Author Archives: Rabbi

Parenting

Posted on January 6, 2010 | Comments Off

Our forefathers all had parenting challenges, but none more than Yaakov, our ancestor who was closest to us in time and life experience. In a sense, Yaakov had more difficulties in raising his children – for the most part, as a single parent – than did Avraham or Yitzchak. It is easier to raise children if one is righteous and one is wicked. We have clearer guidelines when the dichotomy is black and white. Between Yitzchak and Yishmael, between Yaakov and Esav – there are separate, distinct paths. Shades of gray – the dazzling diversity of Yaakov’s children as exemplified by his blessings – are more difficult to manage and direct, and Yaakov was blessed with twelve colorful children, thirteen if Dina is counted, all whom required direction and discipline. And the stakes were never greater.

Somehow, despite their famous feuds, all of Yaakov’s sons gathered around his deathbed, and Yaakov was quite precise in identifying their uniqueness, their personalities, and their destinies are part of the nation of Israel. Of the twelve, only Shimon and Levi are described as “brothers” – in Ramban’s phrase, “complete brothers, resembling each other in a brotherly way in thought and deed.” All the others were individualists – and Yaakov raised them all, and uneasily, with one objective: to create the nucleus of G-d’s people. So how does one rear – and discipline – diverse children?

The model of our forefathers – and life itself – reinforces that there is no perfect system and no guarantee of ultimate success – but there are patterns that lead to successful discipline that in many ways is on the wane today. Here are some rudimentary thoughts:

Firstly, a parent must be a parent first, and a friend second or third, if at all. A child has friends – a child needs parents. A parent who acts like a child is not acting like a parent – and a parent who feels a need to ingratiate himself/herself to a child or who craves the child’s approval is also not acting like a parent. And a child needs a parent. I recently heard, incredulously, about the mindboggling case of parents who allow their children to smoke marijuana in their home – preferring that they smoke there “under supervision” than outside the home without supervision. Heaven save us – and children – from such “parents” (and their not-so-supervision) who through their children are undoubtedly re-living their wayward youth that apparently turned out so…well, or from parents whose search for personal happiness induces them into shirking or abandoning their parental responsibilities.

Parenting, secondly, requires occasionally saying “no.” Not always saying “no” or always saying “yes,” but occasionally saying “no.” A friend rarely says “no” – or you would just find another friend. There are parents who feel their children will love them less if they say “no.” In fact, the opposite is true – children love their parents more when the parents set limits. Limits – discipline – are examples of parental love, not only authority. In truth, parents whose good values have been absorbed by their children (and whose personal virtues have been witnessed by their children) will have to say “no” less frequently as the child grows in adolescence, not more frequently.

Rav Shlomo Wolbe cited the verse in Zecharia (11:7) as illustrative of the two models of parenting: “And I took two staffs, one I called noam, “pleasantness” and the other chovlim, “destruction,” and I shepherded the flock.” Parents have two tools of discipline – noam and chovlim – at their disposal, and must choose wisely.

There is a destructive form of discipline – when the parent thinks he/she can create a clone of himself/herself and becomes intolerant of any deviation. The child must look, speak, think and act like the parent, walk in the parent’s footsteps – live in the same community, attend the same school, etc. That is wonderful if the child so chooses, and destructive if it is coercive. It is destructive when parents discipline in anger, and without reason or rationale. That is the “makel chovlim”– the destructive staff.

The “makel noam” is pleasant – it rewards, it gives incentives, it provides guidelines, and it sends a message of love. Discipline is like the guardrails on a narrow, winding road; guardrails are not unreasonable constraints on one’s freedom but rather expressions of societal concern and caring. Guardrails do prevent one from experiencing the exhilaration of sailing over a cliff, but also spare one the gruesome reality of hitting rock bottom. Guardrails allow room for maneuverability – within limits. The great criticism lodged against King David, who also struggled with many of his children, is that he never disciplined his rebellious son Adoniyahu – “His father never aggrieved him” (I Kings 1:6) – never caused him any grief, never challenged him, and never said “no.”

