Time seems to fly so fast, in the most incredible way!
With the summer months fading behind us, the “back to school” season combined with endless Yom Tov shopping-and-prepping has welcomed us once again, in all its hectic glory. While you have been basking in the sun, I have been hard at work collecting arti cles of interest for you, and I am eager to share them!
Sourdough bread has become a Shabbos staple of late, and many have taken to baking their own on a regular basis. What has inspired this phenomenon? What are the benefits of sourdough vs. traditional bread? I have recently learned so many interesting facts, such as the revelation that yeast is a shelf item available only in recent decades, and more. We have an entire feature dedicated to this wonder bread which is the real and original “staff of life”.
Magnificent tablescape inspo combined with delicious and easy recipes are sure to be a delight at your tov table. Thank you Charnie for sharing your creativity with us once again. In addition, I have always been a huge fan of Chantzy’s recipes, as they are simple and tasty. Her easy-peasy dips will be a delicious addition to the sourdough challah at your Yom Tov seudahs.
If you know me well, you know that I prefer living a healthy lifestyle—especially healthy ea ting habits, which is why I always like to feature multiple health-related articles in the Cen ter Spirit Magazine. Suri Sprei has a wealth of info to share with us, as you will see spread throughout the magazine, and I am so grateful for her expertise. I know you will be too!
Here at Boro Park Center, our own Yom Tov prepping is in full swing! From a meaningful tashlich ceremony to an entertaining chol hamoed program and the beautiful seudos in-between, you can be assured that your loved ones at BPC will experience a Tishrei with splendor and meaning.
While all the planning and cooking is happening, it’s easy to lose focus of the real mea ning of this heilige month. The precious gift that is teshuva, the opportunities for second chances that Hashem has bestowed upon His dear children, is one that we should take full advantage of While Elul may appear to be frightful for some, it should be viewed for what it really is—an opportunity to get closer to our Father. Hashem comes closer to us so let us embrace Him. He eagerly awaits for us to reciprocate in kind. And most of all, H’KBH loves us all so much. Let’s not ever forget that!
Best wishes for a
At Boro Park Center, we practice a completely home-based approach to out-of-home rehabilitation and nursing care. Home means family, and our Center was founded on the ideal that residents and their fa milies should never be far apart. Come on in, Live HappyTM, and enjoy an environment made possible by compassionate caregivers, therapy specialists, and most importantly, friends and family.
Your comments and feedback are important to us so that we can continue to serve you as best as possible. your comments to rpavlov@boroparkcenter.net
4915 10th Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11219 718-851-3700
Just
The
All Raw Honey By Suri
Rosh Hashanah Tablescape
Yanky
Rosh Hashanah Simanim
Playing by
Sourdough History and
Interview with Chaya Sarah Leitner
Interview with Toby Weiser Section
תוחילס
Day 1 / Sept 18th Shacharis 8:00 AM
Shabbos / Sept 23rd Candle Lighting 6:36 PM Mincha followed by Maariv ....................6:50 PM Shabbos Day / Sept 24th Shacharis 9:00 AM Mincha 7:05 PM Maariv 7:55 PM Havdalah 8:04 PM
הנשה שאר ברע
Sunday / Sept 25th: Selichos 8:00 AM followed by Shacharis and Hatoras Nedarim Mincha followed by Maariv 6:45 PM
הנשה שאר
1st Night / Sept 25th Candle Lighting 6:32 PM
1st Day / Monday, Sept 26th Shacharis .8:30 AM
Tekias Shofar followed by Mussaf 11:00 AM Mincha followed by Maariv 6:45 PM
2nd Night / Sept 26th Candle Lighting* 7:59 PM 2nd Day / Sept 27th Shacharis 8:30 AM
Tekias Shofar followed by Mussaf 11:15 AM Mincha 7:00 PM Maariv 7:50 PM Havdalah........................................................7:57 PM
הילדג םוצ
Wednesday / Sept 28th Selichos followed by Shacharis 8:00 AM Mincha 1:45 PM Maariv 7:15 PM
Thursday / Sept 29th Selichos followed by Shacharis 8:15 AM
הבוש תבש
Friday / Sept 30th Candle Lighting 6:24 PM Mincha followed by Maariv .....................6:40 PM
Shabbos Day / October 1st Shacharis 9:00 AM
Mincha 6:50 PM
Maariv .............................................................7:40 PM
Havdalah 7:50 PM
Sunday - Monday / October 2nd - 3rd:
Selichos followed by Shacharis 8:15 AM Mincha 1:45 PM
Maariv .............................................................8:00 PM
רופיכ םוי ברע
Tuesday / October 4th
Selichos followed by Shacharis 8:30 AM Mincha 2:00 PM
רופיכ םוי
Tuesday / October 4th
Candle Lighting 6:15 PM
Kol Nidrei 6:45 PM
Wednesday / October 5th
Shacharis, Yizkor and Mussaf 8:30 AM Mincha 5:45 PM
Neilah..............................................................6:45 PM Fast Ends 7:44 PM
וניזאה תשרפ
Friday / October 7th
Candle Lighting 6:13 PM Mincha 6:30 PM
Shabbos Day / October 8th Shacharis 9:00 AM Mincha 6:10 PM Maariv 7:00 PM Havdalah 7:08 PM
תוכוס
1st Day / October 9th
Mincha followed by Maariv 6:25 PM Candle Lighting 6:10 PM
1st Day / October 10th Shacharis 9:00 AM
Mincha followed by Maariv .6:20 PM
Candle Lighting* ........................................7:36 PM
2nd Day / October 11th
Shacharis 9:00 AM Mincha .6:35 PM Maariv 7:25 PM Havdalah 7:34 PM
דעומה לוח
Wednesday - Friday / October 12th - 14th Shacharis 9:00 AM
Mincha............................................................1:45 PM Maariv 8:00 PM
דעומה לוח תבש
Friday / October 14th
Candle Lighting 6:02 PM Mincha, Kabbolas Shabbos 6:20 PM Shabbos Day / October 15th Shacharis 9:00 AM Mincha 6:00 PM Maariv .6:50 PM Havdalah 6:57 PM
הבר הנעשוה
Sunday / October 16th Shacharis 8:30 AM Mincha, Maariv and Hakafos 6:15 PM
תרצע ינימש
Sunday / October 16th Candle Lighting 5:59 PM Monday / October 17th Shacharis 9:00 AM Mincha 6:15 PM Maariv, Hakafos 6:30 PM Candle Lighting* 7:25 PM
הרות תחמש
Tuesday / October 18th Shacharis 9:00 AM Mincha 6:25 PM Maariv .7:15 PM Havdalah 7:24 PM
תישארב תבש
Friday / October 21st:
Candle Lighting 5:50 PM
Mincha, Kabbolas Shabbos 6:05 PM
Shabbos Day / October 22nd Shacharis 9:00 AM Mincha 6:20 PM
Maariv ..............................................................7:10 PM Havdalah 7:18 PM
* Candle Lighting after (not before)
It is with great pleasure that we present to our residents, their fa milies, and our beloved communi ty our Yomim Noraim and Sukkos edition of our Centers Spirit Maga zine. Often during this time of the year, I look back to the previous year to focus on the positive highli ghts of 5782 at Centers. One of the many aspects that we worked on this year at Boro Park Center was hiring, training, and motivating the staff that cares for our cherished residents.
This year the world found itself in a “labor shortage” and a “staffing crisis.” But instead of focusing on the negative and saying there’s nothing we can do, we spent our year looking to hire and guide the next group of caregivers at BPC.
This mission reminds me of a thou ght that can be connected to the upcoming yuntiff of Rosh Hasha na. The Gemarah in Rosh Hashana tells us that the livelihood of a per son is decided from Rosh Hasha nah to Rosh Hashanah and many great determinations are made on Rosh Hashanah. It is truly an awesome day where many impor tant factors that impact all of our lives are scripted, so no wonder that these days are called “Days of Awe.” How are we to position our selves for the best possible outco me? What should our attitude be? What is our strategy towards this “Day of Judgment”?
No one should go into court wi thout counsel. Abraham Lincoln said, “Someone who represents himself has a fool for a client.” We don’t want to be that reckless and foolish when so much lies in the balance, therefore we use a ma chzor in order to focus and daven our hearts out. But let us take a closer look at this lawyer’s brief.
If a person’s livelihood is determi ned on Rosh Hashanah then why is there no explicit mention of or petition for money or salary? It’s conspicuously absent from the li turgy of the day. How then is our livelihood reckoned? The final re sults are based on what?!
Here is a very straightforward and practical approach to Rosh Hashanah. A doctor told me that he interviewed a young gradua te from medical school to join his practice. He started the interview with an open question, “What are you looking for?” The young doc tor answered immediately and with confidence, “I am looking to make six figures, and have at least two days off each week to play golf leisurely, and I would need my own parking place so I don’t have to waste time circulating in search of a parking spot. I have more on my list too…” The doctor told him that would be enough, and the interview ended there. Obviously, he did not get the job. What had he done so terribly wrong? What would have been a better answer to the original question was “I am looking to make the best use of my years of training in medicine. I want to be able to help and heal people. I hear that you are experts in this field and I would be excited to learn from the best and grow
under guidance from your years of experience. Last ly but not at all less importantly, I want to be able to help you grow your practice to meet its optimum potential.”
In one case, the young applicant only focused on what he wanted for himself. In the second scenario, he looked to see what he could do to add value and be helpful. The same can be said of Rosh Hashana. Rosh Hashana his a giant job interview. The way to be successful is not to spend a day begging for more money. That doesn’t impress the heart of “The Boss – HaMelech!” No! The best approach is to preset our minds and our hearts to desire to contribute in any way possible.
This very attitude is what we try to look for and instill in our em ployees. These are the dedicated employees we have here amongst our beloved residents. People who are looking to make the best use of their years of training in whatever their specialty is. We know the job market is tight all over right now, but if you have the attitude and desire that you can change a person’s life for the be tter – then you will.
Wishing everyone clarity and fo cus in their tefillos for a healthy, happy, and prosperous new year.
David Greenberg
Administrator
The "Minchas Elazar"
For a period of time, Reb Baruch and his wife lived in Warsaw. Later, when the Minchas Elazar became ill, he begged them to come back to Munkacs, in Czechoslovakia, to which they did.
Rabbi Baruch had a son named Tzvi Nosson Dovid. Baruch would often recall that his father-in-law loved this boy—the Minchas Elazar's dear grandchild—in an “exaggerated way,” in part due to the fact that they had waited a long time to have that first child. He would play with and “spoil” the child, and Tzvi would sit on his grandfather's lap at the Shabbos gatherings.
In the final year of his life, the Minchas Elazar took the shofar on the first day of the month of Elul and tested it to see whether it was in good condition. Tzvi was in the room and was visibly excited by the shofar and its sounds.
He asked his zeide for one more blast, and his zeide gladly obliged. From then on, and for the remainder of the month, this became a ritual; the Rebbe blowing the shofar once each day for little Tzvi. On the day before Rosh Hashanah, Tzvi was there, awaiting his daily blast, but he was disappointed. “Today is the day before Rosh Hashanah” his grandfather explained. “Today we don’t blow the shofar. Tomorrow morning, we will blow the shofar in the shul.”
The child did not comprehend the reasons. He knew no reason. He kicked and screamed, “Just one blast! Just one blast!”
After a while, the grandfather softened at the sound of his
favorite grandchild crying, and he took the shofar and blew one blast.
On Rosh Hashanah, the custom in Munkacs was that the Rebbe spoke before blowing the shofar. That year, the Rebbe went up before the ark, opened it, and said “Ribono Shel Olam, I have to repent. It's written that on the day before Rosh Hashanah one mustn't blow the shofar, and yet I did.”
He began to sob uncontrollably and called out: “Ribono Shel Olam, do you know why I transgressed this custom? It was because my young grandchild lay on the floor begging and crying that I should only blow one blast of the shofar for him. My heart melted, I couldn't bear to watch him cry like that, so I blew once for him, though I shouldn't have.”
“Tatte, how can you stand by and see how millions of Your children down on the floor, and crying out to You, ‘Tatte, just one blast! Sound the blast of the great shofar which will herald the final Redemption!'? Even if the time is not right for it yet, even if the time for Moshiach has yet to arrive, Your children cry out to You: how can You stand by idly?!’ ”
Rabbi Baruch cried as he recounted the story, and recalled how at that time the entire crowd cried along with the Rebbe. The sounding of the shofar was delayed, and for a long time “they could not regain their composure... loud wailing was heard throughout the shul…”
all know the joke about the classic text message from a Jewish mother: “Start worrying. Details to follow.”
The truth is there is much to worry about these days: Worried about the economy and inflation. Worried about hurricanes and the weather.
Worried about Covid and other health challenges. Worried about Israel and its enemies. Worried about the increase of antisemitism. Worried about the divisiveness and polarization in this country.
And of course, worried about Rosh Hashanah and the High Holidays. Some are worried about coming before Hashem in judgment and others are worried about their seat, who will they be near… and yet others are worried about how long the rabbi will speak.
We have so many things to be worried, anxious, and afraid of, especially at this time of year.
Rabbi Soloveitchik introduces a beautiful concept. Oddly enough, beginning Monday night, we introduce an expression into our prayers – “Please Hashem, instill fear within us.” Rabbi Soloveitchik describes how one year, an eminent psychiatrist said to him, “we should work to be free of fear, worry, and anxiety — not be praying for more of it!".
This is how he answered: Everyone is struggling with fear. Some are afraid they won’t succeed in their careers, others about losing their wealth, and others about status or prominence. Some are afraid of sickness, others are afraid of heights, public speaking, or the weather.
Said Rabbi Soloveitchik: I am not a psychiatrist, but I do know that one major source of fear can wipe out all of these lesser fears and that is fear of Hashem. We pray that fear of Hashem overtakes and uproots all other fears that lurk everywhere and upset our lives.
There are essentially two types of anxiety and worry. We worry over things not in our control because they aren’t in our control. We worry about illness, weather, traffic, delayed flights, and more. Then there are things we worry about specifically because they are in our control. For some, having free will is both liberating and terrifying at the same time. We worry about how well we will perform; will we execute, meet expectations, surpass them, or fall short of them? Can we endure and handle whatever comes our way? What if we fail?
We need to silence both voices of worry and it starts with believing we can. When those thoughts come and knock, firstly, we can
decide if we let them in. And we can by choosing to replace these negative and anxious thoughts with confident and positive ones.
We are in the final days of the month of Elul, a month dedicated to getting us ready for the new year. The word Elul when read backward spells “lulei,” which means “if not,” or “if it weren’t for.” This word only appears in one place in the Torah.
We need to work on feeling and seeing Hashem in our lives, knowing there is an infinite, omnipotent One choreographing our lives.
