TAMMUZ-AV, 5734 JUNE, 1974 SIXTY FIVE CENTS

THE TAMMUZ-AV, 5734 I JUNE, 1974 VOLUME X, NUMBER 2 SIXTY FIVE CENTS

THE JEWISH

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JUNE, 1974 VOL. X, No. 2

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in this issue ...

A PATH THROUGH THE ASHES, from a lecture by H orav M ordechai Gift er................................................... 3

THE HOLOCAUST - IN THE LIGHT OF "SPARKS OF GLORY," Nasson Scherman................. 7

COMMUNICATION AND BEYOND - WHERE HUMANITY ENDS, Nissan Wolpin ................................. 13

TORAH PIONEERS, Chaim Shapiro.................................... 17

SECOND LOOKS AT THE JEWISH SCENE "Modern Orthodoxy" and Dialectical Jiujitsu ................... 22 Giving Up, Emanuel Feldman............................................. 26 A Chol Hamo'ed Lesson.................................................. 27

FEATHER AND FLESH, a poem by Ben Ephraim............. 28

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR............................................... 29

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A Path Through the Ashes Some Thoughts on Teaching the Holocaust

The following essay is based on an address delivered by Horav MORDECHAI GIFTER X"t:P?lll Rosh Yeshiva of Te/she-Wickliffe, Ohio, at a conference of Yeshiva Teachers, sponsored by Torah Umesorah.

"Emunah" and the Historical Continuum

IP RECEPTS OF JEWISH THOUGHT are closely tied to everyday realities. The individual Jew can strengthen his emunah and bitachon (belief and

trust in G-d) through the daily occurrences that befall him. However, primary means for the transmission of fundamental principles in emunah have been left undeveloped. Jewish history is such an uncharted field. Secular sources have been permitted to tread this land with familiarity and to interpret it with an assumed

Adapted for publication by R. ZIPSINfoR and N. WOLPIN

The Jewish Observer/ June, 1974

authority from their own perspective, while we have defaulted. We read their writings, accept their facts, and in the process, unconsciously become products of their outlooks. It is precisely in this field of Jewish History that a non-Torah orientation can be the most detrimental to Jewish thought.

We do, indeed, have an approach of our own: In Parshas lfa'azinu, a guide is given for the viewing and understanding of history from a true perspective: ... 1111 111 n11w lJ'J ; 0?1.Y n1ni il'.JT -

Remember days of yore, understand the years of every generation" (Devarim, 32:7). If one wishes to comprehend an event in history, one cannot look at it in the limited scope of the finite here and now; rather, one must understand the event as having a place in the sha/she/es ha'historia-the historical continuum. An historical occurence extends itself beyond the isolation of time and space, and reaches towards the past and the future, to acquire true significance. But one most invariably begin with Creation and the Creator. As the Vilna Gaon explained, to understand "the years of every generation," one must start with "remembering the days of yore"-the Six Days of Creation. For in those days lies the complete plan of the development of the universe and humankind in it. This, the Gaon taught, is the only way to understand history.

Secular sources view history in perspectives of their own, predicated on economic, social, and political prinR ciples. By contrast, the Torah directs us to view history as the unfolding of the Divine plan: History is the metamorphosis of man- through the stages of destruction and redemption, continuing toward his final redemption in the days of Moshiach. And all such events-the redemptions and the destructions-are perceived as fundamental testimony to the presence of G-d in this world, and are understood as experiential units in hashgacha p"ratis-the active force of the hand of G-d.

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Children of the Holocaust

REDEMPTION AND DESTRUCTION -familiar themes in Jewish history, and we, too, know them well. We, today, are all children of the

Holocaust. Some have lived through it and some were born after. But all of us are deeply affected by it. Yet, the Holocaust has been left untapped as a resource in the teaching and imbuing of emunah in the hearts of those who came after the Holocaust.

We are one generation removed, and this awesome occurrence somehow slipped out of the consciousness of most people. People forget-either due to preoccupation with daily matters, or because of inability to view the Holocaust in its true perspective and to reconcile it within themselves

We are late in dealing with the Holocaust. Chazal explain the corrosive effect time has on the experiential quality of an occurrence. A Midrash on Megillas Eichah (the Prophet Yirmiahu's Lamentations on the destruction of the Bais Hamikdosh) comments on the passuk:

':n:in 1<?1 ·n y?~ -Hashem destroyed without mercy." Chazal say that a hundred years after the Churban (destruction), Rabbi Y ochanan was able to explam this passuk in sixty different ways, whereas Rabbeinu Hakadosh, who lived one generation before him, was able to explain it in twenty-four ways. The Sages tell us that because Rabbeinu Hakadosh was one generation closer to the Churban, even though he did not live in the time of the Churban itself, he felt the intensity of the lamentation and the sorrow that much more deeply. After explaining the passuk in twenty-four different ways, he would break down and weep. He did not have the emotional stamina to continue. Rabbi Y ochanan, who lived one generation later, was that much more removed from the Churban and could therefore deal with it at greater length.

We are only one generation removed from the Churban of European Jewry, and yet the memory fades from our minds. Our emotional bankruptcy permits us to speak about it casually, in a detached manner, and even forget about it.

The "Churban" Fountainhead

W CANNOT PERMIT the Churban, which has estroyed so many of our people and so much f our spiritual life, to pass into oblivion. We

must reach out to it and grasp it before too much time elapses. Every detail is, of course, of utmost importance. But first, we must approach the entire concept of Churban at its harshest, and attempt to determine what it signifies in our relationship with G-d.

Truly understanding this most recent Churban does not begin with a particular event of a generation ago. It must begin with works written 2,500 years ago. Yirmiyahu the Prophet had written ?r.H1 1<?1 ·n y?~ regarding the destruction of the first Ba is H amikdosh. Yet, this passuk has been understood to extend beyond that Churban to include Churban in all times. The Chur-

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ban of the Bais Hamikdosh becomes the paradigm for all future Churbanos, and the Lamentations which the Navi wrote with Divine inspiration encompass all sorrow, pain and mourning. All cries of loss and despair are united: Chazal interpret Yirmiyahu's outcry of" n?1< ?y •i:J1J. iJx. - For these do I weep" as referring to events that occurred during the destruction of the Second Temple, even though the prophet lived at the time of the First Temple .. , , We lack the power to make Kinos of our own, so our lamentations find voice through the words of the Navi. His words are a vehicle for us to view and to understand the events of our time in the broad historical continuum, through an emunah perspective.

When referring to Tisha B'Av(the day the Temple was destroyed) the Prophet Yirmiyahu calls the day "Mo'ed" -a word that usually refers to festivals. The Telsher Rav, Horav Reb Avraham Yitzchak Block l"'" , explains that the word "Mo'ed is derived from the word Va'ad-appointment.* It is a time of appointment of Hashem with the world, when His greatness is manifested. This greatness can be seen from two aspects: through the miracles of redemption, joy and happiness - the exodus from Egypt; or through destruction, pain and sorrow - the exodus from Jerusalem, a destruction so great that it could only have been administered by Divine plan .. , two separate moments in the history of Kial Yisroe/: Ge'ulah and Churban - redemption and destruction. From the time the Second Temple was destroyed through the present, and on until the final redemption, we are caught in one long moment of "going out of Jerusalem," punctuated by especially harrowin.g experiences, such as the Holocaust.

"Churban" As a Father's Punishment

How DOES ONE approach these moments of anguish in the history of the Jewish People? What brings about this destruction? The Navi explains

that the exile from Jerusalem is a result of sin-in a relationship of crime and subsequent punishment-whether we understand the sin or not. Punishment is not brought without sin and there is no Churban that is not punishment.

However, we are deeply troubled: other nations also sin, and yet their punishment is not so severe. But, when other nations sin, their actions do not make the imprint on the universality of history that the deeds of Kial Yisroel do ( Midrash Eicho ), History is not impressed by insignificant individuals; only the great. Kial Yisroel occupies a central position in history - as the Am Hanivchar, whose chosenness is manifested through times of redemption and through times of destruction. Churban is testimony to the status of Bnai Yisroel as the Am Hanivchar. -An orphan grows up wild and uncared for ... he has no one to reprimand him and chastise him for his errant ways. Not so the child with parents. - The Churban should thus become a source of inspiration and

* Rabbi Gifter explained this more fully in JO, May, '74.

The Jewish Observer / June. 1974

encouragement for us. We are assured that we do have an Av Bashomayim (A Father in Heaven) who cares for us and is concerned enough with our spiritual status to demonstrate His disfavor.

During times of destruction, it is written "And G-d will cause your enemies to rejoice over you." It is not written that G-d is happy at the downfall of Kial Yisroel, for He only rejoices when he performs acts of kindness to Kial Yisroel. G-d weeps with us at times of destruction, as a father cries for the pain of his son upon whom he was forced to inflict a needed punishment. ... He is very much with us in our suffering, and in His presence he shares our sorrow.

The Prime Facet of"Churban"

CCHURBAN HAS MANY FACETS. When the European Kehillos were destroyed, all aspects of their lives were destroyed, too - the economic

life, social life, the organized structure of a thousand years' standing. We cannot begin to understand the extent of this Churban until we research extensively into Jewish life at that time. What was the Polish community like' What was the nature of the Lithuanian community? - the Hungarian? - the Kehi/los of Berlin, Warsaw, Pressburg, Kovno, Lemberg? When we have gathered the facts and have a real understanding of these communities, then we can realize the magnitude of the Churban. how deeply we suffered then and how deeply we still suffer today.

There is one aspect of the punishment, however, that is so sweeping that it is apparently without any element of mercy whatsoever - the destruction of the spiritual life in Europe. " ::ip:v' rmo 7::i l1K 7r.i11 1<?1 ·;i :v7::i Hashem destroys without mercy all the dwellings of Yaakov" - which the Midrash explains as "mKl

beauty of Yaakov," referring to the talmidie chachomim, the great Torah Sages, who lost their lives al kiddush Hashem. and the empires of Torah life that they had built. We weep at the uprooting of hundreds of years of spiritual growth, which was lost with their destruction, at the uprooting of the centuries of tradition and scholarship that had found its full flowering in pre-War Europe. The towering personalities who had led these spiritual empries had even more than yeshivas and kehil/os to their credit. These people were of pivotal importance to the spiritual development of the entire world. - The gaon and tzaddik Reb Daniel Movshavitz 7··1 of Kelm once pointed out that at the very same

time that the Vilna Gaon was studying Torah in Vilna and illuminating great Divine truths to the world, Emmanuel Kant was in Berlin-expounding on the truths attained by human thought. His truth was not arrived at through parlor discussions and street-corner arguments, but as a direct result of the study of the Gaon in a small, dimly-lit room secluded from the world. Through his study of Torah and his findings, vibrations of truth were created which penetrated the halls of learning in Berlin - making it possible for Kant to arrive at his

The Jewish Observer / June, 1974

"'The community was relocated in the Ghetto .... "

philosophical intellectualizations. Every truth in the world comes from the truth of Torah; every Torah scholar brings this into the world, making it more attainable to secular thinkers. These are people of historical significance, the leaders of Am Hanivchar, the "dwellings of Yaakov," the source of the inner splendor and glory of our people.

Thus the loss of Churban Europe was of a scope even broader than the Six Million kedoshim. With their death, great sources of truth also went up in smoke.

The Response to "Churban": The Faithful Do Not Ask

S OMETIMES CHURBAN REACHES such proportions that the fear is evoked that Hashem has turned away from us. We fear, not that

Hashem is smiting us too severely, but that He has abandoned us. . . . When the decree was issued for the slaughter of the "asarah harugei ma!chus" - the ten Rabbinical giants, including Rabbi Akiva and his colleagues - Rabbi Yishmael ascended to the heavens

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These are not isolated incidents. Each offers us a glimpse of Jewry in microcosm. . . . from what a man saw and heard in Warsaw , he understands Warsaw . ... the Kovno survivor understands Kovno. to inquire if this decree was indeed from Hashem. He was answered: "The decree has been issued from before Me. Go and accept it."

The fundamental concept of Churban is that it is a decree issued by Hashem for the achievement of an ultimate purpose. When one has become so overwhelmed by destruction that he feels Hashem has left him, he must not turn away from Torah in frustration and anger, but should turn to the Torah to seek reassurance that whatever occurs "has been issued from before Me."

In the early days of Hitler's rise to power, we were confused and frightened, not knowing what the next day would bring. Then, someone reprinted and distributed the comments of Reb Meir Simcha (of D'vinsk) on Bechukosai from his sefer Meshech Chochmo - his predictions of the great destruction that would emanate Jrom Berlin. The accuracy of his remarks was frightening - and yet reassuring . ... He was gone since 1925, but he had looked into the Chumash and he knew . ...

This essay from M eshech Chochmo should become part of every yeshiva's curriculum.*

The Nitra Rav, in a telegram to the Va' ad Hatzala of the Agudas Horabonim during World War II, remarked: For those who doubt and ask, there are no answers. For those who do not doubt, there are no questions.