Thirdly, it is no crime not to be able to afford something – especially these days when many parents seem to fear telling their children “we cannot afford that, you can’t buy that.” Indeed, it is no crime not to buy something even if you can afford it. Nor is it a crime to say “no” – “you can’t go there, you can’t watch this, you can’t buy this” – even if all your child’s friends can. Parents who judge their worth based on what they give their child materially are not really worth that much, or giving them that much. There are vapid politicians today who lament that our children’s generation might be the first in American history not to out-earn their parents – and the very sentiment corrupts our children’s values. So what if they are not wealthier – there are greater, more valuable legacies we can leave our children. Would we be in a state of deprivation if we had the same material bounty, or even a little less, than the last two generations? Certainly not.

Yaakov’s twelve sons were not an easy bunch – they were strong-willed, complicated, dynamic individuals who had legendary problems with each other and occasionally with their father. Yet, when Yaakov said “gather and listen,” they gathered and listened. And he blessed them, each with a personally appropriate blessing.

For a parent to bless a child requires that the parent knows both his child, and the blessing. To know the child and not know the blessing is as ineffectual as knowing the blessing but not how to transmit it to the child. We need both.

To know one’s child requires insight and objectivity, and to know the blessing – to recognize and use the “staff of pleasantness”– requires knowledge of Torah, and the spirit of our ancestors, our fathers and mothers, our grandfathers and grandmothers. And then we will merit children who are productive Jews and responsible adults, we will be positive role models to the world, and our national history will reach its inevitable – and grand – climax.

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Posted in 1, Chumash, Contemporary Life, Current Events, Machshava/Jewish Thought

A Decade

Posted on December 30, 2009 | 1 comment

“If you could travel back in time to 1999, you’d be struck by a remarkable air of unreality. The Cold War had ended, Communism had been defeated, capitalism had triumphed, history was over.”

So reported the Wall Street Journal in December, and what a difference a decade makes. Old enemies died, Communism was consigned – as President Reagan had predicted – to the ash heap of history (except on some US college campuses) and the former bastions of Communism – China and Russia – became uneasy but (mostly) free enterprisers, although without the trickle down benefits to the masses. At the same time, American capitalism suffered staggering blows – owing to capitalism’s great weakness (the inability to eradicate greed from human nature), the financial chicanery among the greedy, the persistence of the business cycle, and the gambling instinct of Americans financial wizards who were fueled by the knowledge that officialdom would bail out their losses – literally – to the tune of billions of dollars.

And new enemies were born, marking not the end of history but a decisive shift back to the 7^th century. Arab terrorists laid low great symbols of American success and prosperity, and the dust of the World Trade Center has still not completely settled. American wars in the Middle East consumed much of the decade, and show no signs of retrenchment; American involvement may end, but the hostilities will continue – and we will be forced to re-visit such events as the “Hundred Years War (mid-14^th – mid-15^th centuries) or the “Thirty Years War” (17^th century) to begin to understand the nature of enduring conflict.

A decade always brings change (farewell cassette tapes and answering machines). Nevertheless, what is more remarkable than the faux serenity of the 90’s (or 50’s, by the Jewish calendar) is the reality that, as the French say, plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose – the more things change, the more they stay the same. The United States began the decade in recession and ended it in another recession – and few, understandably, remember the prosperity in between. The decade began with Iraq (by its own admission) seeking weapons of mass destruction and threatening Israel, and ends with Iran (by its own admission) doing the same. Israel began the decade with the kidnapping of three soldiers in Lebanon (whose corpses were released four years later in exchange hundreds of hardened terrorists) and ends the decade contemplating another such exchange – releasing even more bloodthirsty terrorists. A Prime Minister Netanyahu planned secret talks with the Syrians over the disposition of the Golan Heights in 1999, and again in 2009. Rockets fell on Sderot in 2000, and still fall today. Ehud Barak planned retreats as Prime Minister in 2000, and as Defense Minister in 2010. Shimon Peres held, and still holds, positions of power and leadership.