When the brothers are trying to convince Yakov to send Binyomin with them back down to Yosef so that he would release Shimon, they appeal to him by saying: “For we could have been there (lulei) and back twice if we had not dawdled.” Rashi explains, “We would have already come back with Shimon and you would not have had this anxiety all these days.” Lulei is associated with anxiety, with what if, what could have been, what will be.
We also recite the word “lulei” in the Psalm we say every day during Elul – “Lulei he’emanti — Had I not believed in you Hashem that I would enjoy your goodness…”
We can quiet our worry by exchanging one “lulei” for the other. Instead of feeling if only this and what will be with that, we need to work on feeling and seeing Hashem in our lives, knowing all is orchestrated from above and that there is an infinite, omnipotent one choreographing our lives.
But what about the worry when it comes to ourselves and how well we will perform?
The Torah tells us that when we start to panic and feel that getting done what needs to get done or being who we need to be is as far away as the heavens, on the other side of the ocean, we need to know “the thing is very close to you, in your mouth and in your heart, to do it.” Hashem doesn’t ask for anything that is beyond us. Yes, we will come before Him Monday night, and we will be asked to reflect and hold ourselves accountable. But the very fact that He is forgiving and forbearing should itself be reassuring and encouraging.
Those who panic with anxiety over appearing on Rosh Hashanah before the Heavenly court are picturing the court as occupied by harsh, cruel judges. But we need to know the judge is in fact our Father. He understands our struggles and He wants our success. That is why we wear beautiful clothes and have a festive meal on Rosh Hashanah because our judgment day is the day we come before our Father.
So, it turns out that there is literally nothing to worry about. Mark Twain once said, “I've had a lot of worries in my life, most of which never happened.” Studies show that over 85% of the things we worry about don’t ever happen. And as far as the 15% that do, worrying never made them go away, never made them better, and never did anything other than compromise our own health and happiness.
Stop worrying by remembering that all that happens is meant to be and we have what it takes to deal with whatever comes our way.
Have you ever wondered what this world would be like without honey bees? Most people fear bees and flee in panic when they encounter one. But actually, without honey bees, we would practically starve. Every single fruit, vegetable, grain seed, or crop relies on those precious honey bees to pollinate the budding flowers in order to produce our food and sustain humanity. I am in absolute awe of honey bees and I honor and respect them. They provide one of the most prized liquid gold we can possibly find; honey. Raw honey is extremely medicinal and can be used and enjoyed both internally and externally.
Let's break down the different types of raw honey available. Raw honey comes straight from the beehi ve and has not been heated to the point of pasteuri zation. Once it's extracted from the hive, it's strained to remove any beeswax and bee body parts and then bottled. Raw honey is available in both unfiltered and filtered options. I personally prefer the unfilte red honey because I get the added benefits of bee pollen and propolis which both add more benefits to the honey.
Did you know that raw honey has no expiration date? Raw honey can last forever if it’s stored in a sealed container and kept in a cool dry area. In fact, raw ho ney has been dug up from ancient times still comple tely edible! Moisture will contaminate the honey and
cause it to go rancid but as long as it's kept at room temperature it's completely safe to consume. You can therefore use your raw honey beyond any expi ration date. Since raw honey hasn't been heat-trea ted, it has a thicker, more opaque consistency as compared to processed honey. Raw honey contains no pesticides, herbicides, chemicals, or pollutants, and because of this, it's purer than the processed honey you'll typically see on your grocery shelf.
Processed honey undergoes commercial proces sing methods such as pasteurization and filtration. These processing methods filter out antioxidants, vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients, as well as all pollen. Always choose raw honey over the regular processed honey you'll find on the grocery shelf.
Buckwheat honey is dark brown and very rich, similar to blackstrap molasses, and collected from the small white blossoms of the buc kwheat grain. Buckwheat is commonly known as
Kasha. This honey has a strong and earthy flavor and aroma compared to the lighter flavor of other honey. This honey is best used for cooking and baking because of its strong taste.
Manuka honey is well sou ght after for its impressive antibacterial properties. While all raw honey has na tural antibacterial qualities, Manuka honey has a much greater amount. Manuka honey is from Australia and
New Zealand and it’s named Manuka after the Manuka bush the bees pollinate. This honey has a mildly sweet taste with a slightly nutty flavor. Applied externally, Manuka honey is a fantastic MRSA and staph remedy.
Clover honey is one of the most popular varieties found in the United States. It has a very floral aroma with a light, sweet flavor that makes it a great all-purpose honey.
With light citrusy notes, this honey is derived from the blossoms of Florida’s orange groves. It has a beautiful golden color with a delicious sweet taste and aroma.
The citrus undertones of orange blossom honey add a great flavor to baked goods and many people add this honey to their butter or jam for a delicious treat.
There are several components to raw honey that add to its nu tritional profile and depth. Each one has incredible benefits to the immune system and overall health so it’s best to try to in corporate as many as possible:
Bees create a honeycomb that holds their larvae, honey, and pollen. Honeycomb is made of beeswax and contains honey in its purest form. Honeycomb is edible and people have been eating honeycomb for thousands of years. Not only is honeycomb a tasty, all-natural snack, but it is also rich in vitamins and minerals.
This product from the honey bees is one of nature’s gifts to mankind. Propolis is a resin-like liquid that the bees will use to seal off their hive from viruses and bacteria. It’s an antiseptic and extremely powerful against harmful pathogens. Used as a natural remedy topically, it can help with canker sores and any herpetic outbreak on the body. It’s also great for oral health and can help reverse gum disease. When used interna lly, it can be a potent antibiotic and can help anything from strep throat to urinary tract infections. Truly a miraculous force of nature.
Bee pollen is ranked as a su perfood for its high nutritional profile and its anti-inflam matory, antimicrobial, and an tiviral properties. Bee pollen provides nutritional food for
bees. It is a natural mixture of bee secretions, enzymes, wax, and flower pollen. Beekeepers will not harvest it too often though because it puts the entire beehive at risk.
Raw honey has helped many past generations survive during brutal winters without access to food. It truly is a life saving food on many different levels and should be a part of everyone’s health regimen. Wishing you all a Chasiva v’chasima tova and a sweet and healthy new year!
Suri Sprei is the founder of Wellness Redefined and is a graduate of the Global College of Natural Medicine. She is a Certified Holistic Health Practitioner and Nutritional Consultant and has 15 years of experience in her field helping clients navigate chronic health challenges through food, herbs and supplements. Her Instagram is @Wellness_Redefined1
Celebrate the simanim of Rosh Hashanah with the food you serve and with fun tablescapes that evoke the cool, fall season and the fresh start of a new year.
White tablecloths that reference honeycomb patterns, and plates and napkin rings with decorative bees can infuse your dining room with a fun and festive Yom Tov spirit.
Placing gold chargers underneath your best China creates a regal holiday flair.
To carry through the gold theme, thin gold cutlery expresses that the table is set for a feast fit for royalty.
Place vintage looking flowers in a small glass vase near red grapes, pomegranates, dates, and honey jars to further amplify the Rosh Hashanah feel.
Chasiva v’chasima tova, and enjoy your festive meals!
The cool kids on the block are buying cured fish these days. The smart ones are making them at home because they know how easy it is to make! Making cured salmon allows you to add flavors that you like and enjoy. You will also have great satisfaction when your guest will ask you where it is from and you can proudly answer that it is homemade!
In a small bowl, combine the ingredients listed. Mix well until fully incorporated. a thin layer of the mixture into a small pan. I find a five-by-seven-sized pan to be the ideal size. the salmon of the curing mixture the salmon with the rest of the mixture. part of the salmon be completely covered. the pan place it in the refrigerator three days. After three days, off the cured salmon and it into thin slices.
Ever since the golden age of chazanus at the turn of the twentieth century, there has been a fierce debate about whether chazanus is superior to a baal tefillah or vice versa. To some the sweet, melodic, voice, singing familiar tunes a mispalel can participate in allows for a more inclusive and therefore spiritually uplifting davening. Others contend that nothing can penetrate a heart of stone like a Yossele’s Unesane Tokef or Kwartin’s Ribbono shel Olam, and it even evokes feelings and emotions from those that never had any affiliation with Judaism. Though the heydey of chazanus is long gone, the art and practice are still immensely popular and have even seen a rise in popularity in recent years. In the Lemmer family, there are both sides of the coin. Shulem is a world-class singer who is more of a baal tefillah, while Yanky, who is six years older to the day (they share a birthday), is equally talented and a more classical chazzan. Though each is proficient in the other's method and style, they each prefer the genre they specialize in.
“I believe that only chazanus has the ability to penetrate the heart and truly move someone,” Yanky tells me.
I sat down with the superstar Chazzan Yaakov Lemmer, whose powerful and emotional notes penetrate even the coldest of hearts
As a fan of chazanus myself, there is nothing more inspiring than hearing Hershtik’s Unesane Tokef or hearing Yossele’s Kol Nidrei ring in the awe of Yom Kippur. I remember being in Beth Medrash Govoha of Lakewood and racing away from Lakewood the second shabbos was over to make it to selichos at the Park East Synagogue and famed chazan Yitzchak Meir Helfgott. I got there a few minutes before it started and remember people looking askance at my appearance. Everyone there was dressed to the nines, and my friend and I were dressed yeshivish, shirts untucked, and (slightly) smelling of smoke. But the second he began ashrei, I was in a trance. As he went into his nusach for haneshama lach I was getting emotional even though I did not join to say selichos (according to some sources it is not supposed to be said before chatzos). Ever since hearing Helfgott’s booming, cantorial voice, I became sold on chazanus and even tried my hand at it, unsuccessfully.
Our meeting is taking place near midnight. Yanky stops for a quick conversation on his way back from a performance in Massachusetts and sounds exhausted from the concert and the long, tedious, drive.
Yanky is almost forty, and with peyos framing his brown beard and round glasses adorning his face, he looks like any chassidishe yungerman walking in Boro Park, where Yanky grew up and now lives. Certainly not what I imagined the Chazzan for the Modern Orthodox Lincoln Square Synagogue to look like! But ever since Yitzchok Meir Helfgott — himself a Gerrer chassid with peyos and a beard — became the lead cantor at Park East Synagogue, those stereotypes have become obsolete.
Growing up in the heart of Boro Park, Yanky had almost no exposure to chazzonus. What turned his passion on was his father's hobby. “My father didn’t even sing zemiros, but he loved chazzonus. He loved listening to chazzonus. Sunday nights there was a radio show with an hour of regular Jewish music and an hour of chazzonus and we listened to it religiously. Naturally, I took more than a liking to it.”
“My father didn’t even sing zemiros, but he loved chazzonus. He loved listening to chazzonus...”
“...we listened to it religiously. Naturally, I took more than a liking to it.”
Yanky used to hum and sing to himself and never thought twice about his singing voice even though he had gotten compliments from many of his friends. It wasn’t until his chavrusa gave him a push that Yanky finally did something about it. “I was learning with a yungerman who told me that I must go for voice lessons. He himself was going for training and felt that if
I trained I could develop my voice further.” The voice teacher was a former choir member in the great synagogue in Jerusalem. He saw Yanky’s talent right away and coached him. “I began singing at my friends' simchas and when I came back from Yeshiva in Israel I joined Bentzion Miller’s choir in Beth El in Boro Park,” Yanky explains. On Tu Bishvat in 2008 Beth El had a concert and Bentzion Miller featured Yanky as an official guest star. “The next morning I found a DVD of my performance in my mailbox. I decided to copy it onto my computer and upload it to YouTube.”
The reaction was instantaneous. The video was flooded with positive comments and Yanky received many compliments, but the biggest development was that he immediately received job offers. “The very day I uploaded the video, I received an offer to sing at a chuppah. Someone called me to ask me to join them for a shabbos Sheva Brachos.” Though he had some exposure and people helped along the way, Yanky’s real breakthrough came when he took matters into his own hands. After a string of smaller jobs, Yanky contacted an impresario, which is an agent for cantors or chazanim, and tasked him with finding him a job for the Yamim Noraim. “My first Yamim Noraim was in Fort Lee, N.J. of Bridgegate fame.” Over there, Yanky learned the ropes in a local Young Israel.
That year, someone heard Yanky perform a song at a concert and hired him to be the chazzan at a shul in New Rochelle. After a couple of years there, Yanky was hired for Yamim Noraim in Ahavath Torah in Englewood, N.J. “That is a huge shul and was my first big job.” The next stop was
Lincoln Square Synagogue where Cantor Yaakov Lemmer has been the attraction ever since.
Though these shuls are different from what Yanky was used to when he grew up, he quickly adapted to the unfamiliar environment. “The crowds are certainly not the same as the Belzer chassidim I grew up with.” Still, Yanky does not harken back to daven by a shtiebel of the old days. “There are a few things I love about my craft. One that I see how my chazzonus impacts even those who are not as closely affiliated with Judaism as those that you'd typically find in a regular shul in Boro Park. And second of all, I love davening with a potpourri of Jews from across the spectrum.”
And instead of shielding his son from what is foreign to him, Yanky takes his children along.
“The next morning I found a DVD of my performance in my mailbox. I decided to copy it onto my computer and upload it to YouTube.”
“There are two ways of dealing with outside influences. Either you shield your child and never expose him to anything that may be objectionable, or you teach him how to filter out the bad and take the good. If you put your children in a bubble they will not be able to handle what is outside of it when they have to step out of said bubble.” Yanky has learned this approach from shluchim who travel to foreign countries and still produce Torahdig children. “When I take my son for shabbos I point out all the different Jews sitting in the pews and I tell him that this is what Yiddishkeit is all about. We may look different, but as we sit here in our holy Batei Knessios we are all the same in the eyes of the Ribono Shel Olam.” Instead of barring him from such things, Yanky teaches his children the positivity of the situation. This sensitivity towards others serves Yanky well in his day job as a SEIT, a special education therapist. But being with such diverse crowds brings with it also interesting interactions. “During one of my early jobs, the gabbai came over during Neilah and said, '' Don't worry, I have a check for you in my pocket.”
But his position at the LSS does put a strain on him. “I have to be there twice a month, but I can’t keep an apartment in Manhattan as well as in Boro Park, so usually I stay in a hotel close by. But it is difficult to squeeze my family into a two-bedroom suite. Sometimes we do it. Otherwise, I go by myself or bring my son,” Yanky sighs. He does not complain, as he loves his job and realizes how rare such a talent and opportunity is, but, he still would love to have his family with him. Interestingly he says that his talent ruined shul for him. “If one day I would like to return to a heimishe place for Yamim Noraim, I would need it to be a shul with a chazzan or a masterful baal tefillah.” But Yanky does admit that he would love to sing for the Rebbe. “I have sung for the rebbetzin numerous times when she has come to visit here.”
“I have sung for the rebbetzin numerous times when she has come to visit here.”
“When I take my son for shabbos I point out all the different Jews sitting in the pews and I tell him that this is what Yiddishkeit is all about...”