From our vantage point, we must also respond to this terrible Churban with· o,,,, ,,~ ~Ill' - "Sit in loneliness and be silent." - not asking questions, but contemplating our condition. How lonely we are without feeling the reassuring presence o/Chasdei Hashem - His recognizable acts of kindness. But we must remember at the same time " ·;i o71J17 nlT' x? '~ - He will never forsake us forever." Thinking into the depth and breadth of this Churban - this in itself heightens one's understanding of this concept. For if 1"n Hashem would have forsaken us, this Churban could never have occurred. The Churban itself is evidence and testimony to the fact that "we have a Father in Heaven."

The Perspective: The World in an Incident

ALL THAT HAS OCCURRED has its place in the Divine plan of"Remember the days of yore." A whole world of facts lies in the events of this

Churban - and these facts are infinite in number. It is our duty to find pertinent facts and to collate the proper "' A translation was featured in JO, Oct., '73

6

material. The little that I know revealed entire worlds of insight to me ... random incidents that the children of the Telshe Rav related to me:

When the Nazi beat the Te/she Rav upon the head with hammer blows and taunted him: "Where is your G-d, Herr Rabbiner?", the Tels her Rav replied: "He is not only my G-d - He is your G-d; and the world will yet see this."

This was might and Kiddush Hashem . ... How would the others interpret his actions? - as a weakness? - for he did fight against his persecutors; he led no ghetto uprisings . ...

At the time when the Nazis took the Te/sher community to their intended slaughter al the lake nearby, the Te/sher Rav said in a drasha: "I/we will be scrupulous in kashrus, in Shabbos, in taharas hamishpacha (laws of family purity), the enemy will have no dominion over us." And from that day on -plans were changed and they were taken away from Te/z and were confined in a ghetto - the entire community suffered no harm until the first breach in kashrus.

-I ask you, do we have a "Tatteh in Himmel"? or were we abandoned?

When the Rav c·ou/d no longer stand on his feet, not having enough strength to carry even a Gemora, he directed his young daughter (the sons were gone) to take out the Gemora Sanhedrin, to open it up to the topic o/Kiddush Hashem, and lo begin reading.

. . Such was their preparation. -Are these cowards? or are these H iviJJ n:i 'i1:J:i.

,,~, " - valiant men of might performing His words? I see these events as Jewry in a microcosm - not just

isolated incidents that occurred in Teh .. But Telz is where I begin, and this is what I know of Telz. And just as Telzhad a brand of Kiddush Hashem all its own, so did Kovno .... So did Satmar and Pressburg .... So did Warsaw and Lemberg. But how does one discover the individuality of each community? Each person generalizes from his own experiences, from what he witnessed, from what he heard, to gain insight into the character of his particular community and its heritage. From what each saw and heard, a man from Warsaw understands Warsaw, the survivor of Kovno understands Kovno, and he who observed his own Rebbe could understand the strength of Reb Menachem Ziemba.

There is so much to be researched. And when this is done and collated, it must be taught through a perspective of emunah. Then, out of the Churban, children will emerge fortified, understanding the significance of the Tisha B'Av - Mo'ed as an encounter with G-d .... They will emerge fortified, understanding that "He will not forsake us" is indeed forever.

After all, we are dealing with but a moment in history, and all moments together lead up gradually to that final moment for which we all wait longingly - "When Shiloh will come." o

The Jewish Observer/ June, 19_74

N osson Scherman

An Understanding of the Holocaust • In the Light of the ''Sparks of Glory''

SPARKS OF GLORY, by Moshe Prager Shengold Publishers, N.Y.C. $5.95

MOSHE PRAGER is one of Jewry's most important and-in the English-speaking world-least known writers. He is recognized as Israel's leading authority on the Holocaust and Nazi anti-Semitism. A prolific writer, he has published eighteen works, nearly all of them on the World War II era, and his extensive scholarly analysis "Anti-Semitism in German Manifestation" in the Hebrew Encyclopedia (Israel's equivalent of the Brittanica) has survived twelve printings unchanged as the definitive work on the subject. Prager is editor of Bais Yaakov, the prestigious Orthodox monthly, and his byline is familiar to readers of various dailies around the world. His works have been translated into seven languages, but only now has he been published in English, the language spoken by more Jews than any other.

The English version ofNitzotzei G'vurah,first published in Israel in 1952, is called Sparks of Glory. Happily, the translation is very well done. The publisher, Shengold, in cooperation with the National Conference of Yeshiva Principals (an affiliate of Torah Umesorah), has prepared a quality production.

Historian of the Holocaust

MOSHE PRAGER, A w ARSAW JEW descended from the Chidushei Harim, was an established young journalist when World War II broke out. He

was one of the pillars of the Orthodox Jewish p_ress m Poland - an institution inspired by his cousm, the Gerrer Rebbe ZT"L, which served as a powerful educational and social force in restructuring the Torah community after the ravages and dislocations of World

The JeH'ish Observer / June, 1974

War I. With the Nazi invasion, Prager became a secret correspondent for the Joint Distribution Committee and convinced the American-based. organization that, as an agency under the legal protection of a still neutral power, it was in a unique position to carry on relief and hatzala operations. Meanwhile, the Gerrer Rebbe was the Germans' Public Enell)y Number One. Following their pattern wherever they conquered Jewish communities, the Nazis first tried to destroy the rehg1ous hfe of then-helpless victims by burning and pillaging synagogues and yeshivas, and killing, torturing; or. i_mprisoning the religious leaders. The Rebbe was m h1dmg from the Gestapo.

An old and intimate friendship with Stephan Porayski, director of the Warsaw Office of the Italian shipping firm Lloyd Triestino, made Prager a key figure in the attempt to smuggle the aged, ailing Rebbe out of Poland under the noses of the Gestapo. Prager approached Porayski asking him to arrange papers and passage. The Pole agreed, but only on the condition that Prager, too, accept a ticket to Palestine and save his ow_n life as well. He didn't want to leave his family, but his father and wife insisted that the rescue of the Rebbe was too vital a cause to be jeopardized by family considerations. If Porayski wanted Prager to go, then Prager would have to go. The miraculous rescue of the Gerrer Rebbe was accomplished and it became the subject of one of Prager's later books. The results of th~t daring feat are still unfolding in the rebirth of Ger m modern Israel, which began when the Rebbe arrived m Palestine.

RABB! SCHERMAN is principal of the Yeshiva Karlin-Stalin, Bro_oklyn, and edits OLOME!NU, Torah Umesorah's magazine for children. He is a frequent contributor to these pages.

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"A Personal Mission: To Record ... "

IPRAGER·s FAMILY WAS WIPED OUT in the Warsaw Ghetto, and it became a personal mission for him to salvage on paper the glorious

history of Eastern European Jewry. During the war years he began carving a significant niche for himself in Israeli society. He was a very rare combination: an unusual literary and journalistic talent; Chassidic Jew steeped in the fervor and philosophy of Ger; fighter in the Haganah; brilliant thinker; irresistible personality. He was perhaps the only one in the country who had entry without prior appointment to such disparate personalities as the sainted Gerrer Rebbe and secular political leaders like David Ben Gurion. He is still a close confidante of such key figures in the secular life of the land as Shimon Peres, and, over the years, he has used his influence to the benefit of the Torah community.

Ben Gurion saw him as the "symbol of the eternal Jew" and sought him out as a bridge to the Torah community. Prager was thus helpful in convincing Ben Gurion that no Jewish state could survive unless it recognized its link with history. To build a totally secular state, he argued, would be to build a society without roots; such a society would wither and die. Prager's role was thus as "midwife" of sorts in bringing about the agreement between the religious community, represented by Agudath Israel's Rabbi Yitzchak Meir Levine, and the Jewish Agency on behalf of the propos-

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ed State of Israel, guaranteeing official recognition of Shabbos. Kashrus, rabbinical control over personal status, and exemption of yeshiva students from conscription.

The Nazis: More Than Race Hatred

IT TWAS IN WARSAW UNDER THE NAZIS that Prager began to realize the underlying motive behind the Germans' sadistic brutality to the

Jews: race hatred, to be sure; but more: the hatred of what the Jews represented as a spiritual force, as well. He began to understand this as a result of incidents like the following:

Prager was leaving Joint headquarters when he saw a Jew, an ordinary "amcho" man, walking down the street as if he were in great pain. The man was badly bruised and Prager took him into the building to ask him what was wrong and to see if he could be of assistance.

"It's nothing," the man said. After much coaxing, he told Prager his story. He

was. walking down the street when two German officers accosted him and ordered him into an empty garage. There, for no apparent reason, they began beating him mercilessly. The Jew decided that he would endure the suffering without begging for mercy, without even screaming in pain. Mastery over his body might be denied him, but he would maintain his pride and dignity as a Jew. After a while, the Germans asked why he wasn't


screaming. He remained silent. He realized that their purpose was to degrade him, to force him to scream and beg, and thus humiliate him. This doubled his resolve not to give them the satisfaction. The beating continued until finally his torturers themselves began screaming hysterically at him - almost begging him to cry out. Finally, they gave up and let him go. And it was very plain that he had defeated them.

Prager's research continued - on a personal, anecdotal level, as a questioner and collector of experiences - and on a deeper, philosophical level, as a historian who studied documents and looked for meanings in the senselessness that engulfed European Jewry. He came across many other bits and pieces of evidence that convinced him he was on the right track.

A memo sent by the Gestapo headquarters in Berlin to the Gestapo in Poland, said: the Nazis were willing to permit some Jewish emigration from Germany and Austria, because the assimilated, deJudaized Jews of Western Europe would simply blend into whatever country was willing to accept them; there was no danger that they would reestablish Jewish life in their new surroundings. From Eastern Europe, however, no escape was to be permitted. The OstJuden were too Jewish, too saturated with the values and ethics that Nazism was sworn to eradicate. They would rebuild their institutions and start all over again. This, Nazi Germany could not permit.

Prager cites, as further evidence, Hitler's letter written just before he committed suicide during the taking of Berlin. He wrote apologetically that he had not succeeded in carrying out the extermination of the Jews. Not succeeded? He had carried out the most barbaric, most efficient campaign of genocide in history! Yet he was apologizing for failure! In the light of Prager's thesis, Hitler's remorse is quite understandable. The slaughter oft he Six Million had not been sufficient to destroy Jewish influence and values because there were still enough Jews alive to rebuild. True, we have not nearly recovered from the Holocaust, but Torah life has developed to an unimagined extent, and its influence has penetrated areas that were closed to it even before the Holocaust.

Nazism: Destruction of Jewish "Conscience"

THAT, THEN, IS PRAGER'S DEFINITION of German anti-Semitism? Firstly, it is not a new phenomenon. It is nothing more than the

traditional hatred of the Jew that began when Abraham became recognized as the bearer of a unique set of values. The only truly new thing in Nazism was its harnessing of German efficiency and technology to the cause of anti-Semitism .... Cyclon B was merely the most effective tool yet invented for murdering Jews, but the cause it served was not at all novel.

Anti-Semitism was hatred of what the Jew represented. Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, the


nineteenth-century German philosopher, was not an anti-Semite, but his formulation of what the Jew represented became the raw material for the vile fumings of Hitler, Rosenberg, Streicher and their cohorts. Nietzsche differentiated between the "slave mentality" characterized by feelings of weakness, mercy, and kindness - and epitomized by the Jew - and the "master mentality" characterized by strength, courage, brutality - epitomized by the German. He saw Jews as the cultural force that had overthrown the natural order of Might Makes Right, the law of the jungle, and replaced it with a weakness of spirit that denigrated strength and defied weakness. What is known as Western civilization and morality, he claimed, are in reality perversions of natural law and a violation of the ideal human order of domination by the strong for no other reason (for no other reason is necessary) than the fact of their strength.

Hitler, in his mad rantings, put it this way: "ft is true, we are barbarians. That is an honored title to us. I free humanity from the shackles of the soul. from the degrading suffering caused by the false vision called conscience and ethics. The Jews have inflicted two wounds on mankind - circumcision on its body and 'conscience' on its soul. They are Jewish inventions. The war for domination of the world is waged only between the two of us. between these two camps alone - the Germans and the Jews. Everything else is but deception."

So the genocide of the Jews was not at all comparable to the genocide of the gypsies, because the Final Solution transcended race. That is why, in the closing year of the war, Hitler diverted troops and transport from his deterio_rating front Jines to speed extermination of the Jews. If unable to win the victory of the Thousand Year Reich, he could at least exterminate the "slave mentality," his ultimate philosophical enemy. And it was not enough simply to murder Jews. They had to be humiliated, dehumanized, stripped of their dignity and pride in order to discredit their creed and the philosophy of life they represented.

Seen in this perspective, the epitaph that "the Jews went like sheep to the slaughter" becomes all the more awful a distortion, because it implies that the Nazi atrocity is not told in the chilling words "six million" -it also indicates that the master race succeeded in demonstrating its spiritual superiority over the slave race.

Biographer of the Soul

A GAINST THIS BACKGROUND, Prager's work assumes a new dimension. He is more than a historian of the Holocaust; he is the biographer

of the Jewish soul in its period of severest trial in many centuries, perhaps since the churban.

