OTD in Yerushalayim

In a Binah magazine interview with Rebbetzin Chana Weinberg, of the Slonimer family, a 7th generation Yerushalmi, a descendent of the Boruch Taam, a Baharan* einikel, I read a shocking thing.

She said that after World War II, when she was in fifth grade, she went to the first Bais Yaakov school in Yerushalayim.  One of the teachers was Chava Landsberg, a student of Sarah Schenirer.  They were approximately forty girls and only three girls remained frum.  "If I tell you their names, you will tremble ... daughters of roshei yeshiva, daughters of Rebbes, all went off the derech completely.  All of my friends and neighbors joined the movements of the Haganah, Etzel, Brit Chashmonaim and Beitar, singing patriotic songs and going to meetings.  The bachurim too joined the Haganah.  I would see boys in the streets, without hats, with guns, and then I would recognize them as bachurim from Yeshiva Eitz Chaim.

"Some of the youth left because of the extreme poverty, but many left because of their chinuch.  In some of these homes, the parents had come from Poland already influenced by the Bund.  Their homes were not whole and the children went searching for what was missing. They wanted excitement, they wanted enthusiasm!

"My friends laughed at me and said that I was naïve, that I didn't know what was going on.  I knew very well what was going on but I didn't ever want to go with them.  I wasn't interested at all.  There were many times I have asked myself why, why didn't I go?

"The only thing I can think of is that I had so much more at home.  I was fulfilled; I wasn't missing anything."


*Baharan stands for Ben HaRav Nachum.  Each of the five sons of Rav Nachum Shadiker (1810-1865) had a dream that they should move to Eretz Yisrael. Without knowing that the others had the same dream, each one packed to leave Poland.  They all met at the boat and traveled together to Eretz Yisrael.  They were known as the Baharan.

A Tzadekes in Our Time

This article here was published in 2002 about Mrs. Henny Machlis a'h and this one here in 2009.  I read them back then, and was amazed.

To my dismay, I read of her tragic passing at the young age of 58 on October 16 - 3 Cheshvan, after a horrible illness here.

I'm seeing new articles about her, here and there.  They tell about her remarkable outlook on life, how she truly believed and did not merely say that Hashem is in charge, how she loved children so that nine out of her fourteen children were born via C-section, how she excelled bein adam la'Makom and bein adam la'chaveiro.  And she was born in Brooklyn, to kind parents to be sure, but it wasn't like she came from an exotic locale, born to a kabbalist, and raised in unusual circumstances.  That's what make her accomplishments that much more incredible as well as doable. 

A Painful Consolation

A woman described a shiva call that was paid to her mother who had lost a child.  The visitor attempted to console the mourner by noting the rest of her large family.  The bereaved mother did not appreciate this nechama which seemed to say she could manage without her child because she had other children.

I pointed out that what the woman said was correct.  The bereaved mother did not like hearing it because it seemed to imply that her other children could make up for her loss when she felt that her child was irreplaceable.  But, I said, consider Mrs. Shoshana Greenbaum of the Sbarro bombing.

Shoshana got married late in life and was expecting her first child when she was murdered in Sbarro's.  She was an only child.  Unlike the mother described at the beginning of this post, Shoshana's mother had lost her one and only child who was carrying her first and only grandchild.  With Shoshana's death, she was left with nothing.  No children, no continuity.  It was truly a nechama to the woman with other children that she had other children.

Two Views on Family Time

Rabbi Bender, rosh yeshiva of Darchei Torah in Far Rockaway, and renowned mechanech, strongly promotes spending time with family.  He writes, "Keeping a close kesher with relatives is very important.  Chazal emphasize to us how we should value our relationships even with distant relatives.  Hashem found fault with Avrohom Avinu for abandoning Lot."

Regarding children attending family simchos, for example, a son coming from yeshiva in Eretz Yisrael and parents wondering whether he should stay through the Shabbos sheva brachos or immediately return to yeshiva [note, the question is not whether he should fly in for the wedding; that's a given], R' Bender wrote, "It is my feeling and very strongly so, that parents are entitled to have all their children at each and every family simcha.  All members of a family belong at the simcha of an immediate member of the family.  It is simply the right thing. 

"Boruch Hashem, we are living in a time when we have grandparents and great-grandparents.  Why shouldn't your son from Eretz Yisrael spend time with them, be meshamesh them, gain from their elder wisdom, hear about past simchos, and just be in the atmosphere of mishpacha? ... There is so much to be gained from interacting with all parts of the family, even distant cousins.  I am forever grateful to my mother for teaching us the importance of keeping a very close connection with all our relatives.  I will never forget how she was determined to travel very long distances when she was elderly and frail, to attend family simchos."

Rabbi Avigdor Miller z'l, on the other hand, thinks spending time with family is mostly a waste of time and takes away from Torah study.  Here's a quote:

"Motzoai Shabbos is an opportunity, don't just run around visiting relatives; forget about relatives. You have one relative you have to visit, that's yourself. It's not selfish, because life is only for the purpose of making something out of yourself. So you have Friday night, all day Shabbos; remember Shabbos morning before davening should be utilized. Shabbos afternoon, Motzoai Shabbos. If you don't work on Sundays, be a kollel man on Sundays. "Oh!" your wife will say, "at least one day a week you have to be home!" Answer is, say, "My dear, I am not in the yeshiva now, yeshiva people are going full speed ahead every day of the week, I have one day and that one day I should waste?" So Sunday morning say good bye to your family, take along lunch and you spend the day someplace else, don't go home until nighttime."

Rabbi Miller certainly did not "waste time" attending simchas and rarely attended them.