

And here in Spanish-English transliteration:
"...no tienen hatzlacha keh plantan arvolis e no tienen proveezho de eyos..."

In real Spanish, it would go something like this:
"...no tienen hatslaja que plantan arboles y no tienen provencho de ellos..."

If you know Hebrew, you probably caught the insertion of hatzlacha/success.

(I'm not sure how you transliterate hatzlacha in Spanish; thanks to Hava for her suggestion in the comments.)

In English translation:
"...they don't have success with planting trees and they don't benefit from them..."

If you know Spanish & Hebrew, plus you can read Rashi-script, then feel free to try reading the original Me'am Lo'ez here:
https://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=22704&st=&pgnum=1&hilite=

From Loss to Acceptance

Anyway, I came to the heart-sinking realization that the original Me'am Lo'ez will never be realized in complete translation.

As a complete body of work and one of the most brilliant & encompassing works of Torah scholarship since the Talmud, it's lost to us (though in translation, we retain the majority of it).

I mourned that fact for a bit, then realized that if Hashem wished us to have a complete translation of the Me'am Lo'ez in at least Hebrew, then we would have it.

Ladino-proficient Torah Sages with the skill necessary to translate into Hebrew existed in the centuries since the publication of the Me'am Lo'ez.

Yet it never happened until 1967.

And whether it was for the English-speaking audience or the Hebrew-speaking audience, knowledgeable rabbis agreed that at least some parts of it must be omitted.

So I took comfort in the fact that we received exactly what Hashem wanted us to receive from the Me'am Lo'ez.

And regardless of any omissions, the translations of the Me'am Lo'ez provide us with a wealth of Torah knowledge & compelling reading for our times—and refreshing sustenance for our souls.

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What Your Chosen Villain Says about You

8/7/2020

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Another way to chart the downward spiral of Western society is to look at the blatant hypocrisy taking hold.

And I don't just mean how rioting about the accidental death of a womanizing, thieving, formerly violent drug-addicted irresponsible father at the hands of a police officer who was clearly power-tripping his sadistic streak...when some American cities have recently had their largest number of shootings EVER in a 24-hour period and nearly all the victims are black and you don't hear a word about it from BLM.

(In fact, because police are now reluctant to patrol dangerous neighborhoods properly, these same neighborhoods are seeing higher-than-ever numbers of shootings & murders, including the shooting-murder of a 7-year-old black girl...who might've been protected if a police officer of any color had been in the vicinity.)

Nor do I mean the whole narrative of hating whites and demanding reparations over Southern slavery from 2 centuries ago, when black Africans fully cooperated with white slave traders to capture other black Africans, and the first official slave-holder in America was NOT A WHITE MAN, but a black man named Anthony Johnson in 1655 (and even then slave laws were only passed in 1661, so Johnson was quite the early adopter), and that there were also black slave-owners in the American South and that, on average, they were considered much harsher & stingier (by the black slaves themselves) toward their slaves than the white slave-owners were.

(And also that black slavery with black masters is still part of Africa today, while the overwhelming majority of white Americans think slavery is atrocious and never want it to return.)

And hardly any of the people who say they care about human rights & slavery care or even know about the above.

But I don't mean those examples of hypocrisy.

Extreme Child Abuse Matters Not to Those Who Prefer Fame & Money

Another blatant hypocrisy exists.

And that's the hypocrisy regarding evil and not.

One example of this hypocrisy is that of the decades-long best-selling fantasy author from the 70s-80s (let's call her Heinous Monster) whose daughter worked up the courage to reveal the truth about her astoundingly successful mother and her father.

Though I never read Heinous Monster's books, I remember this author well because I always saw her name featured more prominently than her titles on her novels in the promotional displays in every book store, in addition to seeing her books in many homes.

One of her fantasy series has remained a best-seller since the Seventies and she created a popular fantasy magazine that gave many successful fantasy writers their start.

Yet this same author was attracted to her own gender, yet oddly chose to marry a man attracted to his own gender. (And in their circles, this guarantees infidelity.)

Furthermore, the author's husband already had a court conviction of abusing boys.

Also, this author copyedited her husband's book, which glorified the abuse of boys by men.

These are the objective facts outside the daughter's accusations.

Their daughter also recalls terrible abuse at the hands of her mother, plus being trafficked for abuse by her mother's "friends"!

With her mother's full knowledge, her father founded an infamous organization dedicated to the abuse of boys, and also abused a series of boys until the daughter called the police and ultimately put her father in prison, where he later died.

(Her mother also abused children, but I'm not sure whether she was convicted of it.)

Her brother corroborates her stories of abuse and their parents' depravity.

Court evidence shows that the mother knew of her husband's abuse of children (how could she not when she helped copyedit his book about it?), but did nothing about it. (She wouldn't because she was the same. Actually, her daughter says she was even worse.)

Reviews of her stories include remarks of disgust at the glorified exploitation of children featured within these best-selling novels. Many comment along the lines of: What kind of person would write something like that?

The glorification of depravity was blatant enough that some fans stopped reading her books because they found the author's positive attitude toward the content so disturbing.

The radical feminism & toeva were also blatant enough that some readers described those aspects of the series as "preachy."

On a personal level, both fans & newbie writers sometimes ended up verbally attacked by Heinous Monster when they approached her at conventions (when it is appropriate to approach a writer because that's why they're there).

In short, there is a lot of corroboration to back up the daughter's revelations.

Yet who has heard of this scandal?

Was there any widespread movement to boycott the books or condemn the author?

There was a very brief blitz in the media (particularly among sci-fi/fantasy writers) that passed by mostly unnoticed by the public (as far as I could tell).

Some readers vowed never to read her books again. A couple of fellow sci-fi & fantasy authors also resolved never to read the books again or support anything to do with the author.

But much of the condemnation came with tiptoe-through-the-tulips terms like calling the revelations "tragic" or emphasizing the need to "separate the art from the artist" or philosophizing that "talented doesn't mean good" (as if we didn't know that already) along with expressing gratitude toward the author's professional deeds while expressing tepid disapproval of the author, referring to her as a "flawed creator."

I would say she's heinous, monstrous, and utterly corrupt — not merely "flawed."