Yanky’s passion for Jewish music is mainly in his genre but insists it does not have to be absolutely classical chazzonus. “I don’t mind creativity and new wrinkles even within old songs and tunes. I do love chazzonus but I worked on some collaborations which are not what you would call classic chazzonus.” He points to his cover of Hanan Ben Ari’s Broken Hearts from December of 2020 which is not a standard cantorial song, to say the least. Yanky prides himself in his versatility and his large library of work, especially the covers and collaborations that show off his range.
I ask Yanky what he likes most about his job. He smiles and says, " I love what I do and I am blessed to be able to make a living off of it. I have been zoche to be mechazek many people but it is not why I do this.”
He says that he has seen many people's faces light up when he came to perform for them, and it feels amazing.
Yanky’s music also leaves its mark on non-Jews. “I just drove back from a concert in Massachusetts. During the arranging of the event, the organizer asked me to bring along around fifteen CDs to sell at the venue. Who buys CD’s anymore? Anyway, I said that I'll bring and put it in the back of my mind.” However, Yanky had an international appearance in Poland from where he would travel directly to Massachusetts. “I forgot about it and when I landed in Warsaw I received an email from the organizer reminding me, and my heart sank because there was no way for me to get a hold of fifteen CDs and get them to the place. As I entered the Hotel in Warsaw the manager approached me, and said, ‘Mr. Lemmer, welcome back to our hotel.’ He then proceeded to give me a box with fifteen of my CDs in it. Apparently, five years ago, when I was there last I left the bag in my room, and the manager who seemingly liked my music, saved them for when I would come back.” Because of Yanky’s talent, which made a lasting impression on this non-Jew, he ended up having CDs for the concert in Massachusetts.
As we are getting closer to the Yamim Noraim I ask Yanky about his preparations for the high holidays. Being a chazan, singer, or baal tefillah looks easy to the unaffiliated, but in reality, it takes
a ton of work and upkeep. Anybody doing this professionally needs a voice teacher or vocal coach not just to start off but to keep up. “It is not just technique,” Yanky explains. “It is like training a muscle. Vocal cords need to be exercised. Otherwise you can strain and ruin them.” Aside from the training, which is not only stressful and boring, and is also extremely expensive, it requires certain lifestyle changes. “Some foods and drinks are dehydrating and cause hoarseness, and others cause phlegm.” Of course, smoking is detrimental to a person’s voice and the jury is still out for vaping. But Yanky does not really engage in these restrictions and surprisingly does not take regular voice training. “Baruch Hashem, I do not need constant training, upkeep, and these other things.” Yanky focuses on the actual davening to prepare for the Yamim Noraim. “I focus on niggunim and nusach, timing, things like that. I am a perfectionist and I take pride in my work and care about my craft and that is my focus before Yamim Noraim.”
What Yanky tries to ensure is, that through his tefillos, he can once again lead his flock to a spiritual and meaningful Yamim Noraim, and leave them with a feeling for Yiddishkeit that lasts a lifetime.
“...But in truth, I love what I do and I am blessed to be able to make a living off of it.
“...Vocal cords need to be exercised. Otherwise you can strain and ruin them.”
Rosh Hashanah, the awe-inspiring start of the New Year, is upon us once again. It’s a Tom Tov in which Am Yisroel expresses its heartfelt desires for a sweet new year filled with all the blessings of health and success. It is customary to have a variety of simanim at the seudah to symbolize each desire and its linked meaning. We dip the apple into honey, we have figs, dates, pomegranate, and carrots.
Did you know that each of these ancient customary simanim has a long list of incredible health benefits that have helped humankind throughout the centuries to combat disease and restore harmony in the body? While sitting around the Yom Tov table, recite the tefilos for each one of the simanim and try to have in mind the healing powers they possess and what a gift from Hashem they truly are.
An apple a day keeps the doc tor away is not some common street phrase with no basis for its claims. Apples are often underestimated, but don’t be misled: this miracle of a fruit’s powers is astounding. Apples are rich in the flavonoids quercetin and rutin, both of which are phytochemicals that have the strength to pull radiation out of the body and detox heavy metals like aluminum and lead. Quer cetin became popular now because of how powerful it is against Covid19 so increasing your apple intake can truly boost your immune system. Apples have a compound
called pectin which is an incredible colon cleanser. As it passes through the gut it sweeps out viruses, mold, and bacteria. When apples were discovered they were toted to be the constipation medicine because of how helpful they were for that condition. The red skin in apples contains the most health benefits and their phytochemicals strengthen neurotransmitters. Eating apples after a heavy meal can aid in the digestive process and can also stave away nausea. When you dip the apple into the honey on Rosh Hashanah eve remember how much apples can do for you.
When honey is consumed in its raw and unpasteurized state it’s highly medicinal. This is different than the processed honey that’s typically found on your local grocery shelf. The sugar in raw honey is nothing like processed white sugar as it’s loaded with over 200,000 phytochemical compounds and agents which are anti viral, antibacterial, and even anti-cancerous. Raw honey can actually stop cancer in its tracks and can repair damaged cells. Raw honey is anti-inflammatory and is a secret weapon for any
infectious illness you are up against. It is also chock full of minerals such as selenium, zinc, potassium, and calcium. Honey has the power to draw out skin infections such as staph and antibiotic-resistant MRSA. Honey is truly medicine that should be cherished and treasured and has saved previous generations in times of famine when food was scarce. Enjoy eating your apples dipped in this magical sweet syrup at your table and thank Hashem for this gift to humanity.
This beautiful majestic fruit that’s part of our holy Shivas Haminim is a powerful superfruit in its own right. The ruby red fruit is an incredible blood builder because it strengthens white and red blood counts. Pome granate is exceptionally antioxidant-rich and can actually dissolve kidney and gallbladder stones.
It contains anti-tumor properties and is highly beneficial for PCOS due to its hormone-regulating power. Pomegranate can also stabilize blood sugar metabolism while the su gars in pomegranate can assist in brain focus and concentration. Pomegra nate can even stop ear wax production and assist the body in ridding itself of it.
Another Shivas Haminim superstar, figs are delectable and taste amazing fresh off a fig tree. But wait until you see what figs health benefits are! The skin of figs is an antisep tic and the white milky liquid that you get when you pick it straight off the tree can rid the body of warts. As if that’s not enough, the fibers in figs massage the intestinal tract lining and can help with any type of indigestion or bloating. It can help with gut disorders like constipation, appendix in
flammation, diverticulitis, and inflamed colon. Figs are loaded with vitamins and minerals and specifically, B vitamins are critical for the nervous system to properly function. The beautiful purple and green skin on figs contain compounds that increase probiotic colo nies in the gut by feeding the good bacteria while the seeds go deep into the pockets of the intestines and clear them of harmful microbes. Enjoy figs fresh or dry, they are both extremely valuable.
Dates are another fruit that is part of our holy Shivas Haminim and it’s no surprise. Besides being nature’s candy, they are chockful of incredible health benefits. Dates come in a few different varieties, each one being different levels of sweetness and textures. The varieties are Medjool Dates; Piarom Dates; Deglet Noor Da tes; Mazafati Dates; Barhi Da tes, Rabbi Dates; Theory Da tes, and Sayer Dates. Medjool dates are a favorite and Israel boasts one of the best in this variety and is famous world wide, with nearly 70 bioactive minerals that support the
body in times of stress. Lactic acid is that well-known Char lie horse feeling in the muscles that occurs when the body has been pumping excess adre naline. Dates will rid the body of lactic acid effectively. Dates are also one of the best tra vel-friendly foods and can be a great pick-me-up snack that quickly balances blood sugar levels, while the fibers greatly aid in relieving constipation and Irritable Bowel Syndro me. Interestingly, Israel is the land of Milk and Honey and it is believed that the “honey” is actually “date honey” and not from honey bees.
Carrots are a root vegetable that’s pulled out of the soil and is incredibly mineral rich. They come in a few different colors and each color has different antioxi dant levels. Carrots are loaded with vitamin A which can impro ve eyesight and notice when you slice a carrot it actually looks like an eye! Carrots are wonderful both cooked and raw however when consumed raw they have glucose that feeds the liver. Ca rrots are high in cancer preven
tative compounds and are well known to be juiced for incredible health benefits. If you consume too many carrots don’t be alar med if your skin turns an orange shade. That color is from the beta carotene in the carrot which is a top antioxidant for overall health and wellbeing. Carrots are great for bone health too as they have high levels of phosphorus and vitamin K. Eat plenty of carrots if you have brittle bones to help improve bone density.
Wishing you a Kesiva Vchasima Tova! May you be blessed with all the incredible health benefits that this Simamin boasts and all the blessings you desire.
Suri Sprei is the founder of Wellness Redefined and is a graduate of the Global College of Natural Medicine. She is a Certified Holistic Health Practitioner and Nutritional Consultant and has 15 years of experience in her field helping clients navigate chronic health challenges through food, herbs and supplements. Her Instagram is @Wellness_Redefined1
So how’s your job coming along, Basya?” Doda Yaffa as ked, passing the ubiquitous eggplant salad my way.
“Really great, baruch Has hem,” I said enthusiastica lly. “The office staff is really friendly—all English speaking, and the work keeps me on my toes.”
Ever since Naftali and I had settled in Eretz Yisrael after our marriage, my aunt and uncle took much pleasure in inviting us for Shab bos meals and taking us under their wing.
“And they pay pretty decently,” I added. “I don’t know how you do it, Doda Yaffa. It must be so nerve-wracking to work for yourself and not have a steady paycheck to count on.”
Doda Yaffa had converted one of the be drooms into a little fabric store and the whole family was involved in the enterprise.
My uncle looked up. “The hatzlachah that we have from this store is l’ma’alah miderech ha teva—we have no explanation how our home business became so popular.”
“But what do you do during a slow season?” I persisted. “Honestly, I could never live like that.”
With a glint in his eye, my uncle said ironi cally, “Guess it’s really tough when you only have Hashem to depend on.”
That line got me thinking—and has stayed
with me ever since.
After spending several rewarding years bas king in the radiance of Eretz Yisrael, we knew it was time to head back to the States. Our family was growing, baruch Hashem, and our everyday expenses were only mounting.
Fortunately, Naftali was accepted into a rela tively well-paying kollel in the Midwest.
With heavy hearts, we packed our bags and bade farewell to our many relatives and friends with whom we’d forged such close
relationships. We boarded the plane with bitter sweet feelings; grateful to have an opportunity to expand our horizons yet despondent to close the door on such a special phase of our lives.
As soon as we settled in our new hometown, I began scouring the classifieds for a job. After networking for a few weeks, I learned of a fantastic opening in the local high school, Migdal Shulamis: an official pianist/songwriter for all school functions (Mig dal Shulamis was well known for its professional produc tions and events), who could also teach music as an elec tive.
I’d played in my own school and camp before and had enjoyed it immensely. My interview went swimmingly—I was hired on the spot. I could hardly believe I’d landed a job that would utilize my talents in such a wonderful way.
So as my family adjusted to American culture, I had to familiarize myself once again with a high school timetable. I quickly realized that it was one thing to stay up half the night when you’re sixteen, and quite another when you have toddlers who wake up at the crack of dawn. While my schedule was pretty manageable throughout the year, before the annual Shabba ton and production, I’d find myself staying up until the wee hours of the night, perfecting medleys and practicing with (undeniably hyper) soloists. And more often than not, serving as a confidante to much tee nage angst.
My house would be on wheels as I tried to juggle my myriad responsi bilities; laundry became a luxury, not to mention mitzvah notes and bed time stories.
Naftali knew that in the days fo
llowing such major events, I’d crash, only coming up for air and to serve meals.
“At least we only have to survive this crazy existen ce twice a year,” I consoled him over our wholeso me supper of fish sticks (pro tein and starch) and ketchup (veggie).
Naftali just yawned in res ponse. He’d borne the brunt of household and childcare duties happily enough, but his energy was also running thin.
Two years passed. While I lo ved my role in the school’s extracurricular department, I had to admit that the long hours during production sea son were taxing on my entire family. My children would act up and become very whiny and clingy. But I figured this was our hish tadlus for parnassah; as long as we could make it through a topsy-turvy month or two, we were rea lly in an ideal situation.
At that point, a house for sale came up—a great bargain. We’d been in a cramped rental up until then, and we were quite excited at the prospect of having more living space. Larger quarters would definitely enhance our family dynamics, making bedtime easier and giving each child much-nee ded elbow room.
Naftali and I sat down to crunch the numbers to determine if we could undertake this step from a financial viewpoint.
“As long as you keep your job at Migdal Shulamis, we should be able to swing it,” Naftali concluded.
I laughed. “What do you mean? I’ll probably hold on to that position till Mashiach comes!”
And so we signed on the house. Two months later, we moved in with all our earthly possessions. But just the day after we moved in, I discovered the re ason for my unusual bout of queasiness.
A rapid calculation revealed that I’d be out of com mission around the time of the school production.
Taken with permission from "Life Unwrapped" by Rochel Braverman (As told to the author by Sarah Taub)“As long as you keep your job at Migdal Shulamis, we should be able to swing it,” Naftali concluded.
A wave of dizziness hit me. There is no way I’d be able to do anything for the production with a newborn. And the Shabbaton is just three mon ths later—can’t even imagine dragging an infant to all those late-night practices!
If I would split my devotion between my baby and the play—both would suffer. Did I want to be the best pianist the school ever had, or did I want to be the best mother to my children? I was not equipped to do both simultaneously, physically or emotionally.
My priorities suddenly zoomed into sharp fo cus. I did not need a navi to tell me which path to choose; I would not sacrifice my family’s we ll-being on the altar of this job, critical as it was to our livelihood.
There was no question about it: I had to resign from Migdal Shulamis. But how in the world would we afford our new home now?!
And how would we make it through every month on Naftali’s stipend alone?
Like a tightrope walker whose safety net is suddenly whisked away, I felt incredi bly vulnerable. Being on our own was so unnerving that I had a hard time fa lling asleep at night. Losing the security of that direct deposit sliding smoothly into our account each month was harder than I’d ever imagined.
I couldn’t help but think about my friend Sarah Leah, who was a nurse in a frum office. She had great hours; excellent be nefits; and a nice, steady salary. Don’t even go there, my little voice said. Her earnings have no bearing on your life. But there was one thing I was certain about.
“We made a sensible, carefully calcu lated decision,” I told Naftali. “Hashem doesn’t penalize those who try to do the right thing. We moved here to benefit our family—Hashem has a plan for us.”
Once again we sat down to crunch num
bers, but this time we were coming from a to tally different direction. If I would keep my two youngest home instead of sending them to playgroup and babysitter, we would be saving significantly. Also, I had the option of giving pia no lessons from my own home in the evenings or on Sundays, bein hasedarim.
For his part, Naftali was able to supplement his kollel check by transcribing and distributing the rosh kollel’s shiurim, as well as assisting at va rious kollel community events.
