July brought new tribulations upon the Jewish community as the Nazis, energized by their victories on the western front, formally eliminated virtually every non-governmental organization in the General Government. Charitable agencies, cultural leagues, and of course political groups were abolished, for both Jews and Poles. The ghetto population increased by tens of thousands as Jews who were expelled from Cracow flowed into the Jewish quarter, and the Nazis enacted a new “obeisance decree” that required Jewish men to remove their hats and Jewish women to bow their heads in the presence of a German uniform, military or civil. The decree was enforced with severe beatings. Even Jewish books were targeted with wide-scale confiscations of library collections along with a ban on the printing and sale of Jewish reading material.  Conscription of Jews into brutal forced labor continued and even increased. 

The German occupation of Warsaw was especially hard on full-time Torah students, including those in the Piaseczno Rebbe’s yeshiva, Da’at Moshe. Writing in October 1941, Rabbi Shimon Huberband reflected on the decimation of this population:

There were over five thousand young men who studied in the yeshivas and shtiblekh of Warsaw before the war…there are currently no more than two hundred such young men in Warsaw.  This raises the question of what became of all the other young men who were studying in shtiblekh and yeshivas?

A considerable part of them left the “straight and narrow path” during the war, and ceased being observant Hasidim.  A large part perished, some left for the countryside, and still others managed to find various kinds of employment, while remaining observant Hasidic young men.

…The poorer ones live from alms and from the aid of the wealthier students, as we have already written.  The kitchen for Torah scholars at 221 Gesia Street is of great assistance to these young men…

The Rebbe began his message for Parashat Pinhas with a possibly autobiographical reflection:

And Moses spoke to God…[appoint a man over the community] who will go out before them…who will take them out…and let the [community of God] not be like a [flock] without a shepherd [Numbers 27:14-17].  The Talmud teaches (Berakhot 28b) that when Rabbi Eliezer fell ill and his students came to visit him, they asked him, “teach us the ways of life so that we may merit the life in the world to come.  He said them, “keep your children away from unnecessary meditation [higayon] and place them among the knees of Torah scholars.” 

The Rebbe posed some unusual questions based on the interaction between Rabbi Eliezer and his students:

We see, first of all, that despite the fact that Torah study is primary and the foundation of everything, nonetheless it is insufficient to lead one to the life of the world to come, because certainly the students of Rabbi Eliezer learned much Torah from him–yet they still asked him to teach them how to reach the world to come. Furthermore, he did not answer, “continue to study more Torah,” rather he said something else.

We must also wonder why they waited to ask him this question until he was on his deathbed, and not earlier. During the entire course of a person’s life, one must strive to merit the world to come.  Furthermore, why did they even ask “so that we may merit the life in the world to come?” Do the Sages not teach that “one should not conduct himself like a servant, who serves in order to receive a reward”?

The Rebbe’s interpretation reflects the notion that Rabbi Eliezer’s students realized that with his passing they would have to make the transition from students to teachers themselves:

These were lifelong students of Rabbi Eliezer, and they certainly learned the ways of life from him, as would all students from their Master. When, however, the time of Rabbi Eliezer’s death approached, they knew that they must now assume the mantle of leading the generation.  Consequently, they asked him how they should best teach others, and how they should educate novices who are yet on a low spiritual level and perform Divine service “in order to receive a reward.” Therefore he answered them in a manner which to us, with our simple understanding, appears to contain a basic answer for novices.  It is possible to say, however, that the response that he gave them, namely “keep your children away from unnecessary meditation and place them among the knees of Torah scholars,” alludes to something which we must now take to heart.

The Rebbe delves into the strange association of learning and the knees, and connects it to the suffering experienced in the Warsaw ghetto:

The Talmud teaches (Berakhot 6a) that students who gathered to hear Torah discourses would experience weakness at the knees due to the influence of the demonic realm. We wonder, why specifically were the knees affected? We see that when Job’s friends came and saw how dejected he was due to the worries and suffering that had afflicted him, they said to him, “your words have raised the fallen, and you have strengthened weak knees” [Job 4:4]. This illustrates that a spiritually dejected person is called “weak-kneed.”  It is to this that the Talmud alludes when it speaks of weak knees.  When it is difficult for a person to bear the tribulations which Heaven has placed upon him, this spiritual dejection is the work of the demonic realm and the evil inclination.

