Many Orthodox Jews seem to think that as long as the food is kosher, what one eats is not so important. They believe that if having five servings of fresh fruits and vegetables daily were vital to our health, that fact would have made its way into the Torah.

Truthfully, it’s simply convenient to think that as long as our nutritional intake is in line with societal norms, we are being responsible. But food today is not what it used to be. Over the past few decades, sugar and hydrogenated oils, as well as artificial sweeteners, coloring and preservatives, have infiltrated even the most innocuous products, such as breads and peanut butter. Who knows what these chemicals are doing to our ability to concentrate, to learn Torah, to harness our energy and enthusiasm for tikkun olam?

Feeding the Yetzer Hara
Eight hundred years ago, Maimonides wrote in Hanhagot Habriyot (The Regimen of Healthcare):

If a person cared for himself the way he cares for his horse, he would avoid many serious illnesses. You won’t find a person who gives his horse too much fodder. But he himself eats to excess. He makes sure his animal gets proper exercise to keep it healthy. But when it comes to himself, he neglects exercise even though this is a fundamental principle in health maintenance and in the prevention of most illnesses.

The Torah decrees, “Venishmartem meod lenafshoteichem, Be very careful about your lives,” (Devarim 4:15). We are obligated to preserve our health. Practically speaking, this means we should eat healthy foods and do so slowly. It means we should drink plenty of water and eat only when hungry, and not to the point of being 100 percent full. It also means we should exercise regularly and get enough sleep.

Most of us live six days a week in the fast lane, and spend the seventh taking shelter from worldly stresses. On Shabbat we eat as a family, leisurely and relaxed. We are happy and content—a plus to our health since mood affects how we digest our food. On the other hand, there is also a tendency on Shabbat to eat to excess, precisely because the food is so good and so plentiful. There’s a desire to unwind from the week’s toil and to reap the harvest of our elaborate Shabbat preparations.

I often wonder why we place so much importance on insulating ourselves from looking at immodestly dressed women, lest it lead to improper thoughts and behavior, but have no qualms about laying out five different kinds of sugar-laden desserts on the Shabbat table. Can’t these temptations lead us to have gluttonous thoughts and—even worse—gluttonous behavior? Doesn’t the Torah tell us not to put a stumbling block before the blind? Some of our habits are not only not prescribed by Torah, they are arguably anti-Torah. We have only our yetzer hara to blame for our health deficiencies.

A Jewish Diet
The numerous Torah laws that center around food (kashrut, fast days, no eating before Kiddush) help train us to discipline ourselves, and this self-control is important when sticking to any health regimen. In addition, our determination to eat healthily is bolstered by the teaching that we eat for a purpose beyond gratification of the palate and satiation of the belly.

Still, how often do we overindulge and then rationalize our actions with Torah-based justifications? “But the food is kosher,” “it’s an opportunity to say a berachah,” “the chocolate cake was elevated via a devar Torah,” “it’s a mitzvah to partake of the simchah meal,” and so on.

Consider the holidays. On Rosh Hashanah, we have elaborate meals for two days straight. Chanukah is eight days of oily latkes and sufganiyot. On Purim, we overload our homes with mishloach manot sweets. On Pesach, we stuff ourselves with matzot, and on Shavuot we feast on high-cholesterol cheesecakes and blintzes and then try to stay up all night learning Torah—with the help of caffeine and sugar.

And let’s face it, the typical Ashkenazic diet is not terribly healthy: it contains a meager selection of fresh fruits and vegetables, is heavy on meat and is low in fiber. A variety of health problems including colon cancer, hemorrhoids, constipation and diverticulosis have been linked to diets low in fiber.

Years ago, before I became religious, I was engrossed in the religions of the Far East and would spend Friday nights at an ashram, where we did yoga stretches and meditation before sitting down to a wholesome vegetarian supper. We would eat in silence, savoring the food. Then we would form a circle, sing songs, share inspiring stories and thank the Universe for all that it has given us. Both the soul and the body were recognized as partners in fulfilling our purpose on this planet.

Enter Judaism. With my newfound knowledge of Judaism, I gained greater clarity about life and about my purpose in this world. Being an Orthodox Jew meant everything to me.

However, it bothered me that whenever I would attend an outreach seminar or lecture, soda, chips and salted pretzels were always served. One time, I confronted the rabbi hosting the event. “Why can’t you put out juice and celery sticks instead?” I asked him. He replied that he had chosen junk food for practical reasons: healthy foods cost more, take longer to prepare and require refrigeration. Somewhat apologetically, he agreed with me that the body is a temple and that we ideally should not consume junk food. I was not satisfied and wanted to ask him (I didn’t), “What if it were more economical and convenient to serve pork chops?”

Healthful Choices
Fortunately, as consumer demand for kosher food continues to grow, there are more and more products to choose from, including healthier alternatives. There’s a humorous observation that Ashkenazic foods all seem to start with the letter kuf: knish, kugel, kishke, kreplach, kasha, kneidelach, kichel, et cetera. The gematria of kuf is 100. If we want to live “biz hundert un tsvantzik” (until 120 years of age), we should add at least two vegetable side dishes, yirakot, to our meals. Yirakot starts with the letter yud, which is ten. And two yuds, which equal Godliness, add up to twenty.

Jack Botwinik is a freelance writer.

The following article on the Book of Ruth is based on the writings of Rabbi Yosef Z’ev Lipovitz—a figure not well known to American readers. Rabbi Lipovitz (1889-1962) wove difference into elegant, cohesive tapestries.  A product of the famed Slabodka Yeshivah, he was at once a teacher of the young, Torah ambassador to the nascent community in Palestine, musar-psychologist, and visionary of an ethical Torah-state. His writing shows the same fluid grace in uniting Torah text, rabbinic midrash, and psychological and social insight.  Each illuminates the other, effortlessly, and without self-consciousness. He does not try to resolve conflicts between these different strata of thought; he refuses to admit to a tension in the first place! To the Torah master, all this knowledge is hewn of the same source—the illumination of Divine teaching.

 It is my hope that this essay, based on Nachlat Yosef, Rav Lipovitz’s famed commentary to Megillat Rut, will stimulate more interest in his works.  I, in turn, would know nothing of Rav Lipovitz without the pioneering work of Rabbi Hillel Goldberg, my colleague on the Jewish Action editorial board. We all owe him our thanks.

Three women, all widows, walked hand in hand.  Although they were united by the specter of a bleak, shared future, their past differed greatly.  Naomi longed to return to a land she knew well, but not really to find the happiness that had been tragically wrenched from her on the foreign soil of Moab.  Her memories were rich, but she expected very little positive ahead.  Entering the sunset of her years, she was drawn back to Israel to be reconciled with her past, not to start anew.

The other two women had better prospects, if they wanted them.  The country they were leaving was the one that had nurtured them.  They were of royal blood; opportunity and privilege beckoned them to remain there.  Much younger, they could have hoped to start families again.  As unwanted strangers, they could hope for little positive in the land of Israel for which they departed.

Why, then, did they join the older woman?  Extraordinary devotion, it would seem.  They could not bear to abandon a mother-in-law they had learned to love.  Their ill-fated marriages to Machlon and Chilyon were never meant to be, but they taught them something about the richness of family life.  In the better days of their marriages, they had seen relationships based on true love and respect, driven further on a highway of mutual chesed.  That chesed now came naturally to them, and translated effortlessly into a commitment to Naomi.  They walked together, determined to share the bleakness of the future.

It was Naomi who broke the silence.  Touched to the core by the magnanimous behavior of the younger women, she asks Heaven to give them all sorts of blessings.  Her prayer completely ignores her own predicament; she focuses only on the needs of her two daughters-in-law.  What hope can there be for them to ever remarry, should they follow her back to the Jewish state?  The most far-fetched scenario—Naomi quickly bearing children—was an impossible dream, and even it would not address their needs.  Mindful of their devotion to her, Naomi for the first time addresses them as “my daughters,”1 escalating their relationship to a new peak of closeness.

Ruth and Orpah learned nothing new from her words.  The somber forecast was all too obvious, and they had made their decision despite it.  Yet, somehow, Naomi’s declaration took the wind out of the sails of their collective resolve.  Orpah changed her mind, and was ready to bid farewell to Naomi, and return to her birthplace.

Let us look carefully at Naomi’s attempt to discourage her two daughters-in-law. “Will you wait until they [the unborn children I do not yet have, nor expect ever to have] grow up? Will you remain chained, without a man to marry?  No, my daughters!  I am much embittered mikem; God’s Hand is extended against me.”2 

The two women each heard a different message.  Orpah understood Naomi to be pointing a finger of blame at them with the words “I am embittered mikem—because of you.”  This is what she heard:  “You were, after all, not the perfect matches for my two sons.  You were not of our people, our faith.  I appreciate your love and devotion, but realize that we have paid a terrible price for it.  These unions angered my God, and the consequences to our family have been catastrophic.  We cannot compound the mistake by bringing you back into the midst of Jewish society.  Do all of us a favor, and go your own way.”

Orpah’s strength was limited; Ruth’s knew no bounds. 

Naomi, in fact, meant nothing of the sort.  She grieved for them, not because of them.  The text demonstrates this here, when she calls the younger women “daughters” for the first time.  No mother pushes away her own daughters.  Orpah’s ears failed to hear the subtlety.  The rest of her words, though, fell like raindrops on a parched and waiting bloom, moving it to freshness and life.  While she was willing to follow Naomi, on some level, Orpah desperately needed an out.  She heard what she wanted to hear. 

Orpah cried bitterly and embraced Naomi.  The hug was genuine, but it did not move them closer together.  Rather, it helped them disengage.  It concentrated all the feeling and closeness that Orpah felt into one magic moment—from which Orpah could now move on and begin a new life.

 Orpah had not feigned her devotion a few minutes earlier. She was fully prepared to follow her mother-in-law back to a life of privation and penury.  Her love was sincere, but did not flow from the deepest parts of her inner self.  She offered a conflicted love, at loggerheads with a personal agenda that was compelling.  Compelling, indeed, to most people.  Helping others is wonderful, when you needn’t sacrifice your own life to do it.  Reaching out to others is a real human need, but substituting another’s interest for your own does not make much sense.  Orpah stared down a choice.  She could enhance Naomi’s life, but only by completely destroying her own.  Surely there are limits to selflessness!  We can be asked to share our time and energy on behalf of others, but surely not to sacrifice our own identities!  Idealism beautifies our inner lives, but it must not offer up the idealist on its own altar!

Orpah arrived at a human norm, a position that is reasonable and defensible by better-than-average people.  The Torah’s version is preserved in both Talmud and halachah: chayecha kodmim3—your own life and property take precedence over those of your neighbor.  The Torah does not expect us to pound our egos into weightless fluff. 

What counter-argument moved Ruth?  The silence of the text is deafening.  There was no counter-argument.  If cogent, logically tenable positions were the currency expected, Ruth was bankrupt. 

Ruth did not reason her way to Naomi’s side, nor did she abandon reason and simply emote her way there.  “And Ruth clung to her.”4  Ruth latched on to something different, something higher.  She attached herself to a Divine trait of chesed.  Many aspects of our relationships with Hashem founder on shoals of inadequacy if we try to put them in words.  Yet what fuels them is more powerful than can be contained by mere words.  So it was with Ruth.  She perhaps could not explain why she acted as she did.  But something about Naomi had become part of her, indivisible with herself.  She had incorporated Hashem’s chesed in its most potent form.  Her closeness with her mother-in-law and her attachment to God were made of the same stuff.

So Orpah walked out, secure in the logic of the ordinary and the common.  She retained a typical complement of ego.  Ruth, meanwhile, clung to the uncommon.  It is fascinating to see how Chazal link the unfolding of their personal histories to this one event.