It wasn’t long before I procured my first student, in a marvelous twist of events: I’d casually men tioned to my neighbor’s cousin that I was offe ring piano lessons, and she told her daughter’s morah, who told her sister-in-law…
The students came in a slow trickle, but at least it was something. I would always hold my brea th to see how long each one would last, since children are often enthralled by the idea of pla
ying an instrument, but quickly lose interest once they have to practice the same scales over and over again. I knew that most parents in my neighbor hood could not afford to pay for lessons indefinitely so it wasn’t like I could rely on a set income each month. But I put forth all my efforts in advertising and networking—and of course, creating a unique learning style for each child—to fulfill my responsi bility in the realm of parnassah.
Sometimes I would encounter a dry spell for a whi le, and a helpless feeling would engulf me like a suffocating blanket. Not knowing where my next dollar was coming from was a most humbling ex perience.
My tefillos became heartfelt entreaties as I beg ged Hashem to sustain our family and enable us to provide for our chil dren without the ag gravation and stress. The brachah of Bareich Aleinu was especially poignant for me as I contemplated each word, now alive with meaning.
At times, when I’d least expect it, a proposi tion would fall into my hands from the most far-fetched source. A preschool in Toronto asked me to compose a song selection about the nekudos; they’d heard my name from a Migdal Shulamis alumnus. A seminary in Eretz Yisrael wan ted to know if I could write the theme song for their erev shirah. A coordinator for a local women’s event invited
me to play some background music as an attempt at “ambiance.”
I had a safety net after all—when I finally became cognizant of Who was guiding our every step.
It’s been several years since I’ve become His emplo yee, and my internship has been most gratifying, though far from easy.
I’ve discovered that it makes no difference whether one is a salaried worker or a freelancer—all the mo ney in the world flows from one Source.
Nobody knows what was predestined on Rosh Hashanah, but it is our task to believe in the dee pest recesses of our hearts that Hashem is the sole Provider, and no one could add or detract from what was meant to be.
Naturally, we have to do our utmost hishtadlus; we cannot rest on the couch and wait for Heavenly blessings to shower upon us. But we dare not allow ourselves to be lulled into a false sense of security. Sarah Leah was recently laid off—her office was downsizing. Who would’ve dreamed?
There are no guarantees with any job, from the smallest store to the greatest corporation. The only true security we can ever hope to attain is by clinging to the true Boss.
“We made a sensible, carefully calculated decision,” I told Naftali. “Hashem doesn’t penalize those who try to do the right thing. We moved here to benefit our family—Hashem has a plan for us.”
Leaven for making bread, consisting of fermenting dough, typically left over from a previous batch.
Chances are you’ve heard the term sourdough before. It has become very popular in recent years, with sourdough products proliferating throughout supermarket shelves and across social media feeds. But what is sourdough? And why are people so excited about it? Is it actually sour?
To understand what sourdough is, we first need to understand how doughs work. Ever cut open a loaf of bread and notice the holes or spaces? With denser breads, like bagels, it can be harder to see. But the majority of doughs we encounter have some form of this appearance. This means that the dough has been “leavened”. Most of us are familiar with the term “leavening” and “leavened” from English translations of the Hagada or Masechtas Pesachim, because “chametz” means leavened. Leavening is what occurs when gas is released into the dough, causing it to rise, with the ultimate effect of the final product being softer, chewier, and easier to eat.
But don’t go running to your local Mobil station next time you need to bake challah! The gas that’s needed to make a bread rise is something else entirely: usually carbon dioxide and occasionally hydrogen. The way these gases are released into the dough is through a “leavening agent,” an ingredient that causes a chemical reaction. The most common form of this is yeast, although many other types of materials can be used, such as beer and baking soda.
Sourdough is another form of leavening agent. It refers to “sour”, i.e. old, dough that has been left to ferment. With time, bacteria and yeast from in the old dough, and that potent mix of microorganisms can now cause a new dough to rise when it is introduced into the mixture. In addition, the sourdough gives a unique flavor profile and nutritional benefits to the final finished product. (Sometimes, the flavor can be extremely acidic, which is another reason these products are known as “sour” dough. But that flavor can be easily changed if it is not to the taste of the diners.)
In earlier eras, sourdough was simply day-old dough. Over time, this evolved into “starters”; specially maintained mixtures of flour and water that would be used to raise bread. These starters are each unique, with the flour type, climate, and even microbes from the baker’s hand potentially affecting the mixture of yeast and microorganisms that will develop in the starter.
The answers to these questions throw a fascinating light on how we eat, historical developments, and human psychology. Although it is having a moment in the sun, sourdough is actually very ancient, with roots stretching back thousands of years. For the modern cook, working with sourdough provides a unique opportunity for a special kind of cooking experience. And research has shown that it also has many
/'sou(ė)r,dō/ noun
health benefits. So, without further ado, let’s learn some of the sweet background information behind sourdough.
What makes sourdough so popular? Depending on who you ask, you may get a different answer. Some people simply enjoy the taste more. For others, the complex process of making the dough and maintaining the starter gives them a sense of accomplishment. For many who suffer from digestive problems, it is the health benefits and ease of digestion that make sourdough their goto. But there is no denying that sourdough has a special appeal. Although it takes more time to make and is significantly more expensive than standard bread, it inspires love and dedication uncommon among most food items.
Although the internet and pandemic-induced boredom have catapulted sourdough into the limelight, it has actually been around for a very long time. For most of human history, sourdough was the prime method for leavening bread. Comparatively, the usage of commercial yeast has only become predominant in the last 150 years. There has been archaeological evidence discovered of ancient sourdoughs, and it is mentioned in the writings of Roman philosopher Pliny the Elder, as well as lihavdil, in the Gemara in Masechtas Menachos and other places.
According to some legends, Columbus brought a crock of Spanish starter with him on his first journey to America. In more recent history, sourdough played a major role in the westward expansion of the United States. Pioneers, gold rushers, miners, and prospectors left the settled areas on the East Coast and Midwest, making their way over the Missouri river and into the untamed wilds, searching for adventure and prosperity. Far from the general stores and the availability of commercial yeast, many of these pioneers carried starters with them, so that they could be guaranteed a steady supply of bread, flapjacks, and hotcakes even as they panned for gold or set up homesteads. Many of the pioneers kept the starter in a pouch tied around their necks so that it would be safe from thieves and be kept warm by their body heat, so that the precious starter didn’t die on a freezing night. Eventually, prospectors, particularly those who searched for gold in Alaska, became known as “sourdoughs” because of their ubiquitous bread. The city of San Francisco, its growth spurred by a massive influx of miners and prospectors, developed a reputation for special sourdough. Starters produced a unique bread in San Francisco, a flavor that could not be reproduced when the same starter was brought to different locations. Since then, San Francisco has become synonymous with sourdough, and it boasts some of the most famous bakeries, including the Boudin bakery, which has a 173-year-old starter. And that leads us to another fascinating sourdough fact. More than just being part of the past, starters are actually living history. The bacterial lifeforms that live inside sourdough starters can be maintained for very long times, theoretically for hundreds or thousands of years. In 2020, game designer and tech entrepreneur Seamus Blackley claimed to have made bread using yeast cultures extracted by scraping a 4000-yearold piece of pottery discovered on an archeological dig in Egypt. While that may stretch the limits of credulity, there are numerous well-documented examples of starters still in use that are over a
hundred years old.
A good example is the Carl Griffith starter, which traces its roots back to at least 1847. Carl Griffith was a World War Two veteran and sourdough enthusiast. His great-grandmother traveled from the Midwest and settled in Salem, Oregon. She brought her sourdough starter with her, maintained it, and eventually passed it along to her great-grandson Carl in 1930. In the early days of the internet, when some small sourdough message boards were active, Carl would mail samples of his starter to anyone who requested it, along with instructions on how to maintain it. Since Carl’s death in 2000, an organization developed to keep Carl’s legacy alive. They generally send out between 30-90 sourdough starters a week. A starter that was alive before the Civil War began is still living on in the kitchens of today, all across America.
As mentioned before, each starter is unique, with its own profile of bacteria and distinct flavor and effect. if they are not maintained, they can die. While that might not seem like the biggest tragedy in the world, some sourdough enthusiasts believe there is a value in maintaining a wide variety of starters. That’s why the baking corporation Puratos established the Sourdough Library in St. Vith, a small village near Brussels. Originally the idea came from a Syrian baker, who was passing his business along to his children. While the father had always used sourdough for the bakery’s famous chickpea cookies, his sons wanted to embrace commercial yeast. The baker began inquiries about preserving his starter for posterity, and the idea for the library was born. The library is lined with refrigerated shelves, in which a collection of starters from all over the world are maintained. It’s kind of like a zoo of sourdough starters, except I wouldn’t advise going there on Chol Hamoed Pesach!
As demand for sourdough has grown, the supply has grown along with it. More and more groceries and restaurant chains offer sourdough products, as corporations try to cash in on the sourdough craze. However, not all sourdough is created equal. Recently, England faced a “sour-faux” scandal, after it was revealed that many products being sold and labeled as sourdough were actually made with commercial yeast and other ingredients. While the commercial bakeries could sell these products at a cheaper price, smaller private bakers making authentic sourdough were being priced out of the market. Bending the “rules” of sourdough might allow the bakeries to produce much more bread at a faster pace, but the magic and health benefits of sourdough might be lost along the way. In response, the Real Bread campaign was formed, advocating on behalf of authentic sourdough for consumers.
One of the number one benefits touted about sourdough is the effect it has on peoples’ digestive and general health. Many people with digestive issues report that it is easier to digest than standard bread. The lactic acid in sourdough makes the other nutrients in the bread easier for the body to absorb. Also, the lactic acid helps release antioxidants, which protect the body’s cells from Alzheimer’s, heart disease, and cancer. All in all, eating sourdough seems to be a great way to enjoy your food and take care of your body at the same time.
Chaya Sarah Leitner has always been drawn to the kitchen. Earlier in her career, she created and wrote recipes for Mishpacha Magazine, and prepared food for photo shoots. In recent years, spurred by a desire to find healthier ways to feed her family, her culinary adventures have taken her into the world of sourdough. She started to explore this retro style of baking and soon discovered she had a knack for it. Since then, her hobby has blossomed into a full-fledged sourdough empire including an Instagram account boasting nearly 18,000 followers, popular classes, and a website community built around sourdough. We talked to her about her passion for baking, the unique challenges of sourdough, and her tips for aspiring bakers.
Tell us a little about yourself and how you got into baking sourdough and teaching classes
I am a mother of four little kids kn’h. Ten years ago, my husband was suffering from sciatica to the point where he was getting cortisone injections and going to physical therapy twice a week. These were health problems that didn’t really make sense for someone his age, and they were very challenging for our family. At that time, I was aware of the idea of clean eating and healthier lifestyle choices, and we started to explore that as a way of improving my husband’s health. I came across an article about sourdough and how it can potentially help with health problems since it is easier to digest. I tried it and I never looked back. Baruch Hashem, since we started with sourdough along with many other healthy lifestyle choices that we added along the way, my husband’s health has vastly improved. He no longer needs cortisone and physical therapy.
Beyond changing my family’s eating habits, sourdough also became a mainstay of my professional life. As I spent more time baking, I developed a very strong starter, the material used in sourdough instead of commercial yeast. Now I sell my starter, along with other baked goods. A few years ago, I started posting about my baking on Instagram and people were interested. After getting requests, I started teaching sourdough classes. Eventually, I launched my website and an online sourdough course which makes the class much more accessible.
By definition, “sourdough” refers to dough made with fermented yeast, as opposed to commercial yeast. The fermented yeast is the starter. You make a starter by mixing flour and water together and letting it sit for a while. It starts to ferment, good bacteria start to grow, and eventually, with some care and attention, it becomes a starter that can make other doughs rise. You can use it for making anything, not just bread. When most people think of sourdough, they associate it with very crusty, rustic, artisanal bread, but really you can make anything dough-based with a starter, which will give it the unique flavor and health benefits of sourdough. You also need to maintain the starter by “feeding it” with more flour and water. It’s a little like a pet or a plant; it needs to be taken care of and babied.
138 likesWas teaching other people how to bake sourdough a role that came naturally to you?
It’s funny because growing up I always thought I would be a preschool teacher. Life took me down other career paths, but now teaching has become an outgrowth of my work in the kitchen. When I started teaching about sourdough, I learned what it really meant to teach something. I have been baking for so many years, so for me, the process is very familiar. Getting a lot of questions from students helped me realize what parts of the process are most challenging for beginners and where the biggest struggles are. It has also taught me to focus on simplifying the process and teaching busy moms, the ones who generally have the responsibility of feeding the family, how to work it into their hectic day-to-day schedules. Baruch Hashem, I’ve gotten great feedback, that because I teach it in a way that’s not too simple and not too complicated, it makes people feel empowered to try something that feels daunting.
I’ve heard that starters can be maintained for a very long time and that some starters are a hundred years old or more. How old is yours?
My starter is 11 years old. A very common question that people ask is what we do with the starter on Pesach. I can’t give a conclusive answer, because everyone has a different standard, and they need to consult with their own Rov. Since I have a sourdough business, I sell mine through the mashgiach who gives the hechsher for my company.
What do you think is the biggest challenge for your students and for novice sourdough bakers in general?
Unexpectedly, the biggest challenge is information overload. When I started baking sourdough ten years ago, there were very few resources out there. There was one website that I relied on, but that was pretty much it. Now, there are so many resources, and everyone has a different approach to sourdough. When it comes to baking sourdough or creating a starter there’s really no right or wrong way, but because everyone advocates their approach as the best way, it can be confusing and overwhelming for the beginner. Some people get discouraged before they start because it seems too complicated.
My advice is to find and commit to one resource, whoever it is. Follow their approach and stick with it. Whether it’s me or someone else on social media, a book, or a blog, it doesn’t really matter. Sticking to that one approach and being persistent is the most important thing to do. It can take two to three weeks until you have a good starter, so don’t give up.
I have done some in-person classes, but right now I’m pushing the online course. I taught in person for five years before I started the online course. That gave me the knowledge of where people generally struggle, which parts of the process are hardest for them, and what kind of info they needed. People think they’ll get a more hands-on experience in person, but the advantage of the online course is that whenever they are stuck, they can go back to the earlier videos and check out the resources. Also, there is a community forum on my website where people can discuss the process and find solutions. Being involved on the online front can really help people more in the long term than meeting me once and spending two hours together, although people gain a lot from that as well.
Recently, I created a kit that I sell along with my online course, which includes all the tools one needs to start baking, including my own dehydrated starter and flour blend. With this kit, anyone can bake their first loaf in a matter of days. This is available on my site spiceandzest.com/breadbasket
Sourdough baking occupies an interesting niche within the culinary world. It has its own culture and vocabulary, and people get really into it. How do you explain its unique appeal?
