Author Archives: Rabbi

The Inscrutable Mr. Trump

Posted on September 30, 2025 | Comments Off on The Inscrutable Mr. Trump

(Published yesterday at Israelnationalnews, beffpre the DC summit.)

We are an interesting nation. More than 147 countries have recognized a non-existent “State of Palestine” in the last 40 years, yet we are upset when another five nations similarly sign on to this farce. We delay, postpone, and defer a declaration of sovereignty over Judea and Samaria for almost sixty years, yet we are upset when Donald Trump says he will now “not allow Israel to annex the West Bank… It is not going to happen.” Politics, like nature, abhors a vacuum – and when we don’t act, someone else does. Yet, there is little that is more vacuous than recognition of a Palestinian state, which hasn’t changed the situation on the ground an iota, and even Trump’s blustery exclamations should be put into context.

How should Israel respond, on both fronts?

In line with the columnist Salena Zito’s prescient observation almost a decade ago, one should take Trump “seriously, but not literally.” He says things, he dominates the news cycle every day, and from one day to the next, he changes his mind. He has declared a dozen times in the last half year that a “deal in Gaza”is imminent, “maybe this weekend” he says every Friday. And, from his perspective, it always is “imminent,” as it only requires Hamas’ agreement to free the hostages, lay down its weapons, and surrender. Yet, it never happens. It is a bemusing combination of bravado, wishful thinking, and showmanship; it is not statesmanship and I genuinely doubt that Trump keeps track of the details or could recite them by heart.

Note that if Israel applies Israeli civil law to Area C, or even to most of Judea and Samaria outside of the Arab population centers, Israel has, literally, not annexed “West Bank” (just parts of it) and thus not run afoul of the Trump dictate. Nevertheless, to paraphrase Ben Gurion, it always matters less what the Gentiles say than what the Jews do, and we have been perpetually negligent in asserting our rights to our biblical patrimony and consequently engendered this diplomatic chaos.

Trump – who just a few years ago in a different iteration of his diplomatic deliberations embraced Israeli sovereignty over Judea and Samaria – could change his mind tomorrow. He is obviously concerned about potential harm to one of his concrete achievements, the Abraham Accords. But the fact that the viability of the Accords would be threatened by annexation of parts of Judea and Samaria demonstrates that they might be more tenuous than we like to believe.

After all, PM Netanyahu is not motivated by the sanctity of the land of Israel or the inviolability of our biblical patrimony but rather by Israel’s basic security needs. It is widely assumed by most Israelis, and with good reason, that a Palestinian state would not end the conflict (regardless of protestations of good faith, signing ceremonies, or Nobel Peace Prize presentations) but would be used as a launching pad for another October 7-like massacre in order to destroy Israel completely.

How does it benefit signatories to the Abraham Accords – the UAE, Bahrain, Sudan, etc. – if Israel is weak and vulnerable? Undoubtedly, another massacre of Jews would generate a (brief) wave of sympathy from these nations, but would they mourn our demise, G-d forbid? Hardly. It should be a wakeup call to all Israelis that many countries with whom we have peace treaties or are currently negotiating with to sign some sort of agreement – Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Saudi Arabia, and others – all walked out on PM Netanyahu’s speech. They could not bear to hear him. (To his credit, the UAE ambassador stayed. To their shame, the self-styled mediator, Qatar, hosts of Hamas, walked out.)

If I had a choice between sovereignty over Judea and Samaria and a fragile agreement with Saudi Arabia, I would choose sovereignty over Judea and Samaria. Frankly, I am tired of this hollow concern with the Arab street, how Arab leaders cannot get ahead of their people, and how even Arab despots cannot be seen as too friendly to Israel lest their people… what? Rebel? Overthrow them? Each Muslim country that is part of the Abraham Accords is ruled by a dictator, a strongman, or a monarch. They are unelected, self-appointed. They have more to fear from the lack of freedoms in their countries and their heavy-handed rule than even if they would don a kippah serugah and wear it in a mosque.

