My hesped for my father a"h

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Delivered last Wednesday (Nov 4th) in Wichita, Kansas

I want to thank everyone for being here today. It’s a true testament to the type of person that my father was.
It is written in the Ethics of our Fathers, Pirkei Avos that:
“Rabbi Shimon used to say: There are three crowns–the crown of the Torah, the crown of the priesthood, and the crown of kingship, but the crown of a good name surpasses them all. (Pirkei Avos 4:17)”

I cannot stress how many of you have spoken with me about the high level of respect and love they had for my father. Growing up he was just my dad, who shlepped us to the Gypsum Hills and other exotic sites on Sundays, Shocker games, family gatherings, and always took us to great places to eat that were well “off the beaten path”. I was blessed to have not only know him as a father, but also as a grandfather. Grandpa, as we called him, loved his grandkids. He would always talk about sports with my son, and loved to watch my daughters dance, sing, and play. He was very proud of their Jewish education. My Dad and step-mother always made the most of their visits , even their last one in July when we spent an early morning at a flea market and then the rest of the day and evening at Six Flags. But there was another side of him that was fairly public, despite his attempts to keep it private.

He was a person who truly lived up to his Hebrew name, Avraham.
Avraham, Abraham, is known in the Torah and throughout Rabbinic writings as embodying the essence of Chessed, the Hebrew word for Kindness. My Dad never was one to seek out fame and pats-on-the-back for his deeds. He quietly, and many times behind the scenes, did many acts of kindness for everyone he came in contact with. No matter if it was a smile, a greeting when you came to into the Synagogue, offering advice, maintaining the cemetary erev Yom Tov, before a Holiday, making sure food was prepared just right, or simply thinking about how he could help someone else, he was constantly doing chessed. Even when it came to shipping out artwork sold on eBay, he would take time to make sure that each piece was packed in a way that it would arrive intact to the buyer. The truth is, most us of will never know of the chessed, the kindnesses, that my father did for others, as he was not one to ever broadcast what he did. That was the type of person my father was, thus, earning the “crown of a good name” as a brother, husband, father, uncle, friend, and especially as a grandfather.

There is a book in my dad’s basement titled “The Bar Mitzvah Treasury”, printed in 1954, that was given to my dad as a Bar Mitzvah present. In it there is a story is the following story about Rabbi Israel Salanter, a Rabbi who lived in the 1800s and started an Ethical movement within Judaism. It seems that one day, even though there was a full pail of water in the house, he used very little of it to wash his hands prior to eating bread. His pupils were quite astonished that their revered Rabbi, know for his pious acts, did not perform properly the commandment to wash thoroughly before eating bread.
Hesitantly they turned to him and said: “Please forgive us for asking you this. But we cannot understand why you used so little water to wash your hands.”

Rabbi Salanter replied: “I saw that their maidservant delivers this water to the house from a far-off well. She, poor creature, bends low under the heavy load when carries the yoke on her shoulders. I do not think it is right to perform a Mitzvah at the expense of some else’s shoulders!”
This story totally encapsulates my father. Always thinking of others and not wanting to burden anyone.

As my step-mother said to me last night, and I quote, “Random acts of kindness don’t only change the world but they elevate people.”

The true greatness of a “Ba’al Chessed”, the Hebrew term we give to a “master of Kind Acts” is that even after he leaves this world, his acts of kindness continue. I am truly blessed, that even at this difficult time, he has allowed me to reconnect with family and friends whom I was very close with when I was growing up. The crown of his good name, Avharam ben Zorach, Albert Lyon Harris, can live on in each of us, if we simply think about what we can do to help someone else.


Please daven for Avraham ben Tzipporah

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I had sent out messages via email and facebook, so the only medium left (with the exception of Twitter) is this little piece of lint in the pocket of the jBloggosphere.

If you have time, please try to daven, say tehillim, or have a little extra kavana when doing a Mitzvah, as a zechus for a Refuah Shelayma for my father, Avraham ben Tzipporah.

Thank you.

The other side of Lech Lecha

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Bereshis 14:13 And the fugitive came and he told Abram the Hebrew, and he was living in the plain of Mamre the Amorite, the brother of Eshkol and the brother of Aner, who were Abram’s confederates.


Rashi: הָעִבְרִי [So called] because he came from the other side (מֵעֵבֶר) of the [Euphrates] river (Gen. Rabbah 42:8). [Text from Chabad.org and the JPS Transation]

Rav Shlomo Friefeld explains,  as printed in the book In Search of Greatness, (on page 14) quotes the actual Midrash, that “explains why Avraham was called Avraham the Ivri.  What is an Ivri?  The Midrash says that the term Ivri come from the word ever, which means a side.  It is often used for a riverbank.  Every river has two sides, this riverbank and the opposite one.  Avraham was called Avraham the Ivri, the “sider,” or one who stood on the side.  What does that mean?  The Gemara says that Avraham stood on one side and the entire world stood on the other.  He had his beliefs, and the entire world was opposed to them.

Now, I saw a very similar idea brought down by Rav Dovid Hanania Pinto, shilta in Pahad David.  Rav Pinto says:

It is written in the Torah that the children of Israel were called “Ivrim”. The first person to be given this name was our patriarch Abraham. The term “Ivrim” has two meanings:

When man comes close to the Eternal by studying the Torah and observing the Mitzvot, he “comes from the other side” (“Ivri” means one from the other side of the river) just like our patriarch Abraham did. A man bound to the Torah is able to live with another who is not, even if their opinions are different. Why? Because the first man, as Abraham did, adjusted his convictions to the “other side”.