Prager's family was completely wiped out during the war. But, scholar, historian, and journalist that he was, he had the training and the tools to investigate the death and keep alive their memory and what they represented. And he had the unflagging will to do it. "I die every day

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Nazism: Hatred for what the Jew represented

and I am resuscitated again," he says. Fame, success, and prosperity did not dampen his determination to carry out his mission of capturing and preserving the truth of the past.

As soon as the war ended, he obtained permission to visit the Displaced Persons camps of Europe. Many people were doing it in those days, but none of them were hearing the stories of the emaciated remains of Eastern European Jewry, for they could not be interviewed. The agony through which they had Jived was too horrible to tell: to tell it was to relive it - and how could one voluntarily enter hell again? Prager's method was different. He lived with the liberated prisoners. For six weeks he lived in Bergen-Belsen, listening and gently probing until he became one of them and was able to elicit their stories. Always he sought corroboration and refused to settle for less than the most accurate version of events obtainable.

His research has continued to this day and has resulted in scores of articles and a shelf of books. He is probably the most widely read historian of the Holocaust in Hebrew and Yiddish, and his popularity spans all shades of the Israeli cultural and religious spectrum. His tales are not happy - how could tales of the Holocaust be happy? Yet, Prager is widely read and very popular despite the tragedy, pathos, and heartbreak of his stories. One reads him and feels drained - yet elevated. He explains it best:

I looked at the tragedy of the Holocaust and I saw

IO

the Jewish people enveloped in fire. But we were like the burning bush in which G-dfirst revealed Himself to Moshe. "7:JlX 1JJ,K i1JOii - the bush was not consumed." No matter what the Nazis did to us, we were not consumed. They did not win the war; we did because they are gone and we have rebuilt.

When I was last in the United States, I met the principal of a day school in Denver, Colorado. He told me that he was in Auschwitz when the war ended and for the last eleven days before the liberation, he lived by eating snow! He survived and he has been a mechanech for seventeen years. "The bush was not consumed." He symbolizes what the Nazis were trying to destroy, but he outlived them and he is bringing Toras Hashem to a new generation in America.

That is what my stories are about. The Nazis could kill us, torture us, destroy our bodies - but their war was against our spirit and they could not d,estroy our spirit.

(from an interview with the author)

"Sparks ... "

IR RAG ER'S FIRST COLLECTION OF STORIES of Kiddush Hashem was Nitzotzei G'vurah, published n Israel in 1952. It was an immediate success and

has gone through many printings. Chapters from Nitztotzei G'vura have been printed in anthologies and are used in standard texts by all three Israeli school systems and by the Israel Defense Force. A long overdue English


"We thought that our bodies were keeping our souls alive, but our souls were keeping our bodies alive."

translation, Sparks of Glory, has now finally appeared. Sparks of Glory contains twenty-eight chapters, all of

them isolated stories of heroism. They show Jews - in nearly all cases, ordinary amcho people - reacting to desperate situations of hunger, danger, torture, pain, suffering. The more the layers of flesh were stripped away from them, the stronger their spirits became. As one of the countless unknown heroes of the book puts it, "We thought that our bodies were keeping our souls alive, but our souls were keeping our bodies alive." The book makes it clear that the Six Million did not go like sheep. They went like great men. They perceived that the conqueror wanted to destroy their spirit, so they responded by keeping their spirit strong and alive. Of course, they didn't rise up in physical revolt. How could they? But they did react with almost unbelievable bravery and strength of neshoma.

---The Jews of Lublin were doomed to fall victim to SS Commander Glabochnik, a notoriously sadistic murderer. He herded them to the outskirts of the city until their oacks were up against barbed wire. He ordered them to sing and ordered his troops to beat them savagely and push them backward against the barbed wire. Their flesh was torn as the barbs cut into them and they fell upon one another trampling each other. Then someone freed himself and began an improvised song:

"Mir vellen zey iberleben, iberleben, iberleben, avinu shebashamayim

Mir vellen zey iberleben, iberleben, iberleben."

"We shall outlive them, outlive them, outlive them, our Father in Heaven

We shall outlive them, outlive them, outlive them."

The bruised and bleeding mob rose and began singing and dancing the refrain. Glabochnik roared with laughter until he realized they weren't accommodating him; they were defeating him. He ordered them to stop. They continued. He panicked and pleaded, but the singing and dancing continued. The SS troops plowed in swinging whips and clubs and still the singing continued.

--A simple Jew performed a miracle. All through the war he never missed a day of putting on tefillin even in death camps. Once he was caught by a German guard. The infuriated German threw him to the ground, ground one iron-studded boot into his stomach while scraping the skin off his face with the other, as the Jew lay on the ground, sure he would never get up again.

"What did you think to yourself?" Prager ask-


ed. "What's the difference . . . ? l don't know . ... " Prager pressed him until he finally answered.

"All right. l said a verse from Psalms over and over again: 'See my suffering and my ordeal and forgive all my sins.' l repeated it over and over again, and it may be because of that that l was able to rise up and go on with my prayers . ... " --Little Shmulik was brutally whipped by a Polish policeman because he sneaked out of the ghetto to buy extra food for Shabbos. He hid his terrible pain from his parents, but against his father's wishes made his way to the secret sub-cellar where Shabbos prayers were held. The Germans punished public prayer with death and the Jews didn't allow children to come, to protect the safety of all. But Shmulik came and knocked. The men thought it was the Gestapo and agreed to open the door and face death bravely. But it was Shmulik. They were outraged and his father slapped him. Shmulik could endure his pain no longer.

"Will you beat me, too? Haven't l had my share of blows? l, too, am a Jew. !, too, want to pray!"

--A humble little sexton smuggled a shofar into a death camp, organized a minyan on Rosh Hashana, and blew the shofar. The guards came running and decided to make a spectacle of the sexton. They whipped him endlessly, mercilessly, and all the while he continued chanting the prayers out loud.

"The righteous will see and rejoice . .. . and all wickedness will vanish like smoke .for you will have removed the evil kingdom from the earth."

--Rabbi Shem of Cracow was among those chosen at random to be condemmed to a special tor-ture jail. He comforted his fellow Jews by asking them, "If each of us were given the choice at this mo-ment to be the victim or the victimizer, which would he choose? Ribbono Shel Olam, is there one Jew who would like You to turn him into a murderous Gentile?"

"Rabbi, Rabbi, l swear to you on the memory of my holy mother, even l would not want it."

ft was the Jewish Kapa.

Who Will Teach "Holocaust" to Our Children?

W O WON? HO OUTLIVED WHOM? AS THE BUSH CONSUMED?

There is agony and inspiration in Sparks of Glory, and the sum total is pride in Jews who faced death - and worse - like lions.

But it has enormous value for another reason, and it is

II

to be hoped that we will not pass up the opportunity it presents us. The publicizers of the Holocaust have not been Torah Jews. The popular image that has been drummed into the minds of American Jews, and especially of our young people, is precisely the one that Prager fiercely opposes - that the Jews went like sheep to the slaughter. Many young people here and in Israel hold the Six Million in contempt for that reason, especially during this era when violence and militancy are as American as apple pie.

At the same time, the children in our yeshivas are virtually untaught about the Holocaust. The reasons for this are many. A large proportion of the parents and faculties of our yeshivos are survivors of World War II Europe. The suffering of that period left physical and emotional scars on them that make it difficult if not impossible for them to teach the history of this period to their children and students. Then, too, the unprecedented bloodletting and barbarism raise excrutiatingly difficult questions of hashkofo: How could Hashem allow it to happen? What sins could have justified such punishment? Why was the cream of religious Jewry decimated when the principal sinners were surely found elsewhere? The list goes on. We are living in an age that is not prepared to accept anything without a full explanation - but the ways of G-d are inscrutable. The response of many Gedolei Yisroe/ was outlined in "The Holocaust: Questions Without Answers .... Faith Without Questions" (J.O. Sept. '73). But it is not a subject that is easy to teach and this is especially true when there is a distinct lack of English language materials that are both literate and consonant with the Torah outlook.

For whatever reasons, however, the fact is that few of our young people have any knowledge of the behavior of their martyred brethren other than the sheep-to-theslaughter stereotype. To further complicate matters, the non-Orthodox and left-of-center Orthodox have virtually monopolized the memory of the Six Million. It is they who commemorate the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and

12

Yam Hasha' ah. The Torah camp cannot subscribe to the tenor of their observance and the "Never Again" ironfisted philosophy it represents. Then, too, much of the enthusiasm for Holocaust-type observances comes from people who would substitute Yorn Hasho'ah for Tish'a B 'Av when, to us, the Holocaust is an outgrowth of the historic Tish'a B'Av. This has caused a backlash effect resulting in too many Torah Jews ignoring or belittling the significance of formally preserving memories of the Holocaust, an attitude that has the terrible effect of Jews refusing to learn lessons of Torah and teshuvah from the destruction of the Six Million.

A Place in the Classroom

§ PARKS OF GLORY offers an opportunity to at least begin coping with some of these problems. On literary merit and on hashkofo validity, it is

to be highly recommended to all Torah Jews. This reviewer believes strongly that it would make an ideal and important "literature book" for junior and senior yeshiva high schools. Of course, only a teacher who is a ta/mid chochom can be expected to present it properly and develop its message; but, well presented, it is a vehicle that can enrich a student and open his eyes to a world of Jewish heroism he had never before imagined. And it invites a student to read it on his own, unfettered by the strictures of the classroom.

In addition, it can open up new lines of communication between children and their parents or relatives who are unable to talk about their traumatic experiences during the war, but would find it easier to add a few sparks of their own to the stirring tales gathered by Moshe Prager.

Sparks of Glory is long overdue in its English version. It should be required reading for any Jew, especially for Torah Jews. And all concerned parties should fervently hope that Sparks of Glory is only the first of Prager's works to be made available to the English-speaking public. o


Nissan Wolpin

Communication And Beyond Where Humanity Ends

• • •

Man's crowning feature, and its Jewish aspect.

How it is enhanced and how it is violated.

Some Questions WHAT MARKS MAN as the crowning achievement of creation? His upright carriage? ... his thumb, allowing him to fashion tools and grip them? ... his awareness of self? ... his superior intelligence? - All notable, but not enough to make him "lacking but little of the angels." In classifying all of creation, the Chazal (men wise in the teachings of the Torah) distinguish Man from Animal (" chay - that which is alive") by highlighting his gift of speech ("medaber - that which speaks"). It is this special attribute that sets him apart - but in what particular way?

True, Man does have a larynx, the likes of which no other creature possesses. It enables him to produce an endless mixture of varying sounds - but the distinction of being a "medaber" entails more.

The Maharal pinpoints the faculty of speech as the meeting point between body and soul - truly a combination peculiar only to man; for animals lack a neshama, and angels are not corporeal. So speech, as the symbol of the wedding of the spiritual and corporeal, is a choice hallmark of man.

Still, more clarification is in order as to why speech is the chosen symbol of this uniqueness. If this is meant to signify the capacity to communicate, animals of lesser standing are also known to communicate. In fact, recent experiments with chimpanzees have shown them capable of mastering close to 200 words in sign language, and more in graphic symbols attached to a computer. And dolphins are known to communicate on levels of even greater complexity.

Yet, all of the messages conveyed by beasts and birds - ranging from territorial claims and mating calls to cries of warning - are only elementary in nature; the messages exchanged with the apes are not much more complex in substance, and these were not autogenous, but taught to them by man. By contrast, the human is


capable of originating and then conveying incredibly complex messages conceptualizing the abstract, describing the evasive, capturing and conveying the elusive, in words. Man employs tens of thousands of words in an inexhaustible variety of arrangements - constantly fashioning them in new syntaxes, never before uttered. Then Man embellishes the spoken word with inflection, melody, voice quality, facial expression, gesture, posture, gait - modifying or magnifying meaning. And, of course, the spoken word is transcribed into writing -this, in turn, is imbued with subtleties and variations by virtue of general format, type-size and style, process of printing - even composition of the paper. (Compare the impact of an inane commercial notice, printed on glossy stock, with that of stirring poetry mimeographed single-space on rough stock ... The medium surely has a share in the message.) Feelings, attitudes and moods are conveyed through music and the graphic arts ... Man even declares his identity, his position, his ambitions, and his emotions through the clothing he wears - their color, style, design, and workmanship .... Beyond his immediate person, his house and car also make statements for him.

Man has so much to say in so many different ways, unrivaled in complexity and subtlety. Perhaps it can be suggested that presenting man as a creature of speech is meant to highlight his gift of communication and all of its implied profundities. For in this he stands alone.