The days should be long gone when it was deemed a major concession to hear a Jewish leader speak. And enemies of Netanyahu should be reminded that walking out on Israeli leaders at the United Nations is a hoary tradition that dates back to the 1950’s. Once again, it is the soft bigotry of low expectations that purports to understand why Arab leaders can’t be expected to listen to what Israel has to say. From outright Jew haters like Iran and Turkey, it is unsurprising. But we should have little faith in the viability of Accords with leaders of countries who are presently too scared to hear what the Jew has to say.

Should Israel defy Trump? It does set a terrible precedent for Israel to acquiesce in the grandiose edict of any US president – even a friend like Trump – that he “will not allow” what is essentially a unilateral decision on Israel’s part. That hubris should be challenged or we will pay a heavy price for it in the future. In reality, all Trump can do is recognize or refuse to recognize the annexation. (Indeed, when Transjordan annexed the “West Bank” in 1950, necessitating the change of that country’s name to Jordan, only Britain and Pakistan recognized it.) Israel has been in control of all or most of Judea and Samaria for almost sixty years. For how long must its residents live in limbo?

That vacuum must be filled sooner or later, and better sooner, like today or yesterday. Jewish sovereignty over Judea and Samaria – all or most – would be the final stake in the heart of that Jewish blood-seeking and blood-sucking vampire known as “Palestinian nationalism.”

There are lingering suspicions that Netanyahu encouraged Trump to oppose a declaration of sovereignty. That would be why Netanyahu said that he would have strong responses to the countries that recognize a “State of Palestine” but only after he returned from the US. But why not before he left on his journey? This would not be the first time that Netanyahu solicited American pressure in order not to do something that he did not want to do in any event. He is cautious, unpredictable, and despite the public persona of a bold and fearless visionary, he is actually quite tentative in his statecraft. And equivocal.

There is the Netanyahu of thirty years ago who vowed to reverse the deleterious effects of Oslo, and then did not, and even signed the Hebron Accords. There is the Netanyahu who voted for the expulsion of Jews from Gaza until he at last voted against it. There is the Netanyahu of the Bar Ilan speech of 2009 endorsing a Palestinian state to appease Barack Obama, envisioning “two peoples [who] live freely, side-by-side, in amity and mutual respect,” and the Netanyahu of two weeks ago vowing there will never be a Palestinian state. There is the Netanyahu on whose watch Israel was invaded, our citizens massacred, defiled, and kidnapped, and the Netanyahu who has led remarkable victories on multiple fronts, transforming the Middle East (for how long is anyone’s guess). And that is not all.

In that, Netanyahu is Trump-like, residing in a world where spin matters more than substance. In Trump’s world, it is enough to say again and again that America has “the hottest economy in the world.” It doesn’t; inflation persists, unemployment is up, no one really knows how much revenue tariffs are raising or where are all the billions and trillions of dollars of investments promised from nations across the world. It is enough to say, in many American cities, that crime is down, when in fact only arrests are down, not crime. It is enough to say things, repeatedly, and then move on to something else.

Thus, if a Palestinian state is an existential threat to Israel – and it is – then no European country or fair-minded Arab potentate who wants good relations with Israel should support it or recognize it. And since one way to avert it is by exercising sovereignty over Judea and Samaria, Netanyahu (and Trump) can spin it in a way in which sovereignty is declared, Jewish rights and interests are advanced, the Arab world is mollified, Americans (Jews and Gentiles) who support the Jewish presence in Judea and Samaria are gratified, and Trump can move on to settling the war in Ukraine, which, we have learned, was not resolved on the first day of his administration.

Will PM Netanyahu have the courage of his convictions to declare sovereignty? We shall see but do not be surprised if this can is again kicked down the road to be used as a campaign promise in next year’s election.

What can be done in response to those Western countries recognizing a Palestinian state? A proud country would call in the ambassadors of those countries to the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem for a tongue-lashing. Some of those countries – like Britain, France, Belgium, and others like Turkey – maintain consulates in Jerusalem that for years have functioned (due to Israeli fecklessness) as embassies to “Palestine.” Those consulates should be closed forthwith, the diplomats accredited to the PA should be barred from Israel and sent to live in Ramallah, the special parking privileges, and VAT exemptions their diplomats enjoy in Jerusalem should be revoked, and whoever protests should be expelled as persona non grata.

