Scary phone message

I just received possibly one of the most scary phone messages ever. By bank manager left a voice message (and just when I was about to panic that we were over our limit and they were going to cancel our credit card and take all the children as collateral*) to wish me a 'Happy Birthday!' (though he said it in Hebrew). AAAAAARRRRGGGGHHH! Don't do that to me without a warning first - please!

Someone has just found me the ideal present, The Pessimist's Mug. It's not that I don't think that things are great, but I just feel that a little bit of depression every now and then serves as a great antidote to all this happiness about.
Have a look at the mugs they sell as well. They are hysterical.



Also from the same website, a book that nobody can afford to be without!
The Art of Demotivation. Make sure you read what it says about the chairman's edition (as a vegetarian I especially like the footnote)

And finally, chaptzem has worked out how to tame Mordechai Ben David. Click here to make him say what YOU want! Now if I can only find the 'off' button.

Have a great Monday. If you live outside of Israel, welcome to the beginning of the week.

*If he promises to treat them well I would quite happily give the bank manager a few of my kids on loan if that would secure my overdraft. They need extra attention between 3 and 7pm, and lots of cornflakes, but apart from that they are good value for money.

18th Sivan - Yarzheit of R' Yerucham Levovitz

Today is the Yarzheit of the 'mashgiach' of Mir. R' Yerucham is possibly the most famous mashgiach.
I remember that R' Wolbe once said that for the first few months that he was at Mir he thought the Yeshiva had a different mashgiach specially for Shabbos. It was only after some time that he realised that R' Yerucham looked and acted so different on Shabbos (because of the Mitzvah to dress and behave differently, and because of the extra kedusha) that he looked like a different person.


This is Wikipedia's entry on the great man

Yeruchom Levovitz
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Rabbi Yeruchom Levovitz (ca. 1874-1936), or "The Mashgiach" as he was fondly referred to by his hundreds of students, was a famous mashgiach ruchani and Baal Mussar (ethicist) at the Mir yeshiva.

He was a disciple of Rabbi Nosson Tzvi Finkel of Kelm as well as Rabbi Yisrael Meir Kagan (Chofetz Chaim) of Radin.

He was the spiritual leader of the Mir Yeshiva in Poland until his passing in 1936. His disciples followed his every word, and never did anything that they "felt" he would not want them to do.

After World War II, most of orthodox Jewry in Europe was wiped out, along with their many yeshivas (Jewish schools of higher learning). The sole yeshiva that survived as a whole body was the Mir Yeshiva, which managed to escape miraculously to Shanghai, China, and then on to America. Many of the new leaders of the American and Israeli yeshivas in the post-war period were students of the Mir, and thus followers of Rabbi Levovitz. Some of his better known disciples include Rabbi Shlomo Wolbe, Rabbi Chaim Shmuelevitz, Rabbi Dovid Povarsky, Rabbi Levy Krupenia, and Rabbi Shimon Schwab.

His many discourses and lectures are preserved for posterity in nine books which are a staple of virtually every yeshiva library today, as well as many orthodox households.

He died on the 18th of Sivan in the year 1936 at the age of sixty-two. He is buried in the town of Mir, in what is now Belarus. His graveside (recently rebuilt by his family) is a common destination for the many orthodox Jewish tourists who visit the decimated cities of pre-war Europe.

Most of his family escaped the Nazis and made it to America where they were pioneers of the rebuilding of orthodox Jewry in the United States. His grandson, Rabbi Nachman Levovitz is one of the deans in the Mir Yeshiva (Jerusalem) today and continues in his path of disseminating Torah to many students. Most of his children and grandchildren were/are teachers, lecturers, and Rabbis in various communities in the United States.

This is his set of seforim



May his Soul be Bound in the Bonds of Eternal Life

17th Sivan - end of Noah's flood

According to the Talmud in Rosh Hashana (11b) based on the verses in Bereishit (and according to the opinion of Rabbi Eliezer) today is the day that the Ark came to rest on Mount Ararat.

The flood is one of those issues that bible critics love to use as proof that the Torah cannot be true. It is only unfortunate that some 'believers' try and use it as proof that the Torah and Bible are true! I'm not convinced by their evidence.

National Geographic think they have found evidence of the flood. Look at this

Wyatt has found the ark! It proves everything (I'm sure if you look closely you can see the graffiti which says 'Ham is a Meatball'

Oh whoops! No he hasn't!

There is a really good site here which shows all the flaws in believing that the flood happened literally as described - some of his points can be answered easily based on Talmud and Midrashim, some can be answered by the usual 'it was a miracle' answer, but many, if not most, of his points are very valid and require serious thought to deal with.