Heights and Depths - Through Speech

THE ABILITY TO COMMUNICATE is understood to be wonderous in nature - a pelle; a terminology employed in the Torah in regard to spoken vows, and one that Rambam uses in naming the entire section of laws dealing with vows and promises: "Hajla'ah - wonderous and apart." ... As with all highly potent facilities, speech is as much a means of transcendence (through tefillah,

13

communication with G-d) as it is a pitfall to the errant (eleven of the forty-four confessional specifics in the "Al Chet" deal with speech) ... . "When two sit and there are words of Torah between them, the 'Shechinah' rests with them, as it says: 'Then those who fear G-d spoke, each to his friend. And G-d listened and heard, and wrote it in His Book of Rememberance before Him . .. ' (Malachi 3)" -A VOS III, 2 .... The Chofetz Chaim devoted the first fruits of his prolific pen to analyzing and codifying the speech-related transgressions of sla?der and talebearing, tallying their number (14 pos1t1ve comman.ds, 17 negative commands, 3 Biblical curses), h1ghhghtmg King David's singling out of speech-control as the pn?'e ingredient for longevity: "Who is the man who wants life. . . let him guard his tongue from evil . ... "(Tehil/im 93).

The M aharal points out that through Lashon HaKodesh (Hebrew), man can express orally the creative utterances which G-d employed when creating the world with His ten statements .... The attributes of every aspect of Creation can be distilled and expressed in sound, and these sounds are the essence of Lashon HaKodesh . ... A crowning opportunity for this is the "Kiddush" at Friday night, where - when one speaks the Vayechulu in the original Hebrew - one actually shares in the highpoint of Creation: increasing the sanctity of the world by use of the spoken word, as G-d did on the first Seventh Day.

No wonder, then, that seventy-five years ago, the religious community took such strong exception to Ben Yehuda's dream of "normalizing" the Jewish People through creation of Modern Hebrew. His plan was to endow the Jewish People with a language of its own that would be completely free of all go/us associations; then, speaking his own language in his own homeland, the Jew would be no different from other nationals, and would no longer be victim of prejudice and persecution.

But those who understood the sacred nature of Lashon HaKodesh could not permit one of the very characteristics that gives Jews distinction as a sacred people to be converted into a force of equalization. To paraphrase the Chafetz Chaim's comment on secular Zionism: "One cannot believe that we suffered 2,000 years of go/us for the end-purpose of speaking our own language akin to the citizens of Albama speaking Albanian."

The debate that surrounded the "rebirth of Modern Hebrew" is no longer a burning issue, but the underlying philosophies are as relevant today as ever. For here, speech and choice of language .are deSJgned to communicate more than the cumulative meanings of words and syntax.

The Hazards of Skipping Steps

A PERSON EMPLOYS great preCJSJOn when he communicates his sense of self and his relationships with others, and he takes great care to avoid overstatement as well as understatement. We greet neighbors casually, long-lost friends excitedly, close relations after an

14

Some claim that since clothing, like

speech, is a form of communication,

it can vary drastically from society to

society . ... But either way, a shout is

still a shout. ................................................................ absence affectionately, and near strangers hardly at all; and we avoid mixing the tone of respective greetings .... A female guest at a wedding would not wear a white gown; nor would the father of the bride, at a formal celebration, wear a sport jacket. ... A chassid does not wear his shtreimel on weekdays, not his work-pants to a tisch . ... Social custom dictates manner and degree of the communication, and the receiver knows exactly what is meant, without the necessity of written or spoken caption. We do not want to be misunderstood, so we honor the guidelines of social convention, deigning to overstep familiarity or understep formality.

Spoken language varies from country to country, and so too do other aspects of communication. The wildly jo~som'e noise of conversation in an Italian piazza has no counterpart in a Swiss village square .... And what passes for informal dress in a London club is more than parliamentarian in tropical lands.

The Dark At the Top of the Escalator

THERE ARE SOME AREAS of communication where the degrees of intensity being conveyed are not relative to any particular social norm, but operate on an abso ute scale unto itself. These are the sensual Imes of communication - those that transmit by sense of touch, sight, and sound .... A piercing scream is an alarm, regardless of social context. Claspi~g hands, shanng an embrace or a kiss can be established expresswm. of greetings when exchanged between two members of the same gender. Under any other circumstances, however, it must mean more, in spite of social custom, regardless of protestations to the contrary .... There are societies where the bared ankle or the slipped face veil communicate seductive implications; others where such minimal exposure is meaningless - all relative to the social milieu and the accepted standard. Yet, there are parts of the anatomy that, when exposed, shout a message of invitation, regardless of .. accepted norms" that have become adopted through common usage, irrespective of the swing of the reveal-conceal pendulum au currant ... . With all the vagaries of fashion taken into account a shout is still a shout.

Perh;ps one might well expect Man to delineate what constitutes the extremes, and establish hJS own guidelines for what constitutes a shout, and what is


simply a personal statement, free of promiscuous overtones. But experience has taught us otherwise. Man and his instincts are unreliable. So we must refer to the ha/achic definitions for what parts of the person are considered private, and what need not be concealed without risking statements "one never really meant" in the first place.

When Nations Cease to Talk

NATIONS, TOO, ARE WELL VERSED in the subtleties of communication .... During the negotiations prior to the recent cease-fire agreement between Israel and Syria, Dr. Kissinger spent six hours with Syrian President Assad working on the terminology of the letter inviting him to the Geneva peace conference - after which Assad told the American Secretary of State that he had no intention of going, anyway .... The dispute over the shape of the table at the Vietnam preliminary peacetalks in Paris several years ago may have been widely ridiculed, but the possibilities of a table of round, oval, and square shapes were understood to be pregnant with meaning far beyond interior design or the strictures of ettiquette and finesse .... A year ago, when an Egyptian airliner violated Israeli air space, and Israel shot the plane down, fierce condemnation spewed forth from Arab capitals, but they launched no retaliatory raids. Israel, in their view, had overstepped the accepted level of reaction to the circumstances by going beyond communication of warning, protest, and challenge. In their condemnation, they chose at that time to take out all stops in expressing outrage; but they chose not to go beyond communication. Israel, on the other hand, explained its action as one of defense against a violation of territory, with intent to inflict physical harm on Israeli citizens. As an overture to violence, the incursion of airsovereignty was already an act of aggression; and Israel only responded in kind. Otherwise, violence would have been out of the question, and even initial exchanges would have been limited to the realm of communication.

Beyond the Limits of Communication

STUDENTS OF HUMAN BEHAVIOR have often pointed to the high correlation between physical violence and sexual promiscuity, in individuals as well as societies. Rather than explore each of these areas for similarities, one can suggest that both are explained as being "forms of communication" when in truth they are much more.

There are primitive societies (some in our own urban jungles) where a punch in the arm is the equivalent to the hearty American slap on the back. Others, where a blow to the jaw or lashings with iron chains are not meant to convey more hostility to the recipient than menacingly clearing one's throat or issuing a verbal warning in a more restrained environment. One may attempt to interpret such behavior as sundry communication at a heightened level, but that would be totally off the mark. Violence is basically hostility at the animal level. So it has no place in the human exchange


of ideas, values, and emotions. Violence is beyond communication, and when employed in place of communication, can only be called savagery.

In some cases, the perimeters of communication have been defined by human experience, and subsequently have been codified by international law or universal convention. There are other areas where people have a tendency to waver. Sometimes they recognize arbitrary limitations. Other times they wallow in a subjectivity that may favor self-indulgence or sensuous pandering, and discover that they cannot define where communication ends and the exchange is on a totally different level. In such cases, one does not dare trust human insight. One must resort to Divine guidelines, as they have been outlined ... guidelines that delineate what constitutes an honest exchange of ideas and attitudes and what prima [acie extends beyond communication.

A Jew has available a complete codification of such guidelines in the Shulchan Aruch. While he may view this as being essentially Jewish in substance and apprGach, the guidelines as to what constitutes communication and what lies beyond is universal, applying to the broader circle of Mankind. Where the guidelines are honored, Man honors his role as the crowning achievement of creation: the medaber - that which speaks. When Man abandons communication and deliberately leaps into the sensual or the violent; when he employs the assault rather than the word; when he oversteps the bounds of speech as a professed means of ordinary communication and reverts to extraordinary visceral stimulation through touch, sight, or sound - employing intimacy indiscriminately; then, having abandoned communication, he has lost his status of "lacking but little of the angels" and cannot be distinguished from the beast.

A Jewish Mode of Communication

THE STANDARDS FOR NORMAL communication for a Jew are of a different nature than for mankind in general, and are much more demanding. In addition to fidelity to the norm of the particular community, and an avoidance of going beyond the limits of human communication, another element comes into play - the criterion of kedusha.

A Jew is commanded: "Kedoshim tihiyu - you must be holy." This is interpreted in several ways: as a command to avoid illicit relationships ... as a directive to sanctify oneself, by not overindulging in the permissible - as an imperative to seek holiness, according to some commentaries ... as a blessing, bestowed upon His people by G-d, according to others. No matter how it is understood, it imposes a different criterion on all of a Jew's exchanges, and by whatever means he attempts to express himself - through speech, clothing, or gesture -he must answer to the question: "Is this within the confines of kedusha?"

There are those who will attempt to shrug off such superior criteria as only applying to an elite - and it does; but all of Jewry are members of that elite. Others

I5

who choose not to be saddled with more-than-human demands will take comfort in at least being human, even if falling far too short of the angels to be a Kadosh. But this is a false source of comfort.

Rabbi Eliyahu Lapian ':>"YT once pointed out that when an animal dies, it does not slip down merely one rung in the classification of creation - from chai to tzome'ach, from the general category of animated existence to vegetation. It becomes domaim, totally inanimate. But instead of returning to dust of an inert, unoffensive type, the dead animal becomes foul, reeking in

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decay .... The same precipitous drop is, of course, true when a human being dies.

By the same token, when a person's mode of behavior slips from the human level to what can be considered the animal, something in him has been extinguished. An element of his humanity has died for the moment. Just as the human who had died has not simply slipped one rung, the person of less-than-human conduct cannot consider himself an animal for having ceased to communicate - a "medaber" that has become a "chai." Once slipped, he has plummetted fully to the bottom rung - he is on the level of the inanimate by virtue of total decadence.

Similarly, a Jew who has abandoned his kedusha imperative cannot find solace in "at least being human" in conduct, albeit non-Jewish. There are no gradations in decay. Once something has lost its designated status, it may have the appearances of being only slightly lower, but it has truly suffered a total fall - as in all cases of death .

The criteria for preserving the Jewish aspects of communication and interpersonal relationship are extremely demanding, especially in a general society that no longer mocks sanctity, but simply ignores it. Yet, this is a binding feature of being Jewish. It should not be gambled with, for the stakes are as large as life. D

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•

Chaim Shapiro

Torah Pioneers An almost forgotten couple who bequeathed

their children a legacy of devotion to Torah, which enriched three continents with yeshiva leadership.

The Pioneering Heritage

"And as for Me, My convenant with them, said the L-rd; My spirit that is upon you, and My words that I have put in your mouth, shall not depart from your mouth, your seed, nor your seed's seed now and forever" (Isaiah 59, 21 ).

In every period of great stress, it seems as though the Torah is about to be forgotten; but in keeping with His covenant, G-d dispatches messengers to revive it anew. They appear in the form of various personalities: scribes and prophets, warriors and scholars, merchants and shoemakers, shepherds and simple laborers. The Talmud, the Midrash, and commentaries are replete with references to these Torah pioneers ... and so is our modern history: Raish Lakish said, "When the Torah became forgotten from Israel, Ezra came up from Babylon and revitalized it. Again, when it was about to be forgotten, Hillel came up from Babylon and revitalized it, And later Rabbi Chiya and his sons did the same" (Succah 20a). - Ezra the Scribe, a prophet; Hillel, a laborer . .. "If not for the Chashmonaim the Torah and mitzvos would have been forgotten from Israel" (Rambam Berashis 49, 10). . Chashmonaim, both warriors and royalty.

"A Mishnah recorded without a name, Tosefto, Sifro, Sifri, are attributed to, .. [various sources, but the opinion in] all of them is according to the views of Rebbi Akiva" (Sanhedrin 86a). - Rebbi Akiva, a shepherd.

As is always the case with us Jews, new crises continued to threaten, and new heroes continued to emerge: in the face of the threat of forgetting the Oral Law, Rabbi Yehuda Hanassi compiled the Mishnah: and several centuries later Ravina and Rav Ashi edited the Talmud - could there be a Jewish life today without Mishnah or

CH."i!M SHAPIRO regularly contributes articles to the.~e pages regarding the European roots of our Torah heritage.


Gemora? The same was true in regard to the halls of study: Rav

founded a yeshiva in Sura (Persia) which existed for over 800 years, as did Shmuel in Nardo'ah, and Rav Yehuda in Pompedisa. Thus, Rav Hai Gaon, son of Rav Shrira Gaon was head of a yeshiva in Pompedisa that could trace its beginnings directly to the amora, Shmuel, eight centuries before his time.

