"I want everyone to come and see me. I want everyone to come
for kos shel bracha. I want everyone to come to me for lekach and I want
everyone to need their Rebbe – then the Almighty will give me strength to continue.” Lubavitchter Rebbe in response to Zalman Jaffe
telling the Rebbe that he had considered not coming to yechidus so as not to
take up the Rebbe’s time. (My Encounter with the Rebbe, Vol. III, p. 224)
The “analysis” by the typical
yeshiva guy of today for any conflict whether it be global, national, local, community,
familial, or internecine is nearly always the same. It comes down to this: “He’s
a rasha!” He could be talking about the leader of another Orthodox Jewish
group, a Charedi even, a gaon, tzadick – “He’s a rasha.” That’s it.
That’s what we call playing God.
Who else has a view into the soul? Only God has that. Well, God and the typical
obnoxious yeshiva guy.
This even applies to talmidim, to
kids at cheder. If the kid is not perfectly obeying every command, if he
wiggles in his chair, and certainly if he asks a question the teacher can’t
answer: “He’s a rasha.”
They don’t always say it. They
don’t always use the word. But that’s essentially the attitude. You see this
with conflict between neighbors and in families. “He’s a rasha!”
This week I was in a car with a yeshiva
gadolah mashgiach, and here’s how he summed up the Russian-Ukrainian conflict. “Putin
is a narcissist who wants to go out with a bang.” That was his brilliant analysis.
He’s saying, “He’s a rasha.”
Now Putin may be a rasha, but
that does not necessarily explain his actions here. Let’s delve into this for a
moment. The American press is telling you that poor Ukraine is being assaulted
by the big-bad Putin for no reason other than his hatred of freedom or some
such nonsense. It’s like a kid’s comic book with the big mean bad guy. That’s
the American media’s depiction of events. And stupid obnoxious yeshiva guys buy
into this very quickly because their minds operate on a comic book level. So, what’s
really going on.
This Russo-Ukraine war started
with a US supported coup of the Ukraine in 2014, followed by America sending
billions of dollars of weapons to Ukraine. The US even has bio-weapons labs in
the Ukraine. NATO has in recent years expanded a lot in Europe to create bases,
missiles, intelligence, and sales of arms. It is now an existentialist threat
for Putin and like him or not, you cannot blame him unless you let yourself
manipulated by the propaganda. Ukrainian militia has been bombing Russian speaking
people in the Donbas region of Eastern Ukraine for eight years and literally
burned people alive there. This started a war for independence in that region.
NATO was founded allegedly as a defensive instrument against the USSR but has
been used since for American hegemony. Just as with Iraq this war is largely
about oil and gas contracts. The American press tells its usual bogeyman fairy
tale sprinkled with talk about fighters for democracy when this whole thing is
about American greed. There were options on the table for a resolution,
including a promise not to bring the Ukraine into NATO, to give some measure of
independence to the Donbas region, to a cessation of American weapons flooding
into the country, but the State department rejected all of that. Since 1900,
America has been involved or orchestrated the toppling of 63 different regimes,
including 12 since 1990. Putin has every reason to worry about that. On top of
that is the takeover by American industry and banking of that of other countries,
not by out competing but through assassination, bribery, extortion, and
military actions. Putin is taking a stand. He was backed into a corner and
tried many means of avoiding military action. The deaths are America's fault
more than that of anybody else.
Here is some news 6 days before
Putin invaded.
18 February
2022
On Friday,
people living in the Donbass region began to displace themselves towards Russia
due to Ukraine’s bomb attacks on their territories.
“Russia is
prepared to host 1,5 million people. So far, 500 women and children have been
refuged,” stated Denis Pushilin, the head of the Donetsk People's Republic
(DPR), which integrates the Donbas region with the Lugansk People's Republic
(LPR).
Besides
accommodation, refugees arriving in Russia's Rostov City will receive hot
meals, medical care, and US$130 to cover basic personal expenses. President
Vladimir Putin ordered Emergency Situations Minister Aleksandr Chupriyan to fly
urgently to Rostov City to organize the reception of refugees.
So far, Ukraine
has attacked 47 points along the conflict zone including a kindergarten in the
Stanytsia Luganska City, where two civilians were injured. The car of the head
of the RPD People’s Militia Denis Lugansk also exploded in Donetsk City, but
the officer was not injured.