Orpah returned to her Moabite roots.  She raised an exceptional family, including no less than four mighty warriors, among them the infamous Goliath.  The four tears she shed in parting with her Naomi merited this for her,5 according to one Rabbinic passage.  Another sees a parallel to the four mil of distance that she accompanied Naomi before parting ways.  That journey, and the tears she shed, speak eloquently of the turmoil within Orpah.  She faced a difficult decision, and she didn’t hide from the forces within her that wrestled for advantage.  This struggle took strength and might; her four sons reflected her gevurah.

The strength was almost predictable—for both Orpah and Ruth.  Both were scions of legendary women of an earlier time.  The daughters of Lot, founders of the Moabite nation, demonstrated nobility within their own degradation.  Notwithstanding the tragic error of their incestuous tryst with their father, they were prepared to sacrifice their own welfare for the benefit of building worlds.  Ruth and Naomi followed in the positive footsteps of their forebears.  They were both blessed with the spiritual capacity to build worlds, and to give of themselves.

Mashiach will be successful only when people regard their neighbors as enlarging their world, and enhancing their lives, not encroaching upon them. 

They drew unequally from their ancestral font. Orpah’s strength was limited; Ruth’s knew no bounds.  Orpah’s selflessness exhausted itself in her final embrace with her mother-in-law. Having spent the spiritual quality of her strength, she was left with a superficial shell of power and will, one that was filled quite nicely by her four strongman-sons. Taking leave from Naomi, a psychological need arose to distance herself completely from her, and in time, from all that she stood for. She reverted to morally repugnant ways;6 her son Goliath tormented the Jewish people with his strength. Orpah’s heritage of fierce determination was effectively stood on its head, now ready to destroy what it had previously valued.

For 40 days he taunted them. (Ironically, his first words to the Jewish army were “Anochi HaPlishti“— I am Goliath the Philistine.The nefarious ego-component that blocked his mother from achieving real spiritual significance returned in her son, and is presented center stage, up front.)  An army that intrepidly went to the battlefront became demoralized not by meeting up with Goliath, but with hearing him!7  He wished to do battle, claims a Midrash, not just with the Jewish army, but with God Himself.8  This means that he waged psychological warfare against the opposing Jewish army, by cleverly mocking and ridiculing their beliefs with thoughtful, logical barbs.  Over a period of 40 days, he began to wear away at many of them, who did not have effective retorts.  Again, the trademarks of Orpah: ego and logic.

For 40 days, Goliath had the upper hand.  His victory was short-lived, limited, just like the positive determination of his mother Orpah existed just for the moment.  David, descendant and spiritual heir of Ruth, toppled him.  Contrary to the ordinary rules of logic, against common sense, sacrificing his own self-interest, David took on the blaspheming Goliath.  Like Ruth his forebear, he drew his inspiration from a higher place, clinging not to the oppressive “reality” of the bleakness of the day, but to Hashem Himself.  The way of Ruth triumphed over the way of Orpah.

Ruth was not the trailblazer. Her road had long been familiar to the Jewish people. Our survival is not based on any predictability or logic.  No one can offer a credible, natural reason for our endurance through our remarkable history.  We survived only by refusing to speak the language of the conventional.  We shunned the odds and probabilities and connected with Hashem Himself.

Not that it was history that invented this approach.  We, the Jewish people, invented the policy of devekut, of clinging to a vision that exceeds human grasp.  When offered the Torah, our rhapsodic response stunned the angels of Heaven.  “Naaseh v’nishmah,” we replied, the only group to embrace Torah without reservation.  Skeptical, calculating as we can be, we threw all discretion to the winds, and accepted what we had not seen.  Or rather, we opted to cling to Something we had experienced and trusted beyond the logic of the ordinary, and that allowed us to escape the demands of prudence that comes from self-interest.

We skip to the event that drives the story to a successful end.  Having “chanced” upon the field of Boaz, Ruth and Naomi benefit greatly from the largesse and special consideration of their relative.  Naomi waits for her kinsman to provide a more comprehensive solution to their plight, but he seems reluctant to act.  Naomi instructs Ruth to dramatically remind him of their plight, by quietly moving to his side in the dead of the night at the threshing floor.

Boaz understands the hint.  As the new day approaches, he resolves to send Ruth back to Naomi with his pledge of quick action.  To the ordinary person, it was clear what had to happen.  Ruth had spent the night in seclusion with Boaz, but nothing unseemly had transpired between them.  No one knew of their secret, shrouded by the darkness and privacy of the night.  All this was about to change, with daybreak and the imminent arrival of workers to the field.  To preserve the good name he had labored for decades to earn, Ruth had to rush home, avoiding all human contact.  For them to be seen together would generate rumors and slurs they would never be able to repair.  His reputation stood to be ruined, his authority and rank diminished, the name of his entire family would be tarnished.  They could ill afford to take any chances.  Ruth would have to leave without a moment to spare.

Then Boaz remembers Naomi, and considers her stake in the unfolding drama.  She had suffered terribly; so much expectation rode on Boaz taking charge of her predicament.  How could he not try to reassure her that everything would be fine in the end?  He could do it—but only by sacrificing precious moments of time that compromised his own interests.

The reasonable thing to do, perhaps, would have been to call (accurately!) the situation an emergency one, and send Ruth away with regrets that he could not do more for under the pressure of circumstances.  Perhaps later…

Boaz, however, puts aside all self-interest.He insists on sending something tangible to Naomi, something that will assure her of his intentions.  He has very little, if anything, with him.  He sends what he can: some barley from the new harvest.  

Just what was it that Boaz gave to Ruth?  We know that he handed her six something of barley. Could it have been six bushels? Could she really contain six bushels in a shawl as the text describes her? Rather, it seems, he gave her six single stalks of barley, as a symbolic declaration of his intention to bring about a solution. Because of these six, Chazal tell us, Ruth would merit six tzaddikim, including Mashiach himself! Quite an impressive payoff for what usually serves as animal fodder! 

The text insists on capturing every small, precious moment.  “He said to her, ‘Give me your kerchief’…hold on to it…she held it…he measured into it, and put it upon her .”9  This slow, deliberate drama unfolded at great expense to Boaz.Each moment that he delayed in sending Ruth back home compromised his reputation and standing.  Each word that passed between them was potentially devastating, increasing the likelihood that they would be discovered, and become the victim of scandalous rumors.  Boaz, though, escapes the limitations of his own needs in order to address the pain of a distraught old woman.

By doing this, Boaz shows himself to be a true match for Ruth.They share the single quality most necessary to pave the way for Mashiach himself.

The days of Messianic tranquility are a foil to the conflict and strife that characterize the rest of human history.  The opening scenes of human civilization adumbrate what would follow.Cain had already demonstrated what would become Mankind’s greatest failing:  each person regarding the next as a threat and an intruder.In Cain’s mind, if Abel trespassed ever so slightly on what he regarded as his own rightful territory, then Cain had no place in this world at all!  Self-interest interposed itself between issues of right and wrong; Abel became expendable, and could be killed.

Man’s redemption will come about by living the reverse. Mashiach will be successful only when people regard their neighbors as enlarging their world, and enhancing their lives, not encroaching upon them.  Mashiach‘s message will be taken up by those who are successful in breaking down the barriers of ego and self that divide us, and turn us into enemies. The boundary between one person and the next must soften; people will need to put the interests of another, occasionally, before their own.

This attitude will not have to be created de novo. Giants of the past already laid claim to this quality.  Two who were particularly successful married and passed along their capacity to their children.  Their message would travel along the byways of history, eventually lodging in the greatest of their progeny, Mashiach himself.

Neither Boaz nor Ruth created a great stir.  Neither taught the doctrine formally, created a new thesis, started a new school of thought.  Few, if any, of their peers recognized just how complete their selflessness was.  They showed it, after all, in small, pedestrian ways. But HaKadosh Baruch Hu knew how to cement the foundation of the house of Mashiach.  “Boaz did his, and Ruth did hers.  Said HaKadosh Baruch Hu, ‘So too will I do Mine!’”10

Quiet revolutionaries, they were.  No one—not even they themselves—understood their revolution. By reaching out just a bit more, by each of their setting aside just a little more self than had been done before, they demonstrated that the dominant theme of a New World could indeed become reality. The rest, quite literally, is history.

Rabbi Yitzchok Adlerstein is the director of interfaith affairs for the Simon Wiesenthal Center. He is also a member of the Jewish Action editorial board, and a founding editor of Cross-Currents.com.

Notes

1. Ruth 1:11.
2. Ruth 1:11-13.
3. Bava Metzia 62A.
4. Ruth 1:14.
5. Rava in Sotah 42B.
6. ibid.
7. Shmuel I 17:11.
8. Midrash Shmuel sec.20.
9. Ruth 4:15.
10. Ruth Rabbah 7:6.

By Yehuda Berenson

The puppets represent Ruth and Jacob performing on the stage of history. Ruth gathers the sheaves of wheat in Boaz’s field while Jacob—wearing the sheepskin—carries food for his father. Naomi directs Ruth, and Rebecca directs Jacob, each woman acting with the conviction that she is doing God’s will. In turn, both Naomi and Rebecca are puppets in the hands of God.
Illustrations by Caryl Herzfeld

In 1616, Rabbi Joel Sirkes1 (popularly known as the Bach)2, a noted rabbinical scholar who authored several works on Jewish law,3 published Meishiv Nefesh, his only opus on the Tanach.4 In this commentary on Megillat Ruth, the Bach uncovers a linkage between the Megillah and the story of Jacob’s acquisition of the blessing that his father, Isaac, had intended for the older brother, Esau.

Interestingly enough, this particular association of two Biblical episodes5 seems to have escaped the eye of the scholarly world. This is especially surprising in view of the fact that Bible scholars have written extensively on connections built into Megillat Ruth tying it to no less than three other stories in the book of Bereishit!6

But why should a writer want to establish links between two different stories? Scholars conclude that by linking scenes from books such as Esther or Ruth to episodes in Bereishit, each tale is enriched; ideas are shared, and common features are highlighted. This technique is highly advantageous when writing a short story—Megillat Ruth contains only eighty-five verses—because it is difficult to give themes and messages their full due when space is at a premium. Tying scenes from Megillat Ruth to Bereishit stories in particular was very desirable; Bereishit stories were imbibed by Israelites with their mother’s milk; they were known by heart, and therefore readers (and listeners) were easily able to spot expressions common to the two narratives.

The bonding of two Biblical sources required use of common words and phrases. Rabbi Sirkes noted that the term vayecherad (he was agitated) appears in both the Jacob-Esau episode and the Ruth narrative. This finding may have been the catalyst that sparked the revelation of the link between the two stories. Once a common key word is discovered, the search for other examples of shared language follows. The table below lists some of the expressions shared by Megillat Ruth and chapter 27 of Bereishit. (Note that the sources may occasionally differ in gender.)

BEREISHIT 27                                                                                  RUTH

An older person is concerned for the family’s future:

An older person is advising an offspring, or someone referred to as if he or she were an offspring:

The person who must act is hesitant, so he must be “commanded” to follow the instructions:

The “planner” specifies clothing to be worn:

Conditions of “darkness” compel the person approached to ask the identity of the emissary:

The person approached has been eating and drinking in the earlier part of the story:

The messenger fulfills his mission without being “caught”:

The person approached is agitated by what has occurred under cover of “darkness”:

Each emissary receives two blessings from the person approached:

An unexpected complication is introduced by the words “and now” (va’atoh):

The original plan of action had also been introduced by the words “and now” (va’atoh):

There are additional words and phrases common to the two stories. We invite the reader to find them.