Yesterday's Frontiers

TODAY. MANY Or OUR YESHIVOS can trace their beginnings to outstanding personalities of generations ago. After all, Reb Chaim Volozhner (who used to sign letters as "a melamed in Volozhin") actually founded the first modern yeshiva in Russia in l 803 - a structured institution, instead of the previous informal bais hamidrash where young men would gather to study under the local rav. Volozhin is thus known as "the mother of yeshivos" .... Reb Yisroel Salanter (1810-!884) launched the Mussar Movement, which was devoted to self-improvement on the basis of Torah ethics. This movement eventually made its mark in almost every Lithuanian and Russian yeshiva .... The Beth Jacob Schools, as well as almost all other religious girls' schools, can look back to Sarah Schenirer's school in Crakow (1920-40) as their source .... Who can visualize Kial Yisroe/ today without the yeshivas and Bais Yaakov schools? The debt of gratitude is an oft-spoken one. There are a great number of yeshivas, however, that owe their existence to two relatively unknown "soldiers of Torah" who had the unusual foresight that left us all richer: They are Reb Shraga Frank and his wife, Golda.

Reb Shraga Frank was one of the wealthiest men in Kovno, Lithuania. He owned a leather factory, a leather goods store, and a great deal of real estate. He was also a ta/mid chochom and a tzaddik (a learned and righteous

17

GOLDA FRANK

She fulfilled her husband's

two requests:

"Permit no eulogies at my

funeral. And select only

men who dedicate

their lives for Torah

as husbands for our

daughters."

man), who was under the influence of the founder of the Mussar Movement, Reb Yisroel Salanter. In the attic of Reb Shraga's house, Reb Yisroel would meet with his disciples Reb Nasson Notte Zvi Finkel (known later as the "Alter of Slobodke"), Reb Yitzchok Blaser (known as Reb Itzele Peterburger, for he later became Rav of Petersburg, capital of Czarist Russia), and other Mussar giants. In that attic, Reb Yisroel and his disciples would spend the entire month of Elul; there he would say shmuesen (lectures) and elaborate on his new philosophy of Mussar; there, one might say, the nucleus of the Mussar Movement took shape.

Reb Shraga had extended a huge sum of money as a personal loan to a local merchant. His business began to prosper, but he did not repay the loan. The debtor again lost his fortune, and approached the Franks for another loan. Golda refused because she did not consider the man trustworthy. Reb Shraga intervened - it was Elul at the time: "Every year at this time we approach the Ribbono she! Diam, full of promises and verbal assurances, begging Him to grant us a new year. He does, but we renege on our promises. Nonetheless, next Elul, we again plead and promise, and again He grants us our request, and again ... we repeat the routine. Still always He takes our word. - Shouldn't we do the saine?"

His wife Golda was from a German family, and to her, punctuality was a second nature. She simply could not fathom how tenants would fail to pay the rent on time. So Reb Shraga would secretly hand out rent money to his tenants to enable them to make their payment when due. No wonder, when he died at 42 (1887), Reb Yitzchak Elchonon Spektor, the Kovno Rav, personally participated in his tahara (ritual preparation of the body for burial). Reb Shraga had specified that no eulogies be said at his funeral. "Normally I would ig-

18

THE SONS-IN-LAW

Reh Moshe Mordechai Epstein (left)

Slabodke, Chevron, Jerusalem

Reh Isser Zalman Meltzer (center)

Slutsk, Kletzk, Jerusalem, Lakewood

Reh Baruch Horowitz (not shown)

Alexot, Slabodke

Reh Shefte! Kramer (eight)

S!utsk, New Haven, Baltimore

nore such a request," the Kovno Rav said, "but I am afraid to violate Reb Shraga's word." Before his passing, Reb Shraga told his wife that since Heaven did not grant him time to guide his four daughters into marriage, the obligation rested on her, Golda. And he told her that the four men for his four girls must be not only talmidei chachomim, but men of shivtee. ( Shivtee is a Mussar term for those who dedicate their life to Torah study and its propagation, based on the passage from Tehillim: "Shivtee b'veis Hashem . .. May I dwell in the house of the L-rd all the days of my life" (27:4.) Also, that she should spend their every cent on maintaining their children - the shivtee men, and their subsequent families.

The Choices: FIRST: Reh Moshe Mordechai Epstein: Slobodke, Chevron, Jerusalem.

GOLDA ENGAGED THE SERVICES of her brother-inlaw, the Rav of Plungian, Reb Zevulun Baril, to help her fulfill her husband's last wish. He went to Volozhin and his first choice was Reb Archik Baksh! (JO- Oct. '72). For some reason, this shidduch did not materialize '.

I. Reb Archik was once asked "Why didn't you ever become a Rosh Yeshiva?" To which he replied: "Because the malach was not explicit enough." He would then explain in jest to the astonished listeners: If he would have married the daughter of Shraga Frank, he would have become Rosh Yeshiva ofSlabodke. As Chazal say, forty days before a child is born, a malach announces "bas mi lemi'' (whom it is destined to marry). When the angel announced "Frank's daughter to a Baksht," he did not state if the name "Baksht" was to be the groom's surname (as in "Reb Archik Baksht") or his yeshiva name (Reb Moshe Mordechai Epstein came from the smaU town of Baksht, and, in the yeshivas was known by the name of his home~town, "Moshe Mordechai Baksht"). Had the malach said Reb Archik Baksht, he would have indeed become a Rosh Yeshiva.


At that time, there was a yeshiva in Kovno called Knesses Beis Yitzchak after the Rav, Reb Yitzchak Elchonon. The Rosh Yeshiva, Reb Baruch Ber Liebovitz (later of Kaminetz) (JO - Dec. '70) opposed the Mashgiach, Reb Notte Zvi Finkel (the disciple of Reb Yisroel Salanter) for attempting to enforce the study of Mussar in the Yeshiva. Mussar was frowned upon by many as an unauthorized and unwarranted innovation in yeshiva life, and to some it seemed to offer an easy means for avoiding total involvement in Torah study.

When Reb Notte Zvi found himself bucking this opposition, he left Kovno for the "New Beis Midrash" of Slabodke (a suburb of Kovno) to open the Yeshiva Knesses Yisroe/, named after Reb Yisroel Salanter, his Mussar Rebbi. In need of a Rosh Yeshiva, he asked Reb Shraga Frank's son-in-law, Reb Moshe Mordechai Epstein, to say the shiyur. Under those two Torah giants, the yeshiva grew to become the "mother" of Gedolim, who became leading Roshei Yeshiva.

Among those who studied there was Reb Reuven Grozovsky (who later became the son-in-law of Reb Baruch Ber), then known as Reuven Minsk er '. Once, when Reb Reuven was visiting his home town, he heard of a young fellow in nearby Sislowitz as being an i//uy -an exceptionally gifted boy. He brought him to Slabodke. The little fifteen-year-old, Arke Sislowitzer, would stand up on the bench to challenge the Rosh Yeshiva Reb Moshe Mordechai Epstein in the middle of the shiyur with his questions. "Arke" was later to be known as Reb Aharon Kotler. ... It was while in the Yeshiva that Reb Moshe Mordechai began work on his monumental nine volume L'vush Mordechai.

When Jews began to return to Israel in great numbers,

~- My father, known as Alter Tiktiner, !earned there bechavrnsa (as a study p'drlner) with Reb Reuven for many years.


Reb Moshe Mordechai and the "Alter" Reb Nasson Zvi Finkel decided that the Torah, too, must return together with Kial Yisroe/, so they moved to Chevron where they established a yeshiva. After the infamous Arab pogrom in 1929, in which some thirty yeshiva students were killed, they moved the Yeshiva to Jerusalem. After his death, the yeshiva was directed by his two sons-in-law, Reb Yecheskel Sarna zt"I, and yibdl lchaim Reb Moshe Chevroni shlita. Today, the institution is known as the Yeshiva of Chevron, and it prospers to this very day.

i +- ' !

SECOND: Reb lsser Zalman Meltzer: S/utsk, K/etzk, Jerusalem, Lakewood

REB !SSER ZALMAN MELTZER was Golda's choice for her second daughter, upon the recommendation of her first son-in-law, Reb Moshe Mordechai. There was one thing wrong, however. The young man began suffering from a lung ailment. In those days, the disease was a deadly killer with no known cure or medicinal relief. In addition, Reb lsser Zalman also had severe stomach problems. Golda went to the Chofetz Chaim for advice. The Chofetz Chaim replied: "Some people have health; others have arichas yomim," - The wedding took place and arichas yomim was apparently his, for in spite of his illness, Reb Isser Zalman lived to eighty-three - thanks to his wife's protective care.

After a time dedicated fully to Torah-study, living solely on Golda's support, he became Rosh Yeshiva in Slutsk, a large city in White Russia, using one-fifth of his dowry as an investment in the Yeshiva. His wife stayed in Kovno, managing their business, and sending him food - for he refused to even take meals from the Yeshiva.

Once, during one of her visits to Slutsk for Yorn Tov, she found out that their entire stock was stolen, leaving

19

them deeply in debt. She never breathed a word of this to him until the day he was offered the rabbonus of Slutsk. Then she felt he should know, so as to take their financial plight into consideration when deciding.

At that time, the Rav in Slutsk was Reb Yaakov Dovid Vilovski, known as the "Ridviz. " 3 The Ridviz left Slutsk to raise funds in America for the publication of his famous commentary on the Talmud Yerusha/mi, and became Chief Rabbi of Chicago.' Slutsk did not have to search far for a replacement, and in 1902 crowned their Rosh Yeshiva Reb Isser Zalman Meltzer as their Rav.

The combined burden was too much for the frail man - Rav of a large city, Rosh Yeshiva, plus the writing of his eight-volume commentary Even Ha' ozel, so he planned to resign from the rabbinate. Reb Isser Zalman went to Brisk to ask his Rebbe, Reb Chaim Soloveitchik, for advice. Reb Chaim told him: "Perhaps you're right, and all your considerations are valid. Still, it would not be the right psak (halachic decision) to leave." So Reb Isser Zalman stayed on.

He later explained Reb Chaim's psak in the following manner: We learn the Torah attitude toward the conditions of leadership from Moshe's appointment of Yehoshua as his successor (Bamidbar 27: 19). "And set him before Elazar the priest, and before all the congregation; and charge him in their presence." Rashi explains: "And charge him tn regard to governing Israel. Know that they are troublesome, that they are rebellious; [you must accept your office] on the condi-

3. To distinguish from the Ridvaz Reb David Ben Zimra, who lived 300 years ago, serving as Rav in Egypt for 40 years, and later, as Rav in Jerusalem and Tsfas. 4. After three years in Chicago, he moved to Tsfas.

tion that you accept these burdens upon yourself." This, the Ramban adds, was Yehoshua's induction into leadership.

So appointment to royalty among Jews obtains even under the worst circumstances - in other words, it is beyond conditions. And, as a result, one may not even take leave because of extenuating circumstances." ... The Rambam says that the rules of perpetuation and tenure associated with royalty (such as inheritance to children) apply to all positions of leadership (Hilchos Me/ochim, I, 7). In other words, Reb Chaim meant that one cannot divest oneself from office of leadership because "it is too difficult" - only if it is to advance to a higher office. ("Ma' a/in Bekodesh - one moves higher in sacred categories, but not lower.")'

Reb Isser Zalman remained the Rav and Rosh Yeshiva of Slutsk until the Bolshevik Revolution, when he was forced to flee for his life. Then he and his son-in-law, Reb Aharon Kotler, crossed the border to Poland. Not far from the Russian border, Reb Aharon established his famous yeshiva in Kletzk. Reb Isser Zalman moved on to Jerusalem where he became the Rosh Yeshiva of the Yeshiva Eitz Chaim.

Reb Isser Zalman was instrumental in introducing the Lithuanian yeshiva system and its analytical approach in Talmudic study to the Yeshivos in Eretz Yisroel. He became chairman of the Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah (Council of Torah Sages) of Agudath Israel in Israel.His wife continued to protect his health and general composure .... She personally handcopied the manuscripts of seven volumes of his Even Ha'ozel for printing, and

5. This was recorded in an article in Hapardes by Rabbi Nissan Waxman.

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personally checked the galleys.' During the Second World War, the Rabbi of

Lakewood, New Jersey, was a former student of the Mirrer Yeshiva, Rabbi Nisson Waxman.' He persuaded a wealthy Jew to donate his mansion for a yeshiva, and then set out searching for a Rosh Yeshiva and a student body. First he invited his former Rebbi, the Rosh Yeshiva of Mir, Reb Lazar Yud'I Finkel (son of the Alter of Slobodke), who was then in Shanghai with the entire Mirrer Yeshiva, to come to Lakewood. Reb Lazar Yud'I replied that his heart and mind were set on moving to Yerushalayim - where indeed he established the Mirrer Yeshiva of Jerusalem. Rabbi Waxman then approached his personal friend, the Lomzer Rosh Yeshiva Reb Yechiel Mordechai Gordon, who was living in Brookyn, and invited him to establish a yeshiva in Lakewood. Reb Yechiel Mordechai replied that he was too old to start anew, and besides, he had every hope and intention of joining the Lomzer Yeshiva he had founded and was supporting in Petach Tikva. Rabbi Waxman then approached Reb Aharon Kotler with the same offer. After several visits to Lakewood, and some deliberations, Reb Aharon accepted the offer. As the fruits of their negotiations, we now have the flourishing Torah Center of Beth Medrash Gevoha in Lakewood.