Let’s face it. The notion of Britain and France as world powers is nostalgia, certainly in France’s case, the French having not won a war in over a century and not distinguishing itself in the century before that. That both continue to serve on the UN Security Council – while real powers with economic, political, and military muscle like India and Germany, even Japan, are excluded – is an anachronism. Most of Europe is in decline, being overrun by radical Muslims, and intimidated by the Islamist terror that visited London, Paris, Nice, Brussels, Barcelona, Madrid, and other cities.

Their appeals to morality and their concern for Palestinian lives are unconvincing. They are frightened and have been intimidated by their growing Muslim population to turn on Israel. And given these countries’ wretched history with the Jewish people from medieval times through the Holocaust, they did not need much prompting.

Trump’s musings, Netanyahu’s hesitations, and Europe’s perfidies are all ephemeral. What is permanent and enduring? The words of our prophets that have been realized in our time, such as those of Jeremiah (31:4) who proclaimed in one of the direst times in Jewish history, “you shall again plant vineyards on the mountains of Samaria; the planters shall plant and shall enjoy it.” And (31:7), “I will bring them from the north country, and gather them from the uttermost parts of the earth.” And (31:10), “for G-d has rescued Jacob, and redeemed him from the hand of one stronger than him.”

That is real. We can either choose to defer and let others dictate our future, or as people of faith, take our destiny in our own hands. If the nations of world are determined that their path to survival is through a Palestine that will temporarily pacify their mobs, then we can either acquiesce now and passively observe our decline or stand firm against the mobs and be witnesses and midwives to the redemption of Israel. The choice is ours.

Gmar Chatima tova to all!

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Extreme Cancel Culture

Posted on September 19, 2025 | 3 comments

(First published at Israelnationalnews.com)

One can hope that the assassination of Charlie Kirk is a watershed moment for the United States but, sadly, political violence has been ubiquitous in American life for almost two centuries. Four presidents have been murdered, Gerald Ford was shot at twice, Ronald Reagan once, Harry Truman was saved by his security team (one of whom was killed), FDR as President-elect was shot at (the mayor of Chicago was killed), and two former presidents running again for office (Teddy Roosevelt and Donald Trump) were both hit and survived. (Roosevelt, in fact, continued to give his speech with a bullet in his chest.)

Yet, Kirk’s murder has especially touched people across the world, and not only because he was a young husband and father in the prime of his life. Charlie Kirk wasn’t a politician. He was what young people today called an “influencer,” a purveyor of ideas and opinions, a spokesman for conservative values, a shaper of young minds, and one of the most powerful countercultural forces to ever appear on American college campuses. His bold challenge to those who differed with him – “Prove Me Wrong” – typified his self-confidence as well as his willingness to dialogue with ideological opponents. Quite possibly, he was perceived by his killer as even more dangerous than most politicians.

Charlie Kirk was also the victim of cancel culture, taken to its logical though gruesome and hideous extreme. For well over a decade (perhaps even four decades, if one counts the conservative speakers harassed and driven from campuses in the 1980’s), there have been persistent efforts to silence people who hold views disfavored by the liberal elites. It was started by advocates of a nuclear freeze and appeasement of the Soviet Union, but was accelerated by proponents of one side of the various culture wars that waft through Western society: abortion (both pro and con), issues relating to race, women, same sex relationships, transgenders, etc. As we know, there are many places in the world today – even so-called free societies – where supporters of Israel face harassment, threats, silencing, social distancing, and cancelling.

It happened to me on several occasions, for a variety of ideological positions (all rooted in Torah) I was not supposed to have, even twice including death threats. I never paid much attention to the canceling attempts, which failed because no one I knew that mattered paid any attention to the cancelers either. As I have never been on social media, I was spared the invective directed at me, nevertheless shared with me by good-hearted souls who didn’t want me to miss out. Ignoring social justice warriors was always the best tactic – and never apologize – and they really do go away after a brief period of time.