Along with the common phraseology, there are shared ideas and themes that deserve special attention. What are the similarities between Jacob (following his mother’s directions) seeking the blessing intended for his brother, Esau, and Ruth (following Naomi’s instructions) going to Boaz’s threshing floor in the middle of the night? Rabbi Sirkes makes the following points:7

1. Rebecca could have told Isaac about her preference for Jacob to succeed him as head of the house of the children of Abraham, just as Naomi could have chosen to confer with Boaz regarding the merits of his taking Ruth as his wife.

2. Both Rebecca and Naomi realize that the conventional path of persuasion through discussion is fraught with difficulties, and rule out this option. (Perhaps each woman concluded that once the man in question heard her out, were he to refuse or even remain unconvinced regarding the proposal, no recourse would be left, and the “candidate” proposed would be left floundering.) Thus, each tale deals with a socially unconventional scheme in order to promote a particular continuation of a family line.

3. In each case the older woman sends her “candidate” in complete faith that she is carrying out the will of the Almighty. The Bach maintains that each “planner” is endowed with prophetic vision and perceives herself to be an agent of the Lord doing her utmost—with complete trust in the Lord—to bring the plan to a successful outcome.

4. Naomi sees Ruth as a special descendant of Lot’s daughter who conceived a son, Moab, by way of her father. (Lot’s daughter did this out of a mistaken conviction that the destruction of Sodom threatened mankind’s continuation.) There was a mystical tradition among the Israelites that their spiritual redemption must await a return of an exceptional Moabite maiden to the folds of the house of Abraham. Naomi is convinced that her daughter-in-law is that extraordinary Moabite woman. She sends Ruth to Boaz at the threshing floor to reenact the attempt by her ancestress, Lot’s unnamed daughter, to provide for the continuation of civilization, although in a modified and more dignified fashion. In effect, Naomi is hoping that Boaz will realize that this woman, whom he has come to admire, is indeed that descendent of Lot who is destined to be the mother of Israelite royalty. (There seems to be an ongoing theme of redemption throughout the Megillah. We note that the Megillah deals with the redemption of Naomi’s plot of land as well as the redemption of Ruth from her widowed state. Professor Harold Fisch suggests that in carrying out this particular act in such a chaste manner, Ruth is redeeming her ancestress who lay with her intoxicated father in Bereshit 19. It is this act, in turn, that spurs Boaz to take Ruth as his wife and redeem her.)8

5. Both “planners” see the hour as especially ripe for execution of their own scheme. It is vital to take advantage of this particular moment, for once the opportunity is lost, another propitious time may not arise.

6. In both episodes, the older woman “planner” is assuming that the person being approached will not deal unfavorably with the “emissary”; surely he will take note of the careful planning involved and realize that the messenger is not acting independently, but is following the instructions of an older woman.

To the above similarities uncovered by the Bach, we add the following:

1. Each tale involves the displacement of someone with “first rights” (Esau on the one hand and the “other redeemer” on the other).

2. In both episodes, the emissary appears reluctant to go (Jacob is afraid of being recognized and disgraced, whereas Ruth appears to carry out her mother-in-law’s instructions out of allegiance rather than conviction).

3. In both stories, an older woman provides the emissary with specific directions.

4. In each tale, an unexpected factor causes a change of plans (Jacob ends up having to leave home; Ruth must wait to find out whether or not the “closer” redeemer will agree to assume responsibility for her).

Having noted the striking similarities between the two narratives, we are left to consider the following: why did Megillat Ruth intentionally draw language from Bereishit 27, thus establishing a connection between the two episodes? What was the author of Ruth attempting to gain from such a linkage? According to Rabbi Sirkes, the linkage aims to explain why the two people directing the emissaries are obliged to take unorthodox action to achieve a goal of paramount importance. The “planners” saw that a direct approach to the person in question (Isaac, Boaz) was likely to meet with resistance. They sensed that this was a special moment when history was in the making and must be effectively exploited. Each “planner” rose above the specifics of the situation and chose a perilous course of action that defied the ordinary norms of behavior. Their judgment of their particular emissary—each of whom was destined for greatness—instilled in the initiators full confidence in plans demanding behavior that would ordinarily be unacceptable. According to Rabbi Sirkes there are moments—such as when the person involved is extraordinary and the results of inaction may be disastrous—when extreme action bordering on the unacceptable is permissible.

Lest a reader, considering a moment to be a now-or-never situation, be tempted to emulate Rebecca and Naomi, overstepping the boundaries of accepted norms, let him be cautioned by the Bach’s qualification. Rebecca and Naomi knew with prophetic certainty that Jacob and Ruth were destined to be, respectively, a leader and a mother of royalty. The Bach does not give blanket approval for anyone lacking such divinely granted insight to employ questionable means in dealing with important issues.

Dr. Berenson has rabbinic ordination from Yeshiva University and a Ph.D. in mathematics from Columbia University. He has taught at several universities in the United States, Canada, Israel and Australia. He is retired and lives in Israel.

Notes

1. Adapted from author’s forthcoming book, Illuminating Ruth.

2. Rabbi Joel Sirkes (1561-1640) served as rabbi of several communities in Poland and Lithuania. The original family name was Yafeh. In the world of Jewish scholarship, he is always known as the Bach, an acronym of the title of his best-known work, Bayit Chadash.

3. The Bayit Chadash was Rabbi Sirkes’s commentary on the Arba’ah Turim (the Tur), Rabbi Jacob ben Asher’s four-part code of Jewish law that served as a springboard for Rabbi Joseph Caro’s renowned Shulchan Aruch. Rabbi Sirkes also wrote over 200 responsa. He is particularly well known for his commentaries and emendations to the texts of the Babylonian Talmud.

4. Meishiv Nefesh was first printed in Lublin, Poland; it was reprinted in Lvov in 1876, and reissued more recently in Brooklyn, New York, 1982(?).

5. The linking of two texts that use common phraseology and have shared themes in order to shed light on the characters in each story has come be called intertextuality or, alternatively, echo narrative technique. The intricacy involved in the interweaving of Ruth with various Pentateuchal narratives is so unobtrusive that it took scholars centuries to uncover these connections and allow us to benefit from this additional layer of literary brilliance. The result has been to increase our understanding and appreciation of this opus, which has so moved mankind. 

6. The other connections, which have aroused considerable interest in the scholarly world, bind Megillat Ruth to Bereishit 19 (the episode concerning Lot and his daughters), Bereishit 24 (when Abraham dispatches his servant to find an appropriate wife for Isaac) and Bereishit 38 (the episode of Judah and Tamar).

7. Meishiv Nefesh 45-46.

8. See “Ruth and the Structure of Biblical History,” Vetus Testamentum XXXII (1982), 435-436.

Pirkei Avos: Teachings for Our Times
By Rabbi Berel Wein
Shaar Press
Brooklyn, 2007
279 pages

In the preface to Relevance: Pirkei Avos for the Twenty-First Century, the author, Rabbi Dan Roth, notes that a librarian in the Jewish National Library in Jerusalem discovered that there was already a total of 1,128 books on Pirkei Avot and was surprised that he was thinking of writing yet another one.

I, for one, am glad that he did. Despite the plethora of books on the subject, the literature on Pirkei Avot has been greatly enriched by the books currently under review. Rabbi Roth, who lives in Jerusalem, has devoted the last few years to writing this commentary. True to the work’s title, Rabbi Roth consistently tries to make Pirkei Avot relevant to the contemporary reader. In doing so, the author tells us that he was inspired by Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, who once wrote: “I intend to show that this full and authentic Judaism does not belong to an antiquated past but to the living pulsating present; nay, that the whole future with all its intellectual and social problems whose solution mankind expects of it, belongs to Judaism, the full and unabridged Judaism.”

While Rabbi Berel Wein’s Teaching for Our Times is a flowing commentary on all of Pirkei Avot, Rabbi Roth focuses his work on some two dozen of the 128 mishnayot in Pirkei Avot. Within the selected mishnayot, he chooses not to deal “with an entire Mishnah but rather only a line or a phrase … which permits the reader to see for himself the profundity and wisdom that can be discovered even in a few choice mishnayic words.”

For example, Rabbi Roth cites a mishnah in 5:3: “Rabbi Chanina ben Chachinai says, ‘One who is awake at night or who travels alone on the road and turns his heart to idleness, bears guilt for his soul.’” Elaborating on the mishnah, Rabbi Roth notes a contemporary malaise: the inability to use private time for thought and introspection. To him, “one who is awake at night or is traveling alone” refers to those moments in life when are there are no distractions, and one is afforded the opportunity to “reach new insights and understand things that never occurred to us before.” Unfortunately, such insights rarely come to the contemporary individual, says Rabbi Roth, describing a familiar scenario.

Today, this ideal has been almost entirely forgotten and whenever we find ourselves alone, we make frantic efforts to escape. When walking alone in the street after having been in a place where our cell phone had to be turned off, the first thing we do is switch it on. Upon entering our cars, we immediately feel the need to turn on the radio, play a tape, or phone a friend. It rarely enters our minds to use these times for uninterrupted thought and self-reflection.

Many things society calls relaxing—novels, cinema, television, sports, and card games—are, in truth, nothing more than diversions.

To some, the thought of being alone with nothing to do is frightening. Having nothing to do, watch, read, listen to, or play with is a nightmare. They become very uncomfortable, for being alone with themselves means coming face-to-face with their own reality.

Even seemingly innocuous technology, according to our author, can have a negative impact. The mishnah in 3:5 states: “Rabbi Akiva said … ‘Masoret is a protective fence around the Torah.’”

“Masoret” refers to the transmitted Oral Torah, which is passed from one generation to the next. Though ultimately the rabbis permitted the writing down of the Oral Law, the ideal way to preserve Torah is by maintaining the oral quality of the law. With his wonderful knack for translating Torah ideas into twenty-first-century terms, the author cautions against excessive reliance on DVDs, MP3s and computers, all of which are increasingly being used to record and retain Torah knowledge.

In our generation, Rabbi Roth warns, Rabbi Akiva’s message is even more poignant.

“Technology has opened new ways to record information. For a small price, you can buy the whole Tanach, Midrash, and Talmud, as well as every other sefer you are likely to need, on one compact disc. That so much Torah is available at our fingertips and can be accessed easily is a wonderful thing. But let us never allow this surge of information to prevent us from internalizing the Torah.

It is easy to fall into a false sense of security, feeling that one knows Torah when really it’s the computer that ‘knows.’ G-d wants us, not our computers, to become living sifrei Torah. He wants us to think about Torah constantly, making it the center.”

Rabbi Roth goes on, expanding Rabbi Akiva’s principle to include photography.
“When going to the Kosel, some tourists see everything through their viewfinders instead of focusing on the intensity of their prayers. Even when visiting tragic places such as Auschwitz and other death camps, one will find people busy taking photos instead of using the heartrending moment for deep thought and reflection.”

On numerous occasions, Rabbi Shlomo Wolbe told his students who were about to go on an outing that photographing a scenic view comes at the expense of “living the experience.” By turning every event into a photo op, we are becoming numb to what it means to be alive.

Rabbi Roth footnotes his sefer extensively with a fascinating array of sources, which the reader is advised to study carefully. The sources run the gamut from Michtav Me’Eliyahu to Shiurei Da’at, from Betty Friedan to Erich Fromm.

A well-known author and lecturer, Rabbi Wein needs no introduction to Jewish Action readers. In his impressive-looking coffee-table book on Pirkei Avot, Rabbi Wein, like Rabbi Roth, uses anecdotes and personal experiences to effectively bring home a point.

Drawing upon his years in the rabbinate, Rabbi Wein elucidates the first mishnah in Chapter 4, which includes Ben Zoma’s famous truism: “Who is rich? The one who is happy with his lot.” While Ben Zoma’s statement seems to be fairly straightforward, Rabbi Wein finds much to elaborate on, describing the unabated pursuit of wealth as “akin to drinking salt water that is never satisfying or slaking thirst.” He then lets readers in on his own experience in encountering greed.