Heinous Monster's former literary super-agent responded by saying they're "aware of allegations," yet lacked "personal knowledge" of the allegations, saying that the author was "an enormously kind person."

This was clearly not true because in addition to her depraved writing, it is easy to find reports of very bad behavior. She lashed out at both fans & novice writers.

Also, like I said, some of her books were so sick that readers questioned what kind of person who could write and promote such sick things. And that was before the allegations came out.

The literary agency (one of the stars in that field) knew her work.

They knew she wrote & promoted really sick things — exactly the things her daughter accused her of doing.

There was obviously a real disconnect going on.

One author/editor who'd worked with the depraved fantasy writer even warned the public not to believe "sensationalist rumors." (Bet she wasn't nearly as circumspect regarding #metoo.)

Oh, but she took it back later, claiming her words were "ill-considered."

("Ill-considered," eh? How about "really cruel and flippant"? I guess that's because she can't admit that her value system is what's really "ill-considered.")

To be fair, this same author-editor later offered a big apology & even assisted the police on behalf of the daughter, but made a weird statement saying that her mistake was that she thought that the depraved author's husband "had not acted on his proclivities."

Seriously?

Does she mean to say that she knew he was depraved about young boys, but was okay with it as long as he didn't act on it?

And these are the people deciding what society reads.

Welcome to the "Progressive" World, where Saying "Gender Exists!" is Much Worse than Horrific Child Abuse

Yet let's look at a different best-selling fantasy author (NOT Heinous Monster): JK Rowling.

JK Rowling is liberal-bordering-on-Leftist & globally adored. She is no monster, but she supports & sympathizes with agendas & values Judaism calls immoral.

Yet when the extremely liberal-bordering-on-Leftist & beloved J.K. Rowling made a little tweet saying something completely sensible & obvious about gender (while expressing sympathy for people who think they are the gender they aren't)...society exploded.

She came under attack from social media harassment, baseless accusations, cancellation, nasty slurs, threats of violence against her, and calls for her books to be burned.

All because of a very innocent & sensible little tweet.

Staff at her publishing company refused to work on JK Rowling's new book in protest and several authors even left their literary agency because it also represents J.K. Rowling.

This particularly revolts me because, in contrast, no one refused to work on the Heinous Monster's books which promoted her really horrific agenda.

And while I know one author did leave Heinous Monster's agency without saying why (possibly because of that), no one else did even though the agency peddled the actual books that promoted this agenda (as opposed to J.K. Rowling's tweet, which has nothing to do with her literary agency).

So authors had a very good reason to leave the Heinous Monster's agency, seeing as the agency showed an appalling lack of morals, but authors didn't leave (except for possibly one).

In contrast, authors had absolutely no reason to leave J.K. Rowling's agency (literary agents don't manage or even necessarily see their authors' tweets), yet they stormed off anyway.

(I admit that this type of "progressive" response to the issue makes me want to crawl into a shell and never come out. Then I remember where I live & that I am actually already IN a shell! Phew!)

What's bizarre is that J.K. Rowling has expressed empathy for gender-dysphoric people, has befriended them, and even supports gender-reassignment surgery in a minority of cases!

So she's definitely on the extreme liberal side of things & very sympathetic to them.

Yet they turned on her with vicious passion.

Because JK Rowling doesn't deny basic obvious biological FACT, she has been shlepped across the coals & been accused of hating such people, along with a lot of other blah-blah-blah.

So you see very clearly the values of society and what's important to people.

Thus, we have a society in which a person (Heinous Monster) who indulges in & supports the severe abuse & exploitation of children, who is accused of nearly murdering her own daughter and trafficking her out to friends — such a person is "flawed" and "tragic."

We are advised to "separate the art from the artist!"

But a person (JK Rowling) who says that physical biological gender exists is labeled as "phobic" and "hating" to the point that staff refuses to work on her book, she's boycotted and cancelled, and slammed across the globe?

This clearly demonstrates people's very sick priorities & revolting hypocrisy.

The Comparison Doesn't Bode Well for Society

Please note that the above comparison is like-and-like.

Meaning, J.K. Rowling & the Heinous Monster are both Left-leaning liberal, female, feminist, wildly popular, best-selling fantasy writers.

And look at the difference in response to their "misdeeds." (In J.K. Rowling's case, it wasn't even a misdeed, but merely a perceived misdeed...because she was actually correct.)

And before you point out that J.K. Rowling made a tweet of her own views, while Heinous Monster's daughter making allegations against the other author, please remember that the awful author made her sick views very clear in her books.

I've never read any of Heinous Monster's books, but in one series in particular, readers expressed discomfort with the display of such depravity. Again, it was promoted to the point that some readers even called it "preachy."

Again, Heinous Monster knew her husband had been convicted of abusing boys BEFORE they married, she knew he founded an organization dedicated to that, and she copyedited his book glorifying such abuse, plus she promoted this kind of abuse, plus toeva & radical feminism in her books.

(Despite J.K. Rowlings faults, I can't imagine she would ever do or even tolerate the same.)

So yeah, Heinous Monster didn't make a tweet of her beliefs, but her actions & writing clearly pushed a depraved & harmful agenda.

This again follows the theme of who your martyr is says a lot about you.

But in this case, it's the same theme turned on its head.

Here, it's about who is your villain & what that says about you.

What Your Chosen "Martyrs" Say about You (in addition to the fact that in a pandemic, gathering in prayer is apparently dangerous & irresponsible, but gathering in violent riots is totally fine)

How would You Like to Take Your Poison: Scrambled or Sunny-Side Up?

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Anger: the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly – Rav Avigdor Miller on Parshat Shemini

17/4/2020

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Rav Avigdor Miller's dvar Torah for Parshas Shemini 3 – Anger and Self Control is very fitting for now: the importance of restraining anger.

Through the dvar Torah, Rav Miller discusses Moshe Rabbeinu's anger and why it was a good thing. (Rarely, is expression of genuine anger a good thing.)

From page 4 of the PDF, Rav Miller offers all sorts of advice on how to start restraining an angry reaction and why it's so important.