Five prime ministers served Israelis in the past decade – Barak, Ariel Sharon, Ehud Olmert, Tzipi Livni and Netanyahu – each struggling to maintain the status quo (and largely failing) and none imbued with new ideas or even a coherent vision to move beyond the quicksand of the “peace process” and on to a more secure footing of building, growth, and progress. Each muddled through in his/her own way, dealing with the occasional cataclysm – relentless terror, expulsion, two wars, and shortly, the Iranian threat – but with a slowly deteriorating strategic situation. If survival in a hostile neighborhood is an accomplishment, then each were accomplished but failed to achieve larger, more productive goals.

Who would not wish to roll back the political clock twenty years? In 1990, Israel controlled south Lebanon, Judea, Samaria, and Gaza – and terror consumed several dozen lives per year. By 2000, Israel had retreated from much of Gaza and parts of YESHA, and was startled by an unprecedented campaign of terror in its cities that ultimately murdered more than a thousand Jews and maimed thousands more. Israel in 2000 fled Lebanon “never to return,” until the rockets of 2006 forced Israel into a brief but disastrous war. Hezbollah’s arsenal of 10,000 rockets and missiles was neutralized, but now replaced with an arsenal of 40,000 rockets and missiles awaiting a new spark. As 2010 dawns, Lebanon is again a tinderbox and largely controlled by Hezbollah, Gaza is lost for the foreseeable future, and Judea and Samaria are frozen – for what reason and for how long are still not fully known. Terror is – momentarily and we pray longer – dormant, the result of constant vigilance, patrols and pre-emptive strikes – thus the simple (and the venal) see the quiet and call for relaxing the measures that have produced the quiet. The “peace process” has been all process, no peace. That history is, assuredly, not at all over.

Is everything the same? Certainly not. We have all aged, loved ones have left us, and new ones are born. We change – each and every one of us – although the changes can be so gradual that we don’t notice them immediately. The Torah we learn seeps into us, and, in Rabbi Akiva’s simile, slowly erodes our resistance to its ideas and values like water dripping on a stone. We become minyanaires – attending daily – and mark our day with Torah study and acts of chesed. We understand life a little more, and a little better. We become more involved in community and the world around us.

There is a similitude in finance, politics and history – but not in one’s spiritual life. A person who boasts that he/she is exactly the same spiritually in 2010 as in 2000 has essentially wasted ten years – and, sadly, is probably worse today than a decade ago. In Torah and divine service, we never stay the same – we either progress or regress. If we look at ourselves carefully and critically (but charitably) undoubtedly we have all progressed, and aspire to attaining even greater spiritual heights.

“A generation comes and a generation goes, but the earth endures forever” (Kohelet 1:4). But more than the “earth” endures – so do our dreams and our quests, our desire to know more, accomplish more and be better people – better Jews, better parents and children, better employers and employees, better baalei chesed. With the blessings of life come the challenges that we confront daily, and the opportunities that come our way and that we squander at our peril. Evil is the same, although its face changes, but the internal enemy always poses a greater threat than the external ones. The world-at-large may stay the same – because human nature never changes – but the world of each individual is unique, fluid, and dynamic, as we strive to ascend to greater spiritual and personal heights, each day and each year. And we pray that very soon redemption comes to a world that desperately needs it, and through the Jewish people who must be the catalysts for good and for the manifestation of G-d’s kingdom on earth.

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Posted in Contemporary Life, Current Events, Israel

Another Stumble

Posted on December 23, 2009 | 10 comments

“In short, there is no crisis; there is only…life, people and human frailty. The nostalgia for the perfect world of the past, where all Jews, especially Rabbis, were decent, honest, ethical and upright, is a fantasy, and a dangerous fantasy. Human nature remains human nature, and as a people we are defined by the majority, not by the exceptions, even if the exceptions grab the media spotlight. And the majority of religious Jews – and Rabbis – are decent, honest, ethical and upright people, and even among the accused wrongdoers, the overwhelming majority of their actions also reflect the values that they profess.” I wrote that last August in response to a number of scandals in Jewish life, and once again it is, sadly, timely. (https://rabbipruzansky.com/2009/08/05/crisis-in-orth…xy-perhaps-not/).

