MISC section - contents:
1. Vebbe Rebbe
2. Hasidic Wisdom
3. Words of Wisdom; Words of Wit
4. Candle by Day
5. Torah from Nature
6. Chizuk V'Idud
7. Hebrew Word
8. From the desk of the director

From the virtual desk of the OU VEBBE REBBE
The Orthodox Union – via its website – fields questions of all types in areas of kashrut, Jewish law and values. Some of them are answered by Eretz Hemdah, the Institute for Advanced Jewish Studies, Jerusalem, founded by HaRav Shaul Yisraeli, zt"l to prepare rabbanim and dayanim to serve the National Religious community in Israel and abroad. Ask the Rabbi is a joint venture of the OU, Yerushalayim Network, Eretz Hemdah... and the Israel Center. The following is a Q&A from Eretz Hemdah...

Q We have a man in shul who has been instrumental in the shul's operations and finances for years. Many years ago he got divorced from his wife. For whatever reasons (I never asked) he never gave his wife a get. The man is never given an aliyah and is shunned by our rabbi. I understand that it is the correct thing to give a get. However, does our rabbi have the halachic right to treat him so harshly after all these years?
A We cannot discuss the specific case, to which you refer, as we do not know its particulars. But we must speak strongly about the phenomenon you describe.

One of the people we are most required to help, by searching for legitimate leniency and otherwise, is an agunah. An agunah is a woman who is chained to a husband with whom she is unable to live, either because he is missing or they are incompatible. While the main, prac- tical problem she has is that she is unable to remarry, the feeling of limbo and helplessness she suffers from is one of the most tragic situations that exist. Only one who has been personally in- volved in such a situation can appreciate its severity.

At times, a woman can be an agunah without it being anyone's fault (i.e. the husband is in an irreversible coma). That is tragic enough. But there are women who are in this horrible situation, because their husbands are spiteful or have monetary or other demands. This is unacceptable! This is as morally wrong as the case of a man who stalks his ex-wife because of some vendetta! If a husband has grievances against his wife, he may raise them in court, preferably a Beit Din. They may side with him; they may side against him. But for him to take the law into his own hands and withhold a GET should not be an option our community tolerates.

In Israel and, at points in history, in the Diaspora, religious courts had the practical authority to physically coerce a stubborn husband to give a GET, when a GET was mandated in the most clear cut manner. In cases that were a little less clear cut, they could make a harchaka d'Rabbeinu Tam, which is a painful form of publicly shunning the husband, not only in shul, but in commercial and personal settings, as well (see Even Haezer 154).

Withholding aliyot is "peanuts." Nowadays, outside Israel, the main recourse is usually moral and moderate public pressure. Tragically, weak public response causes that there is often only mild or even no pressure.
Again, we cannot comment on the specific case you raise. However, if the rabbinical courts have instructed your acquaintance to give a GET and your rabbi has been asked to ensure some form of communal disapproval, then that is the very least that should be done. Others should follow the rabbi's lead, not question it, and should not allow their good intentions to be misdirected.

Ask the Rabbi Q&A is part of Hemdat Yamim, the weekly parsha sheet published by Eretz Hemdah. You can read this section or the entire Hemdat Yamim at www.ou.org or www.eretzhemdah.org. And/or you can receive Hemdat Yamim by email weekly, by sending an email to eretzhem@netvision.net.il with the message: Join Hemdatya –Please leave the subject blank. Ask the Vebbe Rebbe is partially funded by the Jewish Agency for Israel

Hasidic Wisdom from the book by Simcha Raz (Elkins/Elkins)
Money that has not been sancified by removing the proper amount for charity, can be compared to meat that is unsalted: IT STINKS!
— Rabbi Nachum of Chernobyl

“Silence is a fence for wisdom.” (Avot 3:17)Silence is indeed a fence for wisdom, but it is not the whole matter. No one has become wise through silence alone.
— Rabbi Izel of Slonim

ArtScroll Series • Mesorah Publications Ltd.
WORDS OF WISDOM WORDS OF WIT by Shmuel Himelstein
One year, very little rain fell in Lithuania and the price of wheat rose sharply. As a result, the gabbaim decided to cut the Pesach allocations to the poor. When the Vilna Gaon heard of their decision, he told the gabbaim, “When the Torah commands us to eat matza, it writes the word MATZOS without the letter VAV, but when it states that ‘matzos shall be eaten’, the word MATZOS as a general rule has a VAV. That teaches us that we may decrease the amount of matza we ourselves eat, but we are not allowed to decrease the amount of matzos we give to the poor.”

“Whenever a person performs a mitzva”, said R’ Menachem Mendel of Kotzk, “the greater his kavana (intention), the greater the value of the mitzva. There is only one exception to that rule, and that is the mitzva of ANAVA, humility. With respect to ANAVA, one is not permitted to have any kavana at all, and even the slightest degree of kavana ruins the performance of the mitzva.”

