rabbisakhai

Hidden Emotions

"If a man shall steal an ox or a sheep or a goat, and slaughter it or sell it, he shall pay five oxen in place of the ox, and four sheep in place of the sheep." (21:37)

We are all sensitive, easily hurt and embarrassed.

Sometimes we subconsciously cause ourselves deep self-inflicted emotional wounds. Ironically, however, exactly what we think is the cure for our unhappiness can actually be the cause of our malaise.

In this week’s Torah portion there is a law that on the surface is very puzzling. Someone who steals an ox has to pay back five oxen, but someone who steals a sheep has to pay back four sheep. Our Sages teach us that The Torah has concern even for the self-respect of a thief. Stealing a sheep requires the thief to carry the animal across his shoulders, which is most undignified, and so if he is caught, he only to pay only four sheep, whereas stealing an ox only requires the thief to lead the animal by a rope, which isn’t embarrassing, and so the greater penalty for stealing an ox is five oxen.

So, in reality, a sheep-stealer shouldalso pay back five sheep, but seeing as he has already suffered severe humiliation, the Torah considers that he has already paid part of his penalty. It must be then that his humiliation is not something abstract, but it is so great as to be quantifiable in money.

This is rather strange. Because were we to approach the thief at the scene of the crime and suggest to him that he must be experiencing the most terrible humiliation and emotional angst, he would almost certainly reply:

"You must be joking! I’m getting away with a sheep! You know what this is worth?!"

And yet the Torah, which sees to the very deepest levels of a person’s psyche, tells us that the thief is in point of fact suffering great humiliation, equivalent to the payment of money – otherwise how could his penalty have been thus reduced?

The fact of the matter is that at the moment of the theft, the theft does feel a tremendous depression and sense of disgrace. He feels cheap. He experiences emotional trauma. And yet he has no idea why he should feel this way. And thus he carries on stealing and stealing and causes himself more and more emotional angst, thinking that another ‘job’ will get him out of his emotional slump. And so the vicious circle spirals down and down.

Only by observing the Torah can one be truly happy in this world, because only the Designer understands the true nature of His creations, and only He knows what makes one happy and sad. Only G-d knows which actions a person should stay away from and which he should embrace to live a rich, happy and fulfilled life.

• Source: Adapted from Chidushei HaLev

An Acquired Taste

"Moshe caused Yisrael to journey from the sea of Reeds…" (15:22)

They say that oysters are an acquired taste. They must be. The thought of swallowing (you don’t eat oysters, you swallow them) what looks like a two inch disk of rubber with the odoriferous bouquet of an ancient sea-wreck must, I’m sure, take some acquiring.

There are some tastes, however, that require absolutely no acquiring whatsoever.

In the above verse, Rashi comments that Moshe caused the Jewish People to journey against their will. Let’s picture the scene. The Egyptian army is lying scattered across the seashore. The Egyptians had crowned their horses with ornaments of gold and silver and precious stones. The Jewish People were busily gathering these jewels from the sea. Even before Moshe moved them on, the treasure that they amassed from the seashore was greater than the treasure collected when they left Egypt. The seashore probably looked like someone had raided all the storefronts on Fifth Avenue, including Tiffany and Cartier, and dumped it all on the beach. It’s not surprising Moshe had to drag them away from such a bonanza.

What is strange is that in last week’s Torah portion (11:2) G‑d asked Moshe to tell the Jewish People to ask the Egyptians to give them their valuables. For unless they did so Avraham would have a grievance against G-d. G‑d had promised Avraham to bring out his progeny from the slavery of Egyptwith great wealth. If G-d asked Moshe to make sure the Jewish People took from the Egyptians, the implication is that without this chivvying, the Jewish People would not have asked the Egyptians for anything at all.

So how come a few days later the reluctant and retiring Jewish People are all over the beach scrabbling for jewelry? What happened to their diffidence?

It’s amazing how some tastes take absolutely no acquiring whatsoever!

