Stories, Mussar, Practical Halacha (Tractate "Sotah" Daf 31-
37) (Vol. 87)
Under the Direction of HaRav Chaim Dovid Kovalsky
Contents of this Issue of Meoros: * A parrot or a
polygraph as a "witness" in court * The "lie detector" of
Shlomo HaMelech * The believability of personal ID issued by
goyim * Can she remarry on the basis of hearsay evidence? *
The city of Shechem -- its history and lessons * Chinese
tourists in Russia saying Shema in Chinese * The preference
for saying Shema in lashon hakodesh * Telling a prospective
ger he can't yet learn Torah * Did Hillel teach Torah to a
non-Jew? * What `hon' would Yosef have lost?
Edited Excerpts
From the Editor of "Meoros HaDaf HaYomi"
A Bolshevik Digs a Mikvah
An old mikvah, dug deep into the ground, for many
years served the few local Jews who guarded the glowing
coals of Judaism under Communist oppression in Russia.
Not long ago, at a festive meal held in honor of a siyum,
the maggid shiur spoke about how more and more
Jews are inspired to join shiurim of the Daf HaYomi.
He noted that we often hear of people who "just happened" to
walk into shul, or "by chance" wanted to check
something inside the building, and soon afterwards they
became permanent members of a shiur. After the
drasha of the maggid shiur, an oleh
from Russia, who regularly learns the Daf HaYomi, arose
and told a similar story about the aforementioned mikvah
behind the Iron Curtain.
Shlomo Zalman, known by his friends as Shluzman, had not
slept enough the previous night. When he awoke, Shluzman
remembered that it was the day of his father's yahrtzeit.
No, he did not intend to visit his father's grave, since
this was impossible. His father had unexpectedly vanished,
leaving behind a wife and five small children. The rumors
that circulated were that the Czar's Secret Police had
abducted his father. In Russia, however, at that time, it
was not advisable to investigate such stories.
Shluzman massaged his throbbing temples. Through most of the
night -- together with his gang -- he had been busy looting
stores, robbing homes and setting trees on fire.
He did not start off as a thief, robber and larcenist.
Originally, his intentions were honorable. Leon Trotsky
[orig. Lev (Leibel) Davidovich Bronstein, 1879-1940] was one
of the leading organizers of the Bolshevik Revolution of
1917. Many people rallied to the city squares to hear this
clever Jew, whose stirring words succeeding in swaying the
multitudes to follow after him and eventually topple the
Czar's monarchy. "We are human beings! Give us freedom!
Liberty! This land will become a paradise," thundered
Trotsky. His audiences were receptive and shared his
dreams.
For a foolhardy boy such as Shluzman, one stirring speech by
the charismatic Trotsky was enough to completely change the
course of his life. When Trotsky spoke about "thousands of
our people who disappeared in the middle of the night, who
were tortured and murdered by the Czar," Shluzman pictured
his long lost and beloved father. The orphaned Shluzman
already pictured himself as a freedom fighter avenging his
father's death.
Not long afterwards, intoxicated by his dreams, he gathered
together a group of spirited adolescents like himself, who
made a mutual promise to do all they could to help make a
reality of the dream they shared. The dream of Trotsky!
Freedom and liberty!
After Shluzman and his companions -- with others like them --
succeeded, and the power of organized efforts deposed the
Czar, there was a period of anarchy. Quite naturally,
Shluzman and his group felt free to set about attending to
their personal needs. In a short time they found themselves
looting and stealing on a regular basis. This was quite
normal in those turbulent times in Russia.
A sharp whistle was heard from beneath his window. In
response, Shluzman clambered down the stairs to his waiting
gang to tell them that on his father's yahrtzeit he
was not going out looting. "Come back tomorrow and
everything will be okay," he said with a wink.
He put on a large yarmulke and set off to the beis
knesses near his home. As he stood in the doorway, the
hooligan heard that inside, tables and chairs were abruptly
being moved. When he opened the door, he gazed in amazement
as the whole beis knesses was hurriedly emptying out.
No one was willing to endanger his life by meeting up with
the dreaded Shluzman.
This scenario repeated itself in a number of botei
knesses that Shluzman visited that day. Time after time
he tried to explain that all he wanted to do was to say
kaddish, but no one believed him.