“Ben Zoma speaks of happiness in the World to Come. I have often felt that the greatest punishment that one can suffer in the eternal world is to witness what problems his wealth caused after his death. How many families have been destroyed by squabbles over the parents’ estate! In my rabbinic career, I saw many instances when relatives, siblings, and whole families engaged in legal battles over the wealth of their parents or relatives. There is no greater pain for a parent than for such legal battles to take place. A wealthy man once told me that he was going to sue his father’s estate because he felt that he was being shortchanged in the distribution of the assets, and he was ready to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal costs. I gently recommended to him that perhaps he should donate that amount of money to a worthy charity in memory of his father. He looked at me in amazement and said: ‘Rabbi, you just don’t understand!’ He was right, I did not and still do not understand.”

Throughout the book, Rabbi Wein also brings into focus the historical circumstances surrounding a particular mishnah. For example, he cites Rabbi Chanina ben Tradyon in 3:3: “If two sit together and there are no words of Torah between them, it is a session of scorners…. But if two sit together and words of Torah are between them, the Divine Presence rests between them.”

With Rabbi Wein’s moving description of Rabbi Chanina’s martyrdom, the mishnah takes on far greater meaning and poignancy.

“Rabbi Chanina was one of the martyrs tortured to death by the Romans in the aftermath of Bar Kochba’s failed rebellion in the 2nd century CE. He was burned alive (c. 140 CE) while wrapped in a holy Torah scroll. The Romans placed wet sponges near his heart so that he would suffer longer. Rabbi Chanina’s executioner asked if he would be Divinely rewarded for removing the sponges, and the righteous sage promised him eternal reward. The Roman did so and leaped into the flames. He was himself consumed in the roaring blaze and a voice proclaimed that Rabbi Chanina and his executioner had been admitted to Heaven’s eternal rewards.”

As befits Rabbi Chanina, who literally lived and died with the Torah, his statement in this mishnah regarding Torah study and its primacy and constancy is entirely understandable. Without Torah, the world becomes a place of mockers, scoffers, jesters, and spiritual emptiness.

Rabbi Wein’s commentary is thoughtful and easy to read. Though it can be read relatively quickly, I would caution the reader to take it slow so as not to miss fine his insights and incisive thoughts. I found his homiletic interpretation of the well-known mishnah in Chapter 5 (7) particularly interesting. The mishnah describes the ten miracles that took place every day in the Holy Temple. One of the miracles was that “the people stood crowded together yet prostrated themselves in ample space.” Rabbi Wein writes:

“Miracles regarding human nature are so extraordinary as to command our attention and respect, if not our awe and wonderment. In addition to the physical miracle that space expands to accommodate the needs of the large crowds in Jerusalem, the commentators see a moral lesson in these miracles.”

The Rabbis taught that if we stand erect and inflexible, insisting on our rights alone and not willing to compromise in deference to the needs of others, we will find ourselves in a very crowded and uncomfortable world. However, if we can bow to the rights of others and compromise our own personal interests in the interests of public harmony and a peaceful society, then we will find that life truly affords us a great deal of elbow room. But to get humans to behave in such a fashion is a truly miraculous feat. As the holiest national entity, the Temple allows for this type of miraculous human attitude to appear and flourish. Miracles are of little practical avail in this world if they do not lead to the improvement of human character and behavior.

With these two works, Rabbi Roth and Rabbi Wein have contributed much to our understanding of and appreciation for the wisdom of our rabbis found in Pirkei Avot.

Rabbi Gold is the founder of the Ner Israel Yeshiva College of Toronto and served as rabbi of Kehilat Zichron Yosef in Jerusalem for twenty years; he is the dean of the Avrom Silver Jerusalem College for Adults of the Seymour J. Abrams Orthodox Union Jerusalem World Center.

We live in an age of customization, when consumers demand products tailored to their specific desires. You don’t simply order a cup of coffee; you mix and match different flavors and options, detailing exactly how you want it to taste. Online stores present a virtually unlimited display of brands and models, well beyond what you would find stocked in a store. This ethos of customization has spread beyond consumer products, affecting our lives.

Print media is disintegrating as magazines and newspapers give way to web reading, where we use various tools to find articles that meet our personal interests. Is there a future for books, which are mass produced and cannot be customized? As I previously discussed in this magazine,1 I believe books are here to stay. However, whoever discovers how to personalize the reading experience will certainly pave the way for the next generation of content providers.

I would not have thought that Talmud study could be personalized. I do not doubt that the published look of the Talmud has changed over the years, but the changes have been incremental. I remember when the Talman Shas introduced the bold font for introductory words in Rashi’s Talmud commentary. That minor change was considered revolutionary, an educational flash of genius that took the yeshivah study halls by storm. We are now witnessing a more significant change, a next-generation Talmud which will radically redefine the text and its relationship to students.

ArtScroll’s new app is aesthetically pleasing and its features provide meaningful options so users can customize the learning experience.

The ArtScroll Talmud App is not just an ancient text adapted to the iPad format. That is not a particularly difficult task which has already been accomplished by other apps, such as On YourWay and iTalmud. Nor is it merely an addition of the popular ArtScroll translation and commentary to the iPad Talmud text. It is much more. The ArtScroll Talmud App is a fully customizable text that allows readers to “order” the Talmud according to their learning tastes. It offers users the ability to define their own experience, which incidentally remedies some of the pedagogical issues some found with the original ArtScroll Schottenstein Talmud.

We are now witnessing a more significant change, a next-generation Talmud which will radically redefine the text and its relationship to students.

The primary purpose of the app is to provide the English translation of the Talmud alongside the original Aramaic text. The app allows you to do this in multiple ways. You can choose to view either only the English or Aramaic, or both languages arranged side by side. With the Aramaic, you can choose the standard Vilna edition with all the expected marginal commentaries in place, or you can run a flowing vowelized and punctuated text with commentaries at the bottom. In the flowing text option, the app allows you to add breaking points between topics and descriptors labeling questions, answers and statements. The flowing Aramaic text is your own private tutor.

Additionally, you can choose what appears in the pop-up box when you tap on an Aramaic phrase. Options include the English translation, Rashi, Tosafot, Torah Or (which provides the full text of any verse cited in the Gemara text) and other marginal commentaries, and the extensive ArtScroll footnotes. Personally, I prefer the Vilna text with the English translation in the pop-up box. In this way, I can approach the text as I would in my printed Talmud. If I find a word or phrase challenging, I tap it and find the text’s translation and expansion.

Some have criticized the ArtScroll Schottenstein Talmud (English edition) for serving as a crutch. Students rely so much on the English that they either ignore the Aramaic or fail to learn individual words. By hiding the translation behind a tap, you can create a new balance between Aramaic and English favoring the original more than a printed side-by-side text. You are almost forced to read the original before tapping and seeing the translation.

Another feature I appreciate solves an age-old dilemma. Studying a commentary, such as Rashi, often leads to losing your place in the text. Or when you refer back to the text, you lose your place in Rashi. The solution, pointing with both hands to the two places, can become cumbersome. While the now standard bold-type introductory Rashi words was a big step forward in helping Talmud learners keep their place, the ArtScroll Talmud App shifts the paradigm. When you tap on a Rashi, Tosafot or any marginal note, both the commentary and the associated Talmudic phrase are highlighted in yellow. Alternately, you can set the preferences so that Rashi or any other commentary on the page appears in a pop-up box when you tap on the text. You will never lose your place again!

The ArtScroll Talmud App is aesthetically pleasing and its pages load fairly quickly. Its rich features provide meaningful options so users can customize the learning experience according to their needs. This sets the gold standard of Jewish apps, utilizing the unique iPad features to alter the Talmud experience without tinkering with the actual text. It is an entirely traditional learning experience more fully enabled by the remarkable power of the iPad.

Rabbi Gil Student writes frequently on Jewish issues and blogs at TorahMusings.com. He is a member of the Jewish Action editorial board.

Note

1. “The Future of the Sefer” (spring 2011).

Koren Talmud Bavli

Reviewed by Harvey Belovski

A long-standing Daf Yomi devotee, I have become familiar with certain learning tools. These include pocket Agudah publications, the ArtScroll Schottenstein Talmud, the older Soncino translation, my favorite, Metivta, a colossal Hebrew-language scholarly work and, more recently, the ArtScroll Talmud App. At first glance, the market appears saturated, but the Koren Talmud Bavli, which recently won the National Jewish Book Award in the Modern Jewish Thought and Experience category, offers a perspective and learning experience genuinely different from existing resources.

Koren Publishers is well known for its imaginative approach, textual precision and stylistic excellence. Its Tanach and liturgical offerings, which include the recent Sacks Siddur and machzorim, have been hailed as paragons of design and presentation. Koren’s unmistakable Hebrew typefaces are easy to read, and powerfully amalgamate the gravitas of ancient texts with modern aesthetic sensitivities. Unparalleled in the world of Jewish publishing, these trademark accomplishments have now been harnessed to the outstanding genius of Rabbi Adin Even-Israel Steinsaltz, the world’s best-known teacher and translator of the Talmud, to produce an extraordinary new edition of the Babylonian Talmud. Rabbi Steinsaltz is famous for having published the entire Talmud reformatted with Modern Hebrew translation and elucidations, known for their scholarship and accessibility. This new edition is based on that earlier work. A formidable editorial and translation team is headed by Rabbi Dr. Tzvi Hersh Weinreb, executive vice president, emeritus of the Orthodox Union, and complemented by luminaries such as Rabbi Dr. Shalom Berger and my contemporary from Oxford, Rabbi Jason Rappoport, formerly of Yale University, to name but two.

The volumes, of which two—Berakhot and Shabbat, vol. 1—of a projected forty-one, had been released at the time of this writing, are beautifully presented. (There are actually several editions: a $50 standard model with color photographs and a smaller, $40 monochrome Daf Yomi version, as well as various online PDF options and a proposed app; the publisher furnished me with the two available volumes in the color edition). The boldest formatting decision is obvious immediately, as the tzurat hadaf—regular Vilna format of the Talmudic text—is present, but has been completely separated from the translation and annotations, the section which most readers will use. Opening a volume from the “Hebrew” side, one encounters the standard Hebrew/Aramaic folios (although, unlike in most editions, including Soncino and ArtScroll, the text includes diacritics and punctuation); from the “English” side, the new translation and commentary appear, following approbations and prefaces. There are also informative general introductions, as well as prefatory remarks and summaries for each chapter. Pages are divided vertically: two thirds are devoted to the Talmudic text, the remaining third (occasionally spilling into the bottom margin) to background, general notes, halachic observations, biographical material, illustrations and references to the standard pagination. The print is comfortably readable—well spaced with broad margins to ensure the characteristic Koren minimalist visual.

The Talmudic text itself is divided into easily digestible segments, with an interpolated translation facing its corresponding Hebrew/Aramaic original. The notes, background and halachic material are useful and interesting without being too cumbersome; they are clearly selected to enhance rather than overshadow a straightforward reading of the text. The illustrations—some photographic, others artistic depictions—are a desirable addition to the page and succeed in illuminating unfamiliar terms in the text as well as adding richness and variety. The editors’ decision to restore sections of the text bowdlerized or deleted by Christian censors (and preserved in the Vilna edition, as well as in Soncino and ArtScroll) is welcome. In tractates such as Avodah Zarah and Sanhedrin, this will be of considerable value. Altogether, the result is impressive—a triumph of design that is at once engrossing and attractive, and obviously intended to claim a place for the classical text and its ideas in a modern setting.

Studying from the Koren Talmud
When the Church of England proposed the introduction of a new prayer book, the Queen allegedly remarked that the only way to assess it was to “pray through it.” Inspired by this, I realized that I could not properly evaluate the Koren Talmud without actually “learning through it” for a period. So, in preparation for this review, I studied the Shabbat volume for two weeks of the Daf Yomi cycle and also prepared three of my weekly Gemara shiurim from it. My experience was mostly positive.