There definitely is a very specific vocabulary. In fact, part of my course is the sourdough library, where I teach all the sourdough-specific terms and definitions. This covers many general baking terms, as well as sourdoughspecific terms, for stages of the baking process, different equipment, bread styles, and more.
I see two elements in sourdough that really resonate with people. Firstly, people are becoming more aware of better eating and how you can nourish your family in a way that improves health. A lot of people were never tested but assume, because of their bad reactions to bread and other items, that they are celiac or that they can’t have gluten. That’s why gluten-free items have become so popular in recent years. In reality, a large percentage of those who are self-diagnosing actually have a gluten sensitivity where their body can’t digest it well, and for them, sourdough is a game-changer. When you bake with a starter, the dough ferments for twelve hours which breaks down the gluten. By the time you eat it, it is much easier for your body to break it down and absorb it. People who thought they couldn’t have bread at all see that they can tolerate sourdough with no issues; it doesn’t bother their stomach or make them tired.
Secondly, there is a unique sense of accomplishment that people get when they bake sourdough. There is an excitement that arises from the challenge of creating something from scratch as opposed to just throwing a few ingredients together in a bowl. Baking with sourdough is a more involved process, more challenging, but that also means it's more rewarding. One of the most consistent pieces of feedback I get online and from my classes is that people feel very accomplished that they made something, start to finish, that the entire family can enjoy. This was especially true during Covid when everyone was stuck at home and they wanted to feel like they were doing something to nourish their family.
What are some of your more creative and out of the box sourdough recipes?
I used my starter for everything. I’ve made pretzels, burger buns, galettes, pies, babkas, doughnuts Hamantashen, and a lot of other items. Basically, for anything that’s made with a rising dough, I use my starter and get a unique flavor.
What’s the biggest kitchen disaster you ever had?
I know on Instagram and my course it looks like I have it all together and I never had any disasters, but that’s not at all the case. I definitely had a lot of trial and error along the way. There were times, especially in the beginning, that I would start baking when it was cold outside, and the bread wouldn’t rise, or I would bake in the heat and the starter would grow way too fast. I never knew why, and I was ready to give up. Once during the summer, I was preparing bread to take on a family trip. I left the dough on the counter and within an hour that whole thing rose very fast and then flopped. All these incidents, along with time and patience, have taught me a lot about temperature, how to gauge dough, and many other essential skills that have made me a better baker.
Do you find anyone who has difficulty with the taste of sourdough?
Some starters are more acidic than others, depending on the flour, the water, how long it has fermented, and the ph levels. All of those factors will affect the final taste, texture, and appearance of what you make with the dough. People often say they didn’t want to bake sourdough because they ate it once and it was sour, but you can learn how to manipulate a starter in such a way that there is no strong acidic taste. That taste can be amplified for those that like it and tamped down for those who don’t.
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I am a big believer that if people see how food is made, and especially if they are actually involved in making it, they will have a deeper appreciation for how much positive energy is put into the process. It helps them appreciate eating and makes meals, which are so important for the family relationship, into a more positive experience. That is one of the reasons I like to get my kids involved. If I make them healthy ices, they aren’t so excited or interested. But if I bring them in, and they help make the ices, they get invested. They blended the mangos, they poured them into the molds. They’ll be much more excited to eat healthy and nourishing food.
Part of my philosophy is, to keep it simple and don’t overcomplicate things. If making ices is overwhelming for someone, then they should stick with what they love to do and bring kids in on that, even if it’s just making chicken and potatoes. Have them peel the potatoes or participate in some other way. The main point is to get them involved in a way that develops their appreciation of what happens in a kitchen.
Any parting life lessons from the kitchen that you can share with our readers?
Never give up. Preparing healthy food doesn’t have to be expensive or overwhelming. Invest in one thing that you are passionate about, and it will lead to good things developing in your life.
Baking her own sourdough was something Toby Weiser never dreamed of. In fact, up until a few years ago she had never even heard of it. But after some twists and turns, now it is her full-time job with her company Bredz, which delivers sourdough products all over the NY area and beyond. We talked to her about her journey, the challenges of running her own business, and some of the lessons she has learned along the way.
When I Googled the name of your company, I got a bakery in Kuwait City. And after a little more digging, I still couldn’t find anything. You don’t really seem to have an online presence, which is interesting for a business in 2022.
Yes, I do know about that bakery in Kuwait, it’s not a branch of our company. People always ask me if I have social media or a website, and I tell them if they have any questions, they should just be in touch with me directly. I prefer to not use those mediums; I don’t feel I have the time to be busy with it and it’s not something I want to use anyways. I’m very happy and grateful that my business has, kn’h, managed to grow completely through word of mouth. I might consider a website just to make it easier for customers to place orders, but it wouldn’t be for marketing. I feel that my products speak for themselves
I never really imagined that I would be doing this for a living. I worked office jobs for around ten years, in life insurance and related fields. I got to a point where I didn’t want to work 9-5 anymore, and I wanted to be on my own schedule. I wanted to be able to spend more time with my kids and not have to go running to find a babysitter for Chanuka vacation when my kids were off from school because I had to go into the office. I started a part-time job as a sales rep at my sister-inlaw's sheitel company, which gave me more flexibility. Still, I was davening that I would find something that could be my own, where I could be independent and be my own boss.
Around six or seven years ago, my husband wasn’t feeling the greatest. He was getting enough sleep, eating healthy, and exercising, but still, he was feeling fatigued and under the weather. We went to a kinesiologist, someone who had helped us in the past, to give us an opinion or some advice for my husband. He recommended that my husband avoid white flour and eat sourdough. At the time, we had no idea what sourdough was. We had to Google it, and we found a place to buy kosher sourdough. The bread we found wasn’t exactly what we wanted. It tasted good, but it was difficult to eat, very crusty and rustic. We tried another one, and it was too sour. That classic feeling and experience of challah, the softness, the taste, was missing. But my husband was having good health results from the switch, so we stocked up on store-bought sourdough and kept serving it.
I have always been a big kitchen person. I love being in there, prepping a Shabbos or Yom Tov meal. I appreciate a good Braun or Bosch. Eventually, my husband suggested that I try making my own sourdough. I wanted to help him, but I wasn’t ready to make challah that would take 2 ½ days to prepare. My husband kept insisting and encouraging me that I could make good homemade sourdough. I looked into courses, but they were all too expensive, and I wasn’t sure
that they would pay off. Every once in a while my husband would mention it, and the more he did the more I warmed up to the idea, but still, I wasn’t sure how to go about it
I was at work and someone who was getting her sheitel done was telling my sister-in-law that she had been taught to bake sourdough. I found out that the one who had taught her was actually a cousin of mine, and when I reached out, she agreed to teach me how to make sourdough. I joined the group, and I loved it immediately. I started baking sourdough for my family on a weekly basis
What was so exciting for you about that initial experience of making sourdough?
I loved the experience of simply taking flour, water, and salt and turning that into bread. There’s something amazing about that. There’s a fundamental sense of fulfillment when you make something, and that is especially true with sourdough, where you really are making the bread from scratch from a few simple ingredients. You’re using your own starter, that you created, to naturally leaven the dough and create nutritious tasty challah. It's an amazing feeling. How did you go from making challah for your family to running a sourdough business?
After I had been making sourdough for a while, I had made an extra one for my sister-in-law. I went to her shop to give it to her and a client, again sitting in the sheitel macher chair, overheard us. She asked me if I sold sourdough, and before I could answer, my sister-in-law said “yes, she sells sourdough” and that’s how it all started. I sold that first one, and that Motzei Shabbos the lady who bought it called to tell me that it was amazing and how much her family loved it. at first, I thought she was just trying to be nice, but then she ordered another challah on the spot for next week. A few weeks later, for fun, I decided to post a picture on my status, and that’s where it all started. Everyone started reaching out to me and asking about the bread. Word spread, and the rest is history. I never intended to sell sourdough. I took the course just to be able to make it for my family, but now it has evolved to something much bigger. I davened for so long to find a job that could be my own, that could be run on my own schedule, and it all grew out of this project in my kitchen.
In my research for this article, I’ve discovered that people are very emotionally attached to their starters. How old is your starter and how do you feel about it?
It's two and a half years old. Starters do require some maintenance, but I think people overestimate and overexaggerate how difficult it is. People should definitely not be intimidated from getting into sourdough because of the maintenance part. And you don’t need to get emotionally involved either.
Whenever anybody asks my grandmother how many grandchildren she has, she says “until we’re done having them, we won’t count them.” I apply the same idea to my sourdoughs. It can be different every week and I don’t
want to put a limit on our growth. Some weeks it's way more than we can handle, and then there are times that it is slower. It varies from week to week. Yomim Tovim time is very intense. We sold pre-packaged shaloch manos for the last two years, so Purim has also become a big time for us. But I try to balance the business and the growth with more fundamental concerns. The whole business is run from my house and at this point in my life, I am not looking to move it anywhere. I’m raising my children right now and they are at the forefront, so I want to be able to stay at home. Basically, we are trying to take as much work as we can handle while not interfering with our life as a family
How do you explain the special appeal of sourdough?
A lot of people are buying it for health benefits. people have digestive issues, issues with blood sugar, and gluten sensitivity. Many of them are being sent to me by nutritionists and other health professionals. That’s also why we started making gluten free sourdough. It really opens things up for people. So many customers tell me they haven’t been able to enjoy challah for years until now. Others don’t have a particular issue; they just want healthier challah. In the jewish lifestyle, with Shabbos every week, Yomim Tovim, and simchos, we’re always washing. And sourdough is undeniably healthier.
What are some of the items that you sell?
Everything that we make in our bakery is 100% sourdough. We sell 12 different types of sourdough loaves. We sell rolls, bagels, focaccia, fougasse, chocolate and cinnamon buns, and chocolate chip cookies.
What is the biggest challenge in prepping sourdough?
There are a lot of elements that affect the final product in sourdough. the water has to be at the right temperature, you have the catch the starter when it's most active, and the room temperature also plays a role. We have to make changes based on the weather outside; if it’s humid or freezing we have to adjust accordingly. People don’t realize what goes into making a sourdough loaf. But that also plays into the sense of accomplishment I mentioned earlier. Every time I open the oven and see that a batch of bread came out nicely, I thank Hashem. It takes a lot of effort and siyata dishmaya.
What is the biggest kitchen disaster you ever had?
Since everything is done by hand, without using machines or computers, there’s always the possibility of human error. There have definitely been quite a few times that things went wrong. We’ve had to discard entire batches of bread because we made one mistake. You can always tell with sourdough; it’s not rising properly, or the look is somehow
off. You’ll know if you made a mistake. It’s tough, but that’s part of the process.
What’s the most popular loaf you have now?
It’s very hard to gauge, as it varies from week to week. Typically, the classic loaf is our most popular. The roasted garlic loaf is another one that people love, as well as the multigrain loaf. Spelt is also popular because it’s not easy to find spelt products. Many bakeries do not work with spelt because it’s a tricky flour and the hardest to bake with. Some say that spelt is the healthiest flour for people with digestion issues, although others maintain that whole wheat is better. What I’ve concluded is that spelt has more calories, but it is easier to digest.
Is the heimish crowd very into sourdough?
We are based in Boro Park but we deliver all over the New York area; Lakewood, Toms River, Monsey, and the Catskills. I would say the products are equally appealing to people from all across the frum spectrum.
What do you do with your sourdough starter over pesach?
We checked with our hashgacha and followed their instructions, which was to sell it to a goy. We fed the starter close to Yom Tov so that it would not need to be maintained over the course of Yom Tov.
Thank you so much for speaking to us. Can you leave our readers with some reflection on what you’ve gained from your experience working with sourdough and growing your business?
A big aspect for me is the uncertainty which helps with emuna. We don’t know how many orders we will get week to week. When someone works in an office, they know what their salary is. We have to buy our supplies and bake everything, and we don’t know what is going to sell and what won't. We don’t know how much we’re going to make. We’re always in Hashem's hands but here we get to live it week to week. Some weeks are slow and it can be nerve-wracking because my tuition and mortgage bills are still there. But it also brings you to a place where you rely on Hashem and your Emunah is stronger.
I’m very grateful for the fact that Hashem has blessed me with a business that can be my own and that I can be independent, and that I didn’t have to sacrifice spending time with my children in order to have a parnassah.
Another big thing for me is that we are making something that is so healthy, and it’s really helping people. Food is a very big aspect of a person’s life especially for us Yidden so the fact that my work helps people enjoy healthy food is a big zechus.
By Rabbi Dr. Dovid Gottlieb
Change your environment in order to avoid your triggers.
We all have some bad character traits and some bad habits. When we consider doing teshuva, repentance, for them, we are apt to think as follows: “I am really out of control. Why do I do those terrible things? I should be stronger! How can I increase my self-control so that I can overcome those strains, temptations, etc.?”
That sort of thinking can be useful. But it is not the only helpful approach. Another attack is this: “When do I fail like this? What is there in the environment? What else has happened that day? Under which specific circumstances do I fail? And what can I do to change those circumstances?” The technique of changing the circumstances in which we generally fail is what I call “strategic teshuva.”
Traits and habits generally have “triggers.” For example, certain people provoke an angry, aggressive response. Other people may not pose a problem. Or the “trigger” might be specific activities, such as driving in heavy traffic (“road rage”), caring for fighting siblings, waiting in lines at the bus terminal, filling out government forms, and so on.
The same is true for other temptations. Laziness comes naturally when one is surrounded by computer games, bad literature, inviting beaches, and – most important – other lazy people. Illicit pleasures attract us most strongly when they are readily available and when others in the neighborhood indulge.
Our first responsibility is for our actions. When the “triggers” of the bad habits and traits occur, it is extremely difficult to stop the habits and traits from acting. One solution is to try to avoid the triggers. Change the environment. Move your residence if you can.
If you can't, spend as much time in another environment which will provide respite from the temptation. (The most effective positive environment is doing mitzvos with other people: Learn in a shul, a study hall, visit the hospital with others, plan a chesed project with others, teach Torah in a school, etc.) Certain activities cause tension which triggers anger. If you cannot avoid those activities, alternate with relaxing activities.
A second solution is to add something to the environment which will make it easier to do the right thing. If you have trouble getting up for davening in shul, make a study partner for ten minutes before davening. Then, when the alarm rings and you reach over to push the snooze button, you will think: “But what if my study partner comes and I'm not there?! How embarrassing!” – and you will get up!
In many cases you can make a contract with yourself: If I succeed in overcoming the temptation (enough times) then I will allow myself something I very much enjoy. This is what psychologists call a “behavior contract.” Thus I have a personal incentive to do the right thing. For example: “If I get through the meeting without getting angry, I will allow myself to buy that picture for the wall/go to that restaurant/etc.”
The key is to control the environment by avoiding some things and creatively adding others so that it will be easier to do the right thing.
