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Fascinating Links to Enrich the Understanding of Parshat Noach

23/10/2022

 
The stories told within Parshat Noach remain popular worldwide throughout generations.

Echoes of this fundamental transformation of the world reverberate through the ancient mythologies of every culture.

Delving into Parshat Noach via the authentic Torah commentaries reveals layer after layer of fascinating lessons & anthropological revelations.

Here are past links to enrich one's understanding of Parshat Noach:

From the 1730 Ladino masterpiece on the Torah Me'am Lo'ez:
  • the-7-universal-noachide-commandments-according-to-the-meam-loez.html​
  • what-noach-teaches-us-about-the-power-of-true-teshuvah.html
  • the-nations-established-by-the-sons-of-noach-where-are-they-now.html
  • the-meam-loez-on-the-descendants-of-the-sons-of-noach.html
  • the-generation-of-the-flood-has-reincarnated-into-our-generation-heres-the-evidence-also-what-you-can-do-to-protect-yourself-others.html
  • communications-from-stars-or-angels-in-todays-ufo-cults-nothing-new-the-generation-of-the-flood-did-that-too.html

From the 1602 Torah commentary Kli Yakar:
  • the-kli-yakar-parshat-noach.html
  • the-kli-yakar-on-parshas-noach-why-did-hashem-destroy-the-world-with-water-and-what-is-the-connection-to-hurricanes.html
  • the-hidden-sin-of-the-flood-generation-what-we-can-learn-from-it-today-aka-the-kli-yakar-on-parshat-noach.html

From the 19-Century Torah commentary of the Malbim:
  • the-malbim-on-parshat-noach.html

General:
  • The Invasion of 3 Ancient Generations: How to Explain the Current Chaos & Corruption of the Modern World​
  • some-torah-insights-guidance-for-the-path-of-bnei-noach.html

​About the phoenix on Noah's Ark & Its Real Story:
  • discover-the-torah-truth-of-the-phoenix-bird-stripped-from-its-mythology-what-is-the-real-story-authentic-spiritual-meaning-and-jewish-symbolism-of-the-phoenix.html​
  • 2-ways-to-understand-how-noach-spoke-with-the-dove-the-raven-and-the-phoenix.html
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Links to Earlier Posts for Parshat Beresheit

30/9/2021

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With the autumn chagim of this year (5782/2021) running a 3-week rhythm of Shabbat-Chag-Shabbat-Chag, etc., I think all the frum writing outlets are struggling to keep up with publishing chag/parsha-relevant material—and this blog is no exception.

So in lieu of a new post, here is a list of past posts for Parshat Beresheit:

From Rav Avigdor Miller
  • www.myrtlerising.com/blog/rav-avigdor-miller-on-parshat-beresheit-using-the-mundane-world-for-spiritual-growth (2019)
  • the-secrets-to-happiness-in-marriage-rav-avigdor-miller-on-parshat-beresheit.html (2020)

From Rav Yehudah Petiyah's Minchat Yehudah
  • genesis-and-the-big-squish-the-discovery-of-the-universe-developed-from-a-giant-womb-and-not-a-fireworks-display.html 
  • how-why-did-the-nachash-enter-gan-eden.html
  • the-root-of-all-evil-what-was-the-motivation-of-the-nachash-in-gan-eden.html

Based on the Kli Yakar
  • the-kli-yakar-parshat-beresheit.html
  • the-torah-view-of-our-planet-earth-use-it-or-lose-it.html (includes the most effective way to prevent vastly destructive wildfires)
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The Root of All Evil: What was the Motivation of the Nachash in Gan Eden?

14/10/2020

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Let's continue on the theme of the Nachash in Gan Eden, its purpose and its own motivations—as explained by Rav Yehudah Petiyah in Minchat Yehudah.

The entire story of the events in Gan Eden dives deep & is difficult to understand, but gaining a basic idea still helps.

As we know from millennia of Torah scholarship, the Nachash is the yetzer hara. 

Originally, the yetzer hara was outside a person.​

With the First Sin (of not obeying Hashem's one prohibition against eating from Eitz HaDaat), the yetzer hara became internalized within a person.

And it remains within us until today, forcing us into continuous struggles to overcome it. 

What is the Purpose of the Nachash & the Yetzer Hara?

Contrary to most religious belief systems around the world and throughout the millennia, there is no independent opposing force to God, Who is Good & Compassionate.

The evil yetzer hara is also Hashem's servant. 

In a sense, it's our servant too because every time we overcome its temptation, we receive reward (most of it waiting for us in the Next World).

And that was its purpose back then, in Gan Eden.

And that's its purpose now.

But originally, it seems that only Hashem knew that.

Why Did the Nachash wish to Kill both Adam & Chava?

As discussed in the previous post, Hashem created the Nachash outside of Gan Eden.

(Thank you to the commenter there for bringing this up for further elucidation.)

Because the Nachash was an exceptionally gifted & skilled animal (strong, intelligent, with the ability to both understand & use speech), Adam invited it into the Garden to serve Adam.

Adam & Chava did not seem to realize that the Nachash was evil.

Yet when the Nachash entered into Adam's service in Gan Eden, it devised a plan against its masters.

According to Rav Yehudah Petiyah in Minchat Yehudah, the Nachash wished to destroy both Adam & Chava so that it could become the master of Gan Eden.

​As Rav Petiyah explains in the voice of the Nachash itself: ​
"...and one day, both of them will die, and Hashem will transfer His Gan Eden into my hands when He sees that I am more intelligent and clever and capable than all the animals. And I alone will be master of the Garden.

"And I will surely go free from under the hand of serving Man...I'll also benefit from no longer eating grass like the rest of the animals because it's not right to work the Garden without eating from it...and if so, I'll eat and enjoy the fruits of the Garden.

"I will also merit to eat from the Tree of Life. And in this way, I myself will live forever."

This is what the Nachash thought in his heart.
Yes, the commentaries also mention the idea that the Nachash wanted Chava for itself, but because his action led to her death (albeit not immediately), Rav Petiyah's chiddush indicates that the Nachash was ready to then discard her to achieve its ultimate goal.

Needless to say, both ideas are true.

According to this, the Nachash both wanted Chava immediately, but also wished to get her out of the way to enable his own sovereignty over Gan Eden (which Hashem would never allow, so it was all futile from the outset).

That's what its entire goal was in seducing Chava to eat from the Tree of Knowledge; it knew that Chava would give of the fruit to Adam too.

The Nachash assumed this would kill them (at least eventually) and he would remain as the lord of Gan Eden. 

The Root of Evil

It's a bizarre scheme.

​Yet Rav Petiyah's statement of the Nachash's wholly narcissistic & psychopathic goal allows us to glean obvious lessons from the idea.

​After all, didn't the Nachash realize that Hashem saw everything?

And why on earth did the Nachash ever think that Hashem would allow him to remain as the lord of Gan Eden in place of Adam?

Here, we see the root of true evil—the absolute self-absorption to the point of irrationality.

In addition to being pathologically covetous & destructive, the Nachash's thinking makes no sense. He can't possibly benefit from his scheme.

Also, the Nachash was created to serve humanity.

​That was the whole point of its existence.

Had Adam & Chava not sinned by transgressing the one prohibition Hashem imposed upon them, we all would enjoy the services of this intelligent animal until today.

Such a strong & intelligent animal would run our errands for us, including complex tasks like going to the post office & shopping, and much more.

​The Nachash could never be a master because it was only ever created to be a servant. 

Uplifting the World that Came Crashing Down

Ultimately, the plan backfired.

Yes, Adam & Chava died, but not right away—only centuries later.

But the Nachash immediately lost its status as the best of the animal kingdom.

It lost its original 4 legs, its cunning, its strength, and its ability to both comprehend & speak.

Snakes today remain mostly useless to people (except for their consumption of harvest-harming rodents, plus the use of their skin for some accessories & the meat they provide for their occasional consumers). 

Most of humanity considers snakes dangerous or frightening pests.

It went from being the lord of the animal kingdom to one of the lowest.

And humanity too lost its status.

Adam & Chava after the Sin were not the same as before the Sin.

And it's a reality with which we still struggle today.

However, if we choose the right decision often enough and if we listen to the voice of the yetzer hatov over the yetzer hara, we rectify the Sin—rectifying the entire world—and bring us closer to Redemption b'rachamim (with mercy & compassion).
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How & Why Did the Nachash Enter Gan Eden?

13/10/2020

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Did you ever wonder what the Nachash Kadmoni (the Primordial Snake) was doing in Gan Eden in the first place?

How did such an evil presence get into a place that was both a material & spiritual Paradise?

After all, Hashem didn't put it there because only He only placed Adam in the Garden, not the Nachash.

In Chapter 12 of Rav Yehudah Petiyah's Minchat Yehudah in the section on Parshat Beresheit, he asks rhetorically:

Did it happen when all the animals passed before Adam to receive their name?

No, Rav Petiyah answers his own question. The Nachash clearly heard the prohibition against eating from the Eitz HaDaat (Tree of Knowledge), which occurred before the naming of the animals and even before the creation of Chava (Eve).

Clearly, the Nachash was in Gan Eden prior to all that.

So...when & how did that happen?

Be Careful with whom You Align Yourself–You May Not Share the Same Motivations

Rav Petiyah concludes it happened when Hashem commanded Adam "to work it and to guard it" regarding the Garden.

Adam called the Nachash into service to help him care for the Garden. After all, the Nachash possessed more skill & talent than any other animal:
 "He knew how to speak like a human being, and was more cunning than the fox, and possessed more strength & power than the lion..." 
And when Chava became her own person, the Nachash went to serve her too.

And that gave it the opportunity to tempt her into eating from the Eitz HaDaat.

It's sort of like the famous 1986 quote from former President Ronald Reagan regarding "the nine most terrifying words in the English language":
"I'm from the government and I'm here to help." 
Apparently, the Nachash presented itself in a similar fashion.
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Genesis and The Big Squish: The Discovery of How the Universe Developed from a Giant Womb, and Not a Wild Fireworks Display

11/10/2020

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I never realized how stifling the allegiance to the scientific THEORY of Creation was until I dropped it.

Yes, I realize entire books dedicate themselves to aligning the Torah narrative with the Big Bang narrative. (I read them too.) And yes, they're pretty convincing.

Only they sometimes engage in acrobatic semantics to line up everything just right, but they are pretty convincing.

Yet reading the Torah narrative with the unproven scientific narrative in lockstep alongside in your mind actually distracts from the whole point of the Torah starting with Beresheit.

​And the theory-influenced mind automatically dismisses any commentary (produced by the most brilliant & holiest minds of humanity) that contradicts the scientific narrative—a narrative based entirely on conjecture.

After all, they believe it all happened billions of years ago, so how can any proof exist?

And with all the unscientific weasel-words like "assume," "maybe," "perhaps," "indicate," "feel," "possibly," etc., peppering their most prestigious papers on the topic, how can anything they say be taken seriously?

In essence, they are no different than their highly intellectual Greek antecedents who theorized that the change of seasons was caused by the abduction of a goddess's daughter by the god of the underworld, and when the daughter unsuspectingly ate 6 pomegranate seeds in the underworld, that act then compelled the daughter to spend 6 months with the god of the underworld each year, making her goddess-mommy so sad that the earth becomes barren & cold for those 6 months, until the return of the daughter brings back Spring & Summer.

It's the same process, the same jump from conclusion to conclusion without any proof—except for the obvious fact of the change of seasons. 

​And there is no reason why we need to believe any cosmology without any proof.

