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The next scheduled issue is for the week of Yom Kippur. "Come, Let Us Return to Hashem"
In these turbulent times, as Klal Yisroel grapples with ongoing suffering and uncertainty, we stand together, united, turning our hearts and minds to Avinu ShebaShomayim. The past year has been marked by relentless challenges?tragedies, loss, and hardships that have impacted all segments of our people. With the Yemei Harachamim V'haSelichos upon us, the Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah have issued the following kol korei, urging every member of Klal Yisroel to strengthen our faith, intensify our efforts in teshuvah, tefillah, and tzedakah, and reconnect with the values that define us as a nation. May our collective efforts bring a year of brachah, health, and shalom for us all.
[Free Translation]
n this time of distress for Klal Yisroel, a year that has been filled with endless suffering for our holy people from start to finish?beginning with the terrible event that occurred during the Yom Tov of Shemini Atzeres, which turned our celebration into mourning?we have been bombarded by reports of bloodshed and captivity. Our eyes are lifted to the heavens, yearning for the release of the captives and the return of those who have been lost in darkness. We have faced harsh decrees against the Torah and those who study it and practice it's mitzvos, we've mourned the loss of our great leaders, and we've endured numerous calamities that have impacted all of us, from our youth to elders. Our means of livelihood have dwindled, leaving many struggling to provide for their families. This year has brought us many challenges, and we find ourselves with no one to rely on but our Father in Heaven.
Now, as we turn our gaze upward, seeking Divine mercy, let us heed the call: "Let us return to Hashem, for He has torn and He will heal us."...
"A disease-ridden Jew, familiar with much suffering, once came to the Chofetz Chaim." These were the opening words of HaRav Nisan Goldberg.
He continued, "The Chofetz Chaim asked him how everything was with him.
'I must say that it could be a lot better,' the man replied.
'If things could be fine and good, wouldn't the Master of Goodness make life better?' the Chofetz Chaim observed. 'But the truth is that any present condition is truly the best for us.'
If we experienced a difficult year, a year of darkness, then that is what we needed. It was thus decreed to live through darkness and uncertainty, a year of dread and trembling, a year when we all saw in reality that Hashem is A-mighty, removed from any other power in the world.
Yes, it was a year of suffering with thousands of Jews dying, and thousands more living in fear, in the midst of war. But we also were privileged to see a beam of light shining out of the sea of blackness where the halls of Torah study were full of vibrant study, despite the economic trials of impoverished yeshivos due to attempts to strangle us financially.
True, it was a year of "and I will surely conceal My face from you."
And he continues:...
Justice Minister Levine does not knuckle under to the High Court so easily. This is the very High Court which stripped him of his legal power. With an illegal decision which the High Court adopted, it directed Levine to assemble the committee for selecting judges in order to appoint a chief justice for the High Court.
The power of calling the committee is assigned solely to the Justice Minister; this is anchored in law and was the rule throughout the years. For a long period, Levine attempted to thrash this out with the High Court judges in order to appoint a chief justice acceptable to one and all. He suggested many way out compromises, which the High Court simply ignored, and in an unprecedented decision, denied him the authority to decide on calling a meeting of the judges, but forced him to do so promptly through convoluted illogical polemics to justify their act, which is totally against the law.
Levine is not interested in going too far in creating a legal crisis and challenging the High Court. But he is determined to show the public that the judges are the very ones who appoint themselves and similarly, have the clout to appoint their own chief. They determine who will be appointed as the president of the High Court — and when.
In a protest act against the High Court which compelled him to publicize the names of the candidates for the presidency, Levine presented the names of all the thirteen judges on the Court for the office...
HaRav Shlomo Wolbe once said, "It is almost impossible to do teshuva without being familiar with these letters in Or Yisroel (7 & 8)." We are happy to be able to present Letter 7 here in translation, along with some other selections. Readers are advised that the material is dense and difficult, and it requires attentive and serious study.
HaRav Uri Weissblum in the introduction to his annotated version of Or Yisroel makes the following comments about the importance of mussar study in our days.
There has arguably never been a generation so much in need of mussar study as ours. If we consider what is happening around the world today, we notice that all inhibitions and conventions have been breached. Something which was always assumed to be bad is now defined as good and vice versa.
The worst deterioration has taken place in the field of interpersonal relations. There is almost no aspect of bein odom lechavero in which the most basic foundations of moral behavior have not been affected.
The immense technological progress of recent times and its effect on all spheres of life has also left an imprint on modern man. The media intrude upon us wherever we go. Man has stopped thinking. The newspapers think for him and mold his personality. The microchip revolution has enabled the various media to transmit information instantly, and this has widened the gulf between different groups. All of life's events are absorbed via the camera lens, without the eye being given a chance to experience and be moved directly by the event.
The cacophony of sounds emitting from electronic instruments, that attacks us wherever we go, has robbed us of the ability to appreciate the wonder of sound. The telephone is replacing personal contact. Medicine has become just another subject for research.
Curing the sick is no longer the main concern of the medical man. Instead the emphasis is put on producing the correct diagnosis and expanding the horizons of our knowledge. When human life is held cheap, mistaken diagnoses abound: man, being surrounded by machines, has himself turned into one.
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Opinion & Comment
A Hope that Is Close at Hand
In just a few days, the great day will arrive when we all stand in judgment before Hashem. The sages of the generations discovered that one of the ways of obtaining acquittal in this trial is through acceptance.