Now, some people think that this cannot be right. This means that we are only running away from our problems, not solving them!
The problem is precisely this: I am not able to overcome those temptations. How do I solve that problem? By avoiding them, or by adding extra incentives?
There are two answers. First, who says that the only problem is to overcome the desire? On the contrary: Our first responsibility is for our actions. Suppose someone cannot control a desire to steal from Macy's. If he shops only in Bloomingdale's, or he rewards himself for not stealing from Macy's, he has not overcome the desire – but at least he is not stealing!
Second, often we can only overcome the desire if we have a respite from the wrong actions. As long as the bad habits and traits are active it is very difficult to gain control.
Therefore, avoiding the triggers and adding payoffs may be the only way to gain control. Yes, the ultimate goal is to become immune to temptations. But this may require two stages: First avoiding the triggers and adding payoffs, and then developing the psychological strength to resist. Trying to do without the first stage may make the second stage impossible.
Think of addictions. You cannot simply tell the addict: "Stop using that stuff!" He can't stop, and all the therapy in the world will not help while he is still on the drug. But if he enters a sanitarium where the drug is unavailable, then the therapy can help him become immune to the temptation to use drugs.
Strategic teshuva may thus be the necessary first step to complete teshuva. But it is more than that. If that is all that you can manage at the moment, then strategic teshuva is enough to gain atonement. Hashem does not ask more of us than we can do. If you avoid the triggers, add incentives and start to work on immunity, then in the meantime, you have atonement for all the past mistakes even before you achieve immunity. Isn't that worth it?
Reprinted with permission. Rabbi Gottlieb's website can be found at dovidgottlieb.com
With Yom Kippur approaching, there may be many things on our mind. This beautiful and powerful day is one in which we focus on teshuva. One of the ways that we stay focused on the meaning of the day is by fasting.
The term “fasting” can have many definitions in the diet and nutrition world and is generally not recom mended for weight loss purposes. However, as we all know, the purpose of religious fasts is not to lose
weight. Since our body uses food as fuel, it is es pecially important to be mindful of how we prepare our body for a fast, and subsequently how we break our fast.
While an individual can be fine fasting for Yom Ki ppur without following any particular pre-fast re commendations, following a few guidelines can de finitely be helpful. Below are 8 tips to keep in mind when preparing for a fast, and when breaking a fast.
Esti Asher, MS, RDN, LD is a Registered Dietitian Nutritionist and member of the Nutritional Advisory Board of Wellspring Ma gazine. Esti is passionate about helping women reach their ultimate health and wellbeing potential inside and out. She shares credible, clear and inspiring nutrition information with women via her virtual private practice. Esti’s kind and positive approach not only benefits her clients, it also often has a positive ripple effect on their loved ones. To contact Esti with feedback or inquiries regarding her nutritional services, please e-mail her at: esti@estiashernutrition.com or visit estiashernutrition.com.
Disclaimer: The information in this article is for informational purposes only. This article is not meant to be used as Medical Nutrition Therapy and thus is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any health conditions. Please consult with your physician if you have specific questions regarding your health.
1Make an effort to drink extra water. Our body requires a lot of water, and that requirement increases during the hot summer months when we are gene rally sweating extra. When preparing for a fast, it is important to be mindful to drink more water in anticipation of the fast, when we will not be drinking at all.
2Wean off of caffeine if you regularly drink coffee or other caffeinated beverages. If you drink coffee daily, then you may be fami liar with the headaches that creep in when you miss your cup(s) of coffee. In anticipation of a fast day, it is recommended to slowly wean off completely (or at least decrease the amount) of caffeine that you have each day in order to help prevent or minimize the discom fort you may experience the day of a fast.
3Decrease your salt intake. This strategy will help prevent you from feeling extra thirsty the day of a fast. Our salt (sodium) intake refers to the salt that we physically add to our food and the salt that is already within the food from prior preparation and processing. It is noteworthy to mention that most of the salt that we consume comes from processed foods, including packaged foods and condiments.
4Build up your body’s energy reserves. The day before a fast it is a good idea to eat more carbohydrates in order to build up glycogen stores in your body. (In the body, carbohydrates are broken down into glucose, and then glucose is stored in the form of glycogen, which is used as a source of energy.) Carbohydrate choices should ideally be complex carbohydrates such as whole grains (including whole-wheat bread, oatmeal, or brown rice), fruits, and starchy vegeta bles. It is helpful to minimize the number of refined carbohydrates (including white bread, coo kies, cakes, and candies) eaten in order to prevent the sugar crash that is associated with them.
1Make a plan. Plan in advance what you will be breaking your fast on. If there is no plan in place, you will most likely grab for anything and everything that you see in your kitchen. This may make you feel uncomfortable and dissatisfied with your food choices.
3Hydrate! Our body needs a lot of water. After going a long time (in this case, over 24 hours) without any water, we must make sure to drink a lot to help replenish our water le vels and hydration status. This can be done by drinking water and eating soups, fruits, and vegetables with a high water content.
Increase your awareness and appreciation. Be extra mindful of the delicious, beautiful, and satisfying foods that Hashem has provided us with. Sometimes we do not appreciate something until it is no longer available to us. After a fast is a great time to re-instill the appreciation that we have for food and drinks and all that they have to offer.
2Eat slowly. Especially after a fast, it is helpful to be extra kind to your digestive system. Make sure to eat slowly and thoroughly chew your food. This may also help increase your aware ness of your satiety cues. In other words, eating slowly may help you more easily recognize when you are sa tisfied and no longer need to be eating, as opposed to eating quickly and too much, which will ultimately leave you feeling uncomfor table and maybe even sick.
May we all – both individually and collectively – be inscribed and sealed for a year of tova, success, health, and with the privilege to bring the Geulah bekarov.
By Gina Frankel
Gina Frankel was born in Lodz to a close-knit religious family. She was 12 when the war broke out in Poland in 1939. She and her family endured terror and starvation. Her father died in the Lodz Ghetto. Gina, her mother, and her sisters were transported to Auschwitz where her mother and sisters were murdered. Gina and her surviving sister were then transported to several other concentration camps.
On the day of Rosh Hashanah, we sat together in the straw, trying to make a joint effort to create some semblance of the traditional services. Besides our other handicaps, we had to pray as inconspicuously as possible in order to hide our crime from the eyes of the supervisors. Of course, we had no prayer books to refer to, but like a silent miracle, as we looked into one another’s eyes, the old words flooded back to us. As I prayed, memories of past services and the spirit of communion that existed then washed over me. The others must have had similar thoughts, for as we prayed our spirits soared to a higher peak than they had reached for longer than I care to remember. I had a feeling of nostalgia and religious ecstasy combined. Someone began to sing softly, and soon others of us joined in. As we sang an atmosphere of holiness and Godliness enveloped us all, and there was created in our souls a response from the very bottom of our existence. Our voices, though low, were strained with a prayer that cried to release us from the iron obstructions that gripped us, to try to find a way to freedom, perhaps even to reunite with our families. Most of all we prayed for a release from the everlasting torment of hunger.
Nothing had changed externally. But inside, our hearts were filled with a warm confidence that our prayers were heard.
When the prayers were ended, at last, nothing was changed externally. We still sat huddled in the straw, and our bellies were still gripped by the powerful claws of hunger. But inside, our hearts were filled with warm confidence that our prayers were heard, that our fervent pleas would be accepted by our glorious God.
I felt utter exhaustion beginning to overtake me, and suddenly I was seized by the impossible desire to be alone with myself. I laid down upon the dirty straw and pulled my blanket around me, trying to create an illusion in my mind of physical isolation. I closed my eyes and saw as clearly as yesterday the image of our home as it was on the day of Rosh Hashanah. I couldn’t cry, but I
felt a lump growing and hardening in my throat, and the tears wanting to be shed but unable to let themselves loose. After that, the days progressed quietly and monotonously as usual, until the advent of Yom Kippur. This was the holy day of atonement and of a twenty-fourhour fast. Though it seemed almost a joke to fast any more completely than we already were, each of us attempted to observe the traditional services as well as our memories would let us.
On the eve of Yom Kippur, a candle glowed softly in the middle of our tent. We planned to perform the Kol Nidre service. Someone had found the old candle somewhere in the tent and had carefully preserved it until such an occasion as this should arise. It was an old tin can in its honored position in the center of the tent. We all sat in the straw in our accustomed positions.
We took the greatest precautions to conduct our meeting secretly, and to avoid the attention of the guards. The light flickering softly in the darkness, the light of the lone candle, impressed us profoundly. We remained in absolute silence and nothing moved. We could have been pieces of cracked statuary casting strange wavering shadows in the dim light. Songs began to swell from different parts of the tent, and some began to chant the prayers they remembered, the prayers of the evening service. The strain that encompassed us became almost unbearable.
Our hearts responded with such feeling that the prayers became a muted cry, an expression of tortured souls in hell, and we all sensed that there was such great might in our feelings that there would certainly be a breakthrough in the heavy strong gate that must be opened for our prayers to be heard. The Kol Nidre service lasted as long as the candle burned. When at last the flame shuddered and died, we all assumed our positions for sleep without an added word.
The next day at six o’clock, we were awakened for the regular morning checkup and the coffee. We did not want to attract attention to our fasting, so we took the coffee and bread as usual. Later we soaked the ground with the coffee and cached the bread. We
would dig it out later to be eaten when the fast ended.
At the first opportunity, after they had checked us, we gathered again on the straw, sitting as close to each other as we could. There was a great mixture of feelings provoked by the knowledge of what the holy day of Yom Kippur meant to us. Through our keeping of the prayers there pervaded the emptiness of what we had experienced, the longing for our missing families, and the sharp feeling of repugnance that resulted from the ugliness around us. Our environment could never become anything except the imprisonment of patched and dirty canvas walls and damp straw beneath us. We sat there like poor sheep whose shepherd had been swished away by a horrible fate.
Never, I am sure, had the Yizkor service been held with more warmth of heart than it was that day.
We girls who prayed in the tent had been educated to read and understand the Yom Kippur prayers in the book. Now we felt deeply the misfortune that was caused by our not being able to obtain even one precious copy of the prayer book. Without it we could not possibly carry on the services properly, and we could not help feeling more bitterness because of it. As the time for the Yizkor service approached later in the morning, we felt even more lost and desperate without a prayer book.
One of the girls at this point began to sing in a softly lilting voice. I found myself listening with a certain tingling of the spine to her melodious tones.
As if a signal had been given, all of us joined her and together we sang the “Yiddusheh Mameh.” Never, I am sure, had the Yizkor service been held with more warmth of heart than it was that day. We were sure that the God of Israel saw our feelings and felt their depth, and accepted this makeshift Yizkor. We felt a visible reward in the form of a wonderful warmth that overflowed our hearts. For a little while, we forgot the tent and the straw and the supervisors and the prison. But soon, all too soon, the glow became another memory and the days melted once more into uninterrupted lethargy.
The following excerpt from Gina’s manuscript takes place in 1944 in Bergen Belsen, during the High Holy Days when Gina was 17.Aman comes home and finds the door open, the baby and the living room a mess. The kitchen counters are smea red with food and the laundry is spread all over the house, and his wife is nowhere to be found. He finally finds her slumped on the couch and asks, “What happened?” “You know how every day you ask me what I did today? Well, today I didn’t do it!”
This joke applies to nursing home Administrators, the usually faceless people behind the operation, who are the last to get credit when everything goes smoothly because when everything goes according to plan they are, in people’s eyes, sim ply doing their job. But when something goes wrong they are first to get blamed. But faceless is not how residents and staff alike describe David Greenberg and Nachman Feig, the administrators of the Boro Park Center. By sheer appearance, they are what some would call an odd couple. David is a
clean-shaven guy from Queens while Nachman is a bearded chasid with gek’nippte peyos from Boro Park.
David, who has been in the business for twen ty-six years and with the Boro Park center for twelve, got into this business because of his passion for hel ping the less fortunate. “I was always involved in community service and youth programs and eventually that trans lated into working for a
The people behind the operation who make sure everything runs smoothly
nursing home.” Nach man, who previously was in the employ of Maimonides Hospital, dismissively refers to himself as the as sistant. “David takes care of everything, I am more the face of the operation and meet with pa tients, family, and staff alike to ensure everything is ok and everyone is happy.”
Of course, nothing is ever perfect and not everybody is always happy. The Center is a five hundred plus bed facility and the administration is in charge of everything from hiring staff to taking care of finances.
“What Nachman and I are really trying to do is make the center a community center. When we do activities and other programs, we focus on our residents and the community that we servi ce. We help the residents get better and recover not just by providing stateof-the-art facilities and the best doctors, nurses, physicians, and thera pists but also allowing the family to be a part of the process.” They do that by allowing them to participate in their re habilitation and recrea tional activities. They invite the community to join them for con certs and motzai shab bos learning programs.
There are many cha llenges to running a nursing home but Da vid says that what he
finds the most difficult is finding the right staff. “When we inter view applicants for any position we don’t just look at their qualifications. Of course, their qualifica tions are of paramount importance but we also need staff members that are understanding, have passion for their job and are kind and empathetic. Unfortunately, for these things, there are no de grees. We have to sniff that out on our own and use our best judgment.”
As with every industry, Nursing Homes were badly affected by Covid. “Many of the employees walked away and reti red.” One of the reasons for that was all the added protections the Health department put on nursing homes during these trying times. “The amount of gear they had to wear, the testing they were put through, mandatory vaccinations, things like that. The cumulative effect was that many simply re tired or switched industries. Baruch Hashem we were able to restaff our facility with extremely qualified people and we have not had to compro mise on quality.” It was also difficult because fa mily and visitors are such an integral part of Boro Park Center’s rehabilitation regimen, but Covid precluded them from visiting for a while, so we
David Greenberg
Nachman
ensured FaceTime visits between patients and their loved ones. We brou ght in packages from the families and tried to keep them involved and make them feel like they still participated.” Other challenges are of course the rules and regulations which change all the time, but David says proudly that they keep updating themselves on the ever-changing rules and regu lations and stay compliant with state and federal regulations.
The most satisfying thing about working in a nur sing home is seeing patients’ progress. “Often a patient comes in after a bad fall and aside from having a broken hip or something they also lose their optimism and joie de vivre. But after working with our talented staff, and they begin to regain the movement in the limb and heal, their appetite comes back. All of a sudden they greet you with a smile and start eating and they recognize once again that their life has meaning. These kinds of things really make working here worth it. I can feel that we are shluchim for Hashem in the hea ling process.”
