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The Rambam writes in the Laws of Teshuva that, unfortunately, an area where our focus is neglected in the Teshuva process is Tikkun Hamidos – upgrading our character traits. The questions is which particular character traits has priority in correction or mastering? In response, the Vilna Gaon, in his commentary on Mishlei, 30:9 writes that being ungrateful is a terrible character flaw, the like of which nothing can be found. Hence it is most appropriate that working on the virtue of appreciation to perfection is an endeavor that could earn the blessings of Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur.
Showing appreciation in our relationships with Hashem, our spouse, our children and our friends is a good barometer of measuring our Hakoras Hatov in general. The world-renowned good Samaritan Albert Schweitzer, in his autobiography, calls gratitude, “Memories of the Heart.”
To all our supporters, alumni, students and friends: Birchas Shnas Chaim V'shalom.
I live on the American frontier in the make-shift camp of the resurgent legions of Judah. It is almost midnight. Joyous songs of heavenly praise are filtering their way into my consciousness through a little too much Slivovitz, and I am wondering how much sleep I really need before I have to get up for morning prayers.
Across from me, tapping his fingers, sits a nineteen year old, fair-haired Danish boy. His name is Adam. He is the one who mentioned that his father designed System 7, IBM’s first stand-alone computer system to store information in silicon memory chips. I told him that it was one of the computers that I used as a doctoral student at Princeton University, half a lifetime ago, to investigate the neurobiology of learning. Acknowledged as a genius during his brief stay at Sweden’s University of Lund, Adam is multitasking before my eyes, one hemisphere of his brain contemplating the private words that our Rosh Yeshiva shared with him earlier in the evening, the other struggling to keep up with the tongue-twisting Hebrew of our roof-lifting niggun.
Scanning the array of newly-minted Orthodox Jews around me, I note that Adam is in good company. The grandfather of the twenty year old Texan to my left designed the USS Nautilus - the first nuclear submarine, the father of the Texan’s roommate is a mathematics professor at the University of California, and the father of the Berkeley-grad and virtuoso clarinetist who just sat down to my right helped put the first man on the moon and engineered the missile defense shield that will soon be deployed to deter the North Koreans. There is an irony in this concentration of mathematical and engineering yichus at our Shabbos table. For it appears that the children of the generation of Jewish-Americans (and Jewish-Danes) that helped create today’s technology economy have abandoned the quest for the new new thing, together with their scholarships at Brown, Oxford, M.I.T., et. al., and are preparing themselves instead to fill the ranks of the decimated leadership of Judea.
A century and a half after the mass assimilation of European Jewry, at a time when one out of every two married, non-orthodox Jewish-Americans is married to a non-Jew and demographers are heralding this community’s similar demise, when it is common wisdom among Western academics to relegate Jewish civilization to second-class status (see Samuel Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations) and disparage the alliance between the United States and Israel (see John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, “The Israel Lobby”, in the London Review of Books), at a time when Europeans are financing what promises to be their final genocide against Judea, and the uneducated offspring of Israel’s secular elite have been shamed into abandoning Zion for politically correct, “high-culture” careers in New York and LA; these gifted children of America’s best and brightest are immersing themselves in the mikvah of mussar and gemara and preparing themselves to return to war.
An hour or so up the New York Thruway, where exurbia gives way to the foothills of the Ramapo Mountains, one can detect a change in the atmosphere. The air has started to recover its sweetness and the land its natural contours. The manicured lawns of Pearl River have given way to simpler, woodland yards and the average number of children per family has swelled well beyond the Blue State norm. The harried gait commonplace in Manhattan has been supplanted by a stately and dignified purposefulness, and the cotton, tediously revealing casual-wear of the American uniform has surrendered to woolen suits, silk beckishas, and large black hats. Welcome to Monsey, New York, or as many here wryly refer to the temporary home that remains “in the uttermost West,” Ir HaKodesh - the Holy City.
For anyone unfamiliar with a religious Jewish community, the best reference point may actually be a college town. My wife and I spent many of our higher education years in Cambridge, England and Princeton, New Jersey and we think that the parallels to Monsey are thought provoking. First off, the members of both communities are passionately and singularly pre-occupied. Whereas in Cambridge, professors and students focus on the scholarly pursuit of knowledge for its own sake, in Monsey, rabbaim and talmidim focus on the scholarly pursuit of Torah or knowledge of G-d for its own sake. In Princeton, status accrues to the individual with the oldest car and the longest list of publications. Monsey may lack Princeton’s neo-European architecture and Old World “enlightenment” orthodoxies (obviously, no one here believes that Jewish history is a myth), but the car-brand of choice is Used, the average Joe has written at least one sefer, and our great ones or Gadolim live in small wooden cottages. Princeton’s most renown denizen, Albert Einstein, would minimize the intellectual capital wasted on the trivialities of dressing in the morning by keeping a dozen identical suits and pairs of shoes in his closet. Dressed primarily in black and white, Monsey denizens are similarly single-minded. Indeed, no one is certain if our Rosh Yeshiva sleeps.