LPR Head Ivan
Filiponenko condemned that the Ukrainian Army systematically opened fire on the
territory of his country to provoke the People’s Militia to respond to the fire
and create a pretext for the start of Ukrainian aggression in Donbass.
Moscow accuses
the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) of supplying arms to Ukraine and
stoking tensions about the Donbass region control in favor of their
geopolitical interests.
The mashgiach’s comment bothered
me not because I’m heavily invested in politics in the Ukraine, but because it’s
typical of the stupidity that I have encountered from yeshiva guys for 35
years. This is supposed to be one of the smarter people, and this guy actually
is a decent person, but in this case, he’s being so uneducated and simplistic
and judgmental and condescending. And he’s a Mashgiach! He’s supposed to know
people, supposed to be wise. But he’s a dope. And that’s how these guys are
about so many things, about religious choices, marital choices, life choices. They
are toxic.
I was with him because we made a
trip to a cemetery to say kaddish for someone. He asked me if any gadolim were
buried there. I didn’t know but I did spot some graves marked zt’l and Morienu.
He said, “I am looking for famous people.” He cares about fame, about being a
gadol, not that he might be standing next to the grave of a tzadick. Who cares
about that? I showed him a grave of a guy who died at age 21. To me, that’s a
big musar lesson, that one should be grateful for making it past 21. He wasn’t
interested.
These people are depressing. They
are toxic. Even the better among them.
Do
you see this fine thing? Do you admire the humanity of it? Because the Human
Beings, my son, they believe everything is alive. Not only man and animals, but
also water, earth, stone. And also the things from them, like that hair. The
man from whom this hair came, he's bald on the other side, because I now own
his scalp. That is the way things are. But the white men, they believe everything
is dead stone, earth, animals, and people, even their own people. If things
keep trying to live, white men will rub them out. That is the difference.
These
words are from the movie Little Big Man, where the old Indian chief reflects on
the massacre of his people by the white man. The white man views everything as
dead so what’s the harm in killing something, even people? It’s dead anyway. By
contrast, the Human Beings (Native Americans to us) believe there’s life in
everything.
His
words make me think of the neo-Litvacks and the Chassidim. I distinguish neo-Litvacks
from the original Litivacks, the Vilna Gaon for example. He valued mitzvos,
musar, kabbalah, broad and pleasant learning of Torah, and middos. To the
neo-Litvacks, only one thing matters, pipulistic-lomdus on a few select perakim
of Gemara. Everything and everyone else (unless they fund such study) can drop
dead for all they care. Even the handful of kiruv schools that they finally got
around to establishing (long after Chabad paved the way) brainwash the young
baalei teshuvah also to despise everything but Gemara lomdus and the men who specialize
in it. They call those men gadolim and all but worship them like idols.
The
Rebbe Rayatz of Lubavitch helps us to understand:
This service-attaining the
predominance of form over matter, 1 leading away from the material towards the
spiritual-is difficult indeed. It is a three-fold task for which great skill is
necessary: 1) breaking away from the material, 2) coming closer to the
spiritual, and 3) effecting the superiority of form over matter. It involves
three ascending types of endeavor: 1) subjugation and rejection of matter, 2)
cognizance of the virtue of the spiritual, and an inclination toward it, and 3)
mastery of form over matter.
These three types of endeavor
correspond with three disciplines: 1) concentrating on the subjugation of
matter and exposing its unworthiness; 2) recognition of the qualities of the
spiritual, and understanding that the spiritual is the basis of all physical
existence; and 3) cultivation of the mastery of form over matter, which in turn
is sub-divided into two categories: a) sublimation and purification of matter
to render it compatible with form, and b) emphasis on the quality of form as
embodied in matter.
These three schools are hallowed
philosophies that lead to the recognition of the Creator and His service
through Torah study and the fulfillment of His mitzvot. Nevertheless, they are distinct schools and
stand on different levels. Each is a rung in the soul-ladder standing on earth
whose top reaches Heaven. 2
The first of these schools is
predicated on the subjugation of the material and demonstrating its unworthy
crassness. This includes any improper propensities one might possess, such as
overindulging in eating and other physical delights in common with animals.
When a human conducts himself like an animal, he debases himself even more than
a brute creature. For lacking the power of reason, an animal is unable to
desire anything loftier than its own physical gratification. A human, however,
is endowed with intelligence enabling him to aspire to something higher, to
moral virtue, to intellectual values. When he prefers physical pleasures he is
more degenerate than an animal. This school, which rejects the material by
depicting the baseness of physical pleasures and passions, and by describing
their dire consequences, is the school of Musar.
