Reflecting On Our Own Communities

Rabbi Grabowski suggested that maybe we should focus today's conversation on problems, shortcomings, room for improvement within our communities, within our orbit. So when he made that suggestion, you know I guess a little less euphemistically, what are the things that are wrong within our community? So I was reminded, someone joins one of these orders where they take a vow of silence. And the rules of this order, of this brotherhood, is that they're only allowed to speak one day a year, and the rest of the time there's a vow of silence. So he joins this brotherhood shortly after that one day where they're allowed to talk. So he's there for a whole year, he observes the vow of silence. The day comes when they can talk, he turns to his roommates and says, you know, the food here is rotten, it's cold, it's stale, it's tasteless. Okay, then the day passes, so they all lapse into silence. A year passes and then the day comes when they can speak and he says to them, you know, the mattresses here are terrible, every morning I wake up and my back is cramping. Again, they lapse into silence. The third year rolls around and he says to them, I'm quitting, I'm leaving. So they say to him, good, all you ever do is complain anyway. So I think that's what Rabbi Grabowski had in mind in assigning me this topic. So partially by way of rebuttal and partially by way of introduction, you know in focusing on shortcomings, chas v'shalom that there's no lack of appreciation for everything that's good and right and noble and inspiring in our communities, and certainly being in NCSY Kollel gives one a vantage point on so much of that. Number two, there isn't necessarily any implication or suggestion that the issues we're going to mention are unique to our community, that we have a monopoly on these shortcomings. So I was hoping בלי נדר בעזרת השם to discuss briefly two areas and then just to mention a third. The third is too big to really discuss even briefly, so maybe just to mention the third, but the first discuss briefly two areas. The first one is davening in our shuls. Whether it's the pace at which davening goes. Now, it's understood that there's going to be a spectrum for what the optimal pace is to daven with optimal kavanah, and for some people relatively speaking it's going to be a little bit quicker and for some people relatively speaking it's going to be a little bit slower. But what we're talking about are the express train minyanim. I don't think the phenomenon needs description, needs to be belabored. So whether it's the pace, whether it's the nonchalance of coming late and leaving early, it's very troubling and it touches, not surprisingly given the centrality of tefillah, it touches on two major areas of concern. When the Rambam at the end of the Moreh addresses his talmid and says, I'm going to now give you practical guidance how to cultivate a sense of שויתי ה' לנגדי תמיד, how to maintain a constant... the awareness of Hakadosh Baruch Hu to be focused upon Hakadosh Baruch Hu. He says it begins with davening. He says first thing you should do is in davening, don't be content with having kavana in the bracha of avos. It's been pointed out that this Rambam in the Moreh is a kasha on Rav Chaim in the sefer in terms of Rav Chaim's mahalach in the Rambam in Hilchos Tefilla. Don't be content, the Rambam writes, with having kavana for avos, but try to sustain it for the rest of Shmoneh Esrei. And from there, try to sustain it for all of Krias Shema, not just pasuk rishon. And everything moves forward from that. But the lynchpin for a sense of שויתי ה לנגדי תמיד for Hakadosh Baruch Hu's presence being something that one is meaningfully mindful of begins with davening. And מכלל הן אתה שומע לאו, even when we don't leave before the final Kaddish, but we do make sure to have wrapped up our tefillin and folded our tallis so that we can leave the very second the last, and make our way to the door so that when the last Amein is there, so we're out the door. It both seems to reflect and if it doesn't initially reflect, it rachmana litzlan then instills, I don't know, a discomfort with being in the presence of Hakadosh Baruch Hu without anything else to do other than being in the presence of Hakadosh Baruch Hu. And that's something that again we show up late for, we can't leave quickly enough. And the tefilla itself, again, is that true of every minyan, every shul, rachmana litzlan? Of course not. But the problem is a problem that exists and it's so central for that reason. One wonders if this is the pshat in Magen Avraham famously as you all know quotes from the Zohar Hakadosh, what the source for our minhag of Tikkun Shavuos is that by Matan Torah, so the Jews were sleeping. When it came in the morning for Kabbalas HaTorah, so you can't use your phone to set an alarm on Yom Tov, so everyone was sleeping. Everyone oversleeping Matan Torah. So what does that mean? So being asleep is a way of tuning things out. So that moment where a person is unmediated directly with Hakadosh Baruch Hu, there's a tendency to run away from those moments. But that's the eternal condition of Olam Haba, whatever else Olam Haba is, that is the eternal condition of Olam Haba. And it's certainly something that we're supposed to be developing in Olam Hazeh. You know, when soldiers train, so they always train in conditions that look to simulate what rachmana litzlan would be the conditions of war. So if the war's gonna be fought in desert terrain, so they have to train under those, under those conditions. So עולם הזה דומה לפרוזדור, so we're supposed to be developing those abilities that are going to be drawn upon in the Olam Ha'emes. And it is being with Hashem in a direct unmediated way. And that's again why the Rambam begins with tefilla in the regimen of cultivating שויתי ה לנגדי תמיד. There is I think a fundamental... There is I think a fundamental dimension of halacha that also goes unappreciated again not just in terms of tefillah in terms of halacha in a more macro sense that goes unappreciated in the way we don't relate to davening and and maybe to introduce it from a context other than tefillah so we're all familiar with the meimar Chazal