Yeshivas Kol Ya’akov or the Voice of Jacob College sits mid-way up the gentle slope rising westward from the center of town. A veritable Monsey institution, it has been in existence for some twenty-five years. For Jews who wish to return to a normative Jewish life (my wife and I are midtown Manhattan émigrés) it is Ellis Island and Harvard all wrapped up in one. The fact that this single institution can simultaneously function as an entry point into the normative Jewish community and an educational platform through which a returnee can achieve the level of scholarship required to be mainstreamed into Orthodoxy’s most esteemed learning institutions says a great deal about the resilience of the Pintilla Yid or Jewish soul. For what took numerous generations to contort into a faux-European appears to be mostly rectifiable through a few years of dedicated study.
Kol Yaakov’s alumni, which today number in the thousands and occupy positions of leadership around the world, are wont to reminisce about the yeshiva’s early years when a smaller structure than the one used today was bursting at the seams and the Rosh Yeshiva was finally forced to turn applicants away. “I’m willing to sleep under the Rosh Yeshiva’s desk”, one boy pleaded, only to learn that the spot was already occupied. While the demand for admission to Kol Ya’akov remains high, and expanding the physical plant tops the Yeshiva’s priority list, today’s new students can generally count on a sleeping in a bed.
Named after HaRav Yaakov Kamenetsky, zt”l the co-leader of American Orthodoxy (with HaRav Moshe Feinstein, zt”l) for the better part of the 20th century, the Yeshiva was founded and is run to this day by Rosh Yeshiva Leib Tropper. He is a follower of and close advisor to HaRav Feinstein’s illustrious son, HaRav Reuven Feinstein, shlita. Notwithstanding the awe-inspiring names and titles, anyone trying to conjure an image of our Rosh Yeshiva would be ill-advised to turn to Hollywood stereotypes. Forget the even-keeled Spencer Tracy of Boy’s Town. Ditch the placid Dalai Lama. This religious leader won’t be found in central casting. The Rosh Yeshiva’s roots are firmly planted in the Yiddishkeit of Manhattan’s Lower East Side, and like the cheders, shteibels and masechtas on which he was weaned, he is nothing if not complex. He will be the first to tell you that he is “driven” and his closest associates like Executive Director, Rabbi Moshe Raice will wearily nod in agreement while making the point that the Rosh Yeshiva is a Torah genius and kiruv miracle worker. Indeed the rabbaim who keep the yeshiva running like a Swiss watch, who field the Rosh Yeshiva’s anxious, late night phone calls, and who have helped him perfect Kol Yaakov’s trademark system of personalized Torah pedagogy, seem to have been selected as much for their forbearance as for their Torah knowledge. Be that as it may, anyone compiling a list of America’s Most Influential Leaders had better take a good look at this real life Pied Piper. The Rosh Yeshiva’s current class of Kol Yaakov students may be the greatest he has educated to date, and his powerful message is coming at a moment in history when European culture is in retreat and millions of Americans – not just Jews - are returning to their biblical moorings.
When orienting new students to the yeshiva environment, the Rosh Yeshiva often recalls the day that he asked HaRav Kamenetsky about the advisability of establishing a “baal teshuva yeshiva” - a completely new kind of yeshiva specially designed for young men returning to normative Jewish life. The Gadol replied that he didn’t advise going forward with that project, however the idea of creating a traditional Orthodox yeshiva that happened to cater to returnees was certainly a sound one. Today, Kol Yaakov’s graduates occupy positions of Torah and business leadership around the world. Its alumni include the founder and chairman of IDT Corporation, Howard Jonas, and such rabbis, communal leaders and authors as James Lavin, Mathew Gensler, Michael Kellmar, Dr. Mordechai Stempler, Dr. Tuvia Meister and Rabbi Yaakov Barros.
Today, morning prayers were extended as they are each time a new month begins. This time, however, the surge of kidusha or holiness that is supposed to saturate each Rosh Chodesh is clearly detectable. I am at my regular seat at the end of one of the long, narrow, dull-brown folding tables that fill Kol Yaakov’s Bes Midrash or study hall. While I wait for Rabbi Wolpin to arrive, I employ the technique that Adam showed me for annotating my gemara with the minimal number of vowel markings needed to recognize the proper pronunciation for each Aramaic word. The rabbi’s standards are as high as any Ivy League professor and I am hoping that my elucidation will pass muster. Around me, the din of scholarly discussion that is unique to a yeshiva environment is steadily increasing as pairs of chavrusas or study partners begin to pore over the fine points of the divinely-revealed laws that regulate our community.