Koren’s new Talmud is comfortably readable, well-spaced with broad margins to ensure the characteristic Koren minimalist visual.

Koren’s decision to separate the classic pagination of the text from the translation and commentary—i.e., not to print their translation facing Vilna folios à la Soncino and ArtScroll—is understandable. It avoids numerous repeated pages (thousands over an entire set of Talmud, equating to many additional volumes—ArtScroll is seventy-three!) and allows serious scholars to study the original text undistracted, encouraging them to flip to the translation only when really necessary rather than constantly glancing across at it. Yet, I struggled with this arrangement. I missed knowing where the text I am studying appears on the standard page, something that I find indispensable for cross-referencing, discussion and, most importantly, locating a section in a regular edition. I appreciate that Koren is intended for those without extensive grounding in Talmud study, yet its publication schedule suggests that it is pitching to the Daf Yomi market and even the less-experienced student will benefit from joining the worldwide Talmudic discourse in shiurim, shuls and online.

Despite Koren’s ample signposts to allow comparison with the original Talmudic text at the other end of the book, I am also unsure about the decision not to adopt the “facing pages” layout and worry that it may hamper rather than facilitate full engagement with the larger world of Talmud study. Might it be possible to include on each translated page a thumbnail of the corresponding standard daf, with the relevant section highlighted to create a firmer link between the two? Actually, with the Vilna pages arranged like this, I cannot envisage anyone actually using them.

Another editorial decision was to exclude all Hebrew/Aramaic from the translated sections. This allows for a comfortable, mono-directional reading experience, limits the size of the volumes and enhances the beauty of the page. Yet, as my son Dovid Chaim pointed out, it also makes it difficult to directly relate English phrases to their specific Talmudic originals, perhaps frustrating a key objective “for the beginner of any age who seeks to obtain the necessary skills to become an adept Talmudist” (Rabbi Weinreb’s introduction, p. xiii). A further small point: notes that contain such unreferenced phrases as “Rashi elsewhere” (e.g., marginal note to Shabbat vol. 1, p. 139) would be enhanced by noting where in Rashi’s commentary; in this case, ArtScroll does just that. This seems to be an editorial decision, rather than an oversight, as all halachic marginalia are fully referenced.

On the subject of formatting, I was uncomfortable with Koren’s subdivision of sugyot (conceptual units). They are aesthetically pleasing and manageable for the uninitiated, yet any division of a sugya into smaller sections amounts to a specific reading of the text, something that should be acknowledged. And I was disappointed to see that no distinction is offered in the translation between actual sugya divisions (those marked on the Vilna page and of ancient vintage) and those added by Koren’s editors for ease of comprehension. This gives an uneven and sometimes misleading sense of the flow of the original text; conceivably, this policy might be reconsidered for future volumes.

The translation is mostly accurate, sophisticated and a pleasure to read, although I was perplexed by the rendering of “baya” and its cognates as “dilemma,” which for me, at least, suggests a moral conundrum, yet none is being considered; “inquiry” would have been a better translation. Technical terms are beautifully rendered, often with expert etymological guidance and, where appropriate, illustrations or diagrams. However, while archaeology, flora and fauna are well represented, unfamiliar processes would benefit from deeper coverage. For example, where the Mishnah lists the thirty-nine melachot (Shabbat vol. 1, p. 355-6), it would have been helpful to include diagrams or photographs of agricultural and weaving techniques, many of which are foreign to the modern reader.

As an example of accessible translation and intertextuality, I was impressed with Koren’s rendering of the convoluted inductive structure “hazar ha-din . . . lo r’iy zeh . . . ,” which I have always struggled to translate successfully:

And the derivation has reverted (to its starting point). The aspect of this (case) is not like the aspect of that (case) and the aspect of that (case) is not like this (case, as each case has its own unique stringencies. However,) their common denominator is that . . . (Berakhot, p. 239 and Shabbat vol. 1, p. 130).

Koren’s translation, which is complemented (curiously, only in Berakhot) by an excellent background note, is more intelligible and literate than ArtScroll’s and beautifully captures the intention of a complex text without being too verbose.

However, there is a degree of unevenness and wordiness in the interpolation. For example:

The fundamental dispute in this mishnah is with regard to the determination whether or not indirect acts of kindling and extinguishing fall within the parameters of the prohibition on Shabbat (Introduction to Mishnah, Shabbat vol. 1, p. 136).

Perhaps this could be edited to something like:

In this mishnah, the rabbis dispute whether indirect kindling and extinguishing are forbidden on Shabbat.

Yet there are few such infidelities and overall, on my key indicators —precision, comprehensibility and linguistic elegance—Koren’s translation and interpolation are the best around.

Summary
The Koren Talmud Bavli is an important and innovative new resource for English-speaking students—one that is without compare in terms of its graphic design, contemporary feel and readability. It succeeds in reincarnating the ancient repository of Jewish wisdom—our beloved Talmud—in a new, accessible format, surely casting its net of influence wider than ever before. While I found the experience of learning from the volumes somewhat frustrating, my quibbles are those of someone likely outside the work’s target group. And aside from my considerable discomfort with the (presumably irreversible) editorial decision to divide the standard Vilna pages from the main work, my observations are subjective and relatively minor. Notwithstanding these gripes, I have learned a lot from its pages and I’m even considering purchasing additional volumes to complement my existing resources.

Indeed, it is in finding new audiences for old wisdom where Rabbi Steinsaltz excels and where this ambitious project will work its magic. It has become fashionable to study Talmud in circles where, in the past, its association with elitist, male-only environments, as well as its dense, inaccessible style, made it off-limits. While obviously coming from completely different perspectives, today, many women, latecomers to Orthodoxy, those of non-Orthodox affiliation and non-observant Jews, are excited by and devoted to regular Talmud study. Some are able to access traditional resources, but most are not. For them, as well as for many men who left the yeshivah system uninspired by traditional learning, the Koren Talmud is a marvelous portal into the heretofore closed and mysterious, yet strangely alluring, world of real Jewish study.

Rabbi Dr. Harvey Belovski is a graduate of Oxford University, the Gateshead Yeshivah and the University of London. He is the rabbi of the Golders Green Synagogue in London, a teaching and research fellow at the London School of Jewish Studies, the rabbinic mentor of Chaplaincy, the principal of Rimon Jewish Primary School, the rosh of The Midrasha for women, the rav of Kisharon and the rabbinical advisor of PaL (UK Partners in Torah).

The Bais Yaakov Cookbook
The Fund for Jewish Education
Skokie, 2011
383 pages

Temptations
Congregation Keter Torah
Teaneck, 2011
300 pages

Dash
By Rebecca Naumberg and Sori Klein
Torah Academy for Girls
Far Rockaway,  2011
318 pages

Reviewed by Carrie R. Beylus

I read cookbooks. Yes, I read them, cover to cover, page by page. I love to read about why the author has written or compiled specific recipes. I love to discover new tricks and techniques. I love to learn about new tastes and cultures. . . even if my family won’t taste a morsel.

“I read cookbooks” has been a patent answer for as long as I can remember: “Why do you need another cookbook?” (the husband). “What did you do all Shabbat afternoon?” (the mother). “Where did you get this recipe, and do I really have to taste it?” (the seven-year-old).

I read cookbooks before cookbooks were “fashionable”; before there was a plethora of kosher cookbooks to choose from; before the Food Network, Cooking Channel and DIY. Cookbooks have more than recipes. They have stories, histories and methodologies and they offer invaluable insights into cooking styles, cultures, ingredients and flavors.

The recipes in Helen Nash’s latest offering, Helen Nash’s New Kosher Cuisine: Healthy, Simple & Stylish are just what the title promises. Using unique ingredients, some new to the kosher market, Nash presents elegant and hearty fare in a clear and concise format with practical hints and suggestions for both the novice and seasoned home cook.

“Tuna Tartare with Avocado,” “Celery Root and Porcini Soup,” “Sake Steamed Chicken” and “Tuscan Cake,” a beautiful yeast cake topped with crisp pine nuts, are placed side-by-side with more familiar recipes for “Hamentashen” and “Beet Soup.” Nash’s “Flourless Chocolate Nut Torte” would complement any Passover Seder menu.

The cookbook is laid out beautifully with each section—Hors d‘Oeuvres, Appetizers, Soups, Salads, Vegetables, Potatoes & Legumes, Pasta, et cetera—further categorized as Dairy, Meat and Pareve. Unfortunately, there are some instances where recipes run over to the next page, making it difficult to manage the book in the kitchen. In future editions, it might be less confusing if recipes were limited to a single page or to two facing pages.

Almost as important, though, are the Helpful Tips, Notes on Ingredients, Notes on Equipment and Notes on Technique pages. The indispensible advice in these pages, along with the family-friendly recipes presented with advance prep and freezing possibilities, make this book a uniquely useful “kitchen tool.”

With its Pesach Possibilities (from the year-round collection) listings, Temptations, a new book of “modern kosher recipes for every occasion” by the Sisterhood of Congregation Keter Torah in Teaneck, New Jersey, sets itself apart from other kosher cookbooks. In addition to its Pesach recipe section, the book’s two-page spread— “Pesach Possibilities”—allows the reader to pinpoint recipes throughout the book that are either kosher-for-Passover or can be ever-so-slightly adjusted to adhere to the holiday’s unique restrictions. The graph-like pages provide the page number, recipe and suggested substitutions when necessary.

With inviting photos and appealing recipes made up of readily available and healthful ingredients, Temptations is chock-full of simple, go-to recipes.

Each page offers a meat, dairy or pareve designation, a foolproof list of instructions, tips for freezing, variations on preparation and suggested wine pairings, when appropriate.

With an emphasis on tempting and tasty foods, these recipes, while familiar, kick it up a notch with choices like “Tomato Curry Soup,” an elegant braided “Deli Roll,” “Brisket with Orange Wine Sauce,” “Wheatberry Salad with Red and Green Onions” and “Peanut Brittle Ice Cream Delight with Meringue Topping.”

With its sheer size and presence, the new Bais Yaakov Cookbook could easily pass for a decorative coffee table book—a rather unwieldy challenge in most kitchens. But dozens of attractive photographs accompanying hundreds of original recipes, a moving and inspiring history of the Bais Yaakov movement and the drive of its founder Sara Schenirer make up for this “little” inconvenience.

Unique to this book is its extensive and comprehensive Halachic Guidelines. Covering topics from preparation of food on Shabbat to bishul akum to berachot on “problematic” foods, this book is a one-stop guide for the kosher cook.

The book is lovingly dedicated to Rebbetzin Batsheva Esther Kanievsky, a”h, whose sudden passing right before its publication saddened the Jewish world. There is a beautiful, handwritten berachah to bnot Yisrael by the rebbetzin that accompanies her famous challah recipe published in the book.

Each recipe, while seemingly simple, is presented with options for enhancing its flavors, staging and overall appeal. The “Crispy Potato Roast” with vertically aligned, paper-thin cuts of potato is not only delicious but so much simpler to prepare than the daring architectural feat it appears to be. The “Hearty Vegetable Soup” offers a fabulous tip for preparing butternut squash bowls for service. Corned beef, salmon and chicken cutlets are presented with multiple glazes and marinades to please any palate.

While most every kosher cookbook out there highlights the word kosher in its title, Dash, published by Far Rockaway’s Torah Academy for Girls, is a creative standout. Although in cooking, “dash” refers to a “very small amount,” there is nothing small about this book.

