Jewish Action Fall 2024 by Jewish Action

THE GREATAJEWISHWAKENING

COVER STORY:

Te Great Jewish Awakening

By Rachel Schwartzberg

Is the Orthodox Community Doing Enough?

By Rachel Schwartzberg

Teshuvah A fer October 7

By Rabbi Lawrence Kelemen

One Year Later: How October 7 Changed Me

With the frst anniversary of October 7 approaching, we asked readers to tell us how they were impacted by a day that will live on forever in our hearts and souls.

Supporting At-Risk Youth in Israel Post–October 7

By Aviva Engel

JEWISH SOCIETY

Te Eruv Revolution By Merri Ukraincik

Te Eruv Maven: Meet Rabbi Micah Shotkin

By Steve Lipman

A New Normal?

Pro-Palestinian agitators have found a new venue for their hate-flled protests—our shuls.

By Sandy Eller

PHOTO ESSAY

Te Artistry of the Etrog Box

By David Olivestone

ON MY MIND

Is it Time for a Deep Dive into Feelings?

By Moishe Bane

LETTERS

FROM THE DESK OF RABBI MOSHE HAUER

Lema’an Achai V’Rei’ai: Pursuing Unity

MENTSCH MANAGEMENT

Bring Your Jewish Self to Work

By Rabbi Dr. Josh Joseph

IN FOCUS

Four Traits of Successful Social Entrepreneurs

By Tamar Frydman

KOSHERKOPY

Kosher Conundrums

LEGAL-EASE

What’s the Truth about . . . Milchemet Mitzvah?

By Rabbi Dr. Ari Z. Zivotofsky

THE CHEF’S TABLE

Squash Sensations for the Holiday Table

By Naomi Ross

FROM THE PAGES OF OU PRESS

Rosh Hashanah: Let Tere Be Light

BOOKS

Rav Schachter on Pirkei Avos: Insights and Commentary Based on the Shiurim of Rav Hershel Schachter

Adapted by Dr. Allan Weissman Reviewed by Ben Rothke

Masters of the Word: Traditional Jewish Bible Commentary from the Twelfh through Fourteenth Centuries (Vol. 3) By Rabbi Yonatan Kolatch Reviewed by Rabbi Yaakov Taubes

Kaddish Around the World: Uplifing and Inspiring Stories By Rabbi Gedalia Zweig Reviewed by Steve Lipman

REVIEWS IN BRIEF By Rabbi Gil Student

LASTING IMPRESSIONS

Holy Pineapples By Tania Hammer

THE MAGAZINE OF THE ORTHODOX UNION jewishaction.com

Editor in Chief Nechama Carmel carmeln@ou.org

THE MAGAZINE OF THE ORTHODOX UNION jewishaction.com

Associate Editors

Sara Goldberg • Sarah Weiner

RABBIS OF THE IDF

Associate Digital Editor Rachel Eisenberger

Editor in Chief Nechama Carmel carmeln@ou.org

Rabbinic Advisor

Rabbi Yitzchak Breitowitz

Assistant Editor Sara Olson

Book Editor

Rabbi Eliyahu Krakowski

Literary Editor Emeritus Matis Greenblatt

Contributing Editors

Book Editor Rabbi Gil Student

Rabbi Yitzchok Adlerstein • Moishe Bane • Dr. Judith Bleich

Rabbi Emanuel Feldman • Rabbi Dr. Hillel Goldberg

Rabbi Sol Roth • Rabbi Jacob J. Schacter

Rabbi Berel Wein

Contributing Editors

Rabbi Yitzchok Adlerstein • Dr. Judith Bleich

Editorial Committee

Rabbi Emanuel Feldman • Rabbi Hillel Goldberg

Moishe Bane • Rabbi Dovid Bashevkin • Deborah Chames Cohen

Rabbi Sol Roth • Rabbi Jacob J. Schacter

Jewish Action’s cover story “Religion on the Battlefeld” (summer 2024) includes excellent articles by some of Israel’s most erudite rabbis. But other than Carol Ungar’s interview with a member of the women’s division of the Casualty Treatment Unit (the chevra kadisha) of the IDF Rabbinate, there are only a few passing references to the rest of the work of the IDF Rabbinate. An interview with its chief rabbi, Brigadier General Rabbi Eyal Krim, or with two former IDF chief rabbis, Brigadier Generals (reserves) Rabbi Yisrael Weiss and Rabbi Raf Peretz, would have enriched this issue. Rabbi Krim oversees everything relating to religion in the IDF and is deeply involved in discussions on ethical issues that arise. Rabbis Weiss and Peretz have been giving chizuk to soldiers, the wounded, bereaved families and to those who are doing the heart-wrenching, holy work in the Casualty Treatment Unit at the Shura base.

Rabbi Berel Wein

Rabbi Binyamin Ehrenkranz • Rabbi Yaakov Glasser

David Olivestone • Gerald M. Schreck • Dr. Rosalyn Sherman

Rebbetzin Dr. Adina Shmidman • Rabbi Gil Student

Editorial Committee

Rabbi Dr. Tzvi Hersh Weinreb

Rabbi Dovid Bashevkin • Rabbi Binyamin Ehrenkranz

Rabbi Avrohom Gordimer • David Olivestone

Gerald M. Schreck • Rabbi Gil Student

Copy Editor Hindy Mandel

Rabbi Dr. Tzvi Hersh Weinreb

Design 14Minds

Intern Shira Kramer

Advertising Sales

Design Andréia Brunstein Schwartz

Joseph Jacobs Advertising • 201.591.1713 arosenfeld@josephjacobs.org

Advertising Sales

Subscriptions 212.613.8140

Joseph Jacobs Advertising • 201.591.1713 arosenfeld@josephjacobs.org

ORTHODOX UNION

Subscriptions 212.613.8134

President Mark (Moishe) Bane

ORTHODOX UNION

In addition to overseeing kashrut, religious items for the soldiers, synagogues, Torah classes and educational activities, the IDF Rabbinate has a Halachah Branch. Among its many published books is Torat Hamachaneh, a halachic volume of teshuvot on army issues, which a source in the IDF Rabbinate says is “the most comprehensive book ever written on these issues.” He also said that their most important work in this war was the identifcation of the deceased, which in some cases was extremely complicated. IDF rabbis also work to keep the morale of soldiers high. Morale on the battlefeld is profoundly intertwined with soldiers’ motivation to fght.

President Mitchel R. Aeder

Chairman of the Board

Howard Tzvi Friedman

Vice Chairman of the Board Mordecai D. Katz

Chairman of the Board Yehuda Neuberger

Vice Chairman of the Board

Barbara Lehmann Siegel

Chairman, Board of Governors Henry I. Rothman

Chairman, Board of Governors Avi Katz

Vice Chairman, Board of Governors Gerald M. Schreck

Vice Chairman, Board of Governors Emanuel Adler

Executive Vice President/Chief Professional Ofﬁcer Allen I. Fagin

Executive Vice President Rabbi Moshe Hauer

Chief Institutional Advancement Ofﬁcer Arnold Gerson

Executive Vice President & Chief Operating Ofﬁcer

It would have also been worthwhile to highlight the Talmudic Encyclopedia’s edition War in the Light of Halachah, released in January 2024. Rabbi Dr. Avraham Steinberg is head of the editorial board of the Talmudic Encyclopedia and this edition is in memory of Col. Yonatan Steinberg (no relation to Rabbi Steinberg), of blessed memory, commander of the Nahal Brigade, who fell in battle on October 7. In addition to Col. Steinberg’s impressive military career, he had studied at Horev Yeshiva High School in Jerusalem and in the Ma’ale Eliyahu Yeshiva in Tel Aviv. He lived in the deeply religious community of Shomria in the Negev. Te edition, in addition to specifcally war-related issues, includes topics such as ahavat Yisrael and machloket, topics important to Am Yisrael today.

Senior Managing Director Rabbi Steven Weil

Rabbi Josh Joseph, Ed.D.

Chief of Staff Yoni Cohen

Executive Vice President, Emeritus

Rabbi Dr. Tzvi Hersh Weinreb

Managing Director, Communal Engagement Rabbi Yaakov Glasser

Chief Financial Ofﬁcer/Chief Administrative Ofﬁcer Shlomo Schwartz

Chief Human Resources Ofﬁcer Josh Gottesman

Chief Human Resources Ofﬁcer

Rabbi Lenny Bessler

Chief Information Ofﬁcer Miriam Greenman

Chief Information Ofﬁcer Samuel Davidovics

Managing Director, Public Affairs Maury Litwack

Chief Innovation Ofﬁcer

Rabbi Dave Felsenthal

Chief Financial Ofﬁcer/Chief Administrative Ofﬁcer Shlomo Schwartz

General Counsel

Director of Marketing and Communications Gary Magder

Rachel Sims, Esq.

Jewish Action Committee

Executive Vice President, Emeritus

Rabbi Dr. Tzvi Hersh Weinreb

Gerald M. Schreck, Chairman Joel M. Schreiber, Chairman Emeritus

Jewish Action Committee

Dr. Rosalyn Sherman, Chair

Gerald M. Schreck, Co-Chair

Te rabbis of the IDF Rabbinate, and Col. Steinberg, in his life and in his heroic death, are the kind of people to be emulated by the readers of Jewish Action.

Toby Klein Greenwald

Efrat,

Israel

FEEDBACK FROM A MILUIMA

Joel M. Schreiber, Chairman Emeritus

40 Rector Street, 4th Floor, New York, NY 10006

Twitter: @Jewish_Action Facebook: JewishAction

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In the article about miluim wives (“A New Kind of Battlefeld” [summer 2024]), I was, unfortunately, misrepresented. While my husband was serving in the IDF, my family was not in fnancial distress. In fact, because we received so much support, fnancially we were better of. Almost all of our meals were delivered by various organizations. My children received extra food at school since their father was in miluim. One shul even arranged for us to have free babysitting so I could take my older children to various activities. As difcult as it was, there were times I felt I was being hugged by members of the community.

Yes, being a “miluima” [a woman with children whose husband has gone to war] was tough and lonely. My parents could not come help because of health reasons and I have no family in Israel. I ofen felt alone. But I am proud to help the war efort.

Sarah Weller Jerusalem, Israel

MODESTY AND MARKETING

While reading your feature “Modesty in the Modern Age” (summer 2024), two thoughts came to mind.

Tough you do mention social media, I didn’t see any references to the ubiquitous cell phone. It has unfortunately become commonplace for many people to whip out their phones at any time and place. One of my pet peeves is being forced to listen in on random and ofen inane conversations in elevators, and on public transportation, in restaurants or behind someone on line at the cashier. Private conversations in public areas merited mention.

Secondly, for a long time before releasing my book Unmatched: An Orthodox Jewish woman’s mystifying journey to fnd marriage and meaning, I had to decide whether I’d aim for publicity or privacy. Would I show my face, do a book tour or do video podcasts? On the one hand, nothing beats the human connection between author and reader to make sales happen. On the other hand, I had to consider what the publicity would do to all the characters in my book, including myself.

When I considered the people I admired, I realized that they were infuential in my life without being any kind of star infuencer. Tey were modest and humble. Tey didn’t brand themselves or need social media, and those that did use it always pushed their message more than themselves. From the emotional letters I’ve received afer the book came out, I think I can say that I did indeed make the right choice.

Sarah Lavane (pen name)

RECOGNIZING YOUR VALUE

In “What Are You Good At? Te Art of Positive Feedback” (summer 2024), Rabbi Dr. Josh Joseph helps the reader fnd ways to discover the good in themselves. “Feedback” and “positivity” are not mutually exclusive. A manager can point out what needs improvement while also praising the employee. We, too, should see our own strengths, rather than fall down the rabbit hole of “weaknesses.” Build on your own accomplishments to grow and succeed.

Te Ohr HaChaim Hakadosh, on the very famous story of Yaakov blessing Ephraim and Menashe that Rabbi Joseph cites, questions why Yaakov asked “who are these?” Of course Yaakov knew who his grandsons were, but by elaborating on Yosef’s fne children, Yosef would allow the berachos to be fulflled. Another peshat from the Ohr HaChaim is that Yaakov wanted to know what Ephraim and Menashe did in their own right to earn the blessings. In other words, he was asking, who are you? What have

Jewish Action Wins Six

Rockower Awards

Jewish Action won six Simon Rockower Awards for Excellence in Jewish Journalism for work that appeared in 2023. The prestigious awards, referred to as the “Jewish Pulitzers,” are sponsored by the AJPA, which holds a journalism competition for leading Jewish magazines and newspapers across the country. The entries are judged by a panel of judges with expertise in journalism, writing/reporting, editing, graphic design and cartooning in both Jewish and nonJewish media. Winning articles included:

First Place

l Steve Lipman, “Good Deeds Make Good Neighbors” (fall 2023)

Second Place

l Merri Ukraincik, “Navigating Widowhood” (spring 2023)

l Channah Cohen, Batsheva Moskowitz, “Singlehood in the Community: Are We Missing the Mark?” (fall 2023)

l Nechama Carmel, “Up Close with Rivka Ravitz” (winter 2023)

Honorable Mention

l Rabbi Netanel Wiederblank, “What Artiﬁcial Intelligence Teaches Us about What It Means to Be Human” (spring 2023)

l Toby Klein Greenwald, Tania Hammer, Batsheva Moskowitz, Merri Ukraincik, Carol Ungar, “The Unity of a Nation” (winter 2023)

Transliterations in the magazine are based on Sephardic pronunciation, unless an author is known to use Ashkenazic pronunciation. Tus, the inconsistencies in transliterations in the magazine are due to authors’ or interviewees' preferences.

Tis magazine contains divrei Torah and should therefore be disposed of respectfully by either double-wrapping prior to disposal or placing in a recycling bin.

you accomplished? What goals are you working on to be successful in life? One might recognize a face or a name as being from a prominent Jewish family, but what is that individual doing in their own right?

Trough positive feedback, we allow blessings to enter the world.

Howard Jay Meyer Brooklyn, New York

RECITING KADDISH FOR SOLDIERS

David Olivestone’s touching article “Mah Shlomcha?” (summer 2024) describes reciting Kaddish for a soldier who has no family member to do so. Mr. Olivestone writes:

A while ago, I noticed that a friend had begun to say Kaddish following Aleinu at each tefllah. He put me in touch with an organization that works to ensure that every chayal killed in action has someone to say Kaddish for him if there is no family member to do so. So now I, too, am saying Kaddish for a twenty-year-old soldier who fell in Gaza.

Afer my parents died, I realized that in death they bestowed upon me a gif to share with other Jews: to say Kaddish for those without family. Like Mr. Olivestone, I too would like to say Kaddish for soldiers and would appreciate learning more about the organization mentioned in the article. Tis is a meaningful way for me to contribute to Israel and its soldiers from afar.

Joshua Annenberg Teaneck, New Jersey

David Olivestone Responds:

As I wrote to Mr. Annenberg personally, the organization is called Chesed Chaim V’Emet (holy.hhe.org.il/en/kaddishlkol-kadosh/). Te eleven months of saying Kaddish for the victims of October 7 have now passed, but hardly a day goes by now when we do not learn the names of soldiers who have died in battle. Te families of the many chayalim and civilians who have fallen, whose parents or other close relatives are, for whatever reason, unable to say Kaddish regularly, greatly value the comfort this organization brings them. For those of us saying Kaddish on their behalf, it’s a tangible, thrice-daily reminder of their sacrifce on our behalf. Anyone who wishes to participate can fll out a form on the website or email them at kadish.lechol.kadosh@ gmail.com, and you will be contacted. May we hear only besorot tovot in the future.

WE WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU!

To send a letter to Jewish Action, e-mail ja@ou.org. Letters may be edited for clarity.

UNIVERSITY The FOR YOU

FROM THE DESK OF RABBI MOSHE HAUER

LEMA’AN ACHAI V’REI’AI: PURSUING UNITY

By Rabbi Moshe Hauer

ARabbi

Moshe Hauer is executive vice president of the Orthodox Union.

When we are so internally rancorous, we can hardly complain about the antisemitism that surrounds us.

FROM TOURO TO THE TOP

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sinat chinam, sinat chinam

Preserving unity and

connection between Jews must be a guiding principle, not just an emotion.

mesorah

Our mentor for navigating the imperfect world of galut is Rav Yochanan ben Zakkai. As the Talmud12 records, his guiding principle was a version of tafasta merubah lo tafasta, the realization that one who seeks everything will often end up with nothing. Rav Yochanan ben Zakkai was humbly pragmatic and understood that we must reconcile with our current state of imperfection, with reality and with others, and take what we can get. This attitude allowed him the clarity to salvage both the Torah and the remnants of the Davidic dynasty

DOUGHY DECADENCE Done.

even as Yerushalayim and the Beit Hamikdash were being destroyed. It also made him the leader who would continue the teaching of Torah into that post-Destruction period during which the Jewish people would necessarily be less priorities,13 who led the Jewish people according to those

That is the critical adjustment we can make. Our characteristic drive to prevail must move us to build and promote our vision with the zeal and idealism that will enable others, while recognizing and peaceably accepting that others will be doing the same to advance their own visions. Our

success as prevailing in shutting down the ways of others.

Ha’emet v’hashalom ehavu. Love both truth and peace. must distinguish ourselves as passionately committed Jews who prioritize both our halachic and principles and our absolute and unconditional desire for connection to each and every other Jew. That combination will allow Klal Yisrael to prevail.

Postscript:

Trips

with each other, we have been profoundly inspired by for each other.

commitment to the well-being of every Jew.

It has often been noted that every soldier of Tzahal, by virtue of their dedication to give their lives for the Jewish people, shares the distinction of the who are in a class of their own in the World to Come.14 That is the world designated for Klal Yisrael, the world of “

” In that world, those whose dedication extends clearly to all the Jewish people occupy the highest place. They are the Jews of , of Klal . Let us learn from them to dedicate all our energies to each other and not with each other.

56b. Note that the Talmud expresses reservations about Rav Yochanan ben Zakkai’s negotiating strategy, but recognizes that it was Divinely inspired. Ultimately, he not only led Klal Yisrael through the days of Destruction but was recognized as Hillel’s successor, and his guidance defned how we live as a people following the Churban 13. Avot 2:8–9. 14. Bava Batra 10b.

VOLUNTEER WITH US

Thoughtful, compassionate, mission-driven. Yeshiva University students embody these values, creating a profound impact both at home and across the globe. Whether mentoring schoolchildren in NYC, visiting with or delivering food to the elderly or helping to rebuild Israeli communities afected by Oct. 7, they are unwavering in their commitment to improving lives—one act of kindness at a time.

IT’S YOUR TIME TO RISE AT YESHIVA UNIVERSITY

MANAGEMENT

BRING YOUR JEWISH SELF TO WORK MENTSCH

By Rabbi Dr. Josh Joseph

It’s no surprise that in a post–October 7 world, Jews worldwide are exploring, considering, rediscovering and reconnecting to their roots. A quick Google search yields headlines such as the following:

l “Jewish identity afer October 7”

l “ Tese US Jews are recalibrating their identity in a tempestuous post-Oct. 7 environment”

l “Young Jews worldwide feel new sense of identity afer October 7”

l “October 7 changed my Relationship with Judaism”

l “Embracing my Jewish roots afer Oct. 7 has meant subjecting myself to antisemitism”

l “Afer the shock of October 7, young Jews reconnect with their religion”

How is this manifesting in our communities and networks as well as in the workplace?

Within the OU, the number of public school teens who have reached out to set up a JSU (Jewish Student Union) club through NCSY, the expansion of JLIC (Jewish Learning Initiative on Campus) programs on campuses, and the increase in Israel Free Spirit Birthright trip registrants (including newly established volunteer trips in the afermath of October 7) suggest the transformation of the landscape and the burgeoning opportunity taking place before our eyes.

I remember my high school teacher, Mr. Levy, a shaliach from Israel, asking us if we considered ourselves a Canadian Jew or a Jewish Canadian? Which one is the descriptor, and which one is the essence? Mr. Levy was surprised to hear most of my fellow students answering that they saw themselves frst as a Canadian. And what perhaps he might have better appreciated today was that they considered Jewishness to be part of their identity at all.

Is being Jewish a part of your identity? If you name fve characteristics that are key to who you are—is “Jewish” one of them? Is it an adjective or a noun? Is it the sum total of who you are in everything you do?

In his bestseller Bring Your Whole Self to Work, Mike Robbins draws on this idea, explaining that we can work better, lead better and be more engaged and fulflled if—instead of trying to hide who we are—we show up fully and authentically.

For us to thrive professionally, especially in today’s world, we must be willing to bring our whole selves to the work that we do. And for the groups, teams and organizations that we’re a part of to truly succeed, it’s essential to create an environment where people feel safe to bring all of who they are to work.

But what does this mean? Maybe those privileged to work at the OU and in other frum workplaces can share in each other’s semachot, discuss Shabbat plans and play Jewish geography. But this isn’t a reality for all, and even in Jewish communal workplaces it’s important to keep a separation between our personal and professional lives.

vice president/chief operating ofcer

Te theme of this column is that you can be a Jew and a professional, a mentsch and a manager at the same time. Tey align well—but is there one that takes priority? When faced with a situation in the workplace, does “mentsch” defne your management? Will you think frst of the values and faith that inform your conduct?

In his article “What Does It Mean to Bring Your ‘Whole Self’ to Work?,” content and marketing professional Ash Read writes: “Wholeness means we bring all the elements of who we are to work—our passions and strengths, our side projects and relationships, our partners and kids.” But, warns brand strategist Susan LaMotte, “ Te reality of whole self policies is ofen that companies expect people to bring their whole selves to the workplace because they’re not giving them reasonable time to live a whole life outside of it.”

So we are lef wondering: How much of our Jewish selves should we bring to work?

Perhaps that depends on how much your Jewishness is part of who you are.

Rabbi Dr. Josh Joseph is executive

of the OU.

Donate

So we are left wondering: How much of our Jewish selves should we bring to work?

As we enter our most introspective time of year, and as we approach the one-year anniversary of October 7, we have an opportunity to contemplate how we will bring our whole Jewish, mentschlich selves to work in the coming year. We should consider whether we can bring pieces of our Jewish selves with us to work. We should refect on whether our Jewishness defnes us enough so that we bring that identity to work. We should contemplate whether our Jewishness afects how we interact at work, such as when and how we speak to a colleague or a boss.

Te Forbes Coaches Council ofers thirteen strategies to bring your whole self to work—which we could examine through a Jewish lens. In fact, the last two suggestions might be at the top of our list at this time of year, and perhaps all year round. Te frst is to do some “self-searching,” ensuring that whatever resonates with you at the deepest level is what guides you in your work. Te second strategy is to become aware of potential blind spots, and to use your own self-management, core values and unique style of leadership to drive you every day.

“Bringing your ‘whole self’ to work doesn’t mean using the excuse ‘that’s just the way I am.’ Being ‘authentic’ is not an excuse for behaving badly.”

We in the Orthodox Jewish community have a level of responsibility here. Are we doing enough to help our less-connected Jewish brothers and sisters at work? To be their whole selves? In a world of rising antisemitism and increased Jewish awakening, have we soul-searched enough to understand where our own Jewishness lies in the panoply of our self-defnitions?

What does it mean to be an Orthodox Jew in your workplace?

AWAKENING THE GREAT JEWISH

COVER STORY

By Rachel Schwartzberg

Afer her bat mitzvah, Gracie Greenberg, who recently concluded her freshman year at Pace University, fgured she’d had enough of Judaism.

“My feeling was: I’m done! No more Judaism for me,” recalls the Long Island, New York, native.

But about a month into her frst semester studying musical theater, everything changed.

“October 7 was a real wake-up call,” she says, recalling her horror at the brazen attack in Israel and the rise in antisemitism that followed—particularly on college campuses like hers. “Being Jewish was part of my identity I hadn’t given much thought to. Why was everyone targeting me?”

As Greenberg was struggling to make sense of the hatred that suddenly surrounded her, she heard about a free dinner at Meor, a national outreach organization with a branch at nearby New York University (NYU). What she found there was overwhelming.

“I discovered a strong community of Jews that included all types,” she says—which she’d never experienced before. Tat dinner set her on a journey to explore Judaism more deeply.

Greenberg never expected that she would travel with Meor to both Poland and Israel in her freshman year of college, but those trips helped her clarify who she is and what’s important to her. It’s been transformative, she says, to discover the role of spirituality and the value of personal responsibility in Judaism.

“I decided I want to marry Jewish,” she says. “I’ve started talking to G-d once a day, and I’ve been taking on small mitzvot. I’ve learned that it’s what I’m doing for Hashem that really matters.”

While Jews the world over have been experiencing a reawakening, this particular article is focused on American Jewry.

October 7 shocked the Jewish world, and the outpouring of anti-Israel and anti-Jewish rhetoric that followed—both on social media and in real life—has sparked a religious awakening among Jews across the US. As counterintuitive as it may seem, the most common Jewish reaction to rising antisemitism has not been laying low and hiding one’s identity, but rather an increase in Torah learning and mitzvah observance and a stronger connection to the Jewish community.

In fact, a recent survey of American Jews by the Jewish Federations of North America noted the “explosion in Jewish belonging and participation,” referring to it as “ Te Surge.” According to the survey, “Of the 83 percent of Jews who were ‘only somewhat,’ ‘not very’ or ‘not at all engaged’ prior to October 7, a whopping 40 percent are now showing up in larger numbers in Jewish life. Tis group—equal to 30 percent of all Jewish adults and nearly double the

proportion of Jews who identify as ‘deeply engaged’—represents the greatest opportunity for broadening and deepening Jewish life” (https:// ejewishphilanthropy.com/what-youneed-to-know-about-the-surge-ofinterest-in-jewish-life/).

Jewish education is benefting as well: 39 percent of Jewish parents indicated they may reevaluate or reconsider educational or summer programs for their children, and 38 percent of parents with kids in a secular private school are considering making the move to Jewish day schools. Among Jews who are not members of synagogues—which according to Pew estimates is 64 percent of US Jews—37 percent say they’d be open to joining one now.

“October 7 lit a fre for Jews around the world,” says Rabbi Mark Wildes, founder of the Manhattan Jewish Experience (MJE). “We’re seeing this real need to learn more about Judaism to make sense of it.”

While Rabbi Wildes has seen a bump in attendance at MJE programs since October 7—MJE’s mission is to engage less afliated Jews in their twenties and thirties in New York—he believes it’s not the numbers that are noteworthy but the eagerness of the participants.

“It’s not hundreds of people coming,” he says. “But there’s a certain urgency among those who are coming. Tey have a need to support Israel, when they previously had, at most, a tenuous connection.”

Rising antisemitism, he says, has “exposed a raw nerve among assimilated American Jews. Tey are suddenly asking, ‘What do I believe in that’s worth defending?’”

American Jews are reaching out—because what they’re actually looking for is “authenticity and connection.” Courtesy of Aish.com

Tis sentiment is echoed across college campuses, as previously unengaged Jewish students struggle to cope with hostility and even outright violence from

Rachel Schwartzberg is a writer and editor who lives with her family in Memphis, Tennessee.

Since October 7, he says, “we went from ‘why be Jewish?’ to ‘how to be Jewish.’”

Courtesy of Aish.com

to be shomer Shabbos,” says Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan, co-director, along with his wife Sharona, of OU-JLIC at University of California-LA (UCLA).

“We’re seeing young men who are deciding to wear a kippah for the frst time on campus.”

pro-Palestinian encampments—and schools unwilling to take a stand to protect their Jewish students. Like Greenberg, Jewish students have been targeted and marginalized, and they feel entirely unequipped to respond to anti-Jewish and anti-Israel accusations.