Canceling takes the form of social pressure, censorship, termination of employment, bullying, assaults on family, and of course, character assassination. The difference between character assassination and actual assassination is a difference in degree, not in kind.

Most of the assaults and homicides of US presidents have been perpetrated by mentally deranged individuals, with Lincoln’s killer, John Wilkes Booth, a Southern zealot, being one of the very few exceptions. Kirk’s assassin presents as a kindred spirit – motivated by fierce antagonism to Kirk’s ideas and feeling no need to prove him wrong. The attack on free speech – a bedrock of liberal societies – is considered justified in many circles, as are attacks on people who speak freely. Not all speech should be supported or consequence-free but reasonable people should be able to distinguish between, say, those who are pro- or anti-abortion, and those who tastelessly celebrate the murder of someone who thinks differently than they do. The former is a clash of values regardless of how passionately one clings to either position, and should be debated. The latter, as happened several times in the US in the past week, are rightfully fired from their employment and denounced publicly. They have the right to speak, but no inherent right to work for any particular company, which most cogently recoils from employing someone whom their clients or customers might find repugnant. Where can we draw the line? At attempts to enforce a new and fabricated morality that conflicts with traditional morality, with such enforcement a staple of cancel culture.

What exacerbates the problem is the flippancy with which opponents are vilified, and called “Hitler,” “fascists,” “Nazis,” “dangers to democracy,” or “threats to society.” No one should be surprised when an advocate for whatever tries to murder his ideological antagonist whom he deems to be Hitler, or a Nazi. He thinks he is doing the world a service. It should not be lost on anyone that while the right generally believes the left to be misguided but salvageable, the left believes the right to be evil, immoral, and incorrigible. The horrific results of that equation are inevitable.

We have not yet emerged from the morass of cancel culture and its real threats, not in the US nor in Israel. The vituperative descriptions listed above are freely tossed about in Israeli society, especially by haters of the Prime Minister. The breakdown of civil society, the inequitable enforcement of the law, the rights afforded some groups and people but not others, and the outright violations of the law that may result in arrests but never serious prosecutions – including threats to many ministers and attempts on the lives of others – are the real threats to democracy in our time.

Indeed, recent claims by politicians on the left that Netanyahu will cancel the next election or that he is planning to win by cheating, will invariably attract some provocateurs who will take the law into their own hands, rationalize it, and find more support among the leftist elites in Israel than we would like to believe. Those claims are evocative of our sages’ dictum that “he who disqualifies others, disqualifies them with his own flaws” (Kiddushin 70a). They would love to cancel elections if they are left in power, one reason the elites in Israel have coalesced around the most undemocratic institution – the judiciary – and guards their privileges zealously. It also feeds their narrative that the right can never win because the whole country is against them, and if they do, it means they cheated. That claim is obviously false but also incendiary.

Is there a way forward?

Rav Chaim Yosef David Azulai, the great Chid”a (1724-1806), cited the prophet’s admonition (Hoshea 14:2-3), “Return, Israel, to the Lord, your G-d… Take your words with you and return to Hashem…” and explained that taking our words with us means that “the beginning of repentance is guarding our tongues,” monitoring our speech, being conscious of both the short- and long-term effects of what we say or write. For sure, the crawl spaces of the internet and social media have allowed people to write with such animosity, usually in anonymity but polluting society nonetheless, and finding many like-minded haters to egg them on and reward with likes, checks, subscriptions, etc.

It is not entirely clear that American society can preserve itself from the consequences of cancel culture, given that the politics is so polarized, hate speech proliferates, and few can see any good or even humanity in their ideological foes. Most American women, for example, will not date a man with whom they disagree on political or cultural issues. People live in their own information silos and have little interest – and sometimes an aversion – to stepping outside themselves and interacting with others who profess views contrary to theirs. They would rather go through life lonely and angry than re-think even one position of theirs.