Its bold graphics and layout is commanding, if a little hard to read on certain pages where purple, green and red type conflict with the page’s black background, but its emphasis on presentation is unrivaled. “Sweet Potato Crumble in Orange Cups,” a molded “Rainbow Rice Dome” and “Lasagna Wonton Stacks with Tomato Basil Sauce” are just a sampling of the creative varieties included.

While I miss the dairy, meat and pareve designations, this dynamically designed project offers a welcome emphasis on fruits and vegetables in all categories, like the “Cheese and Fig Tartlets with Walnut Streusel and Pomegranate Syrup” and the earthy combinations of its “Smoky Apple Chestnut Bread Pudding.”

Although most kosher cooks—male or female, young or old—are too busy or  have other recreational interests and cannot just sit around reading cookbooks, I recommend you dust one or two off your shelves, or better yet, invest in one of those described above. Read it, use it, learn from it. You won’t find any intrigue or deep plot lines like in a good novel, but I promise it’ll be more entertaining than a college textbook—and you might even solve a kitchen mystery or two along the way.

Carrie R. Beylus is a self-proclaimed cookbook junkie who lives in Woodmere, New York. She is also the marketing manager of Jewish Action.

To hear an interview with cookbook author Helen Nash, visit http://www.ou.org/life/food/kosher-healthy-delicious-helen-nash-stephen-savitsky/#.US-bdazMOIA

By Irwin H. Krasna

It was Yom Kippur, October 6th, 1973, when we first heard the news:  Egypt and Syria had attacked Israel, unprovoked and without warning.  Before we even broke our fast, we tuned in to the news on TV that night.  We learned that Egypt had crossed the Suez Canal on makeshift bridges and had attacked the Bar-Lev lines.  Syria had pushed into the Golan Heights with masses of tanks, and both forces were taking a fierce toll in Israeli lives.  Planes had flown over the Sinai and Golan Heights and had met no resistance.

Many Israeli generals had warned that the Arabs were planning an attack, recommending that the country mobilize for war and not to permit soldiers to return home for the holidays.  Prime Minister Golda Meir and Defense Minister Moshe Dayan were not convinced, saying that Cairo and Damascus “saber rattle” to aggravate Israel, and that an invasion was unlikely; and their opinion prevailed.

Accordingly, many Israeli soldiers, pilots and other essential military personnel were permitted home for Yom Tov.  Only a skeleton crew was left manning the Bar-Lev line along the Suez Canal, and only a few tank crews were left on the Golan Heights.  A great number of these soldiers were hesder boys — yeshivah students who volunteer to serve in the army for five years instead of three, combining army service with Talmud study.  Because of their religious dedication, many had volunteered to stay “in the field” on Yom Kippur to conduct services for their comrades.  When the attack occurred, this small defense force was rapidly overrun and killed. 

That night all soldiers were mobilized, the hospitals were emptied of all but critically ill patients, all trucks were requisitioned and all Israelis abroad were asked to return to Israel as soon as possible to rejoin their units.

I was a practicing doctor, living in Forest Hills, New York, at the time.  My decision was made quickly.  I told my family and two medical partners that I would try to go to Israel to help take care of the wounded.  When word came that a seat on a 707 to Israel had been reserved for me, I went to Mt. Sinai Hospital.  As chief of pediatric surgery at that facility, I received permission to take surgical needs with me to Israel.  I gathered a few dermatomes (for skin grafts), cantor tubes, gallons of betadine solution, scrub brushes and ointment, as well as a few boxes of cadaver skin and pigksin sent from Walter Reed Army Hospital.

The scene at JFK Airport was bedlam.  Young Israeli men waving $100 bills begged for seats on the last plane to Israel, to be able to join their units.  I thought, “What a difference from the scenes Americans witnessed, of people rushing to get on the last helicopter leaving Saigon, to leave a country at war.  Here, our boys are begging to be allowed to return to their country at war.”  Even as they clamored, deep-down everyone knew that not all those who would leave on that 707 would ever return.  And yet they begged to go.

The plane was full and there wasn’t much conversation, just quiet and deep thought.  What would the country look like when we arrived?  Will the center of the country be bombed?  Would the civilian population be spared?

As it turned out, all the casualties were at the northern and southern fronts, and the civilian populations of all three countries were spared.  On the plane, I met Dr. Chaim Boichus, a senior pediatric nephrologist of Tel Hashomer Hospital, the main military (and civilian) hospital in the Tel Aviv area.  It is comprised of Quonset huts of a pre-1948 British military camp.  Not knowing where I would volunteer, he suggested that I go with him to Tel Hashomer, where they would surely be able to put my surgical talents to good use.

The hospital director went over my resume, saw that I served in the U.S. Air Force in 1956-1958 during the Sinai War, and decided that I was a trained military surgeon.  After receiving a chaluk [white coat], a pair of scrubs, a military ID, a meal ticket and a dormitory room assignment, I started working in the operating room.  The chief of plastic surgery was Dr. Borenstein, a Bellevue-trained surgeon, who joined the hospital as a plastic surgeon in 1948.  His second-in-command was Dr. Haggai Tzur, a superb Israeli, trained locally, and a very organized person.  Two other plastic surgeons, from Tel Aviv and Netanya, were drafted to the unit.  All male interns and residents were gone, at the front with their combat units. Batya, a Russian intern, and Miki, an Israeli, served with us.  Both women worked day and night without complaining.

In truth, I had never before worked as a physician during war time.  I had to adjust to war casualties, massive burns, dying young men, helicopters coming in hourly and busloads of non-critical wounded.  Most of the burns were tank casualties.  It became rapidly apparent that the lubricants used in the Israeli and American tanks were flammable, and everyone in a tank hit by a missile would be immediately incinerated.

It was very hot in the Middle East during October 1973, and the Israeli soldiers in the tanks stripped down to their undershorts and goggles.  The flash after the tank was hit was rapid and burnt off all the skin of the exposed areas.  The eyes and shorts areas were protected from the immediate flash.  If they got out of that tank rapidly, they would sustain first and second degree burns.  If they did not, they sustained pulmonary burns and third degree burns.  The tank battles in the Sinai were described as the biggest tank battles in the history of war.  From seeing the Israeli casualties, I can believe that.

All the wounded received first aid in the field or in a MASH unit in the Sinai or in the Golan Heights.  When they arrived at the hospital, they were triaged in the large receiving units, run by Trauma Chief Dr. Wolfstein, who had relinquished his additional position as chief of pediatric surgery since my arrival.  Many who were sent to us were terminal — advanced total body third degree burns.  These boys were sent to a private room in a special building, with IVs and respirators, to spend their last hours with their families.

Four young burn patients, and two of the nurses.

Those considered operable would all arrive in the operating room with chest x-rays, extremity x-rays (if indicated), and a tag describing the injuries and what needed to be done.  There was no second-guessing nor detailed physicals:  since there were so many casualties, we had to work fast.  There were only ten ORs, and the patients sometimes were lined up for hours.  We took them in the order that they were triaged.  Of all the casualties that arrived at Tel Hashomer and were treated, I would say that over 90% survived.  Many survived with severe handicaps and severe scarring and disfigurement, but unlike so many others, they lived.

I was in charge of one of five surgical teams.  Dr. Borenstein, Dr. Tzur, two plastic surgeons from private practice and I were each in charge of an operating room.  We were assisted by Batya and Miki, one surgical resident and some nurses.  We would bring the soldiers into the operating room, cut off their burned uniforms or underwear, catheterize them, start another IV and, using betadine scrub brushes, scrub off all dead and burnt tissue.  If the burns were extensive, we would cover them with pigskin, or vaseline gauze for the smaller areas.  We would estimate their body surface area burned, for fluid calculations, and send them to the recovery room.  From there, they would go to the plastic surgery Quonset hut.  We never did skin grafts on the first trip to the OR because the incoming casualties needed the room for surgery.  We would often operate 12-24 hours without let up; then make rounds, and sleep for a few hours, until we heard the helicopters arriving again.

The lady who was in charge of the dormitory building gave up her room for a volunteer doctor and slept on a blanket in the hall.  She would knock on my door at all hours of the night and say, “Professor, there are new wounded.”  I would go to the operating room and set up.  When it was quiet for a few hours, we would electively take the patients back to the ORs for redressing of wounds or skin grafts.

The first week was very hectic, with new casualties coming in three to four times a day.  Ninety percent of the casualties were burns, with a few bullet wounds or orthopedic wounds. 

The spirit in the wards was serious, with parents or wives always at the bedside.  Dr. Borenstein (the chief) would speak to each family himself.  We had a young pilot whose jet had been hit by a Russian SAM III, and he ejected while his uniform was in flames.  He had many extensive burns over his entire torso.  Although his face was spared, his body would have extensive scarring.  His wife never left his side.

When the soldiers awoke and were told that pigskin covered their burns, they all wanted to know if the Chief Rabbinate had approved the use of pigskin, since it is not permitted to raise pigs in Israel.  We assured them that use of the pigs was absolutely approved in this case.

Israel was losing the war after the first seven to ten days.  Hundreds of tanks were lost, the Egyptian army was nearing Eilat and the Syrian army was recapturing the Golan Heights.  Supplies were diminishing and things looked very bad.  One morning while looking out of my window in my room toward Ben Gurion airport, I saw the largest plane I had ever seen  land at Ben Gurion.  It was an American Galaxy jet, loaded with tanks and bombs.  Five minutes later, another one with an American flag landed, and they kept on coming for the next two days.  Secretary of State Kissinger and President Nixon had come through.  Everyone in Israel, and especially at Tel Hashomer, was elated; and the war did indeed turn around after the resupplying of war material.  I will never forget the airlifts that came from the U.S. that prevented Israel from being overrun.

I consider myself fortunate to have been in a position where I was able to contribute something during this crisis in Israel’s history.

After about ten days, we had more time to do reconstruction on our patients.  We used mesh grafts for most grafting because most wounds were extensive.  These were lengthy, bloody procedures, and tiring to perform.  We usually had two or three sessions a day, and often worked in the wee hours of the morning, if new casualties arrived.

The chief of surgery decided to place all the volunteers on eight-hour shifts.  My name can be spelled many different ways in Hebrew, and when the roster was made up, I saw my name on three daily shifts; as Krasna, Krafna and Krasner.  I took all three shifts.

I was the only pediatric surgeon in the hospital.  Dr. Borenstein called me one day to see a child with abdominal pain who had been brought in.  I told the parents that the boy had appendicitis and the parents were upset with him for “doing this in the middle of the war.”  Another child was brought in with a puncture wound of the abdomen, inflicted by a playmate.  They were playing “war” and he was the “bad Syrian.”  As I was operating on him, I heard the nurse say to another nurse, in Hebrew, “These American surgeons are all so slow,” not knowing that I understood the language.  I told her, in Hebrew, that I am not slow, I am careful.  Sheepishly she apologized for what she said.

Although I had a meal ticket for three meals a day, I used it only a few times.  The OR always had coffee, cookies, salami and soup, because most of the surgeons did not have the leisure to leave the operating room for a quiet meal.

I did not have any opportunity to attend services during Sukkot or to rest in a sukkah during the entire holiday.  Children sent get well cards to all the soldiers, with pictures of sukkot, lulavim and etrogim.  These cards were hung next to the beds, and the soldiers were very proud of them.  I had an opportunity to make the brachah on the lulav and etrog once, because Lubavitch young men went around to the wards, to enable everyone to make this special blessing.  Except for this one occasion, and the get well cards from the school children, there was no evidence to me that it was Yom Tov.  To this day, I always have an uncomfortable feeling on Sukkot as I remember the one that I “lost” in 1973.

Towards the end of my stay, I went to all the patients to say goodbye and wish them well.  They asked me to remember them and I photographed as many as I could, along with photos of the nurses and other doctors.