Really, anger is the one middah for which the Rambam advises going to the extreme.

There is a lot to be angry about in life.

And there may also be truly infuriating situations.

Oftentimes, a person's ego contributes to his or her angry. Even a person who is not so prideful may find his or her ego popping up in times of anger.

And in American culture, it has become fashionable and even praiseworthy to get one's nose out of joint.

For many Americans (and the younger they are, the more likely this is true) getting mortally offended has become instinctive.

It's like people can't control it.

In fact, it's almost become a sign of integrity to get mortally offended...as long as you get mortally offended about the "correct" things. (And the definition of "correct" depends on your audience.)

And how many times have you heard someone say something along the lines of: "...but I'm so mad, I just can't hold it in anymore, so now I'm going too..."?

As if what makes them personally angry is the deciding factor and the justification for whatever they rant about?

How many times have you said it yourself? (I have.)

And how many times is it used to justify a rant, lashon hara, verbally ripping someone to shreds, and so on?

Now, the Rambam certainly does not mean whitewash forbidden behaviors or to ignore injustices or the pain of others.

But one must go to the other extreme with anger.

(And here, I'm writing for myself as much as anyone else.)

One can address injustices and all sorts of other things with that Jewish passion for justice ("Tzedek, tzedek tirdof") without frothing at the mouth and losing one's temper.

It takes training, but it's possible.

Confessions of a Flawed Bumbling Middos-Worker

While I'm always embarrassed to use myself as an example, I think it's important to testify that the bumbling efforts of a normal, flawed person really do meet with at least some success in this area.

Meaning, it's definitely worth at least trying to work on this because you do reap fruits even without becoming a tzaddik.

Needless to say, there are still things that make me angry and times in which I struggle so much to keep a lid on my mouth & my boiling blood.

However, there are things that used to make me angry that now, they simply don't.

Meaning, I'm not repressing anger in those particular situations; I simply no longer feel the anger.

Even more, it's hard for me to understand my old self: Why did I get so outraged about this-and-such?

Likewise, my response in situations that make me angry is much more tempered. After a LOT of training (plus lots of crash-and-burning), my tone of voice is modulated...often (but not always) without me meaning to.

Sometimes, my tone of voice even switches in the middle (from gnashing to even-keeled) without me consciously making it happen.

Meaning, the tone-modulation has become automatic. And that's possible with a lot of practice. I think it's has to do with making new pathways in the brain or something.

Yet am I where I want to be regarding anger?

No, I have a lot of work to do still.

There are still situations with which I find overwhelming.

But fewer situations and less so.

And I'm much happier without getting as angry & self-righteous & outraged & mortally offended.

By avoiding anger, you also avoid a lot of shame and blows to your own self-respect.

Plus, it's a more honest and less ego-invested way of being.

Emotions are a God-Given Reality – Use Them Wisely!

But as the Rambam says, "Lo yiyeh k'meit sheh eino margish – he shouldn't be like a dead person who doesn't feel."

Rav Avigdor Miller, quoting Kohelet 7:29, emphasizes that Hashem made Man perfectly.

We're supposed to feel all sorts of middot – both the good AND the bad.

The good middot are supposed to attract us to the right path and the bad middot are there to either be used in a positive way or to be utilized in our self-rectification by overcoming that bad middah.

This is hard to remember in modern society. When Americans aren't being mortally offended and indulging in self-righteous huffin'-'n'-puffin', they aren't supposed to be feeling anything uncomfortable.

Uncomfortable feelings are meant to be medicated, according to much of society today.

In parts of Europe & Scandinavia, it's even worse because an unemotional state is considered the superior one. Being cool & unaffected is the ideal (until they get drunk, of course).

Yet Rav Miller notes on pages 6-7:

The wise man learns how much of each middah is to be used and in which situations, so that he should achieve perfection of character al pi haTorah.

And that's both our job and our direction in a nutshell.

That's the authentic Jewish way of relating to emotions.

The Positive Uses of Anger

On page 7, Rav Miller describes the chemical process of anger and how it affects your body chemistry.

And he tells us how to use this process when faced with a potentially violent Jew-hating incident (to run away and then how the body naturally deals with any wounds inflicted).

Anger is also good in battle.

The Tribe of Levi, the Tribe of Moshe Rabbeinu & Aharon HaKohen & Miriam HaNeviah, became separated for greatness – the Kohanim & Levi'im – all because of righteous anger.

Truly righteous anger: They were angry on HASHEM'S behalf. Truly.

When Pinchas speared Zimri and his shady lady, Pinchas wasn't looking for a fight.

First, he needed to get a spear (he didn't walk around with one looking to gore people). And then Pinchas needed to call forth his anger in order to carry out the necessary deed.

This was a man in complete control of his middot; a true and imitable kanai (zealot).

The Gehinnom of Anger

On page 10, Rav Miller discusses the correct use of anger and how being way to forgiving damages American society.

Then on pages 10-11, he compares anger to dynamite.

Dynamite is good for blowing through mountains when you need to build a tunnel for a railroad or a highway to improve quality of life.

However, it's not good when you forgot your key and your wife & children aren't opening up for you fast enough, so you blow the door open with your dynamite.

(Great mashal, BTW.)

On page 11-13, Rav Miller quotes the well-known idea that for an angry person, all sorts of Gehinnom will have control over him.

When this idea is quoted, the speaker usually uses that as an opening to discuss the terrible kinds of states an angry person finds himself in This World.

And this is very true.

In fact, Rav Miller discusses this. He personally knew people who developed diabetes and blindness all due to anger.

In fact, one man (page 16) who become blind from anger ended up living all by himself in poverty in a dangerous neighborhood – this poor blind Jewish man.

Rav Miller remarks that the man had what to be anger about – his initial anger was understandable – but despite him being in the right, he still ended up in a self-made Gehinnom.

That's a big lesson: The man endured a genuinely infuriating situation!

Nonetheless, he (and we) are not supposed to give in to anger.

In other cases, people end up with strokes and other dangerous medical conditions due to anger.

However, Rav Miller also notes that it's the classic Gehinnom that entraps the person after he dies.

An angry person does all sorts of sins. How many frum people have left frumkeit because they were angry?