We see that the evil inclination accomplishes this goal of causing the knees of the Jewish people to fail by implanting its agenda into one’s mind. This occurs not only in times of great tribulations, rather we have also seen this in the past. When one of the yeshiva students stumbled and abandoned his friends who were engrossed in Torah study to become a laborer or a merchant and abandoned his former ways, may the Merciful One rescue us, the underlying reason for this was that his faith was damaged, and he began to consider another agenda.  What is his purpose? How will he make a living? and so on, despite the fact that we see that poverty and wealth are not dependent on one’s occupation [rather by Divine decree], and one way or the other a person does not live forever. When a person’s final day comes, the wealthy man who did not conduct himself properly during his lifetime knows that he has nothing to fortify his spirit other than the fact that he ate well or had fine clothing, and at the time of his passing, these things are of no consequence to him. The lifelong student of Torah, and the person who lived his life according to Torah values, on the other hand, know that he has lived a life of purity, a life of Torah. Times have not changed in this respect. All the “weakness of the knees” comes from a change in agenda. For were it to be known that salvation would come tomorrow, everyone would strengthen themselves. Since their thinking has changed, however, they now wonder, “how long will this continue, who knows how long we can tolerate this,” and so on. For this reason fear intensifies and the body weakens, and “the knees fail.” Therefore it is essential to strengthen the foundations of faith, and distance this foreign agenda, and to trust that God will favor, redeem and save us.

The Rebbe clarified that Rabbi Eliezer’s warning to avoid “unnecessary meditations” refers to inappropriate philosophical speculations, and described why he used the metaphor of “knees:” both ideas were essential for his students, preparing to take leadership positions on his passing:

Rabbi Eliezer taught this to them when they themselves were about to become the leaders of the generation.  Firstly, in order that they will teach their students that intellect in and of itself is nothing, and with intellect alone a person cannot determine the course of the future, nor may he benefit himself.  Secondly, when the leader of the generation is inextricably bound to his faith, then this has a powerful impact upon those students who are bound to him, and will serve to distance unnecessary meditations, and they will thereby be strengthened in their faith due to the portion of their master which is infused within them.

…let the community of God not be like a flock without a shepherd, that they themselves have no inner leader, rather into the heart and essence of each one of them, let the shepherd enter and strengthen their faith in God.  In this way, God will also bring their salvation near their salvation.

Hardcover: $29.71 (was $34.95)

Paperback: $24.95

Dear Old Friend:

First of all, thanks for not using an adjective.

I know you understand the word “Jew” to be a slur in itself, but it’s a bit softer without the modifier. I never liked it when you spat “dirty” Jew at me in the playground. I always saw red whenever you jeered “cursed” Jew, using the Québécois term maudit juif. Exchanges like that usually resulted in scuffles and fisticuffs, and ultimately we ended up glaring at each other on the bench outside the principal’s office, bloody-nosed and sweaty. As a teenager, you shouted “F-ing Jew” as you zoomed by in your car as I walked home from shul on Saturday mornings. In recent years your anonymous invective on social media has been especially creative.

So it’s a kindness on your part to simply label me “Jew,” something I would proudly affirm. Your hateful, anonymous scribblings on the hood of my car just reinforces solidarity with my ancestors who endured far worse, as well as my African-American neighbors who moved to our safe Jewish neighborhood because you scrawled a swastika on their front door. 

Second, thanks for timing it such that I didn’t discover your message until right before Shabbat. I don’t know if you intended to sour my mood moments before walking into synagogue, but your nasty surprise was overwhelmed by two unexpected, and infinitely preferable, developments.

My fourteen-year old son was the first to see the damage, and you gave me the precious opportunity to teach him some ancient truths about our long-standing relationship. His childhood was more sheltered than mine—he’s grown up in various American shtetls, and as far as I can tell, he’s never encountered you in any meaningful way. I’m hoping that your venomous message, diluted in the form of a cowardly one-word act of vandalism, will inoculate him against the live, active version of the disease you represent. You gave me the unscripted opportunity to teach him how to react with dignity and equanimity, just as my father of blessed memory taught me so many years ago. (A prayer: May it be Your will, my G-d and G-d of my ancestors, that this be the full extent of his contact with you).