As a cease fire was declared, reporters and television crews appeared at the hospital.  How they got there is a mystery to me, but these brave people do find a way to get into the midst of trouble all the time.  Dr. Borenstein called me into his office and asked me to show a reporter around the wards and let her speak to the wounded.  She was a reporter from New York magazine and when she heard I was a New Yorker, she wanted to interview me.  Her name was Nora Efron, and I did not know at that time that she would someday be very successful and famous.

They also permitted a TV crew into the OR suite and x-ray area, and since I spoke English and was a U.S. volunteer, I was interviewed.  The segment appeared in New York on a Friday night so my family did not see it; but others did, and said I looked tired and skinny, but it was definitely me on screen.

The Burn Unit Staff, after the hostilities ended. Seated: Dr. Krasna; Batya, the intern; Professor Borenstein; Dr. Haggai Tzur. Back Row: Third from left: Danny Katznelson, Chief of Pediatrics A; sixth from left (with glasses): Chaim Boichus, Chief of Pediatrics B; second from right: volunteer physician from Australia; the remainder are housestaff and one private plastic surgeon (middle in back row).

I left after 16 days, when civilian El Al flights resumed.  Some friends picked me up the afternoon before the flight, and while driving, we stopped at a red light.  In front of us, an army gasoline truck made a rapid left turn, and turned on its side.  Everyone who saw it happen was momentarily immobilized in shock.  Before I knew it, I was out of the car, climbing on the truck and pulling the driver out to safety.  When I had him safely away, I realized that the ignition was still on.  I ran to the truck again and shut off the ignition, while my friends were yelling for me to “get out of there!”  I was still in a “high-action” mode.

Any man in Israel in his 40s or 50s who has visible burn scars can safely be assumed to be a Yom Kippur War veteran:  know, when you look at him, and remember what he contributed to Israel’s survival.  Even those of us who volunteered felt humbled at the time by these self-sacrificing citizens.  What do you say to the Israeli patients and doctors when you leave to go back to your safe, quiet country?  How do you overcome the feeling of guilt — that these young men almost died protecting the Jewish state for us all, while you returned to the safety of your home?

When I arrived at Ben Gurion airport on Friday morning, there were no civilian planes on the tarmac.  All I saw were Galaxy jets and hospital planes, and I met many of the young men whom I had met on the way to Israel, who were now returning to the States.  Needless to say, not everyone was returning.  “You remember the heavy guy who sat near the window?  He was killed at the Suez Canal…  The red-headed, skinny guy – he’s still in the hospital…”  Others not returning were kept in their units for many months — and missed their schooling or lost their jobs.

I considered myself fortunate to have been in a position where I was able to contribute something during this crisis in Israel’s history.  Imagine my pride in 1982 when my son, Mark, was one of the few interns in Tel Hashomer Hospital during the Lebanon war, since the other interns, Israeli citizens, had been drafted to serve in the infantry.

The dark days of October, 1973, are long gone.  Yet the latent, eternal valor of the Jewish nation is a resource and uniting force for Jews the world over.  We have a tendency to view our history on a grand scale, yet it is the personal experiences that fuel our resolve.  Why are all these memories so fresh to me?  The experiences of war become an unforgettable fact of your being.  When you are having a cup of coffee at midnight in the ward, and you hear an adult male voice cry  “Imma” — that is a voice that lives with you forever.

The prayer for the welfare of the State of Israel, like the country for which it is recited, is often at the center of controversy. In Prayer for the Welfare of the State of Israel, Rabbi Steinberg presents a balanced, intellectually honest, fascinating analysis of the history and philosophy of the prayer. Read the review at Jewish Action and get your copy at OU Press today.

]]> http://www.ou.org/jewish_action/04/2013/the-yom-kippur-war-an-american-volunteer-remembers/feed/ 0 http://www.ou.org/jewish_action/04/2013/dream_or_disappointment/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=dream_or_disappointment http://www.ou.org/jewish_action/04/2013/dream_or_disappointment/#comments Tue, 09 Apr 2013 13:50:00 +0000 Yaffa Ganz http://production.ou.org/jewish_action/2008/dream_or_disappointment/

The Jewish State was conceived in dreams—dreams of a glorious past and hopes for an even more glorious future. Only dreamers, disdainful of reality and inspired by Messianic visions, could have taken on such responsibilities and made such momentous decisions. Yet, from its inception, the State was confronted with overwhelming difficulties and was forced to grapple with existential problems not faced by the Jewish people in two thousand years.

Have our dreams come to fruition? Today, sixty years later, there is hardly an area in Israeli national or public life that is functioning satisfactorily. Unsure of our Jewish identity, under constant military attack, subservient to foreign ideologies and powers, Israelis suffer from a general feeling of malaise and of having lost their way. In order to gain a better perspective on present-day Israel, perhaps we should take a look at our past.

The Past: Glorious or Dismal?
Avraham Avinu arrived in the Promised Land, full of hope and expectation, only to find the Land already occupied. He never did “take possession” of his inheritance. He remained a ger ba’aretz—a sojourner, often unwelcome, in his own home——as did Yitzchak and Yaakov.

After the death of Moshe, Yehoshua led the fledgling nation back into Eretz Yisrael. Commanded by God to conquer the Land, he never completed the job. For four hundred years, the Philistines ruled the country. These were years of continuing idol worship and intermittent warfare and subjugation, interspersed with short periods of local peace. During the entire period of the shoftim, the vulnerable Jewish tribes never enjoyed true independence.

David Hamelech lived through seventy tumultuous years of political intrigue, warfare and rebellion, all of which are duly recorded in Sefer Shemuel, Sefer Melachim and Tehillim. His son Shlomo, who was king for forty years, was the only monarch who reigned in peace. Shlomo solidified the kingdom and built the First Temple, but immediately upon his death, the kingdom split in two with the resultant power struggles, tension and wars. And even though miracles were a daily affair and prophets abounded, the worship of idols was widespread. Eventually, the Temple was destroyed and the Jews exiled.

The return to the Land of Israel after the Babylonian Exile was disappointing. Only the poorest of the poor came back with Ezra. Although they rebuilt the Temple, political instability and military machinations increased side by side with the blossoming of great Torah scholars. The Second Temple was finally destroyed and the present, seemingly unending exile began. It makes one wonder: Were things ever good for any extended period of time in the Land of Israel? Was our glorious past so glorious after all?

Yes, it was. Absolutely. Our past is the story of unending human effort to meet the challenge of the Divine. Were there failures? Of course. There were, there are, there always will be. Until the final Redemption, failure is inherent in the human condition.

The Present: Gratifying or Disappointing?
Our present exile is “seemingly unending” only to those who choose not to see. Sixty years after the horrific, incomprehensible Holocaust, more than five million Jews are living in a Jewish state—albeit a less-than-perfect one. A mere pinpoint on the globe, we are ensconced in a sea of enemies determined to destroy us. Vulnerable, beleaguered, unstable, the state is riddled with every problem imaginable—social, cultural, moral, political, economic, military, religious. Yet the eyes of God are continually focused on this “pinpoint” and our conflicted, dwarf-like state has turned into a providential giant.

Israel has become the spiritual center of world Jewry, with more yeshivot and Torah creativity here than in any other place on the globe. We are a military power to be reckoned with and an economic miracle. We are a world center of technology, communications, medical research and scientific development. We have resurrected a language and turned an arid, barren country into a Garden of Paradise; we are so popular in the Third World that if we opened our doors to all, we would be inundated with non-Jewish immigrants from across the globe. (Now if only our own brothers and sisters from across the world would join us…)

The Future: Confident or Despairing?
What then is our true “status”? Is the State of Israel truly atchalta d’Geulah, the beginning stages of the Redemption? Or perhaps it is only ikvata d’Mashichah, the preliminary to Messianic times? And if we have entered the beginning stages of the Redemption, why does so much seem to have gone wrong?

Were things ever good for any extended period of time in the Land of Israel? Was our glorious past so glorious after all?

Whether we are now in the midst of the Geulah, or are only standing at the doorway is a question for the rabbis to decide. But practically speaking, it makes no difference. The redemptive process has been unfolding ever since man first sinned. It does not move forward in a straight line. Things go wrong even in a newly founded Jewish state. After two thousand years of exile and the horrific Shoah, however, our expectations for the State were very high. It wasn’t Realism we were looking for; it was Redemption. But who are we to dictate a schedule to God? Are we deserving of Mashiach now—of Redemption today?

Possibly not (although it would be nice if it came anyway!). Our current situation is a reflection of the present condition of the entire Jewish people. In the Diaspora, a Jew can choose his community and ignore the rest of his coreligionists. But here in Israel, we are bound together (as Jews should be). We are forced to contend with each other and to find a common language and a modus vivendi. In Eretz Yisrael, problems cannot be ignored; they must be solved.

And all Jews must remember that Redemption and the “state of affairs” in Israel is not just an Israeli issue. The children of Abraham are one nation, indivisible, under God. We’re all on the same voyage, hoping to reach the same shore. Even if every Jew in Israel were holy and pure—a paragon of peace, perfection and love—the Jews in the Diaspora (where more than half of Jewry still resides) would still figure into the equation. Perhaps if we all (or at least a majority of us) were in the Land, working to make it (and ourselves) holy and pure, the Redemption would take place more quickly. God has orchestrated history and made it possible as never before for us to come here en masse and do His work. Do we accept His challenge?

The Redemption will come in any event, eventually, in God’s good time, whether we will it or not, whether we are worthy or not. But our tradition tells us that it will come sooner and more easily if it comes as a result of our efforts to renew, rebuild and spiritually prepare both the Land and ourselves.

The Right to Complain
Only those who are here in Israel dealing with all the problems and imperfections have the right to demand something better. Living here, in the midst of the tornado—the tumah and the taharah—in God’s Land, affords us privileges like complaining. And we know, deep inside our Jewish heads and hearts, that, eventually, all will be made right. Only after Hashem completed each stage of Creation does the Torah say, “And He saw that it was good.” We aren’t finished yet. We don’t know how long things will take, or what the final price will be, but we are the world’s womb and stage. This is where the action is.

When I meet a Jew from the Diaspora who is unhappy with the State of Israel, I ask: “You don’t like the way things are going here? Then come and do something about it! Are you impatient or disappointed with God? With the way His plans are progressing? With His people? Then join them! Are you faring better in the Diaspora, or are you just leaving the hard work to someone else? Charity begins at home, so come home! Take an active part. Rebuild God’s ‘Bayit’—your bayit.” Tikkun haolam begins here. If even half of the observant Jews in the Western world would make aliyah, thanks to the power of the democratic vote we could wield enough power to change the face and the fate of the State. But to sit and bemoan from afar? Better to stay silent and let the countless good people here get on with their work.

And there are so many good, wonderful, amazing people here. I want to shout to the heavens (and the media): Mi keamcha Yisrael? Who is like your nation Israel? As the descendants of Abraham, we are infused with the lofty ideals of mercy, justice and righteousness. Our national policies are directed towards improving society. Our national leaders, our army, our people all long for a better world. We may oftentimes be lacking in wisdom or strength, but our intentions are always worthy.

Dayeinu
At the Pesach Seder we say, “Had You taken us out of Egypt and not given us the Torah, it would have been sufficient.” But what good would leaving Egypt have been had we not received the Torah? Wouldn’t it have been a job half done? No, it would not. Freedom from slavery in and of itself would have been sufficient for that time and place. The Torah had to be given; there is no Jewish nation without Torah. But it could have been given later, at a different time, in a different setting. At that moment in history, the Exodus from Egypt and the Splitting of the Red Sea were miracles enough. Perhaps, for the present moment, the State of Israel is also dayeinu—enough. It may not yet be the final Geulah, but it is definitely part of the process.