News reports have revealed the lurid details of a Monsey Rabbi who allegedly abused his position as prominent converter of non-Jews to take advantage of the women who came into his orbit. Until last week, the individual in question headed a right-wing Orthodox agency called Eternal Jewish Family (endorsed by many Gedolei Torah across the world) that was created ostensibly to foster universally-acceptable standards for conversion to Judaism. I do hope that allegedly trading sexual favors for conversion are not the “universally-acceptable standards” he, or the organization, had in mind.

This is no attempt to glorify myself or anyone else at the expense of the perpetrator. Anyone mature enough to understand human nature will recognize that what distinguishes people are not the desires or tendencies that we have but only our ability to control them, and to pursue them licitly. What varies from person to person is the level of self-control we maintain. What moves me to write is that the Chilul Hashem is, again, breath-taking, and “in the place where there is desecration of G-d’s name we do not defer to the honor ordinarily due Rabbis.” It is simultaneously embarrassing to the Jewish community but not shocking, another brutal reminder that “there is no guardian against sexual immorality.” Any person can succumb, and the Talmud itself has a number of cases to prove the point, wherein chaste, virtuous people succumbed, or nearly succumbed, to this passion. Elmer Gantry rides again. In the last fifteen years, such miscreants have emerged from the left, center and right wings of Orthodoxy (and from the non-Orthodox movement, and from the non-Jewish world), putting the lie to the perception of many in each group that their particular wing is the repository of all virtue and goodness and all others the domicile of the impure and the promiscuous. There is good and less-than-good in each group.

What makes this case especially egregious was that the alleged offender in question was instrumental in stirring up the “conversion” tumult that has rocked America and Israel in the last few years – questioning past conversions, besmirching or belittling current Batei Din, and generally sending shock waves throughout the system that have not yet died down. I do not know the individual but have met him; I even participated – at his invitation – at an EJF convention that I found to be both over-hyped and underwhelming. It was much ado about very little, and at one kind-hearted and well-meaning person’s expense flew in Rabbis from all over the world (including myself) to a luxury hotel to hear restatements of the obvious in both obvious and quasi-threatening ways. I serve on the Bet Din L’Giyur of Bergen County, faithful and successful adherents to the GPS guidelines promulgated by the Rabbinical Council of America and the Beth Din of America. The thought of using the conversion process in order to obtain money or other favors is abhorrent, as despicable as preying on people who are spiritual searchers and therefore somewhat vulnerable to the charms of their teacher or mentor. In these matters, self-control should be a prerequisite, an absolute.

There are some important general lessons to be derived from this mess. I am always suspicious of people who rail against the failings of others, and by name, and who make every dispute (I mean, EVERY dispute) personal. The Talmud (Kiddushin 70b) said wisely that, generally speaking, “he who delegitimizes others does so with something illegitimate about himself.” People stigmatize others with their own blemishes –perhaps to avoid exposure themselves, perhaps in an effort to deal with the internal conflict and guilt they must feel. Readers know that I have strong feelings on a variety of issues (like EVERY issue) but I try never to personalize the dispute, but rather to disagree forcefully but agreeably. Just because someone disagrees with me does not necessarily mean they are wrong, and even someone who is wrong is not necessarily a bad person. People should never to be defined by one issue, position, or deed, I always assume that the motivations of my antagonists are sincere, and there is much good in them that transcends our areas of disagreement. I wish that were the norm in religious life.