In the Beginning...Everything was Dark, Wet, and Goopy

So if you want to take to heart Rav Yehudah Petiyah's description of Creation in Minchat Yehudah, then why not?

Initially, he says, the entire Universe was filled with water.

And who's to say otherwise?

​After all, modern minds believe this happened billions of trillions of years ago, so who can prove this wrong? Anyway, astronomers are always finding ice all over the Universe: in comets, covering planets, and so on.

Maybe that's proof that that Creation started off, not with a Big Bang, but as a massive pool of water.

(In your scientific paper, you can call it "The Big Slurp." Or "The Big Splash.")

​Anyway, this vast pool of water was the Tehom (Deep).

And boy, was it dark!

​(Light hadn't been created yet. And Rav Petiyah notes that at that point, darkness—rather than being the absence of light as it is now—was a quality in and of itself. In other words: DARK.)

The Me'am Lo'ez states an opinion that nothing else was created at this time except the Angel of Death, and that he was in the Tehom.

So the entire Universe of the Tehom was dark, wet, and scary.

(Actually, not everyone agrees on what exactly was created on the first day & what on the second. But the Universe as we know it was definitely dark & wet.)

And this pool was so vast, it came all the way up to the Kisei HaKavod (Throne of Glory), which is the Ruach Elokim (Spirit of God) mentioned in Genesis 1:2.

Only the darkness separated between them. (Rav Petiyah brings proof from Tehillim 18:12 — "He made darkness His hiding-place about Him as His booth; the darkness of waters, thick clouds of the skies." All of Tanach is intertwined.)

Anyway, you had the Kisei HaKavod/Ruach Elokim hovering over the face of the water, like an eagle soars through the air as it hovers over its chicks, touching them occasionally.

And this was the Beginning.

The Theory of "The Big Squish"—Actually, It's Not Theory, But FACT

When Hashem created the Heavens and the Earth, He did so within this tremendous pool of water.

First, Hashem made the sphere of the rakia (firmament) and half the Tehom water completely filled this sphere and half the Tehom water remained outside of it.

In this way, says Rav Petiyah, no separation existed between the upper waters & the lower waters, except this layer of the rakia.

At this point, you are hopefully picturing something like a clear ball immersed in water and completely filled with water on the inside.

Then, in the very center-point within this rakia-ball, Hashem created the land.

At this point, everything is very wet and goopy, and Rav Petiyah likens it to the soft unformed body of an embryo.

(You can call this stage of Creation "The Big Squish.")

​On the Third Day, Hashem commanded the lower waters (the water within the ball) to gather into one place, which became the ocean.

And now the land could be seen.

And there was air too, between the land & ocean in the middle of the ball and the sky above.

The Me'am Lo'ez also describes the entire Universe as filled with water, and explains that everything was mud (again, "The Big Squish") until Hashem commanded the water & land to separate, which it did to become a continent & an ocean. 

And the land was immediately dry & ready to go—which, says the Me'am Lo'ez, teaches us that when one has the opportunity to do something good, he should not delay!

(The root of eretz/ארץ is ratz/רץ—to run. This is why the land was called eretz and not adamah or another word.)

However, notes Rav Petiyah, everything was still dark because the light still remained above the Tehom. 

As you can tell, the initial Creation of the Universe resembles the earliest state of pregnancy as experienced within the womb.

​And then things progressed as written in the Torah's story of Creation, with the appearance of different objects & creatures on different days.

(Rav Petiyah doesn't explain much more from here until the creation of Adam. And the Me'am Lo'ez has a couple hundred pages to say about it, but it's too much to summarize here.)

The Paradox Paradigm

Needless to say, it's important not to get too simplistic about Creation.

We are 3-dimensional beings living in a 3-dimensional world, and even just a fourth or fifth dimension is already way, way beyond our capabilities of imagination, let alone the mysteries of Creation and what existed before the Universe as we know it.

​For example, the Me'am Lo'ez explains that the upper waters weren't and aren't real water as we think of it, but a type of spiritual substance.

And again: Who's to say not?

Especially with scientists claiming everything is billions of years old & finding ice all over the galaxy, why not believe that the Universe started off as giant womb?

I seriously have no problem believing in the narrative of The Giant Womb or The Big Squish.

In fact, it's clear that scientists, swayed by their emotions & egos, much prefer a massive sound & light show of the Big Bang theory (much like they probably like watching things crash & blow up in modern action films.)

And they often say as much, stating outright how they chose a particular theory based on a purely emotional preference.

​(You can see more about this in: The Zealous Religion of Modern Science)

Also, I came across something very interesting in Rav Dessler's Strive for Truth!, quoting the Tiferet Yisrael (Chapter 33) by the Maharal of Prague.

He said that any allegories mentioned in the Torah are both allegories AND the Truth as the physical observer perceives it. 

Meaning, when the Torah presents seeming contradictions, like how Hashem (who is beyond all time & space) "descended upon Har Sinai," we must understand that this wasn't a vision or only "looked" that way...but that's how it really was because reality is relative to the observer. 

And the "observer" is us—very limited 3-dimensional physical human beings.

This idea is presented in the Midrash (Beresheit Rabbah 17:4) in which Adam gives names to all the animals & birds.

Hashem asks Adam: "And what is My Name?"

And Adam replies, "Ado-nai, for You are the Lord of all."

(Adon means "Master" or "Lord.")

And Hashem Himself concurs with this statement.

(Strive for Truth!, Volume II, Part 3, The Worlds of Asiya & Yetzira: Absolute & Relative Concepts—Relativity & Reality)

Liberate Your Mind

Judaism is very good at both acknowledging & embracing paradox.

Science is not.

Science looks to oversimplify things & only acknowledge what it can physically see in front of its face (which is why science has been so fluid & errant over the generations).

So science tends to be good with surgery (stuff you can see clearly) & germs (stuff you can see under a microscope), but does a pretty bad job when going outside of the strict boundaries of the physical (like God & Creation).

​So feel free to read Parshat Beresheit with a liberated & unencumbered mind.
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For more articles relating to Beresheit, please see:
  • Wellsprings of the Deep - Yotzer Ohr - Who Creates Light by Rabbi Yosef Sebag
  • How would the World be with No Moon?
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2 Fascinating Links to Enhance Your Life during This Time

3/8/2020

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Here's a video of a shiur from 2017 by Rabbi Yehoshua Zitron from Torahanytime.com called: ​Dybbuk/Exorcism/Adultery Part 1: Understanding Possessions Through Stories.

UPDATE: Here is the rest of the series: Dybbuk/Exorcism/Adultery: Part 2 - What Happens To A Spirit & Dybbuk/Exorcism/Adultery: Part 3 - The Destroyers

The first part of the shiur discusses a plague so lethal that as victims approached Rav Laniado for help, they dropped dead on the spot, and it explains how Rav Laniado remedied that.

(I couldn't catch the name of the book in which this story appeared, so if anyone figures it out, I'll be grateful if you let us know.)

Rabbi Zitron also brings fascinating stories from the Arizal & Rav Yehudah Petayah's Minchat Yehudah.

It all reinforces the importance of emunah and being real about your Yiddishkeit, kosher mezuzot, believing in the 13 Principles of Faith, and Torah learning.

And if you ever wondered why non-Jewish exorcists appear to succeed, Rabbi Zitron explains that the forces of tumah utilized in non-Jewish exorcisms damage the already damaged soul even more, so the soul flees in horror. (It's sort of like trying to clean a filthy garment by rubbing sewage into it; that only ruins the garment even more.) He also mentions exorcisms performed by priests in recent years, which resulted in the host's death (if it was even a real dybbuk-possession in the first place).
Also, Bilvavi produced a PDF collection of Rav Itamar Schwartz's insights into the month of Av, its astrological influence, its connection to Shimon ben Yaakov, and other helpful material to assist us in the avodah appropriate for this month.

Also, if you were born in Av, it can help you glean extra insights into yourself.

Here it is:
http://www.bilvavi.net/files/Bilvavi.Rosh.Chodesh.Av.pdf

Note: The Jewish view of astrology (mazalot) is that there's an influence that can always be overridden by our prayers, deeds, and Hashem. We may not rely on the mazalot nor may we attempt to predict the future with star charts. Jewish astrology walks in temimut with Hashem. However, Hashem created the influence for a reason & we can utilize the ruach of each month for beneficial purposes.
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Destructive Words & Healing Words: Rav Avigdor Miller on Parshat Behar-Bechukotai

14/5/2020

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There was a big shocker for me in Rav Avigdor Miller's dvar Torah Parshat Behar-Bechukotai: Speak with Care because he speaks about the great sin & harm of ona'at devarim: hurting someone's feelings with your words.

Yes, I knew that ona'at devarim is a very bad thing.

But on pages 4-5, Rav Miller gives the example of 2 different storekeepers:

One is always a paragon of politeness – but he'll cheat you out of a bit, like by putting his thumb on the scale when he's weighing your bananas. You need to watch him like a hawk.

The other is honest and would never take something that wasn't his, even by mistake – not a penny and not a million dollars. But he speaks with a sharp tongue and answers innocent inquiries with retorts like: "“Look right in front of you on the shelf! Can’t you see?!”

​Which one is worse?

The truth is, they're both pretty bad, each in his own way.

But Rav Miller quotes the Gemara:
Gadol ona’as devarim mei’ona’as mammon – The sin of hurtful words is worse than the sin of cheating a man out of his money.
Why was I shocked?

Because I am a really horrible person who verbally abuses others without a second thought, and couldn't believe my behavior was so wrong?

Nope.

I was shocked because I've met enough people who feel that as long as they are honest and careful with other mitzvot, including all sorts of favors for others, they can behave however they want.

They might be generous with tzedakah (even when they don't have much to give themselves), and do lots of chessed, including visiting the sick & hosting guests, but they will say whatever they feel they need to say and whatever they've decided you need to hear, and if that hurts your feelings, well...too bad! You need to grow up! You need to hear the truth! That's just how they are – straightforward, say-it-like-it-is, "natural and being myself!", "speak my mind!"

Or this gem: "I wouldn't criticize you if I didn't care about you." ARRGHHH!

To make things even more confusing, when you run into people like this, other people can jump to their defense, either pointing out the good things they do or the difficult life they've had, as if that all justifies the bad behavior.

But Rav Millers says NO!

Our good deeds do not outweigh our hurtful words.

Now, I just want to say that I think we've all had situations in which we said something we later regretted.

​Or maybe we told someone whatever we thought was the truth about them – and we honestly thought that was a good idea at the time. (And yes, sometimes – very rarely – it is a good idea.)​ 

Also, there are people going through a hard time who are writhing in emotional pain and honestly aren't aware of how they're behaving. (I'm talking about people who DO care about their middot, but are temporarily distracted by their emotional pain.)

Sympathy & understanding of others is good.

But for ourselves, we need to know that speaking hurtfully to others is something to be avoided at all costs.

​Rav Miller notes that Rebbi Shimon Bar Yochai emphasized that the initial part of Parshat Behar forbids us to steal or cheat – period.

But the following verse Vayikra 25:17 forbids you to hurt your fellow Jew with words is followed by "you shall fear your God."

(Rashi includes this to mean both verbal hurt & giving bad advice. Avoid both!)

Of course a huge chunk of not stealing or cheating has to do with fearing God – even if you're not caught by a person, Hashem still sees you!

But the Torah itself emphasizes that we must fear Hashem even more with regard to hurting others' feelings.

As Rav Miller notes (page 6): 
A cheater also has to be afraid, but for the man who hurts feelings, the Torah says: “Be afraid of the repercussions!”