Jews should know better, but our society too has been infiltrated and infected by these foreign notions, and too much attention is lavished on even tiny groups of protesters if the media elites admire the cause for which they are protesting. But we should know better because on the eve of the Days of Awe we again confront the reality of our lives, what is important and less so, what we should prioritize, de-emphasize, or ignore completely, and how G-d’s nation must show the world how disparate groups can live together in harmony when what unites them far exceeds what divides them.

It all begins with “taking our words,” seriously, guarding our tongues, respecting differences of opinion because no two of us think alike, being extremely judicious as to whom we label enemies, and regaining a sense of our mutual destiny. If we accomplish that, we will merit not only the blessings of life, peace, prosperity, and meaning, but we will also hasten the coming redemption.

Shana Tova to all!

And may I heartily recommend my book, “Repentance for Life,” very timely, and available at https://kodeshpress.com/product/repentance-for-life/ ? Yes, I may and will. Enjoy!

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The Perfect Nation

Posted on September 10, 2025 | 2 comments

(First published at Israelnationalnews.com)

Whenever Israelis sense that the world is unsympathetic to our case, we habitually lament our failure of hasbara – i.e., public relations, diplomacy, even propaganda in the most innocuous sense. If only we had the right people or the right message, the complaint goes, then we would be the darlings of the diplomatic set, the world would eagerly embrace our narrative, learn the facts, and support the justice of our cause. They would not be swallowing the “Gaza starvation blood libel” propagated by Hamas nor be quick to reward our murderers, rapists, and kidnappers with their own state.

What we fail to realize is that our futility is not due to the incompetence of our spokesmen, who do a credible job, but to the deafness of the intended audience. When talking to the deaf, with the speaker ignorant of sign language and the deaf person inept at lip-reading, it is simply impossible to be understood, no matter how persuasive or cogent. The bottom line is that much of the world is deaf to Israel, the Jewish state, the Jewish national idea, and even to a great extent, our moral aspirations. It is not at all a matter of what we say or how we say it; it is almost exclusively a question of who is doing the listening, and who we are trying to convince.

Forget our haters. If people are on the fence, unable to choose between the genocidal death cult of Hamas and its allies, and the Jews who bring so much good to the world, it is unclear that they can be convinced or that they are really fence sitters who await our explanation.

Nevertheless, there is one feature of our hasbara that we should abandon, and better yesterday. Israel is the only country in the world in which its officials and friends constantly preface their defense by saying “Israel is not perfect.” Search the archives and look for any official or patriot of the following countries beginning a sentence “well, Russia is not perfect,” “China is not perfect,” “France is not perfect,” “Greece is not perfect,” “Turkey is not perfect,” “The Emirates are not perfect,” the United Kingdom is not perfect,” etc. 

It is preposterous. Israel is the only country in the world where admission to imperfection is supposed to be part of its brief. We might add the United States during the apology tour of Barack Obama but even he only admitted to the past sins of others, not his own, and certainly no current sins.

To begin a jury summation with “my client is not perfect” is used usually when your client is guilty as sin – unless the concession is in an unrelated area. (For example, your client is on trial for homicide and you concede that he routinely parks in a handicapped spot.) But to concede “my client is not perfect. He has a terrible temper and is prone to violence, but in this case, it was self-defense,” well, that is a losing argument. Get ready for a conviction.

We should ask ourselves: which nation is perfect such that Israel has to use that preface? None, and so it is a mistake. Instead of explaining repeatedly when enemy civilians are killed during a battle that “Israel doesn’t intentionally attack civilians but a mistake was made,” we should be responding: “This is the nature of war, a war forced upon us. Who does attack civilians? Hamas on October 7 attacked civilians. Hamas is still brutalizing our civilians they hold hostage. If they care about the fate of their civilians, they will surrender. Until then, this is war, and we intend to end it with the complete vanquishing of our enemy.”

Instead of boasting how much aid we are giving to the enemy, we should be saying “there is real starvation – not in Gaza (except for our hostages) but in Sudan, in Syria, in Haiti. Five times as many people have died there in the last year than in all of Gaza in the last two years. Yes, we are not perfect. We are so imperfect that we are foolishly providing food, water, and fuel to the enemy and prolonging the war in the hope that a hypocritical world will recognize our goodness. But you won’t, ever – and therefore we intend to force a surrender by halting all aid. That is war.”