I was once asked whether we have to believe that the flood actually covered the whole world. Could it not just have covered the 'known world'? (I know that this doesn't really answer most of the issues, because the archaeological record doesn't even support a localised flood, but it does solve some of the problems). I believe that R' Gedaliah Nadel (see previous posting) writes along those lines, that the 'whole world' only meant the known world at that time. There is also a Midrash cited by Tosefot in Zevachim 117a (I think, from memory) which says that the flood didn't happen in the land of Israel. I know it is a long jump, but once you say it didn't actually cover the whole world (and Tosefot there says that 'whole world' is not to be taken literally) then perhaps we can also leave out all the other tricky bits of the world which make the flood difficult to deal with.
I must say, however, that the flood is by no means the most difficult miracle in the Torah to understand, and perhaps it is easier and better just to say 'that is the way G-d did it - don't ask any questions).

I'll leave it to each of you to decide how to deal with it. Just don't base your faith on the flood, and don't lose your faith because of it either!

Eeyores' birthday

It was my birthday today. Both my Hebrew one and my English one, and since you know that the two only line up every 19 years, you know how old I am (clue - I am not 57 or 76, nor 19 - figure it out yourself).
And it was a wonderful birthday. Quite like Eeyore's birthday actually:

"Many happy returns of the day," said Piglet again.

"Meaning me?"

"Of course, Eeyore."

"My birthday?"

"Yes."

"Me having a real birthday?"

"Yes, Eeyore, and I've brought you a present."

But unlike Eeyore I got some excellent presents (from my wonderful mother-in-law) - 4 pairs of Winnie the Pooh socks, which as you know was something I really wanted.
Thank you Savta!



(The actual socks were much nicer than the ones in this picture, but it was the only picture I could find)

16th Sivan - Yarzheit of R' Gedaliah Nadel

This Shabbat was the 3rd Yarzheit of one of the most exciting and radical Rabbis that you have never heard of. Rabbi Gedaliah Nadel was probably the closest student of the Chazon Ish, and was asked by the Chazon Ish to become the Rav of the neighbourhood. You have never heard of him because the B'nei Brak crowd decided that his thinking was heretical, and banned the only book of his material, before it was even published. The rumours have it that he was slightly off his rocker, but in fact it is more likely that this is historical revisionism (in his own lifetime) than actual fact.
This is what the Jerusalem Post has to say about him:

It is uncommon for the People of the Book to ban books - but that is precisely what three prominent rabbis of Bnei Brak have done. The ban was especially surprising considering who was responsible for the ideas in the banned book.

Rabbi Gedalia Nadel, who passed away a year and a half ago, was recognized in his lifetime as one of the greatest, if not the greatest, students of the Hazon Ish, Rabbi Avraham Yeshayahu Karelitz, the undisputed spiritual leader of haredi Lithuanian Jewry in the Holy Land in the first half of the 20th century. Nevertheless, Rabbis Michel Yehuda Lefkovitz, Nissim Karelitz and Chaim Kanyevsky, three of the most respected spiritual leaders in the haredi world, felt the need to issue a warning.

"The greatness of Rabbi Gedalia Nadel, may this righteous man's name be a blessing, was known to all," wrote the rabbis.

"His genius was incredible and he was an exemplary model of Torah scholarship. As a student of the Hazon Ish he had an unwavering grasp of the truth of the Torah. Yet few could plumb the depths of his thoughts... Therefore we fear that ideas found in unauthorized texts or recordings will be published in his name. We hereby warn not to rely on any book published in his name by any other than Rabbi Nadel's family and students."

Betorato shel Rav Gedalia is the name of the book referred to by the Bnei Brak rabbis, which was published posthumously by Rabbi Yitzhak Shilat based on Nadel's taped lectures. Shilat writes in the preface that everything that appears in the book was approved by Nadel himself.

The book, banned last December, seeks to resolve apparent contradictions between science and Torah. Offensive ideas include sentences like this: "Regarding his [Rabbi Ovadia Sforno's] approach, that the creation of man in the image of God marked the end of a long process which started with a non-cognizant animal which gradually evolved until this creature was given a human mind... this is an accurate description. Darwin's proofs, and those of geologists, for the existence of early stages of mankind, seem convincing."

Nadel sees nothing wrong with accepting Darwin's theory of evolution. Even the proposition that man and ape have a common ancestor presents no theological problem for Nadel.

He also rejects biblical literalism in favor of science: "It is a mistake to think that all of science [e.g. carbon dating, geology] is wrong. Regarding issues of life and death - some of the most stringent laws in the Torah - we rely on the scientific method without doubts. When a doctor gives a drug that was produced based on scientific methods of inquiry or when a surgeon operates on the eye or the brain with the aid of sophisticated scientific equipment we rely on science. We do not suspect that these doctors are lying. There is no reason to believe scientists are lying about the age of the world."

The rest of the article (which compares the ban on R' Nadel to that on R' Slifkin's books) can be found here

I missed my chance to buy the book a couple of years ago, and since then have never found it again. If anyone knows where I can get hold of it from please let me know.

May his Soul be Bound in the Bonds of Eternal Life