THIRD AND FOURTH: Reb Baruch Hurwitz: Alexot

Reh Shefte! Kramer: Slutsk, New Haven, Baltimore

THE THIRD DAUGHTER married Reb Baruch Hurwitz, Rav in Alexot, Lithuania, and Rosh Yeshiva in Slobodke. Reb Baruch was also Chairman of the Agudath Israel in Lithuania; and later succeeded his brother-in-law, Reb Moshe Mordechai, to the presidency of the Agudas Horabbonim of Lithuania.

The fourth married Reb Shefte! Kramer, Rosh Yeshiva in Slutsk. Reb Shefte! left Slutsk, and joined

6. People in Yerushalayim would say "Reb Isser Zalman's Rebbitzen wrote his seforim," and some would take this literally, for - like her sisters - she knew Tanach by heart. She would quote passages extensively, explaining them according to the Malbim .... At 86, when lying ill in bed, she recited chapters from /yov without a text.

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Reb Yehuda Heshel Levenberg in his yeshiva in New Haven, Connecticut, (the first yeshiva in the U.S. outside of New York City) as Mashgiach. Reb Sheftel's oldest son-in-law, Reb Yaakov Yitzchok Ruderman also joined the Yeshiva in the early thirties, then moving on to Baltimore, Maryland, where he established the Yeshiva Ner Israel, which he still heads as Rosh Yeshiva. Reb Sheftel's youngest son-in-law, Reb Naftali Neuberger, is menahel of Ner Israel.

Stars in Daniel's Firmament

CAN ONE IMAGINE Kial Yisroel without the Yeshiva of Chevron, - without Beth Medrash Gevoha in Lakewood, - without Ner Israel in Baltimore, -without Reb lsser Zalman's imprint on the yeshivos of Jerusalem?

It is of people like Shraga and Golda Frank that Daniel spoke: "And they that are wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and the matzdikei horabbim - they that turn the many to righteousness-as the stars forever and ever" (Daniel 12:3). "Matzdikei horabbim -this refers to the teachers of the young" (Babba Basra 8~. 0

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CAN ONE REALLY decry modern Orthodoxy? At its ideal. it is an American brand of Torah-imDerech-Eretz: instead of dodging the challenge of new ideas and alien environments, it meets them headon - enriching and explaining what is receptive to Jewish values; borrowing or adapting whatever is compatible with Jewish values; challenging and rejecting the objectionable. Torah, after all, is for all times and all places.

Yet, some aspects of Modern Orthodoxy as a movement has been the object of very deep misgivings. (A full treatment of the subject appeared in the JO of June, '70:

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ponents are unaware of the problems of modern life. They are; but in com batting, they often engage in some sort of dialectical jiujitsu, and fall victim to their own tactics; in confrontation with moods or movements that challenge Torah Judaism, they go through thejiujitsu ploy of yielding to the adversary•s assault in place of mounting a frontal attack.' But then, instead of using the assailant's own force to defeat him - throwing him over the shoulder, in effect - they join him, and both go down as one.

The Challenge of Women's Liberation

UNDOUBTEDLY, A MAJOR CAUSE of ferment in today's society is the demand of women for equality in all phases of life. While some of their complaints and aspirations are indisputedly justified - such as those related to discrimination in the economic market - in other areas, dealing with religious values and the nuances of role fulfillment, they tread on very sensitive ground -all of it sacred. Some femininist demands openly attack fundamentals of Jewish belief and ritual; others simply betray a terrible ignorance of Judaism and its ideals.

It is extremely doubtful that the strident Women's Lib leadership 1 One might say that Koleiv employed this tactic successfully when he stilled the antagonistic crowd, angry with Moshe, by saying: "Is that all Moshe did to you?" -concluding with a strong defense on Moshe's behalf ( Bamidbar 13:30 ¥ Rashi).


would much listen to a reasoned explanation of modesty in conduct based on "Kol k'vudah bas melech p'nima - All that is honored of the King's daughter is within" (Tehillim 45:14), or that they would attempt to understand a rationale of women's passive role in the marriage ceremony and the divorce procedure. But men and women in the Orthodox camp (and its fringes) are learning more about women's role in Jewish life from its distorters and decriers than from its exponents. The media, as usual, are playing up the more sensational: women rabbis and cantors, co~ educational .. yeshivas," and who's what at the local minyan . ... A clearing of the air, then, would be very much in order.

The approach can range from an expose' of the amorality of an asexual society, to a counter-attack against the spokeswomen for "equality in the home and the synagogue," to a tricky, but potentially effective, "You may right on this point; but now consider -" jiujitsu approach. Rabbi Saul Berman, as Chairman of the Department of Judaic Studies at Stern College for Women (Yeshiva University), should be just the man for such an approach. He probably has greater exposure to the articulated aspirations and agonies of Orthodox women in modern society than most others who would be qualified to speak on the topic. Rabbi Berman did indeed address the topic: "The Status of Women in Halakhic Judaism," in the Fall '73 edition of Tradition (the Rabbinical Council of America's quarterly journal). The result, however, is a clear exposition on the claims of the unlettered against the Torah, expressed with a hostility that borders the obscene. The explanations that follow are laboriously labeled "not apologetic." Yet, while some arguments are illuminating, others are decidedly tentative in tone.

To quote obscenity verbatim is to risk being obscene. In this particular case, Rabbi Berman's remarks have been published in an Orthodox journal, and they have been widely

The Jewish Observer/ June, !974

quoted in the Anglo-Jewish press. We only come to express our misgivings over a lost opportunity and a terrible misrepresentation of Jewish thought - a case in point of falling victim to one's own tactic. (A fuller discussion of the questions of women's role in Judaism is surely in order. This is not that discussion.)

* Halachos {Torah Law), basic Jewish attitude toward women's personal fulfillment, as well as protective guidelines to assure a moral society, have all generated from King David's idealization of p'nima ("All that is honored ... " quoted before). It represents a cornerstone in Jewish values. Yet, Rabbi Berman describes the p'nima principle as a pretext for formulating "a unidimensional 'proper' role for women which denies to them the potential for fulfillment in any area but that of home and family . . fas[ if it mandated her remaining 'within' her home." (page 8 in the article)

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* Woman's reduced role in mitzw vos ma'asiyos has been authoritatively attributed to her heightened sensitivity to the spiritual, not requiring the tangible expressions that men need. Rabbi Berman crudely dismisses this:

"To suggest that women don't really need positive symbolic mitzvot because their souls are already more alluned to the Divine, would be an unbearable insult to men; unless it were understood, as it indeed is, that the suggestion is not really to be taken seriously but is intended solely to placate women . ... "It is time to admit that we have attempted through our apologetics to make a virtue of social necessity. We have striven to elicit voluntary com-

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One would expect an Orthodox rabbi to consult halacha in defining women's role, not defy it ... to bolster emunah in face of tribulation, not abandon it.

pliance by women to a status which men need never accept. It is analogous to telling an unemployed worker that he ought to be thankful that he has no job since the economy requires a rate of 5% unemployment and he therefore has the great honor enabling everyone else to make a good living." (page 9)

Nothing Rabbi Berman later says can erase the foul impression this analogy creates.

* The growing tendency among young women to assume mitzvos earmarked especially for men gets a tentative nod of approval from Rabbi Berman.

.. A small number of religious women have begun donning Talit and Tefillin daily, and have, in so doing, discovered a vital source of religious expression and strength." (page 20)

Rabbi Berman is knowledgable enough to cite (in his footnote #64) that:

.. The practice was disapproved by Rama to Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chayim, 38:3."

Now, Rama is the definitive authority on Shulchan Aruch, whose opinions are binding on Ashkenazic Jewry. How can Rabbi Berman view a practice that the Rama "disap-

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proved" as being "a vital source of religious expression and strength"? It appears to this writer that it is virtually impossible to draw spiritual "expression and strength" from a practice that directly defies the unchallenged opinion of the Rama.

It also appeared to this writer that one would expect an Orthodox Rabbi, who clearly intends to defend Torah's attitude toward women, to seek definition of that attitude in halacha; and to foster respect for that attitude by promoting respect for halacha. The article in Tradition, unfortunately, was evidence to the contrary. It appears that, in attempting to gain the trust of his adversaries, he adopted their posture on the issue. But then, forgetting to use their force to disable them, he simply went down to defeat under their weight, losing the dignity of his cause by being dragged down by the ugly expressions he borrowed from their lexicon.

The Holocaust Challenge

ANOTHER CASE IN POINT: A four day symposium of scholars and theologians was recently held in the Cathedral of St. John the Divine (N.Y.C.) dedicated to examining faith after Auschwitz - belief in Divine Power in view of the massive evils perpetrated by the Nazis. An Orthodox Jew, faced with this type of challenge, may well respond with the Karate-chop-reply to the humanists: "After Auschwitz, can you still believe in man?"

Not so the Modern Orthodox representative at the symposium, Professor Irving Greenberg, chairman of the Department of Jewish Studies at New York City's College. He seemed to approach the challenge by attempting to disarm the assailant by giving credence to the challenge. But he forgot to toss

him over his shoulder, and after declaring "there is no choice but to confront the Holocaust because it happened" - he went down under his adversary's weight:

Professor Greenberg suggested that one now has to speak of .. moment faiths .. -periods of belief .. interspersed with times when the flames and smoke of the burning children blot out the faith though it flickers again. The difference between the skeptic and the believer is frequency of faith and not certitude of position.

In the experience of Auschwitz, he maintained, lies evidence that G-d's covenant may be destroyed; the reality of Israel suggestes grounds for the moment of faith that G-d's promises are faithful.

(New York Times-June4) It was left to an Augustine monk

to find a constant and permanent validity to Judaic faith in the ashes of Auschwitz; Gregory Baum of Canada suggested that:

.. The Christian world ... f and} the Churches have come to recognize Judaism as an authentic religion before G-d with its independent value and meaning, not as a stage on the way to Christianity."

!New YGrk Times-June4)

• • • Unfortunately, one suspects that

some who carry the banner of Modern Orthodoxy find that "Modern" represents the ideal and Orthodoxy the burden.

As Rabbi Yosef Hurwitz, Der Alter fun Nevardok, said: "Torah is not to conform to the times. The times must conform to the Torah."

If one manages that, fine. Then his words can clarify the apparent cross-purposes between modern problems and Torah thought, reconciling the two when possible, making Torah supreme at all times.

If one can not manage to follow Der Alters credo, then he would better take his cue from the Augustinian Order and assume vows of silence.


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25

Giving Up

This is not a piece about surrender. It is about giving. Giving Up. Not level. Not down. But Up. Let me explain. When they buy a car, people often tend to buy Up. They don't buy Down - or less than they can afford. Nor do they buy level, or precisely what they can afford. They often buy Up: for a few dollars more a month they can have

air-conditioning; for a little more, tinten windows; for more, stereo, or tilted steering wheel, or swinging seats, or what have you. Most people reason. Why not? A few extra dollars per month, we won't even feel it.This is called buying Up.

yeshiva, that synagogue - for a few extra dollars a month, look at what you can accomplish. You won't even feel it.

Do you give Up? EMANUEL FELDMAN

Rabbi of the Congregation Beth Jacob

of Atlanta, Georgia -from his Congregation Bulletin

'26

Question: how come so few people give Up? How come so many give Down? That school, that

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A Chol H amoed Lesson

CHOL. HA MO ED (the intermediate days of the Festivals) contains the sacred and the mundane in sufficient mixture to represent a dozen things to as many people.

The businessman finds it an opportunity to open the mail that accumulates in the two-three-four-five days his office was closed (depending on the holiday's place in the week).

The laborer /white collar worker encounters problems: finishdavening-in-tirne-for-work problems, Pesach-menu problems, Succos where do-you-eat-or-shall-I-skiplunch problems.

Parents see endless stretches of school-less days - a veritable desert of "I didn't do anything today; why can't we go to Disneyworld tomorrow?" plaints, relieved by a refreshing oasis of organized tri]'ls to Bear Mountains and the local zoo.

Window shopping, relative hopping, farbrengen-sirnchos stopping .. . . All very nice, but what did the rabbis of the Talmud have in mind when they defined the Chol HaMoed days as a time when: ". . .Some labors are forbidden, some are permitted" (Shulchan Aruch: Drach Chayirn 530, I) - "To permit according to the need, as understood by the wise men" (Rama op cit). - The Kolbo explained, writing: "When the Almighty gave us festivals, He intended that we become involved in fearing and loving Him, and engage in Torah study."

Strange how we seem to have forgotten uHis intention" when we celebrate His festivals .... Perhaps the yeshivas should convene during Chol HaMoed - but before this proposal is spelled out in any more detail, it must be conceded that it would be impractical and inadvisable.

Recently a yeshiva rebbi contemplated this scene and decided that since Chol HaMoe laws are really flexible in natu1 - 1 'ie


halacha spells out demands on those who can meet them, and provides dispensations for those who require them - why not train children in making their own judgments and encourage them to study voluntarily? The result: A Hasrnodah (diligence) Contest, sponsored by Pirchei Agudath Israel.