The other amazing surprise revealed itself when I  broke the news to my wife. Given that the Sabbath is a time of rejoicing and relaxation, I was concerned that the news of your reappearance would upset her, so I told our son not to mention it at the table and I didn’t share your communication until after the Havdalah ceremony on Saturday night. You should have seen her reaction! Her normally luminous green eyes turned a hard, gun-metal grey as she pursued her lips in that dark expression that says, “congratulations, soldier–you were looking for trouble, and you certainly found it.” I was worried that she might be frightened or at least intimidated, but man, if I were you I would lay low for a while. You and I have had the occasional conflict, but you do not want to mess with Jewish women.

My eldest daughter decided to share photos of your art on her social media account (like I said—those Jewish women). And you know what? She got a ton of supportive messages from her online friends and colleagues. Jews for sure, but plenty of Christians and Muslims, maybe some Hindus as well: kind and sympathetic messages from men and women representing the kaleidoscope of human races, colors and religions. I’m sorry, old friend, but even your dramatic torch-lit marches can’t hide a basic truth: there are more people like us, ordinary people who love their families and just want to mind their own business and get along with each other, than there are people like you. Yell all you want, we’re not affected.

See, the chip in your brain that is supposed to recognize our common humanity is busted. You don’t see me as a regular middle-aged guy just trying to take care of his family. Instead you dream up all kinds of crazy pathological fantasies about me, like I drink Christian blood on Passover, or I faked 9/11, truly messed-up stuff. You should take better care of yourself, see someone about that, because it’s not healthy, you know? 

Which reminds me: thanks also for limiting your self-expression to my car. The ancient Sages, when they contemplated the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem almost 2,000 years ago (the anniversary is coming up, as I’m sure you know), proclaimed, “wood and rocks.” Meaning, no matter how awful the loss, the Temple was ultimately only wood and rocks, inanimate things. “Sticks and stones,” in the vernacular. Yes, I know full well that you are capable of breaking bones as well. My ancestors’ bones, which lie in an unmarked mass grave in Lithuania, testify to your genocidal capacity. That’s why I’m happy you restricted yourself to the car.

But back to the broken chip in your brain. What you probably don’t realize is that I actually care for you. I worry about whatever it was you experienced that made you hate me—even though you never met me—and wish I could do something about it.

Love, wrote King Solomon, is as strong as death (Song of Songs 8:6). As much as you wish to negate me and my people, you will never succeed, because we love life, and believe it or not, we even love you, you pathetic little person–I mean, come on, you write on people’s cars when they are not looking! We are an exuberant, entrepreneurial, generous, creative people, and whenever you try to put us down with your threats of violence, we will be in your face with our irrepressible joie de vivre, courage, spiritual exaltation, and humor. It takes a lot more than this to knock us down.

Sincerely,

your old friend,

Henry

P.S. I was also pleasantly surprised that the Nassau County Police took this whole thing really seriously. I reported your crime, figuring it would just be for the statistics, but they sent out a squad car and two detectives (!). They will be reviewing a pile of security camera footage, my friend, so maybe we will get a chance to catch up on things in court.

I had the pleasure of speaking with Zev Brenner of the famous Talkline last week; really pleased that there’s a lot of interest in the work of the Piaseczno Rebbe. The broadcast was aired last Saturday night and will be rebroadcast again tonight at 8pm EST on WSNR AM 620. Here’s the link to the broadcast.

Dean Boylan has been a mentor of mine since I joined Touro in 2006. Proud to be with him this morning at the Harvard Club as he receives the Education Update Outstanding Educator of the Year Award. With Dean Moshe Sokol of Lander College for Men and Executive Dean Robert Goldschmidt of the Mighty Avenue J campus of Touro College.

Rabbi Shimon Huberband, a student of the Piaseczno Rebbe, recorded a tragic incident that was circulating through the Ghetto in the summer of 1941:

In late June a couple appeared before the rabbi; he was roughly thirty years old, and she was much younger.  The husband said that he had been seized from his bed on Passover of that year and was sent off to a labor camp.  There he suffered greatly; he was beaten with terrible blows, and suffered from infections and lice.  Many of his comrades died from the blows and from shootings, but he was lucky enough to survive.  In the most difficult moments, he kept before his eyes the image of his young, beautiful wife.

When he returned home, drained of all his energy, he found a stranger in his bedroom.  His wife wept and expressed regret.  People told her that everyone who had been taken to the labor camp had died there.  Had she known that he was alive, this never would have happened.  She wept, he wept; and the divorce was carried out.