But not only that.

A totally frum person becomes mean and says hurtful things from their anger. As Rav Miller states:

People break other people’s hearts in their anger.

So true.

He also mentions that angry often brings people to slander others & ruin their lives.

A person even comes to the point where they lose their belief in Hashem due to their anger.

All this earns Gehinnom.

So what's the cure?

How to Work on Your Anger

First of all, says Rav Miller, everything is in the Hands of Hashem:

All the things that transpire in this life are actually in themselves meaningless to us because they are all the concern of Hakodosh Boruch Hu alone. It’s His business!

It's hard to take the necessary step back to see things in that light when you're in the moment, but any move you make in that direction adds up over time!

While you're getting your emunah in focus, Rav Miller recommends the following books to help you with your anger:

Pele Yoetz
Orchot Tzaddikim
Shevet Mussar
Reishis Chachmah
Mesillat Yesharim

(I'm going to also add Rav Shimshon Dovid Pincus's 2 volumes on emunah, Nefesh Shimshon: Gates of Emunah, which weren't published yet at the time of this speaking.)

On pages 18-20, he discusses how to look angry without actually feeling angry, a method sometimes necessary for dealing with specific situations.

But then he comes back to training yourself.

Keep reading the right things and keep practicing.

He acknowledges that this kind of transformation does not happen overnight.

But, he promises, if you keep working on it for years & years, you'll be richly rewarded for all that inner work. You're fulfilling the tikkun for which you came into the world in the first place.

All credit for quotes & material goes to Toras Avigdor.

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Stories of People who Overcome Pain & Trauma with Help from Regular People (and Not Professionals)

20/1/2020

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It's interesting that despite modern psychology's insistence that people cannot successfully overcome trauma & bad middot without therapy, you can actually run across people who've done just that.

It's not just that the victim didn't turn into a criminal; the former victim actually ended up becoming a good person.

Not a perfect person, but definitely a good person.

Nice. Moral. Compassionate.

The former victim became a decent spouse and parent.

Having said that, I do think that therapy with a goal-oriented emunadik therapist and a sincere and willing client can be very helpful (although the main work really needs to be done by the person him- or herself).

The problem is that many therapists (even frum ones) aren't necessarily emuna-oriented and many clients are not willing to do the real cheshbon hanefesh and middot work it takes to improve.

However, this idea that people cannot recover from traumatic experiences, that they cannot overcome their upbringing, without modern psychological theories and modern psychological treatment continues to be doggedly promoted, both in the secular world and the frum world.

This idea has become an absolute.

But I personally know or have read about people who overcame very difficult childhoods to become very decent people. Not perfect people, but certainly not dysfunctional people. Not even close.

And they did at least most of it without therapy.

Also, from the therapist's side of things...a person doesn't necessarily need a degree in psychology to help others.

Often, a caring friend with a strong sense of empathy, emotional intelligence, and emunah can do the job just as well if not better.

And what I discovered from reading Holocaust memoirs was that people were a lot more aware than we are given to believe.

And people were able to help each other.

A lot depended on how much the other cared about the person in trouble and whether they understood what that particular person needed.

Again, empathy & emotional intelligence played a huge role in helping the other.

(SPOILER ALERT: This post references the endings of several books you may or may not have read.)

Empathy & Validation as Natural Responses to Pain

In Holocaust memoirs that told of the period after Liberation, I noticed a recurring theme.

First of all, the survivors grouped together and repeatedly told their stories.

And everyone listened to each other empathetically.

This repeated outpouring of experiences, including lots of tears and non-judgmental listening, continued until the survivors no longer needed to do this.

It was a kind of purging of pain.

Interestingly, people who suffered through a death camp did not scoff at the pain of survivors of convents or others who, though they also suffered, had it much easier than those in a death camp.

A Death Camp Survivor Comforts a Survivor of the Convent

For example, in Behind the Walls, 15-year-old Chana ends up in a frum orphanage after having survived the Holocaust in a convent.

All the girls there are trying to rebuild their shattered lives.

One day, one of the other girls notices that Chana looks sad.

Annette, the survivor of the death camps, comes over to Chana and smiles at her understandingly and asks, gently, "Are you still 'there' in your memories?"

When Chana answers in the affirmative, Annette reassures her, "Don't worry. It's impossible to erase everything all at once. Slowly you'll free yourself. I am the same way."

This is astonishing empathy from a girl who survived torture and starvation while Chana lived in the relative safety and nourishment of the convent. Yes, most of the nuns were abusive and the convent was terribly cold in the winter while the food only fulfilled their minimum caloric needs...but it was still a nice refuge compared to the horrors of Auschwitz.

Annette goes on to say, "I understand that you didn't have it easy either."

How can Annette even compare the two? How is Annette so empathetic toward Chana's trauma when Annette's trauma was so much worse? Annette is obviously a genuinely caring & understanding young woman.

Then Annette reminds Chana that Annette's "there" was much worse than Chana's "there" – but not to put down Chana or invalidate Chana's pain.

On the contrary, Annette seeks to encourage Chana that if Annette and the other camp survivors can rehabilitate themselves, then Chana can too.

Then Annette gives an inspiring speech about the will to survive and to rebuild the Jewish people.

"I know it is hard to continue, but one must," Annette concludes.

Chana feels invigorated by Annette while the reader feels awed.

How is Annette so empathetic and encouraging of a girl who hadn't suffered nearly as much as she did?

It certainly wasn't because of anyone psychological theories! After all, these girls never learned psychology; they were only teenagers by the end of the War.

Annette simply possessed a wise & discerning heart, a good heart (which Pirke Avot tells us is the most important thing to have).

Post-Trauma Depression & How Survivors Dealt with It

A common & understandable response after the initial Liberation was depression.

In A Daughter of Two Mothers, twentysomething Leichu finds herself depressed around a month after Liberation.

She feels confused by and terribly ashamed of her own crying because she realizes that, hidden in a cave amid a beautiful forest by a Roma (gypsy) couple who treated her as if she was their own cherished daughter, Leichu got off quite lucky in comparison to her fellow Jews.