Dispirited and grumbling, Shluzman next tried his luck in a
Chassidic shtibel. He peeped through the door without
anyone noticing him.
Despite his experience as a thief, as he opened the
shtibel's wooden door it creaked on its hinges. An
elderly Chassidic Jew with a long white beard noticed the
embarrassed Shluzman standing there awkwardly at the
entrance. Fearlessly, the Chassid went over to him, warmly
shook his hand, and then pointed to Shluzman's left hand
asking, "My dear friend, have you put on tefillin
today?"
The warmth and good-heartedness of the elderly Chassid who
greeted him had melted Shluzman's heart. In a few minutes'
time, the dreaded Shluzman, a plague on the Jewish
community, was standing and wearing tefillin, with
tears rolling down his cheeks as he said kaddish in
memory of his beloved father.
Shluzman's gang waited for him the next day and also the
days afterward, but he did not rejoin them. The shtibel
became his new home. After a few months he had to change
his siddur, which was wet from the tears he had shed
while asking for forgiveness for all that he had done, and
from other tears he had shed begging Hashem to help him
behave correctly in the future. The people with whom he
associated now did not call him Shluzman. To them he was R.
Shlomo Zalman.
One night, a mysterious figure wrapped in a coat and scarf
made its way to the beis knesses back yard, and
continued on into the adjacent forest. He eventually stopped
and took off his coat, so if anyone had been there they
would have clearly seen it was Shluzman! There he stood in
the night's darkness, holding a shovel and spade.
Occasionally humming lively Chassidic marches, and then
changing to mournful, emotional melodies, R. Shlomo Zalman
dug a kosher mikvah for use by the remaining faithful
Jews of his town. It took him many days to dig this
mikvah.Afterwards he was scrupulous not to miss even
one day to tovel in the mikvah that he had
built with his own hands.
Stalin gained control of the Communist party (1924)
following Lenin's death. As a result, Trotsky was eventually
expelled from the party, was banished from Russia, and later
was murdered in Mexico (1940). In Russia, the Communists
prevented Jews from observing our ancient religion, but R.
Shlomo Zalman -- - the former Shluzman -- had entered that
shtibel on his father's yahrtzeit. Thereby, he
was zocheh that the mikvah that he built
served local courageous Jews who remained loyal to Hashem
and His Torah, despite the persecution.
With the Blessings of the Torah,
The Editor
32a These are said in every language . . . krias Shema
and tefillah. Chinese Tourists in Russia Reading
Shema in Chinese
Our Mishna deals with several mitzvos of the Torah that are
fulfilled through speaking, and not in loshon hakodesh,
but also in any language. Tosafos (s.v. elu nemarim)
writes, however, that one is not allowed to read
krias Shema in a foreign language unless he
understands it, and if he does not understand the foreign
language he is not yotzei the mitzvah of Shema. By
contrast, one who reads Shema in loshon hakodesh is
yotzei even if he does not understand it.
In which language should a tourist say krias Shema?
Although our Mishna writes that Shema can be said "in
every language," the Mishnah Berurah ("Bei'ur Halacha"
ibid., s.v. yachol) says that this is possible only when
the foreign language is spoken in the country where the
person is. For this reason, if a Chinese person, for
example, is visiting Russia, he cannot read Shema in
Chinese and fulfill the mitzvah, since in Russia, Chinese is
not a spoken language. He must read the Shema either in
Russian or in loshon hakodesh. Even though Shema
certainly can be said in loshon hakodesh anywhere,
this is because it is different from other languages in that
it is a language "in essence" due to its Divine origin. On
the other hand, other languages are only the result of
convention and consensus reached by a country's people.
Therefore, in a place where the people of the country do not
know a certain language, it is not considered a language
that is usable for reading Shema. [In most editions of the
Mishnah Berurah, however, there is a note at the
bottom of the page mentioning that this stringency seems to
be contradicted by one of the laws of Hilchos Megilla.
Therefore, he writes, a doubt remains as to what is the
practical halacha].
The halachic discussions cited in this leaflet are
intended only to stimulate thought and should not be relied
upon as a psak halacha.
Due do the great demand for the Hebrew edition, this
delightful and interesting material is now published in
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