• Source: Rabbi Dovid Orlofsky

The Big League

"Moshe replied to G-d, ‘Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and that I should take the Children of Yisrael out of Egypt?" (3:11)

The lights of Chanuka have faded into darkness. The dreidel lies motionless in the glass-fronted cabinet in the living room. What have we taken with us from those Chanuka lights?

Surely one of the most important lessons that we can learn from Chanuka is that we are capable of rising to great heights if we really believe in what we are doing. Even the might of an empire cannot stand in the way of someone who is prepared to give up his life for what he believes.

About sixty years ago in a dark horse stable in Auschwitz, a handful of girls gathered around some hastily-prepared Chanuka candles. Soon the group grew in size, and the light spread over the entire barracks. In a few minutes several hundred Jewish women were singing the immortal song of contempt for all the tyrants of history:“Moaz Tzur Yeshuati…" After they had finished the song, they listened quietly to words of Torah filled with trust in the ultimate vindication of G-d’s actions.

Who were the girls that organized that Chanuka in hell? They were pupils of a school in Tarnow founded by an unassuming seamstress named Sarah Shenirer.

Sarah Shenirer was born in 1883 in Krakow, Poland, which was then part of the Austrian Empire. At that time there was no formal system of education for Jewish girls and Sarah was educated in a Polish public school.

Sarah saw all around here the ravages of the so-called "Enlightenment" on the Jewish woman. Jewish girls were well versed in the latest in Polish poetry, but disdained their own traditions and religion. Yiddish was an embarrassment to them. A question in Yiddish would be answered in Polish. Sarah Shenirer saw a terrible lacking in the education of Jewish girls. Their brothers were shielded by their immersion in Torah, but for the girls, there was little or nothing to fend off the blandishments of secularism.

Meanwhile, World War I broke out, and Sarah, together with a stream of refugees, left for Vienna. On Shabbat Chanuka, Sarah went to the Shtumper Street Synagogue and heard an address by Rabbi Dr. Plesh that summoned her to her life’s task.

Rabbi Dr. Plesh spoke of Mattityahu and the Chashmonaim; of Chana and her seven sons; of Yehudit. A history of dedication and self-sacrifice.

She returned to Krakowfull of enthusiasm. With nothing more than faith in G-d and a burning desire to serve Him as best she could, Sarah opened a school for little girls. She rented two rooms; one served as a"tailor shop," where she "sewed clothes for the body," and in the other she set up a new kind of "shop" where she began to "sew clothes for young souls." Secular studies might beguile the mind, but only Torah andmitzvot can nourish the Jewish soul.

She wrote to her brother, a Belzer Chassid living in Czechoslovakia, about her undertaking. At first he ridiculed her. However, when she insisted that nothing would stop her, he invited her to come to Marienbad. He wrote, "The Belzer Rebbe is here and we shall ask him."She invested her last pennies in the trip. Her brother wrote a note to the Rebbe: "My sister wants to educate B’not Yisrael in the spirit of Judaism and Torah." The Rebbe replied with two very important words: "Beracha Ve’hatzlachah!" (Blessing and Success!) Those two words gave her all the impetus she needed. And one might add that, at the time, this was the only help she received.

Thus, with twenty-five children whom she had prevailed upon her customers to entrust to her, the Beth Jacob Movement was born.

At first, Sarah’s school provoked contemptuous dismissal as the "undertaking of the seamstress." However, the educational results of her new school very soon spoke for themselves. The parents of Sarah Shenirer’s pupils saw a new spirit in the hearts of their children. Sarah Shenirer’s pupils spoke differently from the pupils of the Polish schools. They did not speak with arrogance and defiance. They showed respect to their parents. They wanted to go to shul with their parents. They asked whatberacha (blessing) to recite for this or that. They were keen to hear stories about the Tzaddikim and the pious.

Sarah Shenirer almost single-handed revolutionized the education of a generation. And all this by a seamstress whose formal education ceased at the age of 13. When she passed away, more than 200 schools had been established attended by some 25,000 students all over Eastern and Central Europe. The Beit Yaakov network of schools has grown exponentially, and is today, the backbone of Torah education for girls.