If chalilah you say something that hurts someone else, you have to be especially afraid of Hashem! If you say an insulting word to somebody, you already have to be apprehensive, “What might be?!” 
​
No question about it. Hakodosh Boruch Hu takes action if you hurt people's feelings.
Yikes.

​Rav Miller also exhorts us to realize that words can actually HURT; the nerves, heart, and mind can all experience pain just from words.

He extracts this from Mishlei/Proverbs 12:18: "Yesh boteh k'madkarot charev – Sometimes words come out of your mouth that are like the piercings of a sword."

Rav Miller adds a quote from Rav Shmuel bar Nachmeini:
Zeh nitan l’hashavon v’zeh lo - Money you could always pay back, but hurt feelings you can’t pay back.
Rav Miller reminds us that we don't forget hurtful words.

Yes, a lot we do forget. But we can all remember something that someone said to us that was like a knife in the heart or a boot in the gut.

We remember where we were, who it was, and exactly what they said – even if it was decades ago.

Interestingly, even if you forgive them wholeheartedly, you can still remember the incident.

Rav Miller describes his own experience with this on page 7.

The Really Stupid Geniuses

Rav Miller explains that married couples will also be called to task by the Heavenly Court when their time comes.

It helps a lot to receive forgiveness from your spouse, but it's better to do everything you can to avoid saying hurtful things at all.

Rav Miller praises husbands who ask mechilah ("At least he should have the seichel to do that! Some don't even has the seichel to say that" – page 8.)

It might seem obvious to ask forgiveness from one's wife, but I personally know of one case in which the husband was dying and his wife very gently, tactfully, and lovingly asked him if he wanted her to help him with asking forgiveness of anyone or making a cheshbon hanefesh.

And he didn't!

I was floored, especially considering how disdainfully he'd treated her throughout their entire marriage.

I didn't say a word to her when she told me this because she took it as a kind of temimut on his part, like he wanted to just let Hashem decide things and go with whatever Hashem wanted, and she found great comfort in this.

And I didn't want to destroy her comfort. So I didn't give any indication of my true feelings.

But boy, did that scare me! 

Believe me, he had TONS of stuff for which to ask mechilah from his wife.

And this guy, who didn't grow up so frum, but came to it later in life and ended up learning in kollel all day and absolutely loved learning a classic mussar book – this is it? This is the end result?

There are people who, if they weren't frum, would be philosophy majors or something. They have the intellectual capability to learn Gemara or Mussar or Chassidus, but it always stays firmly in their head.

It never flows down to their heart.

And these people scare me more than any Minchat Yehudah story about demons or malachim mashchitim because Hashem gave these learned guys all the tools necessary to improve themselves and it's as if they just spit on it all and say, "Doesn't apply to me! No thanks!"

And what excuse will they have in Shamayim? They made an intense study of Gemara, Shulchan Aruch, Mesillat Yesharim, Chovot Halevavot, Orchot Tzaddikim, Gates of Teshuvah, and...?

They treat their nearest and dearest badly, they're in a bad mood or easily angered much of the time...and then they don't ask forgiveness. Ever.

What are they going to say? "Oh, I didn't know, Hashem! I'm a tinok shenishba! Or, um...something?"

It really, really frightens me a lot.

I heard of someone else who was always verbally abusive to his family and then Hashem struck him with a degenerative disease of his entire speech apparatus.

His jaw, tongue, and everything just started disintegrating. And the disease was potentially fatal too.

Yet instead of saying, "Gosh, Hashem is removing my entire speech apparatus – perhaps that means something?", he simply used what was left of his voice box and grunted angrily to express his displeasure.

It was also tragic because if the disease indeed came about because of his nasty tongue, he could reverse the disease simply by doing teshuvah and take upon himself speaking nicely forevermore.

But when he couldn't be verbally abusive with his tongue, he switched to using his throat.

What an absolute knucklehead.

This is one reason why in Pirke Avot, we learn that the most important thing is a good heart.

Without it, you can learn all the beautiful Torah you want and still be a jerk – in fact, a HOPELESS jerk, which is even worse than a non-learned jerk.

After all, if you won't listen to Rav Moshe Chaim Luzatto, or the rabbanim in Pirke Avot, or to – hey! – GOD, then who will you listen to?

There aren't so many of these people (most people do work on themselves), but when you meet them, it's quite shocking because they are so smart & learned, but because they lack a good heart, they end up being the stupidest people you'll ever encounter.

​Because if a guy like that won't even ask mechilah, then where are his brains?

A Devil Always Loses in the End

Rav Miller recalled a couple he knew in which the husband was "a frum devil" (page 8).

In fact, it seems that Rav Miller helpfully told the man that to his face.

But what did it help?

He shouldn't have been acting that way in the first place.

And when the man's suffering wife was dying, he asked her for mechilah.

And she said, "I won't forgive you."

And then she died and the "frum devil" was left without her mechilah.

"He was finished!" Rav Miller declared.

​Too bad for him. He should've been good when he had the chance.

Important Advice for Parents

If you're a parent, pages 9-11 & 17 are very important to read.

Parents are forbidden from ona'at devarim with their children too.

Rav Miller has all sorts of advice about that, plus the idea that once you give a child something, it's his and you can't give it to another child.

Holding Your Tongue Saves Lives

On pages 12-13, Rav Miller emphasizes that it is possible to kill someone with words.

Unless we are both naturally sensitive & also aware of all the halachot and careful to practice everything we learn, most of us could improve in this area.

Every little bit helps.

​As Rav Miller says (page 14):
And therefore, it becomes necessary for people to think, “What did I say during the day? Maybe I should train my tongue to be restrained. Maybe I am too careless with my feelings.”

Husbands and wives, boys and girls, old sages and business people, everyone must spend some time thinking about how they speak.

Here's How You Use Your Tongue for the Good

Mishlei 15:4 states: "מַרְפֵּא לָשׁוֹן עֵץ חַיִּים – A healing tongue is a tree of life."

People need a kind word.

Rav Levi Yitzchak Bender also emphasized this strongly.

People need chizuk, encouragement, validation, kindness...

Good words.

Kind words.

Just like you can remember the piercing words said to you, you probably can also remember the words the lifted you up, the words that helped you look at yourself in a whole new way, the words that warmed you up from inside, the words you found healing.

Rav Miller has a personal story about that too on page 16.

Rav Miller also recalls the time he told a regular American police officer that people appreciate what he's doing.

And Rav Miller even wrote letters of appreciation to President Truman and received thank-you notes in return from the President's assistant.

It's great to offer a word of encouragement to every person.

But the most important place to use a healing tongue is at home with your closest family members.

Rav Miller states that for a married couple: 
Their job in this world is to give each other encouragement.
Think about that.

​If you encourage your spouse, you are doing your job in This World.

Rav Miller compares it to a treasury of gold that costs you nothing to share.

He emphasizes that Hashem judges us most by our encounters with others.

How did we treat them? 

What did we say to them?

On page 19, Rav Miller offers specific advice for husbands and on page 20, specific advice for wives.

​(Then, on the last page, Rav Miller explains how eating 3 meals on Shabbat can save you from suffering chevlei Mashiach.)
Well, there was a lot of good geshmak mussar here and I'm probably not the only one chewing my lip with a look of consternation on my face as I'm reading through it.

Oh well.

The main thing is to get started & do whatever we can to get moving in the right direction.
Credit for all material & quotes goes to Toras Avigdor.
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How Rav Yehudah Petiyah Stopped the Plague of Baghdad in 1915, and What the Destroyer Angels Revealed to Him

3/5/2020

13 Comments

 
In his amazing book, Minchat Yehudah, Rav Yehudah Petiyah discusses a plague that broke out in the year 1915 in his birthplace of Baghdad.

It's found in the chapter entitled Yeshayahu (Isaiah) 26: An Explanation on the Subject of Plague & How It Occurs in the World, Rachmana Litzlan.

Before we delved into that mind-boggling saga, it's important to understand something about Rav Petiyah.

Despite the fact that he always comes off as a gentle, sweet grandfather, he was also a tremendously holy talmid chacham and mekubal.

He developed such closeness to Hashem that he faced even the most terrifying situations with serenity.

So when he enters into conversations with entities like malachim mashchitim (destroying angels) or the angels in charge of tormenting souls sentenced to the dreaded Kaf HaKaleh (The Slingshot — an afterlife punishment worse than Gehinnom/Hell), it's important to understand that we would find these beings absolutely terrifying if we encountered them.

They seem rather nice and sympathetic when he interacts with them, but that's probably not how our experience would be at all — because we aren't at Rav Petiyah's level of holiness.

Rav Petiyah is also incredibly humble, so he doesn't mention that these entities respect him because of his great holiness & righteousness.

But that's the reality behind the scenes of how he humbly portrays himself in these real-life accounts.

So with that in mind, let's look at Rav Petiyah's encounter with the fearsome malachim mashchitim of the 1915 plague in Baghdad...

(Note: The encounter as Rav Petiyah presents it is told here in full, then an analysis and explanation of the events follows at the end, with some explanations interspersed in the middle.)

The Spiritual Epidemiology of an Epidemic

First of all, Rav Petiyah explains the origin of plagues (or epidemics, as we call them nowadays), starting with the following verses and Rashi (Hebrew text courtesy of wikisource).

He wants us to understand the ultimate source before describing what he experienced.

​Yeshayahu (Isaiah) 26:20:
לֵ֤ךְ עַמִּי֙ בֹּ֣א בַֽחֲדָרֶ֔יךָ וּֽסְגֹ֥ר דלתיך דְּלָֽתְךָ֖ בַּעֲדֶ֑ךָ חֲבִ֥י כִמְעַט־רֶ֖גַע עַד־יַעֲבׇור־זָֽעַם

Lech ami bo bachadarecha usgor d’latcha ba’adecha chavi kimat rega ad ya’avar za’am. Ki hinei H’ yotzeh mimkomo lifkod avon yoshev ha’aretz alav, etc.

Go, My people, come into your chambers and close your door about you; hide for but a moment, until the wrath passes.
During the current global quarantines, this verse has been quoted a lot...and for good reason.

Rashi on this verse explains that "your chambers (chadarecha)" mean 2 things:
  1. the synagogues and the study houses
  2. to think about your deeds, in the chambers of your heart

Then Rashi explains that "close your door about you" means:
  1. Do good deeds that will protect you.
  2. Close the doors of your mouth so as not to question the divine standard of justice.

And "hide" means:
  1. Hide a little until the wrath passes, for indeed I will visit upon your enemies.

​Then Rav Petiyah quotes Yeshayahu 26:21:
כִּי הִנֵּה יְהוָה יֹצֵא מִמְּקוֹמוֹ לִפְקֹד עֲו‍ֹן יֹשֵׁב הָאָרֶץ עָלָיו וְגִלְּתָה הָאָרֶץ אֶת דָּמֶיהָ וְלֹא תְכַסֶּה עוֹד עַל הֲרוּגֶיהָ
Ki hinei Hashem yotzeh mimkomo lifkod avon yoshev ha'aretz alav v'giltah ha'aretz et dame'ah v'lo t'chaseh od al haruge'ah

For behold the Lord comes forth from His Place to visit the iniquity of the dweller of the land upon him: and the land shall reveal its blood and it shall no longer cover over its slain ones.
Rashi says that Hashem comes forth from His Place of the Divine standard of mercy to the Divine standard of justice.

And who is the "dweller of the land"? Rashi says it's either Mount Seir or Esav & Mount Seir or Esav on Mount Seir.

