May we merit to turn sadness into happiness

I know that everyone says this, but I feel that I have been so busy for the past few weeks, that I haven't had time for anything extra. I keep meaning to blog, composing blogs in my head, but never committing them to cyberspace.

I have learned a lot of new skills. I have had to typeset and publish the journal for my afternoon kollel (The Hashkafa Circle). It is available through Lulu (in case you were wondering).

I have created (or am in the process of creating) a website for the aforementioned kollel, which will primarily host video shiurim from Rabbi Meir Triebitz. You can see what I've done so far (but there is a lot more coming, both in terms of design and content-wise) at www.hashkafacircle.com. And it is amazing how much time I have spend doing the little that you see there now (including videoing, transfering, converting, uploading etc. etc. etc.)

I have been working with Rabbi Haber on a book about Sefiras HaOmer (and the spiritual journey of Midas HaYom) which obviously has to be in the stores before Pesach. We are at the final stages now, but things keep getting more and more pressured. The good news is that I think it is an excellent book! Hopefully you will all enjoy it to (and buy lots of copies).

But I had to take time today to blog - even though I don't think the house will be cleaned for Shabbos as a result - because of two things: the tragedy of the shooting last night in Merkaz HaRav, and because today is R' Yaakov Kaminetzky's yarzheit.

I still don't know how to cope with the news about last night. It is closish to where we live, and a place that I go to frequently. I also just looked at the list of names and realised that one of those killed was the son of friends of ours from Efrat!

Last week Professor Yisrael Auman spoke at the Shapell's Maleva Malka. He didn't tell this story, but a friend of mind confirmed the details with him.

Professor Auman had a son, Shlomo, who was killed in battle during the Lebanon war in 1982. Rabbi Gustman came to pay a Shiva call (Professor Auman was a talmid of Rav Gustman).

Rav Gustman entered and asked to sit next to Professor Auman, who said, "Rabbi, I so appreciate your coming to the cemetery, but now is time for you to return to your Yeshiva."

Rav Gustman spoke, first in Yiddish and then in Hebrew, so that all those assembled would understand:

"I am sure that you don't know this, but I had a son named Meir. He was a beautiful child. He was taken from my arms and executed. I escaped. I later bartered my child's shoes so that we would have food, but I was never able to eat the food -- I gave it away to others. My Meir is a kadosh -- he is holy -- he and all the six million who perished are holy."

Rav Gustman then added: "I will tell you what is transpiring now in the World of Truth in Gan Eden -- in Heaven. My Meir is welcoming your Shlomo into the minyan and is saying to him 'I died because I am a Jew -- but I wasn't able to save anyone else. But you -- Shlomo, you died defending the Jewish People and the Land of Israel.' My Meir is a kadosh, he is holy -- but your Shlomo is a Shaliach Zibbur -- a Cantor in that holy, heavenly minyan."

Rav Gustman continued: "I never had the opportunity to sit shiva for my Meir; let me sit here with you just a little longer."

Professor Aumann replied, "I thought I could never be comforted, but Rebbi, you have comforted me."

(I took the story from Aish.com, but it is exactly as Professor Auman related it).

These eight boys, who all died al kiddush Hashem, while learning Torah, are surely in a special place in Heaven right now.

But we have to try our best to ensure this doesn't ever happen again. We have to feel the pain of the parents and relatives, chevrusas and Rabbeim. We have ignored the suffering of the people in Sdereot and other parts of the country. Now the message is coming closer to home. We have to wake up, examine our actions and do teshuva.

May all their souls be bound in the bonds of eternal life, and may G-d comfort all the mourners among the other mourners for Zion and Yerushalayim.

Today is also the Yarzheit of R' Yaakov. Even though I never had the privelege of meeting him, I have merited to learn from many of his grandchildren, and feel a very close connection to his Torah and midos through them. There is so much that could be said, but I have run out of words.

May his soul be bound in the bonds of eternal life, and may he be a meilitz yosher for all of klal yisrael.

This is the month of ve-nahafoch hu. May the sadness be transformed into simcha. Like the Jews in Shushan and around the world, may we see the downfall of all modern day Hamans and may we merit to see the rebuilding of the Beis Hamikdash very soon.