These are powerful assertions of our rights and should replace the groveling, begging the nations to appreciate and extol our morality. It should be obvious to all of us that they know it already. They just can’t admit it. They know that they have never conducted their wars as they expect us to conduct ours – not the United States, not Britain, not Germany, not France, not Spain, not Russia, not Belgium, not Australia, not China, not any Arab country, etc. Wars conducted on those terms can never be won.

So why play their game? Why give in to their farce? Rather than constantly note our imperfections, simply ask: which of you, nations, has ever fought a war in which you supplied food and aid to the enemy population before surrender? Correct answer: none. 

Even after World War II, millions (!) of Europeans died of starvation after the war, primarily but not exclusively in Eastern Europe. President Truman dispatched Herbert Hoover to deal with the famine problem (as Hoover had done so successfully after World War I). And when did Hoover go to Europe to investigate the problem and fashion a solution? It was not until the spring of 1946, almost a year after the war ended. By then millions of civilians were already dead. Food aid did not begin on a consistent basis until May 1946.

Please check carefully: the victorious Allies never prefaced any statement with “well, the Allies are not perfect…”

There is a reason for this and a profound lesson to be taught, even to enemy civilians. You don’t want to suffer? Don’t aggress, don’t maraud, don’t murder, don’t kidnap, and don’t start a war you can’t win hoping that a duplicitous world will save you.

We will never win by being defensive, apologetic, or by loving our enemies and expecting them to love us. And feelings that are based on false information can never be assuaged. Far better to let the enemy and their supporters and even people across the world ponder this: “you attack Jews and the Jewish homeland? You murder, rape, maraud, and kidnap? This is the price you will pay until you surrender: death, destruction, devastation, suffering, and exile. And our response to your invasion is perfect – and perfectly Jewish.”

 And they will say to themselves – never aloud, except for a few good people – “hey, the Jews are right. This is how a government of murderers, rapists, beheaders, and kidnappers – and their voters and supporters – should be treated. Until they surrender.”

Is this Jewish morality? Absolutely. Unsophisticated Jews frequently hear the rabbinic maxim of the angels wanting to praise G-d after the elimination of the Egyptian enemy at the Red Sea, and G-d’s demurral: “My handiwork is drowning, and you want to sing before Me” (Sanhedrin 39b)? Indeed, let the angels lament the death of the enemy. But while the angels were being admonished for their attempt at praising G-d, the Jews were singing: “Let me sing to G-d for He has triumphed gloriously; a horse and his rider He has hurled into the sea…G-d is my strength and my song; He was for me a salvation. G-d is a warrior. G-d is His name” (Shemot 15:1-3). And we still sing that song every day. 

Unfortunately, most of our government does not yet operate with a Jewish head. Nor do most Jews. Thus, they will keep saying, “we are not perfect,” hoping that a partial admission will purchase us some good will. The nations, cynically but well aware of our confession, will just assume the worst about us, however false and fabricated. And we will continue to wonder why we cannot convince the world how moral we are. 

It says something good about our character that we like to boast about having the most moral army in the world but such is inapposite to the task at hand. It is nice and speaks well of us, but a greater boast would be having the most victorious army in the world. War is an immoral endeavor, and morality in war is on the margins, mostly in the exercise of self-restraint by soldiers who by definition are given a license to kill. The world’s attempt to civilize war beginning in the 19th century – i.e., the attempt to refine and regulate the process by which people try to kill each other – helped to forge the bloodiest century in all of history, the 20th century, in terms of raw numbers of combatants and civilians killed. And it still goes on and on. The attempt itself was good-hearted but ultimately counterproductive, encouraging the bad actors to wage war knowing the good guys will hamstring themselves. Rules of war that are not based on reciprocity are bound to fail and embolden the evildoers. 

And one way the evildoers are emboldened is by playing on the sympathies of liberal Jews, and Westerners who buy into the Hamas propaganda, or at least echo it as a possibility in an attempt to demonstrate their broadmindedness. This is the Hamas strategy. Note that Amalek in gematria equals 240, or safek, doubt. One of Amalek’s hoary tactics is to sow doubt among the Jews as to the justice of our cause, the morality of Torah, and our claims to the land of Israel. This is not new.