And while they came close to starvation at one point, Leichu and the Roma couple managed to have proper heating and delicious nourishing food most of the time.

But after Liberation, Leichu is surrounded by survivors of the ghettos and death camps.

So she feels ashamed of her grief.

Silently, Leichu cries and sinks into lethargy.

At one point, Mathili (a friend from before the War & a survivor of Auschwitz) decides that Leichu has been depressed for long enough.

She shouts at Leichu with "terrible screams" designed to jumpstart Leichu from her bed.

It works.

Once Leichu is on her feet, Mathili then switches to a loving & earnest approach. She implores Leichu to stop her obsessive thoughts of "What if I'd done this or what if I'd done that?" regarding Leichu's murdered mother.

Mathili then gives Leichu a beautiful speech of loving mussar, strengthening Leichu's emuna and reminding Leichu that "even though we don't understand, even though it is very, very hard for us – it was all done for our good somehow."

This is amazing emuna coming from a young woman who lost so much.

But from what I've read, it wasn't uncommon for fellow Holocaust survivors to allow each other that time to grieve and be depressed, then spur each other out of depression before losing themselves completely.

Again, the empathy, the understanding that grief & crying is acceptable & appropriate, but that at some point, one needs to be spurred out of it – where was it coming from?

There were no therapists around.

And while psychological theories proliferated in the early 20th Century, these young people would not have encountered the theories prior to the War, both because of their youth and their inaccessibility.

Because of their good sense and their caring hearts, they were able to do instinctively what psychologists claim is impossible without their theories.

Maybe It's Not Lack of Therapy That's The Problem, But Too Much Shallow Culture?

Interestingly, I once read that Holocaust survivors who came to Eretz Yisrael ended up better off than those who went to America.

Why?

Because in Eretz Yisrael, they were allowed to talk about their experiences.

In America, they were expected to repress them.

And sometimes the obtuseness survivors faced just made you go "Huh?"

For example, I remember reading one memoir in which the teenage survivor who ended up with relatives in the US was expected to go to sock hops and wear lipstick in order to forget her torture in Auschwitz. Her American family could not understand why she could not put the horrors behind her and immerse herself in the non-Jewish teeny-bopper lifestyle of the 1950s.

In Leah Kaufman's Live! Remember! Tell the World!, Leah survives the brutal Transnistria death march and is one of 3 survivors of Pechora, one of the most horrific death camps in Transnistria.

By age 10, Leah had seen her entire family die one by one, along with other truly horrific incidents. She needed to survive on her own in a cruel & genocidal world.

And with Hashem's Help, she did.

In 1947, Canada offered to accept over a thousand child survivors (on the condition that the Canadian Jewish Congress took full responsibility for their support) and Leah was one of them.

Though the director of the Jewish Immigrant Aide Society pondered how to greet the traumatized children in the most healing way possible, including preparing the aides with "social work techniques" designed with the traumatized children's needs in mind, Leah remembers the techniques and approaches as "empty, cold, and inappropriate."

The social workers also tried to get the children to open up about their experiences, but the children did not want to. (They did this upon the children's arrival, while the children were still en route to being settled, which is sort of strange, if you think about it.)

Leah was placed with a caring, yet secular, Jewish family who felt that speaking Yiddish at home was all they needed to preserve their Jewish continuity.

Immediately after they welcomed 15-year-old Leah into their family (perhaps they'd been advised to do so by well-meaning professionals), they asked Leah about her original family and what had happened to them.

Yet when Leah told them, this new family did not know how to respond to such horror.

They looked away silently before finally saying, "Maidele, du bist a groise fantazie – Little girl, you have a big imagination."

This unexpected response threw Leah into shock and made her determined to never speak of her past again. And she didn't until circumstances opened up that convinced her to speak out.

Nonetheless, the family continued to lavish material nurturing on Leah and even called her their "teire tochter – dear daughter."

Leah appreciated their dedication to her, even as she realized their limitations in giving her what she really needed emotionally.

In viewing the less healing response in North America, it's logical to assume that culture played a part. Even when psychology was considered and applied, it wasn't necessarily helpful (as in Leah's case).

Again, to facilitate healing, traumatized people really need to be dealt with via sincere warmth, acceptance, understanding of their individual needs, and emotional intelligence. As we see in the above examples, a teenage survivor of trauma herself could possess these traits while a trained professional could lack these traits.

(By the way, Leah is a truly remarkable & inspiring Jew. It is unfathomable that she came out of such horror and brutality with a personality so full of love, compassion, and emuna. In fact, I'm pretty sure I met her at one point, before I knew who she was, and found her to be a very warm, sweet, and sensitive person. You can see more about Leah in Choose Life: A Documentary about Leah Kaufman, but please be forewarned that some of the images included are extremely disturbing.)

A Heimish Chassidish Heart

When I was going through a hard time, a Yerushalmi chassidish acquaintance in her mid-20s called me.

She really spoke to my heart and I was both shocked and touched that she knew exactly what to say to me.

We came from such different backgrounds and there was no way she ever encountered therapy techniques.

We didn't even know each other so well.

How did she know that not only would it be good to call me, but also to know what to say?

When I asked her this later, she said that she simply sat down and thought about me, and what I must be feeling. After contemplating this for a while, she pondered what I might want.

Then she called me and said all that she said.

I was floored that someone would think about me like that when they already had a full life, and it taught me the real secret to reaching people in a healing manner: thinking about THEM – what's good for them, what's REALLY good for them, what THEY need, and so on.

I know I don't always succeed in doing this, but I think it's the correct goal.

And in the above examples, I think that's the difference in response.

When the Holocaust survivors were with people who fearlessly focused on their needs regardless of personal comfort, they received a genuinely helpful response.

When faced with people who cared, but could not step outside of themselves completely and could not let go of their own emotional comfort level, the survivors received a stunted response.

Dealing Properly with Unique Trauma

Returning to A Daughter of Two Mothers: Aside from the trauma of the Shoah, the book also shows how different people face other traumatic situations at different times.

Sometimes, they were handled wisely and sometimes not.

Leichu emphasizes that when her mother poured out her heart to Rivka Klar over the years, Rivka never told her not to cry. She accepted the tears and the pain, which is exactly what Leichu's mother needed & gave her comfort.