“Every two or three weeks I meet a student who tells me he’s trying

Te primary mission of OUJLIC is to support Orthodox day school graduates on secular college campuses. “We’re not here to reach out to unafliated Jews,” says Rabbi Kaplan. “But we’re seeing so many students who might have been loosely connected before—people who were on the outskirts of the Orthodox community—who are interested in more.”

Perfectly balanced.

“Someone said to me the other day, ‘ Tere’s got to be more to Judaism than bagels and lox if they hate us so much,’” says Rabbi Aaron Eisemann, director of Meor at NYU. “ Tese students want to understand what Judaism is really about.”

While he and his team used to spend signifcant time recruiting kids for programs, those eforts are no longer necessary. “Te encampments recruit them for us,” notes Rabbi Eisemann, who has been working in campus outreach for nearly twenty years. Not only are more kids showing up, but there has been a signifcant growth in the level of content he and his staf are sharing.

“ Tat’s really more telling,” he says. “In the past, the average liberal arts college student questioned the need for Judaism at all; we spent a lot of time on basics. But the campus protests have answered that question for them. Te level of learning we’re doing now is so much higher.”

“It Cuts Deep within the Soul of American Jewry”

“October 7 lit a fre for Jews around the world,” says Rabbi Mark Wildes (right), founder of the Manhattan Jewish Experience (MJE). “We’re seeing this real need to learn more about Judaism to make sense of it.” Courtesy of MJE

I’ve been working in the Jewish community for thirty years. I’ve never seen anything like this.

“ Tere’s no way we could ever have gotten Jews to wake up like this,” says Steve Eisenberg, a

successful investment banker turned outreach activist. “It took 1,200 murdered Jews to do this; if we had a billion-dollar budget for outreach, we could not have done this.

“Jews who never did Seders, did Seders this year. Jews who never did Shabbat are trying Shabbat,” says Eisenberg, who serves as the director and co-founder of Jewish International Connection (JIC), a program that “enhances Jewish connection around the world through events and helps strengthen Jewish identity.” “I can’t tell you that the changes are dramatic, but it’s made a large percentage of the Jewish population in America feel more Jewish and identify as Jews. It

cuts deep within the soul of the Jewish people in America.”

“I heard of three Jewish twenty-yearolds who broke up with non-Jewish girlfriends,” he says. “Why? Because, all of a sudden, their non-Jewish girlfriends were siding with Hamas. Te men thought: you are really siding with people who raped and pillaged and murdered babies and burned them alive? Who are you? Another guy told me three people in his family have decided to marry Jews now. Tese are Jews who before October 7 couldn’t care less about intermarrying.”

Since October 7, he says, “we went from ‘why be Jewish?’ to ‘how to be Jewish.’ ”

Hungry for Connection

For your typical unafliated college student, “a rabbi was completely unrelatable,” says Rabbi Eisemann. Tat was before October 7. “But when you can’t go to class because people are yelling at you, the same rabbi is now a safe haven.” Rabbi Eisemann posits that right now young people, especially, are ready for authentic Torah learning because barriers have fallen away.

Grant Ghaemi is a perfect example. A senior at NYU last fall, he found himself very upset afer October 7. “I was disgusted, and I confronted people about their [social media] postings . . . and I lost friends over it,” he recalls. His own reaction surprised him. “ Tere was clearly something about what happened on October 7 that changed me,” he says. Before, he had prided himself on not letting political views get in the way of relationships.

A few weeks later, he met Rabbi Eisemann in front of the NYU library. “With a big smile,” says Ghaemi, “he stretched out his hand and asked, ‘Are you a Jew?’ Up until then, when someone asked me that, I’d say no or keep walking. But this time I thought to myself, if there’s ever a time to

embrace this, the time is now. So I shook his hand and said, ‘Yes I am.’”

Ghaemi grew up in a “very secular household” in New Jersey; his father was raised in a Muslim family in Tehran. “As a kid, my family celebrated Chanukah, a version of Rosh Hashanah, and Yom Kippur when my mother remembered,” he says. “And also Christmas and Easter and Eid.”

In his last semester at NYU, Ghaemi committed to learning at Meor at least once a week, and he attended his frst Shabbaton in Passaic, New Jersey.

He admits he “felt terribly out of place” at frst when he arrived at his hosts’ home. “I had preconceptions about Orthodox Jews,” he says. “I didn’t know any Hebrew. I didn’t even know what Shabbat was.” However, he was quickly blown away by the warm welcome he received—“from literal strangers.”

“I was shocked to fnd an entire community that viewed me as part of their extended family,” he says. Ghaemi ended up becoming a regular on Shabbatons, and even brought his mom along to get a taste of Shabbat, too. Afer graduating in the spring, he began working remotely so he could participate in a six-week Meor fellowship in Lakewood, New Jersey.

Seeking Authenticity

Tis “reawakening” spans all demographics and geography.

Rabbi Josh Broide, director of the Center for Jewish Engagement (CJE), a division of the Jewish Federation of South Palm Beach County, and outreach rabbi at Boca Raton Synagogue in Florida, says he ran an Israel-oriented program soon afer October 7 and expected a dozen people. More than 100 showed up. Even months afer October 7, program attendance remains signifcantly higher than in the past. “Of course you’d get people [at previous programs], but nothing in the numbers like this,” he says. “And the people who would show up were the people you’d expect to show up. But now we are getting people we would never expect to show up.”

Moreover, since the Hamas attack, afer any Israel-centered talk or presentation, he has come to expect a long line of people waiting to speak to him. “Tey say things like, ‘Rabbi, I’m so happy to be here. What else can I do to get involved?’

‘Rabbi, Israel is the most important thing on my

In the days and weeks immediately following October 7, there was a marked increase in participation in both the Community Kollel of Greater Las Vegas’s outreach programs and its regular minyanim and shiurim. Courtesy of Rabbi Nachum Meth

mind.’ I’ve been working in the Jewish community for thirty years. I’ve never seen anything like this.”

Tis scenario is playing out all over the outreach world. “We’ve had triple the number of people engaging with us,” says Rabbi Tzvi Broker, one of the humans behind the Live chat feature on Aish.com. For about ten hours a day, six days a week, he or a member of his team mans the chat. Since October 7, the platform has seen more than 5,000 people reaching out each month.

Loren (not her real name) is intermarried and living in New Hampshire, and she recently reached out via the live chat. “Decades afer my attempt to raise my three children Jewish, I am fnally taking the time to focus on my faith,” she wrote. “I’m blown away by the utter courage, strength and historical greatness of the State of Israel and the Jewish people. October 7, for some strange reason, was shocking and paralyzing for me. Since then I have joined the nearby Chabad and latched on to a few more resources for learning.”

Rabbi Broker had a lengthy online conversation with her about how to actualize her newfound

High school senior Noah Simon (frst on the right) has found a supportive community in the JSU club at his public school in Plano, Texas. Following October 7, Noah began wearing tzitzit and a kippah to his public school every day. Seen here, Noah at the JSU Presidents Conference this past November.

passion. She hopes to visit Israel soon.

“A few things have become clear over the past several months,” says Rabbi Broker. “Every Jewish heart was torn on October 7. And the fact that the non-Jewish response didn’t validate that feeling at all made people feel very, very alone. All of a sudden, they felt out of place in their own lives. Tey needed to talk to us.”

He adds that if people just wanted to know more about Judaism, they could fnd ample information online. But Jewish people are reaching out— because what they’re actually looking for is “authenticity and connection.”

“ Tere are Jews in Jewish communities right now who are hungry. Tey want to connect,” says Rabbi Broide.

For teens who are looking to connect with Jewish peers, NCSY runs JSU clubs in public and private (nonJewish) high schools across the US and Canada. JSU has also seen a huge uptick in the number of teens reaching out to open clubs at their schools this year, says Devora Simon, national director of JSU.

“In the past, we received about one online request per month to start a JSU club,” she says. “ Tis year alone we received 120 requests—ninety of them have resulted in the creation of

active clubs. Along with the requests, she says, “about 98 percent of the time, the teens write some version of, ‘Since October 7, I’ve experienced antisemitism and I want to learn more about my heritage.’ Or, ‘I want to come closer to the Jewish community.’”

JSU reached approximately 18,500 Jewish teens last year, 4,000 more teens than the previous year. And not only did more teens show up, Simon adds, but “teens are more engaged than ever, with average attendance per club higher than ever.”

Simon recognizes that the increase in numbers may refect teens’ interest in connecting with other Jews, but she feels that the sense of belonging is a signifcant factor. “Community has always drawn people,” she says. “ Te social aspect is especially critical.”

At the same time, she notes that JSU programs across the country saw a 20 percent increase in the number of teens attending programs outside of school. “We call these ‘higher-level programs.’ Tey are more content and educational oriented,” she explains. For example, a steady group of teens in Baltimore attend a weekly Mesillat Yesharim chaburah at 7 am, waking up early to make the class before heading to their nearby public high school. “ Tat’s a serious commitment,” she notes.

One teen who fnds a supportive community in JSU is Noah Simon. With about ffy Jewish students out of 1,500 in his public school in Plano, Texas, a suburb of Dallas, Noah enjoys the sense of community JSU provides. Meeting during lunch period every other week, the JSU club in his school provides him with “a Jewish environment” and a place where he “can talk with like-minded people and make friends.”

Since October 7, Noah has been wearing tzitzit and a kippah to school. Te senior, who serves as co-president of the JSU at his school, was growing religiously even before the Hamas attack. But October 7 empowered Noah, a sof-spoken sensitive young man, even more, and he began keeping kosher. “I started to not go out for lunch with friends,” he says. “I have defnitely grown a lot.”

An Orthodox Awakening

Following October 7, this “awakening” was evident among Orthodox Jews as well. While less afliated Jews may have been connecting with the Jewish community for the frst time, Orthodox Jews were pouring into shuls, tefllah gatherings, Tehillim groups and other programs across the country.

“October 7 was traumatic for all of us,” says Rabbi Nachum Meth, executive director and rosh kollel at the Community Kollel of Greater Las Vegas, which serves as a hub for dynamic programs for Jews of all ages, backgrounds and levels of observance. “People felt motivated to go somewhere and do something.” As a result, there was a marked increase in participation in both the Kollel’s outreach programs and its regular minyanim and shiurim. “ Tere were defnitely more frum people coming to shul on Shabbos,” he says. “However, as the acuteness of the situation waned, participation dropped back to normal. Tat’s simply human nature.”

Will It Last?

Te big question on the minds of outreach professionals and informal educators is whether the post–October 7 religious awakening will have staying power or not. And it might be too soon to know.

Rabbi Kaplan is hopeful that “people who have made real changes in their lives will stick with them.” However, he points out that sometimes, though signs of outward growth may not all be sustained, people’s experiences now can still have a long-term efect. “For example, maybe these students will make a commitment to send their kids to Jewish schools when the time comes,” he notes.

Overall, however, he believes that this moment in time will have a deep and lasting impact on the Jewish community. “People who are taking on more religious observance have been welcomed with open arms,” he says. “ Tat experience will stick with them for life.”

Although Ghaemi doesn’t know where his journey will take him now that he has graduated college and is working full-time, “the amount I’ve learned about my values and grown as a person has been remarkable,” he says. “Judaism has taught me to seek to be better every day and has given me concrete ways to do that. Until I met Orthodox Jews, I had never known the concept of devotion and sacrifce for higher ideals. I’ve seen the beauty of Shabbos, and families coming together to connect. I want to take that into my life.”

“I can’t say what the future will hold,” says college student Gracie Greenberg, in terms of her religious observance. “Right now, I’m lighting Shabbos candles and saying Kiddush. I would like to continue doing those things, and I plan to keep learning and growing.”

For Jews like Ghaemi and Greenberg, there’s no going back to their pre–October 7 selves.

Courtesy of Aish.com

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IT’S YOUR TIME TO RISE AT YESHIVA UNIVERSITY

In the feld of Jewish outreach, there hasn’t been a receptive environment like this since the Six-Day War.

Tat’s a refrain heard among outreach professionals.

“October 7 awakened the sleeping giant,” says Rabbi Aaron Eisemann, director of Meor at NYU.

“It’s an amazing opportunity, and we have to be there for our fellow Jews.”

Kiruv professionals—working with all demographics—stress that they cannot single-handedly reach the many unafliated Jews across the country who are searching for connection in the post–October 7 world. It’s time for all hands on deck.

“To come closer to Torah, people need real relationships—and these all take a tremendous amount of time,” says Rabbi Eisemann. “Rabbis on campuses are desperate for help. Call your local campus rabbi and ofer to host or mentor a student,” he suggests. Frum professionals and entrepreneurs, especially, can play an important role acting as mentors for college students who are focused on launching their careers.

DOING ENOUGH? IS THE ORTHODOX COMMUNITY

By Rachel Schwartzberg

“Kiruv happens one neshamah at a time,” says Rabbi Zev Kahn, director of Jewish Education Team (JET) based in Chicago. “A person can, on average, have relationships with about eighty people at one time. When you have 5,000 students on a campus, for example, even if 4,500 of them are not interested, one person can’t have a relationship with the 500 who are interested.”

Te bottom line: Outreach cannot be limited to the professionals.

Tis doesn’t mean, says Rabbi Josh Broide, director of the Center for Jewish Engagement (CJE), a division of the Jewish Federation of South Palm Beach County, and outreach rabbi at Boca Raton Synagogue in Florida, that you, as a frum Jew, need to get training as an outreach professional. What it does mean, however, is that you need to pay attention to the opportunities sent your way. “You need to say to yourself: ‘Hakadosh Baruch Hu sent this one person that I just happened to interact with, and I’m going to take responsibility for that person.”’

“I once got a call from someone who lived in a Chicago suburb about an hour and a half away from where

I live,” says Rabbi Kahn. “He said, ‘Rabbi, there’s a guy who works in a cubicle next to me. He’s Jewish and he’s really interested in learning. Would you be willing to drive up and come and learn with him?’ I said to him, ‘You know what? I have a much better idea. Why don’t you learn with him?’ He replied: ‘What, me?! How can I learn with this guy?’”

Many Orthodox Jews are afraid of engaging with Jews who are beginning their religious journeys, says Rabbi Kahn. Tey are worried: What if a beginner asks a question they can’t answer? Rabbi Kahn’s response: “You don’t need to have all the answers. You need to have ahavas Yisrael.”

“If we really believed in what we’re doing and the life we’re living, we’d want to share that with every Jew,” says Steve Eisenberg, co-founder of Jewish International Connection (JIC).

“Jews in the US are much more connected Jewishly today than they were on October 6,” he says. It’s a perfect opportunity for frum people to invite fellow Jews to their Shabbos meals or to their sukkahs, for example. “If every observant Jew would invite one

Jew a month,” he says, “you could have between 15,000 and 20,000 Jews each month experiencing a Shabbos meal.”

But Eisenberg is not optimistic about the majority of the Orthodox community stepping up to the plate. “Where is the Orthodox community?” he asks.

Unfortunately, he says, some in the Orthodox community prefer to focus inward. “We say to ourselves, ‘It’s enough that my kids go to yeshivah and I’m keeping the Torah . . . Hashem will take care of me.’ But we’re not taking achrayus for the generation.”

Other Ways to Engage

Some kiruv professionals posit that the Modern Orthodox community is uniquely situated to engage in outreach.

“ Te Modern Orthodox community is no diferent professionally in many ways than many of the unafliated Jews we’re looking to attract. We’re also doctors. We’re also orthodontists. Te guy you would be learning with looks just like you,” says Rabbi Broide.

“It’s a much easier shif for someone to envision themselves coming closer to Judaism when it seems to be doable within their comfort zone,” says Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan, co-director of OU-JLIC at University of California-LA (UCLA).

“ Tey can say, ‘I see my colleague or classmate doing this; maybe I can do it, too.’”

Rabbi Kaplan believes it would go a long way if Orthodox students proactively reached out to other Jewish students and created a welcoming atmosphere on college campuses.

“Your typical Orthodox teen from Pico Robertson in Los Angeles, or Teaneck, New Jersey, doesn’t know nonobservant kids,” he says. “Everyone is Orthodox around them. But in college, this is their moment—now they’re meeting [non-Orthodox Jews].”

A simple way anyone can help spread Torah to less afliated Jews is by contributing fnancially to

outreach programs. Without fnancial backing, even the most idealistic kiruv professionals cannot reach the many Jews who are looking for a connection to Judaism.

For example, NCSY’s JSU program for public high school students reaches thousands of teens each year. But according to Devora Simon, national director of JSU, there are roughly 350,000 Jewish kids in non-Jewish high schools in North America. “Based on the soaring interest in JSU programming, we know we can be reaching exponentially more teens,” says Simon.

JSU has seen a huge spike in the number of requests for new clubs since October 7, and JSU has tried to accommodate as many teens as possible. Unfortunately, stafng remains a huge obstacle. “I’m getting requests from places like Nashville, Vermont and Salt Lake City,” she says. “It’s hard to get people to move to more remote places. We are building out a robust system and platform to engage teens remotely, and empower them to lead in their communities, but we need the infrastructure and staf to support the program and manage these relationships.”

Many outreach professionals feel that in the post–October 7 world, the Orthodox community must prioritize Jewish outreach when allocating tzedakah funds. “It’s heartbreaking what teens are dealing with in school every day,” says Simon. “ Tese are young people in ofen hostile or unwelcoming environments who need us to be there for them. We simply need the resources to take care of these Jewish teens.”

to spread positive messages and have an impact on a wider network.

“If the bad news on social media is all people are seeing, it’s depressing,” notes Rabbi Mark Wildes, founder of Manhattan Jewish Experience (MJE). “So let’s not talk about why people hate us. Let’s highlight what’s positive.” He suggests providing a counterbalance in people’s feeds—showing all the good things that are part of the Jewish community—for example, Shabbat, trips to Israel, the remarkable chesed that takes place. “Our job needs to be bringing light into the world.”

Opening Communal Doors

Well before October 7, communal organizations like the OU and others have been making sure there is infrastructure in place to serve Jews across the country, says Rabbi Kaplan. Because of that, he says, young Jews who are searching for community

Rachel Schwartzberg is a writer and editor who lives with her family in Memphis, Tennessee.

Aside from providing fnancial support, individuals can act as ambassadors on behalf of Torah Judaism. Social

People are looking.

What are our communities doing to open those doors to the greater Jewish community?

have an address to turn to. “Whether it’s NCSY or OU-JLIC, we are where young American Jews are,” he says. As a result, “there are many more opportunities, because we’re already here to facilitate. If people are ready to jump, we’re ready to catch them.”

But despite all the kiruv programs and initiatives, more needs to be done on the communal level. Every shul, in fact, has a role to play, say experts. “People are looking. What are our communities doing to open those doors to the greater Jewish community?” asks Rabbi Broide. Every shul, he maintains, should have at least one outreach program. And while the programs might be diferent for each shul, depending on the population, he believes the core ingredients have to be there. “It has to be warm and welcoming,” he says. “We have something real. We have something special. What are we doing

to invite the broader community to be part of it?”

Shuls can help promote programs such as Partners in Torah, a highly successful initiative where participants get to study one on one over the phone or on Zoom with a mentor chosen especially for them. In Boca Raton, Rabbi Broide oversees a diferent initiative called Partners in Jewish Life. Instead of being over the phone or via Zoom, partners meet in a large space where they study prepared sources focused on the popular teachings of Rabbi Jonathan Sacks. Te curriculum, currently used in six shuls around the country with many more interested, resonates strongly with Jews from all backgrounds.

“ Tis program might not have worked a few years ago because people were in their own lanes—it’s my shul, it’s my Federation, it’s my JCC,” says Rabbi Broide. “But since October 7

Jews are looking to connect to the larger Jewish community.”

Now that the interest is burgeoning, kiruv professionals are asking difcult questions: If Jewish kids want to attend an Orthodox Jewish day school, can we accommodate them? If Jewish families want to start attending an Orthodox synagogue, are our shuls welcoming enough?

“No Jew lef behind—every single Jew should have an opportunity to interact with Jews who are a part of the formal Jewish community,” says Rabbi Broide.

Te central question Rabbi Broide and many others in the kiruv world are asking is: Are we—the Orthodox community—prepared for this?

TESHUVAH

AFTER OCTOBER

By Rabbi Lawrence Kelemen

Generally, we think of Jewish religiosity as a two-dimensional scale stretching from secular to religious, with tick marks indicating levels of a composite of faith and mitzvah observance. We conceptualize teshuvah as movement across this scale, from less to more. But on October 7, a spiritual sea change seemed to sweep across our people that rendered this model simplistic.

We know that within days of the war’s outbreak, thousands of Israelis living all over the world streamed home. Tey came from Africa, Asia, Australia, North and South America, nearly every country in Eastern and Western Europe, the Caribbean and any other paradise that wanderlust could take a person. Except for the

Israeli national carrier, El Al, every airline canceled all fights in and out of Israel, not just because there was military action in Gaza, but because they assumed no one in their right mind would buy a ticket. But returning Israelis flled every (scheduled and unscheduled) El Al fight, chartered planes, and played international hopscotch in a counterintuitive efort to run into the war zone as quickly as possible. “Everyone is coming. No one is saying no,” said Yonatan Steiner, twenty-four, who few back from New York, where he works for a tech company, to join his old army medical unit. “Tis is diferent, this is unprecedented,” he said, speaking by phone from the border near Lebanon where his regiment was based.1

And even if this could be attributed

to IDF military reservists’ loyalty to their former units, that wouldn’t explain why more than 20,000 Jews from around the world made aliyah since the war began; or why many times that number fled papers to begin the immigration process, some of whom had never stepped foot upon the Land before applying to permanently relocate to a country under siege.2

Without any prodding or guidance from the Israeli government or Jewish communal organizations in the Diaspora, individual Jews spontaneously procured and delivered vital equipment for the IDF. Between October 2023 and January 2024, they bought, packed, and shipped more than 10,000 pairs of combat boots worth upwards of $850,000.3 El Al was carrying 100 to 200 dufels a week

Above: Without any prodding or guidance from the Israeli government or Jewish communal organizations in the Diaspora, individual Jews spontaneously procured and delivered vital equipment for the IDF. Courtesy of the IDF Spokesperson’s Ofce

COVER STORY

just flled with boots. By June 2024, individual Jews from around the world had provided their Israeli brothers and sisters with an estimated $1 billion in helmets, drones, night vision goggles, body armor, rife scopes, kneepads, pocketknives, gun straps, tactical gloves, fashlights and other vital equipment. Tese were beyond the generous donations from the Jewish Federation and many other institutions. It was as grassroots as grassroots gets.4 Support didn’t just fow in from the Diaspora. According to a Tel Aviv University/Ben-Gurion University joint study, within the frst month of the war, 60 percent of Israel’s population made charitable contributions to the war efort, providing cash, blood, breast milk, hospital and rescue equipment, and anything else they thought their people on the front needed. Physicians, physical and occupational therapists, social workers, psychologists, professional chefs, drivers, mechanics and thousands of others with vital skills started working volunteer shifs in addition to their day jobs. Te same TAU/BGU study found that 41 percent of Israelis volunteered in this way. Starting the day afer October 7, kindness fowed bidirectionally between Israel’s religious and secular populations. For example, a week into the war, many Tel Aviv restaurants became kosher so they could provide meals for the religious minority in the army. Ten, in an unexpected twist, thousands of soldiers who considered themselves secular before the war requested tzitzit, and religious men and women all over the country went to work dyeing 60,000 shirts army-

Rabbi Lawrence Kelemen is rosh kollel of Ohr Chodosh in Yerushalayim. ArtScroll recently published Questions and Answers with Rabbi Leib Kelemen: Delving into Essential Matters on Faith, Practice and Hashkafah, where he addresses nearly 100 questions on topics ranging from shidduchim to childrearing, from Torah study to nurturing one’s talents, from shalom bayit to connecting to Hashem. Rabbi Kelemen’s lectures are available at www.lawrencekelemen.com.

A few weeks after October 7, posters that read, “There is no left and there is no right” went up in cities across Israel. It was one of the most refreshing ad campaigns ever.

green, tying onto them 60,000 sets of white strings, and delivering them to the fronts.

Were we just witnessing an outpouring of appreciation and support for the army? Tat wouldn’t explain why only a few weeks into the war religious Jews in Modiin, Rechavia, Beitar and other Orthodox neighborhoods started standing at intersections in adjacent secular neighborhoods handing out Shabbat candles, Kiddush wine and homebaked challot, or—even more curiously—why their secular neighbors stopped to accept the packages and express mutual afection. By March 2024, Jews were giving other Jews over 1,000 of these Shabbat packages a week. And apart from the paper bags that were donated by a couple of large organizations, all the costs were borne by the same nonprofessionals who shopped for the candles and wine and baked the challot Tis was spontaneous and grassroots. When asked why people from such diferent demographics were all so excited about this giving-and-receiving initiative, a Chareidi woman from Moshav Matityahu told me, “ Tis is called unity, brotherhood and connection.”

Te day afer October 7, Kesher Yehudi, an Israeli nonproft, was swamped by demand for their chavruta program, which introduces secular and religious Israelis to each other. Tousands of requests poured in from both cohorts, not primarily for opportunities to learn or teach Torah, but to grow a long-term friendship with someone from a diferent background. A Kesher Yehudi administrator told me that afer October 7, the weekly

to the mourners who gather there daily. Tere were parents, children, brothers, and sisters tending to makeshif memorials for their slaughtered relatives. An apparently secular woman took a sack of white stones out of her car and started arranging them around a stake planted in the ground with a picture of her deceased son. We ofered to help her. She didn’t look at us, but conveyed appreciation. When we were done placing the stones, we stood in silence for a few minutes, and then one of my students asked the mother if we could say Kaddish for her son.

“I lost my faith a long time ago,” she whispered, staring at the ground.

“How about Kel Malei Rachamim?” She was crying, but nodded to indicate that would be okay. When we fnished reciting Kel Malei Rachamim, we were all crying. She remained standing with us for a while. Ten another one of my students whispered to the mother again, “Would you like us to say Kaddish?” She made eye contact with us for the frst time, scanned our faces, and then said, “Yes, please.” It is possible that when she scanned our faces, she saw something familiar. I will try to explain.

Teshuvah might be a broader, deeper process than just movement from less-to-more mitzvah observance. In a cryptic comment on a Talmudic passage (Avodah Zarah 19a), Rashi defnes teshuvah as “l’hakir Bor’o—to recognize one’s Creator.” Avraham Avinu’s teshuvah process illuminates what the word “recognize” might mean here. According to the tradition, at age three Avraham knew there was a G-d, but by age forty he progressed from knowledge to recognition (Rambam, Hilchot Avodah Zarah 1:3). Te Hebrew word for recognizing G-d (hakarah) implies more than just knowing (yediah) that there is a G-d. One who who only “knows” that G-d exists can still view Him as foreign and unrelatable. Recognition implies familiarity. By age forty, Avraham saw something familiar in G-d—his own Divine image. “From himself Avraham recognized the Holy One” (Bamidbar Rabbah 14:2).

Every member of the Jewish

nation had such an experience at the Yam Suf. Tere each individual sang (Shemot15:2), “Tis is my G-d, v’anveihu.” Rashi (Shabbat 133b) translates anveihu literally as “ani v’hu—me and Him.” At the Yam Suf, every individual saw his or her own potential in the Holy One and yearned to bring forth that potential and become like Him.

