R Micha Berger just posted an excellent essay on his blog, Aspaqlaria, on Gratitude.
Here is a quote to give you a taste of this must-print-and-read-on-Shabbos post:
What does “todah” mean? As it stands, it means “thanks”. The same root conjugated as “vidui” means to “confess”. Last, when the mishnah wants to stress that something is outside of a dispute, “hakol modim” — “all agree”. What do thanks, confession and agreement have in common?
To find out, click here.
Dr. Sorotzkin, ends the article with a section titled, “Middos or Politeness?” that I thought of last week, after coming to our childrens’ day school to drop off a drink for my daughter. As I gave the drink to my 7 yr old (I had forgotten to pack in her lunch), she said, “Thanks, Abba.” Her teacher looked at her and said, “What beautiful middos you have.”
Is saying, “Thank you”, looked at as good middos? It could be. I think that when a child or adult has to make a choice in behavior, we are exercising middos. If we are teaching our children that the reason we say “thank you” is because it’s nice to acknowledge someone doing something nice for you, then the “thank you” is regulated to good manners. Here are some examples, off the top of my yarmulka covered head, that can be looked at either as middos or manners:
Like most things in life, Hashem has gives us the opportunity to infuse a simple action with kedusha. Keeping our eyes open for those opportunities is the tricky part.
In a shiur I recently downloaded (thanks to Hirhurim‘s Joel Rich) given by Rabbi Benji Levene, a grandson of Reb Aryeh Levin, I heard the following story. Rabbi Levene once asked his zaide, “How did you manage to open up so many chilonim, non-relgious people, to relate to other people and open their hearts to so many beautiful things in Yiddishkeit? What was your mazel?”
Reb Aryeh answered:
There was one a son and a father that came to a rebbe and they were holding a winter coat that they owned.
The father said, “Rebbe, we have a coat. One coat only that we own. Coming winter now, I need the coat, I’m an old man. I need to have this coat. My son doesn’t feel the cold the way that I do.
The son said, “Rebbe, my father sits home the whole day and I go out and bring in parnassah. I go out in the cold, he’s at home. I need this coat.
The rav is left with a problem. He can’t say “cut it in half” because then they both won’t have a coat. He has to give them an answer, though. He thinks for a minute and says, “I’ll give you an answer tomorrow. Come back tomorrow, but when you come back each of you needs to take the other person’s side. Then I’ll give you an answer.”
They came back the next day with the coat and the father tells the rebbe, “I have a coat and it belongs to my son.”
The son then says, “I have a coat and it belongs to my father.”
The rav opens his closet to reveal a coat hanging there. The rebbe says, “It’s no problem, you both have a coat for the winter.”
The father looks at the coat and says, “Rebbe can I ask you one more question? When we were here yesterday, was that coat in the closest?” The rebbe answers that it was in closet yesterday.
“So why didn’t you give it to us yesterday? Why did we have to come back today?”
The rebbe replied, “You don’t understand. When you came to me yesterday and the father said, “I have a coat and it’s mine” and the son said. “I have a coat and it’s mine”, I thought, “I also have a coat in the closet and it’s mine.”
“When you came to me today and the father says, “I have a coat and it’s his”, and the son says, “I have a coat and it’s his”, I said to myself, “I have a coat and it’s yours.”
Rabbi Levene concludes, “If you want to open up another person’s heart to yours, then open your heart to that other person. You will see how wonderful, how much magic there will be in the way that other person will open up their heart to yours.” (End of story)
Aside from being a great story for anyone in kiruv or chinuch, I think as a husband and a parent, I will try in the upcoming year to really keep this story in mind. When the uniform clothes that were picked out (and aggreeded upon) prior to going to bed are not exactly what my daughter wants to wear when she wakes up or my son tells me that other kids go to bed much later than he does, I will try to put myself there and open my heart a bit wider.
Posted with permission from Rabbi Avi ShafranThe unaffiliated Jewish woman attended three of the rabbi’s lectures in the 1950s, visibly intrigued by the ideas he put forth, about the historicity of the Jewish religious tradition. Then she abruptly stopped coming.
Another woman who had also attended the lecture series tracked her down and asked why she was no longer showing up. The first woman answered straightforwardly: “He was convincing me. If I continue to listen to this man, I will have to change my life.”
What a remarkably honest person. (I like to imagine that she came, in time, to pursue what she then fled.)
And what a remarkable man was the rabbi who delivered the lectures. He was Rabbi Yaakov Weinberg, of blessed memory, whose tenth yahrtzeit, or death-anniversary, will be marked on the fast day of Shiva Asar BiTammuz (July 9). He later became the Rosh Yeshiva, or Dean, of the Ner Israel Rabbinical College in Baltimore. He was my rebbe.