The posuk (Devorim 30:11) says, "For it is very close to you, in your heart and in your mouth, to do it."
According to either of the ways in which this posuk is explained - whether it refers to Torah (as we find in the gemora [Eruvin 54]), or to teshuvoh (as the medrash and the Ramban and Seforno explain) - the question is asked, if "it" is so near, where is it?
The answer lies in the posuk's words: "in your heart and in your mouth." Fulfilling Torah and doing teshuvoh require the involvement of a person's heart. If we open our hearts the tiniest amount, Hashem promises to open them much, much wider and to fill them with love and fear of Him and with His Torah. However, a wide gulf still separates our awareness of all this from actually making that tiny opening.
Call of the Shofar
The Rambam (Hilchos Teshuvoh 3:4) writes, "Even though blowing the shofar on Rosh Hashonoh is decreed by the Torah, it [also] contains a message, as if to say, `Slumberers, awake from your sleep! Those who are dormant, rouse yourselves from your dormancy! Examine your deeds, do teshuvoh and remember your Creator! Those who forget the truth amid passing vanities, who spend their whole year immersed in worthlessness and emptiness that will neither help them nor save them, look to your souls, mend your ways and your practices! Let each one of you leave his evil path and his improper thoughts!' "
The Rambam tells us that the mitzvoh of shofar comes to awaken sleepers, to arouse slumberers and to remind those who are immersed in worthlessness not to forget the truth. Some are simply asleep. Others are dormant, sleeping more deeply. Then there are others who spend their entire year sunk in emptiness and vanity. The shofar comes to arouse us and to tell us: "Pay attention to your souls!"
...
Opinion & Comment
Part I
"In the days gone by, which I knew, every person would be seized with dread at the sound of the holy cry of `Elul!' This fear bore fruit by intensifying a person's service to Hashem, each one according to his level . . . In these Days of Awe, we must prepare ourselves for the upcoming judgment of Rosh Hashonoh, by establishing a study schedule in works conducive to G-d-fear," writes Maran HaGaon R' Yisroel Salanter ztvk'l in his letter. We wanted to know if, in these contemporary years, one still experiences that `dread' which R' Yisroel mentioned. What is the impact of the study in sifrei yereim throughout the year, and especially, during the days of rachamim and selichos? Does the school of the Mussar of Kelm, Slobodka, Telz and other yeshivos still exist?
In order to ascertain this, we initiated a meeting for a Torah-Mussar discussion with the mashgiach of Yeshivas Ateres Yisroel, HaRav Chaim Walkin. This is a record of that discussion, approved by the Mashgiach, that first appeared in the in Musaf Shabbos Kodesh, and has been translated for the English-reading public.
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Q. Does `Elul' still exist within the halls of the holy yeshivos? What, in effect, is Elul?
My mother o"h was born in Radin and grew up in the very home of the Chofetz Chaim ztvk'l. (His grandfather was HaRav Moshe Landinsky zt'l, rosh yeshivas Radin, and they lived in the same building.) She told us: "By us in the village, they used to say that in Elul, even the fish in the water trembled!" The ambience of Elul was felt not only in the yeshiva itself, but it enveloped the entire village of Radin!
R' Mordechai Mann ztvk'l explained it thus: In the nature of things, a person views everything in relationship to the particular aspect which interests him. When a tailor sees a person, he immediately notices what clothes he is wearing; a shoemaker looks at a person's shoes and so on.
Elul permeates the very being of every single person to the degree that when one sees fish swimming in the river, he cannot help asking himself: Why are they swimming so frantically? It must be that they are trembling from the fact of its being Elul.
In other words, everything was seen and interpreted in the eyes of `Elul.' This was how it felt like within the yeshivos of yore, with the impact of the season diffusing to the entire environment.
Opinion & Comment
C. Sidney Burwell, the dean of Harvard Medical School from 1935 to 1949, is reported to have told his students, "Half of what you are taught as medical students will in ten years have been shown to be wrong, and the trouble is, none of your teachers knows which half."
This is no less true in our days of all science, as a short survey of scientific mistakes and revisions that were reported just in the past two months shows.
Perhaps the biggest news is that Pluto is no longer considered a planet. Whoever learned that there are nine planets in the Solar System should unlearn it. Now there are eight. The International Astronomical Union (IAU) made it official about a month ago. Suddenly, no one has to explain or excuse why Chazal never spoke about it, or show some obscure passage that might possibly be interpreted to show that Chazal really did know about Pluto. Poof! A democratic vote of the current membership of the IAU and there is nothing to explain or excuse.
It was recently reported that through December 31, 1994, anyone who reported seeing a giant wave in the ocean of more than 50 feet would have been dismissed as someone who might also believe in mermaids and sea monsters. Scientists assured us that their established models of waves show that such phenomena are statistical improbabilities that happen no more than once in 10,000 years. Moreover, thousands of ships ply the ocean every day, and have been doing so for hundreds of years. If such waves happen even once in a while, why are there no credible reports of such rogue waves?
On January 1, 1995 there was a credible report: a 61-foot wave hit an oil platform in the North Sea off of Norway that was equipped with a reliable measuring and recording device.
1994 was not the middle of the Dark Ages. It is pretty safe to say that the world was just as scientifically enlightened then as it is today. ...
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