Eventually, the recognizing-G-d type of teshuvah could lead to the mitzvah-observance type of teshuvah. How? People who want to become similar to G-d may notice the thread connecting all of His behavior. A verse in Tehillim (147:19) reads, “He tells His commandments to Jacob, His statutes and decrees to Israel.” Our tradition (Shemot Rabbah 30:9) asks why the mitzvot that G-d commanded to us are called His Tey should be ours Te Midrash answers: “What He does, He also tells Israel to do ” In some unfathomable way, G-d keeps all the mitzvot, and for us to bring forth our Divine potential we must keep the mitzvot too. Te Torah is a G-d-given system for self-actualization. Avraham Avinu recognized G-d and understood that the mitzvot are Divine behavior, and so he took upon himself all the mitzvot as well (Yoma 28b).

Knowing that G-d exists but not recognizing Him leads in the opposite direction. Healthy people not only intuitively sense their uniqueness but feel a need to express it. Tis human drive to self-actualize can be as strong as the desire to pursue life itself. If someone threatens another’s freedom to self-actualize, most people will fght back. Rashi teaches that both Nimrod (Bereishit 10:9) and the citizens of Sodom (ibid., 13:13) knew G-d existed, but felt no commonality with Him, and so they rebelled. So did many Jews throughout history.

Tis gets deeper. Perhaps Jewish unity and teshuvah are interlinked. Te more thoroughly one recognizes the Creator, the more obvious it becomes that He has multiple manifestations (Sanhedrin 37a): “When a person stamps several coins with one seal, they are all identical. But the supreme King of Kings, the Holy One, Blessed

be He, stamped all people with the seal of Adam, and not one of them is similar to another.” Every Jew possesses in potential one unique aspect of G-d’s complex Divinity. Te more the individual brings forth his unique tzelem Elokim, the more he recognizes his own identity in the Holy One. At some stage in the teshuvah process, one may recognize in G-d not only one’s own unique potential but others’ very diferent potentials as well. Tis means more than just tolerating other Jews. It involves acknowledging that our diferences may stem from a common Divine Source. It is a state of mutual responsibility, appreciation, afection and even connection. It is a place where diversity and unity become inextricably bound together in the Divine ideal. Tat morning at the Nova site, my students and I recognized something familiar in a mourning mother, and she recognized something familiar in us. Diferences like religious and secular, lef and right, Israeli Jew and Diaspora Jew, all seem insignifcant compared to the Divine image in us all. Tis feels like the teshuvah that many Jews are experiencing post October 7.

Notes

1. Helen Coster and Alexander Cornwell, “Israel’s reservists drop everything and rush home,” Reuters, October 12, 2023, https://www.reuters.com/world/ middle-east/israels-reservists-dropeverything-rush-home-following-hamasbloodshed-2023-10-12/.

2. “22,000 Jews Have Made Aliyah Since October 7, Jewish Agency Reports,” Yeshiva World, July 17, 2024, https:// www.theyeshivaworld.com/news/israelnews/2297264/22000-jews-have-madealiyah-since-october-7-jewish-agencyreports.html

3. Sharon Wrobel, “Something is afoot: Volunteers ft IDF soldiers with US military boots amid Hamas war,” Times of Israel, January 14, 2024, https://www.timesofsrael. com/something-is-afoot-volunteers-ftidf-soldiers-with-us-military-boots-amidhamas-war/

4. Asaf Elia-Shalev, “Six months into war, Israeli soldiers still count on donations for basic supplies. Why?,” Times of Israel, April 25, 2024, https://www.timesofsrael.com/sixmonths-into-war-israeli-soldiers-still-counton-donations-for-basic-supplies-why/.

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IHOW ONE year LATER: OCTOBER 7 changed me

With the first anniversary of October 7 approaching, we asked readers to tell us how they were impacted by a day that will live on forever in our hearts and souls.

Live More Jewishly

n the afermath of October 7, I am living my Judaism in a much more open way, wearing a Magen David necklace, studying Jewish history and feeling more connected to Israel as our indigenous homeland. I think about aliyah. I did not grow up Orthodox and my ex-husband isn’t Jewish. But since October 7, I’ve tried to have a daily infusion of Judaism in my life and in my children’s lives.

A few days afer the massacre, I saw a post for a program called

“Just One Ting,” in which you try to do one Jewish thing in the merit of a specifc soldier. I began saying Shema every night along with a Mi Sheberach for “my” soldier, and I started bringing in Shabbat ffeen minutes early.

I signed up with Partners in Torah as a merit as well. I was paired with Raquel from New York and felt that I’d found my sister. We study the teachings of the late Rabbi Jonathan Sacks on the parashah. October 7 changed my

relationship to Judaism, to the nonJewish world, to Israel, to parenting, to everything.

To me, the response to October 7 is to live more Jewishly.

By Ariella Silberman, as told to Barbara Bensoussan. Ms. Silberman lives in Dallas with her family. Ms. Bensoussan is a writer in Brooklyn and a frequent contributor to Jewish Action.

ICountering the Hate

’m a marketing professional, so social media is my bread and butter. Afer October 7, as I scrolled through X, I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. “You Jews deserve it,” some people wrote. “Stop occupying Palestine!” said others.

Te haters clearly had no grasp of the facts. How do you counteract a food of anti-Israel narratives that have more likes on social media than a cat meme?

I sat down and began replying to these posts. But I’m no Ben Shapiro—I don’t have all the facts on the tip of my tongue. Afer an hour, I realized I’d only managed to reply to about four posts. Tere were hundreds of posts I wanted to respond to!

Ten it occurred to me that I could enlist virtual help. I’m a typical Flatbush guy who runs a no-frills ad agency out of a Brooklyn storefront. Recently, I’d begun using AI tools for marketing campaigns in my business. Why not create an AI engine to give factual, cohesive responses to social media? I thought. Why not harness the power of AI to negate the hate?

INo Longer Silent

was born in Chicago eighty-seven years ago.

In the 1930s and ‘40s, as the Holocaust was unfolding, I would listen to my American-born parents speaking about the German atrocities and about the Jews sufering in Europe.

But back then children were supposed to be quiet.

Dad was drafed into the US Army when I was six years old. He was captured by the Nazis and sent to a slave labor camp for Jews only. He was liberated and, thank G-d, came home.

I posted my idea on LinkedIn and on a few WhatsApp groups. Almost a dozen people from diferent points on the Jewish spectrum volunteered to help: a Chassidic developer in Toronto; a non-religious Sephardic full-stack coding engineer in Tel Aviv; a Modern Orthodox copywriter in Teaneck.

Our group held sessions on Zoom to create the app. Te goal was to train a data set to give forceful, factbased, pro-Israel responses to hate posts, circumventing systemic blocks to pro-Israel content. Afer four sleepless, cafeine-powered days, we had an app called ProjectTruthIsrael. com up and running.

I said to our group, “Under other circumstances, our paths would probably never have crossed. Yet here we are, all of us fellow Jews, giving our time and resources to help the Jewish nation.”

I sent out our app experimentally to a bunch of Jewish WhatsApp groups, expecting to garner a few hundred responses. Within one night, I had 3,000 users. Afer one month, 41,000 people were using the app, generating over 80,000 response points.

We were not religious, and did not observe any holidays except for Passover. We never belonged to a synagogue.

October 7 made me feel more Jewish. I felt I had to do something for the Jewish people. I realized I had to speak up.

Now I spend my time on Facebook and Instagram, sharing pro-Israel videos on a daily basis.

I bought a siddur with English translation; I don’t read Hebrew. I bought more Jewish books. I’m paying more attention. I must. I

Te app was really working well, churning out compelling factual messages to counteract misinformation and antisemitism. Ten, a few weeks ago, I opened my computer on Motzaei Shabbos to fnd a message: “Your AI token threshold is over the limit.”

“Hacktivists” from the Middle East had bombarded our site to the point where they shut it down. I have been working ever since to fnd a way to get my site up again and circumvent further attacks.

Despite this (hopefully temporary) setback, I am very proud of what we accomplished. While we made a small dent in the social media world, I think we made a much bigger dent in the heavens: a diverse group of Jews came together to help our brothers and sisters in Israel.

couldn’t speak up in the 1930s as the Holocaust approached, so I’m speaking up now on behalf of Israel and my fellow Jews.

By Maxine

Clamage, as told to Steve Lipman. Ms. Clamage is an eighty-sevenyear-old retired paralegal living in Mill Valley, California. Mr. Lipman is a frequent contributor to the magazine.

By Abraham Bree, as told to Barbara Bensoussan. Mr. Bree runs a marketing agency in Brooklyn, New York.

A“Pointing” the Way to Simchah

s I sat on a plane to Israel last winter, October 7 was fresh in everyone’s minds. I knew there were thousands of sufering families—victims of terror, victims of tragedies, and families who had been forced to abandon their homes and livelihoods. I wanted to do something.

I work as a physician in Williamsburg, with a largely Chassidic and Hispanic clientele. My work has led me to become involved with Miles for Life, an organization that funds medical travel for foreign patients who need to come to the US for medical care. I am ofen asked to write statements attesting to the necessity of medical travel so that patients and their accompanying caregivers can apply for visas. Miles for Life collects unused travel and credit card points from donors to pay for the patients’ travel.

While on the plane, I thought, “If we can use points to beneft

patients from South America and other countries, why not use them to help Jews ravaged by the war in Israel?” It seemed like an easy, costfree way to give tzedakah and lend support to our brethren in Israel who desperately need it.

Te fight passed quickly as I sketched out a plan. I didn’t want to fund trauma relief only. Life goes on afer trauma, and challenged families still need to make simchas and celebrate holidays even when the usual funds have dried up. I wanted to channel unused miles and points to fund bringing joy into difcult lives. I was sitting next to an accountant who became so interested in my idea that he stayed in touch to check on my progress afer I got home!

Simchapoints.org, now under the Chibuk Foundation, is open for business, with the aim of helping challenged Israeli families aford the bright spots in their lives: bar

Working for the Jewish Community

When October 7 happened, I was a high school teacher in a non-Jewish charter school in Brooklyn. In the days that followed, we were given a mandatory curriculum for our advisory students that sought to “contextualize the confict” and denied any historical ties between the Jewish people and their ancestral homeland prior to the nineteenth century. As a direct result, I started looking for new, meaningful work, ways I could invest my time and energy into the Jewish world. I was lucky enough to be hired to write security grants by Project Protect, a division of the OU’s Teach Coalition,

which secures and implements government funding to protect our Jewish institutions. Trough this job I’ve had the privilege to talk to stakeholders across the entire spectrum of Jewish communal life, fnd out their histories and the risks they face in their neighborhoods, and help them address their urgent need for safety. Tis work has been a profound source of personal pride for me and has made me feel more connected to the Jewish nation than I ever felt before.

As I write, a week from today I will have my interview with the Jewish Agency, and, G-d-willing, I will be making aliyah shortly. My

mitzvahs, weddings, yamim tovim, even camps for their children. Donors can earmark funds for a specifc event—for example, a family making a bar mitzvah can donate money for an Israeli family’s bar mitzvah expenses.

Before we Jews were the Startup Nation, we were the “Chesed Nation.” October 7 opened our eyes to the need to empathize with our fellow Jews in Israel and extend a helping hand as best we can.

greatest hope is to continue doing this security work for the Jewish community here in the United States while fnding new ways to connect and give of myself in whatever way I can in Eretz Yisrael. Before October 7 and its afermath, I did not understand the overwhelming imperative of achdut and ahavat Yisrael. While I’m ashamed it took something so evil to teach me, I will never forget the lesson.

Dr. Arnold Berlin, MD, as told to Barbara Bensoussan. Dr. Berlin is a clinical assistant professor of medicine, Weill Cornell Medical College.

By Asher Butler. Currently living in Queens, New York, Asher hopes to be making aliyah in the fall.

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Baked with Love

When we learned that October 7 survivors, most from secular and antireligious kibbutzim, were staying in a hotel near our Chareidi town, a group of us drove out to see them. At the hotel door, a social worker barred our entry: “Tey don’t need anything. Go.”

We went home crestfallen and puzzled.

Was there really nothing to do?

Ten one of us had an idea: “Let’s send them challah rolls, candles and notes of support.”

A WhatsApp message went out, and dozens of volunteers responded. By erev Shabbat we had received so many packages that we needed additional volunteers to deliver them to the hotel.

We lef them with the hotel staf. But we weren’t sure. Would our lovingly assembled packages end up in the trash? Had we mobilized the entire community for nothing?

When we returned days later, we found out that our packages had indeed been delivered.

“We ate them,” said an elderly male evacuee, “but don’t send them again.” Our gesture had fallen on its face. Was there something else we could do? “Yes,” a heavily tattooed kibbutz woman piped up. “We can use four cakes every day for our cofee room.” Tat was clear enough. Since then, we have been baking and sending our

Icakes to evacuees—yeast cakes, kokosh cakes, batches of cookie bars, et cetera. Te cakes are delivered to a central collection point, where volunteers pick them up and deliver them.

It seems trivial, but it’s not. Te evacuees value our initiative. “You are angels. We feel your love in your baking,” they tell us. Tey smile, and sometimes they hug us. Te evacuees have consistently refused our Shabbat and holiday invites. Ofen the evacuees aren’t around, and the volunteers hang the bag of cakes on the door of the social hall. When we do see them, it’s clear they love our cakes, and because of that they love us.

As I write this, eight months into the war, most of the survivors have returned home to Kiryat Ye’arim, but forty Gaza Envelope families remain at a hotel in our area. And we continue to send them our homemade cakes. Tey still smile. Tey still hug us. Tey still call us angels. But we haven’t (yet) become friends. Tough we stand on opposite sides of a deeply religious and sociopolitical rif, we’re no longer anonymous “despicable dossim.” Our cakes have built a bridge of love between us. Maybe this is the way our country will heal.

By Carol Green Ungar. Ms. Ungar is an award-winning writer living in the Judean Hills.

The Depths of Prayer

have always been a light sleeper. I usually wake up a few times during the night—which is not uncommon in the over-sixty crowd. In the past, I would turn over and try to get back to sleep. Te consequences of the war— murdered and injured civilians, soldiers killed or wounded in the fghting, hostages languishing in captivity, bereaved families, displaced Israelis, many people without a livelihood, et cetera—have turned these nocturnal

awakenings into times of tefllah.

On our yishuv, in the middle of the night, I don’t hear washing machines spinning, telephones ringing, or trafc whizzing by—even the street cats have gone to sleep. It’s an opportunity to daven without interruption. Tere is nothing like war to serve as a catalyst for increased and more heartfelt tefllah.

By Adina Hershberg. Ms. Hershberg is a writer living in Rosh Tzurim, Israel.

Choosing Life

Iwas supposed to be at the Nova Festival; I had badly wanted to go. A month before, I was at another Nova party and had a great time. Te DJ at that party—who was also the DJ at the October 7 Nova—ofered me a deal: if I sold ffeen tickets, I could go to the next Nova for free.

I’m an Aries, which means I’m stubborn. I contacted friends all over the country and plugged the party on my Instagram stories—but I couldn’t get anyone to buy a ticket. So I didn’t end up going.

When I frst heard what happened, I couldn’t thank Hashem enough. But it was also very hard. My world turned over. I had lost a lot of my friends. I went from funeral to funeral. For a long time I wanted to die, too. I prayed to Hashem to take me and bring them back.

When I found out that Elia had died [Elia Toledano had disappeared and was thought to have been kidnapped; the IDF discovered his body in December], my eyes opened up. Elia was a tzaddik. He was full of love and light. He hadn’t been my friend for long, but he entered my soul. Knowing him made me want to be a good person in the way that he was. I threw away my immodest clothing. Now I am trying to keep Shabbat and be a good person.

Before October 7, I was self-destructive. I was bulimic. I used drugs. I even attempted suicide. Now I ask myself how I dared to undervalue my life. I want to sanctify my life in his memory and in memory of the other friends I lost.

I realized that I need help. I will be entering a rehab tomorrow. I’ll be done with the program on Simchat Torah— what are the chances of that?

Hashem kept me alive. I still have a tikkun. Te ones who died fnished their tikkun, their life mission. I try to dedicate myself to their memory. I feel Elia’s spirit accompanying me. Now I am choosing life.

By anonymous, as told to Carol Green Ungar.

Dedicated to the memory of Elia Toledano.

There’s Always Something New in Town.

Supporting Our Soldiers—One Duffel at a Time

Since graduating college, I’ve been looking for my “1942 moment.” My mantra has always been: I want to be able to look my grandchildren in the eye when they ask me what I was doing “during 1942.” So quite frankly, when Hamas attacked on Simchat Torah, I said, “ Tis is it. Tis is my 1942 moment.”

I was blessed to have built a successful business, which I sold some years back, and at the age of ffy I went into klal work full time. Tat’s always been my passion. In the afermath of October 7, I created a WhatsApp chat around helping Israel. Within a few weeks, it maxed out, with over 1,024 participants. We started collecting items for soldiers, displaced families, and everyone and anyone in need in Israel; I arranged drop-of centers in diferent locations. We collected deodorant, soap, baby formula and clothing, as well as army supplies such as tourniquets, winter gear, gloves, tents and sleeping bags.

SWe had people on the ground in Israel keeping us informed as to what was needed. At the outset, we flled 400 to 500 dufel bags, about eighty pallets. Except for the army supplies, everything else was donated. Soon, shuls started arranging missions, and members started buying supplies on Amazon for soldiers to bring along on the missions. It made no sense.

We started negotiating with military suppliers so we could buy the supplies wholesale; we bought what would have cost $650,000 on Amazon for about $225,000.

Ultimately, we moved into a warehouse, which today serves as the biggest IDF gear store in the world and is now known as the Israel / IDF Chesed Center in the Five Towns. People come in, take a dufel bag and an order form, and “shop” for supplies. Tey pay for it and pack it, and we send it.

In addition, the Israel Chesed Center serves as a community center

Re“Jew”venated

ince October 7, I started my journey of Torah observance and joined an Orthodox community. My life has changed in every way, all for the better. I was honored to receive a set of beautiful tefllin from the Tefllin Project, which I put on each morning. I wear tzitzit and a yarmulke and daven with a minyan every Shabbat. Te rapid steps I’ve taken toward Torah observance have been made possible by the exceedingly welcoming Milwaukee community, Kehillah of Congregation Beth Jehudah under Rabbi Michel Twerski.

Connecting to my Judaism has felt like the most important and meaningful undertaking of my life so far. I knew I had to present as unmistakably Jewish to make it clear to the world that October 7 didn’t make me scared to be a Jew. To the contrary, it has made me prouder to be a Jew than ever before.

of sorts, with ongoing events to support Israel, including presentations by rabbis and soldiers, and musical events; we even host bar and bat mitzvah or other parties where participants can help pack dufel bags, make tzitzit for soldiers, or get involved in other ways. Schools and kiruv organizations from around the world have come here. As of this writing in June, we’ve sent over 8,000 dufel bags in six forty-foot containers to Israel.

When rabbis come to visit this center, they call it a “mikdash me’at,” a holy place. By Jef Eisenberg, as told to Nechama Carmel. Mr. Eisenberg is a community activist who lives in the Five Towns in New York. Nechama Carmel is editor-inchief of Jewish Action

By Xander Posner. Mr. Posner recently moved from Madison, Wisconsin, to Milwaukee.

TEchoes of the Holocaust

he events of October 7 and the ensuing war have deeply afected my approach to prayer.

Te recitation of Avinu Malkeinu in particular has deepened my awareness of our utter dependence on the Almighty. Phrase afer phrase in Avinu Malkeinu captures the horror and dread that the sheer hatred and inhumanity of the Hamas terrorists have powerfully brought home. To illustrate briefy:

l Nullify all harsh decrees—the physical threat.

l Shut the mouths of our accusers—the defamation of the good name of the Jewish people, a separate evil from the physical sufering.

l Have mercy on us, on our children, on our infants—yes, the enemy comes for all of us, regardless of age, as the hostage horror only too blatantly shows.

l Act for the sake of those murdered for Your Holy Name—What? Wasn’t that

Aconsigned to the past? Weren’t those days long behind the Jewish people? With this last phrase in Avinu Malkeinu I reach the second deep efect of October 7 on my faith: my relationship to Jewish history. I am a student of the Holocaust. I own hundreds of books on the Holocaust, and at virtually any given point I am reading one of them. A terrible, incomprehensible history, to be sure—but a history. No more. Now, so much of what I have learned about the Holocaust fows into my consciousness as the news unfolds. Is the non-evidence-based Jew hatred on many college campuses like the corruption of the universities during the 1930s in Germany? Are the groundless accusations from the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice representative of a vast indiference to Jewish fate, akin to the years between 1939 and 1945? I don’t know, but the

My Answer to October 7

fer Hamas attacked Israel, I wanted to do something. Something more than obsessively reading my phone, going to rallies and donating money. And there, among the mass of phone messages, was one from a school in a remote part of Sydney. Tey needed a Torah teacher.

I answered the message. I gave a model lesson in the heat of December (which is summer in Australia). I spent January in libraries in Jerusalem preparing to teach Torah. Te school gave me no information, no curriculum. A blank slate. While Israel was at war, I was going to teach Torah at the end of the Diaspora.

I closed my books in Jerusalem and the next day I walked down the ramp at Ben Gurion Airport, the faces of the hostages at my lef and at my right. I wrote a note to the littlest hostage Kfr, fastened it to his picture, and few south into the summer of Sydney.

Upon landing, I walked into a ffhgrade classroom. On the board I wrote the aleph bet, and the children copied. I taught them about the holiday that was coming up, the holiday of Purim, in which a megalomaniacal Haman convinces a king to issue a decree of genocide against the Jews of Persia, which the wise Jewish Queen Esther thwarts.

I taught them about the next holiday, Pesach, in which a megalomaniacal Pharaoh of Egypt tries to eliminate the Children of Israel by enslaving them and throwing their boys into the river. Which G-d thwarts, delivering them to freedom with an outstretched arm.

Sydney has been doused by antisemitism since October 7, as have many cities of the Diaspora. It’s disorienting and frightening, but I can’t do anything about it. Twarting antisemitism is not my task, nor is it the task of the Jews. Our task is to

slicing pain of the questions takes me back to a period in which the practice of Judaism could not assume the confdence and optimism that my own practice has always enjoyed.

All this has deepened my faith by connecting me to what unfortunately has been the dominant thread throughout most of Jewish history: “In the midst of My people I dwell.”

But then, in counterpoint, my profound alienation has also sharpened my appreciation for the unexpected, beautiful islands of solidarity expressed by non-Jews reaching out to me. For that, and for so much else, we must refocus and reenergize our prayers.

By Rabbi Dr. Hillel Goldberg.

follow Jeremiah’s letter to the exiles (Chap. 29): plant trees, build houses, marry of our children and have grandchildren.

And teach our children about the miracle of Purim and the Exodus from Egypt and the victory of Chanukah against the Greeks, and the Roman destruction of Jerusalem, and the Crusades and the Spanish expulsion and Inquisition, and— Te atrocities of Hamas.

Who, except museum curators and Jewish children, speaks about ancient Egyptians? Who, except for the Jews, will remember Hamas?

Teaching children Torah. Tat is my task and the task of the Jews.

And that is my answer to October 7.

By Viva Hammer.

A contributing editor of Jewish Action, Rabbi Goldberg is editor and publisher of Intermountain Jewish News.

Ms. Hammer is a writer living in Sydney, Australia.

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At a time when Israeli citizens continue to live the nightmare of October 7, one segment of Israel’s population is experiencing the trauma most profoundly: youth at risk.

By Aviva Engel

Growing up in poor, tough neighborhoods in peripheral northern and southern regions like Akko, Yafo, Kiryat Gat, Sderot, Nahariya and Kiryat Shmona, among others, these teens, ofen from broken homes, are economically and socially disenfranchised. Te horrors of October 7 have only compounded their trauma; many were displaced from their homes and live with perpetual anxiety about the future, devoid of any

More than 6,500 teens and young adults have been able to rely on OU Israel’s twenty-two Teen Centers for support since October 7. Lef: A teen hard at work at our Teen Center’s woodworking workshop in Sderot.

Center: Nir, an IDF soldier serves as OU Israel’s Sderot Branch Director, where he supports teens like Liav (pictured) whose father was the frst policeman killed in Sderot on October 7. Right: An evacuated teen from Kiryat Shemona, Shira currently lives with her family and her dog in a hotel in Jerusalem. Her Teen Center advisor continues to be there for her during these challenging times.

real educational infrastructure and drawn to life on the streets.

Fortunately, more than 6,500 teens and young adults have been able to rely on the support of OU Israel’s twentytwo Teen Centers since the start of the confict. Operating for almost twenty-fve years throughout Israel, the centers, including the Jack E. Gindi Oraita Program, Makom Balev, and the Pearl & Harold Jacobs Zula Outreach Center, serve as a non-judgmental

home-away-from-home, where youth connect with their peers and dedicated advisors, participate in stimulating, growth-oriented activities, nurture their emotional health, and acquire critical life skills to help them become the community leaders of tomorrow.

OU Israel invests $3.84 million annually in its Teen Centers and has relied heavily on additional funding from Israel’s federal and municipal government. Sadly, many of those funds have been redirected to the county’s war eforts, leaving OU Israel with a considerable fnancial shortfall.

“We see frsthand how much of an impact this funding makes for our youth at risk, who literally turn their lives around with the help of our

dedicated team members,” says OU Israel Executive Director Rabbi Avi Berman. “Now, more than ever, our teens and young adults need even more support. We’re hoping that our friends and supporters around the world, and especially in North America, will be able to help us to compensate for our losses, so that we can continue to assist our youth at an even higher level than we did before the confict due to the even more pressing trauma.”

To contribute to OU Israel’s Teen Centers Promise Us Tomorrow campaign, please visit ouisrael.org/ promise.

Aviva Engel is a writer for the OU Marketing and Communications Department.

the mud while repairing an eruv that Chaveirim—a volunteer organization that provides emergency roadside assistance—had to pull his bucket truck out with an excavator, a utility vehicle usually reserved for heavy lifing on a construction site. On another occasion, he was out on a boat checking an eruv when he happened upon a dead body in the water.

how eruvin are designed, built and maintained. Indeed, a number of factors, including technology and professionalization, have entirely transformed the eruv industry over the past decade.

In the past, eruv construction relied on handy local Jewish volunteers or non-Jewish builders, working with rabbinic oversight. Baltimore resident

Tcompleted in 1980 “because he was one of the only community members who knew how to operate it.” Today’s eruv builders, however, work full time designing, constructing, inspecting and maintaining eruvin while keeping costs low to help communities stick to tight budgets. (It’s way more costly to call an electrician with a bucket truck.) Currently, there are about

Tposekim to consult with as needed,” explains Rabbi Baruch Gore, an eruv builder, supervisor and educator from Cherry Hill, New Jersey. In fact, their construction background, profciency in hilchot eruvin and innovative approach to this age-old mitzvah have made them an indispensable resource to hundreds of communities throughout North America.

an image of it on his phone. Likewise, he can virtually tour an existing or potential eruv border on Google Street View and use FaceTime to walk a local eruv checker through an easy fx. But technology in general is responsible for dramatically changing the eruv industry. “It’s really remarkable. I can design almost an

minute. Tey contend with everything from wild animals to blizzards to oncoming trafc. Te old saying about postal workers applies: Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night holds them back from completing their rounds. All so we can carry on Shabbos within the bounds of halachah.

The Need to Network

Rabbi Gore recalls the days when he had to print out photos and mail them to a posek. “Te immediacy of communication made possible by technology has vastly improved what we [professional eruv builders] are doing as an industry, increasing our confdence in the halachic standards of what we are building together,” he says. Interestingly, technology has also addressed the signifcant loneliness eruv builders face while engaged in this work. In general, they operate more or less independently, with little community recognition or opportunity to interact with one another.