20th Adar Yarzheit of the Bach

I went to NY for a wedding last weekend. I was in the States for a total of 3 days, but it has taken me more than a week to recover from the jet lag and the cold I picked up on the plane.

There are so many things I wanted to blog about, but I will never get them all done, so let's start with something simple - a Yarzheit of one of the Gedolim.

Today (20th Adar) is the Yarzheit of the Bach, R' Yoel Sirkes. Anyone who has learned the Tur will know that the Bach is the bit that everyone skips, because they are too keen to learn the Beis Yosef. And most of the important things will be quoted by the Taz (who was the son-in-law of the Bach) so you can catch them when you get to the Shulchan Aruch. But that is not really fair to him is it?

His notes on the Talmud are much more widely used - everyone looks at the Bach when they see that he emends the text of the Talmud. Usually he is fixing a 'mistake' in the text, occasionally adding his own commentary. Look for the Hagahot HaBach somewhere on the page (underneath the picture of an aeroplane heading towards you).

This is what the Jewish Encyclopedia has to say about him (I changed some of the names, but I can't figure out the Hebrew for Phoebus - any thoughts?)

Polish rabbi; born at Lublin in 1561; died at Cracow, 1640. At the age of fourteen he was sent to the yeshibah of Shlomo ben Yehuda. After remaining there some time he went to Brest-Litovsk, where he attended the yeshibah of R. Phoebus. While still a youth he was invited to the rabbinate of Pruszany, near Slonim. Later he occupied the rabbinates of Lubkow, Lublin, Miedzyboz, Beldza, Szydlowka, and finally Brest-Litovsk and Cracow, succeeding in each of the two last-mentioned places his teacher R. Phoebus.

Sirkes wrote: "Meshiv Nefesh," commentary on the Book of Ruth (Lublin, 1616); "Bayit Ḥadash," commentary on the "Arba'ah Ṭurim" of Jacob ben Asher (Cracow, 1631-40); "She'elot u-Teshuvot Bayit Ḥadash" (Frankfort, 1697); "She'elot u-Teshubot Bet Ḥadash ha-Ḥadashot" (Koretz, 1785); "Haggahot," on all the tractates of the Babylonian Talmud; and "Rosh," first published, from a manuscript, in the Warsaw (1860) edition of the Talmud, and included in almost every subsequent edition thereof.

In the "Bayit Ḥadash" the evident intention of the author is to present and elucidate the fundamental principles of the Law as recorded in the Mishnah, the Babylonian and Jerusalem Talmuds, and the chief codes.

May His Soul be Bound in the Bonds of Eternal Life

How heavy were the Ten Commandments?

I know it isn't relevant until Ki Tissa, which we won't read for another two weeks. (Or it was relevant to the daf from 3 weeks ago), but I was just wondering...

How heavy were the two tablets that Moshe brought down from Mount Sinai? I mean in weight, not in importance.

The Talmud (Nedarim 38a) tells us:

R. Johanan said: The Holy One, blessed be He, causes His Divine Presence to rest only upon him who is strong, wealthy, wise and meek; and all these [qualifications] are deduced from Moses. Strong, for it is written, And he spread abroad the tent over the tabernacle; and a Master said, Moses our teacher spread it; and it is also written, Ten cubits shall be the length of the board. Yet perhaps it was long and thin? — But [it is derived] from this verse: And I took the two tables, and cast them out of my two hands, and broke them. Now, it was taught: The tablss [sic, tables] were six [handbreadths] in length, six in breadth, and three in thickness.

There are different opinions as the length of the Biblical Amah. It is somewhere between 48cm (according to R' Chaim Naeh) and 57.66 cm (according to the Chazon Ish). So the tablets were each between 2.88m and 3.5m on each side and between 1.4m and 1.75m thick. At a minimum this is almost 12 cubic metres of stone. This is over 18 tonnes! And Moshe carried two such tablets down from Mount Sinai.

Can someone please check my calculations and see if I did this right? And convert it into old fashioned numbers for the Americans who don't speak metric? Does this make sense?