The Rebbe of Gustinin observed people playing poker and declared that he had learned two important principles from the game: If one has bad material, he must get rid of it as soon as possible; and if one has something good, he should keep it to himself and not show it to others.

So many verbal blunders would be avoided if people did not feel obliged to speak, which tehy do, for fear of giving the impression that they are thinking nothing, which they are, and which fact accounts for the blunders in their speaking. From A Candle by Day by Rabbi Shraga Silverstein

MA RABU MA'ASECHA HASHEM KULAM B'CHOCHMA ASITA MAL'A HA'ARETZ KINYANECHA
In honor of the PARA ADUMA
A cow is a mature female of the bovine animals. A male is a bull And a young bovine is a calf.
There are an estimated 920 cow breeds in the world!
In the average herd there is one bull for every 30 cows.
A Holstein's spots are like a fingerprint or snowflake. No two cows have exactly the same pattern of spots. Holsteins are the top milk-producers among cows.
A cow gives nearly 200,000 glasses of milk in her lifetime.
A cow weighs about 1400 pounds.
A cow has four stomaches.
Cows were domesticated about 5,000 years ago.
Cows can see color. They can detect odors up to 5 miles away.
Per day, a cow spends 6 hours eating and 8 hours chewing cud.
Cows have cloven hooves. In galloping through boggy places or in deep mud, cattle can out-distance a horse. Their toes spread... Furthermore, the cleft between the toes...
Taking the last two facts together iden- tifies the cow as kosher.
The average cow drinks about 30 gallons of water and eats about 95 pounds of feed per day. Corn is the most popular feed, then pasture, then hay.
A cow stands up and lies down about 14 times a day.
Cows can hear lower and higher frequencies better than humans.
There are approximately 350 squirts in a gallon of milk.
The average cow with two milkings a day produces about 10 gallons (40 litres) of milk a day.

CHIZUK and IDUD (for the Oleh & not-yet-Oleh respectively)
In introducing the law of the chatas offering (Lev. 6:18), and the asham offering (Lev. 7:1), the expressions ZOT TORAT HA'CHATAT and ZOT TORAT HA'ASHAM are used. The Gemara (Menachot 110a) explains that one who studies the laws of these sacrifices is equated with one who actually brings them.
We don't find this equation with any of the other Mitzvot? Why is it true for sacrifices?
The Maharal (Tiferet Yisrael, Ch. 70) explains that a sacrifice elevates man beyond the purely material, animalistic dimension of his existence, thus bringing him closer to G-d. The study of Torah, which is Divine wisdom, has this elevating power. So, when man is unable to actually bring a sacrifice, he can achieve similar results through the Torah study of that sacrifice.
The Maharal teaches in numerous places that Eretz Yisrael is a land which transcends the purely material dimen- sion of existence, which is why living there brings man closer to G-d. If one is not able to actually fulfill the Mitzva of living there, Torah study of the laws of that Mitzva should provide some compensation for what is lost by living outside of Eretz Yisrael. And as the study of those laws elevates man above the purely material dimension of existence, he may find the barriers preventing him from living in Israel aren't as insurmountable as they originally seemed.
Rabbi Shaya Karlinsky, Jerusalem
TORAH THOUGHTS as contributed by Aloh Naaleh members for publication in the Orthodox Union's 'Torah Insights', a weekly Torah publication on Parshat Ha'Shavuah

What’s that J-shaped breathing device used by swimmers for brief underwater exploration? SNORKEL, you say? Correct. And in Hebrew? According to the Academiya L’Lashon HaIvrit, it is a TZANRAN

From the Desk of the Director
Parshat Tzav elaborates on various offerings that were to be dedicated to Hashem. One of the most intriguing is the variety called Shelamim or "Meal of Peace" (cf. Vayikra 7:11). Rav Hirsch explains that these were to be brought when individuals felt at peace with G-d, wishing to get ever closer to Him.

A sub-group of the Shelamim is the TODAH offered as a thanksgiving from deliverance from a life-threat- ening crisis. The rabbis, based on David Hamelech's hymn of gratitude (Psalm 107), derive four categories of people required to bring this offering, namely those who have survived a dangerous journey, imprisonment, serious illness, or a sea journey (Berachot 54b). The Todah was to be made partly from one batch of flour that produced, from equal quantities of that flour, 10 leavened loaves [chametz] without oil and 30 matzot with oil (cf. Menachot 77b).

As we approach Pesach, it is timely to ask what this means. For Rav Hirsch, chametz symbolizes the newly re- gained freedom for the person whose precarious position had restricted him. The pristine matza, on the other hand, equally propels the individual to recognize that every grain of the newfound independence is a gift from G-d. He realizes that the recreated feeling of inner peace is itself a present from Hashem. And, in turn, that sense of gratitude evolves into a joyful sense of duty to Hashem. It is the spiritual "oil" of well-being that is added to our daily bread.
Shabbat Shalom, Menachem Persoff