Premier eruv builder Rabbi Micah Shotkin of Passaic, New Jersey, describes how isolating it can be “in our silos, fxing an eruv just before sunset on an erev Shabbos.” Tree years ago, he helped launch a WhatsApp chat as a forum for nurturing camaraderie among eruv architects and builders so they’d feel less alone. Tey suddenly had a place to compare best practices and to ask and answer questions like, Which method of attaching cement is best for this scenario? Tey share successes and mishaps, like the time Rabbi Shotkin spent an afernoon working on a complicated lechi (a pole used to demarcate a doorpost) installation only to realize he’d put it on the wrong telephone pole. When one member got an electric shock while installing a lechi, the chat participants realized it was time to organize safety training.

Rabbi Shotkin also saw the space as a platform for transmitting knowledge he’d learned the hard way, hoping to spare other eruv professionals some of his frustration. “ Tere’s no eruv school. More than once, I’ve bought four tools to do a job before I fgured out which was the one I needed.”

In a major step toward streamlining the eruv industry, the OU developed free user-friendly sofware designed exclusively for eruv professionals. Te app gathers the details of an eruv’s particulars in one place, including a full point-by-point mapping of the eruv boundaries.

one another. “We’ve seen other results too, like heightened awareness in the frum community about what really goes into building and maintaining an eruv.” NEI provides guidance, individualized support, education and user-friendly resources. Ultimately, the mission of the NEI is to help communities have the best eruvin possible.

To bring networking within the industry to a whole new level, Rabbi Ezra Sarna, OU Director of Halacha Initiatives, joined forces with Rabbi Gore to organize a conference for eruv builders and supervisors. (Supervisors are mostly volunteers who oversee their local community eruvin.) Held at OU Manhattan headquarters in the fall of 2023, the conference ofered a full schedule of repair demos as well as presentations on halachic, legal and safety issues. It drew over seventy eruv personnel, representing the spectrum of Orthodoxy, from forty cities across the US and Canada.

“ Tis was the frst opportunity of its kind to create a sense of community among eruv professionals,” says Rabbi Sarna, who hopes to make it an annual event.

QuickBooks for Eruv

About two years ago, a large Jewish community approached the OU with a major concern. It seemed that all the information about its eruv was stored in the head of just one individual.

“I saw how multi-layered the issues around this mitzvah are, and experienced how solitary this work can be,” says Rabbi Gore, who frst got involved as a volunteer eruv checker when California’s Valley Village eruv was restructuring. He subsequently trained new eruv checkers, which is when he began incubating the idea of a national network to support communities and eruv personnel. About ten years ago, he and Rabbi Paretzky launched the National Eruv Initiative (NEI).

Rabbi Gore says the initiative creates opportunities for eruv personnel to connect, share stories and learn from

“It’s a scary reality,” recalls Rabbi Sarna. “If chas v’shalom something happens to him, or he moves away or simply forgets, the entire eruv is ostensibly lost, leaving the community with no backup or support to fgure it out.”

Rabbi Sarna soon discovered that such a scenario is common in many cities. Tere might be an eruv map—somewhere. Contracts with homeowners and agreements with utility companies are assumed to be in the rabbi’s desk. But that’s not always the case. From the perspective of shemirat Shabbat, this leaves communities vulnerable.

In a major step toward streamlining the eruv industry, the OU developed free user-friendly sofware designed

Merri Ukraincik has written for Tablet, the Lehrhaus, the Forward and other publications, including Jewish Action. She is the author of a history of the Joint Distribution Committee.

THE TIME IS ALIYAH:

It’s really remarkable.

exclusively for eruv professionals, which was unveiled during the eruv conference. “We want to standardize how communities document their eruvin,” explains Rabbi Sarna.

Available via the website or as an app, the sofware gathers the details of an eruv’s particulars in one place, including a full point-by-point mapping of an eruv’s boundaries. It may not appeal to everyone in the industry; in fact, not all eruv personnel have smartphones. But Rabbi Sarna calls the new sofware “QuickBooks for Eruv” because it allows for secure data storage, customization and collaboration.

“It will play a critical role in institutional continuity,” Rabbi Gore stresses. A new rav or a substitute checker can step in seamlessly by accessing the information in the app.

Likewise, an eruv team can communicate through the app while in the process of making repairs.

“When we perform a top-to-bottom check of an eruv, I ofen have to guess: Did they use the slope or the fence?

Te frst utility pole or the second?

Te sofware’s specifcity will help us sidestep these kinds of challenges,”

I can design almost an entire The

notes Rabbi Chaim Yadlovker, an eruv builder from Edison, New Jersey.

To date, twenty cities have signed on to use the sofware. Creating such an app “has been on my to-do list for ages,” says Moshe Katz, a sofware developer and eruv supervisor in Olney, Maryland. “I’m grateful the OU beat me to it.”

The Eruv Experts

Currently, some 350 eruvin exist in the US and Canada, a number that continues to grow as new Jewish communities emerge and existing ones expand. Yet there is a misconception, says Rabbi Sarna, that “you build an eruv once and that’s it, when in fact ongoing investment is required, especially as the components age.”

Rabbi Sarna adds that many older eruvin may also be due for an update.

Rabbi Shlomo Katz, a lawyer who serves as president of the Silver Spring Eruv Association in Maryland, says that in his community a handful of the original poles—from when the eruv frst went up forty-fve years ago—are still in use. “We upgrade as opportunities arise,” he says. Nowadays, eruv builders

are opting to use stronger materials that are easier to check and less likely to need repairs over the long term.

Between new construction and upgrading and servicing existing eruvin, professional eruv builders are kept busy. Tey ofen have waiting times of up to a year, sometimes even longer. “It’s a positive sign [that there is so much demand],” Rabbi Sarna asserts. “We’re beginning to bring eruv to the fore, to give it the same attention as we do kashrus.”

A Labor of Love

Many of today’s professional eruv builders began their careers as volunteers. Rabbi Shotkin operated out of the back of his van until he bought a bucket truck. “When I found one on eBay, I put a bid of $40,000 on it, knowing I’d lose. Tey are the most essential tool for eruv building, but usually go for $100,000. I was shocked when I got it. Calls fooded in as soon as I opened for business.”

Rabbi Paretzky also began as a volunteer. He used to daven early before setting out on Sundays to build and repair eruvin in the Chicago area.

An Eruv Primer

Short for eruv chatzerot, literally a blending of courtyards, an eruv permits what would otherwise be the melachah of hotza’ah me’reshut l’reshut, the prohibition of carrying between public and private domains or more than four amot within a public domain on Shabbat. Te eruv is a “wall,” as defned by Jewish law, that integrates several domains into a large private one in which carrying becomes permissible.

Te eruv incorporates both preexisting manmade and natural infrastructures—such as fences and steep slope embankments—and “doorways” specially constructed of two posts with a crossbeam. Te lintel must rest on top of the posts, not the side. So in the case of “doors” using utility poles and wires, which ofen run along the pole’s side, additional doorposts known as lechis are afxed,

He’d bring photos to Rabbi Shlomo Francis at the Chicago Community Kollel when he had a she’eilah. Rabbi Francis also sent him to fx eruv issues he himself had identifed. Eventually, Rabbi Paretzky made eruv his career. Ultimately, the story of the eruv professional is one of mesirut nefesh. Eruv builders are on the road ofen, and they tend to be busy with repairs on Friday until close to candle lighting time. Each week, Rabbi Paretzky leaves frst thing Monday morning and returns on Tursday night, sweeping across the country in between. He spends the next day fxing eruvin closer to home. At 2 pm on the summer Friday he was interviewed for this story, he still had fve more eruvin to attend to before sundown.

“Unfortunately, I’ve missed Minchah on erev Shabbos more than once,” he shares.

Tere are plenty of other challenges, too.

Local authorities, corporations and homeowners can reject plans afer a long period of negotiation. Lawyers

positioned beneath the wires. An eruv’s construction can be as complex as the mitzvah itself. Depending on its size, it might have hundreds or thousands of points of connection and require numerous permissions from municipalities, corporations and private homeowners.

step in, the eruv builder reworks the plans, and the all-consuming process begins again. A builder might arrive to break ground on a new eruv only to discover a fence has gone up where there had been none, or a pole has been downed, both requiring him to switch gears.

Despite these hurdles, eruv work is a labor of love, a meaningful investment of time and energy for Am Yisrael, and an opportunity to express ahavat Yisrael.

Rabbi Chaim Jachter, rav of Congregation Shaarei Orah in Teaneck, New Jersey, is also the eruv posek for seventy North American communities, from British Columbia to Kansas to his home state. Once a year since 1989 (and twice annually in Teaneck), he travels to inspect each eruv with a fne-tooth comb. Over time, he has established relationships with the local leadership and rabbanim. “We are partners in a process that requires ongoing dedication, because lef uncared for, an eruv can become a halachic disaster.”

Rabbi Jachter notes that posekim

Conceptually, an eruv is a barrier that consists of walls and doorways, giving the enclosed area the status of a “private domain.” Halachically, a doorway consists of two doorposts (“lechayayim,” the plural of “lechi”) , and a lintel that must be laid horizontally above both doorposts. Most modern-day North American eruvin use thin pipes afxed to telephone poles as the lechayayim and the telephone wires above them as the lintel Te day-to-day work of eruv building is mostly installing new lechayayim and lintels when the need arises. In this picture, the metal pole serves as a lechi and the wire on top serves as the lintel.

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There is a misconception that “you build an eruv once and that’s it, when in fact ongoing investment is required, especially as the components age.”

try to limit the footprint of required changes and repairs while ensuring halachic standards are adhered to. “An eruv isn’t cheap, but it’s still at the expense of holy communal money.”

Eruv Then and Now

Nowadays, an eruv is a prerequisite for attracting young families to a community; it’s a convenience we all take for granted, hardly thinking about it unless it’s down. So it’s hard to imagine that there was a time when few North American Jewish communities had one. As Miryam Block recalls of her eruvless childhood in the Bronx and Rockaway during the 1950s and 60s, “I don’t know how we managed before my family moved, in 1968, to Far Rockaway, where the eruv was a mechayeh.”

Gradually, eruvin went up across the country.

Rabbi Shotkin stresses that “the socialization the eruv has since made possible is critical to our communal well-being. Families with small

children, as well as anyone who uses a wheelchair, would be stuck at home without it. It’s both a shalom bayis issue and a mental health issue.”

In the 1960s, when Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, zt”l, sanctioned the building of the Kew Gardens Hills eruv in Queens, New York, one of the frst modern eruvin in the US, he stipulated that it be designed in a way that would limit the need for ongoing repairs. As such, telephone poles maintained by AT&T were integrated into the eruv “wall” as vertical “door” posts. While eruvin also use other preexisting infrastructures, such as a riverfront or the side of a building, utility poles remain the go-to element in North American eruv design. Except when there are none. Like in Las Vegas’s Henderson suburb, where the wires are buried underground, an aesthetic trend in new housing developments. Because it is harder to design an eruv without utility poles, such eruvin may end up both larger and more costly compared to those in a city with utility poles.

Meanwhile, the technology boom has transformed the bare utility poles of the 1960s into a chaotic blend of phone, cable, internet and fberoptic wires, rendering the eruv more vulnerable. Even a minor repair by any one of the respective companies can inadvertently compromise an eruv Rabbi Paretzky recalls an incident when phone company linemen cut down ffy of the lechis he had just installed on a new eruv. Tey likely had no idea why they were there.

In other countries, where the wires are ofen buried, communities tend to use their own poles and wires instead, with bureaucratic hurdles ofen making for a lengthier construction process. As an example, the Zurich community in Switzerland has been trying to put up an eruv for over a decade.

Yet, once established, notes Rabbi Sarna, “they are easier to maintain because the eruv doesn’t share materials with anyone who might destroy them, unaware of their signifcance.”

Continued on page 62

According to halachah, an eruv should be established whenever it is possible to do so.

Source: eruvinitiative.org/multimedia-archive/guidelines-for-creating-and-maintaining-a-kosher-eruv/

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OU Supports Eruv Professionals

Tis past October, the OU, along with the National Eruv Initiative, hosted an eruv conference that drew some seventy eruv professionals from thirty-fve cities in ten states from the East Coast and beyond, including California, Oregon, Illinois, Ohio and Michigan as well as Canada.

Aiming to support eruv professionals throughout North America, Rabbi Ezra Sarna, OU Director of Halacha Initiatives, and Rabbi Baruch Gore of the National Eruv Initiative organized the event along with a committee that included the Who’s Who? of the eruv world, including premier eruv builder Rabbi Micah Shotkin and Rabbi Chaim Meir Steinmetz, a supervisor of numerous eruvin in the tri-state area.

“ Te achdus of the diverse group of eruv professionals infused every minute with a unique and powerful energy,” says Rabbi Gore. “It was inspiring to see everyone’s shared focus on enhancing shemiras Shabbos both in their hometowns and in other communities.”

Te two-day conference aimed to create a sense of community among eruv professionals while they explored various eruv-related topics, including how to launch a national conversation about raising the standard of eruv to a level compared with that of other mitzvot like kashrut

Presenters included OU Kosher COO Rabbi Moshe Elefant; Yeshiva University rosh yeshivah and OU Kosher posek Rabbi Hershel Schachter;

posek Rabbi Shlomo Francis, founder of the Eruv Network; and attorneys David Yolkut and Yehudah Buchweitz, who have represented Jewish communities in high-profle eruv court cases. Presentations included “Setting city eruvin up for success” and “Creating a positive eruv culture.” Additionally, there were sessions on eruv materials and tools and electrical wire safety.

“One of the most valuable takeaways from the conference was the chance to discover how other builders resolved various scenarios in ways I might never have thought of, and to speak with posekim I might never have had contact with,” says eruv builder and supervisor Rabbi Chaim Yadlovker.

Seventy eruv professionals from across North America gathered at the OU this past October for an eruv conference. Te event, aimed at supporting eruv professionals, was attended by eruv builders and supervisors from thirty-fve cities in ten states. Te next eruv conference is scheduled for November 2024. For more information, email sarnae@ou.org.

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Keeping an Eruv Up and Running

When the rabbis in the Gemara instituted the eruv, they recognized that being able to carry things outside our homes contributed signifcantly to oneg Shabbat (our enjoyment of Shabbos), which is an essential part of the day. Tis still holds true.

But building an eruv now is an entirely diferent undertaking than it was then. “In those days, an eruv encircled a courtyard, not a city,” explains Rabbi Paretzky. “No one had to negotiate with power companies or deal with heavy trafc. Our process is far more complicated.”

“But it still comes down to ensuring that we keep Shabbos k’halachah,” he adds. “An eruv that is 99 percent kosher is 100 percent pasul.” Te good news is that both technology and the professionalization of the eruv industry are making it easier to close the 1 percent gap.

Rabbi Yadlovker, who oversees the eruv in Great Neck, New York, as well as eruvin in the rapidly expanding Chassidic communities in Union County, New Jersey, calls his team of eruv checkers “the frst line of defense” in ensuring that no one relies on a nonkosher eruv on any given Shabbat.

Generally, a checker will report

any issues to the eruv supervisor, who brings it to the attention of the overseeing rav. As needed, a posek might be consulted or a builder brought in to make any repairs.

Like eruv builders, checkers contend with plenty of challenges and risks, from the elements to angry dogs, from poison ivy to the occasional curmudgeonly apartment dweller who comes out of the building to shout, “What are you doing outside my window every Tursday night?” And more.

David Weintraub recently fell of his scooter, breaking eight ribs while inspecting the eruv in New Brunswick, New Jersey. Years ago, Rabbi Ronald Schwartzberg was arrested for trespassing afer checking the eruv in Highland Park, New Jersey, unaware that he was on private property. (Afer he sent a fruit-and-wine basket to the owner, the charges were dropped.)

Aiming to streamline the weekly checking process, several eruv builders have toyed with using drones to inspect eruvin in obscured areas. In Israel, tension sensors are being developed that can notify the eruv manager immediately if there is an issue with a wire.

But eruv personnel agree that for the most part, nothing can replace the human touch. Terein lies the problem. “We just need to do more

Eruv Resources & Further Reading

• Te Laws of an Eruv; A comprehensive review of the laws of Eruvin and their practical applications, by Rabbi Shlomo Francis (New Jersey: Israel Bookshop Publications, 2013)

• Walking the Line: Hilchot Eruvin from the Sources to the Streets, by Rabbi Chaim Jachter (2023)

• Te Contemporary Eruv: Eruvin in Modern Metropolitan Areas, by Rabbi Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer (New York: Feldheim, 2020)

• https://eruvinitiative.org/

• https://eruvnetwork.org/

• https://outorah.org/series/4080 (All Daf Series: “Bringing Eruvin to Life”)

checking. A well-trained pair of eyes is going to be the most efective antidote to problems with these complex structures,” says Rabbi Paretzky. He believes a major educational initiative that shines light on what goes into keeping an eruv kosher—from the cost to the kedushah to the physical labor— will inspire others to get involved.

“Due to increased technology upgrades and other factors, there’s much more activity now on telephone poles than there were twenty years ago,” says Rabbi Gore. “As a result, the need for more attentive checking is vital. Communities should have checkers who are not only knowledgeable but also capable of checking hard-to-reach spots, such as near bridges or rivers.”

As a rebbi at Torah Academy of Bergen County, Rabbi Jachter regularly brings his students with him when he checks the local eruv. “It’s tedious work, but I make it fun. It’s also my job to help other rabbanim become excited about it.”

By design, eruvin are naturally camoufaged within their environment, making their components hard to notice unless someone knows where to look. Teir “walls” transform space to allow for communal inclusion and Shabbat enjoyment in ways that have made them a necessity of Orthodox Jewish life. And yet, so few of us give them much thought.

Tose involved in the eruv industry are hoping that will change soon. Several communities already host an annual “Shabbat Eruv” to focus on the mitzvah and to recognize the eforts of local eruv personnel. Rabbi Katz says the Silver Spring Eruv Association hosts an annual campaign, which helps to raise both funds and awareness of what goes into maintaining a community eruv.

In truth, our eruvin function only because there is a team of devoted professionals and volunteers who, with enormous mesirut nefesh and love for Klal Yisrael, keep them running week afer week.

Something to consider when we next get that text: Gut Shabbos! Te eruv is up.

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Rabbi Micah Shotkin is one of a handful of rabbinical experts in the United States who serve full time as professional eruv builders.

Micah Shotkin Eruv Maven: The Meet Rabbi

By Steve Lipman

For some rabbis who know a lot about constructing and repairing the eruv in their communities but want to know more, Passaic, a small city twelve miles west of New York City, has become the go-to place. Tat’s because Rabbi Micah Shotkin lives there.

Te rabbi, a native of Silver Spring, Maryland, who has lived in the city of 70,000 (with a Jewish population of about 11,000) for nearly two decades, is one of a handful of rabbinical experts in the United States who serve full time as professional eruv builders. “I’m the most active one,” he says.

tractate is one of the most difcult to master; the details of constructing an acceptable eruv are among halachah’s most complicated. Tough many rabbis have studied the relevant halachot, he noticed, when he began building his frst few eruvin, that “there weren’t [many] people who knew the construction aspect of eruvin.” Much study was required.

Part of the challenge: no two eruv sites are identical. Each ofers unique physical settings—featuring trees, bodies of water, gaps between buildings, et cetera, which an eruv builder must deal with.

Te demand for eruv professionals like Rabbi Shotkin has grown in recent decades. “Eruvin are everywhere,” the rabbi says.

insects, as well as snapping turtles and bears (which did not threaten him), deer, snakes (non-venomous), mosquitoes and swarms of bees (his construction garb fortunately protected him against stings).

His duties have included producing a series of educational videos for the OU, demonstrating the intricacies of a community eruv for the OU’s All Daf team when the Daf Yomi cycle reached tractate Eruvin.

All this from someone raised in a Modern Orthodox family who had no intention of becoming an eruv maven.

“I wanted to be an engineer.” Ten, he became “enamored with [Torah] learning.” He spent seventeen years in yeshivah. Like other Orthodox rabbis, he learned little in yeshivah (in his case, the Rabbinical Seminary of America—Chofetz Chaim in Forest Hills, Queens) about building an eruv, but had to learn quickly when he decided to build one at his family’s home while doing outreach work in Ottawa, Canada.

he has had a hand—literally—in some 150 eruvin.

Admittedly, eruv builder is a rare career choice for a talmid chacham, the rabbi says. People who meet his wife or children typically ask: “What does your husband [or father] do?”

“He’s an eruv builder.”

“He can make a living at that?” the people ask.

“Yes,” says Rabbi Shotkin. It’s easier, he says, than serving as a teacher in a day school, which he did before turning to full-time eruv work. “Much easier.”

“And it pays better,” he adds.

On one job in Connecticut a few years ago, an employee of the electric company who worked alongside the rabbi at some electrical poles, remarked, afer Rabbi Shotkin declared his work done, “Tat’s it?” No testing required? How do you know the eruv works?

Someone working for a utility or phone company needs to run some tests to ensure that the repairs work, Rabbi Shotkin explains. No such test is required for an eruv. “It works,” Rabbi

Steve Lipman is a frequent contributor to Jewish Action

The demand for eruv professionals

like

Rabbi Shotkin has grown in recent decades. “Eruvin are everywhere,” the rabbi says.

Shotkin declares, “if it’s kosher.”

Nine years ago, Rabbi Shotkin was called to Milwaukee to supervise—and actually carry out—the construction of an eruv on the city’s east side; plans for the eruv had been initiated three decades earlier but stalled until all the government permissions could be obtained. Under the aegis of an Eruv Committee formed by the Wisconsin Institute for Torah Study day school and yeshivah (WITS), the Lake Park Synagogue, and the Chabad of the East Side, the eruv encompasses seven square miles.

Te committee turned to Rabbi Shotkin, says Rabbi Dovid Brafman, the development director of WITS, because “we needed his expertise.” Over a period of a few years, Rabbi Shotkin drove his cherry picker to Milwaukee several times for a week. Without Rabbi Shotkin, says Rabbi Brafman, that Milwaukee eruv “never would have happened.”

One snowy Friday afernoon, one of the wires of the Milwaukee eruv snapped. Te eruv became pasul a few hours before Shabbat. Members of the Eruv Committee, lacking the

specialized knowledge or a cherry picker to efect repairs, were distressed. Rabbi Brafman called Rabbi Shotkin. Rabbi Shotkin thought for a few minutes, then asked Rabbi Brafman, “Do you have a bungee cord?”

“Of course,” Rabbi Brafman answered; he had kept some of the heavy-duty elastic cords in his car afer using them to tie some items atop the vehicle a few years earlier.

Following Rabbi Shotkin’s directions, Rabbi Brafman was able to fasten the bungee cord in place of the damaged wire; the east side of Milwaukee had a kosher eruv that Shabbat.

On the job, outftted in a hardhat, a “highway yellow shirt” and steel-toed boots, Rabbi Shotkin is not readily identifable as an Orthodox Jew, and most people he encounters assume he is a utility worker anxious to do his day’s job. Rabbi Shotkin is usually in no hurry to correct the assumption and engage in a theological conversation. “I always present myself as a utility worker.”

Many people—non-Jews and non-Orthodox Jews—who learn that Rabbi Shotkin is working on an

eruv, are intrigued by the details of the Shabbat enclosure. To those who are respectfully curious about the purpose of an eruv, he ofers a simple explanation.

Since an eruv is ofen a sign of an expanding Orthodox community, Rabbi Shotkin has heard the occasional antisemitic remark from people who are not anxious to have frum families move in.

But he tells about the African American gentleman who was watching him do some repairs in Passaic a few years ago.

“Are you from the phone company?” the man asked.

“I said yes.”

“You’d better take care,” the man said. “ Tat belongs to the Jewish community. Tey need it.” Te onlooker kept telling the rabbi about the importance of the eruv wires. “He was very concerned about it.”

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A New NORMAL?

Pro-Palestinian agitators have found a new venue for their hate-flled protests—our shuls.

By Sandy Eller

I’ll admit it.

One of the frst things that went through my brain as I tried to process the atrocities of October 7 was a sense of relief that my daughter had come back from Jerusalem with her husband and baby for Sukkot, because, somehow, New York just felt safer to me. But the notion that she, or any of us, could have a sense of security in the United States disappeared almost as quickly as my sukkah did, and just a few short weeks later, I was happy

to see her go back home to Jerusalem which, once again, felt like the better place to be.

Tings have gotten ugly in North America since October. Much of the sympathy for the devastating brutality that Israel endured vanished once the IDF began retaliating against Hamas. While the Jewish State certainly has strong supporters in this country, there is a very vocal segment of the population that quickly recast Israel as an aggressor, accusing it of genocide.

Hating on Israel was suddenly in vogue.

Anti-Israel demonstrations led to protesters shutting down roadways and bridges, and eventually social media evolved into a battlefeld of its own. Turning to the next chapter in their playbook, agitators set their sights on new venues for their vitriol-flled protests—our shuls—bathing our communities in hate and bringing the threat of violence directly to the heart of our neighborhoods.

A counter-protest held at the BAYT, a shul in Toronto, this past March. Photo: Getty Images

MONTREAL, CANADA

The problems began before the frst of fve scheduled real estate events for buyers seeking property in Israel even started.

Pro-Palestinian demonstrators turned out by the dozen on March 4 at the Federation Combined Jewish Appeal (CJA) building to protest an event featuring three IDF reservists, who were sharing their personal post–October 7 stories of strength, resilience and justice. In addition

to physically blocking people from entering the building where the IDF reservists were speaking, and trapping people inside the building for hours, demonstrators spewed rhetoric that included threats of death and violence against Jews. After butting heads with police, a number of demonstrators were pepper-sprayed and two were arrested.

They were back again the next night at the Spanish & Portuguese Synagogue as the Great Real Estate Event held its frst expo for those interested in buying Israeli property

From Rabbis to Generals

Troughout North America, rabbanim have found themselves navigating uncharted waters. Rabbi Adir Posy, director of the Department of Synagogue Initiatives at the Orthodox Union, noted that nerves have been fraught in Jewish communities nationwide, causing rabbanim to deliver Shabbat Hagadol-level derashot in their shul every week since the start of the war. From hardening their security protocols to inspiring stressedout ba’alei batim, rabbis have found themselves leading the charge on an unfamiliar battlefeld and facing the need to assemble a toolkit of skills to lead their congregations through challenging times.

Tat reality became abundantly clear over the winter when pro-Palestinian groups made plans to demonstrate outside several shuls in New York, New Jersey, Montreal and Toronto, which were hosting the Great Real Estate Event, an annual Israel real estate exhibition aimed at potential buyers. Taking to social media, agitators called upon their followers to join them in

Sandy

Eller is a freelance

writer who writes for numerous websites, newspapers, magazines and private clients.

protesting what they described as the “sale of stolen Palestinian property” to Jews, accusing Israel of genocide in Gaza and calling for its destruction. Although none of the real estate events were shul-sponsored, rabbanim and ofcials at each of the targeted facilities found themselves facing the possibility of a major threat, one that clearly surpassed their existing security protocols.

“If you don’t do anything, it’s dangerous,” explained Rabbi Ya’akov Trump of the Young Israel of LawrenceCedarhurst, whose shul was the site of a March 12 protest. “And if you do something, it’s also dangerous. Tere was no playbook for this, and we had to deal with a lot of issues that were unexpected as we tried to navigate the best way to handle things.”