Either way, "dweller of the land" represents Esav, who is the progenitor of Edom.

And the slain ones, says Rashi, are the Jews slain by the "dweller of the land" – whom Rashi identifies as connected to Esav.

It also bears noting that the Hebrew word used here for "iniquity" is avon (ah-vohn) with an ayin, which the Malbim defines as "a sin derived from corrupted thinking."

With all that in mind, Rav Petiyah states that his opinion that verse 26:20 refers to a time of plague.

Referring to Bava Kamma and the Arizal's Sha'ar Hakavanot, Rav Petiyah delves into an explanation of how vital Hebrew letters of Hashem's 4-letter Name go missing because of avon (a sin derived from corrupted thinking).

And this is also the secret of Pitom HaKetoret.

(It was too complex for me to understand well enough to explain it here, but that's the process in a nutshell.)

Anyway, when these letters go missing, their illumination dims and then dever comes into the world.

Dever is often translated as "pestilence." 

It can affect human beings, but we know from the Torah that dever was the 5th plague that killed off the Egyptian animals — so it's a disease that can harm both people and animals.

(Interestingly, that is what many also claim about HIV and also coronavirus, that they infect both humans & animals.)

Anyway, the above (sins emanating from corrupted thinking cause letters of Hashem's 4-letter Name to go missing, which dims its illumination, which brings dever into the world) is apparently the spiritual epidemiology of any epidemic. 

​And it's all hinted there in Yeshayahu.

Why is It So Important for Hashem to Remain in His "Place"?

Rav Petiyah further explains this is connected to Yechezkel 3:12: "Baruch Kavod Hashem mimkomo – Blessed is the Glory of Hashem from His Place."

This refers to Hashem's Place of Mercy.

As Rav Petiyah states:
​For in the time He will be in His Place, He will be blessed and not immersed in anger. 
And gleaning from several sources in the Zohar, Yechezkel (Ezekiel), and Zecharyah, Rav Petiyah then ​refers to the War of Gog & Magog, and how the nations will come against Yerushalayim, saying this will bring dever & megeifah (plague) [emphasis mine-MR]: 
And the text announces to us that nothing bad will happen to us, and that it [Zecharyah 14:3]: “And the Lord shall go forth and wage war with those nations” – davka them.
"And now," writes Rav Petiyah, "we come to the matter of mageifah — plague."

The Baghdad Plague of 1915

On the night of Shabbat Yitro, 22 Shevat 5675 (February 4, 1915), Rav Petiyah saw himself in a dream and he went to the eastern side of Baghdad, where all the poor & impoverished live.

Around 100 amot (approx. 170 feet) from there, Rav Petiyah spotted a type of shelter called an achsadra. 

This achsadra had no walls, just a roof-covering supported by a pillar in each of its 4 corners.

Under the roof stood 40-50 men in military uniforms consisting of black wool with one finger-width red stripe of wool going along the arm (like maybe from the shoulder to the wrist) and along the collar. The red wool was sewn on top of the black wool.

Rav Petiyah understood that they'd already been inside the city and now they gathered into this achsadra in order to refresh themselves.

Though Rav Petiyah stood around 10 amot (approx. 17 feet) from them, they didn't see him.

Rav Petiyah describes their behavior as follows:
And they were standing and looking and scrutinizing the sides of the city, is if they wanted to know what’s happening in the city and what activity they’re doing there, because in those days there was a plague in the city — may such trouble not arise twice. 
***
​It seemed to me that those military men — they were the ones who were plaguing & striking the people of the city. 
At that point, Rav Petiyah was moved farther away from this military look-out point, and he approached the gate of the courtyard of one of the poor on the eastern side of the city.

Three elderly Jewish poor men stood near the gate.

Rav Petiyah joined them "grieving and sorrowful over the plague."

“Over one matter, I am very troubled," he said to them.

Then Rav Petiyah proceeded to explain that when Am Yisrael had Prophets, and then after the era of Prophecy ended, Am Yisrael merited people with ruach hakodesh or access to a bat kol or dreams that contained true messages...Am Yisrael at least received warning BEFORE being punished.

And if Am Yisrael didn't listen, they at least understood WHY they were being punished.

So they were told by their Prophets or holy people that they sinned or erred, and Am Yisrael was begged to do teshuvah or else Hashem would first reap that punishment on the haters of Israel. Then Am Yisrael would do teshuvah, and Hashem would tear up the terrible decree.

It was all nice & neat, especially in the time of the Prophets.

Rav Petiyah explains all that as he speaks with the grieving elders.

Then Rav Petiyah adjures on behalf of Am Yisrael:
And so in our many transgressions, we lack everything.

And in the coming of some kind of trouble, we don’t know its purpose, and to which way we must turn to cancel the decree.

And we are comparable to the rebbi who oppresses his student and like a father who chastises his child, yet who do not say to him ‘That from the reason that so-and-so sinned, he was stricken.’

Ahh! upon us and upon the badness of our mazal! For we are struck with no warning and without knowledge of the transgression for which we are struck.

And another question for our Lord: If one man will sin, then on the entire community will He display His Wrath?

And what's more: For the people who themselves ​sin — their homes are peace without fear and the rod of God is not upon them.

And the people who go in unsuspecting innocence [holchei temimei derech] — they are the ones who become trapped in their transgressions…
This was all said by a man of total emunah & trust in Hashem's Goodness.

The above are not words of petulance or resentment.

Rav Petiyah was not concerned for himself at all; instead, he was going on the defense — the defense of his fellow Jews, despite their sins.

In an effort to sweeten the terrible judgement over the city, Rav Petiyah continued in this vein, beseeching on behalf of his errant brethren, until 3 of those black-and-red-uniformed soldiers approached.

Rav Petiyah knew exactly who they were: mashchitim — destructive entities.

Yet he seemed to feel no fear whatsoever.

And they told Rav Petiyah:
Know that the decree of this plague is because there are people who eat neveilot & treifot and meat & dairy in the inns of the gentiles.

And not only that, but also in the inn of a Jew, they cook those forbidden foods.

And what’s more, there are a few people who cook in their homes neveilah & treif meat, and meat & dairy. And behold, even if it is possible to rectify the inn of the Jew, tell us please — are you able to also govern the inn of the gentiles not to cook treif & neveilah meat?

Or the rest of the people who cook these forbidden foods in their homes?

For it is unpreventable.

And if so, what will it help if we will tell them the reason for the plague? And therefore, the letters mem-alef-chaf-lamed (מאכל) are made in the combination mem-lamed-alef-chaf (מלאך) – the destroyer of the nation [mashchit ha’am].” 
Note:
  • mem-alef-chaf-lamed (מאכל) spell out ma'achal — food
  • ​mem-lamed-alef-chaf (מלאך) spell out malach — angel

There are pleasant angels and not-so-pleasant angels.

​These are malachim mashchitim — destroyer angels.

Also, treif is an unkosher animal or unkosher mixture (like meat & dairy together) and a neveilah is an animal — including of the kosher variety — that did not undergo kosher slaughter, like the carcass of an animal found somewhere that died of old age or illness.

Interestingly, the malachim mashchitim seem to also accuse those gentiles who operate non-kosher public places.

Why would that be?

A non-Jew commits no sin when he eats treif or neveilah, as long as it's not the limb from a living animal.

It seems to me (and I could be wrong) this implies that non-Jews have a responsibility not to knowingly feed Jews non-kosher food.

In those days in that location, Arabs certainly knew the difference between Jews and themselves by sight. Furthermore, they well knew the prohibition on Jews against eating non-kosher meat or mixtures.

Yet they served them this food anyway.

True, they think it's fine because they feel their religion supersedes ours, but that is always the case when we sin because people don't sin unless they justify their acts & beliefs to themselves. 

Or, as the Malbim defines avon, we suffer from corrupted thinking.

Yet it's still avon and punishable.

In other words, distorted thinking is no excuse. We have a responsibility to at least try to seek the truth.

In reply, Rav Petiyah (who is always on our side) suggests: "So why not just kill those people that eat these forbidden foods?”

Right! Why should the innocent suffer needlessly?

But these destroyers have their reasons. They answer:
​Know, that even though we are called "destroyers [mashchitim]," with all that, we still have compassion, and we have mercy on the creatures.

And the matter is that all those same people who eat treif & neveilot, meat & milk — all their names are written by us. And death has already been decreed on them if they don’t do teshuvah.

And the rest of the human beings who sin in the rest of the transgressions and sins — they aren’t listed with us.

But if we’ll meet them on the way, we have permission to strike them -- or not to strike them, as it is written: ‘His iniquities [avonotav] shall trap the wicked man [rasha], and he shall be hung with the ropes of his sin [chata’o]’ (Mishlei 5:22). And about them it is said, ‘…and some perish without justice [mishpat]’ (Mishlei 13:23).

And here, if we strike and slay only those written in our notebook, won’t it be enough for them one day or two days to slay all of them? For behold their judgment is already decreed and signed.

And there is no court trial Above; we must still sit and examine their judgement. But if we’ll do so, to cause them to die in one day or two days, you must know that most of the people of the city will die from fear & shock, and will not achieve their allotment of life.

But from our great compassion that we have mercy on the creatures, we strike also the rest of the people who are not written in our notebooks, but whom most of them have transgressions.

Indeed, since death is not decreed upon them, only that we met up with them, so we need a Heavenly court trial to sit and examine their judgement, whether they are worthy to die or not.

And during all the continuation of time of scrutinizing the judgement, that very destroyer cannot destroy any of the living, even from among those written in his notebook, until the Heavenly Tribunal will complete the verdict of that same man.

And it turns out that this way or that, not so many human beings will die.

And also those same people who are inscribed for death — it’s possible they’ll do teshuvah. And their decree of judgement will be torn up and they won’t die. And also the rest of the human beings will not die from great fear and panic.

That is our way and our custom for the good of the creatures.
With all their talk about their notebooks and their lists, I keep picturing these destroyers carrying around yellow legal pads on clipboards.

But that's probably not what their pinkas (notebook) looked like.
The malachim mashchitim then explain to Rav Petiyah:
And behold, last week on Thursday, 20 Shvat (February 4, 1915), Hashem rained down hail in the city because switching the letters of dever (דבר) leads to the combination barad (ברד)[hail].

Therefore, we assembled here in the achsadra until we’ll see what the rectification of the city will be.
So that is a valuable connection to know:
​
  • dever — dalet-bet/vet-reish — pestilence
  • barad — bet-reish-dalet — hail

​And then the maschitim take a breather to reassess the situation and see what the city's tikkun will be.

​Then they provide Rav Petiyah with proof that this whole experience is not just a dream:

They inform him that he and the 2 men with him will speak with a man who eats neveilot & treifot and that Rav Petiyah and the 2 men with him will warn this sinner not to eat neveilot & treifot anymore.

If this sinner will totally reject the warning and refuse to stop, the mashchitim instruct them to tell the sinner, "Since you have rejected our words, we decree upon you that in this-and-such day at this-and-such hour, you will be struck with the plague. And at this-and-such hour, you will die.’

"And," conclude the mashchitim, "you’ll see that it will be so, no more & no less. And in this way, you’ll know that this dream is true.”

At that point, the maschchitim turn away from Rav Petiyah and exit from the city, along with all their comrades-in-arms.

Phew!

Yet as they did so, another 120 destroyers came to assist the first destroyers to strike the people of the city.

Uh-oh.

But when they saw that the first destroyers themselves were going out, these newly arrived 120 were surprised and said in a whisper, “If so, then for what did we endure the rigors of the way to come and help the first destroyers after they also are going out of the city?”