Those who obsess over the failings of any particular wing in Orthodoxy (or, for that matter, Jews generally) should recognize how little these intramural wars of the Jews matter to our enemies. Perhaps they should matter less to us as well. I am often stunned by the vituperative reactions in each group – left, right and center – to any criticism, and the glee that erupts when they find new ammunition to fire at their foes who are, after all, their brothers and sisters. We should rise above that.

One other question intrigues: the individual in question had the ear (and support) of Gedolim throughout the world. How is it possible that they were fooled, that – even if the allegations are false – they did not reckon with the reality that such allegations could be raised against this person? After all, these are the great leaders and thinkers of our time.

This is confirmation of something that I have witnessed myself over the years. Gedolei Torah – and most Rabbis – are incapable of recognizing true evil and hypocrisy. Call it the “Yitzchak Avinu and Esav Syndrome.” I have been in the presence of Gedolim, and they live on a plane of purity and saintliness where such incidents – while theoretically possible; after all, the Tanach is filled with stories of the foibles of great people – are not considered practical possibilities. Most never encounter salaciousness, degradation, and the dark side of man. (Fortunately – or unfortunately – I worked as a criminal defense lawyer for 13 years, and so I am permanently spared of such illusions.) To see this alleged scoundrel in the company of great people – even some who guided him and supported him – is not to see their failings but, paradoxically, to see their greatness. Certainly they can – and do – err, and certainly they should do their due diligence in these matters as best as possible, but the bottom line is this type of misconduct is not part of their world view. They know on some level that it exists, but it is as real to them as the prospect of eating a cheeseburger on Yom Kippur. In the long run perhaps they are better off, even if there is price that is occasionally paid for this propriety.

As I concluded in August: “So let us not rationalize nefarious conduct – but let us also not be naïve about human nature or simplistic about the Torah’s commandments. Let us continue to demand of ourselves the highest standards of fidelity to G-d’s law… The Torah is perfect; no one ever claimed all of its practitioners were also perfect. Rather than cast aspersions on others and make sweeping and smug generalizations, we should instead look in the mirror and confront our own failings… And then we will truly become servants of G-d, a nation renowned for its virtue and piety, and a people worthy of redemption.”

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Posted in Contemporary Life, Current Events, Machshava/Jewish Thought

Explaining the Unexplainable, Part II

Posted on December 18, 2009 | 4 comments

What has gotten into Binyamin Netanyahu ?

He has traveled down a road – a ten month freeze on most construction in Jewish parts of Judea and Samaria – that even his leftist predecessors dared not do. And for what? He agreed, ostensibly, to lure the “Palestinians” back to the negotiating table, even though, to date, they have rejected his overtures, thereby making Netanyahu’s freeze lame, foolhardy and immoral. Since the objective of the freeze has already failed, then why persist? Indeed, it is better – given Israel’s record in diplomacy – that no negotiations occur, so why force the Arabs to accept the next surrender?

And he agreed, we are informed, to appease a hostile American president who demanded this unprecedented action, a blatant act of discrimination against Jews – an act that would be protested by Jews and all decent people if it occurred anywhere else in the world. Apparently unaware that he became the first world leader to cave in to any Obama request – every appeal Obama has made across the globe has been rebuffed, and usually dismissively – Netanyahu betrayed his supporters, the people who voted for him, those who assumed he had learned lessons from his failed first term, and the principles of the party that elected him its leader.

The broader question is: what happens to Likud leaders when they enter office that they begin to treat their parties’ platform and professed values as gossamer and fluff to be ignored at will and sworn allegiance to only in the months before the elections? Can’t they ever stick to their guns? (Ignore the nonsense that the view from the prime minister’s seat is different – one either has values or one does not.)

The list of Likud disappointments is long and tragic. Ehud Olmert was a political chameleon (and disaster – he still claims the failure in Lebanon was a “great and historic victory), Tzippi Livni long ago abandoned the pretense of being a Jewish nationalist – and both of those were from the royal, “fighting” families of the Irgun. Ariel Sharon was in a class by himself (literally), in his contemptuous disregard of the Likud platform on which he was elected, and the Likud referendum that voted down his proposed disengagement from Gaza. Sharon, indeed, is unique – and historic – in a perverse way, as he mocked his opponent’s own disengagement plan (Amnon Mitzna, in 2001) as heralding the imminent destruction of Israel – only to adopt it himself ten months after the election.