The second school stresses the
qualities of the spiritual, of morality and intellect. It teaches the means of
attaining these higher goals, exalting them as the basis of perfection and the
aim of Creation, making this world a fitting fulfillment of His desire for an
abode in the lower 1 worlds. This is the
school of Chakira, religious
philosophy.
The highest school expounds the
superiority of form over matter. It emphasizes the value of purified matter
(physical matter that is consecrated to a higher, spiritual purpose, and that
thus ceases to be merely physical); and of form when embodied in matter (the
spiritual that influences and elevates physical matter, and itself is no longer
merely ethereal), in an inseparable and harmonious union. In this union there
is no beginning or ending, no superior or inferior; each is essential to the
other; each is implanted within the other. One G‑d created them both for
the identical purpose of revealing His Holy Light, and only in perfect unity do
they achieve the perfection He desired. This is the approach of Chasidus.
The three schools-Musar, Chakira, and Chasidus-are
mutually dependent. The first is a basis and step toward the second; the second
complements the first and becomes the basis and step toward the third. The
third completes the other two in that it brings into rational perspective the
basic principle of creation: The foundation of foundations and pillar of
wisdoms, [is] to know that there is a First Existence Who brings into being
every existence, and all that exist in heaven and earth and between them, exist
only by virtue of His existence (Maimonides1). (On the
Teachings of Chassidus)
I believe that the Litvacks got stuck in the
first phase and then like a lion in a cage tore it apart. The neo-Litvacks don’t
even do musar anymore. They just hate everything. They perverted the musar and
became like the “White man” in the Little Big Man scene.
The problem started a long time ago, a few centuries.
They started small and got worse. And Chassidus came to rectify the problems. Only,
many Litvacks doubled down on the right-brained, uptight, rigid, narrow, and
egotistical weltanschauung. The problems got worse and worse. Then Zionism came
along to militarize it, turning it into a truly vicious enterprise. Today, we
have a freak show that on a psycho-spiritual level is well described by the grandfather
Indian chief.
Rabbi Aaron Rakeffet is a student of Rav Joseph
Soloveitchik, zt’l who while Litvish by family tradition was influenced by
Chabad and went against the grain of most of the neo-Litvish world. Rakeffet
says he once went to a Chabad shulchim convention and an Agudah convention in
the same week. At the Agudah, they raged about Open Orthodoxy, feminism, the
Internet, the Israeli government, and other topics of fear for them. At Chabad,
they talked about opening new kiruv centers and other projects in the works.
Said Rakeffet, I went to a wedding and a funeral.
The white man – so to speak – is very caught up
in death. Funerals follow him around.
The main difference between Tohu and Tikkun is that the world of Tohu contained very high, sublime Divine lights with only small vessels to retain them. Tikkun, however, contains a balanced quantity of Divine lights with substantially large vessels to withhold the light. Thus, while the world of Tohu contained superior Divine lights, the world of Tikkun contains superior vessels. These vessels are rooted in a very high level of G-dliness and surpass the advantage of even the sublime lights of Tohu. This is similar to the power of intellect found in the brain in relation to the ability of movement found in the feet. When weighing the two soul powers against each other, the power of the mind is certainly of greater importance and prestige than the power of movement in the legs. Nevertheless, it is specifically the legs that can carry the mind to wherever it chooses. Therefore, the legs contain certain advantages even over the mind.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nedaTLD9wuU
Sunday, 19th April 1950 The Day-Morning Journal page 6
From the series: “Hasidic Rebbes Who Were Killed by the Nazis”
By Manashe Unger
Translation © 2010 by Gloria Berkenstat Freund
Radomsker Rebbe Who Perished in Jewish Martyrdom in the Warsaw Ghetto
His proud answer to the Nazi torturers. – Also his brother-in-law, Moishele Kraszner, who perished in Jewish martyrdom
Among the [large number] of Jewish victims who perished in Jewish martyrdom in the Warsaw Ghetto is found the Radomsker Rebbe Reb Shlomoh Henokh Hakohan Rabinowicz, who was killed along with his wife, his only daughter and his son-in-law, Reb Dovid Moishe Rabinowicz.
As it is told, the Radomsker Rebbe died as a martyr and a hero.