Many discussions ensued about the planned demonstrations, and multiple approaches were suggested, their pros and cons weighed and debated. Ignoring the protesters had the advantage of not turning a small rally into something larger, which would give the demonstrators credibility and media attention, but it also handed agitators a golden opportunity to broadcast their messages without any opposition. Similarly, staging counterprotests ofered a means of denouncing the pro-Palestinian narrative, but that approach had the potential to

on both sides of the Green Line. Calls for Israel’s destruction came fast and furious outside the shul, as protesters loudly denounced the event for encouraging the potential purchase of “stolen land.” An injunction served during the protest ordered proPalestinian agitators not to come within ffty meters (approximately 164 feet) of certain Jewish community buildings for the next ten days. But the court order did nothing to allay the concerns of the local Jewish community, with police admitting that they lacked the authority to enforce the injunction.

backfre spectacularly if overly zealous members of the Jewish community steered things in unwanted directions. It was clear that these weren’t the kinds of situations that anyone had trained for in rabbinical schools and that no matter what the rabbanim decided to do, they were heading into a signifcant confrontation.

“Te most crucial question was knowing where people were at,” recalled Rabbi Trump. “Everybody was anxious, but there were diferent groups. Tere were those who were angry and wanted a reaction, such as a counter-protest. And there were those who were scared and didn’t want to let such kinds of people come into our neighborhoods. I felt that my role in leadership was to navigate between those two extremes.”

Learning from Experience

Tere is no one-size-fts-all approach to circumstances like these, and the protests that took place in front of North American shuls during the spring all varied. What worked well in one instance might have proved disastrous in another, while approaches that were less than successful at Shul A may have worked well at Shul B. All served as teachable moments, providing lessons that could be and have been

used, as the hate-flled campaigns have continued at other shuls.

“You need to be sensitive to the realities all around you,” noted Rabbi Elliot Schrier of Teaneck’s Congregation Bnai Yeshurun, which held a successful counter-protest on April 1. “Ignoring the protesters might work—and has worked—in some communities, but when we tried that in our community, it sent all the wrong signals and emboldened the other side, while our people felt bullied and harassed. And while we thought a counter-protest would draw more media attention, which we wanted to avoid, it turned out that the media was there anyway.”

A planned protest in front of Baltimore’s Congregation Shomrei Emunah had a very diferent outcome. With the FBI relaying its assurances that the demonstration would be a non-event, arranging a counter-protest

TORONTO, CANADA

Montreal wasn’t the only place to fnd itself in turmoil on March 4. Three hundred miles away in the Toronto suburb of Thornhill, several dozen agitators demonstrated outside the Israel real estate show held at the Aish Thornhill Community Shul. While a spokesperson for the event said it was not marketing any properties over the Green Line, that distinction was meaningless to the pro-Palestinian demonstrators waving signs and chanting anti-Israel slogans. Police arrested just one individual, a pro-Israel counter-protester who was carrying a nail gun.

Having seen what had happened both in Montreal and in his own backyard, Rabbi Daniel Korobkin had no intention of shutting down the Great Real Estate Event expo that was scheduled to be held on March 7 in his shul, Beth Avraham Yosef of Toronto, more commonly known as the BAYT.

“We heard that a protest was being planned right in front of our

would have likely drawn additional agitators. Shomrei Emunah was advised to ignore the upcoming rally, which turned out to be the right course of action, with a relatively small number of pro-Palestinian demonstrators turning out.

Still, it is hard to prepare for anything when you are dealing with groups that don’t play by the rules. A planned demonstration against a June 23 real estate event at Los Angeles’s Adas Torah had shul ofcials meeting with local law enforcement to create a game plan, but it was clear early on that the demonstration was deteriorating into a disaster. Tere were no measures in place to keep protesters apart from show participants, and police in riot gear initially did little to keep the peace as members of the two groups tangled. Te confrontations that ensued outside Adas Torah spilled out onto the streets of the heavily Jewish Pico-

synagogue, and we were not going to lie down and let people accuse us of all manners of atrocity that have no bearing on reality,” said Rabbi Korobkin.

Instead, the BAYT organized a counter-protest, with both Toronto and Vaughan police called in to keep the peace. Several hundred students in two schools—Bais Yaakov of Thornhill, located in the BAYT, and Eitz Chaim, situated less than a block away—were sent home early, and the street in front of the BAYT was closed down, as were several others. The few hundred proPalestinian protesters who showed up at the BAYT found themselves facing a large counter-demonstration, as over 1,000 people came to show their support for Israel over the course of the six-hour event. There were large signs, passionate chants and loud music playing on both sides of the barricades erected by police to separate the two groups, until a member of the proPalestinian contingent cut the cable feeding the amplifer at the BAYT, a situation that was remedied in less than

Robertson neighborhood, with reports emerging of local women and children being attacked by demonstrators and pro-Palestinian protesters spraying Jews with mace and bear spray. Te protest’s antisemitic overtone caught the attention of the White House, with President Joe Biden denouncing it on social media as appalling, dangerous and unconscionable.

“We are learning on the fy,” acknowledged Rabbi Schrier. “I was one of those who had initially been telling people: ignore, ignore, ignore. But realizing to our shock and horror that it wasn’t working fipped the switch for many of us. We will make mistakes along the way, but we will learn from them as we deal with realities on the ground.”

Rabbi Daniel Korobkin of Beth Avraham Yosef of Toronto (the BAYT) was determined to push back against the demonstrators who protested

thirty minutes. All told, police arrested three people—one for carrying a knife, one for threatening to spray someone with coyote repellant, and another for assault.

The fact that police allowed the protest to continue was a major disappointment to Thornhill’s Jewish community.

“Through many of our lawyers, we were able to demonstrate to police that what was taking place was illegal and creating an illegal nuisance to the community,” said Rabbi Korobkin. “Sufcient laws are already in place for our city to clearly indicate that this was something that should have been dispersed by the police.”

TEANECK, NEW JERSEY

While previous protests attracted mostly local attention, the situation was very diferent as the Great Real Estate Event moved on to its next venue—Teaneck’s Congregation Keter Torah. Having seen a caravan of nearly 200 cars of fag-waving Palestinian supporters from nearby Paterson driving down one of its main streets several weeks earlier, members of Teaneck’s large Jewish community were already feeling uneasy. And a march shortly thereafter by a few dozen Teaneck High School students who ditched class to protest what they termed “genocide” in Gaza didn’t help alleviate those fears at all.

When news of the March 10 real estate event surfaced, several groups called for protests outside the expo. The thousands of proPalestinian demonstrators who showed up on the day of the event found the roadway lined with metal police barricades

outside his shul, and he has been taking frm steps to prevent future hate rallies. He has been in close contact with Mayor Steven Del Duca, who, within days of the shul protest, proposed a new bylaw that would prohibit protests within 100 meters (approximately 109 yards) of houses of worship, schools, childcare facilities and hospitals. Violators could face fnes of as much as $100,000.

“Te mayor spoke in our shul about the new law, which would create safety bubbles around vulnerable places, especially those where there are minority ethnicities,” said Rabbi Korobkin. “Te bill passed the city council, but it faces opposition from the pro-Palestinian community and will be legally challenged. Still, our hope is that we never have to do this again.”

intended to keep them on the far side of Roemer Avenue, across from Keter Torah. Thousands of counter-demonstrators were on hand as well, and tempers ran high throughout the day. Multiple law enforcement agencies who were called in to ensure safety did little during what many billed as “a hate march,” the sheer size of the demonstration making headlines in the mainstream media. Visibly Jewish Teaneck residents who weren’t at Keter Torah were also taunted, with some reporting that they were called “Jewish dogs” or assaulted with hate speech that included “We’re still raping October 7 hostages,” “Go back to Germany” and “Go back to Auschwitz!”

Two protesters were arrested for spraying pedestrians with a red liquid, while other participants reported being shot at with paintballs by unknown assailants.

Better Safe than Sorry

Boosting security has become a high priority for shuls, especially those that have been previously targeted.

“We’ve been very vigilant about security,” said Rabbi Schrier. “We have a lot of new volunteers, and our security team has been devoting an extraordinary amount of energy to keeping our shul safe. It is an unpleasant reality, and I’m not going to try to sugarcoat it—this is the new normal for us, and a tiny taste of what our parents, grandparents and greatgrandparents experienced.”

Seeing history repeating itself has been a sobering experience for Orthodox Jews throughout North America. “ Tis is not the frst time this has happened in Jewish history,”

observed Rabbi Trump. “We’ve had a reprieve in America, but we as the Jewish people are resilient and proud. Tis is an important wakeup call to be entering this space in Jewish history again.”

In addition to bringing in extra manpower and taking additional measures to protect their facilities and their congregants, rabbis have been hard at work building strong relationships with law enforcement, a matter of critical importance for them and their shuls.

“We are making sure there is proactive and constant communication with law enforcement,” said Rabbi Posy. “Have the conversations ofen. And when there are events, reach out as early as possible to let them know who, what, when, where and how many people will be in attendance. You don’t want to just give law enforcement a notifcation; you want to be partnering with them.”

Similarly, the OU has been advocating for tighter security in Jewish communities at the national level, meeting with high-ranking ofcials at the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security. Rabbi Posy is confdent that the OU’s advocacy and its eforts to secure additional security funding have been bearing fruit in our communities. [See the sidebar later in this article about the OU’s advocacy eforts.]

Rabbi Schrier was adamant about the importance of Jewish communities demonstrating that they are ready to stand up to bullies instead of handing over their proverbial lunch money and cowering in fear. Te need for communal leaders to remain calm and resolute in the face of threats is also vital, so they can provide their members with much-needed chizuk during difcult times.

“One of the key principles ingrained in rabbanim is to make a spiritual connection with every occurrence,” observed Rabbi Posy. “Immediately afer what happened in Adas Torah, everyone was urged to come to shul and say extra Tehillim, so that the main takeaway was the need to get closer to Hakadosh Baruch Hu.”

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“We need to give people encouragement and reassure them that they are safe, especially here where there was so much psychological pressure,” added Rabbi Schrier. “Part of chizuk is fending of intimidation and harassment, but part of it also is leaning into it and using it to build Jewish pride. A lot of people are feeling more connected and more engaged, and the protest has made us prouder of who we are, prouder of our heritage, prouder of the State of Israel and prouder of the Jewish people.”

And what do rabbanim do when they themselves are in need of moral support?

“Supporting the rabbis is a term we have heard a lot since October 7,” admitted Rabbi Posy. “Te best tool in the arsenal of rabbanim is other rabbanim, and there has been a lot of networking and supporting going on among them. Te OU and personalities like OU Executive Vice President Rabbi Moshe Hauer are a great resource, and we let rabbanim know that we are there for them and their communities, providing chizuk on the communal level.”

In addition to turning to his family, his rebbeim and his peers when he is in need of a boost, Rabbi Schrier also focuses his attention across the Atlantic.

“Perhaps it’s cliché, but I really derive much strength from our brothers and sisters in Israel,” said Rabbi Schrier. “You look at what they’re facing and the way they’ve risen to the occasion, and it helps contextualize the smaller challenges we deal with and gives me strength to do my part.”

Lessons Learned

Seeing community shuls used as lightning rods for political discontent has been an unsettling phenomenon. Protesters are well aware of that reality and use it to gain the upper hand.

“Tey have two ways to win,” explained Rabbi Trump. “One is when we hide in our basements in fear and are scared to be Americans because of their crazy extremism. Te other is for them to cause a reaction that they can reframe, something they did in Toronto, where they feigned getting attacked or injured, and made it seem like they were conducting a peaceful protest that was disrupted by Jews. Tey are trained to

FIVE TOWNS, NEW YORK

Having seen what transpired at previous legs of the Great Real Estate Event, the Young Israel of Lawrence-Cedarhurst’s Rabbi Ya’akov Trump found himself in a difcult position. It seemed like the two obvious choices—laying low and waiting for things to blow over, or organizing a counter-protest—both had the ability to backfre, so Rabbi Trump came up with an alternate plan. He reached out to every rabbi in the area and invited them to come with their congregants to the Young Israel’s simchah room to daven Minchah together, completely ignoring the protest that was taking place outside.

Decked out in Israeli fags, American fags and pictures of the hostages, the Young Israel became a center of Jewish pride. Well over 700 people came to daven at the shul and to hear words of chizuk from area rabbanim, while the proPalestinian protesters were relocated by the local police department to a nearby parking lot once their group reached 100 people, because they didn’t have the permits they needed for a public gathering of that size.

“The solution in our community came with siyata d’Shmaya,” said Rabbi Trump. “The failure of these protesters is when we carry on proudly, doing what we are supposed to do.”

I’m not going to try to sugarcoat it—this is the new normal for us, and a tiny taste of what our parents, grandparents and great grandparents experienced.

BROOKLYN, NEW YORK

The ffth and fnal event for the Great Real Estate Event was canceled due to what organizers described as serious threats. The expo was to be held at Congregation Bnei Avrohom Yaakov, located on Avenue N between East 26th and East 27th streets in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn.

In a statement that appeared in the Jewish Press, the Flatbush Jewish Community Council said

that the plug had been pulled on the expo at the advice of the New York Police Department, and that local rabbanim were urging counter-protesters to stay home. The event was to have taken place in the heart of a residential neighborhood, with the many children coming home from school during its scheduled 4:00 to 9:00 PM time frame raising serious security concerns.

A planned demonstration against a June 23 real estate event at Los Angeles’s Adas Torah had shul ofcials meeting with local law enforcement to create a game plan, but it was clear early on that the demonstration was deteriorating. Photo: Getty Images

do this, and this isn’t the frst time Jews have been singled out for things they didn’t actually do.”

Te shul protests have been particularly unsettling for North America’s Jewish communities for multiple reasons. While tragic incidents that impact the community are nothing new, viewing these demonstrations against the backdrop of the ongoing campus protests makes it painfully clear that antisemitic sentiments are spilling out into the community at large, explained Rabbi Yaakov Glasser, managing director for community engagement at the OU.

“Freedom of worship is what attracted Jews to settle and build communities in the United States.

It is highly disconcerting that these freedoms, which provided such a rich context for Jewish communal growth, have themselves become the subject of assault from our fellow citizens,” said Rabbi Glasser.

Rabbis have been hard-pressed to deal with this latest challenge, and the many hours they have focused on demonstrations and security measures have detracted from the time they can devote to other serious matters. Similarly, making fnancial investments in communal safety initiatives means there are fewer funds available for other important needs.

Te lackluster response by law enforcement and government ofcials at several of the shul protests has also

contributed to the climate of concern overshadowing Orthodox Jewish communities.

“Tat has created a real paradigm shif in people’s sense of stability and security in the United States, and it is diferent than what we have seen before,” said Rabbi Glasser. “Even though some of the antisemitic protests that happened in the United States in the past were far more violent in terms of their outcome, I think these protests are shifing people’s mindset in a real way, and that is a real point of transition for the community.”

Further increasing the levels of anxiety on the communal level is the knowledge that the demonstrations are being organized and attended by people

who may be living right next door.

“Tese are our neighbors, the people we shop with, the people we go to the library with, the people we share our community with, and the people we share our local governments with,” noted Rabbi Glasser. “What does it say about our ability to live safely and freely when it is the hamon am that is behind this unsettling new movement?”

As a nation whose instinct is to avoid confrontation and altercation, Orthodox Jews fnd themselves facing a reality that is uniquely theirs, one that weighs heavily on their collective conscience.

“Right now, we are spending millions of dollars on security—is anyone else spending that kind of money on security?” observed Rabbi Glasser. “Is there any demographic anywhere that is wondering about Jews coming to hurt them? I would imagine the answer is no. I do think we are going to have to adjust to a new normal, and people are fnding that very difcult.”

TEANECK, NEW JERSEY

While demonstrators had been insisting they were striking back against what they termed Israel’s illegal occupation, their presence at Teaneck’s Congregation Bnai Yeshurun on April 1 cast doubt on their motivations. The April 1 Zaka event had nothing to do with Israeli real estate, but pro-Palestinian groups still chose to disrupt the gathering.

“Initially, the rabbis had been urging restraint, but this felt like a giant step too far,” said Bnai Yeshurun’s Rabbi Elliot Schreier. “We asked the community to come out, and there was a massive counter-demonstration—thousands of local residents came. It was very much what the community needed. It showed that we are not going to just tolerate this desecration of all that we hold dear.”

Counter-protestors on March 10 in Teaneck, New Jersey.

Photo: Kevin R. Wexler/USA Today Network

A lot of people are feeling more connected and more engaged, and the protest has made us prouder of who we are, prouder of our heritage, prouder of the State of Israel and prouder of the Jewish people.

OU Advocacy is the leading organization behind the Nonproft Security Grant Program (NSGP) that delivers millions in grant money to Jewish schools, community centers, and synagogues to update their security infrastructure. Tanks to its eforts, funding for 2024 is a record $675 million. Every dollar goes towards making sure Jewish organizations have the resources to protect lives.

OU WORKING TO KEEP OUR SHULS SAFE

Nearly twenty years ago, OU Advocacy (OUA) spearheaded the creation of the Nonproft Security Grant Program (NSGP), the federal program from which most American shuls and day schools receive fnancial aid for their security costs.

NSGP was initially funded at $25 million per year. Every year, OU Advocacy works to have Congress allocate funds to the NSGP. With the unfortunate rise in antisemitism over the years, NSGP funding reached $305 million for 2023.

In the wake of October 7 and the surge of antisemitism it sparked in the US, OU Advocacy worked to dramatically increase NSGP funding for 2024 through both the regular appropriations legislation and the emergency “supplemental” legislation to aid Israel. Between the two bills, Congress has provided $675 million in funding for NSGP grants this year. About half of that money has already been applied with awards announced in late August. As we went to press, the other half was expected to open for applications imminently.

Joining the Ranks of Jewish History

By JA Staf

in addition to all the pro-Israel signs we were putting up, we should have put up a sign for the protestors saying, “ Tank you for uniting us, thank you for bringing our people together,” because [the protest] has created that sentiment.

And while dealing with all of these issues caused us to postpone an important Torah study initiative we were working on for a long time, the amount that we gained in terms of chesed, and in terms of the people who were not so involved [in the shul previously] who began stepping up to get involved in security or in Israel advocacy, has been incredible. Of course, I’d like people to be more involved in Torah learning and tefllah and other shul initiatives and programs. But very ofen security is the frst step. Once they are invested in securing their shul, because it’s their shul, they might be motivated to get involved in other shul initiatives as well.

Tis is our new normal. Dealing with continued attempts at intimidation and harassment is part and parcel of Jewish history.

In “V’hi she’amdah” in the Haggadah, we recite “b’chol dor vador. . .—in every generation there are those who seek to destroy us and G-d delivers us from their hands.” Many of us developed a kind of illusion that “every generation” has skipped our generation. We fnally have a reminder that that’s not the case.

Tis was most acute for me at our counter-demonstration. We brought along a good sound system, and at one point we started playing “V’hi she’amdah,” and as I was standing by the barricade listening to that song,

Jewish Action: Tese days, instead of strengthening Torah learning and observance, rabbis need to spend much time and efort on security matters. Can we draw any chizuk from the current situation?

RABBI YA’AKOV TRUMP:

Bari Weiss, a journalist and the author of How to Fight Anti-Semitism, recently said, “ Te vacation from Jewish history is over.” Afer a brief reprieve in the last few decades, we are rejoining the Jewish Diaspora history, a minority persecuted for no good reason, spending astronomical amounts of time and energy on survival. It is sobering. Yet two ideas give me strength during this time.

Firstly, I would say I’m prouder to be a Jew now than I was before. I’m proud to be reminded that I am on the moral high ground fghting for good, versus people who support evil and debauchery. I am proud that our community has woken up to fght for something. We did not ask pro-Hamas protesters to create this reality for us. But they did. And now we have something to fght for. It is important for our children, who are the products of a complacent Western society, to remember what it means to value something, to fght for something and to be proud to be Jewish. Tere are many people in the Jewish community for whom coming to a shiur or davening is not their thing, but since we have been under attack in Israel and here in the US, these folks have stepped up. Tey have joined the security committees in shuls, they have led missions, they have collected money for soldiers. . . . Tese are all valuable ways that allow more Jews to connect to the Jewish people. Tese new avenues of proud Jewish engagement are extremely important.

watching the fags and hearing the proHamas chants and the vile rhetoric, I also remembered the end of the song: v’Hakadosh Baruch Hu matzileinu mi’yadam. Our eternal truth maintains that we will always be delivered, and there is always a bright ending in store for our people.

Te second point is that ultimately, Judaism has a happy ending. When the Vizhnitzer Rebbe came to Israel, he was asked by his Chassidim, “What do you think about Israel?” He said, “ Tere is one phrase in Israel that I love, and that is ‘hakol b’seder.’ It doesn’t just mean ‘everything will be alright.’ It means that ‘everything in Judaism is in the Seder,’” that is, the Passover Seder Sometimes there are detours and it’s complicated, but the Jewish people trend upward.We are still in the middle of the story, but I know from our faith that the terminus is one of hope and redemption.

Te Artistry of the

ETROG BOX

By David Olivestone

PHOTO ESSAY

A silver and gilt etrog box from Frankfurt, Germany in the early eighteenth century. Courtesy of a private collection in New York

David Olivestone, the former OU director of communications, was previously on the staf of the British Museum and of the Encyclopaedia Judaica

Continued on page 82

A Polish tankard from 1767 that was repurposed as an etrog container, with Hebrew inscriptions added in available blank spaces. Silver, repoussé, engraved, and punched. Photo: ©The Israel Museum, Jerusalem/Avi Ganor

Tis mustard pot was repurposed by the Gomez family, eighteenth-century Sephardic merchants in New York, as an etrog container. Courtesy of the American Jewish Historical Society

An etrog box from the Russian Empire (Moscow?), 1896. Parcel-gilt silver, cast and chased. Photo: Te Jewish Museum, New York/Art Resource, New York

A 1920s-era etrog case from the Bezalel School Jerusalem. Brass, inlaid with silver (damascened).

Photo: Te Jewish Museum, New York/Art Resource, New York

Continued from page 80

box that is created,” says Sharon Liberman Mintz, senior consultant of Judaica at Sotheby’s, “will refect the specifc time and place and the art and the aesthetics of the Jews at that moment.”

Some of the earliest containers used for the etrog were originally created for other purposes. Since sugar and tea were very expensive commodities in the early modern period, the wealthy would obtain ornate, even extravagant, silver boxes or caddies in which to serve

them.3 Te shape and size of these containers were ofen ideal for the safekeeping and storage of an etrog

Even today, there are silver boxes for sale online described, for example, as “Antique Silver Sugar/ Etrog Box.” If the design allows, appropriate pesukim or images related to the holiday of Sukkot may be engraved onto them, completing their transformation from a domestic object to a treasured Jewish family heirloom.

Tis olive wood etrog box with copper alloy lettering was very popular in the second half of the twentieth century. By Arieh Klein, Jerusalem, Israel, c. 1955-1970. Photo: Te Jewish Museum, New York/Art Resource, New York

A cotton bag, embroidered with the word etrog, from twentieth-century Poland.

Photo: Te Israel Museum, Jerusalem/Yair Hovav

Silverplated oval etrog box with wooden ring closure and stand, seen together and in its individual parts. By Zelig Segal, Jerusalem, c. 1980. Photo: Te Jewish Museum, New York/Art Resource, New York

Parcel-gilt (partially gilded) silver etrog container, bound with gilt straps and gilt tubular handle. By Arie Ofr, Jerusalem, early twenty-frst century. Courtesy of Sotheby’s, New York

* My grateful thanks to Sharon Liberman Mintz of Sotheby’s, Professor Shalom Sabar of the Hebrew University, and Sharon Weiser-Ferguson of the Israel Museum, each of whom helped guide me in my research of this topic. My gratitude also to Joyce Faust of Art Resource, Inc., Warren Klein of Congregation Emanu-El of the City of New York, Risa Fuchs of the Israel Museum, Megan Malta Scauri of the American Jewish Historical Society, and Sara Goldberg, associate editor of Jewish Action, for their help in obtaining the photographs.

Notes

1. Shalom Sabar, “Hadar and Hiddur: Te Etrog in Jewish Art,” in Be Fruitful! Te Etrog in Jewish Art, Culture, and History (Jerusalem, 2022), edited by Warren Klein, Sharon Liberman Mintz and Joshua Teplitsky, p.177.

2. Sharon Weiser-Ferguson, “Out of the Box: Te Design of Modern and Contemporary Etrog Containers,” Be Fruitful!, pp. 239-252.

3. See, for example, https://www.ascasonline.org/ ARTICOLODICEM89.html.

Is It Time for a Deep Dive into Feelings?

By Moishe Bane

My rebbe, Rav Yaakov Weinberg zt”l, rosh yeshivah of Ner Israel Rabbinical College, urged us to cry when davening on Yom Kippur, even if tears could be generated only by focusing on sad thoughts. Once we begin to cry, he said, we could redirect our tears to the teshuvah process. For years those tears were elusive, just as they were when praying at the Kotel or when reciting kinos on Tishah B’Av. It was only when I had children that I found my tears when praying for their well-being; but I wonder whether those tears are actually about G-d, or only about my children. In any event, I still struggle to transform my tears into a teshuvah expression of remorse. What role, if any, should emotions play in our avodas Hashem? I

understand Chassidism to be a route to integrate emotions into religion, and perhaps the growth of neo-Chassidism refects this yearning. But for those of us who have yet to imbue our mitzvah observance with deep feelings, we may compensate by living a Judaism built upon particularly powerful religious beliefs and intensive Torah study. But others are lef spiritually wanting, keeping mitzvos and learning Torah but nurturing their primary connection to Torah Judaism built almost exclusively via social and cultural satisfaction.

Notwithstanding Rav Weinberg’s Yom Kippur advice, the emotional treasure that he and others nurtured was not a signifcant part of our yeshivah education. Both in our formal education and in the years thereafer, we are taught, admonished and cajoled into adopting behavior and thoughts guided by Torah and Chazal, but feelings are far less addressed, if at all. Perhaps we are expected to learn religious emotions by example, but it is on only rare occasions that we can observe others’ inner feelings. Moreover, learning emotions by example alone does not allow for examining, understanding and mastering our own personal emotional makeup. We tend to spend even less time on the emotional dimensions of our spiritual development.

Perhaps my experience is unique, but assuming it is not, why do we allow this to occur, and at what cost?

Inattention to the Profundity of Emotions

Obsession with detail is a central characteristic of Orthodox Judaism, as refected in both halachic observance and Torah study. Halachic precision is evident in all that we do—from calculating the exact moment we welcome Shabbos to consuming the exact shiurim for matzah and maror at the Seder. Not only do we painstakingly measure the matzah and maror, but we must also focus on our body’s position while eating due to the obligation to recline while consuming some of the obligatory foods.

Similarly, Torah study involves paying excruciatingly close attention to detail. We analyze the words and linguistic patterns of Tanach, as well as those of seminal texts such as Rambam’s writing, enabling us to derive critical insights and deeper understanding. We vigorously debate the fnest distinctions in Talmudic hypotheses, irrespective of their relevance to pesak (practical halachic consequences). Te rigor of Talmudic discourse refects the recognition that fne distinctions in thought and theory have spiritual signifcance and thus inform critical thinking and analysis.

By contrast, we rarely pay such attention to the emotional dimensions of avodas Hashem. Most of us wholly overlook the depth and complexity of human feelings.