Forms were prepared and distributed, incentives were announced, and tongues were cheeked - which kid is going to give away a few precious hours of free time to voluntary study?

Chol HaMoed came and went, and the results came in: over three hundred boys responded with documented, notarized forms attesting to anything from ten to seventy-five (75) hours spent in Torah study during the Pesach vacation period, extending from April 4th through the 14th - totalling over 6,000 hours normally frittered away, spent in Torah study. Parents

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The Jewish Observt'r / June, 1974

Letters to the Editor

Golus, Geulah, and Columbus's Discovery

To the Editor: Rabbi Schwab's parable is a two

edged sword. Columbus and the people of his day had made a momentous discovery, infinitely more significant than the route to India, but alas they never appreciated it. Also, Columbus's journey and the discovery of America were but the first step towards many other break-throughs that followed. Couldn't it be possible that we are underestimating the significance of the events of our time, as Columbus so mistakenly did?

What most perplexes me is Rabbi Schwab's dogmatic insistence that what has transpired in Eretz Yisroel is a Go/us phenomenon. He has clearly defined ultimate Geu/ah; only partially described Go/us but he has not established the criteria for ischa/ta de'geulah. To say that the end of Go/us is initiated by the absence of bloodshed seems to be refuted by Rabbi Akiva and Bar Kochba. Much Jewish blood was being spilled at that time. Yet, Rabbi Akiva thought Bar Kochba to be Moshiach. Only the death of Bar Kochba convinced him that he was in error.

By its very nature, ischa/ta de'geulah may come kima kima-bit by bit-like the beginning of day, not easily nor readily discernible to anyone at the time (unless he is up and awake). That would make designating a particular time or era to the observer (a Jewish observer) as ischa/ta de'geu/ah very difficult if

The Jewish Ohsen•er / June, 1974

J

not impossible - as would saying that it is absolutely not ischa!ta de'geu/ah.

Furthermore, what harm can befall the Jew who sees in the return of Eretz Yisroel to Jewish sovereignty; the liberation of Yerusha/ayim; and an ingathering of exiles far greater than at the time of Ezra as an act of Divine chesed that may signal ischalta de'geu/ah.

Finally, isn't there another option? The period of Bayis Sheini was not Geu/ah nor its beginnings, but it was also not Go/us.

I honestly don't know what our period is. I wonder if Rabbi Schwab would elaborate and clarify how he is so sure that it is Go/us.

DR. SHOLOM GOLD Rabbi of the Young Israel of West Hempstead, L.I.

Rabbi Schwab Replies: Ge'ulah: Like the Break of Dawn

I have told a parable. Those who wish to reject its implication are free to do so.

In telling my moshol, I have tried to "uncover one tephach while covering two tephochim," since I did not wish to engage in any polemics, which will read like the parable of children a few years from now. The future will tell who was right and who was not. The geulah will indeed come kimo kimo, bit by bit, like the break of dawn (Jerusalem Talmud, Berachos I). But - like the break of dawn - it will not zig-zag and oscillate as it has done lately.

If what my correspondent calls the "beginning of geulah" means daily bloodshed and horror,

atrocities and the massacre of Jewish children, then there is no reason to be so enthusiastic about it - to say the least ....

(HORA V) SIMON SCHWAB

Yiddishkeit, Tel Aviv U., and the Kotel

To the Editor: Tisha b'Av, 5733. My husband

and I rode in from Bnei Brak to spend the night at the Kate!. Huddled under my quilt with some other American girls, I tried to explain what a tragedy the destruction of the Temple was for the Jews. Across the nearly deserted plaza, another group of girls were reading from Tzenah Ur'enah: two of the auditors came back and told us what they had learned. There was a third group, under the care of a Yerushalmi rebbitzin, of girls in shawls and peasant skirts who had been taken in by families in Meah She'arim. At dawn we all moved to the Kole] to cry and to daven.

Young Americans come to Israel by the thousands, searching for something .... Writing about that same Tisha b' Av night at the Kate!, in the Kislev Issue, Chaya Rosenzweig reminds us of those souls, who are often easier to reach when they have made the long journey to Eretz Hakodesh. If you travel in Israel, you will see American students at the Kotel, in Hevron, in Sfat. Many of them want to know what these places really mean, but they need an unspoken invitation from your side before they will join your group and listen.

Last year there was no discernible

29

@ 77rn LETTERS CONTINUED

religious life at Tel Aviv University, where my husband and I teach. This year, however, shiurim in Yiddishkeit organized for the American students by some of the American professors have been faithfully attended. After a Megillah reading run by the faculty, which was a resounding success, as was a student-run minyan during an offcampus seminar, the administration relented and permitted the students the use of a University room for a Friday night minyan. Some of the students have been making Shabbos together all year; they recently invited some of the young Englishspeaking couples from Kfar Habad to make a hasidic Shabbos for a much larger group.

Each year there is a complete turnover in the visiting foreign students, so next fall we may again be faced with the spectacle of a campus with 17,000 Jewish students and no minyan. The basic interest in

Yiddishkeit must be encouraged and channelled afresh: it will be an annual challenge to the English speaking faculty and to any other religious o/im who will take an interest in these students so far from their own families.

MALKA SCH A PS

Bnei Brak, Israel

Rabbi Jacob Joseph: An Added Dimension

To the Editor: Shmuel Singer's account of "the

ill-fated struggle to unite New Yark Jewry under ... Rabbi Jacob Joseph" gave that tragic chapter of our history a compelling immediacy, and left us with so much to ponder over, much to think about.

To enlarge the scope of the personal dimension of the tragedy, may I offer the following little-known facts:

Rabbi Jacob Joseph had been known as one of the select, outstanding disciples of Rabbi Yisroel Salanter zt"I. Only the bitter, abortive end to his career clouded him

from a fame equal to that of his colleagues, Reb Yitzchok Blaser of Petersburg, Reb Simcha Zisel Ziv of Kelm, and others. In fact, an entire section of Katz's Tnu'as HaMussar is devoted to Rabbi Joseph.

Prior to his last visit to shul, following his stroke, he had consulted a Rambam which he expected to cite in a scholarly discourse he was to deliver in the shul. During his presentation, he paused and could not recall the text of the Rambam. "When I arrived in New York," he said, "there was not a passage from the Rambam that I had to look up, for I knew his works by heart. And today, I can not even recall the one I had prepared."

Perhaps your readers will find these notes as insightful as I did.

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The Jewish Observer I June. 1974

Rabbi Jacob Joseph ... Today?

To the Editor: One must hope that the article "A

Chief Rabbi for New York City"' will be only the first in a series of articles depicting the evolution of Jewish life into what is now the world's largest single concentration of Jewry.

organizations, each one having something to say about its competition - sometimes factual and sometimes baseless (which is worse).

One can only speculate what might have happened ifRabbi Jacob Joseph had tried to do today what he had done so many years ago. He probably would have been accused of, in addition to all his other troubles, of being a Neturei Kartanik, or a Mizrachist, or in some minds, even worse, an Agudist.

YONOSON ISRAEL

Brooklyn, N. Y.

"Rabbi Jacob Joseph" - Like Medicine

reading for everyone under the exhortation: "Remember the days of old; understand the years of every generation."

It pains me, however, to point out the following:

The article states " ... the Chief Rabbinate ... was not destined to last. In the end it succumbed to the cumulative opposition of selfseeking, anti-religious elements."

Granted, these factions did their share. But, 'in all honesty, isn't it obvious that if Orthodoxy had stood united, and if individual (Orthodox) persons and groups had negated their overwhelming selfish interests-then- Reform opposition would have gotten nowhere!

Although much appears to have changed since those years, not much has really changed. What has changed is that rather than a kosher chicken costing 1 ¢ more towards Hcovering the expense of supervision of the shochtim and general kashrus," a chicken costs upwards of 50¢ more per lb. most of which, it is quite clear, finds its resting place in other than the shochet's pocket.

To the Editor:

"We" could have laughed it off with an irritated shrug.

What has not changed is the fact is that there is even today a rivalry between various Kashrus

I found the article on Rabbi Jacob Joseph like medicine - bitter to swallow but necessary for one's selfimprovement. It should be required

Can't we please be honest and learn . . ?

B. EICHENTHAL

Brooklyn, New York

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The Jewish Observer I June, 1974

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LETTERS CONTINUED

Rabbeinu Yaakov Yosef: A Yeshiva on His "'Kever''

To the Editor: l would like to commend the ex

cellent historical review, "The Chief Rabbinate of New York," in your most recent issue. It is interesting to note that the problems facing Rabbeinu Yaakov Yosef and his kehilla, specifically that of the lack of achdus (unity), still is a most critical issue facing Orthodoxy to this very day.

l did feel, however, that it was most unfortunate that the author did not mention the z'chus of HAMDS YESHIVA AL KEVRO - the yeshiva established in his memory - where throughout the years, thousands of ta/midim received their background toward becoming talmidei chachomim and leaders in the Orthodox community. This mention, l believe, is the least we can do as an expression of gratitude for all of his efforts for k/al.

MORDECHAI EISSENBERG

Musmach, Yeshivas Rabbeinu Yaakov Yosef

Impossible To Find ... Almost

To the Editor:

Working at the Saul Silber Memorial Library of the Hebrew Theoiogical College (Beth HaMedrash LaTorah) in Skokie, !II., I happened to see the article "Lomza" by Mr. Chaim Shapiro, and the foot-note that the ;no ,nn ''i.K '.l!J is no where to be found. Our library has a copy of this work by ':>":<l ~,i, .,.,,, onn ]>r.J •po111<pon which was published in ~"o;n in Warsaw. The two subtitles are o•n 1lllVl'.l1 on':> JlllVr.J This sefer can not be removed from the library.

JOSEPH H. BACHRACH

Chicago, Ill.

An Editorial Suggestion

To the Editor: l wish to congratulate you on the

excellent quality of the recent issues of the JO. The articles are relevant, well-informed, and well-written; and you avoid, as far as possible, pure d'rush (sermonizing) which belongs elsewhere. The essays on the Gedolei Yisroel provide a welcomed change of pace, but, more than that, have

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an immediacy of appeal which is often Jacking in other aritcles.

If I may make a suggestion, which, l hope you will follow up: the JO should bring, in form of a ''Letter From Eretz Yisroel," a regular periodic report on Agudist policy in Eretz Yisroe/. I trust your proven editorial competency that you will choose a correspondent whose reports will keep away from stories of petty bickering, but rather keep us informed on the ideological and political background of events, in conformity with the approach of the rest of the JO. Where else are we to get our information on the political scene in Eretz Yisroe/?

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U.S. SUPREME COURT UPHOLDS CONSTITUTIONALITY OF

REMEDIAL READING SERVICES FOR NON-PUBLIC SCHOOL CHILDREN

ON JUNE IOTH the U.S. Supreme Court handed down an 8 to I decision affirming a lower court order that the state of Missouri must provide comparable services-services to children in non-public schools, on the nonpublic school premises, under Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965. According to this decision in the Wheeler V. Barrera case, Yeshiva students who require remedial reading services will be able to obtain this help in the Yeshiva, under Title I funding.

The Commission on Legislation and Civic Action of Agudath Israel of America expressed its "delight" with the Supreme Court decision, and added that it took "special pleasure" from the fact that the nonOrthodox Jewish groups which had entered this case with a "friend of the court" brief suffered a defeat. These Jewish groups which urged the Supreme Court not to permit the non-public school children to obtain these benefits, were the American Jewish Congress, Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith, Jewish Labor Committee, Jewish War Veterans, National Council of Jewish Women, Union of American Hebrew Congregations, and United Synagogue of America.

The National Jewish Commission on Law and Public Affairs (COLPA) had represented the Orthodox Jewish groups in an amicus curaie brief filed on this case, which was prepared by Nathan Lewin, a prominent Washington attorney. Mr. Lewin is the son of Dr. Isaac Lewin, chairman of the American section of the Agudath Israel World Organization.

AGUDAH LEADER WARNS OF

"IMMINENT COLLISION" BETWEEN

PUBLIC AND NON-PUBLIC SCHOOL PARENTS

UNLESS THE NEW YORK CITY budget is revised to include funds to provide speech therapy services for the half-million nonpublic school children in the City, New York is faced with an "imminent collision" between the parents of children attending public and non-public schools. This warning was issued at a hearing on Monday (June 3) of the City's Board of Estimate by Rabbi Moshe Sherer, executive president of Agudath Israel of America.

Rabbi Sherer pointed out that the City Administration made a "grievous error" in denying the additional $2.6 million for 186 additional speech therapists to service children in non-public schools. In view of a recent decision of the City's Corporation Counsel, fortified by a new law adopted by the New York State Legislature, the Board of Education is mandated to provide this type of speech correctional service to non-public school children on an equal basis with public school students, and, the Orthodox Jewish leader declared, "the non-public school forces are determined to fight for this principle of equality in the courts until justice is achieved."