The Rebbe spoke that Shabbat on the need for personal balance in the face of awful tragedy. On the one hand, he said, we should direct our attention to our spiritual lives, separating from the mundane physical experiences. He alluded to a teaching of the Ba’al Shem Tov that appears with some frequency in his prewar writings: paraphrasing Moses’ words on Deuteronomy 5:5, I stood between God and you–it is the “I” (אנכי) that stands between God and an individual. The Rebbe noted that a strong self-consciousness can interfere with one’s spiritual growth:

A person who wishes to elevate himself further and develop a closer connection with God, however, must diminish his sense of self and accustom himself that all his divine service be solely for the sake of God. His fear is not self-directed, nor is his desire for reward, rather all his emotions are directed toward his desire to serve Hashem. This depends on the degree to which he is able to diminish his sense of self [אנכיות]. Every person can accustom himself to this according to his level of spiritual development; if not perpetually then at least occasionally he may rise to his pure level of divine service.

Yet, continued the Rebbe, how is it possible for a person to diminish one’s sense of self when one is in pain, experiencing the terrible tragedies of the Warsaw Ghetto?

When Jacob is suffering, while it is true that this provides atonement for his sins, nevertheless this accustoms the person to be ever more aware of his physical condition, for he is daily immersed in his own suffering: “I have pain,” “I have need.” Is it possible for a person to be struck and not experience physical pain? Since his daily preoccupation is over his very life which is hanging in the balance before him, and he is immersed in his pain and suffering, he regresses to a lower form of Divine service which is predicated upon this awareness of his physical condition.

The solution, taught the Rebbe, is to direct that heightened self-consciousness of suffering into sympathy for the plight of others.

In order to arouse Divine mercy above for the Jewish people, and to temper the harshness of Divine judgement, we must arouse within ourselves mercy for our fellow Jew. Not only are we required to provide them with whatever we are capable of giving, but the very mercy which we arouse within ourselves has an affect in the Heavenly realm. We must not become accustomed to Jewish suffering, that is, we should not become numbed to the overwhelming degree of suffering such that our mercy for Jews be deadened. On the contrary, the heart should melt, Heaven forbid, at the bitterness of this suffering. Arousing mercy within us will have affect two things: firstly, our prayers on behalf of the Jewish people will be more heart-felt, and secondly, as is known from the Holy literature, there are times when a decree of salvation for the Jews has already been issued in Heaven, but its implementation is delayed due to its other-worldliness and its inability to descend to this world and assume physical garb. Consequently, when a person has more than an intellectual awareness alone that Jews have an obligation to support one another, rather he manifests mercy with his entire being, then his prayers are beneficial in drawing down the salvation into this world and the realm of the physical, since he has made himself into a vessel of mercy, both in his heart and with his entire character.

Post script 2018: The Rebbe’s words here, spoken in July 1941, reflect his principal preoccupation with the welfare of his Hasidic congregation and the larger Jewish population of the Ghetto. The larger arc of his thought, however, would certainly support expanding this passage to concern, sympathy and prayer for the welfare of all people.

Forthcoming October 2018:

Meet Mr. Hunter Ross Loren, a precocious 13-year old who, together with his uncle Alan Loren, contacted me this week to discuss Jewish history. Hunter is an avid fan of Jewish history–especially, of all things, the Jews of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth–and he is probably my youngest student online. As a follow-up to his Bar Mitzvah, his uncle arranged to come visit me in my office at the Mighty Avenue J campus of Touro College to ask me some really hard questions (thankfully, I survived–they were actually quite excellent questions).

In recognition of his academic prowess, we prepared a small certificate for him, recognizing his Scholarly Enthusiasm and Excellence. Thanks to my assistant, Ms. Jamie Venezia, for masterminding the execution of this moment.

Congratulations Mr. Loren! Your family should be very proud of you. Looking forward to seeing your name on a book in a few years…

Here’s a new video from the Ukraine in the World Conference I attended last month at the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute. Introduction by Dr. Lubomyr Hajda of Harvard at 1:03, and my talk begins about a minute later. The presentation basically reviews the intersecting worlds of Jews and Ukrainians over the last half-century, with some musings on what the future might hold.

Colleagues, I’m pleased to post a version of my new experimental course online for the public good. Please visit bit.ly/survivejewishhistory to access the course.