Nazi Gestapo-agents rushed into his dwelling in the Warsaw Ghetto and ordered him to go with them. Every Jew in the ghetto knew that whoever the Nazis took with them would no longer live to see the light shining on the world. They dragged their victims to a death camp, where gas wagons were ready and the Jews were sent there. The Radomsker Rebbe refused to follow the order of the Nazi agents and he worthily answered:
“I know that you have come to kill me. I am ready to die here in my room and not somewhere in a gas-wagon!...”And when the Rebbe ended the “ekhod” of the “Shema Yisroel” [last word of the prayer said every day on the oneness of God] that he was saying, a Nazi bullet punctured his brain and his family was killed together with him on the spot: his wife, his daughter and son-in-law.
With the death of the Radomsker Rebbe, an entire rabbinic dynasty perished. The Nazi bullet that punctured the brain of the Radomsker Rebbe extinguished the light of the last male of the great rabbinic stock, which stretches from the first Radomsker Rebbe, Reb Shlomoh Radomsker, famous in the Hasidic world under the name of the Hasidic sefer (book) that he wrote: “Tiferes Shlomoh.”
The last Radomsker Rebbe had thousands and thousands of Hasidic followers in Poland and in Galicia. It can be said the he was the only Rebbe in Poland of whom it can be said that many Hasidim traveled to him from Galicia. Before the recent World War there were more Radomsker shtiblekh (small prayer houses) than Gerer in Krakow.
The young Radomsker Hasidim were very visible because the Radomsker Rebbe founded yeshivus (religious schools) in a whole line of cities, in which around two thousand young men studied.
The Radomsker yeshivus were in the cities of Radomsk, Bendin, Sosnowice, Krakow, Lodz, Piotrokow, Chraznow and in a whole line of other cities.
The Radomsker Rebbe was an unusual rebbe. He was both a rebbe and a businessman. He was not an ordinary businessman, but a millionaire, who was counted among the Jewish millionaires in Poland and among the rabbis he certainly was the greatest millionaire.
Alas in the last fifty years, it was not news that rabbis would manage businesses in Poland. There were other rebbes who were partners in large business undertakings. However, officially, a Hasid wanted a rebbe as a partner in his business in order to be sure that with the rebbe’s blessing, the business would prosper.
The Radomsker Rebbe was not just a partner to other businessmen, but he himself headed large businesses. He owned a large number of houses in Poland, and from 1933, before Hitler came to power, he also owned many houses in Berlin and in Leipzig. And at the same time, the Radomsker Rebbe also sat day and night learning Torah and doing service for God. He devoted himself to the yeshivus he had built in various cities in Poland and Galicia and the businesses were run by his devoted Hasidim.
On every beautiful Shabbos and yom-tov (religious holiday) thousands of Hasidim from every city in Poland and Galicia would come to Sosnowice, where the Rebbe lived before the Second World War. The Rebbe would head the office of Hasidic Rebbe as in the old Radomsker manner, reciting Torah, singing
Shabbos songs, sharing his leftovers [which the Hasidim would eat as a matter of honor] and serving food.
How did his Hasidim react to such things?
The Rebbe gave away half of his fortune for the upkeep of the yeshivus in the various cities, and as he was himself a businessman, he did not have to ask the Hasidim for money. This gave him the opportunity to be independent and to have the opportunity to serve God undisturbed.
The Rebbe truly spent a great deal of money for his private library. After the Gerer Rebbe, the Radomsker Rebbe had the largest private library in Poland. Each year the Radomsker Rebbe would spend thousands to buy old writing and old prints.
____________
The last Radomsker Rebbe, who was murdered by the Nazis, was the fourth generation from the founder of the Radomsker Dynasty, Reb Shlomoh’le Radomsker.
The Rebbe Reb Shlomoh Radomsker was a student of the Rebbes: Reb Meir Apter, Reb Ber Radoszicer and Reb Yekhezkeil Kozmir.
In his youth, Reb Shlomoh Radomsker was a businessman. Then he was Rabbi in Radomsk and then a rebbe.
The Rebbe Shlomoh Radomsker immediately earned the name of a great tzadek (righteous man). Hundreds of Hasidim traveled to be with him and many rebbes sat at his table. Hasidim tell that when the Rebbe Reb Moishe Lelewer - Reb Dovid’l Lelewer’s son – emigrated to Eretz-Yisroel, he first went to take leave of Reb Shlomoh Radomsker. At the leave-taking, the Rebbe Reb Moishe Lelewer asked Rebbe Shlomoh Radomsker to bless him. At the departure, it is told, the Lelewer Hasidim asked:
– “Rebbe, with whom are you leaving us?”