As an 18-year-old studying in the Baltimore yeshiva in 1972, I watched him from afar. His father-in-law, Rabbi Yaakov Yitzchok Ruderman, of blessed memory, was the Rosh Yeshiva then; Rabbi Weinberg headed the Kollel, or graduate student program, and also delivered general Talmudic lectures. The depth of his knowledge, the power of his critical analyses of both Talmudic and worldly topics, his eloquence and his knowledge of history and the sciences all impressed me deeply.
But what I came to realize was that his brilliance and erudition were mere tools with which he was gifted. His essence was his dedication to truth, to Torah and to his students – indeed, to all Jews – and his humility.
When I think back on the many times I telephoned Rabbi Weinberg from wherever I was living at the time to ask him a question about Jewish law or philosophy, or for his advice, I am struck by something I never gave much thought to at those times: He was always available. And, I have discovered over the years, not only to me. As I came to recognize all the others – among them greatly accomplished Torah scholars, congregational rabbis and community leaders today – who had also enjoyed a student-rebbe relationship with Rabbi Weinberg, I marveled. In my youthful self-centeredness, I had imagined him as my rebbe alone. Who knew?
And his ongoing interactions with his students somehow didn’t prevent him from travelling wherever his services were needed. A sought-after speaker and arbitrator for individuals and communities alike, he somehow found time and energy for it all.
More telling, he felt responsible to undertake it all. He (and, may she be well, his wife, Rebbetzin Chana Weinberg) gave so very much to others (as the Rebbetzin continues to do). That, I long ago concluded, is the defining characteristic of true Gedolim, literally “great ones” – the term reserved for the most knowledgeable and pious Torah leaders of each generation: selflessness.
How painfully ironic, I sometimes think, that small, spiteful minds try to portray Gedolim oppositely. Then again, as the weekly Torah-portion of Korach recently read in synagogue reminds us, no less a Godol than Moses – the “most humble of all men” – was also spoken of cynically by some in his day. Plus ça change…
It wasn’t just in his public life, in his service to students and communities that Rabbi Weinberg’s self-effacement was evident. It was in little things too.
In the early 1980s, he was asked to temporarily take the helm of a small yeshiva in Northern California that had fallen on hard times. Although not a young man, he agreed to leave his home and position in Baltimore and become interim dean.
My wife and I and our three daughters lived in the community; I taught in the yeshiva and served as principal of the local Jewish girls’ high school. And so I was fortunate to have ample opportunity to work with Rabbi Weinberg, and to witness much that I will always remember. One small episode, though, remains particularly poignant.
Rabbi Weinberg was housed in a bedroom of a rented house. In the house’s other bedroom lived the yeshiva’s cooks – a middle-aged couple, recently immigrated from the Soviet Union.
Though Northern California has a wonderful climate, its winters can be a bit chilly, and the house’s heating system was not working. The yeshiva administrator made sure that extra blankets were supplied to the house’s residents, and an electric heater was procured for Rabbi Weinberg (the cooks, it was figured, had been toughened by a truly cold clime).
After a week or two of cold, rainy weather, it was evident that Rabbi Weinberg had caught a bad cold. Suspecting that perhaps the electric heater was not working, someone went to his room to check it. It wasn’t there.
Where it was, it turned out, was in the cooks’ room. Confronted with the discovery, Rabbi Weinberg sheepishly admitted to having relocated the heater. “I thought they would be cold,” was all he said.
Another heater was bought. And a lesson, once again, learned, about the essence of a Godol.
A thought: This post was titled an “Amazing story…”, but what is really amazing is that there a probably hundreds of stories similar to this one that people don’t know about Gedolim being sensitive to ordinary people. That’s true Gadlus HaAdom. -Neil
Most agree that it’s a good idea. There are plenty of people we meet, however, that we just don’t like. That’s OK. The mitzvah is to love them as Jews, not like them as people. Recently I experienced true Ahavas Yisrael from almost complete strangers. They helped me because it was a mitzvah, looking beyond my background or my hashkafa.
Real Ahavas Yisrael, not the kind that end up as a short story in a gloss weekly Jewish magazine or as a chapter in children’s Gadolim biography. Real Ahavas Yisrael that wakes you up that the cup of coffee that you psychologically know you need in order to function. Real Ahavas Yisrael, I’m talking about the kind that reminds you that we have to help others because Hashem is constantly helping us. Real Ahavas Yisrael, the kind you daven that your kids will practice when they become older.