Why did they whisper? And it is news to me that these spiritual entities endure the rigors of journey to arrive at their appointed destination — much like real foot soldiers.

Yet no more is explained.

​Rav Petiyah concludes:
​And I saw that all of them stood at the eastern gate of the city. Until this point, I saw.

And on Thursday, 4 Adar, 5675 [February 18, 1915], the plague ceased among the Jews even though it still was active among the gentiles.
Now, at this point, probably a lot of questions are popping through your mind.

Or even thoughts like, "Nah, I wouldn't be at all frightened to death by treif-eaters falling like flies — just kill the treif-eaters please and not the rest of us, please! Thanks!"

​There's a ton to examine here.

Let's get started by going back to when Rav Petiyah first spotted these destroyer angels dressed as uniformed soldiers in black & red, and how he got the ball rolling by uttering protestations on behalf of Am Yisrael.

How was Rav Petiyah's Protests against the Heavenly Decree Different than Ours? Why were His Protests So Effective?

We are so often taught that accepting suffering with love sweetens harsh judgement.

We know we should thank Hashem for the good along with the bad, because the bad is meant for our benefit too.

Furthermore, many people protest to Hashem about why babies and innocent children suffer.

We are taught that hurling accusations at Heaven can actually bring more suffering.

So why were Rav Petiyahs protestations so effective?

First of all, there is the concept of acting us a sanigor, an advocate on behalf of Am Yisrael.

That's what Rav Petiyah was doing (and what the famous Rav Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev used to do.)

Rav Petiyah wasn't angry at Hashem nor did he think that everything was unfair.

Rav Petiyah profoundly loved Hashem & was well-aware that Hashem profoundly loves us even more.

He wasn't self-righteous or self-pitying. Not at all.

He knew he was speaking to the Most Compassionate and the Most Just. 

And that makes all the difference.

What's Up with the Black and Red Uniforms?

  • ​This might shed some light on why idolatrous groups err so badly (and are so stupid, let's be honest).

​Apparently, the mashchitim do have the capacity for mercy (sort of like real soldiers in the line of duty), so for those people of higher perception who might actually be able to see these entities, it might look like they have more control & power than they do.

The wicked occultist Bila'am could probably see these things, for example.

And it might look like you should plead your case to the entities.

After all, they're the ones holding the gun, so to speak.

But NO.

You may only beg mercy from Hashem. He can sweeten your judgement, cross your name off their list, and so on.

Also, it sounds like they might even get irked if you would turn to them personally without doing teshuvah and turning to Hashem.

So people who turn to entities are making things so much worse for themselves on all levels.

After all, these destroyer angels clearly know the Truth. They know what you should really be doing.

  • The black & red theme is creepy.

The black & red theme features in occult practice. I don't know much about it nor do I wish to know much about it, but it seems there might be a connection.

For example, research into early Nazism shows that the red flag with the black swastika was chosen for its impure spiritual symbolism.

In other words, the entire Nazi flag, both the Buddhist/Hindu swastika AND those particular colors (red & black) were chosen for their spiritual significance to their Buddhism-loving designer & designed especially for and with input from Hitler, yemach shemo. (Please see Part 10-America's Scary New Direction: New-Age Nazis for more on this aspect.)

Again, my assumption is that misguided seers messing with kochot hatumah (impure spiritual forces) perceived these powerful destroyer angels and wished to connect or identify with them in an effort to absorb their destructive powers.

But again, it's focusing on Hashem's servants rather than on the Creator Himself. They don't have power in and of themselves. And they kept repeating to Rav Petiyah, they speak of themselves of "being given" lists and of "having permission" — they have no power outside of whatever Hashem gives them.

This is a core concept of walking in temimut with Hashem and turning only to Him. 

  • They sound like scary Santas.

Their red and black uniforms (his was the opposite with mostly red with black accents, like a black belt and boots), they know "if you've been bad or good, so be good for goodness sake!"

Maybe Santa was originally based on the description by someone able to see a destroying angel, but then was fluffed up for more palatable consumerism.

Actually, yes, I know the concept of Santa goes back much farther and is of pagan sources.

How Striking "Innocent" People is an Act of Compassion

  • ​How is striking innocent people a chessed?  

A prime reason given by the mashchitim for striking innocent people is that, paradoxically, less people die that way.

Again, their theory is that, in addition to the guilty dying of plague, tons of other people would die of fright — much more than would die by striking both the guilty and the innocent.

(And as they said, the innocent are actually not necessarily so innocent; even if they hadn't eaten treifot & neveilot, they've done other things.)

Plus, because the mashchitim cannot strike another person until the person they struck undergoes his or her Heavenly trial, during which the person might do teshuvah and save themselves, so this actually slows the death rate.

(See? The destroyer angels actually have many limitations placed upon them. They can only function within a certain framework. So thus, we turn straight to Hashem.)

Are you thinking: Oh c'mon. Would more people really die of fright seeing the guilty die than by a mixture of the innocent (who are actually not necessarily so innocent) & guilty die? Of fright? Really?

Here's why I think it makes sense:

First of all, I think that people dying of sheer fright upon seeing the forbidden-food-eaters dropping dead is both culture & the culture of those times.

For example, Middle Eastern people, especially back then, were more emotional & passionate than Europeans. They could get worked up more, especially since the surrounding non-Jewish culture of the Middle East tended to be highly superstitious.

Furthermore, I've read about Europeans from that time period who also got worked up and experienced health problems from fright or anxiety. Hysteria, nerves, and so on used to be common diagnoses.

In fact, when my great-great-grandmother in a European shtetl wrapped herself up in her shawl and went looking for her husband one Saturday night (he hadn't returned after Shacharit because he'd gone to the Rebbe), she saw Mottel the tailor (yes, there was really a tailor named Mottel!) and called out to him, "Mottel, Mottel! Have you seen my husband?"

To her puzzlement, he stared at her in sheer terror, then took off as fast as his feet could take him.

She just shrugged and kept looking.

What she didn't know is that he'd run straight home, stated that he encountered a ghost who sought him out by name, then passed out on the spot.

His family removed him to his bed, where he lay unable to recover for a couple of weeks.

When my great-great-grandmother, hearing that Mottel was desperately ill, managed to bring a pot of nourishing soup to help out, she heard the story of Mottel's desperate state and was able to clear things up on the spot.

(Apparently, Mottel only heard his name being called and not the part about her looking for her husband.)

Needless to say, Mottel made a speedy & complete recovery.

So maybe it's a generational thing, that people got more emotional about things.

On the other hand, let's say that today we would see everyone who ate treifot & neveilot drop dead, chas v'shalom. 

Due to the extremely lax & ignorant level of our generation today, the death rate would reach the millions. (Remember, despite the flourishing Orthodox communities, kashrut-observant Jews are still in the minority.)

Probably we would realize the connection on our own, or at least our Gadolim would tell us the reason.

Even more chilling, we would see people we thought were so frum die because they secretly ate bacon double-cheeseburgers.

To make matters even worse, if any of us had eaten treif, even if we'd done teshuvah, we might become terrified that we'd be next, chalilah.

This would be in addition to all the fatalities to deal with on a practical level.

Very stressful.

In modern times, this could be imagined as all who used their Internet for unclean activity just dropped dead — at least, those who weren't in the middle of doing teshuvah for it, I mean. 

Again, we might come to the conclusion on our own as people are found slumped over their keyboard or phone with the unclean site still on their screen.

​And our Gadolim would tell us too.

People who we thought were so frum would also be found this way, much to the horror & mortification of their families and those who knew them.

And people who have done such activity in the past, even if they've done full teshuvah for it, might die of fright & panic.

So that's a way to understand the logic of the mashchitim during the 1915 Plague of Baghdad.
​
  • Granting the opportunity for everyone to do teshuvah

Killing off all the transgressors of a particular sin offers them little or no chance to do teshuvah.

While we tend to focus on a length, high-quality physical life, it's life in the Next World that really matters. 

So in addition to shortening life of the transgressor (which is also a type of atonement, but not necessarily a full one, depending) & traumatizing his family, he faces a very disappointing Olam Haba.

Aside from that, as the mashchitim mention, the non-treif-eaters they strike have generally committed other transgressions, yet because they're not listed in the mashchit notebooks, they do not die immediately but undergo a Heavenly trial as they lie sick in bed.

This enables them to do teshuvah on their own sins (if they choose).

Either way, people receive the opportunity to sweeten the judgement and merit the deadly decree torn up, whether they are on the list or not.

Furthermore, by striking those not in their notebooks, this prevents the mashchit from striking anyone else, whether on their official list or not, because they are not allowed to strike anyone else until the non-listed person they struck gets their judgement completed.​

Furthermore, what happens to those people who don't achieve their "allotment of life" (archot chayim)? 

They cannot achieve the rectifications they were placed here to achieve. So do they undergo Gehinnom? Being born again in another reincarnation?

They were placed in that particular life for a reason and for their own benefit, they must fulfill the purpose for which they were assigned that life.

Regarding the suffering of small children or babies in these events, this often has to do with past-life sins. There are also other reasons and we aren't privy to all the reasons, nor can we understand the reasons, but the reasons exist.

So altogether, this method actually lessens the amount of fatalities.

​In other words, despite the harsh decree of plague, there is still mercy happening.

With the Concept of Malachim Mashchitim, the Illogically Orchestrated Quarantines Make So Much More Sense!

  • ​​"But if we’ll meet them on the way, we have permission to strike them — or not to strike them..."

This...but THIS turned on the light bulb for me regarding the current quarantine.

As noted in previous posts, the current quarantines are neither here nor there.

If this was really something as awful & dangerous as the Black Plague or Ebola, even nations with very strict quarantines (like Israel) should not have had the openings they did, like permission for essentials like shopping, bringing home citizens rather than telling them to shelter in place, or imposing the way-too-short 14-day individual quarantines.

(I went into this in more detail in a previous post: Coronavirus: Facts, Fears, and a Deeper Look at What's Really Going On.)

The quarantines, as stifling as some of them are, aren't enough to protect the truly vulnerable (over-70 AND/OR with underlying medical issues that weaken immunity) because they need NO EXPOSURE WHATSOEVER. 

If they face a higher risk of death upon infection, then they should not be exposed at all.

With coronavirus's apparently high contagiousness and the fact that it lives well enough on all sorts of surfaces, granting vulnerable populations the opportunity to shop at certain times (when the virus is still possibly in the employees, in the air and on surfaces affected prior to the special hour) cannot be truly effective.

It might lower their risk a bit, but that's a far cry from eliminating the risk completely.

Secondly, the rest of the population is not really in danger of death or even of a severe reaction to infection. So why impose such harmful measures on people who are not in any statistical danger?

Based on the reports we have up until now, the quarantines seem like they cannot be so effective and are instead mostly feel-like-we-are-doing-something strictures mostly for show.

Furthermore, many people do not show ANY symptoms yet receive a positive result from the test (if the test is even accurate), the masks are mostly ineffective unless you know how to remove them steriley — and even then, the masks work mostly to protect others if you are infected, and don't protect you so much, especially when you bring your mask home to your family and do not remove it steriley.

Furthermore, there are growing indications that a recovered coronavirus infection does not confer immunity.

Meaning, there may be no way to prevent a coronavirus infection. (So the fatalist in me threw up my hands and said, What is the point of even trying?)

Especially because it attaches to & lives on surfaces, there seems no logical way of preventing infection or being rid of it.

