Today's Mussar Lesson

(Divrei Yonah - Reb Yonah Forst z"l,)

It seems like Reb Michoel Ber Weissmandl wasn't such a Satmarer after all, at least when it came to finding reason within some of the tragedies that the Jewish people bore witness to. While the Satmar Rebbe blamed the Tziyonim for all the ills that befell the Jewish People during WW2, since it was in essence a revolt against G-d, RMBW blamed even the anti-Zionists. He blamed the Yidden who weren't honest in their business dealings with Goyim, which is why they got what was rightfully theirs. The word scary comes to mind, since he's essentially excusing the looting and reacquisition of Jewish property done by the Poles, Magyars, Ukranians, Lithuanians and any other local Goy. I had this as a joke in private conversations, where people would say how the Goyim allowed for this to happen, but never as an official excuse by a Rov BeYisroel .

A free translation:

Reb Yonah says that we can be MeOrer those that are lenient with regards to Gezel Akum and To'us Akum, that although the Mogen Avrohom says that To'us Akum is Muttar, still it's not considered LoChem, yours. We can allude to what I heard from Reb Michoel Ber Zt"l when he tried to explain what happened in the last Churbon, that although the beginning of the Tzores was in Germany (birthplace of Reform - HT) and from it spread to other countries, still we see that the Yidden in Germany managed to save themselves and to a great extent their belongings and holdings as well, whereas in other countries, in those places all of the belongings and holdings eventually made their way to the local Goyim and to the German conqueror. - HT) Why was this?

RMBW said that the reason this happened was because the Yidden in Germany were honest in their business dealings with the Goyim, they didn't rob or steal, therefore the money and property that they had was really theirs, it wasn't attained by dishonest means, so there was nothing that belonged to the Goy. Whereas, in the other countries, where poverty was so great, the Yidden in those were Mattir for themselves to be "lenient" sometimes when it came to dealings with Goyim. Therefore when the Tzores started Hashem made it so that the property that was in Yiddishe Hent that should've belonged to the Goy returned to its "rightful owners!" - VeHadvorim Noroyim. Maybe we can say - says Reb Yonah - that this is what is alluded to when the Mogen Avrohom says that although To'us Akum is Muttar still it's not yours, LoChem, because in the end all that doesn't rightfully belong to you - that you didn't get via honest business practices, even if it was from a Goy - will be returned to its rightful owner.

From this we can see how careful we need in all of our business dealings, because we can never know what the end result can be, and in heaven there's a Cheshbon for everything.

Remembering...

Forst's Illustrated Haggadah, 1958

Siegmunt Forst - brother of Reb Yonah Forst - speaks about his post-War encounter with Reb Michoel Ber Weissmandl in New York. From Claude Lanzmann's Shoah Collection, 1985. It's not often that we hear such candid talk about the people and events of the time. From the US Holcaust Memorial Museum Website.

"Siegmund Forst introduces his illustrated Haggadah in the following way: "This . . . old Jewish book . . . speaks of sorrow and hope . . . It appears in contemporary dress, illustrated by one who himself has suffered the flames and escaped them" (1941). The central Jewish cultural conflict in these drawings lies between the Jewish socialist revolutionary and his elderly ultra-orthodox Eastern European forebearers.
In the 1958 version, the wise old man lives by his faith in God and the Torah but his age and his defensive posture reflect his threatened status in a changing world. He looks worriedly to Heaven for salvation. The wicked bespectacled, self-hating intellectual tramples the Torah displaying an adolescent resentment against the old, dying order. The simpleton dressed in a business suit and the child without questions wearing his American baseball cap provide an attentive audience. For Forst, the Jewish revolutionary has displaced the soldier as the representative of the wicked child. Forst did not see the socialists as a legitimate continuation of the Jewish ideal of liberation from bondage that was born in the exodus from Egypt.
In the 1959 version the wicked revolutionary who raises his ax against the Ten commandments resembles Leon Trotsky (Lev Bronshtein), a Marxist leader of the Bolshevik revolution (1917). The simple child is a sports fan who loves gambling and smoking, while the fourth child is a passive worker."
(From Here)

אותיות wanted

Speak to your average Litvak, even the upper crust guys, listen to him praise his teachers and the ones he admires, and you'll realize this: He has no shprach, no Osyos for what he's trying to convey. He'll use lots of cliches and catch phrases, like "Kulo Torah," or "ah shtik Torah," but what does that really mean? There are countless hours of interviews that some guy went around to a slew of talmidim of Lakewood until 1962 and got their impressions of their Rosh'shiveh. The conversations are just fine as long as they speak about themselves or can relate anecdotes about the RY. But none of them - and many are Rosh'shives themselves - can put the greatness of their Rosh'shiveh into Osyos. What I find most interesting is that many of these same people have gutte kep when it comes to dissecting a sugya, they're very smart, even in business matters despite never venturing into business themselves, but they cannot put ideas into words. In Reb Borech Ber's name they say "az s'felt in Hasboreh felt in Havoneh," but this is not so clear cut when it comes to identifying greatness, it's just that they lack the terminology, the vernacular, the lexicon; in other words, they lack Osyos.