Even Menachem Begin parted with the sparsely-populated Sinai, but at least his premise was securing the possession by Israel of Judea, Samaria and Gaza in perpetuity. Only Yitzchak Shamir clung to his principles – and was rewarded by the electorate with a defeat at the polls for not providing them the elixir of fantasies and phony hopes sold to them by Yitzchak Rabin.

It is a sad legacy – to which can be added the likes of Tzachi Hanegbi, Limor Livnat and a host of others who have all proven themselves to be not leaders but shallow politicians for whom office is more important than principle. It is a depressing truth that most of the land conquered in the Six-Day that has already been surrendered to the Arabs has been surrendered not by left-wing Laborites but by supposedly right-wing Likudniks. It is as if Labor proposes – and Likud disposes. Put another way: Labor proposes – and Likud erupts in vehement protest and anger, calling the leftists weak and soft on security, and then winning election by an emboldened electorate yearning for strong, nationalist, Zionist leadership – and then Likud disposes, mimicking the Labor policy and boasting that they surrender better. Such weird statecraft is uniquely Israeli, unknown in the rest of the world. (In an American context, imagine the election of a Conservative Republican president who then became pro-abortion, anti-gun, pro-statist economy, and de-funded the military.) How does that happen?

This is a mystery, but there is a possible explanation. Years ago, I posed this very question to one of the leading Hesder Roshei Yeshiva in Israel who answered me as follows: Torah Jews and secular right-wing Jews can all love Israel, fight for Israel and even die for Israel. Both groups can demonstrate great self-sacrifice for both the land and the people – but for secular Jews, it must stop at a certain point. “If it were possible,” he said, “to achieve the same love of Israel through Torah and not-through-Torah, then why would you need the Torah?” Therefore, their dedication collapses at a certain point – each person (Netanyahu, Sharon, Livni, Olmert, etc.) at his/her own level.

Simply put, they do not have the same values, and certainly not the same source for their values, as the Torah-faithful Jew. Their values are, therefore, more fluid, subject to political pressures and enticements – and they do not have the spiritual backbone to stand up to the intimidators. (Shamir, a fascinating individual, was the exception to this rule, and his story shows the marked contrast to today’s crop of leaders. An insider reported recently that the first time James Baker demanded an immediate freeze on settlement construction, Shamir stood up to his full height (4’11” – more than a foot shorter than Baker) and berated him about Jewish rights to the land of Israel and that he never wants to hear such a request made again. In a subsequent negotiation when Baker repeated the same demand, Shamir grew red in the face, glared at Baker, sat in stony silence for three minutes – until Baker changed the topic.)

It is hard not to avoid the conclusion that secular right-wing Zionism is as bankrupt and bereft of values as secular, left-wing Zionism. That is certainly not to disparage their contributions in building the state; it is, though, an acknowledgment that those who built it – right and left – have been trying to dismantle it for well over a decade and a half – and only Torah Jews imbued with a nationalist impulse stand in their way. Hence the outrage over Rav Eliezer Melamed’s endorsement of soldiers’ refusal to obey orders to attack Jews, and the discomfort that defense officials have toward the Hesder program that many feel is neither cost effective nor trustworthy enough to create the robotic fighting machine craved by generals.

The tragic pattern is that Netanyahu will lose the confidence of the people, be voted out and replaced by the next leftist hope – only to have that PM succeeded by the next rightist hope – and failure.

Eventually, the day will come when Torah-true leadership – lovers of Zion and Israel – will emerge to the fore, the people will rally around him and grow again in self-confidence and awareness of our destiny. The question is: will that happen before Moshiach comes or only when Moshiach comes?

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Posted in Contemporary Life, Current Events, Israel