מכאן אמרו כל המתאבל על ירושלים זוכה ורואה בשמחתה ושאינו מתאבל על ירושלים אינו רואה בשמחתה
but the mikan amru when you look it up in the גמרא תענית דף ל is an abbreviated synoptic form of what the chachamim say more expansively is
כל העושה מלאכה בתשעה באב ואינו מתאבל על ירושלים אינו רואה בשמחתה
then they don't simply say כל שאינו מתאבל על ירושלים but the meimar Chazal begins
חכמים אומרים כל העושה מלאכה בתשעה באב ואינו מתאבל על ירושלים אינו רואה בשמחתה
why is that so crucial so the question that we all grapple with that as a leitmotif recurs throughout the running commentary on kinos is how to be mitabel al Yerushalayim if we don't connect to churban and of course we we should be looking and striving to answer that question on the experiential level but the most basic and maybe most important answer to that question is the following if a person maintains throughout the 24 hours of Tisha B'Av koved rosh his mood is somber throughout the day in the morning he comes to shul he sits on the floor sits on the floor with all the discomfort that that engenders and has his kinos and tries to thoughtfully say kinos even if he doesn't shed a tear for Beit HaMikdash even if inwardly he doesn't have this sense of being bereft he has been mitabel al Yerushalayim he's been mitabel al Yerushalayim the fact that the person again takes this day out of his schedule puts all of life on hold maintains this somber mood denies himself he's mima'et b'chvodo uv'hanaso as Tosafos quotes and makes an effort makes an effort so that's why when Chazal are depicting someone who's אינו מתאבל על ירושלים they don't just say אינו מתאבל על ירושלים initially they say כל העושה מלאכה בתשעה באב ואינו מתאבל על ירושלים no he's not there isn't there's a feeling of aveilus and there's conduct of aveilus he's not even engaging in the conduct of aveilus you know in the Haskalah so one of the one of the distortions that the Haskalah propagated was that the halachic centered character of Yahadus and then within halacha halacha's emphasis on external action rachmana litzlan it points to guf bli neshamah. And that was the distortion, that was the excuse for abandoning. So there are many relevant responses, many relevant perspectives, the fact that halacha, the Machaber paskins that mitzvos tzrichos kavanah means that whatever objective external performance is needs to be accompanied by subjective internal religious feeling. The perspective the Nefesh HaChaim provides how the effect of mitzvos depends upon the action of the mitzvah, that it doesn't matter what your kavanos are if you press the button for the ignition, so then the car is going to start and what you're doing is meaningful because of how the system has been designed. And that kayaduah is how the Nefesh HaChaim explains that tikkun olamos hinges on the actions that we perform. The Rav in several places in his writings he talks about how and why the Torah, halacha distrusts pure subjectivity. He also goes on in a limited way in Halakhic Man and more broadly elsewhere to talk about how halacha, mitzvos represent the objectification of religious belief and feeling. He illustrates it in Halakhic Man with how the concept and the mitzvah of teshuvah reflect and objectify a halakhic conception of time, but then elsewhere outside of Halakhic Man he broadens it to how halacha is an objectified subjectivity in terms of religious emotion as well. And all of that is emes veyatziv and kodesh kodashim. But there is another perspective as well in terms of why halacha is so focused on the action. And that's what we're talking about now. Tosafos famously in Bava Basra says that when the Gemara says there are gimel aveiros that people are nichshal on every day, one of them being iyun tefillah and Tosafos says it means that einam mechavnim karaui in tefillah, and then Tosafos says take it with however you like but the lashon is so powerful however you choose to take it that אין שום אדם יכול לכוון בתפילתו the way one should. And then Tosafos quotes the Yerushalmi. The Yerushalmi says that I'm machzik tova to my head that when I get up to Modim so my head of its own accord bows down. So to sustain a feeling of lifnei Hashem is something that not only our ADD generation struggles with, but clearly goes back to the times of Chazal. I don't know, and one assumes, I hope this isn't only wishful thinking, that when we get up to Shamayim that that's somewhat of a mitigating factor. The Rema famously paskins that even though the halacha strictly speaking is if a person davened and wasn't mechaven libo that he's supposed to chozer umispalel. So the Rema paskins that idna ein chozrin. We're not chozrin because it'll probably be the same thing the second time around. So one hopes that the universality of the struggle and the fact that it's something which does seem to be embedded, the roots of that struggle seem to be embedded in human nature somehow. But there's a feeling of lifnei Hashem and then there's conduct of lifnei Hashem. The feeling of lifnei Hashem requires this tremendous discipline of mind of thought, which is the most challenging for us. The conduct of lifnei Hashem just requires the discipline of behavior, which none of us really think is too challenging or or beyond us. It's it's remarkable that the Mishna says כל העושה תפילתו קבע אין תפילתו תחנונים. The Gemara in Berachos has four different interpretations of what it means כל העושה תפילתו קבע. First of those four is that domeh alav kumasui. That's it. That's it. What's remarkable is how the Rambam, how and where the Rambam quotes this lehalacha. So beginning initially in the middle of a halacha, the Rambam says
לא יעשה תפילתו כמי שהיה נושא משאוי ומשליכו והולך לו.