The truth is that if we win the war, utterly defeat Hamas, evacuate large numbers of Gazans to places in the world where they can rehabilitate themselves and live good, productive lives, all the enmity they feel will be channeled elsewhere. People move on. And those who hate Jews will still hate Jews. That’s not going away. 

But we should stop apologizing for not being perfect. No country on the planet has ever been given greater incentive or possessed a greater right to utterly extirpate a ruthless enemy than we have been given – and yet we have never acted on that impulse. Maybe that is as close to moral perfection as any nation has ever come.

The ideal should be awakening people to the reality of the utter devastation of war so that wars become too deadly to make any sense, and even evildoers stop waging war. We are closer to that than people think, as long as the good guys are allowed to win. And then we will realize the prophetic vision of the end of war when the nations see the light of divine morality and embrace a different, holier reality.

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Personal Memories of a Young Congregant

Posted on August 29, 2025 | 4 comments

(First published in the Jewish Link of New Jersey)

I read with great interest and appreciation the sundry reminiscences of Rabbi Berel Wein z”l published but add one dimension that has not been adequately not addressed: Rabbi Wein as pulpit rabbi. I grew up in his shul and spent my formative years there. As Rabbi Wein’s history lectures originated in Congregation Bais Torah of Monsey (Suffern, for purists), it is quite possible that Rabbi Wein’s fame as a historian and popularizer of Jewish history – how most people knew him – would not have come about but for his being Rav of that shul. Indeed, the whole idea of taping these lectures only arose at lecture two, when a previous week’s participant asked that it be recorded because he could not attend. (The first lecture was not taped.) The rest, as they say, is history.

What did I learn from Rabbi Wein? Once, when we hosted him at Bnai Yeshurun, I introduced him by saying that I never took a course in rabbinics. (Some would claim, it showed.) “I learned rabbinics observing Rabbi Wein – how he managed a shul, how he dealt with members, how he handled the myriad tasks that are associated with the rabbinate.” It was true, and it was a remarkable education that I and others received. From 1974 until1979 (when I married and left Monsey; Rabbi Wein was our Mesader Kiddushin), just excluding my year in Israel, I just watched him, learned from him, and absorbed.

I was among those teenagers who trekked to Rabbi Wein’s house every Shabbat afternoon in shifts, according to age, to learn Mishnayot with him. And then later that day, he would give one, sometimes two shiurim, in shul. I don’t know when he prepared, and I know he didn’t sleep.

Because Rabbi Wein started Bais Torah from the ground up, he was able to place his stamp on the shul. In my years there, there was no hashkama minyan, youth minyan, Sefard minyan, etc. Everyone davened together. No one – not even the youth – would ever leave when Rabbi Wein spoke. For years, old Monseyites would tell me that my cadences when I spoke resembled those of Rabbi Wein, which stands to reason and which I took as a compliment. His derashot followed a pattern: a question, contradiction among commentators, or perplexity in the sedrah, followed by a story, usually humorous, often involving his travels for the OU, and then a resolution to the question raised. Listeners were guaranteed at least one laugh and a message that was mussar-oriented, pointed, intellectual, inspirational, and often all of the above. Interestingly, in those years, Rabbi Wein rarely addressed current events or hot topics, feeling those were dated or irrelevant within a week.

The influences were persistent but subtle. He had been an attorney and then a rabbi; I followed the same course (my father a”h had been a rabbi and then a lawyer, so it must have been in the genes). He gave a shiur after davening for which everyone stayed, and in my first pulpit, I did the same, to less than enthusiastic results. When I called Rabbi Wein to ask him where I went wrong, he asked what I taught that week. I answered, it was all about gaavah, haughtiness. He replied, “maybe that’s too heavy a topic for Shabbat morning.” I soon realized it was something else. That shul, unlike Bais Torah, had a kiddush every week after davening, and my shiur was just an unwelcome obstacle between Jews and their kiddush, not a good place to be.