Tat is not to say that we are cold and callous or that we suppress our

feelings. Even those who describe themselves as “kalte Litvaks,” extend their dispassion only to religious engagement. We all otherwise experience intense emotions such as love toward family members or hostility toward those who threaten us. We feel grateful when receiving a gif or a compliment, and can, at times, get teary-eyed when hearing a particularly poignant story. We feel angry and afraid, confdent and insecure. At times we care deeply for others, while other times we feel self-centered. We relish impassioned disputes centering on Torah study and, l’havdil, enjoy fery debates regarding politics or sports.

But ofentimes we fail to employ the range of our emotions in our Torah observance. We interact with Hashem through prose, not poetry, and opt to care for the needy by writing a check rather than by actually visiting one in need and experiencing the emotional impact of the visit. We may celebrate the concept of ruchniyus, but not rejoice in its music. We ignore both the signifcant impact emotions should have on our religious development and the signifcant impact that our religious experience should have on our emotions.

Curiously, we ofen fail to infuse emotions even into those mitzvos that actually demand one to feel a particular emotion and are, by their very terms, an obligation to be emotional. Tere are mitzvos to love, to fear, to mourn and to be joyous. But unlike other mitzvos where we defne terms and calculate exact requirements, we rarely examine how an “obligatory feeling” is to be gauged or measured. For example, what does the obligatory simchah on a yom tov feel like, and what is the minimum degree of joy one must feel to fulfll the obligation?

And though many of us acknowledge our difculty in attaining

even a threshold degree of emotion regarding certain of these obligations of the heart, we are rarely taught, nor do we press to learn, how to attain these elusive feelings.

For example, we pay close attention to the numerous practices and restrictions of Tishah B’Av and its preceding Tree Weeks, and during Elul, we study the detailed process of repentance as presented in Rambam’s Hilchos Teshuvah or Rabbeinu Yonah’s Shaarei Teshuvah. But I suspect that I am not alone in being unsuccessful in capturing the feeling of mourning that is the essence of Tishah B’Av or the pangs of tearful remorse that should be intensely felt on Yom Kippur.

Te Conspicuous Role of Feelings in Judaism

Feelings are addressed in several of the most fundamental mitzvos d’Oraysa (Biblical commandments). For example, premier among mitzvos is the obligation to both love and fear Hashem. We are also commanded to love the convert, to love our friends as ourselves, to not conceal hatred, and to hate immorality. We are commanded to be joyous, b’simchah, when serving Hashem, particularly on the yamim tovim.

Among the Aseres Hadibros, we fnd the prohibition of lo sachmod, forbidding the coveting of others’ belongings, most ofen understood as including the obligation to master one’s emotions. And emphasizing the centrality of emotions in spirituality is the Torah’s catch-all religious aspiration, v’halachta b’drachav (Devarim 28:10), our duty to emulate G-d, to the extent that our limited human perception of G-d allows, which includes replicating Hashem’s feelings, as it were, including empathy, mercy and kindness.

Both classic and contemporary sefarim address the signifcance of feelings in religious growth. And kabbalists, in particular, teach that cultivating emotions within the religious experience is essential to accessing our soul, and that such access is the gateway to serving Hashem. Why, then, don’t emotions play a

more signifcant role in our religious lives? I cannot be certain, but I can speculate.

Reasons

We Marginalize Emotions

Below are four of the many possible explanations for the marginalization of feelings within our community’s religious pursuits:

l A matter of priorities. While appreciating the signifcance of emotions in religious development, we also recognize that we are restricted by a limited bandwidth. Tere is only so much time and attention available to focus on religion. Consequently, halachic observance and Torah study, which we understand to be of even greater signifcance, are prioritized at the expense of a meaningful focus on infusing religiosity with emotion.

l Discomfort. Conceptually we recognize the importance of linking emotions and religious growth, but many of us, particularly men, are simply uncomfortable talking about feelings, and even more so sharing our own. We fear the vulnerability of opening up emotionally to others and suspect that we will appear weak if perceived to be afected by our feelings. In our timidity and cowardness, we therefore forfeit the invaluable benefts of focusing on the role of emotions in the religious experience.

l It could be counterproductive. Elevating emotions in the religious experience can also introduce challenges. In particular, if one emphasizes feelings above other values, the feelings may begin to take priority over the dictates of Torah. For example, emphasizing love as a premier value could result in accepting halachically problematic loving relationships. Similarly, one who elevates empathy above other values may eventually tolerate various halachically problematic behaviors.

l It hurts too much. Some people process tragedy by working through their feelings while others cope by shutting feelings down. Perhaps we fear that if we focused on our feelings

Moishe Bane, president emeritus of the OU, serves as a contributing editor of Jewish Action.

Particularly during the Yamim Noraim many become riddled with unhealthy guilt, mistakenly believing they are thereby satisfying the teshuvah obligation to feel remorse or charatah.

the collective communal pain of our golus would be intolerable and so we underemphasize our feelings to avoid, or at least defer, the agony. Trough the millennia, sometimes our nation has wept, such as on the rivers of Babylon, afer sufering the unspeakable. But sometimes we have stoically stifed our anguish to focus on rebuilding. And sometimes we may react as a dejected child, too angry and hurt to express our true feelings to our father, but too dedicated and in love to abandon him.

Detriments of Disassociating Feelings and Religiosity

If feelings are an essential component of avodas Hashem, their absence is inherently detrimental to our life mission of connecting to Hashem. All mitzvos, including praying, giving charity, hearing the shofar blasts and sitting in a sukkah, are by their very nature spiritual, but their religious impact is surely enhanced when accompanied by intense and authentic feelings. And certainly, a lack of emotion in religious engagement precludes achieving the fervent spiritual passion, ofen referenced as “hislahavus,” for which many of us yearn.

But there are additional downsides to failing to infuse both religion with emotion and emotion with religion. Below are but two examples.

l By nature, we are emotional beings. Emotions frame our relationships, attitudes and priorities. Overlooking the role of feelings in avodas Hashem and failing to have Torah values cultivate our emotions does not curtail our having feelings; we simply adopt and nurture our emotional persona from other sources. If we do not learn from Chazal how to love and fear, what happiness and joy look like, and how kindness and mercy feel, those and other emotions will, heaven forbid, be imbibed from the corrupt and primitive culture of societal surroundings. We risk having our emotions formed by secular music lyrics, irreverent media personalities and other profane infuences. We either envelop ourselves and our youth with the richness, grandeur and excitement of feelings that should and can be generated through Torah and mitzvos, or we cede emotional development to the street.

l Failure to explore and become familiar with the details and nuances of emotions ofen results in misplaced feelings that can stymie, if not thwart, avodas Hashem. For example, despite their superfcial resemblance, remorse and guilt are entirely diferent emotions. Remorse entails regretting performing an improper deed while guilt entails focusing on oneself. Particularly during the Yamim Noraim

many become riddled with unhealthy guilt, mistakenly believing they are thereby satisfying the teshuvah obligation to feel remorse or charatah. Similarly, mournfulness and distress can be appropriate from a Torah perspective, while sadness (atzvus) is not. Clinical depression may be unavoidable, of course, but it is tragic when individuals inappropriately allow themselves to succumb to sadness, an emotion which, like guilt, is counterproductive. Both sadness and guilt can lead one to feel a sense of hopelessness and despair. On the other hand, feelings of remorse and mourning can be purposeful as they can help one internalize painful experiences in a manner that leads to a constructive future. Distinguishing between these and other interrelated emotions, such as fear and terror, disgust and loathing, anger and rage can lead to personal growth.

Finally, however uncomfortable we may be with confronting our feelings, we want to love and we want to be happy. And even more, we want our children to love and to be happy. As Orthodox Jews, it behooves us to learn from Torah sources what love and happiness are really all about, and how they are properly cultivated. We will thereby be better parents, spouses, children and friends. And better Jews.

FOCUS

FOUR TRAITS OF SUCCESSFUL SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURS IN

By Tamar Frydman

During these challenging times, with the Jewish community facing crises in Israel and around the world, it’s natural to feel overwhelmed and uncertain about how—or even if—you can make a diference. However, this is precisely the moment to pause, refect and consider how you can contribute meaningfully and help drive the change you wish to see.

History teaches us that crises ofen drive innovation. When traditional methods fall short, we’re compelled to think creatively and develop new solutions. We saw it during the Covid pandemic, when scientists fast tracked vaccine development. We saw it with the remarkable technological developments that resulted from the pandemic, such as telemedicine and remote work tools that fundamentally transformed how we live and work. And we witnessed it within the Jewish community since October 7. With so much at stake, Jewish changemakers stepped up immediately. Some even paused their careers to launch powerful social media campaigns or to establish lifelines to assist our chayalim

Tamar Frydman is director of the OU’s Impact Accelerator.

and displaced Israelis. As the director of the OU Impact Accelerator, I have seen this entrepreneurial and innovative response to adversity and crisis time and time again. Trough my work, I have met highly talented and passionate social entrepreneurs who truly care about making our community a better place in new and innovative ways. Having served in this role for the past eighteen months, I continue to be inspired by these forwardthinkers who are devoting their lives to strengthening their Jewish communities and the broader Jewish world.

Established in 2018, the OU Impact Accelerator is designed to support the founders of startup nonprofts, providing emerging leaders with education, mentorship, collaboration opportunities and grants to help grow their organizations efciently and sustainably. Trough this program, the OU has been able to strengthen grassroots eforts within the Orthodox community that seek to address the community’s most pressing needs.

From my experience at the OU Impact Accelerator, I’ve gained valuable insights into the key traits that drive entrepreneurial success. Here are a few of my observations:

1. Visionary Tinking

Great entrepreneurs have a knack for looking past the challenges of today and envisioning what could be tomorrow. Tey see potential where others see problems, and they have a clear idea of what they want to create. Tis forwardthinking mindset helps them set longterm goals and come up with innovative strategies to achieve them.

2. Resilience and Embracing Failure

Te journey to entrepreneurial success is rarely a straight path. It’s full of bumps, setbacks, and unexpected challenges. Resilience is the ability to bounce back from these tough moments and keep going. Entrepreneurs who are resilient stay positive, learn from their mistakes,

and adjust their approach when needed. Tey understand that failure isn’t the end—it’s a crucial part of the learning process and growth.

3. Innovative and Risk-Taking Mindset

Innovation is the lifeblood of entrepreneurship. Successful entrepreneurs are always on the lookout for new ways to solve problems, enhance products and improve customer experiences. Tey are curious, creative and willing to take calculated risks. Stepping out of their comfort zone and embracing uncertainty ofen leads to the big rewards that come with bold ideas.

4. Strong Work Ethic

Turning an idea into reality requires dedication, hard work and persistence. Successful entrepreneurs are committed to putting in the time and efort necessary to bring their visions to life. Tey are disciplined and well-organized, and know how to prioritize their tasks efectively to keep moving forward toward their goals. I feel fortunate that in my work I have the opportunity to get to work alongside those who are seeking to efect dramatic and lasting change.

Refecting on these challenging times, I am reminded of the words of Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks zt”l, who said, “Optimism is the belief that things will get better. Hope is the faith that, together, we can make things better.” Tese are times that have tested our resilience in profound ways, but they also revealed the boundless capacity for innovation within our community. In the face of adversity, we did not simply endure; we responded with creativity and determination, forging new paths to meet the challenges before us.

As we look ahead, let us carry forward this spirit of innovation and resilience. Te work we do now is not just about overcoming the challenges of today— it’s about building a future where we are better prepared, more adaptable and ever more committed to making a meaningful impact. May we rise to meet these challenges with the creativity and resolve that defne our community, turning this moment of crisis into a beacon of hope and progress for generations to come.

KOSHERKOPY

Answers to kashrus questions you never thought to ask Kosher Conundrums

Q: I bought a container of non-dairy creamer. It is labeled OU-D. Am I safe in assuming that it contains no dairy and is just DE (made on Dairy Equipment)?

A: Although one would assume that non-dairy creamers do not contain dairy ingredients, most non-dairy creamers do contain a small percentage of sodium caseinate, which is a milk derivative. Te odd use of the term “non-dairy” on such products is the result of regulations passed by the US FDA years ago. In response to a strong dairy lobby, the FDA forbade the use of the word “dairy” as a descriptive term when the dairy content is below a certain level. Te same is true of margarine. Some margarine brands may contain dairy ingredients even if labeled non-dairy. To make a proper determination about OU-D margarine or creamers, please contact the OU hotline at 212.613.8241 or the Webbe Rebbe at kosherq@ou.org.

Q: Why are some brands of Worcestershire sauce labeled OU-Fish while others have a regular OU?

A: Halachah does not permit eating fsh and meat together. Te OU-F, indicating that a product has a fsh ingredient, becomes important in situations where the fsh ingredient is not obvious. Te product should not be eaten with or cooked with meat or with foods made with meat ingredients. While halachah allows cooking an OU-F product on meat equipment, some have a custom to have a separate pot for cooking or reheating fsh. It is permitted to eat an OU-F product right before or right afer eating meat. An OU-F product may be eaten and/or cooked together with dairy foods.

On products whose fsh content is recognizable, either because the product is actually fsh or includes the name of a fsh (e.g., tuna salad), the designation might be a plain OU. Many Worcestershire sauces contain anchovies. In products containing a fsh ingredient (as opposed to products containing a dairy or a meat ingredient), the amount of the fsh ingredient in relation to the other ingredients in the product is the determining factor as to whether to label the product OU-F or not. If the ratio of other ingredients to the fsh ingredient is less than 60 to 1, the product is labeled OU-F. If the other ingredients are equal to or greater than the kosher-mandated (60 to 1) ratio, halachah considers the fsh ingredient to have dissipated in the other ingredients and the OU does not require that the product be marked “F,” though it might be marked “F” anyway. Tis explains why some OU-certifed Worcestershire sauces containing anchovies are assigned OU-F and other brands are assigned OU. In the latter case, it is because the quantity of the anchovies in the product was small and it is therefore nullifed.

Q: Is it permissible to add Worcestershire sauce to meat if the label has a regular OU?

A: Tere is a dispute among rabbinic authorities as to whether fsh is nullifed in 60 parts. Te OU follows the lenient position. As such, Worcestershire sauce that contains anchovies at a ratio of 1:60 may be labeled OU, without a fsh designation; however, if the anchovies are more than one part in sixty of the sauce’s

components, the product must be labeled OU-Fish. Te question remains whether it is permissible to intentionally add an OU-certifed Worcestershire sauce, which contains a small percentage of anchovies, to a meat dish? With respect to nonkosher foods, bitul (nullifcation) only applies afer the fact, in the event an accidental mixture occurs, but it is not permissible to intentionally efectuate bitul (in the words of Chazal, ein mevatlin issur lechatchilah). Does the same apply to fsh, such that it would be prohibited to intentionally introduce fsh to a meat dish at a level where the fsh would be batel? One could argue that fsh is not a prohibited item, but rather a food that poses a danger when eaten with meat. Nullifcation removes the danger and therefore it may be permissible to intentionally nullify the fsh component. Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv, zt”l (quoted in Peninei Ish) maintains that one may in fact add a small amount of fsh to meat. As such, one may intentionally add OU-certifed Worcestershire sauce to a meat dish and consume the fnal product. Tis is particularly the case with Worcestershire sauce, since the anchovies were already batel in the sauce itself.

For simplicity’s sake, some companies prefer to label all their Worcestershire sauces with an OUFish symbol regardless of whether the amount of fsh is nullifed or not, and the OU accommodates such requests. One may contact the OU ofce at kosherq@ou.org to inquire if the amount of fsh in a specifc brand of sauce that bears an OU-Fish logo is indeed nullifed.

Q: Te OU certifes crackers and popcorn containing parmesan seasoning. Since parmesan is a hard cheese that requires one who eats it to wait six hours before eating meat, do I similarly need to wait six hours afer eating these snacks?

A: If the seasoning is primarily made from parmesan cheese, then one should wait six hours (or whatever one’s custom is). However, cheese seasonings are ofen made with enzyme-modifed cheese (EMC) that is mixed and essentially diluted with other bulkier ingredients, such as whey or blander cheese powders. In volume, the other ingredients constitute the majority of the seasoning. Yad Yehudah (YD 89, 30) writes that a hard cheese that is blended into another food and sofened through cooking does not necessitate waiting six hours. Similarly, in the case of enzymemodifed cheese, Rabbi Hershel Schachter, senior posek at OU Kosher, explained that since it is actually a sof cheese (albeit with a very strong favor), once it is diluted to become a fraction of the seasoning, one would not have to wait afer eating it.

Q: I am cooking chicken soup and would like to taste it and spit it out, just to see if it is favored properly. Will this make me feishig?

A: Te Rishonim present two reasons why one must wait six hours between meat and dairy. Neither reason applies in this situation.

l According to Rashi (Chullin 105a), the need to wait is due to the residual afertaste of meat that lingers in one’s mouth. Tis issue does not apply in this case, because the soup was not swallowed.

l According to Rambam (Hilchos Ma’achalos Assuros 9:28), the rationale for waiting afer meat is because of the likelihood that meat may be lodged between one’s teeth (“basar bein hashinayim”). Tis concern does not apply to liquid chicken soup.

Te Peri Chadash (89:18) and Aruch Hashulchan (89:14) write that one who merely tastes a feishig “tavshil” (food cooked with meat) is not required to wait six hours. All that is required is to clean out one’s mouth by eating some

food (e.g., crackers) and having a drink (e.g., water). Tis was also the ruling of Rabbi Yaakov Kamenetsky, zt”l, as well (Emes L’Yaakov, p. 306, n. 35). Te Peri Megadim (Mishbetzos Zahav 89:1) writes that even when neither reason applies, one should still wait six hours because of a concept known as “lo plug” (halachah is consistent, even where the initial reason for the restriction does not apply). However, Rabbi Shlomo Kluger (Hagahos Maharshak on the Peri Megadim) writes that even the Peri Megadim would agree that “lo plug” does not apply in this case.

Q: Bone china, as its name suggests, is made with animal bones. Is there a kashrus concern with using bone china?

A: Bone china is made from clay and bone char. Bone char is a form of activated carbon that is made from almost completely incinerated animal bones. Since the bones were burned, there is no kashrus concern even though some of the bones could be from nonkosher animals. In truth, even if the bones were not burned, it would not be an issue. Sefer Panim Me’iros (3:33) writes that one may fashion cooking utensils (e.g., spoons, ladles) from the bones of non-kosher animals so long as they have been dried and contain no marrow. Although Rambam (Hilchos Ma’achalos Assuros 4:18) writes that one may not eat bones from a non-kosher animal, they may be used as utensils. Tis is because the Shulchan Aruch (YD 99:1) states that dried-out, marrowless bones do not impart ta’am (taste). Terefore, utensils made of dried bone will have no impact on food.

Q: What berachah should be recited on seaweed?

A: Seaweed is an alga. With respect to reciting a berachah, seaweed is similar to mushrooms, as neither have roots and they do not draw nutrients from the ground. Terefore, the berachah for both mushrooms and algae is Shehakol. Furthermore, even if seaweed had roots, one could argue that it would still be Shehakol, since it grows hydroponically and not in soil.

Q: What berachah is recited on vegetables that are grown hydroponically (in water without soil)?

A: Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, zt”l (Yechaveh Daas 6:12), writes that the proper berachah to recite on hydroponically grown fruits and vegetables is Shehakol He explains that since they do not receive any nourishment from the soil, they are comparable to mushrooms for which the berachah is Shehakol. He compares the halachah of a berachah for hydroponics to the status of shemitah. Although it is forbidden to plant in soil in Israel during shemitah (even in a fowerpot), the Chazon Ish and others ruled that one may plant hydroponically because planting in water is not the same as planting in soil. However, Rabbi Shmuel Wosner, zt”l (Shevet HaLevi 1:205), Rabbi Moshe Sternbuch (Teshuvos V’Hanhagos 2:149) and many others maintain that the berachah for hydroponically grown vegetables is Ha’adamah Tey explain that Chazal established a uniform berachah for the entire species regardless of how a particular vegetable is grown. For example, since tomatoes ordinarily grow in soil, people refer to a tomato as a “peri adamah” (a fruit of the land). It is therefore appropriate to recite the berachah “Borei peri ha’adamah,” irrespective of whether a particular tomato was grown in the ground, in a fowerpot, or hydroponically. Rav Ovadia Yosef conceded that if one recited “Borei peri ha’adamah” on hydroponically grown vegetables, the berachah is valid bedieved

Tis article is adapted from OU Kosher’s Halacha Yomis, a daily email containing brief halachic tidbits. To sign up to receive Halacha Yomis, visit oukosher. org/halacha-yomis/.

WHAT’S THE TRUTH ABOUT . . . MILCHEMET MITZVAH?

By Rabbi Dr. Ari Z. Zivotofsky

MISCONCEPTION : Due to the lack of a properly anointed king and the absence of the urim v’tumim, the defensive wars fought by the modern State of Israel, including the current war, are not halachically classifed as milchemet mitzvah—a war that is a mitzvah, and thus the unique halachot pertaining to a milchemet mitzvah are not applicable.1

FACT : A king is not necessary for a defensive war to be defned as a milchemet mitzvah. Some of the greatest rabbis of the last century have classifed Israel’s wars as milchemet mitzvah.

Background: Tanach is replete with stories regarding wars fought by the Jewish nation, both defensive and ofensive, and Chazal discuss the halachot of war. For millennia, as the Jewish nation languished in exile, these laws were relegated to discussions in the back pages of theoretical tomes, assumed to be dormant until the arrival of Mashiach. Today we blessedly fnd ourselves back as a sovereign people in our own Land in this preMessianic period. Unfortunately, in Israel’s short history it has fought far too many wars, and thus the halachot of war have again become practical.

Te alternative to milchemet mitzvah is that the current war is “merely” a fulfllment of the Biblical mitzvah of “. . . lo ta’amod al dam rei’echa—you shall not stand idly by [when] the blood (life) of your fellow [is in danger] . . .” (Vayikra 19:16), which is understood (Sanhedrin 73a) as an imperative to save the life of an endangered Jew. While this is a

signifcant mitzvah, there are major practical diferences between lo ta’amod and milchemet mitzvah. For example, for lo ta’amod one is not required to risk one’s life, while war, by defnition, involves risking one’s life (Ha’amek Davar, Bereishit 9:5; Shu”t Mishpat Kohen 143 [pp. 315–16]). In war, it might be that one may eat non-kosher even if not for pikuach nefesh (Rabbi Eliezer Yehuda Waldenberg, Hilchot Medinah 2:8:1; and Tzitz Eliezer 18:70). And in a war, the ruling authority may compel people to participate.

Many war-related Biblical mitzvot are found among the 613 mitzvot Rabbi Shlomo Yosef Zevin2 enumerates seventeen. Some examples include: A kohen should be appointed to accompany and inspire the troops; an overture of peace should be sent before declaring war; fruit trees should not be destroyed during a siege; a makeshif lavatory should be set up; and a shovel should be brought along for use in the lavatory, et cetera.

Te Torah grants draf exemptions to certain individuals (Devarim 20:5–8): “. . . ‘Is there any man who has built a new house and has not begun to live in it? . . . Who has planted a vineyard, and has not redeemed its frst crop? . . . Who has betrothed a woman, and not married her? Let him go home. . . . Is there any man who is afraid or fainthearted? Let him go home. . . . ’”3

Te Mishnah (Sotah 8:4–5 [44b]) explains: “When do these exemptions apply? In a milchemet reshut [a discretionary war]; however, in a milchemet mitzvah, [a war that is a mitzvah], everyone must participate, even a chatan from his chamber and a kallah from her chuppah.” Rambam (Hilchot Melachim 7:4) codifes these exemptions for a milchemet reshut, and says that in a milchemet mitzvah there is universal conscription.4 Te Chazon Ish (Moed 114:3 [p. 167]) asserts that in a milchemet mitzvah all are obligated to participate, even if the war efort does not require them; and in a milchemet reshut, everyone who is needed is required to join.

What defnes a milchemet mitzvah? Te Gemara (Sotah 44b) gives only one example: the war Yehoshua waged to conquer the Land of Israel. Rambam adds two other examples (Hilchot Melachim 5:1): “What is considered milchemet mitzvah? Tis is the war against the Seven Nations [to conquer the Land], the war against Amalek, and saving Israel from an enemy who attacks them.”5

Te Ramban expands the category of milchemet mitzvah. Based on his understanding that Bamidbar 33:53 (“And you shall dispossess the inhabitants of the Land, and dwell therein . . .”) is an imperative and not a promise, the Ramban includes in his list of mitzvot that he believes Rambam omitted a commandment to conquer and settle the Land of Israel (positive mitzvah 4). Because of this, he understands the Gemara’s example of Yehoshua’s war to conquer the Land not as specifc, but as paradigmatic, and thus any war to liberate the Land of Israel is a milchemet mitzvah 6 Te Ramban explicitly says that this applies in every generation, implying that there is no requirement for a king, Beit Hamikdash, Sanhedrin, et cetera.

Rabbi Eliezer Yehuda Waldenberg (d. 2006; Tzitz Eliezer 3:9:2:10 and 3:9:2: summary:16) says that based on this Ramban, the wars of the State of Israel to liberate and maintain control of the Land are milchemet mitzvah and (7:48: Kuntrus Orchot Hamishpatim:12) that because Israel is under constant attack, Rambam would agree that Israel’s wars are milchemet mitzvah. Rabbi Waldenberg sees the ability to help in the mitzvah of the war efort as an additional reason, among many, why Diaspora Jews should make aliyah.

Rabbi Zevin, in his 1957 revision of his 1946 L’Ohr HaHalachah, added a paragraph (p. 64 in the 2004 reprint) in which he asserted that the 1948 War of Independence was a milchemet mitzvah because it was both saving the Jews from an attacking enemy (Rambam) and conquering the Land of Israel (Ramban).

In a responsum addressed to thensoldier, now rosh yeshivah Rabbi Yitzchak Grinshpan (now Sheilat) a month afer the start of the Yom Kippur War, Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv explicitly describes that war as a milchemet mitzvah, with all of the associated halachot 7

Despite there apparently being no source that a king is required and that Rabbis Zevin, Waldenberg, and Elyashiv explicitly say that the defensive wars of the State of Israel are milchemet mitzvah, others assert otherwise. Rambam’s inclusion of the laws of war in the section Hilchot Melachim (the Laws of Kings) has been cited as proof that a king is necessary for war. Tis shows a fundamental misunderstanding of Rambam’s method of categorization. For example, Rambam also includes the Seven Noachide Laws in Hilchot Melachim (chap. 9). Tis obviously does not imply that they are only applicable when there is a Jewish king. Famously, the laws of Hallel are not included in the laws of prayer, but within the laws of Chanukah (chap. 3). Rambam incorporated Hallel in Hilchot Chanukah because a central attribute of Chanukah is Hallel, not because Hallel is only recited on Chanukah. Similarly, a central component of the king’s responsibilities relates to war, but Rambam’s decision to place the halachot of war in Hilchot Melachim does not imply that a milchemet mitzvah requires a king.

Rabbi

Another argument has been brought from the Ramban at the end of his glosses to Rambam’s Sefer HaMitzvot. Te Ramban suggests an additional possible mitzvah that Rambam omitted, the mitzvah for the king or the judge (shofet),8 or the one who leads the people out to war (either mitzvah or reshut), to inquire of the urim v’tumim and act accordingly. As noted above, the Ramban declares that milchemet mitzvah applies in all generations, whether there is a king or not and whether or not the urim v’tumim exists. Te Ramban was merely stating that when the conditions exist (see Tzitz Eliezer 20:43), consulting the urim v’tumim is a positive mitzvah on the leader. Arguing that the lack of performance of this mitzvah modifes the status of the armed confict would be like saying that if the soldiers neglected the mitzvah to bring a shovel along, that modifes the halachic status of the war. Tis is obviously not the case.