– “With Rebbe Reb Shlomoh Radomsker,” Reb Moishe Lelewer answered.
The Rebbe Reb Shlomoh Radomsker was also a great singer. He had a beautiful singing voice. He prayed in front of the lectern every Shabbos and every yom-tov.
And suddenly when the Radomsker was already well-known in all of Poland as a great rebbe, he decided to travel to another rebbe, as an ordinary Hasid. He chose for his rebbe, Reb Haim Halbersztat of Sanz.
The entire Hasidic world was then in an uproar. It was not a small thing, a rebbe of hundreds and hundreds of Hasidim leaves his seat and himself becomes a Hasid. And then the Radomsker Rebbe chose to go to Sanz on Shavous, on a yom-tov when many Hasidim come to him.
And Hasidim tell that before the Radomsker Rebbe traveled to Sanz, his son Reb Avrahame’le, his later successor, asked:
– “Tata (father), how can you leave so many Hasidim on such a holy yom-tov, Shavous? How can you cause grieving among so many God-fearing and sincere men?”
– “My child,” the Rebbe Reb Shlomoh answered, “I’m getting old, and I want to again feel the taste of receiving Torah that Jews felt when they stood at Mount Sinai and this I can only feel when I am with the holy Sanzer Rebbe.
And his son, Reb Avrahame’le no longer asked. Hundreds of Hasidim came to Radomsk on that Shavous, they prayed in the Radomsker Synagogue; however, without their rebbe. Rebbe Reb Shlomoh went to Sanz.
The Radomsker Rebbe died on a Thursday at night in 5626 (1866) after midnight prayers in commemoration of the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem. Hasidim tell that the Gerer Rebbe (the Chiddushei HaRim) died a week earlier. The Radomsker Rebbe asked his Hasidim about the Gerer Rebbe’s funeral.
At night on the same Thursday, two rebbes, the Rebbe Reb Tzamekh of Chrolowice and the Rebbe Reb Ahron of Krakow, the son of “Meir Shamas,” arrived in Radomsk. After saying “Sholem Alecheim” [greeting each other], the Radomsker Rebbe spent two hours with them discussing the death of the Gerer Rebbe and he said, “Who will welcome this Shabbos at the lectern now in Gan-Eyden [Garden of Eden or paradise]?”
And the Radomsker Hasidim really believe that the old Radomsker Rebbe is the one who welcomes Shabbos at the lectern in Gan-Eyden right up to the present day.
His son, the Rebbe Reb Avraham’ele, who became rebbe after the death of Reb Shlomoh Radomsker, also had many Hasidim in Poland and in Galicia. He left Khesed L’Avraham, a book about Torah. He also wrote a book about Torah, Knesset Yehezkeil. His son was the last Radomsker Rebbe Reb Shlomoh Henokh, who built many yeshivus in various cities in Poland and in Galicia.
When the recent war broke out, the Radomsker Rebbe ran from Sosnowice, where he lived after the First World War, to Aleksander. From there most likely he was sent by the Nazis into the Warsaw Ghetto, where the Nazi barbarians cut down the tree of the Radomsker Dynasty and killed him with his entire family with such savagery.
The Radomsker Rebbe’s brother-in-law, the Rebbe Reb Moishe’le Tverski of Kras, who was a son of my uncle, the Rebbe Reb Ahrele Twerski, of blessed memory, of Kras, also perished in Jewish martyrdom at the hands of the Germans, together with his entire family, with his rebetzin Freidele and his only daughter Tziva.
At first the Krosner Rebbe Reb Moishe’le was saved in Lemberg, together with his mother, my aunt Doyzele, may she rest in peace, who was the daughter of the old Razwadower Rebbe, Reb Moishe’le Horowicz, of blessed memory. Her daughters Simkha and Miriam with her husband the Rebbe Reb Nafthali Horowicz, the last Razwadower Rebbe and their children were there, too. Later, when Aunt Doyzele died in Lemberg, they returned to Kras and there they all perished in Jewish martyrdom…
Let us on this day, when we remember the Ghetto Uprising in Warsaw, and every day of the year, and for all eternity, remember what the Germans did to the Jewish people, and let us never forgive them…
Photo caption: The Krosner Rebbe, Reb Moishele Twerski, a brother-in-law of the Radomsker Rebbe, may the Lord avenge his blood, who perished as a martyr as a Jew, together with his entire family in Poland.