Right, if you're if your knapsack is very heavy, so as soon as you get into the house you you drop it right away until your mother tells you, \"Don't leave it right in the door because someone's going to trip over it,\" but the the instinct is that that you drop the knapsack immediately. It's it's too heavy, it's too overbearing. לפיכך צריך לישב מעט אחר תפילה ואחר כך יפטר. But what's striking is now to go back to the beginning of the halacha, the Rambam writes keitzad hi hakavana. שיכוון את ליבו שיפנה את ליבו מכל המחשבות. A person should empty his mind, lev in the Rambam often means mind,
שיפנה את ליבו מכל המחשבות ויראה עצמו כאילו עומד לפני השכינה. לפיכך צריך לישב מעט קודם התפילה כדי לכוון את ליבו ואחר כך יתפלל בנחת ובתחנונים.
And then the Rambam continues with the line we just read, לא יעשה תפילתו כמי שהיה לו משאוי. The Rambam says that the din of how I leave shul after davening, there's it's in the same sentence as the din of kavana bisfilla because it's in... if if one's tefila was really lifnei Hashem, so it can't be that a person runs out. The conduct of running out, which again reflects that it's domeh alav kumasui, is entirely and totally antithetical to having had a kavana of lifnei Hashem in tefila. It's not... and it's more than that it contradicts what a person did. It's magaleh, it's הוכיח סופו על תחילתו. If a person can run out from davening, I'm not talking about amol, amol things happen. Although I think for big big ba'alei avoda, big big ba'alei madreiga, that doesn't happen amol either. But let's talk on on our level. I'm not talking about, you know, it happens. But but if there's any kind of pattern to it, if there's any kind of consistency to it, it's not that that when I run out of shul that that contradicts my Shemoneh Esrei, it's הוכיח סופו הוכיח על תחילתו. It couldn't have been lifnei Hashem because lifnei Hashem... \"Sorry, Ribbono Shel Olam, I don't have time, I'm busy.\" So I think there's going to be a defense for why we struggle with maintaining a feeling, a thought, a mental awareness of lifnei Hashem, which is not to say we should be complacent about it, which is not to say that we shouldn't be looking to improve. But I don't know of any defense for why there isn't the conduct of lifnei Hashem. Just as on Tisha B'Av, is is it hard to have the feeling of aveilus? It is. But that's why when Chazal critiqued some who's אינו מתאבל על ירושלים, so they first prefaced ha'oseh melacha. And then the Baraisa concludes tanya nami hachi. The Oz VeHadar says not everyone has tanya nami hachi, but some do. The the Gemara then concludes tanya nami hachi after saying that kol ha'oseh melacha.
כל העושה מלאכה בתשעה באב ואינו מתאבל על ירושלים אינו זוכה בשמחתה.
So tanya nami hachi:
כל האוכל בשר ושותה יין בתשעה באב עליו הכתוב אומר והתהי עונותם על עצמותם.