The course is divided into twelve Existential Crises, covering historical eras from the Hellenistic to the Spanish Expulsion. Undergraduate students are required to complete several academic exercises to “survive” each level and pass the course (the syllabus is located at bit.ly/survivejewishhistory). The lighter version of the course presented here does not award undergraduate credit, but students are encouraged to participate by posting their responses in the comments section. I also encourage new visitors to click on the “follow” button at the bottom right of the website in order to receive course updates.

I hope you enjoy this experimental new course! Learn in good health.

(Photo by the incredible Yaakov Naumi/Flash 90)

The Hasidim of the Piaseczno Rebbe who gathered for the Seudah Shelishit in his Beit Midrash on 5 Dzielna Street in Warsaw must have been unusually somber that fateful June 1940 afternoon. Over the previous week, ominous news had filtered into the Ghetto: France had fallen to the powerful Nazi armed forced. With the collapse of this major western power, Hitler was nearing his high-water mark of European domination, occupying the continent from the English Channel to the borders of the Soviet Union. Many in the Ghetto had hoped that France would be able to halt the advance of German forces, but in the summer of 1940 it looked as if the “1000-year Reich” was ever closer to becoming a reality. Germany appeared invincible.

The Rebbe, by contrast, was undaunted. Taking his cue from the weekly parashah, he fearlessly delivered a bold, undiluted message of courage. His starting point was Caleb’s call to action, exhorting the Jewish people, once a slave nation, to begin the conquest of Israel. Contradicting the fearful report of the other spies, who bemoaned that the military odds facing the Israelites were hopeless, Caleb and Joshua remained steadfast in their faith in the Divine promise.

Let us go up and take it over, for we certainly can. Let us understand: the spies certainly spoke meaningfully and reasonably, but the nation is powerful…and the cities are fortified. Why did Caleb not argue with them to rebut their rationale and their arguments? Instead, he simply said, let us go up.

Who in the audience could not help but hear the subtext? In the Torah, the spies returned from scouting the land of Israel and came back with a realistic assessment: attempting to conquer the land was absolutely futile, well beyond the military capabilities of the Jewish people. Caleb, however, did not even bother to respond to their reasoned arguments. Through thinly veiled rhetoric, the Rebbe argued that Warsaw Jews should not succumb to despair:

Such must be the faith of the Jew. Not only when he sees an opening and path to his salvation, that is that he reasonably believes, according to the course of natural events, that God will save him, and thereby he is strengthened; but also at the time when he does not see, Heaven forbid, any reasonable opening through the course of natural events for his salvation, he must still believe that God will save him and he is thereby strengthened in his faith and trust. On the contrary, at such a time it is better that he not engage in intellectual convolutions to find some rationale and opening through natural means, since it is clear that he will not find one—consequently it is possible that his faith will be diminished. This diminution in his faith and trust in God might serve to prevent his salvation, Heaven forbid. Rather, he must declare that it is all true, that the nation that lives there is in fact powerful, it is true that the cities are fortified.  Nonetheless, I proclaim my faith in God, that God is beyond limitation and nature, that God will save us. Let us go up and take it over, beyond reason and beyond logic. Such faith and trust in God draws our salvation closer.

The Rebbe’s message is clear: Jews were not to give credence to the doomsayers of the Ghetto. Like Caleb’s report to Moses on the enemy forces in Canaan, the Jews need not focus on the power of the German army, they need only proclaim let us go up and take it over, for we certainly can. The Third Reich, no matter how powerful, is no match for the Almighty.

Excerpted from

Torah from the Years of Wrath: The Historical Context of the Aish Kodesh

Hardcover: $29.71 (15% discount with this link)

Softcover: $24.95

Hello Jewish History fans–

Here’s a new project you might find interesting. A few months ago I came across the work of Ken Bain (What the Best College Teachers Do), which inspired me to take a dramatic new look at the way I’ve been teaching a bread-and-butter course for a long time: History of the Jewish People I, your basic undergraduate survey course, covering Jewish history from the Mishnah to the Spanish Expulsion. Professor Bain emphasizes the value of the journey of discovery in learning, and with that in mind and a bunch of behavioral economics theory, I’ve completely rethought the course. I’m really excited about how undergraduate students will appreciate it.

At the same time, I’d like to make a simpler version of the course available to my students on the web. Please stick around, as I hope to upload some really interesting stuff over the next few weeks and into the next academic year! Please visit this page to see the full syllabus as I’ve presented it to undergraduates, and here’s the introductory video.

Please let me know your thoughts!

Thanks,

HMA