In another scene, Leichu confides in the Roma laundress (who later saves Leichu from the Nazis) that Leichu is actually adopted and expresses her anguish over this discovery.

The Roma woman simply hugs and rocks Leichu back and forth until Leichu calms down. Then the woman says some supportive and insightful words, which give Leichu a lot of comfort & encouragement.

Leichu is able to recover from her shock and go on with her life.

Later, when Leichu is with her real mother and struggling to adjust to the world of poverty with a loving widowed birth mother versus Leichu's previous world in an adoptive family with a upper-class mother and father in a life of luxury, Leichu again turns to the Roma laundress who grants Leichu more insight into her situation, then wisely says:

"You must accept this duality: that you enjoy your present life, yet miss your past life at one and the same time. That's the way it should be, that's exactly how you should feel, and you may well feel that way for a long time." (page 267)

This validation and insight was exactly what Leichu needed to hear, and it enabled her to go forward. (It is also obviously wise & true.)

Throughout the book, Leichu encounters different people throughout her struggles. Some respond unhelpfully. But it was amazing how many people did respond in a way that was validating, empathetic, and offered solutions & hands-on assistance that were genuinely helpful.

How did they manage this when they couldn't have possibly read any book on trauma or psychology, or have any experience with what Leichu was going through, whether it was dealing with her surprise discovery of her adoption or recovering from the Holocaust?

Again, I think the people who fearlessly and sincerely focused on what Leichu's real needs were managed to respond in a way that was genuinely helpful.

"Has Something Terrible Happened to You?"

As mentioned above, Leichu discovers she's adopted and this throws her into distress.

She becomes depressed and disconnects from her friends, her beloved nanny, and her schoolwork.

Eventually, her adoptive mother (who doesn't know that Leichu now knows the truth) takes her to the doctor.

After not finding anything physically wrong with Leichu, the doctor waits until the adoptive mother leaves the room to discuss tests with a nurse. He then sits down with Leichu and looks her in the eye.

"What is bothering you, Leichu?" he says. "Has something terrible happened to you?"

It's clear he's asking whether she has been abused in some way.

She tries to brush off the question, but the doctor refuses to be dismissed.

Not wanting to tell him about the traumatic discovery of her adoption, she simply says she discovered that "the world is full of thorns and thistles, and if there are flowers, they are hidden and surrounded by lots of thorns."

The doctor validates her perception of the world, then offers her thoughtful advice on how to navigate her way through "the garden of life without getting pricked too much."

The doctor's words sit well with Leichu and she throws herself into following his advice, which truly benefits her.

This was the 1930s in Budapest. Psychology was already established, though not nearly as developed as it is today. It makes sense that the doctor might have learned whatever psychology was available at that time.

However, modern psychology will tell you that prior to the, say, 1970s-80s, no one knew about abuse, so no one ever considered that possibility or talked about it, etc.

This also never made sense to me because of course people knew these things happened. Maybe they didn't think these things were common, but they certainly knew.

And clearly the doctor was aware of the possibility, as he clearly shows by his questioning.

He was also sensitive enough to realize that if Leichu hadn't confided in her adoptive mother about it, then Leichu would not reveal it in front of her, which is why the doctor waited until the woman left the room before sensitively confronting Leichu.

Now, how the doctor would handle the scenario had actual abuse been committed?

I have no idea.

But clearly, he was aware of the possibility and prepared to deal with it, and seemed genuinely concerned about it.

Tachlis: What is the Goal?

The intention of this post was not to bash well-meaning therapists who strive to help their clients heal from trauma and become emotionally healthy people.

Like I said, I think they can be helpful (although personal observation tells me that many are not as helpful as touted).

This post is more against the widely promoted idea that we were all helplessly dysfunctional until modern psychology came along to save us, and that therapy is the only solution for healing emotional pain.

And this is more in favor of the idea that normal caring people who possess emotional intelligence can be just as helpful, if not more so.

(In fact, you see that modern Western society is more dysfunctional now – with all the psychological theories and therapy available – than it used to be.)

And I think there is so much in modern psychology that is actually harmful. While I see people successfully dealing with 1 or 2 issues in therapy, they overall don't become better or nicer people (even though they often feel better).

I think that genuine compassion and caring, combined with emotional intelligence and rooted in emunah can take a person much farther in both helping others & helping oneself.

And I think it's those qualities we should be focusing on.

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What Does Judaism Say about Self-Love & Self-Esteem?

25/12/2019

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Growing up in secular liberal America, I always heard a lot about self-love.

There was even a famous song, which declared that learning to love yourself is the greatest love of all.

(Shame on that songstress. As a non-Jew with a church background, she should have known that learning to love God is the greatest love of all. But Hollywood corrupts everything. Oh well.)

Self-love & self-esteem were supposed to go hand-in-hand to cultivate a positive self-image, thereby making you a better person.

Yet as time went by, many “experts” realized that self-love did not actually lead to the good behavior they’d predicted. And many bad people (narcissists, for example) possess a falsely positive self-image and esteem themselves too highly.

So “experts” started talking about self-compassion.

That was better, but I still couldn’t help noticing that the concept of self-love (self-esteem, self-compassion, etc.) didn’t seem to exist within all the millennia of scholarship contained within Judaism.

Yes, there is ONE passage commonly lifted out of Gates of Teshuvah to promote self-love & self-esteem. (Basically, it explains something like how low self-esteem can lead a person to compensate by puffing up himself with fake attributes and arrogance.)

But it seemed that if self-love was an essential part of self-growth, Chazal would’ve mentioned it somewhere – and somewhere easily found.

And no one ever quoted the Gemara about self-love.

If self-love is essential to teshuvah, why isn’t it anywhere in the Gemara?

That omission alone should tell us something.

At the very least, in the entire book of Gates of Teshuvah, Rabbeinu Yonah should have mentioned it more than once if it was so important.

It's the Well-Meaning Bull's-Eye Artists Once Again...

Which came first? The target or the arrow?

Gradually, the realization dawned on me that if it’s not mentioned in our core Jewish sources, then it is probably not a Jewish idea.