Sometimes people who Nachman and David grew up with come to the Boro Park Center as
patients. For them, it can be a chance to pay back kindnesses that they were shown or help someone whom they have long admi red. “Recently a person whom I have not seen for twenty years came to recover here and it was great to help them and have their children and grand children to reconnect with.” Nachman is a member of Hatzalah and sometimes he is the person on the call and witnesses the patients from the time they get in jured to through the entire recovery. “It is a unique insight. But in reality, we see every day how we help people get better and change people’s lives.” Nachman says that they truly go all out and abo ve and beyond what they are required. “ We don’t have a vaca tion. Even when we go away or we leave the office our phones are available twenty-four seven. Our wives sa crifice a lot for us to be on the job.” Every patient or their chil dren have both their phone numbers and call them at all hours if there is something that needs to be taken care of. Unli ke other businesses where they close for the weekend, the Boro Park Center is always open and there is never a day off. “It can be frus
The chesed that they get to witness is something that they consider a privilege. “There are so many amazing organizations who do great work that don’t get the publicity that we get to witness day in and day out. They have dedicated volunteers that sacrifice so much of their off time to light up other people’s dark times. Then the re is also our sta ff that deals with every patient with patience no ma tter how difficult because we take in the worst cases; we don’t have the heart to say no.”
David and Nachman truly be lieve in their mis sion and feel like the Boro Park Center is more than a rehab and nursing home.
“We have had pa tients who were not doing well in other facilities come to us and start rehabbing. That is not only because of our superior staff. It is the en tire atmosphere. We are not a team. We are a fami ly. Our recreational team makes sure that patients don’t get bored and are intellectually stimulated. Our therapists provide the best care. But our beis medrash, the fact that we are smack in the middle of a frum community where people come and visit and patients feel that they are a part of a commu nity and not locked away somewhere, help them to recover and rehabilitate.”
Having a shul helps them as well. “We had a pa tient with brain trauma and was not doing well. Then he was transferred here and sometimes he would simply sit around in the back of the shul and all of a sudden he started participating.” Recent ly, during the nine days, a young father wanted to make a siyum and the staff not only allowed but encouraged him to hold the siyum at the facility and invite his family and have a seudah.
The main thing that strikes me about David and Nachman is that they don’t just check off boxes and do their job, they live in Boro Park Cen ter and want everyone to have the best possible experience. “We don’t rest on our laurels. We always look to improve and continuously become even better.”
Before Covid-19 became a household word I had never heard of supply chain and I certainly never thought about it. Being a spoiled American (yes, even though I keep kosher and I am makpid on cholov yisrael!) I never thought about where anything comes from. Whether you live in Brooklyn or Lakewood or Monsey, our supermarkets are overflowing with kosher goods. It is not just basics like meat, bread, or dairy. Every time I go shopping I can get any cut of meat, any type of yogurt, no matter the fat content. And those are just the staples. Of the extras, there is also plenty to come by… maybe even more! There are dozens of types of cereal from kosher companies, not just Kelloggs or General Mills. There are rows of candy, chocolates, and other delectables.
Then came Covid and the entire world shut down. People were locked into their homes and were only allowed to leave to shop. Many started panic buying and loaded up their freezers, buying milk, bread, meat, and poultry at large. Some because they were afraid of leaving the house too often, others because they were afraid that there would be some shortages. While some items were unavailable for a short time, and others are still scarce, our community avoided significant food shortages.
Then came Sukkos. Israel’s lockdown measures were amongst the most extreme in the world and there were very few flights going there. It was so bad that dozens of niftarim had to be brought via private planes in order for them to be interred in the holy land. About two months before Sukkos, Daled Minim dealers sounded the alarms because they couldn’t travel to Israel and visit pardeisim, or esrog tree farms, to inspect wares or even ship them to the United States. Until that point, I never thought twice about where my prized lulav and esrog come from year after year. I was used to going to my moicher who would lead me to a backroom where he would show me his “exclusive” wares. (Of course, all his regulars get that treatment but allow me to enjoy my cognitive dissonance.) All of a sudden I was reading headlines and articles suggesting that I go buy my s’choire (wares) as soon as the sellers opened their temporary stands and stores. Usually, I would wait until after Yom Kippur, and now I was ready to go two weeks before Rosh Hashanah to make sure I got a lulav and esrog that were up to my standards. In the end, the selection was not as in years prior, but because of the last-second loosening of Israeli lockdowns, there were still plenty of goods for all to be had.
Because of that scare, I sat down with Shlomo Segal, a large Daled Minim dealer and wholesaler in Brooklyn. Many of those folding tables popping up on Brooklyn’s streets in the runup to Sukkos are supplied by Shlomo or one of his minions. He also is a part owner in some of the larger Pardeisim in Eretz Yisrael. “I usually start heading to Israel around Shavuos time to get an idea of what type of crop we are dealing with.” Shlomo explains that they
check for quality, quantity, and other things. “We often find that a large part of the crop is damaged or is not going to be kosher for use. Other times they are kosher but have a lot of blemishes and imperfections. Once we know what type of goods we are getting and how much of each quality then I can go to the next pardes to inspect their wares.” Shlomo returns once he is satisfied that he will have sufficient s’choire and enough of the high-quality ones as well. “You don’t want to become known as a second-rate seller,” Shlomo says. “I am lucky enough to have curated a large, loyal, yet discerning customer base and I have to take all steps to ensure I don’t alienate them and prevent them from leaving and going to my competition.”
Once Shlomo returns he scopes out available storefronts from which to base his business. “I have a number of garages and other small rooms in shuls where we sell our Daled Minim. But a business the size of ours requires a much larger space where we receive large shipments and unload them and distribute them throughout the tri-state area. It also serves as storage and a store. Because of this, we look for a storefront in Flatbush and Boro Park. Because we are a seasonal business we cannot lease a space for the year. Therefore we have to find a new place every year. Once we find a place, we lease out for a month longer than we need to ensure that we have an HQ, so to speak. After that, we rent trucks and vans which we use for pickup, delivery, and setup.”
After all this, Shlomo’s prep work is still not done. “I travel back to Eretz Yisrael to supervise harvest and make sure that we receive a fair share of the high-quality products. If I am not there, then the
local sellers would try and get all the quality goods for themselves. It is also easier for me to be in Israel to deal with shipping and export legalities.”
Once back home, Shlomo’s work is just beginning. “I have to set up the storefront, the garages, and other locales where we sell, hire workers, and convince my regular salesmen to come back. It is hard to get salespeople that are knowledgeable but also talented sellers. One of the sellers is a seventy-nine-year-old talmid chacham who is a baki in these halachos. People wait in line to speak to him and if he gives his stamp of approval it is a guaranteed sale. I know people who come in from Lakewood to buy from me because of him. Most of my people are experts. Then I have to hang up flyers to find bachurim to stand by our folding tables. Of course the wares that you get at the tables is not the same quality but neither are the buyers as discerning as the ones that seek out one of our hard locations.”
Once all that is in place they await the shipments. "When the s’choire comes in we have to inspect and sort. Some of it becomes pasul en route to the US. So, therefore, even though the stuff has been rated and marked we have to rate it again and sort it. We mark them between triple alef, double alef, alef, beis, and then standard.” Shlomo smiles and adds, “Of course, there is backroom stuff as well!” Some of the workers are tasked with weaving lulav holders and rings, which is “tedious” (here, Shlomo sighs) but customers need it.
This year it is even more complicated. Shmitta makes using esrogim from Eretz Yisrael very difficult. The only ones muttar for
use are what is called Otzar Beis Din. It means that the owners of the pardes are not involved and employees of the Beis Din go through the esrogim, mark them, seal them in boxes and sell them closed to the customer which he buys based on the rating on the box. The prices are fixed as well and there is no negotiating. Shlomo does sell Otzar Beis Din but he is not busy with them as they are entirely Otzar Beis Din, instead he travels to Morocco, Arizona, and other locations where Shlomo has a share in esrogim trees. “I have to go to certain areas I am not comfortable going to but we get beautiful stuff from there.” The same goes for lulavim and hadassim this year.
It goes on sale about two weeks before Rosh Hashanah and concludes Erev Sukkos. “There are some that still sell on Sukkos but we mostly shut down. It doesn’t pay to remain open.” A common complaint against Daled Minim sellers is that they exploit people and overcharge a lot. Shlomo grins at the accusation. "I hear that all the time. What most people don’t understand is that we are left with a tremendous amount of product that doesn’t get sold, on top of what gets damaged, and what was unsellable to begin with. Then there are people to pay in Israel, on the pardesim, the shipping, the people here, the trucks, the location… it is a lot more than people know. Yes this is a parnassah, but our margins are not what people think they are.”
As Sukkos draws closer, Shlomo is once again traveling the world ensuring that Jews in the United States have Daled Minim Mehudarim.
Understanding the Halachos of Chol Hamoed
The term Chol Hamoed gives us an important insight into understanding which actions are or are not allowed - the heter and issur melachah- during those days. That term itself - Chol Hamoed- is made up of two distinct opposites. Is it chol- weekday- every day, or is it moed- chag-Yom Tov? The answer of course is that it's a combination of the two.
So too the halachos of Chol Hamoed represent this duality. Many melachos which are assur during the first days of the chag are mutar; hence the term chol. On the other hand, some melachos remain assur, hence the term moed.
What are the guidelines used in determining issur and mutar in melachos Chol Hamoed? Let's go through some of them together.
One important guideline the chachomim used in setting up for us which melachos are permitted and which are not is based on the premise that we should not be doing activities that demand a large investment of energy- tircha- because that will take away from simchas Yom Tov. This being the case, even activities that don't actually contain a melacha in terms of Shabbos, will still be assur if they involve tircha. For example, moving from one dwelling to another, even if it may be within an eruv and not involving any issur of hotza'ah, since it requires a lot of physical strain, is forbidden on Chol Hamoed. It will demand a lot of tircha – exertion, hard work- and certainly take away from one's simchas Yom Tov.
In addition, zilzul hamoed- desecration of the Yom Tov- has to be taken into consideration. The classic example of this is mechavin melachto lamoed- to plan on doing something on Chol Hamoed specifically because “Well, I have off anyway so I'll do it then!” Or, “Hey, why don't I clean out the garage? This would be a perfect time!” This is a zilzul to Yom Tov. We don't have off on a moed to do the household choresrather, it is a time to enjoy, pleasure, and bask in our relationship with Hashem and with other Jews.
Besides being careful not to do zilzul-desecrationto the moed, our chachomim also instituted many practices especially to add kovod Yom Tov to a moed. We see this when looking at the issue of haircuts and nail-cutting. They specifically directed us to take haircuts and cut our nails before Yom Tov, not on Chol Hamoed, in order not to come into Yom Tov ungroomed. If someone was not careful about Kavod Yom Tov and neglected to do this, he would not be allowed to take care of it on Chol Hamoed. However, if someone is an oneis, was forced, not to take care of these things before Yom Tov, either halachically because he was an avel, or if for example, he was in jail, he would be
permitted to take a haircut on Chol Hamoed. It is assur only if zilzul Yom Tov was involved. Similarly, the Rema says, cutting nails is assur on Chol Hamoed, since they should have been cut before. However, if a person was careful to cut his nails before Yom Tov but they need to be cut again before the second days, many poskim do permit it.
In this same vein of focusing on the simcha of the chag, if doing a certain melacha will prevent a davar ha'avud, meaning if one doesn't do this melacha, one will sustain a large loss, it is permitted. Since the thought of the loss of money will detract from one's simchas Yom Tov, doing the melachah is allowed. In other words, doing this melachah will not take away one's simchas Yom Tov, it will add to it! Therefore it's muttar.
Sometimes there is more than one factor to consider. If there is a melacha that doesn't constitute zilzul hamoed, and there is davar haavud, it may be muttar even though there is a lot of tircha. For this reason, for example, some poskim rule that if it is imperative to move on Chol Hamoed so as not to lose a large amount of money (i.e. double rent) to move within the same building is muttar. Why? Since this will not be very public, it will hardly cause any zilzul.
Another basic guideline to keep in mind when doing melocha on Chol Hamoed is tzorech hamoed. Even when doing melacha that is permitted, one may only do as much as is needed for Yom Tov. In front of our eyes must be the classic hanhaga of the Chazon Ish who used to check his pockets before he left his house on Chol Hamoed. This was not to make sure they were empty, as it's permitted to carry on Chol Hamoed letzorech hamoed, but to make sure there was nothing in his pockets he did not need for Chol Hamoed.
One more important factor that may make an action forbidden is maaseh uman- work done professionally. The poskim say that an act of sewing may be done by a housewife if it's tzorech hamoed and it is needed for the chag. However, for a professional seamstress to fix a garment is assur, even if it is tzorech hamoed.
The Mishna in Pirkei Avos (3:11) says that if someone is mevazeh es hamoados- defiles Hashem's special days- he has no cheilek in Olam Habah. Rashi defines mevazeh as doing non-permitted melachah and neglecting to eat a festive meal on Chol Hamoed. We see from here that properly honoring Chol Hamoed, meaning creating the perfect synthesis of Chol and Moed according to the guidelines laid out by our chachomim, will cause one to merit Olam Habah. May we all be zocheh to honor Chol Hamoed properly with pleasure and with joy, and to merit the geulah shleima bimhairah beyamainu.
(This compilation is based on the Shulchan Orech Orach Chaim, Hilchos Chol Hamoed, starting from Siman Taf Kuf Lamed. It is meant to be used as a general guide and not a psak for specific situations.)
By Avrohom Shmukler
The Gemara in Sukka learns from the Pasuk that on Sukkos we have to move from a permanent residence to a temporary residence. According to mefarshim, Sukkos is about leaving the physical world and becoming more spiritual. A proper, permanent residence is a symbol of comfort and contentedness. Moving to a temporary hut shows that we aspire to a life beyond our physical needs and desires.
I never thought about how comfortable my life is and how easy it is. Here in New York, we have everything handy, supermarkets that are open 24/6. Never any need to plan meals ahead. And if somebody is not in the cooking mood they can always buy out, there are dozens of options available. It is not just food. Nobody has to plan when and where to daven with a minyan. There are davening options until noon for shacharis (not that I condone that) until shkiah past (not that I’m ok with that) and maariv until daybreak. On top of that, there are multiple school options for every child and there are friends for them to play with on every block.
When the pandemic hit and we went into lockdown things became different. I had to homeschool my children and they had to play on their own in the backyard. Davening with a minyan was not an option unless it was a front porch minyan, and even those had to be prearranged. If people didn't arrive at the prearranged time it fell apart. Food sourcing also became uncertain. We had to go to the supermarket where they had limits on how many people were allowed inside the store and how much of each item I was allowed to buy. My life of comfort and certainty was thrown into disarray and all of a sudden I came to truly understand and somewhat appreciate all that I have and the luxury that it is.
Since Sukkos is approaching and my recently acquired appreciation for what is easy and available, I decided to highlight life in foreign places, kind of a temporary residence for Jews. These are people who live in places foreign to most Jews with no Jewish infrastructure. I was curious to find out how they lived in places where they had no kosher supermarkets or schools and shuls.