Originally I was going to fill the post with several quotes on the importance of loving our fellow Jews from the likes of the Rambam, Rav Hirsch, and the Chofetz Chaim. I decided against this. Often in life we tend to meet people and try to figure out “what their angle” is. It seems that society has programmed us, well me, to think that most people I encounter have a hidden agenda. An act of kindness, a true Chessed, has an agenda as well, the most pure agenda, the will of Hashem. I am humbled that my creator has allowed me to meet a few people in my life that remind me of the kind of Jew I want to be.
I happen to love Pesach shopping. I know that in most stores it is a zoo, with people grabbing everything off the shelves, but you also get to see a lot of Jews who might not always buy Kosher items during the year. It’s a great opportunity to remember that being polite to other shoppers can be a really big Kiddush Hashem.
(Originally posted on the Facebook group Middos Tovos )
Hamodia has a great article about R Aryeh Levin zt’l that realy show you why he was a true Tzaddik.
This story was amazing:
I remember another time when Reb Aryeh asked a woman who had come to visit him to give him a brachah that he shouldn’t have to be helped by his children.
Copyright 2009 by Hamodia
I was surprised by him asking such a brachah – he had such chashuvah children, his sons Harav Rafael, Harav Yaakov and Harav Shlomo, and his sons-in-law, Harav Yudelevitz, Harav Yaakobovitz, Harav Elyashiv and Harav Palchinsky, all geonim and talmidei chachamim – so why did Reb Aryeh think it would be so bad if he was helped by them? And why should Reb Aryeh ask for a brachah from this unknown woman in the first place?
After the woman left the room, Reb Aryeh, who had noticed my surprise, explained.
“This woman is a widow who didn’t merit having any children. I was worried that when she saw my grandchildren and great-grandchildren it would make her own sorrow more intense. I therefore tried to ease her grief by showing her that despite my many descendants, a person prefers to care for himself.”
Indeed, after giving the brachah, the widow finally smiled.
Rav Yisrael Lipkin of Salant said “that perfecting one character trait is more difficult than learning all of Shas (the entire Talmud)”.
It is known that often Rav Yisrael would attend shiurm given by the Chidushei HaRim, Rav Yitzchak Meir Alter, who was the first Ger Rebbe. The Chidushei HaRim was known for finishing all of Shas every month, in depth. It is also know that he spent seven years working on the middah of having an Eyin Tovah (seeing the good in others). Parhaps the Chidushei HaRim’s avodah was what prompted Rav Yisrael to make the above statement?
As a parent who didn’t go through the days school/yeshiva system who has children currently in the system, have there been things that they have learned that suprised you in a postivie way?
The first thing that surprises me about them is the simple fact of the things that they know at a much younger age than I knew it. When I was starting to open a Chumash for the first time at 17 years old, it would take me a minute to break my teeth over pronouncing a two syllable Hebrew word. But my fourth grader has been saying all of bentching almost by heart for a year or two already. At 17, I only knew the really famous Bible stories and had never studied Parsha. My first grader mentioned at the Shabbos table that Rivka was from Charan, which is in Padan Aram!!! Gevalt!
This year, the kids are doing a program called “Derech,” short for “Derech Eretz Kadma LaTorah,” “Proper character traits are a pre-requisite to learning Torah.” They studied the concept of Tzelem Elokim, understanding that we must act and treat others in way that reflects consciousness of the fact that we are all created b’tzelem Elokim, in the image of G-d. This past week, they learned about making a Kiddush Hashem. The kids really get into the stories and the discussions about these things. They are a really good influence on them and it really gets their heads in the right place.
Although there are sometimes issues in the upper grades, my younger kids are just so much better off and live a much more wholesome life than outside of a nice yeshiva setting. They are truly fortunate to have such an upbringing today. We are very fortunate that we and our children’s friends don’t have televisions in the home. It is truly a bracha to be able to raise our children in such a way and be at less risk for all of the bad things that are considered normal outside the frum community.
I am surprised and amazed by how much the kids know at such a young age. They can read and understand so much Chumash, halacha, and Hebrew at such a young age. It’s beautiful to see how much a human being is capable of. Ashreinu u’matov chelkeinu, fortunate are we and how great our portion that we are able to send our children to such great schools, even when we were not able to have that kind of education!
Neil, I’d be interested to hear your answer to this question as well!
On the eve of Rosh Hashanah, Rav Yisrael Salanter would instruct each member of the family how to behave. He would warn them against getting angry and against idle conversation, for they were all in grave danger. Their carefulness was to last at least through the morning when the judgement is strictest.
From Sparks of Mussar by R Chaim Ephraim Zaitchik