There is a story of a minyan that took place in Bnei Brak one Yom Ha’atzmaut morning. After Shemoneh Esrei, the chazzan began to recite Tachanun, which is said on ordinary days but not on Shabbat or holidays. Suddenly, a man rushed up to the bimah, pounded on it and declared in a ringing voice: “Tachanun? You’re saying Tachanun? You aren’t saying Hallel today? You aren’t thanking God for the State? Can’t you see? Don’t you understand? I was in Auschwitz. I know what a Jewish state means! It means life, hope, a gift!” And he began a fervent recitation of Hallel.

By definition, the Geulah requires an actual political entity—a state—that will be the foundation of mamlechet kohanim vegoy kadosh—God’s kingdom of priests in this world. The making of such a state is an ongoing challenge. It is our challenge. It will not descend from on high. It will be what we make it.

The Power of Joy
Rabbi Akiva laughed with joy as he viewed the remnants of the Temple, because within the destruction, he saw the promise of Redemption. How much more so should we, who have been privileged to see so much rebirth, take heart, have faith and be thankful. The road is bumpy, unpaved and unfamiliar; it has countless twists and turns. But with faith and vigor and an abundance of joy, we go forward.

And there really is no other place for a Jew to go. We are the farmers, and the State of Israel is the vehicle that allows us to cultivate our fields. Let us plant, irrigate, fertilize, weed and harvest. From the depths of his own tumultuous experience and prophetic vision, King David sang: “Those who plant with tears will reap with joy.”

Let us be thankful and get on with our work.

Yaffa Ganz is the award-winning author of many books for Jewish children, and several adult books on the contemporary Jewish scene. She has written extensively for Jewish publications worldwide and has recorded a series of children’s stories on the OU web site, www.ou.org. The Ganzes live in Israel. Yaffa Ganz © 2008

The prayer for the welfare of the State of Israel, like the country for which it is recited, is often at the center of controversy. In Prayer for the Welfare of the State of Israel, Rabbi Steinberg presents a balanced, intellectually honest, fascinating analysis of the history and philosophy of the prayer. Read the review at Jewish Action and get your copy at OU Press today.

Zecharya and five other soldiers were missing after the chaotic battle in the Lebanese village of Sultan Yakoub, marked by a Syrian ambush of the Israeli forces. It was June 1982, at the beginning of the war that is officially called “Peace for Galilee” but has since become known as “the First Lebanon War.” Israeli soldiers Hezi Shai and Arye Lieberman were returned in controversial prisoner exchanges several years later; Yehuda Katz and Zvi Feldman, like Zecharya, have not been heard of since then.

Yona left no stone unturned in Israel, meeting with every official in the government who might have any clue about his son. He and his wife, Miriam, traveled the world over, meeting with prime ministers and presidents, members of parliaments and journalists, intelligence sources and clergymen.

I only met Yona once, in a situation that had nothing to do with his missing son. We were selling our apartment in Jerusalem in order to buy a home in Efrat. Yona accompanied a family friend—a widow who was a potential buyer—to advise her. He was kind to her and very polite to us. I remember him as someone larger than life, very down to earth, whose presence filled the room. I realize now that it was a microcosmic example of how he lived his life.

Raye (Rakeffet) Eisen, a close friend of the family, confirms this impression. “I felt like it was a privilege to have known Yona,” she says. “He was a religious man and he just accepted it for what it was. He never questioned Hakadosh Baruch Hu; he never doubted religion. I used to set up appointments for [the couple] in Washington and the Knesset, and sometimes I would accompany them. He was shalem, complete with his faith, and he felt shleimut with the State of Israel. He used to say, ‘Despite all the tragedies, personal and collective, I wouldn’t exchange this country for any other country in the world.’ He was a fine person who always wanted to help [others]. He didn’t wallow in self pity.”

Yona and Miriam and their three children made aliyah in 1970. “Zack” was the youngest. Their daughter, Osna Haberman, was twenty-three years old when Zecharya went missing. “At that point my parents were hopeful that he would come back quickly,” recalls Osna. “There had also been a lot of confusion at the beginning of the Yom Kippur War, which my brother Shimon had fought in, and some soldiers were declared missing, and then they showed up later. So the first thing [my parents] tried to do was organize a meeting with the highest-level person they could get to at the time to clarify the situation. That began a long, long journey through meetings with various officials. The first step was to gather information.

“It had been a battle of extreme confusion; pandemonium broke out because there was a Syrian ambush in the dark. Several months later my parents realized that they weren’t making headway. The real turning point came when Hezi Shai came back and Zack didn’t come back with him. Then they realized that . . . something was wrong, and it wasn’t a matter of waiting, but of demanding, and a matter of looking, and not leaving it to the Jewish people and the State of Israel.

“I decided at a certain point to drop out of public activity when I realized this would be an ongoing process. I decided to devote my energy to building my family, rather than shaking the hands of prime ministers. I actively pursued my own private life in order to give my parents the joy of seeing our family continue. I returned to dating and to my professional life, as a teacher of Torah, biology and English. I met my husband, and the day that my firstborn came into the world, my parents looked at me and said, ‘Oh, what you did for us.’ They would come to see the grandchildren and have a space for themselves without the angst of the other part of their life. This sustained them over the years. When you’re with a grandchild, you can’t let anything else enter—and they have been such wonderful grandparents. This gave them the strength to continue the search because they had the normalcy of coming to my home, or the grandchildren coming into their home.”

“For years Yona used to say to me that he was the only one in the Middle East who negotiated one for one,” says Raye. “He went to Tunis before the Oslo Accords were signed, with the authority from Rabin to negotiate the exchange of a terrorist held by Israel, who was dying in jail, in return for the body of an Israeli Druze soldier. When he first got there, the Arabs had a lot of demands, and he said that he sat there for hours saying, ‘It will be one for one,’ and that’s what the deal was in the end. I was once in the Knesset with him, at a later date, when a man ran over to hug him, and Yona told me afterwards, ‘That was the brother of the Druze soldier whose body I returned.’”

A Family Man
“My father was the quintessential family man, very involved in his children’s lives,” says Osna. “He took the time to guide us and to give us rules for living. There were tools that he used to do this—the Shabbat table, where he would talk about his value system constantly, what it means to be a Jew, to live in the Land of Israel, to keep Shabbat, to be an upright human being, and to keep mitzvot bein adam lechavero, between people. [The second tool was] his chesed, kindness, [which] was a lifestyle. If he could do something [to help another], he would do it. We had a neighbor whom he looked after when her husband passed away. He took care of her when she went into a nursing home and he found her heirs when she passed away. He used to go to an elderly aunt every Friday to fix her Shabbat clock, and drink coffee with her and do any repairs that she needed. These are just a few examples; I’m sure that many people who read this article will say, ‘Oh yes, he did this for me. . . . ’

“He believed that the Two Tablets of the Covenant were of equal importance, the right side and the left side, and that was the chinuch, the education, that he gave us.”

Helping Others at His Own Expense
One of the most moving stories about Yona, told at the end of the sheloshim, the first thirty days of mourning, was related by his nephew, Abbe Dienstag, an attorney from New York. Yona used to own a company in New York that produced knitwear. He hired a needy widow, as he had been asked to do. A financial slump came along at one point and, in keeping with the time-honored tradition of “last hired, first fired,” he would have had to let go those workers who were hired last. But Yona did not want to fire the widow, and it wasn’t right to fire the more veteran workers, so he ended up not firing any of his employees. He had them produce knitted hats, even though he had no buyers for them, and he covered the losses from his own pocket. One day he received an emergency order for a large number of knitted hats, which, due to his kindness, he just “happened” to have ready.

Abbe said that Yona had a major influence on his life, and on the lives of all who knew him. “He was always the devoted brother and father and uncle and cousin, both before the battle [of Sultan Yakoub] and after it. He ‘adopted’ so many people, always had an open house, filled with guests. . . . But he told me recently, in the hospital, ‘I can no longer be leaned on; now I’ll have to lean on others.’ I think he felt he could not live in that situation, having to depend on others. It was then I felt that the end was near.” Abbe said he finally understood the pasuk, passage, about Rachel: “She refused to be comforted for her children, for they are not” (Jeremiah 31:14).

Rabbi Aaron Rakeffet, a close family friend, described Yona’s determination, and the determination of those around him who tried to help find Zecharya. “There were also many non-Jews who loved him and helped him, heart and soul. I saw in Yona, like it says in Mishlei [Proverbs] 27:19, ‘Kemayim hapanim lapanim, ken lev ha’adam la’adam [As water reflects a face back to a face, so one’s heart is reflected back to him by another].

There was a beautiful poster sold at the sheloshim, with a message about bringing back the missing Israeli soldiers. At the top of the poster was the word “Ashrei”—“Joyful.” And at the bottom of the poster were the words from Psalms [128:2], “Ashrecha vetov lach . . . You will be joyful and it will be well with you.” The psalm continues, “Your children will be like olive plants around your table . . . .” What every parent wishes for—what Yona and Miriam were partly denied.

Miriam, His Life Partner
I met with Miriam Baumel the morning after the sheloshim in her cozy, welcoming apartment in Jerusalem’s Katamon neighborhood, filled with books, Judaica and some of Miriam’s own art work. Miriam said her marriage was “a partnership.” Sometimes the couple split up the search for Zecharya to cover more ground. “Yona would have the meetings in the Arab world, because they exclude women, and I tried to help in the diplomatic areas. He said to me, even when he was in the hospital and I had to go somewhere, ‘You run with it.’”

Miriam was surprised that Yona’s death was covered in all the newspapers. “Yona never looked for kavod, honor. He took a special interest in widows and orphans. His pleasure in life was in helping people. I would hear him say on the phone, ‘What can I do to help you?’ My husband was selfless. The mitzvot bein adam lechavero were so important to him. In our home, it was always people before things, and certainly people before anything foolish or vain.”

There were young people, unrelated to the Baumels, who thought of them as “Uncle Yona” and “Aunt Miriam.” “We always had an open house,” says Miriam, “and what we used to call the ‘Baumel tisch’ on Shabbat. I would bring up a controversial subject and suddenly everyone was talking. The kids brought home friends of all persuasions.” She describes Yona as a man who, throughout the years of searching for their son, also remained a loving husband; a man who used to accompany her to museums, which she loved. A veteran arts and crafts teacher, Miriam used to work in the Israel Museum in Jerusalem.

Miriam is continuing the search for Zecharya. She says vehemently, “The Arabs are denigrating themselves as a people when they say that they want us to exchange so many live prisoners for each Israeli soldier. Shame on them.”

Toward the end of the interview, Miriam pulls out an issue of the Congressional Record, and reads from it aloud. “On March 22, 1999 [Vol. 145, No. 8], a law was signed: Legislation to Determine the Fate of Zachary Baumel.” It was signed by former President Bill Clinton and states, she says, that the United States is supposed to conduct talks with any country in the Arab world that can help resolve this issue. Yet, she says, “Clinton didn’t help. Neither did Bush.”

Miriam says that it was a family joke that Yona had wanted written on his gravestone the following words: “Boring it wasn’t.” I ask her, hesitantly, if she actually kept his wish.

Miriam reaches over to a side table and hands me a print out of the Hebrew words that are on the gravestone, about to be erected on a hill in Jerusalem. Following Yona’s name, that of his parents and the years of his birth and death, are ten exquisite lines that speak of Yona’s faith, of his desire to do God’s will, and to walk in the ways of God, of his belief in God’s justice, of hope, of truth and of goodness. Miriam’s eyes sparkle as she tells me to look again and finally she points it out. What emerges is an acrostic. The first letter of the first seven lines, and parts of words embedded in the last three lines, spell out the sentence: “Lo haya li meshamaim—I was not bored.”

Toby Klein Greenwald is a journalist, translator and poet. She is the editor of the ATARA Journal, and is the theatrical director of the Raise Your Spirits Summer Stock Company and other educational theater troupes in Israel.