Again it's the same thing. The indictment, the indictment is reserved for when we don't even maintain the conduct of aveilus. The indictment isn't for when we didn't successfully experience the feeling of aveilus. And the same is true and and that's one of the sort of perspectives on this issue that the maskilim raised is aderaba. Halacha is never guf beli neshama because even if we're sitting on the floor in Tisha B'av and not feeling something, the neshama is that we're we're actively showing the the fact that we conduct ourselves, that we're committed to and that we're conducting ourselves with the chumre d'bei in Tisha B'av that gufeh provides part of the nishmas hadavar. And the fact that that if a if we'll come to shul, so maybe again I don't mean to be complacent about this, I don't mean to to give us a pass on on cultivating kavanah, none of the above chas v'shalom, but if we'll come to shul and and chosh the conduct is lifnei Hashem, so that gufeh provides part of the neshama of what we're doing. And that is easily within hasag yad. Okay that was one area. Okay we'll fast forward a year and and look at a concept again and and we'll touch on another area. There is there is a lot of wealth in our community. Not not uniformly spread around, but there is there is a lot of wealth in our community. And I'm not sure to what extent people who who've been given the blessing of that nisayon are grappling with or those of us who try to teach Torah, you know the onus is on us, to what extent we are are trying to provide guidance for what does the blessing of wealth obligate a person and what is it mechayev? So on the one hand, the Rambam writes in Hilchos De'os in perek hey:
צוו חכמים בדרך ארץ שלא יאכל אדם בשר אלא לתיאבון שנאמר כי תאוה נפשך לאכל בשר. דיו לברי לאכל בשר מערב שבת לערב שבת ואם היה עשיר כדי לאכל בשר בכל יום אוכל.
So what this halacha emblematically represents is that there certainly is b'middah u'b'mishkal. It is legitimate if someone is blessed with wealth that that person lives a different standard of living than someone who doesn't have it. So it's not as if we're saying that that everything about a person's life who's been blessed with with wealth to whatever degree that that every everything he does it it should never be discernible. No so again what this So it's not as if we're saying that everything about a person's life who's been blessed with wealth to whatever degree that everything he does should never be discernable. No. So again what this halacha represents is that that's not the case. There certainly are legitimate legitimate ways to enjoy and to live a higher standard of living. Mei'idach gisa and so for its representative value, the Gemara in Kesuvos, בראשונה היתה הוצאת המת קשה לקרוביו יותר ממיתתו. That they used to bury, not the way we do today, the type of tachrichim that we use today, they used to bury in silk and very, very expensive tachrichim. And this created a social pressure so those who were wealthy could afford it, they could easily afford to spend that money on hotza'as hameis and they did so, but it created a tremendous social pressure for those who couldn't afford to, עד שמניחין אותו ובורחין. So they would abandon the meis, rather than come up short of societal expectations in terms of how they would malbish the meis, so they would abandon the meis.
עד שבא רבן גמליאל ונהג קלות בעצמו והוציאו בכלי פשתן ונהגו כל העם אחריו להוציא בכלי פשתן.
Until Rabban Gamliel left a tzava'ah as to how he should be buried, and that set the standard. So clearly in this context, the fact that one can afford to do something and hey, it's my money, I'm not taking anyone else's money to do it, that isn't legitimate. So what are legitimate uses of wealth, what are not? And the other crucial, crucial question in dealing with this area of again the challenges of wealth, challenges which I don't think have yet been successfully met. How much money is a person allowed to have in the bank? Parts of, not all of it, but parts of the world at large, not our world, not the Jewish world, very taken by the fact that the world now has its first trillionaire. But it's obvious that our perspective on that is that that's the ultimate indictment. For a person to have a trillion dollars in the bank when people are starving, when people are homeless, so that's not a badge of honor, that's a badge of shame. But where does one draw the line? Where does one draw the line in terms of, I want to save money to set my kids up. Is it equally legitimate that I also want to save part of my fortune to set my grandchildren up? Where is the line to be drawn? So the issue of wealth and how the blessing of what the blessing of wealth is mechayev in is one that needs to be grappled with. Maybe just to offer some preliminary thoughts on that, in addition to what the Gemara in Kesuvos illustrates as that even if a person can afford it, he's not allowed to spend money in a way that creates societal pressures that others who are less blessed in this area. The other two considerations are, some spending is just wasteful, just incredibly wasteful. When you come into a wedding and literally as you enter the hall, there are people standing with glasses of champagne so that you should have the possibility of having a glass of champagne within five seconds of entering the hall. But if it was Coke Zero you could convince me. But if it's... But if it's going to be champagne, then if I don't know, talk about conspicuous consumption and wasteful spending, and it's clear what drives it. It