There is another reason why the children of Israel are called “Ivrim”. The root  of this word is “Avar” (past). This means that instead of being satisfied with everyday life that  keeps changing from one day to another, they lived attached to their past. They were bound to the magnificent past of our Saintly Forefathers, and this past is immutable in the image of the Holy Torah revered by our ancestors.

The ability to stay strong in your convictions and live with others who think differently than you is the mark of greatness.  It’s that ability, when rooted, as Rav Pinto writes, in the past, in Emunas HaChamim (faith in our Sages) and Zechus Avos (merit of our Forefathers) that gives each Jew the strength to be an Eved Hashem, like Avraham Avinu.

This was written Zecher Nishmas my father-in-law, Dan HaLevi ben Aharon a”h.  My father-in-law a”h not only survived the Shoah, but remained a proud Jew every day of his life.

Previous posts on Lech Lecha can be found here and here.

Switching Tracks

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(Image from Flickr)
I was recently asked a very interesting question during an interview for a volunteer position.  The question was, “What is my style of parenting”?
I answered that I tend to be somewhat strick but within large parameters, so that there’s flexibility and a feeling of making a choice.  In truth, I’ve been working on being more laid back since the kids started up in school again.  Prior to being asked the question, I had been giving my parenting skills a lot of thought over the past two months.  My wife has pointed out that I’m, at times, somewhat demanding about little things, especially after my kids have spent almost eight hours in their day school.  As a product of the public school system, I really don’t know what it’s like to deal with both a duel-curriculum and a long day at such a young age.  My wife was right (as usual), I was putting emphasis on the wrong things and at the wrong time.
I had been wanting to write about this for quite some time, especially after reading something that R Nosson Kamenetsky wrote in Making of a Godol regarding Rav Nosson Tzvi Finkel, the Alter of Slabodka and his derech of Mussar within the Slabodka Yeshiva (Knesses Yisroel), the yeshiva he started.  The following is from page 57:

By 5664 (1904), with Russia’s humiliating defeat in its war with Japan, the winds of Socialist revolution blowing through the Russian cities and villages for decades increase in velocity.  By 5665 (1905) they had reached hurricane force and sucked in a sizable number of yeshiva students- including a son of R’ Noson-Zvi.  The anti-Musar forces merged with the revolutionary element to endanger the very existance of the yeshiva.  To the good for fortune of both yeshivoth [Knesses Beis Yitzchak and the Alter’s yeshiva], when the revolution was quashed, the goverment clampdown on all Socialist sympathizers cleared the yeshivoth of their troublesome elements.  R’ Frankel’s stance through the first years of the crisis was perceived by many as passive and weak, and evoked sharp criticism within his yeshiva.  But beneath this outwardly inert pose, cataclysmic changes were evolving.  The Alter was metamorphosing his educational technique, and ultimately, when he personally was struck with the tragedy of his son’s apostasy, a new approach to Musar crystallized inside him.  No longer did he dwell on the weakness of humanity.  He turned instead to reflect on man’s potential for greatness.  His shmuessen (“conversations”, musar talks) began concentrating on the sublimity of Adam before the Sin, on the superiority of the Patriarchs, on the grandeur of Biblical figures, on the loftiness of the Generation of Wisdom hearing the Word of G-d in the desert- and on how every individual can reach those dizzying heights.

So, it seems that even though the Alter started out with one particular derech, he realized that there was another route that would allow him to arrive at his destination.  I read this passage two months ago.  I’ve been reading it every day since then, prior to my hisbodedus.  While it is far easier for me to pick apart things that my children don’t do, it takes effort and strength to be able to help build them up.  To be hypercritical about clothes being thrown on the floor, is really not the most important thing in the world.  Letting your children know that you believe in them and their innate greatness is probably more important.

I think that’s what the Alter realized.  To change one’s battle plan midway though the war means that you have both humility and confidence in what you feel is right.  It takes much strength to accept what the real emes (truth) is.  I’m sure there were murmurs throughout Slabodka and Kovno (just across the river Vilna) when the Alter’s Mussar started focusing on Galdus HaAdam (the greatness of man).  While I could not find any biographical information about what ultimately happened to Rav Rav Nosson Tzvi Finkel’s son, I do know that Slabodka and it’s talmidim became one of the most influential forces with the yeshiva world.  Probably because the Alter of Slabodka chose a track that builds, not one that breaks.

Sunday’s Salanter Selection

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From Emunah v”Bitachon by the Chazon Ish (Rav Avraham Karelitz z”tl):

The words of R. Yisrael Salanter on this matter in his letter* are very pertinent:  In prohibitions of unkosher meat, in mixtures of meat and milk, man is rules by habit:  he naturally recoils from the forbidden, and is not overwhelmed by his evil inclination.  On the other hand, in matters between man and man, he sins blithely and has no fear.  Even when his fellow-Jew sues him, he finds ways to avoid both him and the trial.  But the prohibition of robbery is more severe than the prohibition of eating non-Kosher meat, for when it comes to robbery, even Yom Kippur does not provide atonement, and as long as the object is not his according to the law, he is guilty of robbery.  But since there is no regular habit of observing this law, his soul has not acquired love and fear of it.

*A pdf of Rav Yisrael Lipkin of Salant’s Iggeres HaMussar is available here.

Sunday’s Spark of Mussar

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Rav Yisrael Lipkin of Salant

The door of the synagogue opened suddenly, and a man rushed in to hear Kedushah.  In his haste, he stepped on the shoes of one of the mispalelim and soiled it.
After Kedushah, R’ Yisrael called the man over to a corner and told him to apologize to the person on whose shoe he as stepped.  “True, hearing Kedushah is a great and precious mitzvah,” said R’ Yisrael.  “But the mitzvah gets ruined if it by doing it one harms another person.”

From Sparks of Mussar by R Chaim Ephraim Zaitchik