HOWEVER, when you look at it as malachim mashchitim taking aim, the neither-here-nor-there quarantines make so much more sense!

The less you go out, the less likely you are to run into such entities.

Viewing the coronavirus pandemic from a purely epidemiological point of view brings about despair & fatalism. 

But seeing it from a spiritual point of view, the neither-here-nor-there quarantines make sense because they limit exposure to malachim mashchitim, who are limited in number. Yes, there may be a lot of them, but according to Rav Petiyah's description, there aren't as many as there are germs.

And yes, the malachim mashichitim still have the power to decide whether to strike or not even when they do encounter someone, but it's clearly best to avoid them altogether.

This really helped me to accept the rules against leaving the home. It just makes much more sense this way.

It helped me see how the illogical quarantines were from Hashem, as a way of protecting us. 

And now with the quarantines being lifting in many places, maybe that's a sign that the mashchitim are less active in those areas now.

Anyway, according to current reports, coronavirus isn't even a dangerous infection unless one suffers from underlying conditions, making one vulnerable in some way.

Having said that, Rav Miller opined that even with a simple cold virus going around, one should still avoid crowds to avoid getting & spreading even a cold virus.

Personally, I plan to go out now for exercise & errands, but not among crowds, and to take my son to school when his grade opens.

Also, in the account, the mashchitim did not state their criteria for how they decide to strike or not strike a person they encountered.

​Maybe if they encounter someone admiring apple seeds (as per Rav Avigdor Miller's advice) rather than someone admiring something more sinful, they're less likely to strike.

So I guess it's a good thing to do teshuvah or think thoughts of gratitude and admire Hashem's world when we do go out.

The Connection between Pestilence & Hail

The connection between dever & barad is valuable to know:
​
  • dever — dalet-bet/vet-reish — pestilence
  • barad — bet-reish-dalet — hail

For a long time now, and especially in the recent year, we've seen some truly bizarre hail events.

Huge and/or frequent hail worldwide — and sometimes in such copious amounts, it ended up looking like big snow drifts on the ground.

Did you know that hail can be a precursor to pestilence?

I didn't.

(In ancient Egypt, the plague of dever preceded barad. Either way, they are clearly connected.)

Eretz Yisrael also received more hail in the past couple of years than I ever remember seeing since I came here over 25 years ago.

Little did we know it was a sign of dever to come...

This also gives us a glimpse into Hashem's Patience.

There was obviously din in the works for years now, but only now has He hit us with an epidemic — and it's not even as awful as epidemics usually are (though that's little comfort to those who have been hit very hard by coronavirus, may the ill merit a speedy & complete recovery and may the mourners be comforted).

Some Final Theories

Some questions still remain, like:
  • These entities aren't physical. So why did the new reinforcements coming in complain about the toil of the journey? And why do they need to journey, like a march? They aren't physical.
  • Why did the plague start among the poor & impoverished?
  • Why, after all those explanations of why they do what they do, did the destroyer troops immediately leave?
  • Why were the gentiles punished for the Jews' transgressions?
  • Why did the plague stop among the Jews but continue among the gentiles?

I don't know the answer to the first. The whole idea of them in uniforms and troops, and using an achsadra as their lookout point? Not a clue.

Why did the plague start with the poor & impoverished? The germ theory explains that a lack of hygiene, more common among impoverished & primitive living conditions, causes & increases disease.

​But as for a more spiritual explanation, I'm honestly not sure — unless the physical presence of disease conjoins with the spiritual effects too. Or maybe the non-kosher inns were being run by & for the less-well-off residents. Maybe the non-kosher inns resided in the poorer neighborhoods.

And I'm not sure about why they left immediately, despite complaints from the newly arrived reinforcement troops, but I think it's because the din changed.

First of all, Rav Petiyah received exactly what he protested about: He received a true dream in which the transgressions were clearly stated, which would enable Rav Petiyah to inform his community and thus take care of the problem at its root.

With Rav Petiyah on the scene, there was no longer any need for plague among the Jewish community.

But why were the gentiles punished for the Jews' transgressions? After all, a non-Jew can eat treif food & treif mixtures. If, for example, an Iraqi wishes to eat camel meat in yogurt sauce, what is the problem? There isn't any problem. It's permitted to them.

And if the Jew partakes of it, how does the non-Jew share the guilt?

Rav Petiyah doesn't say, but I think it's this:

Arabs & Jews are pretty good at telling each other apart.

Furthermore, Jewish traditions were pretty well known among the non-Jewish community. An Iraqi Jewish woman told me that at the end of Pesach, their Arab neighbors would come to them offering them bags of flour to use for their mimouna celebration the night Pesach ends. She recalled it fondly.

That shows intimate familiarity with the laws & times of Pesach on the part of the non-Jewish community.

Likewise, these non-Jewish sellers would know that they are selling forbidden food to Jews. Maybe they don't care because their religion says these foods are fine, but deep down, the soul knows.

In fact, I knew a young non-Jewish man in the USA who grew up visiting the home of non-frum Jews who kept kosher. When he encountered other Jews whom he saw eating meat & dairy together, he was shocked & would tell them, "Hey, did you know you're not supposed to be eating that?"

It sounds funny, but it's actually a good thing for a non-Jew to do. And it shows an awareness that deep down, we all sense what we Jews are supposed to be doing.

Nowadays, it's not usually possible to tell who is Jewish and who isn't, unless the Jew is in obviously Jewish clothing. Even a last name doesn't mean as much as it used to.

"Sarah" is popular among non-Jews today and with America's 60% rate of intermarriage (which puts typically Jewish surnames on non-Jewish wives & children), a secular-looking Sarah Goldberg is more likely to be non-Jewish than Jewish today.

I personally have cousins with names like Eli (Elijah) Sirotzkin who have a handsome Jewish face like their father, but who are 100% NOT Jewish. 

But apparently, if the non-Jew knows he's dealing with a Jew and what the Jew's rules are, then the non-Jew shares responsibility.

Again, it doesn't state that outright in Rav Petiyah's account, so maybe I'm wrong, but I can't think of another reason why the non-Jewish community seemed to be held responsible for the minority of Jews who ate non-kosher by them.

And why did it continue in the non-Jewish community?

Presumably, the non-Jewish community there would not have been open to hearing from Rav Petiyah. Some Jewish Sages did have the respect of their surrounding non-Jewish community throughout the ages, but many times they did not or were not even known among the non-Jews.

Furthermore, the surrounding gentiles may not have been open at all to hearing that their selling non-kosher food to Jews was such a big problem. In fact, that may have made them very angry at the Jews, like, "Why did you come to eat by us if you knew it was forbidden to you?!" and the like, fanning flames of resentment & wrath against the Jewish community.

Also, the non-Jewish community has sins of its own. As the destroyer angels stated, they struck people innocent of treifot & neveilot, but guilty of other transgressions.

Likely, the continued plague also served as reinforcement for the continued teshuvah of the Jews.

Hashem is the Only Address 

What do we get from all this?

Ein od milvado — There is NO one but HIM.

It's very important to walk in temimut with Hashem.

He controls everything.

Even when it looks like other people, events, or entities are operating behind the scenes, it's all brought about and orchestrated by Hashem.

In other words, do NOT go around keeping an eye out for entities in black uniforms with red accents. They are controlled by Hashem and their actions actually depend on our actions. So let's keep the Torah as we should!

There are reasons for everything. We don't & can't know them, but they definitely exist.

Even in a state of harsh judgement, there is still mercy & compassion. We may not perceive them, but the mercy & compassion are definitely there.

Teshuvah is so vitally important and SO POWERFUL!

​May we all merit to do complete teshuvah from love with no need for trials or disgrace.
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The Secret Workings of Brachot (Blessings) over Food

31/3/2020

2 Comments

 
NOTE: I wrote up this post, then put it aside because I wasn't completely sure it was the right topic for this time. 

Then I noticed how positively I was affected by Rav Yehudah Petiyah's descriptions of what's going on in the world of souls regarding brachot. My dedication to saying brachot with kavanah improved, as did my remembering to say the after-blessings – and improved happily.

Saying brachot with kavanah and actually remembering to say them – and doing so with a happy heart – is a great merit during these difficult times.

So here it goes...
In the chapter on Parshat Ekev in Minchat Yehudah, Rav Yehudah Petiyah explains the unseen reality of making a blessing before eating.

Rav Petiyah gleans from the Arizal and other sources of Torah learning, his teachers, and his own experience.

To start off, souls in need of tikkun (rectification) undergo different kinds of rectifications and atonements after death.

What other religious systems know only as "Hell" or "Purgatory" (or whatever terms they use) is actually a whole rich & complex system in the unseen reality. Only our most learned & holy Jews (i.e., tzaddikim) have been privy to an understanding about this whole system.

Anyway, one of the tikkunim is for the soul to enter into an object.

This consists of 4 levels:
  • domem (inanimate object, like a rock – this is the lowest level)
  • tzomech (vegetation, like a tree, flower, or fruit)
  • chai (a living creature, like any kind of animal or fish)
  • medaber (a speaking creature, i.e a human being – this is the highest level)

With the medaber, a person can reincarnate into a fetus, which is then born as a new person with new opportunities to rectify and atone for past-life actions.

There are other ways, but not necessarily happy ones. So let's stick with this particular tikkun of the soul entering into a domem, tzomech, chai, or medaber.

Here's an example of a gilgul into a chai:

Once, Rav Petiyah was walking with his teacher when his teacher suddenly said that he sees with his own eyes a man from the generation of the Tannaim (Gemara) inside a female goat.

He'd committed what many would consider a relatively small sin, yet because of his great level and ability to know better, he needed to endure gilgulim in the Afterlife.

Anyway, Rav Petiyah says that once a soul has completed his gilgul in domem, it rises to the next level of gilgul, which is to inhabit a tzomech. Then a chai (like a female goat), then a medaber.

It's like a court sentence, in which the soul must be imprisoned that object for a specific amount of time until all the sins that can be atoned for this have been atoned.

Rectification by being Eaten

With certain exceptions, a soul generally cannot rise to another gilgul just any old time.

There are spiritual physics at play.

For example, a soul trapped in a domem can only ascend to tzomech in the months of Av, Elul, Tishrei, and Cheshvan.

If its sentence ends during those months, then great! But if not...the soul must wait until next year, when those months come rolling around again.

And guess what?

A soul that needs to ascend from a tzomech to a chai can only ascend in Nissan, Iyar, Sivan, and Tammuz.

And finally, a soul that needs to ascend from a chai to a medaber can only ascend in Kislev, Tevet, Shvat, and Adar.

Happily, sometimes a soul can ascend 2 levels at one time.

There are different ways this happens.

One is when a soul inhabits dust, and then an animal comes to eat grass in which is mixed a bit of the soul-inhabited dust, and the animal swallows the dust with the grass – viola! The soul now inhabits a chai, thus skipping the level of tzomech altogether.

Or, if a soul inhabits a fruit or vegetable, which is then eaten by a person, then the lucky soul gets to skip the chai level and go straight into medaber.

Even luckier is the soul that inhabits dust (domem) that gets mixed in food, which is then eaten by a person (medaber).

That lucky soul ascended 3 levels at once.

But getting back to souls trapped in a tzomech...

Not only are there formerly living souls trapped in fruits, vegetables, flowers, and juices; there are also sparks of holiness that fell with the sin of Adam Harishon and were mixed with a food upon the creation of that food.

This is where the role of the Jew comes in to the picture.

We Jews need to elevate all this.

The way to elevate sparks & souls trapped in tzomech is to make a blessing over them and to eat them.