Tere are those who claim that Rabbi Moshe Feinstein held that milchemet mitzvah requires a king. Tis is incorrect. In a brief letter dated 25 Tishrei 5739 (Oct. 26, 1978), Rav Moshe wrote (Iggerot Moshe, CM 2:78) that some cases of milchemet mitzvah, such as the war against Amalek, should not be initiated without consulting the urim v’tumim and the Sanhedrin (he does not mention a king). He then says that the third type of milchemet mitzvah, saving Jews from an enemy who attacked them, is categorically diferent. Tat kind of milchemet mitzvah was fought by the Jews during Bayit Sheini by the Maccabees against the Greeks, at a time when there was neither urim v’tumim nor Sanhedrin (nor a king).9 According to Rav Moshe, such a war is a milchemet mitzvah and may be initiated without the urim v’tumim. And to this day we celebrate the victory of that war on Chanukah. Not only is a king not necessary for a war to be a milchemet mitzvah, but the war need not even involve danger to the entire Jewish nation. Te Bach (OC 249) says that if Jews and nonJews of a city are taken captive, Jews can fght together with non-Jews on Shabbat to rescue the Jews because it is a milchemet mitzvah to save their brethren.10 Te Chazon Ish (Eruvin, Lekutim, 112:6:1) similarly says that if a city of Jews fghts to defend itself from an attack, it is a milchemet mitzvah, although possibly the leniency exempting a military camp from four rabbinic enactments (Eruvin 17a; Rambam, Hilchot Melachim 6:13) might only apply to a war involving all Jews (reshut or mitzvah). Rabbi Ovadia Yosef (Yabia Omer 10, CM 6:23) defned Operation Yonatan to rescue the Entebbe hostages a milchemet mitzvah

Tere does not seem to be any source that requires a king for a war to be defned as a milchemet mitzvah11 or that precludes the wars of modern Israel from being defned as milchemet mitzvah 12 On the other hand, to launch an expansionary war, milchemet reshut, requires permission from the central beit din (Sanhedrin, mishnah 1:5[2a]; Rambam, Hilchot Melachim

Dr. Ari Z. Zivotofsky is a professor of neuroscience at BarIlan University in Israel.

5:2) and urim v’tumim (Rambam, Hilchot Klei Hamikdash 10:12, Hilchot Melachim 5:2). When the Noda B’Yehudah (Tinyana, EH:129) explains that the lack of a beit din precludes war, he says explicitly that he is referring to milchemet reshut. Similarly, when the Chatam Sofer (EH:155) says there are no halachic wars today, he was discussing exemptions and thus milchemet reshut

Te Torah ideal is a world of peace as envisioned by our prophets (Yeshayahu 2:4): “Nation shall not lif up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.” But when required, halachah demands that we defend the Jewish people with the knowledge (Devarim 20:4) that “the L-rd, your G-d, goes with you to fght against your enemies and save you.”13

Rabbi Aharon Lichtenstein wrote about hesder soldiers, but it can apply to many IDF soldiers: “. . . No less than every Jew, the typical hesdernik yearns for peace, longs for the day on which he can divest himself of uniform and Uzi and devote his energies to Torah. In the interim, however, he harbors no illusions and he keeps his powder dry and his musket ready. . . . yeshivot hesder are a conspectus of our collective anomaly: a nation with outstretched palm and mailed fst, striving for peace and yet training for war.”14

Notes

1. Tis article is in memory of the far too many holy soldiers who have been killed in this horrible war, dying as they lived, al kiddush Hashem, in particular our good friends Eli Moshe Zimbalist, Hy”d, and Amichai Oster, Hy”d, and in honor of the heroes, including my two sons, who are still fghting our barbaric enemies. We are proud of you. May G-d watch over them all.

2. Rabbi Shlomo Yosef Zevin, L’Ohr HaHalachah (Jerusalem, 2004), 40.

3. Keren Orah (Sotah 44b) explicitly says that in a milchemet mitzvah, even a talmid chacham must participate.

4. Nowhere does Rambam list any other exemptions, the implication being that there are none, and that neither tribal afliation nor lifestyle play a role in who is drafed. Despite this, the suggestion is sometimes made that based on Rambam’s philosophical statement at the conclusion

of Hilchot Shemitah V’Yovel (13:13), anyone can “self-identify” as a Levite, make themselves kodesh kodashim and be exempt even from milchemet mitzvah. Note that Rashi (Bamidbar 31:4) says that the actual Tribe of Levi fought in the war against Midian, a war that Rabbi Moshe Feinstein terms a milchemet reshut (Dibberot Moshe, Shabbat 132, p. 380). See Rabbi Aharon Lichtenstein’s seminal essay on “ Te Ideology of Hesder,” Tradition, 19:3 (fall 1981): 199-217; reprinted in Leaves of Faith, vol. 1, chap. 7 for a discussion of this topic.

5. Te Meiri (Sotah 42a) gives examples of milchemet mitzvah nearly identical to Rambam and says they can be led by a Jewish king or another leader.

6. Rabbi Yitzhak HaLevi Herzog argues that Rashi and likely Rambam actually agree with the Ramban that this is also a milchemet mitzvah (Tchumin 4 [5743]: 13–24).

7. See Be’urin D’esha (Jerusalem, 5734 [1974]), 90–92. Note that when reprinted in Kovetz Teshuvot, 5760, siman 243, the date and addressee were omitted, making it appear to be a theoretical question and concealing the fact that it related to an actual milchemet mitzvah, the Yom Kippur War.

8. Obviously not referring to the “shofim” from the Biblical Book of Judges, but to any leader or future judge who is leading the people.

9. Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak HaKohen Kook similarly used the example of the Hasmonean war to support this point (Mishpat Kohen 144). Te last Lubavitcher Rebbe (Likutei Sichot, vol. 24, p. 452) felt that the post-Churban Bar Kochba war was also a milchemet mitzvah

10. Te Tzitz Eliezer (3:9:2) seems to agree; Rabbi Sholom Mordechai Schwadron (d. 1911; Da’at Torah, YD 2:67) may disagree, as he says milchemet mitzvah is only when the Jews are in their Land.

11. Rabbi Herzog believed that Israel’s War of Independence had the status of milchemet mitzvah and explained (Pesakim U’Ktavim 1, OC 48:3 and Heichal Yitzchak, OC 37:3; Tchumin 4 [5743]:13–24) that even were one to claim that a king is necessary, Rav Kook (Mishpat Kohen 144:15:1) demonstrated that in the absence of a monarch, the authority reverts to the Jewish nation. Rav Kook elaborated (Ikvei HaTzon 32:13) that mitzvot like writing a second Torah or the prohibition of too many wives obviously relate to an actual king, but other laws of a monarch apply to a democratically elected government as well.

Similarly, Rabbi Eliezer Waldenberg (Tzitz Eliezer 13:100, Hilchot Medinah 2:3:11) (based on the Maharatz Chajes) says that not only the monarch but any other ruling authority charged with national security is authorized to wage war, which, by nature, endangers the population.

12. Te only source I can fnd that might preclude there being a milchemet mitzvah nowadays is Rambam at the very end of his introduction to his Sefer HaMitzvot, where he explains that in the interest of brevity he will omit the obvious. For example, women are exempt from mitzvot related to the judicial system and from milchemet reshut, and since everyone knows this, when discussing any mitzvah related to the judicial system or milchemet reshut he will omit “women are not obligated.” Similarly, he says, for all commandments related to sacrifces, kings, milchemet reshut or milchemet mitzvah, et cetera he will not say “applicable only when there is a Beit Hamikdash.” Tis seems to imply that milchemet mitzvah applies only when there is a Temple. Tis is problematic, as nowhere else is this connection made. Te simple answer is that in many versions, the words “milchemet mitzvah” are absent (see e.g., Sefer Hamitzvot Hashalem [Lakewood, 2018], 165). Alternatively, it is worth noting that much of this statement is problematic: the halachot of kings applied to King David although there was no Beit Hamikdash. Yehoshua’s wars (and according to the Lubavitcher Rebbe, the Bar Kochba war) were milchemet mitzvah, yet there was no Beit Hamikdash. Furthermore, regarding sacrifces, Rambam himself wrote (Hilchot Beit Habechirah 6:14) that sacrifces can be brought even in the absence of a Beit Hamikdash. Tus, there is no reason to assume Rambam in his introduction to Sefer HaMitzvot was difering from what he wrote in the Yad HaChazakah, and neither sacrifces nor milchemet mitzvah require a Beit Hamikdash and there is some other interpretation of this statement.

13. In 1971, Rabbi Yosef Dov Soloveitchik said, “When the Jew fghts a war it is not only for himself but for the Name of the Almighty . . . in my opinion, two wars that Israel fought [1948 and 1967] enhanced the Name of the Almighty” (Aaron RakefetRothkof, Te Rav: Te World of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, vol. 2 [New Jersey, 1999], 129–130).

14. Rabbi Aharon Lichtenstein, “ Te Ideology of Hesder,” Tradition 19:3 (fall 1981): 199-217.

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THE CHEF’S TABLE

SQUASH SENSATIONS

for the Holiday Table

By Naomi Ross

Believe it or not, there are over 700 known species in the gourd family. Which begs the question: beyond hanging in the sukkah, what does one actually do with a gourd?

Quite a lot it seems. Historically, gourds have been used by people throughout the world for infnite artistic craf purposes: musical instruments, pipes, masks, canteens, water jugs, dippers, birdhouses, bath sponges and as decorative pieces with intricate etched designs. So important were gourds to Haitian people in the early 1800s, they were temporarily made the national currency. Some of the most delicious members of the gourd family include squash, pumpkin, cucumber and melons. As autumn is winter squash season, squash has become my go-to ingredient when crafing holiday menus that illustrate Hashem’s overfowing bounty on our tables.

Tough butternut and acorn squash happen to be the most commonly-found supermarket varieties available, there are many others worth trying—sweet dumpling, banana, delicata, spaghetti, kabocha and buttercup varieties, just to name a few. Each type has its own

special favor and texture appropriate for diferent uses. Some have sweeter, creamier fesh for purees, while others are perfectly shaped and suited for stufng.

Squash Tips:

Due to its thick peel and hard texture, winter squash can be tough to prepare. But don’t be discouraged. A good peeler, a sharp chef’s knife and some “elbow grease” can make all the diference in your preparations. Even so, some prep tips are always helpful.

l For winter squash with a thin or smooth enough rind to be peeled, (such as butternut or buttercup squash), follow these steps for an easier prep:

l Trim ends

l Cut the squash in half lengthwise

l Using a good peeler, peel away the tough skin

l Scoop out the seeds

l Cut as needed (i.e. chunks, cubes, dice)

Once peeled and cut, it can be boiled, roasted, steamed, sautéed, etc. and used in your favorite dishes.

l Round acorn or sweet dumpling squash are not practical to peel as the natural grooves make a peeler difcult to maneuver. Most people opt to cook them unpeeled—simply scrub, halve, seed and bake. Te skin is edible; however, if tough, the cooked fesh can be scooped and eaten out of its “cup,” discarding

the skin. I like to roast the halves drizzled with maple syrup, olive oil, salt, pepper and cinnamon—simple, yet delicious! Additionally, these small-sized squash make them ideal choices as “stufng” squash.

l Squash puree is essential for use in baking. Te most conventional method is to use boiled/steamed cubed squash. Tat said, the easiest method of preparation is preroasting: cut squash in half, scoop out the seeds, and bake cut-side down at 375–400F until fork tender (about 45 minutes). Once baked, the cooked fesh can be scooped out of the skin and then mashed or pureed.

l Winter squash store very well— they’ll last the “winter” in a cool, dry, well-ventilated location (like a cellar) for use within two–four months. Check periodically for rot.

l Refrigerated, cut pieces of winter squash will last up to a week stored in plastic storage bags or wrap.

l Choose frm, well-shaped squash that are heavy for their size and have a hard, smooth skin. Avoid any with sunken or moldy spots, cuts, or punctures in the skin.

l Some helpful equivalents in your squash adventures may include:

l 1 pound peeled squash = 1 cup cooked, mashed

l 2½ pound whole squash = 2¾–3 cups pureed

l ⅓–½ pound raw unpeeled squash = 1 serving

Naomi Ross is a cooking instructor and food writer based in Woodmere, New York. She teaches classes throughout the country and writes articles connecting delicious cooking and Jewish inspiration. Her ﬁrst cookbook is The Giving Table

Squash/gourd have a symbolic place on the Rosh Hashanah table as well. One of the mnemonic simanim mentioned in the Talmud, the Aramaic word for squash is k’ra. We ask G-d to tear up our evil verdicts (“l’kroah”) and that our merits be called out before Him (“vayikareh”). May these squash recipes both grace your tables with color and favor, and inspire blessings from Above for the coming year!

Cream of Butternut

Squash Soup

Yields 6–8 servings

Make this warming soup your own by using fun toppings to garnish: spiced pepitas, homemade croutons, or even fried sage leaves.

2 tablespoons butter or olive oil

1 large onion, chopped

1 stalk celery, chopped

1 teaspoon Kosher salt, and more to taste

2 carrots, peeled and cut into chunks

1 large sweet potato, cut into chunks

1 butternut squash—peeled, seeded, cut into chunks

5 cups chicken or vegetable stock

1 tablespoon fresh ginger, minced

½ teaspoon thyme

1–2 tablespoons honey

¼ teaspoon nutmeg

Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste

¾–

non-dairy creamer

Fresh chopped parsley, for garnishing

Heat butter or oil in a Dutch oven or large pot over medium heat. Add onion, celery and salt, sautéing until translucent, about 5 minutes.

Add carrots, sweet potato, and butternut squash. Sauté another 5 minutes until slightly tender. Add ginger and stock.

Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to low. Cook covered, simmering for approximately 30 minutes or until everything is tender. Remove from heat. Use an immersion blender to puree soup (or puree in batches in blender or food processor).

Add honey, thyme, nutmeg and pepper. Whisk in ¾ cup half & half/

Photo: Baila Gluck

soymilk and heat gently (but do not bring to a boil). Add additional water or half & half if soup is too thick. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Garnish with chopped parsley or thyme.

Maple-Glazed Turkey Roulade with Butternut Squash Stufng

Yields 6–8 servings

Tis elegant entrée can easily be doubled to serve a larger crowd. Ask your butcher to butterfy the turkey roast and leave the skin on. Veal brisket can be used in place of turkey (for a 4–5 lb. veal brisket, cooking time afer searing should be extended to 1½ hours at 350 F). Stufng can be used to stuf individual boneless capons as well.

Butternut Squash Stufng

3 tablespoons olive oil

1 cup chopped onion (about 1 medium onion)

1 teaspoon minced garlic (1 clove)

2 cups diced butternut squash

½ teaspoon Kosher salt

Freshly ground black pepper

1½ teaspoon fresh chopped thyme

1 cup chopped baby Bella or cremini mushrooms

¼ cup coarse fresh bread crumbs or panko bread crumbs

Roulade

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 teaspoon paprika

½ teaspoon black pepper

1 (2½–3) pound boneless turkey breast roast, butter fied (with skin on)

½ teaspoon kosher salt

Freshly ground black pepper

¾ cup dry white wine, divided

¼ cup pure maple syrup

Special Equipment

8–10 pieces kitchen twine (for tying the roulade), roasting pan, roasting rack

Prepare stufng: Heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add chopped onion and sauté for 4–5 minutes, or until just translucent.

Maple-Glazed

Turkey Roulade with Butternut Squash Stufng

Photo: Baila Gluck

Add garlic and butternut squash, stirring to coat with oil. Season with Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste. Sauté for another 6–7 minutes, or until squash starts to become tender.

Add thyme and mushrooms. Stir to blend and sauté another 4–5 minutes, or until mushrooms begin to wilt. Remove from heat; add bread crumbs to the pan, stirring to distribute. Set mixture aside to cool.

To prepare roulade: Preheat oven to 450 F. Combine 2 tablespoons olive oil, paprika and black pepper in a small bowl. Mix to blend and set aside. Lay butterfied turkey breast out fat on a large cutting board or work space. Pound to an even ½-inch thickness. Season with salt and freshly ground black pepper. Mound and spread the squash mixture on top of the breast, leaving a small border uncovered. Fold in the tenderloin fap, and then carefully continue to roll up the turkey, tucking in the ends such that the skin is now facing up. Secure and tie the roulade closed with pieces of kitchen twine spaced at 1–2 inch intervals (You may want to secure the roulade frst with toothpicks). Place the tied roulade in a heavy roasting pan on a rack; rub spice mixture all over the exterior of the roulade.

Place roulade in oven for 15–20 minutes to brown exterior. Pour ½ cup white wine into the bottom of the roasting pan and cover with foil. Reduce heat to 350 F and bake for approximately 45 minutes (internal temperature should reach 165 F). Remove from oven and allow roulade to rest for 15 minutes.

Transfer roulade to a platter, reserving pan juices in the roasting pan.* Place roasting pan on stove over medium heat, add maple syrup and remaining ¼ cup wine. Bring to boil, and scrape up browned bits with a spatula to deglaze. Reduce heat to low and simmer for about 5–10 minutes or until sauce is thickened and slightly syrupy. Remove from heat. Skim of excess fat if necessary, and season to taste with salt and pepper.

Cut and remove twine, then slice roulade into 1-inch rounds. Arrange

on a platter and drizzle with glaze (or serve sauce on the side).

*If your roasting pan is not suited for stovetop cooking, simply pour the pan juices and any scraped bits into a small saucepan. Continue with glaze directions.

“Squiggle”

Yields 1 large kugel

Tis recipe for squash kugel or “Squiggle” (as it has been afectionately named in my house) is a cross between a custardy soufe and a fan. Warm favors of maple and cinnamon make it a sweet side dish or light dessert. While I like to use fresh squash for this dish, 30 oz of frozen butternut squash can be used as well.

1 medium butternut squash (about 2½–3 pounds), peeled, seeded and cubed

5 eggs

⅓ cup pure maple syrup

⅓ cup sugar

1½ teaspoons vanilla

Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease a 9-inch baking dish with non-stick cooking spray. Place squash in a pot and cover with 2 inches of water. Bring to a boil over medium heat. Simmer for 20–25 minutes, or until very tender. Drain well. Add coconut oil, eggs, oat milk, maple syrup, and sugar to the squash. Using an immersion blender (or potato masher), blend until smooth. Add remaining ingredients and blend well. Pour mixture into prepared baking dish. Sprinkle with cinnamon. Bake, uncovered for 35–45 minutes, or until set and edges are slightly golden. Slice into squares and serve warm or room temperature.

Yields 2 loaf cakes

A warming pumpkin gingerbread cake—perfect for cool nights in the sukkah with tea (or lefovers with your morning cofee!).

4 cups all-purpose four

4 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

2 teaspoons cinnamon

2 teaspoons salt

1 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1 teaspoon ground ginger

1½ cups sugar

4 eggs

2 cups pure pumpkin puree (14.5 oz can)

1 cup oat/soy milk

1 teaspoon vanilla

Molasses-Bourbon Glaze:

1½ cups powdered sugar

2½ teaspoons molasses

2 teaspoons bourbon whiskey

4–5 teaspoons water

Cider Glaze:

1½ cups powdered sugar

2 tablespoons apple cider

Preheat oven to 350 F. Grease and line 2 (9x5”) loaf pans with parchment paper. Combine four, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, salt, nutmeg and ginger in a large bowl; whisk to blend well. Set aside.

In a mixer, cream together oils, sugar, molasses and eggs until light and fufy. Add dry ingredients mixture, alternating with adding oat milk and vanilla, blending until just smooth. Scrape down sides and mix once more; divide batter between pans and smooth tops. Bake for 50–60 minutes or until toothpick inserted comes out clean. Remove from oven and transfer to rack to cool. Remove cakes from pans and continue to cool completely on rack.

Whisk together all ingredients for the glaze of your choice. Drizzle glaze over cakes (allow time to set and frm).

Spiced Pumpkin Bread

FROM THE PAGES OF OU PRESS

The following essay, entitled “Rosh Hashanah: Let There Be Light,” is excerpted from Festivals of Faith: Reﬂections on the Jewish Holidays by Rabbi Norman Lamm, edited by Dr. David Shatz and Rabbi Simon Posner (OU Press/Ktav, 2011). This sermon was delivered by Rabbi Lamm in 1961.

One of the fascinating minor themes in our rabbinic literature concerning the shofar is that of confusing and confounding Satan, the devil or angel of evil. What does this mean? Are we involved in a kind of game with the devil? Is this an echo of a non-Jewish mythology?

I believe not. I believe that there is a far deeper Jewish thought in these words, one for which the expression le-arbev et ha-Satan is a kind of poetic garment. This idea, of which shofar comes to remind us, is that we right-thinking, well-meaning, loyal Jews—that we must not be confused! Satan always seems to be better organized and more efcient. The forces of evil and tyranny on the international scene are usually far

more efective and disciplined than those of democracy and peace. The Satan within each of us is usually far more competent and energetic than our yetzer tov, our inclination for the good. On Rosh Hashanah, we are invited le-arbev et ha-Satan, to change roles with Satan, to confound him and, in turn, to learn from him the secret of how not to be confused.

Confusion is, indeed, the hallmark of our times. We are confused by the daily anxieties of existence, the senseless anguish and the seeming emptiness of life all about us. We are confused by the conﬂicting claims pressed upon us by the difering interpretations of Judaism, both those to the right of us and those to the left. We are confused by the clash of religionists and secularists in the State of Israel. We are confused by the strange kind of world in which our children are growing up—indeed, by our children themselves, their dreams and ambitions, their fears and piques, their paradoxical, ambivalent attitudes toward us— rebelliousness on the one hand, love on the other.

Before the world took the form its Creator ordained for it, it was tohu va-vohu (Gen. 1:2)—void and chaotic, all confusion. Only afterwards, after the darkness on the face of the deep, did G-d command “Yehi or—let there be light” (Gen. 1:3)—and there was light! Creative thinkers or writers or artists know that immediately before the stroke of inspiration, there must be a period of tohu va-vohu and irbuv, of true confusion.

In this spirit and with this knowledge, let us think of how we of this confused generation ought to respond to the challenge of shofar to achieve clarity and emerge from our perplexity. Three ways of emerging from this perplexity commend themselves to us. The ﬁrst way is consciously to have a scale of values. There can be no meaningful existence unless one knows what

is more important and what less so, what is right and what is wrong. In Judaism, this scale of values is not a matter for every individual to invent for himself. It is contained in the Torah. To know values, therefore, one must learn Torah. Only through the study of Torah can there be that enlightenment that will form creative clarity out of formless chaos. Study alone can clear up perplexity.

The second way of banishing confusion also sounds deceptively simple. It is faith. By this I mean not only faith in G-d but faith in the soundness of your values, and faith that ultimately they will be clear to you even if now you are somewhat vague and do not understand them completely. Confusion can be cleared up by the faith that it will be cleared up. We must not be difdent in presenting our case to the world. We must not so lack conﬁdence in our tradition that we allow the spokesmen for Judaism to be not the genuine gedolei Torah, but outright secularists or half-assimilated political leaders.

Finally, in addition to obtaining a scale of values through the study of Torah and having faith and conﬁdence in them, we must be prepared to live practically and decisively by these same values. It is not enough to “have” values; one must live by them, or else they are meaningless. Just studying and having faith is not enough. One must act by them clearly and constantly. The eminent Harvard professor, the late George Foot Moore, once said that the diference between philosophy and religion is that religion does something about it. There must be a commitment in action.

With the clear call of the shofar, let us determine le-arbev et ha-Satan, to confound all that is evil and bring clarity to our lives. Through Torah let there be light—and may we see the light. Amen.

TOMORROW'S GOLANI COMMANDER

finally left his bed.

They are Israel’s hope for the future. They are the next generation of soldiers and statespeople. And they need our help.

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Rav Schachter on Pirkei Avos: Insights and Commentary Based on the Shiurim of Rav Hershel Schachter

Adapted by Dr. Allan Weissman 2023

287 pages

Reviewed by Ben Rothke

We have many volumes of the writings of quite a number of rabbinic greats. But of others, we have very little.

Rabbi Jonathan Ziring, rosh yeshivah

Ben Rothke lives in New Jersey and works in the information security ﬁeld. He reviews books on religion, technology, and science.

Avot is all about tradition, and as Dr. Weissman notes in his introduction, Rabbi Schachter brings with him to every shiur a rich and weighty mesorah.

at Yeshiva Migdal HaTorah in Modi’in, quotes Rabbi Mosheh Lichtenstein, who describes the diference between rabbis whose main contribution was their writing and those whose main contribution consisted of teaching Torah. He explains that many great Acharonim held positions in very small towns. Teir communal duties were limited, giving them ample time to write. And some of these great Acharonim wrote prolifcally. Other rabbis ministered over very large communities, which signifcantly limited their writing time and resulted in a limited written oeuvre.

Some rabbis, however, are able to accomplish both. Rabbi Hershel Schachter has immense communal duties, from serving as rosh yeshivah at Yeshiva University and senior posek for

OU Kosher to providing guidance to his countless students, many of whom are communal rabbis and teachers, and more. It would take years to listen to his myriad shiurim, with over 6,700 (as of this writing) on the YUTorah website. And yet he has found the time to write six Hebrew sefarim and many articles.

One of the latest additions to his writings is a series of books that presents more of Rabbi Schachter’s insights to the public. My friend and neighbor Dr. Allan Weissman, MD, is a devoted student of Rabbi Schachter and has never lef his orbit. Over the last decade, Dr. Weissman has dedicated himself to bringing Rabbi Schachter’s brilliant insights to the written page. Tis includes volumes of “Rav Schachter on” Tefllah, the Parsha, the Haggadah, and the Moadim Te latest addition to

the series is Rav Schachter on Pirkei Avos. Masechet Avot starts with the transmission of the Torah, beginning with Moshe and continuing to the Anshei Knesset Hagedolah, about a thousand years later. Avot is all about tradition, and as Dr. Weissman notes in his introduction, Rabbi Schachter brings with him to every shiur a rich and weighty mesorah. Tis is based on the Torah he learned directly from his great teacher Rabbi Joseph Ber Soloveitchik, during a relationship that spanned many decades.

Dr. Weissman writes that Rabbi Schachter considers it to be his primary goal in life to faithfully transmit his mesorah of the Torah Shebe’al Peh to as many students as possible. In this remarkable work on Avot, Dr. Weissman serves as Rabbi Schachter’s partner in that endeavor.

As an introduction to Avot, Rabbi Schachter cites a characteristically sharp insight of the Vilna Gaon. Te Gemara (Bava Kamma 30a) gives three opinions about how to achieve piety: fulfll the matters of tractate Nezikin; fulfll the matters of tractate Avot; or fulfll the matters of tractate Berachot Te Vilna Gaon (Mishlei 2:9; Yeshayahu 1:2) explains that these correspond to the three realms of mitzvot: Nezikin, containing the laws of torts and damages, corresponds to the interpersonal mitzvot, bein adam lachaveiro. Berachot, containing the laws of prayer and blessings, corresponds to the mitzvot between man and G-d, bein adam laMakom Avot, however, corresponds to a third category, the mitzvot between man and himself, bein adam l’atzmo. Rabbi Schachter explains that the foundation of the requirement to refne one’s character traits, the focus of this masechta, is for man to embody the image of G-d in which he was created. Tis therefore is an obligation man has to himself, “to maintain his tzelem Elokim by exhibiting proper middos.”