Eventually, I chalked it all up to a common practice among many well-meaning frummies: They shoot their arrow and then draw a bull’s eye around the arrow so it looks like the arrow hit the target.

Likewise, these very well-meaning people grab an idea from modern psychology and then search through Chazal until they find a verse that supports their treasured currently fashionable idea.

They honestly don’t realize what they’re doing.

And while such a method may help temporarily (if it didn’t help at all, it likely never would’ve made it into the annals of pop psychology), it ultimately will not do the job because it’s not completely true (if it’s true at all).

Azamrah!

Next, people pointed to Rebbe Nachman of Breslov’s famous idea that you need to find at least one merit in yourself, at least one good point.

That’s still not self-love of the non-Jewish world.

It’s more along the lines of self-compassion & self-esteem & a positive self-image, but it’s still not the same idea as promoted in the non-Jewish world.

Anyway, why did Rebbe Nachman so strongly push this idea?

What’s the motive behind it?

First of all, it's true.

Furthermore, I believe he pushed it because people who do a very sincere & deep cheshbon hanefesh come up with all kinds of unpleasant realizations about themselves.

Even very good people end up discovering all sorts of not-so-pious motivations behind their acts of piety and chessed.

(It’s exactly this kind of self-awareness that keeps our Gadolei Hador and our tzaddikim so humble, despite their genuinely elevated qualities and, in some cases, their global fame.)

So the whole point of self-azamrah (finding at least one good quality in yourself) is to save the profoundly honest & relentlessly self-probing people from despair & emotional paralysis.

Along these lines, it’s impossible to miss Breslov's constant encouragement to uncover your flaws before Hashem, pouring your heart out about them in hitbodedut in order to polish them. (In Words of Faith, Rav Levi Yitzchak Bender emphisizes several examples of this.)

Which, again, is the whole reason for the necessity of self-azamrah.

I don’t know if you need to go digging around for at least one good point in yourself if you’re not doing some kind of cheshbon hanefesh. If you have no serious regrets and you feel pretty satisfied with yourself, then what is the point of self-azamrah? After all, you already see plenty of good points in yourself!

In other words, Azamrah facilitates cheshbon hanefesh & teshuvah.

That's its purpose.

So really, self-azamrah is not the self-love or self-compassion promoted in pop psychology either.

To see a classic short story from Rebbe Nachman describing the Azamrah process, please see:
The Tzaddik Who Fell into Sadness

What is the Torah's Definition of a Positive Self-Image?

It's Not "I'm Okay, You're Okay."

It's More Along the Lines of: "Maybe I'm Not Really NOT Okay...But My Neshamah is Absolutely Brilliant!"

A positive self-image Torah-style means recognizing that your core self, your neshamah, is pristine and holy.

Your job is to clean up the rest of you and actualize your pristine and holy core.

We're Still Not Through Yet: Where is the Love?

So while I came across nearly zero about self-love (or self-esteem), I did come across an enormous amount of Torah material promoting love for HASHEM.

Ahavat Hashem/Love of God: THIS idea is just all over the place in Chazal. It’s in Tanach. It’s in every book on mussar or Chassidus. You can’t get away from it.

So then I realized that the goal is actually to love Hashem…and to know that Hashem loves you too!

In fact, Hashem loves you much more than you could ever love yourself.

This is talked about in Torah classes. But why the need to also introduce self-love and self-esteem and self-this and self-that?

I think it’s because the idea of such a relationship with Hakadosh Baruch Hu feels very far away, very difficult to attain.

And that’s to be expected.

But that’s doesn’t mean we shouldn’t make it our goal.

A far-off goal doesn't mean we should dilute it with non-Jewish ideas in order to seemingly bring it closer.

It's Not Too Far Away

In the spiritual realm, EVERY SINGLE TINY STEP is HUGE PROGRESS.

Every spiritual act you do MEANS something.

Even if you become a completely rasha tomorrow (chas v’shalom), you can never erase any of the good you did.

Never.

That’s why terrible people often live it up in This World. Somewhere, they’ve done something good. And Hashem gives them their reward for it now.

(But they sure will pay for it later!)

So we shouldn’t allow the loftiness of the goal to dissuade us.

Unfortunately, people who automatically (and often unconsciously) dismiss this goal can end up teaching, and writing books and articles in the frum community, which is why you’ll hear about all these pop psychology concepts within frum venues.

So as good-hearted as these people are and as passionately as they want to help others, they can’t because they don’t have the right hashkafah themselves. And they honestly do not realize this.

Placing Bogus Limits on God (Who is Limitless) Leads to Really Bad Things

By the way, this idea that God is “too far away” or “too high” to even attempt reaching is a 2000-year-old mistake made by other people.

This human-imposed "limit" on God's abilities forms the basis for declaring a son of God who is also divine, and then using that "son of God" imagery as a medium for prayer.

Combine this with a rejection of the paradox that really horrific things happen in the world, yet Hashem is a Wholly Compassionate Creator Who does everything for the good...and you have what you have in the world today as far as a major religion goes.

So for them, God feels too distant to access, plus they need someone to blame for all the bad stuff and the harsh judgements.

So they make the human representative the “god” of love and accessibility, while they make the actual Creator the source of whatever they perceive as bad and punishing.

Ta-daaaahhhh!

Actually, it goes back even further.

Much avodah zarah rests on this idea that God is too far away, too busy, too overwhelmed, too exalted, too paradoxical, and thus we need an intermediary (chas v’shalom).

(In contrast, very early avodah zarah derived from the idea that people should praise the King’s servants—i.e., the planetary bodies—which led to actually worshiping them.)

The point is: We should not limit Hashem.

(Needless to say, we can't actually limit Hashem. But we can fool ourselves into thinking so.)

That always leads to trouble in the end.

We can strive to nurture a personal relationship with Hashem, and cultivate love for Him while at the same time, making every effort to feel His Love for us.

So it’s not that you need to love yourself, but that you need to maintain a constant awareness that HASHEM loves YOU.

Even when you’ve been bad, Hashem is right there loving you and waiting for you to return to Him.

But that still wasn’t the end of it.