Very often we are our own greatest enemies. How often do we hear the little voice that says, "You belong in the little league." "You can’t do it." "Who do think you are?" "You’re way out of your league!"

In truth, we possess enormous untapped resources. Every one of us is a gold mine that goes down to the depths, but we don’t see it. We see the virtues of others, but because we see ourselves from close up, sometimes we suffer from myopia when it comes to our own virtues.

When G-d told Moshe to take the Jewish People out of Egypt, he said "Who am I?" Rashi explains Moshe meant "Am I important enough to speak with kings?" The negative drive in our heart says "Who are you? Who are you fooling?"

We must know that if we sincerely desire to do something, then, with the help of G-d, the sky’s the limit. Apart from our hidden resources, apart from the qualities that we possess and of which we are ignorant, we should always remember that G-d runs the world. If G-d decides that He wants us to achieve something, however far above our capabilities, we can raise ourselves above not only what we believe we can do, but even what we actually can do.

Only G-d decides who gets into the big league.

G-d’s Witnesses

"And Yehuda approached him." (44:18)

A tramp standing by a traffic light. Suddenly, a big Rolls Royce limousine about half a block long pulls up right next to him. The tramp stands immobile and somewhat alarmed. One of the tinted windows in the back of the limo rolls down with an expensive electronic purr. From inside the car emerges a hand wearing a white cotton glove. The hand is waving a crisp $20 bill. Silently the gloved hand beckons to the tramp with the money. Like a silent Charlie Chaplin comedy, the tramp does a double take, looks behind him, convinced that the hand must be beckoning to someone standing behind him. Then he realizes the $20 bill is for him. The tramp cannot believe his luck. He beams from ear to ear, and back again, walks up to the hand, and takes the money. Just as quietly and mysteriously as it arrived, the Rolls Royce glides away from the sidewalk and is soon lost in the traffic. The tramp stands there gazing after it for a long time.

The next day, the Rolls-Royce again draws up next to him. This time, the tramp is somewhat less surprised but no less grateful. Overjoyed, he again takes the money.

The next day the same thing happens, and the next and the next and the next…

This goes on for a month.

One day, the Rolls Royce draws up at the lights but the window doesn’t go down. After a few seconds the tramp knocks on the glass, but it doesn’t go down. So he knocks harder and then starts to shout, "Where’s my twenty dollars! Where’s my twenty dollars!"

Gratitude is proportionate to the extent that we understand that we received something that wasn’t our due. If we think that something is due to us, why should we be grateful?

"And Yehuda approached him."

The name Jew comes from the name Yehuda. We are Yehudim or Jews. We are not called Jews by coincidence. In Hebrew, a name defines the very essence of a thing. If the name Yehuda means to thank, that must be the essence of being Jewish – that’s our name. We are the ‘thankers.’ The Hebrew for "to thank" is l’hodot. However, there is another meaning to the word l’hodot. It can also mean "to admit." What’s the connection between giving thanks and admitting?

To the extent that we admit we received something and we really didn’t deserve it, to that same extent will be our gratitude and to that degree we will give thanks.

"And Yehuda approached him."

We are Jews because we thank G-d for everything we have, however big or small. A Jew admits that everything comes from G-d. That is how Yehuda – the Jewish People – are able to approach, to come close to G-d.

"And Yehuda approached Him."

The job of the Jewish people in this world is to be quite literally ‘G-d’s witnesses’. (Not to be confused with Brand X who would also like to claim this job as their own). The job of the Jewish People is to testify by the way we live our lives that there is a G-d in the world. As it is written: "You are My witnesses."

So if our job is to be the Witnesses, why are we called the Thankers, or the Admitters?

The foundation of all belief in G-d is to admit that life is one gigantic gift. If a person doesn’t feel that he was given anything, he will never look for G-d, he will never look further than his own nose.

If I sensitize myself to the gift I will sensitize myself to the Giver.

Atheism is not the root of ingratitude. Ingratitude is the root of atheism.