I know the Talmud says that Moshe was strong, but he was REALLY Strong!!! And this is the requirement for someone to be a prophet! Wow! I'd better get down to the gym quickly if I want to have any chance.

3rd Adar Yarzheit of the Aderes

On Shabbos it was the Yarzheit of the Aderes, Rabbi Eliyahu David Rabinowitz Teomim (his initials spell Aderes). I wanted to copy and paste the wikipedia article on him to my blog, but there wasn't an article on him. So I wrote it (mostly lifted from www.jewishencyclopedia.com). He is one of the few Rabbis who wrote an autobiography (which is out of print now, and I can't even remember what it is called) so I was amazed at how little information there was about him. He was the father in law of Rav Kook, so I would have expected there to be a lot more information about him.

Please add any more biographical information you may have on him both the wikipedia article and to the comments of this blog.

Thank you and Shavua Tov.

Here is the wikipedia article:

Rabbi Eliyahu David Rabinowitz Teomim (1845-1905) was known by his initials as the Aderes (Aderet). He was one of the greatest European Rabbis of the nineteenth century. He is also famous as the father-in-law of Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook

Biography

Russian rabbi; born at Pikeln, government of Kovno, June 11 (6th Sivan), 1845. He studied Talmud and rabbinics under his father (who was rabbi successively at Shilel, Rogova, and Vilkomir), and at the age of fifteen had acquired a substantial knowledge of Talmudic and rabbinical literature. In 1873 he was invited to the rabbinate of Panevėžys, in the government of Kovno. After twenty years in that rabbinate he was appointed rabbi of Mir, government of Minsk. In 1901 he was made assistant to Samuel Salant (chief rabbi of the Ashkenazic communities at Jerusalem), whose age precluded his continuing to discharge unassisted the full duties of the rabbinate.

He passed away on 3rd Adar 1905.

Writings

Rabinowitz wrote more than 120 books including novellæ on Maimonides' "Yad" (Vilna, 1900), and published also novellæ and glosses on all branches of Talmudic literature in "Ha-Tebunah," "Kebod ha-Lebanon," "Ha-Ẓofeh," "Ha-Maggid," "Keneset Ḥakme Yisrael," "'Iṭṭur Soferim," and "Keneset ha-Gedolah." Many of his novellæ and notes are printed in works to which he gave his approbation.

Temple rebuilt

This Shabbat is the 3rd of Adar which is the anniversary of the completion of the construction of the Second Temple. The book of Ezra tells us that on this date they finished rebuilding the Temple which had been destroyed more than 70 years earlier. Even though this Second Beis Hamikdash did not compare at all with the first Beis Hamikdash (the ten daily miracles mentioned in Pirkei Avos no longer existed in the time of the Second Temple), Judaism once again had a focus and the sacrifices were once again offered on the altar.

15 And this house was finished on the third day of the month Adar, which was in the sixth year of the reign of Darius the king.
16 And the children of Israel, the priests and the Levites, and the rest of the children of the captivity, kept the dedication of this house of God with joy.
17 And they offered at the dedication of this house of God a hundred bullocks, two hundred rams, four hundred lambs; and for a sin-offering for all Israel, twelve he-goats, according to the number of the tribes of Israel.
18 And they set the priests in their divisions, and the Levites in their courses, for the service of God, which is at Jerusalem; as it is written in the book of Moses.

Of course then, as today, most people preferred the comfortable lives they had made for themselves in Bavel, and didn't want to return to Israel. Only a few came back, and they were mostly the poor or the misfits of society who had not succeeded in Bavel. I suppose there were some who joined Nechemiah for idealistic reasons and wanted to return to the Holy Land, but those who came with Ezra a few years later were not primarily motivated by ideology.

We know that those who came back and rebuilt Israel were the continuation of Judaism. Those who didn't return seem to have assimilated in exile (the Amoraim who lived in Bavel at the time of the Gemara, several centuries later, were descendants of the Israeli Jews, not the oringal Babylonians).

Let us pray that this day also brings us closer to the rebuilding of the Temple and the coming of Mashiach. And may everyone merit to be able to come back to Israel safely and for the right reasons.

Shabbat Shalom

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