doesn't matter, you know, you can have a trillion dollars in the bank, I think one is going to have to give a din vecheshbon for why those dollars went to such wasteful spending as opposed to tzarchei amcha merubim. You know, very few tzedakos are overfunded, very few yeshivas have such deep endowments. So that's another type of spending where the fact that one has the money, I don't think justifies the spending. And the other consideration is, and again in here one has to figure out where you draw the line between this and the Hilchos Deos. So this is more, again, schematically framing questions than providing answers. You know, the Chovos HaLevavos writes that ahavas olam hazeh, and what he means by ahavas olam hazeh means the physical, not the Vilna Gaon's love of olam hazeh that you can do mitzvos and avodas Hashem, he's not talking about the Vilna Gaon's ahavas olam hazeh. Ahavas olam hazeh of the physical pleasures, etc., can no more coexist with ahavas olam haba, ahavas Hashem, than fire and water can coexist. The other constraint in terms of how one spends and on what one spends, even when, you know, the budget is seemingly limitless, is that one's not supposed to lead a megusham-dike existence. The fact that a person can write the check to pay the bills for it, but the person is not supposed to lead a megusham-dike existence. At a certain point, you know, דירה נאה מרחיבה דעתו של אדם and kemedumeh that part of dira na'a is space, which allows for quiet and reflection and learning and thinking and everything which is so important. But at a certain point the house becomes bigger than just what's needed for harchavas hadaas. At a certain point, I don't know what the square footage is, I don't know, but at a certain point the house becomes something which is more reflective of a megusham-dike existence than it is of Chazal speaking of harchavas hadaas. Shelo kaseder, I'm sorry, when we were talking on the first point in tefilla, I had wanted to mention also in terms of how the halacha's emphasis on objective performance is something that uplifts what we do. So, you know, the famous Meshech Chochma on becharbi uvkashti is a very relevant mareh makom in this context. So he begins by quoting the targum betzalosi uvaosi. And the Meshech Chochma teitches as follows as you know:
צלותי הוא סדר תפילה הקבוע. ובעותי הוא בקשה שאמרו אם רצה אדם לחדש בתפלתו מעין כל ברכה שואל אדם צרכיו.
Okay, so tzelosi is the seder tefilla we have, the matbeia habracha from Anshei Knesset HaGedola. And uva'osi is the personal bakasha that a person is invited to add. V'hinei hanafka mina:
סדר תפילה שזו עבודה קבועה אין הכוונה מעכב. ואם כיון לבבו באבות סגי ובכוונה מועטת סגי.
The very fact that this is something kavua makes it meaningful and that I'm engaging it even if I don't infuse it the way I should with kavana.
לא כן בחידוש שמבקש אדם. הבקשה החדשה צריכה להיות בכוונה מופלגת.
And that's what he says, that the seder t'fila keva is compared to the cherev that you don't need to apply any force for the cherev, but the cherev will cut if it just makes contact, it's so sharp. Ma she'kein the keshet, it's only the force that a person infuses into the bow and arrow that gives it any standing. Okay, those are the two areas, and then and with this I'll stop. The third area that I want to mention, just maybe I'll frame it with an anecdote. I don't think it was the same day, but it was pretty close together here this summer. So the first was an NCSYer, the second one was a madrich. So the NCSYer came and, you know, told me he lives in a certain community, I don't think the name of the community should be mentioned because it would unfairly single out the community and what we're talking about I think is bigger than any one community. And he said, you know, we're told that we live by the hashkafa of Rav Soloveitchik or other descriptions of it, and he said, and we have no idea in the world what that means. So would you be willing to give us some chavrusas on what that means? So at the time I had no voice, so it was, you know, I told him, you know, hopefully בלי נדר עוד חזור למועד and he taki followed up. He came again the other day and bli neder I do hope to maybe sit down with that group of boys. Then I think maybe it was a day or two later, this was one of the madrichim came. I can't repeat what he said. He's currently outside of the YU orbit in terms of where where he's learning, and I'm not saying this by way of criticizing him, it was his way of presenting the question, repeated some, I don't know, I thought this had ended already but I guess not, repeated some vile criticisms of the Rav that he was being fed and wanted to know, you know, what the response to that was. I also had no voice at that point. I think what those two anecdotes, again, individually and combined, reflect is that we're not doing enough to A, clearly teach, explain, articulate what the pillars of our worldview are and how they translate and how they express themselves, and B, the basis, the halakhic basis for those various pillars and why it's so compelling. And I think that accounts for the phenomenon that a lot of, many many, I don't know what the numbers are, I can't, I won't venture guesses what percentages are, but many, and therefore by definition too many, don't continue on on that path, they don't raise their children on that path, and the hashkafa doesn't get transmitted to future generations. That doesn't really lend itself towards brief discussion, so I just mention that by way of תן לחכם ויחכם עוד. Thank you.