Jn his presentation, Rabbi Sherer stated that unless the additional funds are provided in a revised City budget, there will develop a tug-of-war between the non-public and public school sectors for the $6 million set aside from the old budget for the needs of public school children alone. "The serious polariza· tion which would result from this situation would create an. unnecessary and harmful confrontation in the New York City community which must be avoided at all costs," he concluded.

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GOY. WILSON HAILED FOR SIGNING LAWS

AIDING NON-PUBLIC SCHOOLS

GOVERNOR MALCOLM WILSON was lauded for signing a number of bills aiding non-public schools, of which the major measures mandate a broad range of health and welfare services for non-public school pupils, and reimburse the non-public schools for mandated services. This tribute was paid by the Commission on Legislation and Civic Action of Agudath Israel of America which has worked constantly in Albany for the enactment of these laws.

The new Chapter 974 of the Laws of 1974 amends the existing Education Law to clearly specify that health services performed for public school children must be given on an equal basis to non-public school children, including al! services performed by a physician, dental hygienist, nurse, school psychologist, speech therapist, etc.

The new mandated services law is a revised° version of a measure which was declared unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court. The bill was tailored to conform with the restrictions of the Supreme Court decision. It specifies that the actual costs will be reimbursed to non-public schools for such activities as attendance records, state required tests and health records.

Other bills signed by the Governor exempt non-public schools from paying excise taxes on the gasoline and die.Se! fuel they use, and extend from ten to fifteen miles the distance to which the school authorities must provide bus transportation for non-public school children. Previously, Governor Wilson had signed a measure providing for special services for handicapped children.

Agudath Israel expressed appreciation to Governor Wilson for "not buckling under to the die-hard opponents of any aid to the nonpublic school sector," and expressed confidence that "even if these extremist groups will test the constitutionality of these measures, they will be upheld in the courts."

Lapidus Bros. Gemilath Chesed Ass'n of the Crown Hts.

Agudath Israel, Inc.

For Applications:

Call RABBI JOSHUA SILBERMINTZ

at: WO 4-1620 or write: c/o AGUDATH ISRAEL

5 Beekman St., New York 10038

33

BORO PARK SENIOR CITIZENS CENTER LAUNCHES

CONSUMER FRAUDS AND PROTECTION DESK

THE BORO PARK SENIOR CITIZENS CENTER,

located at 4511 ~ 14th Ave., Brooklyn, launched a Consumer Frauds and Protection Desk on, June 18th as part of a new program by the State Attorney Generars office.

The senior citizen volunteers who man this desk were trained by Thelma Lichtblau, the consumer education specialist with the Bureau of Consumer Frauds and Protection of the Attorney General's office. Rabbi Robert Rosenblum, program director of the Bora Park Senior Citizen Center, will head a task force of senior citizen volunteers in providing these new services to the senior citizens and the rest of the community.

The new program consists of pre~fraud counseling to dispense information concerning one's rights under the laws of our state as presented in the "ABC of Consumer Rights;" provides assistance in legal matters through direct contact with the Attorney General's office; will publicize a "Where It's At List" for professional services such as medical, legal, etc; and will serve as ombudsman in which victims of alleged fraud will join volunteer task force members in investigating complaints. Special Yiddishspeaking volunteers will help investigate complaints from Yiddish-speaking members of the community.

Attorney General Louis J. Lefkowitz headed a host of other government and community leaders in dedicating the new desk.

Rabbi Menachem Lubinsky, director of the Boro Park Senior Citizens Center, hailed the new program as "a desperately needed crutch for hundreds of helpless citizens who are unable to articulate their problems." He stressed that elderly citizens who are very often victims of consumer fraud, stand to benefit most from this project. The Baro Park Senior Citiznes Center is a project of Agudath Israel of America's Commission on Senior Citizens.

The Commission on Senior Citizens of Agudath Israel also sponsors the Flatbush (Brookdale) Senior Citizens Center, which will open its doors oil A venue H and East 9th Street in the near future, and a number of other facilities for the aged which are expected to begin functioning by the end of June.

34

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OVER 6,000 CHILDREN "LIVE TORAH" IN WORLDWIDE NETWORK

OF AGUDATH ISRAEL CAMPS

OVER 6,000 CHILDREN will benefit from intensive "Torah indoctrination courses" sponsored at 27 summer camps operated in various parts of the world by the international Agudath Israel movement. Among the campers will be a large number of Russiam immigrant children in Israel who are the recipients of special scholarship grants from the Russian Immigrant Rescue Fund.

These "Torah study institutes under the sky" sponsored by the Agudath Israel movement represent the largest Orthodox camp population in the world, a spokesman for the Camps Commission of Agudath Israel of America noted. The record enrollment is the result of a massive recruitment drive launched by Agudist youth leaders, as part of an ongoing effort to utilize the time usually wasted by youngsters, such as vacation periods, for productive efforts to lift their levels of Torah study and religious commitment.

The vacation retreats, most of which bear the name Camp Agudah (for boys) or Camp Bnos (for girls) are located in New York's Catskill Mountains, Canada, Argentina, England, Belgium, Switzerland and Italy. Israel's branch sponsors more than sixteen camps, the largest of which is Chazon Yecheskie!.

Agudath Israel of America also cosponsors two large summer projects in Israel for campers from every part of the world: Camp S'dei Chemed International in Rishon Lezion for boys and the Beth Jacob "Live and Learn" program for girls in Jerusalem.

The camps of Agudath Israel in America have expanded their special programs for children from twenty-six states, besides a large contingent from Central American countries, many of whom are receiving their "first taste of authentic Judaism." They also maintain special programs for children from Jewishly uncommitted homes, who are recruited by the Jewish Education Program (JEP) of Zeirei Agudath Israel.

THOUSANDS OF TORAH STUDY HOURS GAINED

BY UNIQUE JEWISH EDUCATION PROJECT

A CELEBRATION TOOK PLACE on June 2 to reward the participants in a unique project to "make the wasted intersession hours count for Torah study." Sponsored by the National Council of Pirchei Agudath Israel, a youth division of Agudath Israel of America, Yeshiva youngsters were encouraged to study Torah during the twelve-day Pesach vacation period when Jewish schools are closed. The result: Over 300 children from Boston to California learned Torah during their free time, for periods ranging from ten to 75 hours.

The winners in this first national "Hasmodoh (diligent Torah study) Contest'' received their prizes at a gathering in Agudath Israel of Baro Park, chaired by Rabbi Joshua Silbermintz, national director of Pirchei Agudath Israel. The two top winners: Shlomo Halioua who had engaged in 75 hours of Torah study, and Velvel Finkelstein who spent 72 hours of his leisure time over Pesach in study.

Thus, Pirchei Agudath Israel, which sponsors a broad range of Jewish educational projects, made another advance in its efforts to elevate Torah goals among Jewish youth by encouraging Torah study outside the official sessions of the Yeshivas.

Encouraged by this intitia! success, and stimulated by the warm praise from principals of Jewish day schools nationally, Pirchei Agudath Israel immediately embarked on plans for the second "Hasmodoh Contest" to take place over the Succos vacation period, from September 27th to October 10th. The chairmen of the contest are Menachem Profesorske, Aviesri Wagschal, Yeshayo Yaroslowitz and Gershon Nathan.

Posters and entry blanks for the second "Hasmodoh Contest" can be obtained from the National Council of Pirchei Agudath Israel, 5 Beekman Street, New York City 10038.

NEW AGUDATH ISRAEL BRANCHES IN DENVER AND BROOKLYN

THE LATEST AGUDATH ISRAEL branch to link up with the national network of Agudath Israel of America was recently established in Denver, Colorado. The new chapter of Agudath Israel, which was founded by dedicated rabbis and laymen in the community, was launched on the occasion of a Siyum "Daf Yomi" addressed by local Torah personalities.

Agudath Israel of Denver has also linked into other projects sponsored by the national

Agudist rnovement, such as the "Mishnayos B'a! Peh" contest of Pirchei Agudath Israel.

This newly-organized branch followed by only several weeks the founding of a new branch of Agudath Israel in the Kings Highway area of Flatbush, at 1796 E. 7th Street. At the Chanukas Habayis dedication ceremony of this newly-formed Agudath Israel of Kings Highway, the national administration was represented by presidiummember Rabbi Chaskel Besser.


Make Congressman Carey - GOVERNOR Carey

•.. ·;""'1 u~ '

Congressman Carey receiving recognition from Agudath Israel, 1967.

Many candidates will ask for your support now that an election approaches. Base your judgment on facts and reason. You must ask: which candidate has demonstrated that he cares, that he is willing to act, all the time - not just when he wants our votes.

Congressman Carey has served for 14 years in Congress. His record is consistent. clear, and courageous: • Congressman Carey is the chief advocate in Washington for government support for our yeshivos; he

has meant a real difference to parents and children in schools throughout New York State. • Hugh Carey has demonstrated his specific concern for our community in areas such as Shechitah,

Kashruth, and employment. • Hugh Carey has spoken out tor Soviet Jewry, and for the rights of oppressed peoples in all unfree

countries, for more than ten years. •

• •

Hugh Carey is an ardent supporter and devoted friend of Israel. He knows the nation first hand, and has opposed all efforts to weaken United States policy toward Israel. Hugh Carey fights for fair immigration laws . Congressman Carey has spent 14 years in Congress representing Soro Park, Bensonhurst, and neighboring communities. His legislation to help the handicapped, senior citizens, and the law-abiding majority shows that he understands our community's needs. As governor, Hugh Carey can begin to work immediately in helping meet our needs.

Hugh Carey has a long list of achievements. Just as important is the personal character of the man: his honesty and integrity; his devotion to his children and to his late wife, Helen; and his loyalty to his community and his fellow human beings.

Hugh Carey will make a great governor of New York. We urge your support for this compassionate, caring man.

This year, before they tell you what they WANT to do -Make them show you what they've DONE.

Hugh Carey for Governor - Democratic Primary- September 10, 1974

Remember: You can't vote for Carey in the primary if you are not a registered Democrat. Register today.


Paid for by Citizens tor Carey Committee I Hotel Commodore

109 East 42nd Street, Seventh Floor I New York, New York 10017 I (212) 725-7000

James H. Tully, Jr., Chairman

35

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! SARA SCHENIRER SEMINARY 't( · f : is now accepting applications for September q ~ : i to its spacious, up-to-date · E * * * * I RESIDENCE HALL I * * * : 1t Apply in writing or call between 10-5 (212) 633-8557. jt * 1 * jt Brochures and Literature wil be sent upon request * * * £ .... Offering an experience that is rich and lasting ..... the Residence Hall is £ * an enhancement and a complement to the classroom of Sara Schenirer Seminary. and * : : : provides the atmosphere in which Torah ethics and Torah awareness are maintained ; jt in daily life... 1t 1t Room and board in spacious living quarters in the heart of Baro Park. with personal needs. 1t £ both spiritual and material, of Seminary students fully provided at very minimal cost i * * i Seminary Program i 1t In addition to the traditional course of study which has helped make Sara Schenirer a leader 1t i in Chinuch Habonos and in Teacher Training, we will this year initiate two new programs: £ ; 1) Optional Methods course in teaching Secular ; ; Subjects in Bais Yaakov schools and Yeshivas ; :; 2) In-school training for elementary and kindergarten :; * * * *

I ~ 4622-14th AVENUE /BROOKLYN, N.Y.11219 /TELEPHONE633-8557-8 I :; Rabbi M. Meisels, Dean * * * :JEllll)(llfflH)(llff)(#llllff)()(lfMlllllJEHJElll!llffllllllllllMMllffl!UllllllllllllMHllHll!!lllll!llllllll!!lllll!UlllllillllllMUlllllll!llllllllHHllllllHllU!!llllMMllM!!llllffllMllllllllllffllllMt

The Mesivta of Staten Island Announces YESHIVAS HAKAYITZ Masten Lake, New York (near Monticello)

A summer yeshiva in the Catskills for children in bungalow colonies Grades pre-1A through 12 I Day Camp I Transportation

Give your son a fruitful & enjoyable summer! Morning

Your son will spend each morning in an organized yeshiva atmosphere with emphasis on developing enjoyment in learning and Midos Tovos.

Afternoon Your son will have a marvelous time in our day camp, with nutritious lunches, boating, swimming, and a full program of activities.

Rabbi Gershon Weiss, Menahel I Rabbi Yehuda Frankel, Menahel-Head Counselor

For registration, please call (212) 633-6867, 948-5650, 633-0498 or (914) 794-9124 or write: c/o Lakewood House, Rock Hill N.Y. Box 82

Special Mesivta Program for Overnight Campers Still several vacancies in masmidim&jr. counselor program $140. for 7 weeks

We take pride in announcing our dedicated staff of Rebbeyim: Rabbis Shlomo Mandel (Mesivta), Baruch Glucksman, Yehuda Neusbaum, Moshe Klinger

Shmuel Feldman, Avrohom Ziegler, Yeshaya Goldberg, Aaron Yona Piller

Still available on Yeshiva premises: • Several beautiful bungalows with paneled Hollywood kitchens • Dining room accommodations • Apartments at $275 up

Documents

TAMMUZ-AV, 5734 JUNE, 1974 SIXTY FIVE CENTS