Rav Petiyah notes that this is the deeper mean of the verse: "Ki lo al halechem levado yichyeh ha'adam – For not on bread alone will the man live."

In other words, a person's soul doesn't always live in bread (or other food). At some point, the food is eaten and the soul elevated.

Eating also releases the food-trapped soul before its time.

​For example, a soul whose sentence ended in Av generally needs to wait until next year (Nissan at the earliest) to ascend to the next level (chai). 

But if a person eats that food in Av, the soul ascends in Av.

The soul's original fixed sentence can also be shortened this way. (Like if the soul is meant to be trapped for Nissan & Iyar, but someone eats it before Iyar, then it's also released early.)

​For example, if a tzaddik and talmid chacham eats a food, then wow! The sparks get sifted and the souls get rectified.

But even a regular person – even an am ha'aretz (an ignoramus) – can rectify souls at least a little bit...as long as he says a bracha before eating.

In short, being eaten is a happy shortcut for the soul to complete its tikkun.​

​As Rav Petiyah states:
...and then this soul will be rectified a little bit at a time, until it fully completes its tikkun. And not like the amei ha'aretz, who don't even make a bracha over their food. For at least they should be careful with brachot, that they shouldn't eat any food without making a bracha over it before and after.

[Hashem has also given us after-blessings to say, like Birkat Hamazon, Al Hamichya, Boreh Nefashot, etc. – MR]

This is so that by these means, the same soul is rectified, at least a tiny bit.
​The moral of all this is: Mach a bracha! Say your brachos before & after eating!

Say them with as much heartfelt gusto as you can.

You are doing holy, wonderful, beneficial acts of chessed when you say your brachot.
For a very inspiring story, also included in this same chapter of Minchat Yehudah, please see The Feminine Path to Greatness.
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Who is a Jew? Disturbing Stories & Inspiring Stories. And How to Prevent Problematic Lineage from Affecting You & Your Descendants

22/10/2019

 
The idea of a secret Jewish or non-Jewish identity continues to intrigue many Jews, particularly religious Jews.

Me too.

Whether it's a potential convert from a Spanish-speaking country who discovers proof (or at least, compelling evidence) of a matrilineal line of Jews from the anousim or Jews who seem not to be Jewish (whether a possible Erev Rav soul-root or suspicions regarding the maternal line) or adoptees who uncover either Jewish or non-Jewish maternal ancestry, the underlying identity of a Jew or non-Jew continues to intrigue many of us.

For me, it has always been an enduring interest that refreshes itself anew every so often.

(As the generation above mine dies out without doing teshuvah or without even leaving Jewish descendants in some situations, my interest in the topic is renewing again.)

Nurturing Vibrant Trees with Robust Roots

Over recent years, I've found myself focusing more on & strengthening my own Yiddishkeit or wanting to exchange chizuk with other frum Jews.

In contrast to my former more kiruv rechokim-orientation, I found myself coming into kiruv-krovim — including being mekarev myself, if you know what I mean.

At this point, I feel that sincere davening for fellow Jews reaps more than external action, like talking and other kiruv-based interactions.

Having said that, for those who enjoy hosting secular Jews for Shabbos or passing out all sorts of Jewish pamphlets or Shabbos candles or giving kiruv seminars/classes, this is not meant as discouragement! 

On the contrary, if you enjoy and succeed at kiruv rechokim, by all means — CONTINUE.

​You're doing a lot of good!

But despite a lot of frum focus to the contrary, I'm slowly discovering the value of getting the core into healthy shape.

In other words, my focus has become more inner-directed. Not self-centered or selfish, but a fortifying of the roots and trunk of the tree, rather than developing more outlying branches.

While I don't necessarily apply this to those who clearly succeed in bringing assimilated Jews back into the fold, I feel that a deeper focus on improving and strengthening the core is vital — perhaps even more vital than searching out the assimilated.

(If our roots are strong and healthy, branches & blossoms will develop & multiply on their own.)

I think this reflects my renewed appreciation of Rav Avigdor Miller's approach, which clearly focused on building a vibrantly healthy core: a vibrant & sincerely frum Torah community connected directly to Hakadosh Baruch Hu.

Certainly, I developed a love of Rav Miller's Torah in my early twenties as a newcomer to frumkeit. I listened to so many of his tapes and bought the books containing his divrei Torah and Q&As.

​But I appreciate him even more now.

Focusing Inward

As described on this blog previously, it has taken me over 25 years to discover that I'm not remotely successful (to my knowledge) with kiruv rechokim.

And anyway, I see so much in myself that needs "kiruv." I've done so much work on myself over the years, and there's still so much work that needs to be done.

Furthermore, I can't help seeing how much there is to do within the frum community.

​Whether it's participating in helping mommies recover from birth, tending the needs of sick people, supporting poor people, single parents (whether divorced or widowed), kollelim & yeshivot...there is so much good to accomplish WITHIN the frum community!

Helping other frum Jews find employment, creating businesses to serve frum needs, and especially...SCHOOLS.

There is so much to invest in the frum school system to ensure our children receive all their needs (spiritual, academic, physical, emotional) and nurture their precious souls in the best way possible so that they can become the best Jews possible and merit a truly wonderful portion in the World to Come.

And many of we religious Jews very much need chizuk from each other. We need to continue deepening & expanding our relationship with Hashem, our emuna & bitachon, plus exchange "light" with each other.

In addition, the open secret that even many frum Jews feel uncomfortable acknowledging is that many of our most vital mitzvot apply mostly to Jews who are shomrei Torah & mitzvot REGARDLESS of their particular affiliation (and even if another FRUM group holds some hashkafot that produce friction against your group's personal hashkafot).

If another Jew is shomer Shabbat, shomer kashrut, etc., we have a mitzvah to love that person, give the benefit of the doubt, refrain from speaking lashon hara or rechilut about that person, and so on.

A fellow shomer mitzvot is "your brother" (or sister).

Are there dissenting and more expansive opinions?

Yes.

But the core opinion across the board is that a shomer mitzvot Jew is your brother or sister, to whom all the bein adam l'chavero mitzvot apply.

This is the Gemara. (Please see Rav Avigdor Miller's Should We Love Irreligious Jews? for a very brief summary with sources.)

If one is not shomer mitzvot (and especially if a Jew is ANTI-mitzvot), then not everyone says this is "your brother."

It depends.

(Please see the above link, plus Rav Avigdor Miller on Loving All Jews and Loving Your Troublesome Neighbor and Can the Rav explain to us how we could actually learn to love all Jews? for even more.)​

Excuse Me - WHO Exactly Did Hashem Take Out of Egypt Again?

Furthermore, I've reached the age where the generation above me has started dying out (may we all live in robust health ad 120, b'ezrat Hashem).

In my family & former non-religious Jewish community, people are intermarrying (sometimes divorcing and intermarrying again).

Among the movements for Reform & Conservative (which is actual extremely liberal) fake "conversions" are all the rage, further diluting the crumbling Jewish identity of ignorant Jews (and deceiving non-Jews) by declaring 100% NON-Jews as Jews, and making these non-Jews believe they are bona fide Jews too.

I recently received photos and enthusiastic emails about Rosh Hashanah meals, complete with honey cake and apples dipped in honey, in which not ONE participant in Jewish.

Three generations of participants...no Jews left.

Not one.

Just non-Jews, some of whom think they're Jews.

And while a non-Jew acknowledging Rosh Hashanah kinda makes sense (after all, it is a day of universal Judgement), these people will celebrate a Pesach Seder too, which has absolutely no connection to their history or souls.

But they sure love singing Dayenu and eating matzah ball soup.

I'm seeing Jews die without leaving one Jewish descendant.

A Jewish line stretching back centuries...culminates in a dead end.

And many of these people lived a lifetime steeped in cheit & aveirot (married to a non-Jew), some with random mitzvot interspersed within (like lighting Chanukah candles).

And despite all the information & resources available, despite the ever-expanding copious outreach & approachability of their nearby frum community, and despite outreach efforts directed at these people, plus being davened for by frum family members or other associates — these people make no steps toward teshuvah, not even one, until & including the moment they die.

Over 20 years of being their frum relative (including striving to be super-nice and receptive, sending these people appealing videos and links to kiruv websites, Shabbos invites — and actual Shabbos hosting, davening for them, plus their their own experiences — POSITIVE experiences! — of visiting Eretz Yisrael & the Kotel & spending Shabbos with a frum family, davening at a frum shul, and so much more) resulted in...nothing, nothing, nothing.

​No effort on anyone's part and no experience — no matter how pleasant — nothing in authentic Judaism has touched them one iota.

​What to make of it?

Who's a Jew? No, Really - Who IS a Jew?

Well, here's one possibility — an admittedly unpopular possibility for many Jews today, but it's one stated by the Rambam no less:
Rav Avigdor Miller on Are You a Descendant of Avraham Avinu?

Apparently, the Rambam states (I don't know where) that a Jew who NEVER comes back to Torah and Mitzvot is not from the seed of Avraham Avinu.

In his great integrity, Rav Miller acknowledges that this isn't necessarily set in stone: "...I wouldn’t be stubborn as to tell you definitely. There may be some exceptions to the rule." 

The fact that he describes his dissenter as a "chassidishe Rav" indicates that Rav Miller respects his dissenter's scholarship and that the chassidishe Rav based his dissent on legitimate sources and not sentimental feelings.

Also, Rav Miller himself admits that it's not necessarily absolute, as stated above.

Indeed, Rav Petiyah's Minchat Yehudah describes his encounters with Jewish souls who sinned throughout a series of lifetimes, never doing teshuvah and dying as complete degenerates.

They reincarnated again, and when they still didn't do teshuvah, they spent some time in unbearable hellish suffering in the Slingshot of Hell or an Ocean of Lava (which saying Kaddish helped to lift one man out of the lava for the duration of the Kaddish), then merited an afterlife rectification from Rav Petiyah.

Phew!

So who's right?

Well, we know that all the big poskim in Chazal are correct, even when they contradict each other:
​
  • I don't think it's difficult to say that in some situations, the unrepentant Jew really isn't Jewish at all, i.e., he is not from zera Avraham. 
 
  • Yet in other situations, he is from zera Avraham and will suffer another gilgul, some kind of Gehinnom, and/or rectification by a tzaddik if he doesn't do teshuvah in his lifetime.

In short (if I'm understanding everything correctly):
  • You can hold by the Rambam and it is perfectly within your right to do so.
 
  • You can also hold by an equally solid source that disagrees with the Rambam. It is equally within your right to do so.

But you can't go trashing the Rambam or any other fundamental source in Chazal.

​And, like Rav Miller says, I don't think we can claim to know for sure.

We can hold by one giant posek or another, but we can't say with our small minds that we know.

However, if you want to make the most lucrative investment in your fellow Jew, then going with those who are shomrei Torah & mitzvot seems to be the surest way to go.

Nothing is 100%, nothing is perfect, but investing in fellow shomrei mitzvot appears to be the lowest-risk investment.

What about Blobs?

One Jewish male family member who died this year was originally married to a Jewish woman. They had 1 son, then divorced.

(That son married a non-Jewish woman, had a non-Jewish daughter with her, then he died when his daughter was around 8.)

The Jewish male family member then married a non-Jewish woman (but got her a fake conversion first). The "conversion" was totally bogus. She never intended to keep the 10 Commandments, let alone kashrut or anything else. They lit Chanukah candles & hosted a Pesach Seder every year, but that's the limit of their "observance" as far as I ever saw.