In Bais Torah, Rabbi Wein taught the megillot – Shir Hashirim, Ruth, and Kohelet – on each of the holidays, and naturally, even instinctively, I did the same, fortunately to much greater acceptance than my aborted weekly post-Musaf shiur. It was then that Rabbi Wein would venture into current events, Israel, and analogies between our present day and Jewish history. He did the same on Shabbat Shuvah and Shabbat Hagadol, on which I later found myself unconsciously replicating his pattern: presenting a halachic topic, raising a series of questions, answering the halachic questions and then addressing the philosophical implications, followed by a peroration that related the theme to our lives, our place in the world, and in Jewish history. Oddly, I only remember one of his topics (even more oddly, I never addressed that particular topic – mitzvah haba ba’aveirah – on these occasions), but I do recall leaving profoundly uplifted, moved, and enlightened. Indeed, until I entered the rabbinate myself, I made sure to return to Monsey every year after marriage for Shabbat Shuvah and Shabbat Hagadol.

Rabbi Wein had a most laconic manner in personal interactions, almost Calvin Coolidge-like in his brevity, though never brusque. Like many others, I consulted him occasionally about shul matters. Once, when he was already living in Israel and I was in Teaneck, I called to ask him how to deal with a particular congregant issue which I thought needed a verbal protest or something. I spelled out my case in three minutes, and I concluded by asking “What do you think I should do?” Rabbi Wein responded, “do nothing.” Two words, nothing more, and the call ended pleasantly mere seconds later. “Do nothing” is not always the best advice but in this case it was. I did nothing, and the matter resolved itself spectacularly well, far better than if I had done something. (Memo to Bnai Yeshurun members: do not even try to speculate what it was!)

I also learned the value of multiple influences, of not joining any particular team but flying solo, thinking independently. Rabbi Wein was at home in every part of the Jewish world – the modern and the yeshivish, the Litvish and the Hasidish. It was a rare combination that I also witnessed in my Rebbe Muvhak, Rav Yisrael Chait shlit”a, who learned from Rav Henoch Leibowitz, Rav Aharon Kotler, Rav Moshe Feinstein, and Rav Yosef Ber Soloveitchik, among others. “Ben Zoma said, who is wise? He who learns from all people, as it is said: ‘From all my teachers I gained understanding’” (Avot 4:1). The Torah has seventy facets. No one teacher can present all seventy and a broad perspective engenders a broader mind and a deeper understanding of Torah. Rabi Wein was also extraordinarily well read, something not always prevalent among rabbis, which led me to always ask my assistant rabbi candidates this question: “what is the last book that you read? Not sefer – but book.” To be at home in the world is a blessing, not a curse.

He took special pride in his congregants and students who became rabbis, something that I personally experienced. When Rabbi Wein first came to Monsey, we all davened in a shul that did not have a permanent rabbi so there was a Dvar Torah rotation after davening in which Rabbi Wein participated, as did I. At age 15, I gave my first sermon since my Bar Mitzvah. I must have said something worthwhile because immediately afterward, Rebbetzin Jackie Wein a”h approached me with a big smile and said, “you should become a rabbi!”

The thought lingered, germinated, and eventually came to fruition. And as at the beginning, so too many decades later, Rabbi Wein gave me his best advice as to when I should leave the pulpit and move to Israel, advice which I took. Uncannily, we each left our shuls and made aliya at roughly the same age.

Above all, I learned from Rabbi Wein that a pulpit rabbi can have enormous influence on people, especially young people. I have never been a big fan of segregating teenagers in their own minyan, away from the rabbi, notwithstanding that they do learn skills managing their own affairs. I am just one among dozens and dozens of young men who benefited from Rabbi Wein’s leadership, guidance, and encouragement to do something good for the Jewish people.

Rabbi Wein’s legacy is enormous and it should not be overlooked that it encompasses his books, lectures, yeshiva – as well as his shul in Monsey, where he shaped the minds and souls of countless individuals, for which we are eternally grateful.

Yehi Zichro Baruch.

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