Sheffield is a large city in the center of England, with a population of over half a million, with almost no Jews living there. It is distant from Jewish hubs, being about three and a half hours away from London and an hour and a half away from Manchester.
Sarah Golomb is the ninth of twelve children and her parents moved there before she was born. “We were homeschooled for much of my childhood,” Sarah tells me. “My parents moved to Sheffield to spread Yiddishkeit, and most of the Jews we met were students at the local university.” Sarah is proud of the reason her parents chose to live in a far-flung place like Sheffield. Kosher food was scarce, “we could find some kosher products at the local supermarket, and the big shopping was done in Manchester, but occasionally we would run out.” Sarah says that it forced them to get creative. “We had to substitute chocolate chips for other things found around the house, things of that nature but it taught us to be creative and not freak out when things did not go according to plan. Once a week a butcher came to sell meat to us and the few other religious families.”
Sarah recalls her family's Shabbos meals filled with guests, most of them not having any idea what Yiddishkeit was. “I remember them coming in shy and curious but when they left they looked satisfied and their curiosity was not one of ‘hey that is strange,’ it turned into an intellectual curiosity about Yiddishkeit.”
When Sarah graduated elementary school she went to school in Leeds, an hour and a quarter away, an hour and a half away with traffic. It was not easy for a young girl but Sarah, now living in New York, says she would do it again if given the choice.
“If I had the choice and my husband wanted to go somewhere and bring people closer to Hashem I would move to a distant location. Not having all of the amenities available all the time is inconvenient but it teaches resilience and character and I won't mind my children learning the lessons I did.”
Even further away from any semblance of regular Jewish life or infrastructure is Oslo, the capital city of Norway. There is an ancient Jewish shul but even though it has a populace of close to seven hundred thousand people, there are a grand total of two and a half thousand Jews living there. About twenty years ago, Mussia Willhelm’s parents moved to Oslo and took the two-year-old Mussia and her younger sister to live there. “My mother first taught me but when I was of school age I attended what was the early version of online schooling. At first, it was just audio but eventually, we had video as well. It was based out of New York. “ Moussia admits that it was lonely and friends were few and far to come by. “There were no other Orthodox Jews around and I could not really play with anyone. I did have some friends that were not religious but there were always boundaries because I couldn't eat their snacks, some activities I was not allowed to do, things like that.” Mussia says that the first Bas Mitzvah of a friend she attended was one of her friends from an online school and it was very emotional. “We all knew each other, but not very well, so that event was really special.”
Food was also a challenge. The closest places to procure kosher goods were France and England. “Whenever somebody came we tried to have them bring a box of meat or dairy. Sometimes my parents made a special trip in order to get supplies.” Mussia did not really know what she was missing out on until she went to New York with her family as a child. “We went to the store and I was like, ‘is this kosher? Is this? And this?’ For a child that could never get ANYTHING in a regular store, having a store where I could get EVERYTHING was eye-opening and kind of made regular life a little more difficult because I knew what I was missing, but I was fine. Having no friends was definitely the bigger challenge.”
When I ask Mussia whether she would make the same choice as her parents she is genuinely torn by the question. “I never had any complaints about my parents and despite the difficulties, my childhood was amazing, and they are great and attentive parents. But would I make the same choice for my married life and my own children? I honestly can’t say.”
She also contends that her upbringing was more spiritual and also prepared her better for adversity because of the lack of comfort and luxuries.
Macau is a city with a similar population as Oslo, but on a much smaller landmass, making it one of the most densely populated cities in the world. The closest Jewish community is in Hong Kong, which is only five thousand strong, most of them not religious. Macau has barely any Jews to speak of. “My father decided to move there when I was five. My parents had just gotten divorced, and he chose to accept a lucrative job offer. Because of my mother's mental health struggles I had to live with my father.” Esther Jacobs tells me. Esther is originally from Monsey and really struggled in Macau, she explains. “My father needed to move because many people blamed him for getting divorced when my mother was having issues. They viewed him as taking the easy way out, but these people were not living in our reality where it was chaos all day, every day.” Because of the constant criticism he received, Meir Jacobs could not stay where he was and needed a mental break from people who knew him. “His friends were accosting him in shul and he felt blamed for circumstances beyond his control.”
Esther was incredibly lonely in Macau. “I didn't even have siblings to play with. I was homeschooled with my father hiring Chinese tutors for secular subjects, and him teaching me Hebrew in the early stages of us living there.” But that did not really work out so well. His job as a high-level programmer was very timeconsuming and he could not be home as much as he thought. “I had a Chinese babysitter and I was becoming introverted.” Food was also extremely difficult. We had to get food from Hong Kong or Shanghai, which is also where we often went for Shabbos. But we mainly ate vegetarian and whole fish because that was easily sourced, but every time we wanted something better we had to plan in advance and ask people to ship it to us. Otherwise, we would ask people to just bring packages of meat and frozen dairy.”
“Over that Shabbos in Shanghai and Hong Kong I made friends with some of the frum girls living there and I actually started going there for the week because it became too much for me and my father.” Asked if she would make a similar choice Esther gives a sad laugh and says, “Absolutely not. Unlike others, my father did not go there for a holy mission. I think knowing that you are there for a mission, even as a young child, helps you cope with the doubts that you have about why you are being put through this. I think even for a kiruv mission I could never go through that again.”
May our attempt at leading a seven-day Yom Tov away from our comfort zone lead us to contemplate how lucky we are with our way of life.
By Menachem Posner
The desolate streets of the Częstochowa Ghetto in 1944.
Until World War II, the Polish city of Czestochowa had been a bustling center of Jewish life. Then came the bitter day when the Nazis invaded Poland. In the fall of 1939, before Rosh Has hanah, the Nazis entered Czestochowa and began persecuting the Jewish population.
The ghetto, one of the largest in Poland, was established in April of 1941, and the first deportation started in September of 1942, on the day after Yom Kippur. The Nazis had just dispat ched over a quarter million Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto to Treblinka. To them, the Czestochowa Ghetto, with just 50,000 Jews, was small potatoes. During the course of that year, the Nazis and their willing lackeys arranged several “aktions,” in which they rounded up the Jews for deportation and extermi nation. But most of the Jews were deported in that first "Great Aktion,” when they were brutally taken in cattle cars to the Treblinka extermination camp.
The Germans left several thousand Jews in the ghetto. They had to work from morning to night in the factories near Czes tochowa. One factory produced metal and another made bu llets. Merciless SS officers stood over the workers and did not allow them to stop working for a moment.
Unique among the Jewish workers was a shoemaker. An expert at his craft, he was assigned to repair the shoes and boots of the Nazi soldiers and officers. In order to fulfill his duties, he was granted special freedoms, and was allowed to walk be tween the nearly empty ghetto and the labor camp, where the surviving Jews were now confined.
His name was Aryeh Szajnert, and he was more than just a shoemaker. A native of the city, he had excellent connections and frequently used them to better the lot of the poor priso ners. It was not uncommon for him to enter the camp with packages of food and other goods.
It had happened once that Aryeh saw five girls being taken for hard labor. One of the girls, Baila Zyskind, had arrived at the camp from Majdanek crying, fearful of what lay ahead. He ste pped in and apparently bribed people for the remainder of the war in order to keep her and her fellows from hard labor.
And so it was that just before Rosh Hashanah, the shoemaker arrived at the labor camp with a shofar. It was with bittersweet feelings that the Jews clustered into the shoemaker’s small workshop during the brief midday break to hear the muted shofar blasts. How did he lay his hands on the precious arti fact? No one knew.
One day, during the holiday of Sukkos, rumors began to swirl. "The shoemaker is late. He has not yet returned from the ghe tto. Who knows if he is alright?"
It was usual for the shoemaker to return late, after the inmates had been given their meager rations. He would go directly to the camp kitchen, where a modest meal had been reserved for him.
But this time, when he finally arrived, he did not go to the kit chen. Instead, he went to his workroom, where he was seen
doing something behind a large wooden plank.
Word soon spread that the shoemaker had managed to smug gle a small Torah scroll into the camp! “When Simchas Torah comes, we get to dance with an actual Sefer Torah," said the shoemaker, his eyes ablaze.
Despite the badgering and questioning, the shoemaker refu sed to say how he got the shofar and now the Torah scroll. But word soon leaked out.
The Nazis had appropriated a large warehouse on the outs kirts of the ghetto, where they collected Jewish sacred ob jects. The warehouse was heavily guarded, making it almost impossible to take anything out of it. Placing his life on the line, the shoemaker was able to bribe the officer in charge. And that was how he got the shofar.
In order to get the Sefer Torah, he promised the officer that he would make a pair of fancy boots for him, just like he had made for the most senior commanders. The officer let him take a Torah.
The shoemaker chose a small scroll and wrapped it around his body so that he would avoid attracting the attention of the guards.
The shoemaker had acted at the last possible moment, as the Germans were already beginning to burn the sacred objects in the warehouse.
"How can we possibly hide the Torah?" The shoemaker asked the group of young men who would meet for davening every Shabbos in a hidden corner of the barracks.
Someone had an idea, and the group set to work. They plied a plank off of one of the wooden bunks and made a space in which to put the small Torah scroll. The plank was then retur ned to its place.
The night of Simchas Torah arrived, and the sense of excite ment rose. The inmates silently made their way to the pla ce where the Torah scroll was hidden. They feared that the guards would find the Torah, and that their lives were in jeo pardy. As a precaution, it was decided not to remove the Torah from its place. Instead, the plank was moved to the side, revea ling the sacred parchment.
A survivor later testified: “On that Simchat Torah we held the traditional Hakafos dances in our barracks. But they were not done in the usual way. The Torah lay in hiding, and we danced around it humming the joyous Simchas Torah tunes under our breaths. We entered in small groups, and mutedly circled the bunk. One by one, we then bent over to kiss it before exiting."
Aryeh (who later assumed the name Arnold Steiner) survived the war. On the very day that the Russian Army freed them, Jan 20, 1945, he married Baila. They made their way to the US, where they raised their family.
Miraculously, the Torah survived the war as well and was brought to Israel by Rabbi Noach Adelist. It is now housed in the Aron Kodesh of the Gerer shul in Bnei Brak.
Reprinted with permission from Chabad.org
NAPKINS:
When setting your table for Sukkos meals, bring some of the outdoors into your elegant sukkah with a white tablecloth that has patterns of the large leaves of your schach overhead.
While we use our best China inside our homes, outside, elevate your paper plates by switching them out with cozy, ceramic crockery.
Instead of the usual glass vases brimming with colorful flowers, a white ceramic vase will best show off the tall and elegant eucalyptus leaves which will also have your sukkah smelling fresh.
Contrast your rustic surroundings with long, thin golden cutlery, brushed gold candlestick holders, and elegant wine glasses with gold at the rim to express the formal celebration of Yom Tov.
To provide further pops of color to add to the fun of eating in the sukkah, alternate each place setting with cinnamon and sage-colored napkins, rolled, and slipped through a wooden napkin holder: with the sides spread out in a festive bow.
Sukkos is the time when soups are finally back on the menu rotation. Bring the warmth into your Sukkah with this rich and creamy chestnut soup. The harmony of sweet and salty, creamy and crunchy is what puts this soup on a pedestal.
4 tablespoons oil 3 stalks of celery, diced 1 small onion, diced
4 cloves garlic, minced 12 oz peeled and cooked chestnuts 24 oz cauliflower
3 cups chicken broth
3 cups water
A handful of fresh parsley
1 ½ tablespoons kosher salt
1 teaspoon soy sauce
In a large pot heat the oil over medium heat. Add the diced celery and onions and saute until golden. Add the minced garlic and saute for an additional thirty seconds. Add in the chestnuts and cauliflower and pour in the broth, salt, and soy sauce. Place the parsley in a mesh bag and put it into the soup. Bring to a boil. Lower the heat and simmer for forty-five minutes. Discard the parsley and blend the soup until smooth and creamy. Add more water if you prefer a thinner consistency.
HEY EVERYONE! With Yom Tov around the corner I’m sure that you’re all gearing up for this year’s cooking marathon. While we all have different customs, and each family has their own tried and true favorites, one thing is for sure: we all start our meal with challah and dips. Am I right ? Here are some of my faves - enjoy and a gut gebensht yar to all of you.
Simple to make and gets eaten reallyquick though! Once you make this, you’llnever go back to the store-bought dip.
- 1 jar of stuffed olives (I used a 10 oz. Jar)- ½ - ¾ cup mayonnaise- ½ tsp. garlic powder- ½ l-1tsp. crushed red pepper flakes (Thisstep is optional as it depends on howmuch of a kick you want!)
1) Drain the water from the olive jar.
2) Dump the olives into a 2lb. soup container.
3) Add the rest of the ingredients.
4) Stick it in a hand-held blender
This is seriously out of this world. Have this once and you’ll start craving a salad. Coming from someone who usually has a Mayo based dressing- I’m so happy to have finally found something a little different. And it’s super healthy! Win win. And it’s egg free for those that need…
Ingredients:
- ¼ Cup Raw techina
- ¼ Cup Oil - 3 Tbsp. Lemon Juice - 5 Tbsp. Cold Water
- 2 Tsp. spicy mustard
- 2 tsp. Monk Fruit (sweetener)
- ½ Tsp. Sea Salt
- Black Pepper
1) Mix it all together directly in a container with a sturdy lid.
2) Then give it a good shake. This will thicken as it sits in the fridge. You can always add a little water and lemon juice and shake it up.
This is a perfect dressing over any lettuce ba sed salad- even when adding protein like chick peas, grilled chicken, or salmon. Try it and you’ll be hooked!
This dip can be made super spicy or mild– it’s up to you. Adjust the red pepperflakes to your liking.
Ingredients:
- 6 large red peppers - 6 cloves or cubes of garlic - 3-4 tsp. crushed red pepper flakes- 3 tbsp. vinegar - 1 ¾ tsp salt
- ¼ tsp. black pepper
- ¾ cup oil
Once you taste this you’re going to have to make this every week. It’s that good! There are a few different versions of how to make this.
1) Peel 2-3 heads of garlic. (You can either put it into an oven-to-table dish or in a foil pan.)
2) Cover the garlic with olive oil
3) 1 tsp. Kosher salt
At this point, it’s up to you if you want to add more flavor. Here are a few options:
4) 1 tsp. dried rosemary
- Red pepper flakes - Everything but the Bagel seasoning
- Garlic Rosemary
Cover with foil and bake on 400° for 45 minutes. Then uncover and bake another 5-10 minutes until it’s golden in color.
1) Cut the peppers in half and remove theseeds. Roast in oven on 400°, skin side up.Spray the top with a little oil spray and baketill slightly charred – about 30 minutes.
2) Let cool.
3) In the food processor, using the S or knifeblade- add all the ingredients except the oil.
4) Once it’s well blended add the oil andblend again.
This freezes beautifully. Enjoy!