A non-Jew cannot convert with the intention of profaning even a single commandment (i.e. "I'll keep everything EXCEPT..."); such an intention invalidates the conversion.

Anyway, they had 2 children together.

I knew this man my entire life and all I ever saw was a quiet blob who was sometimes grumpy.

He always reclined in his chair, either at the table or on the sofa.

If he was on the sofa, he clutched a beer in one hand and watched sports on TV, preferably American football.

But it didn't matter. Any sport would do. He even watched horse races.

Even as a child, I thought that was weird.

(FYI, I never saw him drunk, just indolent.)

Sure, he held down a job and provided for his family. But other than that, he was a blob. Sometimes, when his non-Jewish son Harley irked him, he said his sons name in a Brooklyn-accented warning growl: "HAWWW-LEEEE..."

But that was it.

His children never seemed to like him, even when they were young. They certainly despised him when they were older.

Toward the end of his life, this man developed mental & physical debilitation.

Due to the expense, his non-Jewish wife resisted getting care-assistance for him, despite her physical inability to care for him properly. (She was also getting old.)

A couple of months prior to his death, his non-Jewish thirtysomething-year-old son finally had it out with him, yelling at him that he was miserly and that the son was sick of the father being such a tightwad.

(The inciting incident was the son's purchase of $400 dollar tickets to attend a ball game.)

I seriously questioned the appropriateness of such a confrontation when one's father is in a both physically & mentally decrepit state.

Childhood resentments aside, it seems kind of mean.

Anyway, he died before his fake-convert wife really needed to hire professional assistance, so everyone was relieved.

And no one misses him in the least.

That's sad, but it is the most expected result based on the way he lived his life.

​To me, his whole life seemed sad & meaningless (and a bit grumpy).

Anyway, I'm not a mekubal and never will be, but since learning about the pinteleh Yid and all that, it has been hard for me to accept that this somewhat grouchy indolent useless & wholly assimilated blob was from zera Avraham.

The fact that he left absolutely no Jewish continuation, and that the one Jewish child he produced never displayed any connection to Judaism and also died with no Jewish continuation hints something to me.

I can't know for sure, but I'm with the Rambam in this particular case.

"You Know, Some of My Relatives are Jewish..."

I think we've all met people with surprising histories.

There are the people converting to Judaism who discover a possible Jewish ancestor, whether a mother who gave them up for adoption or a long-dead great-great-great grandmother.

A chassidic friend of mine was approached by a co-worker who said, "I see that you're Jewish. You know, some of my relatives are Jewish."

"Oh?" said my friend. "Like who?"

"Well, my mother for one," came the reply.

His Jewish mother married a non-Jew, then she died when he was a toddler. His non-Jewish father made a second marriage to a non-Jewish woman, who raised this man as her son.

So he felt he was fully non-Jewish.

Fortunately, my chassidic friend managed to gently break the startling news of his true identity to him and he showed up at her and her husband's Pesach Seder that year.

Jews Under Cover in the Middle East

My husband & I once found ourselves in a taxi driven by an apparent Muslim-Arab who lived in a Muslim-Arab neighborhood near the French Colony in Yerushalayim.

In the course of conversation, he revealed his mother's mother was a Jew from Yemen.

After a brief pause, my husband asked him if he realized that made him Jewish?

Yes, he was aware of that, he said.

But he was well-entrenched in the Muslim-Arab lifestyle, including marriage to a Muslim-Arab woman, with whom he had children.

His story represents the greater tragedy among the Yemenite-Jewish community.

One of my sons, who attends a yeshivah with many Yemenites, said that literally everyone has a story of an aunt or great-aunt who was taken by Muslims in Yemen and forcibly absorbed into the Muslim community.

Yemen borders on Saudi Arabia and these borders are new, relatively speaking. Based on some of the pro-Judaism attitudes coming from some Saudis today, one cannot help but wonder whether they are descendants of these stolen Yemenite Jewish girls.

The truth is that families all over the Muslim world have stories like this.

Rav Alon Anava has mentioned his own family's story, explaining how because of this, he has Jewish cousins is Syria & Lebanon who believe themselves to be Muslim.

My sister-in-law's aunt or great-aunt suffered the same fate in Morocco. She was abducted & forcibly married to a Muslim.

A couple of years back, one of this abducted woman's sons contacted the Jewish relatives in Eretz Yisrael.

Though they accepted him with open arms, he betrayed their trust somehow (my sister-in-law didn't go into any detail), so as a result, they felt they could not trust him in their homes.

He returned to Morocco, leaving his mother's Jewish family members feeling disappointed & exploited.

"All in all, he was raised as an Arab," she explained to me. "That's his identity and value system. He could not relate to us at all and was just trying to exploit the situation to his advantage."

Heart-Breaking True Story

On the subject of Yemenite Jewish girls being abducted:

We know a man who's great-aunt in Yemen was taken by Muslims in her preteens. 

One of the things they did to break these girls was to force them to eat non-kosher food. (Then it was easier to forcibly marry them off to a Muslim and everything else that followed.)

But this Jewish girl refused.

So they locked her in the cellar and told her she couldn't come out until she would eat their non-kosher food.

She died in that cellar.

A 110-Year-Old Mystery

Then there is the story of Ann Harrison, one of the children adopted from the now-famous Orphan Train.

​orphantraindepot.org/history/orphan-train-rider-stories/ann-harrison-mabel-rubin/

Born Mabel Rubin to Jennie Rubin from Russia & Moe Cohen from New York, she was almost certainly Jewish, but baptized and raised by church-going Americans from the time she was a baby.

Needless to say Mabel-Ann lost all her Jewish identity.

Even when she discovered her real roots, it seems like she never returned. 

She had at least one daughter, Judy. Did Judy also have a daughter? It doesn't say.

But this probably-Jewish girl born in 1909 could easily have Jewish descendants today.

Maybe she has descendants converting or thinking of converting, with no knowledge that they are actually Jewish.

On the other hand, if you go by the Rambam, you could also postulate the reason why Mabel-Ann was basically lost to the Jewish people is because she is actually not from zera Avraham, despite the seemingly Jewish ancestry of her mother.

How's that for a whole big hodge-podge of "Only God knows"?

The Undiscovered Baby Exchange

Then there are the Jews who aren't really Jews.

(Yes, we're getting back to where this post started.)

When Irish-Catholic Alice Collins Plebuch took a DNA test for fun in 2012, she discovered that her proud Irish-Catholic father was most likely an Ashkenazi Jew.

Research nixed any possibility of illegitimate relationships or a hidden adoption.

​It took years and a couple of lucky "coincidences" to discover the truth.

​To make a long & convoluted story very short:

In September 1919 at the Fordham Hospital in New York, nurses accidentally switched the Irish Catholic baby Jim Collins with the Jewish baby Phillip Benson.

(The identifying mother-baby bracelets standard for today only came about in the 1930s-40s. In 1919, hospital births weren't common and certain practices hadn't yet developed. Hospitals relied on the nurse's memory and mother's facial recognition to determine whose baby was whose.)

So the Jewish family went home with a non-Jewish baby.

Did they ever suspect he wasn't really theirs?

No one knows, but interestingly, the parents of his first wife, Esther Abulafia, did not believe he was Jewish when they first met him.

Of course, they had nothing on which to rely their suspicions. They met the Bensons and saw they were bona fide Jews. 

As far as the Bensons were concerned, this person was their biological son.

Except that he wasn't.

​Think about that.

And think about how this probably wasn't the only time that happened.

(Even Rabbi Meir Lehmann has a based-on-a-true-story book about such a switch — I think it's called Del Monte.)

Furthermore, I wrote a post a long time ago with other stories along these lines:
​​Only Hashem Knows, So Just Stick Close to Him

The Non-Jewish Yeshivah Bachur

I think we've all heard of situations, like the guy shteiging away at a yeshivah for baalei teshuvah who only informs his rosh yeshivah after 2 years that he's adopted; his Jewish identity isn't biological but adopted.

In many cases, the person converts. (The guy in the above example — the husband of a wonderful couple I met while becoming frum — converted & is an exceptionally fine Jew.)

But what if the issue hadn't been caught?

Or what if his parents hadn't told him he'd been adopted? (That happens less nowadays; but still.)

There's a famous story of an exemplary Ponevich yeshivah bachur in Bnei Brak who discovered his mother's conversion wasn't kosher. (That's a bizarre situation for a sincere convert, by the way. How did that happen? Not sure.)

Everyone was sure he'd convert too.

But he didn't.

Instead, he said: “Why should I be Jewish? That's so hard. I can be a kosher goy, a Ben Noach, and be a tzaddik. It’s much easier to be a tzaddik Ben Noach than a Tzaddik of a Jew.”

Then he removed his kippah and left.

Here's a link to the story (scroll down toward the end):
https://www.shemayisrael.com/parsha/parkoff/archives/chukas72.htm

​And what if that issue hadn't been caught? How would things have continued?

What if he'd married a Jewish woman, as happened with Esther Abulafia, who spent her much of her life married to a non-Jew?

Looking to Our Tzaddikim & Their Tefillot for Guidance

This is one of MANY things for which we are waiting for Mashiach to sort out.

The Phillip Benson-Jim Collins switch is certainly chilling.

Esther Abulafia's parents are described as observant.

The initially expressed suspicions as to their future son-in-law's Jewish identity.

Yet their daughter unknowingly married a non-Jew.

She didn't want to.

Her parents didn't want her to.

But she did.

How on earth can one prevent such a hidden mix-up from happening?

Practically speaking, the best advice is found in our tefillot.

Looking over tefillot for parents to say for their children, I was struck by how concerned the tzaddikim were for ALL the future generations until the end of time.

For example, the Admor and author of Archot Aharon includes in his prayer a plea that one's children merit spouses from mishpachot kasherot v'hagunot (kosher and halachically proper families).

Rav Eliezer Papo, author of Pele Yoetz, composed several prayers for parents to say for their children, which also included kol yotzei chalatzeinu (everyone to issue from us) and kol zereinu v'chol hanilavim eleinu (all our seed and all those attached to us -- i.e, those who join our family, via marriage, etc.) to be without any blemish. (He even includes a plea for all descendants to be from zera anashim — human origin — a topic beyond the scope of this post.)

In Sefer Tzavat Abba, page 24, the tefillah includes a plea for there to be nothing passul (nothing flawed that nullifies one's descendants) "in my seed and in the seed of my seed until the end of all generations, and may there not come into our hands and not into our seed and not to the seed of our seed until the end of the generations any transgression and passul and ugly thing..."

The book Tefillah L'Ani offers a prayer for "our sons and our daughters, our grandsons and our granddaughters, and about all that issues from us until the end of the generations." It asks that we merit "holy and pure neshamot" that are clean from "kol shemetz shel pagam" (any and all unholy speck of blemish).

"Neshamot" implies specifically Jewish souls.

​The above prayer repeats the whole "ad sof kol hadorot" (until the end of the generations) several times.

​In reading all the tefillot written by tzaddikim for parents to say over their children, it's impossible to miss their concern for completely kosher zera throughout all generations until the end of time.

Clearly, they foresaw the problems we've been seeing on a sharp rise over the past 150 years.

And again, there are hints in these prayers not only about obviously halachically forbidden unions (non-Jews & mamzerim & betrothed/married women), but spiritually undesirable unions (like with Erev Rav or non-human beings, etc).

​In short, there's a lot to daven for.

So for those of us concerned about this issue (and I think it IS a concern, especially nowadays), we've got these beautiful prayers to help us out.

​And other than that, we'll need to wait for Mashiach to come and sort us all out.
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