Oh-Ho! I Found Self-Love in Judaism After All...

If you read the wonderful mussar book, Pele Yoetz, you’ll discover that the second chapter is titled: Ahavat Atzmo – Love of Oneself!

So what’s going on with that?

First of all, the preceding and first chapter is Ahavah L’Hakadosh Baruch Hu – Love for the Holy One Blessed Be He.

That right there tells us something.

The very first sentence of the entire masterpiece is:

Love for The Holy One Blessed Be He: There is no better virtue than this. For from this follows all the service of Hashem Yitbarach and all of Judaism.

So self-love (as defined by the big tzaddik who wrote the Pele Yoetz) is actually an aspect of God-love.

True self-love does not exist on its own, nor is self-love in and of itself considered a virtue in Judaism.

In Love of Oneself, the Pele Yoetz immediately states that self-love in an integral part of Divine Design, explaining that a person loves himself more than anything else and will give away everything in order to save his own life.

Then he immediately dives into the concept of self-destruction – which he exhorts against as the opposite of self-love.

Basically, genuine self-love leads to good physical & emotional function, which leads to continued service of Hashem in mitzvot & good deeds.

And that’s the whole point of self-love: avodat Hashem.

A person who transgresses, a person who lives a physically and emotionally unhealthy life? That person is not expressing genuine love for himself.

The Pele Yoetz categorizes such a person as being exploited by the Yetzer Hara, as having fallen into an “evil sickness,” and calls him a fool.

Such a person can even commit suicide, notes the Pele Yoetz, God forbid.

Whether a person injures himself or others, that injury is an act of cruelty.

The Pele Yoetz lists behaviors that do NOT show self-love, but rather self-hatred:

Excessive drinking of wine
Excessive eating, especially of red meat or delicacies.
Excessive intimacy with your wife
Lengthy vacations and holidays
Working just to increase your bank account when you already have enough for your needs
Endangering yourself just for the money (going on dangerous journeys, as sailing in a ship once was, or to dangerous areas, not taking body guards).
Not being watchful with things that cause physical harm

(You can see that excessive intimacy with one’s wife or lengthy vacations do not clash with the idea of self-love in the non-Jewish world. So as long as you work by the non-Jewish self-love paradigm, you won’t reach the Jewish ideal of self-love, which is based on making yourself a vessel for continued service of Hashem.)

These behaviors DO show self-love:

A willingness to eat parched bread in peace & serenity rather than compiling a vast fortune accompanied by anxiety and toil
In the case where you are doing well financially, you use your funds to afford more physical comfort, but do not labor simply to increase profit.
You avoid indulging in wine.
You avoid indulging in meat.
You avoid consuming delicacies.
You do not overeat.
You avoid lengthy vacations.
You avoid excessive intimacy with your wife.
You stay away from hazardous places.
You stay away from hazardous journeys (sailing across the sea, for example), unless absolutely necessary.

Again, the non-Jewish world glorifies people who engage in dangerous treks to beautiful yet risky places. Furthermore, it sees nothing wrong with excessive marital intimacy or lengthy holidays.

(In fact, lengthy vacations, ocean-crossings, and adventurous treks are even goals for many people.)

So living your life according to even the best intentions of the non-Jewish self-love/self-compassion/self-esteem proponents will not lead you to the Jewish ideal of self-love.

Self-Care in Service of Hashem Only

It’s interesting that the Pele Yoetz focuses primarily on your physical preservation with regard to self-love.

But again—what is the root of self-love, according to the Pele Yoetz?

The primary motivation for his love of self, body, and soul must emanate from the love of his Creator.

The body and self are “tools for serving the Master.”

They should not be sullied or broken.

So basically, you’re good to yourself—especially your physical self--so that you have the strength and ability to keep serving Hashem and doing mitzvot.

There’s no other reason.

Sounds like a tall order?

It is. But we should still try.

As long as we make the effort, the Pele Yoetz reassures the striving individual with this final note of encouragement:

Hashem will be his help and his might.

In a Nutshell: The 3 Basic Torah Ideas of Self-Esteem, Self-Image, and Self-Love

To sum up Judaism's take on all the above, based on the classic sources I've read:

#1
Healthy self-esteem means:

You know Hashem loves you (and is always ready to accept your sincere remorse & willingness to change).
You know your core neshamah is pristine and holy.

You can maintain the above knowledge even if you know that you (outside of your neshamah) are actually not so great.

You might think there is a heck of a lot wrong with you.

You might even think you're very bad.

That's okay as long as you know the following:

You need to be secure in Hashem's Love & the exalted potential of yourself emanating from your deepest level of soul: your neshamah.

I can't repeat this enough: I simply never found the pop psychology ideal of self-esteem in any authentic Torah sources.

#2
A positive self-image means:

Knowing your neshamah (your deepest level of soul) is pure and unsullied.
Because of your neshamah, you have the ability to be a tremendously great person. (Yeah...it sounds unrealistic for me too. But this is what the sefarim say.)

#3
Self-love means:

Taking care of your physical self in a way that enables you to serve Hashem in the strongest & healthiest way possible for the longest time possible.

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Dealing Properly with Unique Trauma

"Has Something Terrible Happened to You?"

Tachlis: What is the Goal?

It's the Well-Meaning Bull's-Eye Artists Once Again...

Azamrah!

What is the Torah's Definition of a Positive Self-Image?It's Not "I'm Okay, You're Okay."It's More Along the Lines of: "Maybe I'm Not Really NOT Okay...But My Neshamah is Absolutely Brilliant!"

We're Still Not Through Yet: Where is the Love?

It's Not Too Far Away

Placing Bogus Limits on God (Who is Limitless) Leads to Really Bad Things

Oh-Ho! I Found Self-Love in Judaism After All...

Self-Care in Service of Hashem Only

In a Nutshell: The 3 Basic Torah Ideas of Self-Esteem, Self-Image, and Self-Love

Myrtle Rising

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What is the Torah's Definition of a Positive Self-Image?

It's Not "I'm Okay, You're Okay."

It's More Along the Lines of: "Maybe I'm Not Really NOT Okay...But My Neshamah is Absolutely Brilliant!"