Tis relates to another aspect of Avot. Rabbi Schachter cites Rabbi Soloveitchik, who noted that “the Masorah regarding middos must be transmitted by personal example and not through a verbal shiur as is the case regarding the Masorah of halachos . . . in the area of middos, a talmid must observe his rebbi in practice, through his deportment and demeanor, and thereby learn how to properly conduct himself.” Rabbi Schachter himself, as all who have encountered him know, is a shining example of the refned character and middot that are the subject of this volume.

Afer enlightening the reader with Rabbi Schachter’s mesorah on Pirkei Avot, the book concludes with a chapter on derech halimud (methodology of Torah study) and Rabbi Schachter’s approach to it.

Dr. Weissman has done a tremendous service in bringing Rabbi Schachter’s mesorah on Pirkei Avot to the public in this fascinating and insightful book.

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Masters of the Word: Traditional Jewish Bible Commentary From the Twelfth Through Fourteenth Centuries (Vol. 3)

By Rabbi Yonatan Kolatch

OU Press/Ktav

New York, 2023

512 pages

Reviewed by Rabbi Yaakov Taubes

Afer a two-year Covidinduced hiatus from our formal seudah shelishit program at the shul where I am privileged to serve as rabbi, I was looking for ways to enhance the Torah component that would reinvigorate the shul and bring people back in the afernoon for the third Shabbat meal. Afer considering various formats and styles of divrei Torah, we settled upon creating a series entitled “Scholars and Scholarship,” in which we explore a diferent commentary on the Torah each week. I divide my presentation between a few minutes on the life and times of the given commentator, a few minutes on his style of exegesis and a conclusion with an example from the week’s parashah

Finding material and appropriate examples each week has not always been simple, and I was thus very pleased to discover the Masters of the Word series by Rabbi Yonatan Kolatch (full disclosure: the third volume of which was recently published by OU Press). Tis volume includes fve chapters, covering the parashiot of Shemot through Yitro, while the previous two volumes covered all the parashiot in Sefer Bereishit. Each chapter is devoted to a diferent Torah commentator and is divided into three sections along lines similar to what I described above. Tis volume discusses fve major fgures: Rambam, Radak, Ramban, Rabbi Bachya, and Ralbag. It is a masterful work, as Rabbi Yonatan Kolatch has a keen eye for topics that would be of interest to all students of Torah, regardless of whether their knowledge of the commentators

discussed is extensive or limited. I will provide examples of each section to illustrate his methodology.

Section I presents the life and times of the commentator, including a detailed biography and the historical context in both general history and Jewish history. For example, in both the chapter on Rabbi Levi ben Gershom (as an aside, Rabbi Kolatch includes a helpful footnote, with references, about whether his father’s name was Gershon or Gershom), known as Ralbag or Gersonides, and in the chapter on Radak, Rabbi David Kimchi, Rabbi Kolatch discusses their shared homeland: Provence. In this discussion, Rabbi Kolatch notes that this geographic term is one used almost exclusively by Jews and is somewhat problematic, as the several Jewish communities contained therein were mostly separate from each other, ofen governed by distinct kingdoms, and thus not a unifed political entity (a helpful parallel to consider is the Jewish communities of Long Island which are ofen referred to as “the Five Towns” despite their not forming any real entity, municipal or otherwise). Other issues examined here include the development of parshanut hamikra in Provence; while there is some overlap in the two chapters, each presentation ofers new material. Rabbi Kolatch includes in each of these chapters a discussion of the “Maimonidean Controversies,” in which both commentators played a part. In particular, the question of whether it is legitimate to interpret parts of the Torah allegorically, around which the controversy of 1305

Rabbi Yaakov Taubes is the rabbi at Mount Sinai Jewish Center in Washington Heights, New York. He also serves as an assistant director at the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary at Yeshiva University, and is a PhD candidate in medieval Jewish history at the Bernard Revel Graduate School for Jewish Studies.

revolved, was an issue that Ralbag cared deeply about, although Ralbag’s own view on this question is not completely feshed out by Rabbi Kolatch.

Section II of each chapter describes the writing history, goals and structure, as well as the publication history of the commentator. Regarding the Ramban, for example, we are told of the scholarly debate over when during his life the commentary was written, along with the larger question as to which parts of the commentary were added and/or modifed later, when he arrived in the Land of Israel. We discover in the chapter on the late thirteenth-century commentator Rabbeinu Bachya ben Asher, that his commentary was frst published in 1492 and has been published many times since. Rabbi Kolatch also describes the manuscripts upon which Rabbi Chaim D. Chavel drew to create the now standard edition, printed by Mossad HaRav Kook.

Afer a discussion of the goals of each work based on the author’s own introduction, Rabbi Kolatch highlights themes from the respective commentaries, including, in the case of Rabbeinu Bachya and Ramban, their approach to kabbalah, their sources, their writing style, and their attitude toward peshat, among other things. Rabbi Kolatch notes, for example, several features that characterize Ramban’s method of peshat, and his careful attention to Biblical style, including syntax, the use of ellipsis, word and information repetition and temporal sequence, better known as “ein mukdam ume’uchar baTorah.” Each of these methods receives a brief analysis with examples drawn from the commentary itself. Te chapter on Rabbeinu Bachya devotes attention to a study of his introduction to the commentary in order to better understand his goals, with a particular focus on his famous use of four distinct methods of interpretation, including peshat, midrash, seichel and sod (which Rabbi Kolatch correctly notes is diferent from the well-known and sometimes misunderstood PaRDeS model).

In Section III of each chapter, we

are presented with selections from the commentator on a specifc parashah. As is known, the Rambam did not write a separate commentary on the Torah, but various modern works have culled exegetical material from his numerous other works, and Rabbi Kolatch devotes several sections to exploring Rambam’s exegetical methodology. He selects nine passages from Rambam’s Moreh Nevuchim, Sefer HaMitzvot and Mishneh Torah on topics such as incorporeality versus anthropomorphism, Names of G-d and halachic parshanut Tese sections are relatively brief and include the original Hebrew and English translation (except in the case of the Moreh Nevuchim, which was originally written in Judeo-Arabic; Rabbi Kolatch thus included the English only) followed by a concise analysis.

In the chapter on the Radak, Rabbi Kolatch notes that Sefer Bereishit is the only book of the Torah on which Radak wrote a separate commentary; the selections for Parashat Va’era are thus taken from his other writings, particularly his monumental dictionary, Sefer HaShorashim, which means that the examples lean toward the philological. A separate section at the end briefy analyzes Radak’s commentary on the Akeidah, which, though obviously not from Parashat Va’era, clearly illustrates his exegetical style. Although the somewhat forced nature of these two chapters, on Rambam and Radak respectively, may seem to strain Rabbi Kolatch’s model of producing a book analyzing commentaries around the parashiot, the structure of the book does work overall, and selections from each of the fve commentators surveyed do in fact ofer interesting examples which inspire further study.

Te book is also well laid out with various section headers and subdivisions within each chapter, as well as a detailed outline at the beginning of each chapter.

Unfortunately, however, these outlines lack page references, so one must navigate through the chapter to fnd each section (although the work does include a fairly detailed

index). Additionally, some may fnd the footnotes somewhat tedious, especially when multiple references are occasionally given to a single point, but for the most part, the footnotes add explanation and enhance the content.

One major lacuna of the work is an introduction or preface that would explain its goals, purpose and methodology. Te frst volume of the series, printed in 2006, does include a lengthy introduction to parshanut hamikra, noting the need for Biblical commentary and approaches as to why the Torah was written in a way that required commentary at all, as well as describing some of the primary avenues of textual exploration used by the major Biblical commentators. It also describes the various approaches to commentary employed throughout the generations as well as including sections surveying sources on multivalent exegetical approaches toward the Torah and classic defenses of peshat. While we would not expect the author to repeat all of this in each volume, the reader would certainly have benefted if at least some of the content of the preface to that frst volume, which explained the style of the work, how each chapter is divided, and why knowing the historical background of a commentator can enrich our understanding of his writing, would have been included in this volume and expanded upon, especially when some clear diferences of style are manifest in this new volume as compared to the original. It would also have been useful to include a note about which commentators were chosen for this volume and what unifying factor, if any, exists between the various commentators surveyed, in either style or background.

Overall, however, Rabbi Kolatch has crafed a most interesting work that is a pleasure to read on each parashah and which can be enjoyed by beginners as well as by advanced students of Torah commentary. I eagerly look forward to future volumes from this author, featuring diferent commentaries on the other parashiot of the Torah.

Kaddish Around the World: Uplifting and Inspiring Stories

By Rabbi Gedalia Zweig

Targum Press

New York, 2023

106 pages

Reviewed by Steve Lipman

Shortly afer the Hamas attack on October 7, Rabbi Gedalia Zweig of Toronto was contacted by a representative of Kibbutz Be’eri, the Israeli kibbutz that sufered the most casualties at the hands of the terrorists; at last count, some one hundred residents of Be’eri died in the Hamas atrocity, triggering the IDF’s ongoing war in Gaza.

Te Be’eri representative, who had seen Rabbi Zweig’s name mentioned in a Jewish publication, asked if he would say Kaddish for four of the kibbutzniks

The rabbi did not know any of the men and women of Be’eri for whom he undertook to recite Kaddish until September of 2024. Strangers, all. . . . [Except that] now they are connected by the words in Aramaic he recites three times a day.

who had lost their lives in the October 7 attack. For various reasons, says the rabbi, Be’eri residents would be unlikely to say the Jewish mourner’s prayer for the four victims for the full eleven months.

Rabbi Zweig, who splits his time between serving as the chazan at Toronto’s Toras Emes Congregation (Viewmount Shul) and working in the family paint business, immediately said yes.

He was following his own advice. Rabbi Zweig is a ba’al teshuvah who learned at Aish HaTorah. He also studied at Yeshivat Itri in Jerusalem and received semichah from the Mirrer Yeshiva in New York. He has made it his life’s mission to tell people about the spiritual benefts of reciting Kaddish when the need arises.

His frst book, Living Kaddish: incredible and inspiring stories (New York: Targum Press, 2007; also translated into Russian and Spanish), ofered some background on the prayer, as

well as some memorable stories about people who managed to say Kaddish under difcult circumstances. Readers’ enthusiastic reaction to Living Kaddish led him to start collecting similar Kaddish stories, featuring serendipitous incidents and obstacles overcome in venues on every continent.

Te result of his continuing interest is Kaddish Around the World, which includes such stories as:

l Members of opposing legal teams joining each other in court, along with the trial’s presiding judge, when one of the attorneys needed to say Kaddish late one day. “Most of the men pulled out their iPhones or Blackberries and had the prayers on their screens in seconds.”

l A minyan at Ataturk International Istanbul Airport in Turkey. Eric scurried to fnd ten men for Minchah. He ran around the terminal before his fight to the US boarded. Finally, he rounded up enough men.

Steve Lipman is a frequent contributor to Jewish Action.

Machzor Mesoras HaRav for Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur

With commentary adapted from the teachings of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik by Dr. Arnold Lustiger.

Before Hashem You Shall Be Purifed: Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik on the Days of Awe (Expanded Edition)

These ten derashot address the meaning of the many aspects to the Yamim Noraim with the Rav’s characteristic insight, depth, and creativity. Summarized and annotated by Dr. Arnold Lustiger.

Jonah: The Reluctant Prophet

With compassionate insight and understanding, Dr. Erica Brown examines the story of the unwilling messenger and a prophet in both psychological and spiritual confict.

The Akeidah: The Epic Confrontation of Din and Rachamim

Michael Kaiser presents an original and creative interpretation of the Akeidah, the haunting saga of faith which has intrigued the world for millennia.

Return: Daily Inspiration for the Days of Awe

Dr. Erica Brown ofers an essay for each day of Aseret Yemei Teshuva to help us navigate this fraught time and the nature of teshuva.

Festivals of Faith: Refections on the Jewish Holidays

Experience Rabbi Norman Lamm’s eloquence and mastery of Jewish thought in this treasure trove of sermons for the yamim tovim.

l A minyan at Major League Baseball’s 2009 All-Star game in St. Louis. A Maariv service was set to take place at a designated spot in the vending area during the seventh-inning stretch. Only six men showed up; most of the regulars had sold their tickets for the high-prestige game. Daniel, in need of a minyan that night, told stadium personnel at a security window that he was looking for his missing sister: “Anita Minyan.” An announcement went through the stadium intercom that the missing person was to report to the lost-and-found area on Level 2. Te group of seven “soon became ten and then 14. . . . Daniel managed to fulfll his Kaddish requirement.”

l Kaddish recited by members of a safari expedition in Kenya. One of the safari’s dates coincided with Ivan’s yahrtzeit date for his late father. Ivan’s safari would be “somewhere in the heart of the Masai Mara game reserve,” a large grassland. Te peak tourist season was over; “the nearest minyan was hundreds of miles away.” Into the lobby of Ivan’s hotel walked “a noisy crowd” of tourists . . . all Israelis. “Ivan hadn’t found a minyan; the minyan had found him.”

Te book contains thirty-three stories, most not longer than a few pages, all in the words of the people—rabbis and lay members of the Jewish community—to whom the stories happened.

“I wanted it to come from them—everyone has a story; everyone [at some time] has to say Kaddish,” Rabbi Zweig says. “I want to inspire more people to say Kaddish. I want to be known as ‘the Kaddish Man.’”

Rabbi Zweig’s interest in the topic grew during the quarantines of the Covid pandemic, when synagogues were closed or restricted the number of people who were allowed to gather there for worship services, afer which many people “lost interest in minyanim.”

In recent years, Kaddish has become more personal for the rabbi. His father, a Holocaust survivor, died in 2021; his mother, from Toronto, died in 2002.

Unlike a spate of other books about Kaddish in recent years that have focused on the prayer’s history, background, halachot, or journals of individual people who recited the prayer, Kaddish Around the World brings together stories from various people, some non-Orthodox, showing the strength of Kaddish.

“Kaddish does not mention the deceased, nor does it speak about death,” Rabbi Zweig points out in the book’s preface. Citing the remark by the late Israeli poet Shai Agnon that “we are all G-d’s children” and that “when a human dies, G-d loses a child,” the rabbi writes that Kaddish ofers “words of consolation to G-d because of His loss.”

Te rabbi did not know any of the men and women of Be’eri for whom he undertook to recite Kaddish until September of 2024. Strangers, all. Really not strangers, he corrects himself. Now they are connected by the words in Aramaic he recites three times a day.

Afer the Hamas attack, when non-Jews with whom he spoke around Toronto asked him if he had family in Israel, he would say no, he says. Ten he had a second thought. “Everybody is family there,” he now tells the questioners.

Among the victims of the Hamas attack on Be’eri, whose population before October 7 was about 1200, were women,

children and infants; many hostages were also taken from Be’eri, and dozens of homes were burned down. Established in 1946, the kibbutz is the largest village of the Eshkol Regional Council.

“Unfortunately,” says Rabbi Zweig, “we have many reasons to say Kaddish” following October 7 in Israel. “It’s a very difcult time for everybody.”

In saying Kaddish for a small group of victims, Rabbi Zweig is doing as an individual what the Chesed Chaim V’Emet organization (https://holy.hhe.org.il/en/kaddish-lkol-kadosh/) is doing on a wider scale in Israel.

A globe-trotter, Rabbi Zweig leads tours in Israel during his frequent trips there, and has led High Holiday services in Sweden and Barbados. Amid a busy schedule giving speeches in Canada and abroad about his latest book, Rabbi Zweig has begun conceptualizing his next one. It will also be a collection of stories, he says. Maybe about Kaddish again. Maybe about another aspect of the spiritual side of Yiddishkeit. “It might just be inspiring stories,” the rabbi says. “Tere is no lack of stories.”

One story in Kaddish Around the World: Te author describes his search for a minyan at the Chabad House in Weston, Florida. It was in late December 2021, and Covid wariness and many people’s vacation schedules resulted in “only seven people in shul.” With the help of the Chabad rabbi’s son-in-law, Rabbi Tzvi Alperowitz, three more daveners showed up.

Rabbi Zweig had his Kaddish minyan.

“Don’t forget,” Rabbi Alperowitz told Rabbi Zweig, “to put us in your book of Kaddish stories.”

MAKE PEACE

distills the Lubavitcher Rebbe’s timeless vision for Eretz Yisrael’s security policy into a principled, systematic guide. It offers a historically grounded, strategic, pragmatic approach to resolving the seemingly intractable conﬂict and fostering enduring peace.

SIE.ORG / MAKEPEACE

Reviews in Brief

By Rabbi Gil Student

LIFE AFTER TESHUVAH: FIVE, TEN, AND TWENTY YEARS LATER

By Rabbi Zecharya Greenwald Mosaica Press

Ramat Beit Shemesh, 2024

380 pages

Aba’al teshuvah, someone who chooses to become Torah observant, is typically portrayed as enthusiastic and positive. He or she fnds joy and inspiration in his new life. But eventually, every ba’al teshuvah passes through his honeymoon period and realizes that life in the Orthodox community can be less than perfect. Te reality of others, of society, and even of himself falls short of his expectations. Te disappointment and disillusionment afect each person diferently. Some people decide to change the world, while others become bitter; some accept that reality is imperfect, while others leave Torah observance.

Rabbi Zecharya Greenwald, a longtime educator in women’s seminaries in Israel, published Life afer Teshuvah to ofer advice and guidance to people who reach a stage

of disillusionment. While this book is directed toward ba’alei teshuvah, much of it applies equally to anyone who feels disappointed in the Jewish community or its leadership. Tis is a book that provides tools to manage the challenges.

For example, your children may not have been accepted to the school of their choice or may face repeated rejection from prospective mates. Tese are emotionally difcult topics— frustration over the impact of the lack of money and connections (protektzia) ofen comes into play. Among the strategies Rabbi Greenwald suggests is recognizing that what you want is not always what is right for you. If your child is not compatible with that school or potential spouse, you may have avoided disaster. However, he does not ignore the many problems with schools (e.g., large classes, lack of professionalism, “the way rules are made and the structure of the system itself”) and the shidduch system in general (“the whole shidduch system is beyond my comprehension”). We live in the real world. We need faith in Hashem, realistic expectations, and an ability to focus on what we have rather than what we lack.

Rabbi Greenwald discusses not just the importance of building a support system but the practicalities of how to do so. Busy people want to help you, but you need to approach them in a fexible manner, recognizing their time constraints. He advises readers how best to approach busy rabbis and how to build multiple layers of support. Most importantly, he recommends becoming a giver of support to others, based on your own abilities and time

constraints. You will fnd that you end up receiving more than you give.

Te book addresses many more topics, such as whether you should encourage your close family to become more religious (emphatically no), what to consider when deciding whether to try to have a large family, and the importance of instilling self-esteem and resilience in your children. More broadly, Rabbi Greenwald trains readers to think deeply about the challenges they face in life and to consider things from the perspectives of others. Even those who are not ba’alei teshuvah will beneft greatly from this sensitive and long-overdue book that will help many people struggling with their religious identity and community.

PESIKAH KAHALACHAH (HEBREW)

By Rabbi Shlomo Aviner, edited by Rabbi Mordechai Tzion Ateret Yerushalayim Press Jerusalem, 2023 389 pages

We live in a time of rapid social and technological change. What was science fction and political fction twentyfve years ago is now a reality. Tis breathless pace of change inevitably leads to debate among ethicists—and, within the Jewish community, halachists—about

Rabbi Gil Student is a member of Jewish Action’s Editorial Committee.

If your child is not compatible with that school or potential spouse, you may have avoided disaster.

what is and should be allowed. I wish I had kept careful notes about the many halachic debates I have encountered in my lifetime regarding new practices and technologies. Apparently, Rabbi Shlomo Aviner, the retired rosh yeshivah of Yeshiva Ateret Yerushalayim, prominent posek and prolifc writer, has kept track.

Rabbi Aviner’s Pesikah KaHalachah collects his responses to a long list of halachic controversies over the past twentyfve or so years. Te framework of the book includes only rulings and innovations that he opposes, which should not lead the reader to believe he never rules leniently. Te main part of the book contains two sections: (1) strange rulings and (2) rulings that are difcult to understand. Te diference between the two seems to be whether Rabbi Aviner considers the person who issued the ruling to be a venerated halachic authority. If so, he classifes the ruling as one that is difcult to understand. For example, Rabbi Moshe Feinstein rules that a shul may not display an Israeli fag. Rabbi Aviner fnds this puzzling and discusses conficting reports about whether Rabbi Feinstein regretted and retracted that ruling or issued any other responsum on the topic.

In contrast, when the ruling was issued by someone less prominent, it is included in the section of “strange rulings.” For example, in 2014 there was much media discussion of a robot in the Jewish Museum of Berlin that could quickly write a fawless Torah scroll. Rabbi Aviner’s discussion of this type of robot is part of the section of “strange rulings,” where he responds to an unnamed rabbi who had publicly supported the robotic sofer. Rabbi Aviner ofers a traditional, citation-flled discussion of multiple arguments, also rejecting an earlier proposal of a silk-screened Torah. In general, Rabbi Aviner does not ofer the name of the rabbi to whom he responds (Rabbi Moshe Feinstein is an exception, presumably because his name is necessary for the discussion about whether he retracted his ruling). A reader or historian will fnd this frustrating. On the other hand, the lack of names transforms the conversation into a discussion of ideas, rather than personalities, which is much more rewarding.

On many topics, Rabbi Aviner’s attitude is one of social conservatism; he is skeptical of change and deferential to custom. Tis is particularly true when dealing with issues of gender and sexuality. Many of the “strange rulings” are

about women’s issues, such as a woman reading a ketubah at a wedding or wearing tefllin for morning prayers. However, the majority deal with other issues, such as shaking a lulav on Shabbat in Jerusalem, the publication of gossip about public fgures, and the proposed abolishment of the seven clean days of niddah. I suspect many readers will fnd themselves nodding along approvingly with some of Rabbi Aviner’s arguments and shaking their heads in disappointment at others, even feeling frustration over rulings so diferent from the rulings of their rabbis and so divergent from the communal directions they were taught are necessary.

In addition to the citations and halachic arguments, the very record of all these controversies is valuable in itself.

Pesikah KaHalachah shows where the fault lines lie in our community and where innovation and progress have been proposed. It is a map illustrating areas in which some people have identifed problems that need solutions, while others refuse to embrace the status quo. More than a halachic manual, this book is a text of history and sociology.

Appended to these two sections is a 130-page collection of Rabbi Aviner’s brief answers, ranging across the four sections of Shulchan Aruch, to halachic questions regarding Coronavirus restrictions. Tis, too, is an important record of a unique period in our history.

Questions and Answers with Rabbi Leib Kelemen

Rabbi Leib Kelemen, founder of a kollel and a best-selling author, has answered literally thousands of honest and sincere questions in a popular monthly online questionand-answer session. They range from the profound—Why did Hashem create the world?—to the practical— How do I instill yiras Hashem in my children?

In a new book, Questions and Answers with Rabbi Leib Kelemen, the author shares nearly one hundred fascinating, carefully selected questions. In each answer, Rabbi Kelemen weaves together Torah sources, personal stories, and especially the teachings and insights of his own rebbi, Rav Shlomo Wolbe, while also drawing upon his own decades of experience in teaching and guiding others.

From shidduchim to childrearing, from Torah study to nurturing one’s talents, from shalom bayis to connecting to the power of , here are the questions we ask—and the answers we need to hear.

LASTING IMPRESSIONS

Holy Pineapples

By Tania Hammer

Three weeks into the war, I received an unusual phone call. It was about selling pineapples for a struggling farmer in the Gaza Envelope. Now, I’ve had some unusual phone calls in my lines of work over the years—as a mikvah lady, a school secretary, and in a lingerie shop. I know nothing about farming. Truly, I fnd pineapples tedious. But this call wasn’t about me. It was about helping a farmer during a war that threatened so many livelihoods, another heartbreak of this existential battle.

“Of course I can help him!” I responded immediately.

My large Jerusalem garden is a mitzvah venue. I’ve had all sorts of parties and hosted people from all over. Now I can add pineapples to the list. Farmer Noam called soon afer, rattling of in spitfre Hebrew (which is not my strong suit), asking if he could come that evening. He arrived at midnight.

Wearing his army uniform and holding a machine gun, he immediately got down to business assessing the garden. “Big ones go here, mediums there, smaller ones there, okay let’s go!” I went out to my car park, and there was a massive pickup truck with a trailer attached—full of pineapple crates. He climbed up and down the trailer like a trapeze artist, unloading his fruit.

In half an hour my garden was transformed into a farmers market. By

Tania Hammer is a community activist in Jerusalem. She has a very active older singles group and hosts dozens for Shabbat meals most weeks. She is in retail and can now add pineapples to the list of things she’s sold!

1:00 am, he was on the road home again.

I came up with an ad:

Tania Hammer is selling pineapples to help a farmer in the Gaza Envelope. Come between 10–1 on Tursday. First come, frst served.

I added my address.

I posted the ad on several Facebook and WhatsApp groups, and it spread via word of mouth. Noam had an email list of previous customers, so he sent the ad there as well.

Te next day I sold all 800 pineapples in two hours. It was truly incredible to see people coming out of their war-torn mindset to pick up pineapples.

“When can I come again?” Noam asked. October, November and December brought feverish agricultural activity. Noam came with about ten deliveries of pineapples. I sold them faster than he got them in. Tey were wildly popular, and I have changed my mind about my favorite fruit. It is now defnitely pineapples. Not only because they are so delicious. It is because Noam is the embodiment of Eretz Yisrael, Am Yisrael and Torat Yisrael.

Noam Hershtik, thirty-fve, is the director of Kibbutz Bnei Netzarim on the Egyptian border, the last of the ffy kibbutzim of the Gaza Envelope. He and his wife have seven boys. With a few other young couples, they have built a successful hothouse/greenhouse business growing pineapples and other tropical fruit. (Baruch Hashem, the kibbutz was not attacked on Simchat Torah because of its meticulous internal security—they don’t hire Gazan workers—and because of their proximity to Egypt.) Tese kibbutzim were strategically placed around the Gaza Strip in the ‘40s and ‘50s as a barrier and as the breadbasket of the south. Every kibbutz grows produce, inspired by Yeshayahu’s prophecy—the

miracle of a blooming desert. Today the Gaza Envelope crops feed Israel’s southern regions and beyond. Noam’s carefully nurtured business was in jeopardy; the war had wiped out his trade routes.

Noam is a walking, working vision of what an Israeli could potentially be. He carries with him the kedushah of Eretz Yisrael. Te earth has a soul here. We pray for the land every day, three times a day. In fact, all farmers here are aware of this unique life-force. He knows his success is all from Above.

Despite the language barrier, Noam and I worked well together. His love and respect for all our People was evident.

Torat Yisrael manifested itself several times too. In the Diaspora, produce is always kosher. In Israel, things are much more complicated, with specifc halachot about growing and eating produce. Noam and I discussed terumot and ma’aserot and orlah, and how all these laws adapt to hothouses. His Torah was as sweet as his pineapples.

My fnal meeting with Noam was when he came with his wife and children to thank me for helping him. His rambunctious boys were so excited to visit “bayit shel Tania”! Baruch Hashem he didn’t need to outsource anymore, and in retrospect, it was very difcult for him. I was not his only “seller,” but we all united to help a humble farmer through these difcult times.

Afer three months and 8,000 pineapples, Noam and I became friends through the principles that have held Am Yisrael together for 4,000 years: love of our holy soil, love of our holy people and love of our holy Torah. Noam and I share all three.

Te greatest catastrophe since the Holocaust happened on October 7. Friendships like ours bring light into our darkest hours.