Case in point: I asked our good friend Mr. Not Brisk, who is a very smart and observant fellow, about a term he used when referring to Yonah Minsker (Karpilov), HY"D, a prize talmid of the Mirrer Yeshivah, and one who was very admired by the late Brisker Rov. He called him "The Great," and I asked him why. He was "a tremendous masmid," he said, "dovuk in torah," he went on to say. "he was maymis atzmoh beOholei shel Torah, it bothered him immensely when he couldn't understand a tosfos," etc. When I asked him how that made him different from hundreds of others like him he began to get defensive and turned his attention to me. He had reached the pinnacle of hasboroh and was rendered speechless by an amateur like myself. He saw my questions as those of a "Lubavitcher who has no chashivus for Teyreh", doesn't appreciate it, has a different chinuch than his, which he says is also "kulo torah," and so on. "A Chabadsker who doesn't think that gadlus beTorah equals gadlus ho'Adam," is what I am, he says. It had to be that the prublem iz in mir, because every guy in Lakewood knows that Yayneh Minsker was great, and if I disagree then I must have no love for Torah. But what he failed to realize is that the chisoren iz in em, nisht in mir; he had failed to make his point, plain and simple. Using catch phrases and cliches only goes so far.

The truth that NB cannot be blamed. Like so many of us he was never taught to think or to elaborate on his thoughts. In many circles all that's needed is the look and the Reyd and you're good to go. As long as you stick to the circles you grew up in you're safe, nobody will ever challenge you to back up the claims you made. This is especially true in his circles, where any thought whatsoever is verboten. It didn't use to be this way, there used to be some Machshovoh in the Torah world, but that was outlawed, seemingly after the mashgichim of yesteryear passed on. The new regime saw any machshovoh as bittul teyreh, I guess. Maybe since so many in those circles are not Yotzei Lita, they have no mesorah of machshovoh, or maybe they're all Briskers, what do I know? Then again; Not Brisk is NOT A BRISKER, he should be able to open Reb Yeruchem's shmuessen and learn to think a bit, despite RY's fear of anything that shmekked a little bit like kabboloh. But maybe this is the only way; maybe the only way to continue in the Torah's ways is to throw away your thinking caps and stick with the gemoroh only, like they did in Marmures, and they had the numbers to prove that it worked like a charm...

Got 2 Days to Spare? See Historic Buffalo, NY!

There are those that have made it their life's work to travel around the US and Canada and visit the final resting places of righteous men that have long been forgotten and that have no lineage to speak of. Reb Yonah Landau is one such character. Despite the fact that he apparently visits Montefiore Cemetery in Queens and doesn't visit the 2 Rebbes buried there... One such forgotten Tzaddik is interred in Buffalo, NY and promised that anybody that would come to his Tziyun on his yahrtzeit - the 13th of Cheshvan - and present a request would have that wish granted within a year! Reb Eliyahu Yosef ben Reb Gedalia Aron was a ben-achar-ben of the Holy Baal Shem Tov and arrived on these shores waaaay back in 1897, thereby earning the title of "First Rebbe buried in America." The gentleman who took the pictures seems to have an ample amount of time to spare for such trips. I can only say "Ich bin ehm Mekane."


Looks like they figured for a Kleine Rebbe is genug a kleine ohel...


Very imaginative sign nusach composers...



Attention! אין means "in," און means "and." Don't they teach that in Cheder?!


Like I said, they weren't very gracious with the bricks back then...



Business is hopping!

בחדרי חרדים

די ווייטאג פון א אידישע טאטע

Note: The letter was written in response to recent discussions going on the phone line Kol Mevaser. Not that it matters, I'm just giving you a heads up so you don't me who it was that was talking about Affordable Housing and where he was talking about it. "Reb Yonah Kohn" is the presenter on Kol Mevaser who speaks about "Ekonomishe Inyunim." The letter is that of a Yiddishe tatte who's had enough of the current setup, where thousands upon thousands of Yiddishe kinder are out there with no prospects of doing anything at all later in life. They're expected to raise large families, but do not have the means to do it.

Call 212-444-1100 and Mach a Leyben.

Growing up in Monsey

Shalom Auslander is a kid from Monsey who ran away from G-d. He sees G-d as many of us do, one who punishes and kills, but most of us try and appease him instead of running away. He chose the way of Yonah, but G-d hasn't sent the whale yet. It seems from him that what we say about the soul not allowing one to rest is true. See how tormented, and even obsessed, he is about being born to a frum family, and what he was taught in Cheyder in Monsey, it plagues him mercilessly and allows him no rest. I wonder if he'd been taught a bit differently, namely that G-d is not all about punishment and death, if he'd have turned out differently and even have made a positive difference to the Jewish community.

I Thank CE for sending me the link to his book of memoirs.