I am writing this letter after 10 o’clock at night-an early end to my workday-and I am again struck by how much we must thank the Ribono Shel Olam for the time we take to learn every day and how important it is. In the middle of work, children, the stresses of everyday life, every Jew not only can but is commanded to create an island of kedushah wherever they are every day by opening a sefer and learning. Torah is a life raft of meaning and beauty in a world that often leads us to forget why we were put on this earth in the first place.
I came to Kol Yaakov after learning in two other conventional yeshivas. With all due respect and gratitude to my previous places of study, the bochurim at Kol Yaakov are uniquely privileged. The greatness of Kol Yaakov is that it combines the individual touch and sensitivity to complicated past life experiences and families of “regular” ba’al teshuvah yeshivas with the singular focus of conventional yeshivas of leading bochurim on the path towards the goal of creating committed b’nai Torah who can learn independently, become, with G-d’s help, talmidei chachomim, and become leaders in the general frum community. I have seen this astounding yet so vital combination in no other place.
Coming from a strong academic family and background myself, I was excited when I saw that Rabbi Tropper embodies the message that I have tried to impart to my own children: a wide ranging knowledge of the world is important but it has true value only insofar that it helps you become a better Eved HaShem. Again, this understanding is so very necessary, but, in many respects, so rare.
I was sitting with my eight year old son at the Shabbos table last week when he asked me what I was learning. I took the opportunity to tell him about the Beis Yosef, what he accomplished, his incredible genius and utter mastery of Torah hundreds of years before CD-ROMS could put the Torah at your fingertips in an instant. I told him this is our inheritance and what we have to aspire to in our lives. I told him the story of Rav Mordechai Gifter, ztz”l, who, as a bochur in yeshiva, had a poster full of pictures of gedolim on the wall of his room and a blank space in the middle with the words “Why not you?” written in the center. Every bochur at Kol Yaakov is able to look around the Bais Medresh and see the incredible rabbonim and talmidei chachomim that WE can try to emulate in our lives.
Kol Yaakov has helped shape the Torah Jew that I am in so many ways. It has given my family and I a home: a warm and supportive place for us to grow in Torah and Mitzvos while challenging us to reach new heights that we never thought possible. As I sit here in my office, thinking of all the things I have to do tomorrow and wondering if the kids are asleep, I realize that the unique blend of people and ideas that is Kol Yaakov is reason enough for thanks by itself. Kol Yaakov is my place where I can sit, surround myself with learning, ask myself “Why not you?”, and dream.
The dust has barely settled after the Eternal Jewish Family’s third major rabbinic conference, which took place in Yerushalyim in July, and we are already full steam ahead with plans for the next conference- to take place in Boston at the end of October, iy”H To say that the conference was a tremendous success would be quite an understatement. The words of Harav Shmuel Jakobovits, son of the former British Chief Rabbi, Lord Emmanuel Jakobovits, puts the entire event in context: “The conference demonstrated most impressively that it has become possible to gather a wide range of rabbonim and gedolei Torah to focus publicly on an issue of common concern. Even if differing agendas came out during the conference, the phenomenon of just getting together and talking together in response to EJF’s vision was enormously significant and potentially an important breakthrough far beyond your specific agenda of helping intermarried couples.
The opening of the conference was held at the home of Maran Hagaon Harav Yosef Shalom Elyashuv, the leading halachic authority, in a meeting with the EJF leadership. Following is a partial list of the Geonim shlit”a that attended the conference: Harav Reuven Feinstein, Harav Shmuel Auerbach, Harav Ovadia Yosef, Harav Chaim Pinchus Scheinberg, Harav Shlomo Amar, Harav Simcha Hakohen Kook, Harav Boruch Dov Povarsky, Harav Yochanan Sofer- Erlauer Rav, Harav Baruch Mordechai Ezrachi, Harav Aryeh Finkel, Harav Yitzchok Scheiner- Stoliner Rebbe, Harav Shmuel Eliezer Stern, Bostoner Rebbe, Boyaner Rebbe, Harav Chaim Shmerler- Rosh Yeshiva Sanz and many others. In addition letters of support were read from Harav Chaim Kanievsky and Harav Yochanan Sofer- the Erlauer Rav. Collectively, they expressed support and enthusiasm for EJF’s goals and efforts.
In June, EJF held a groundbreaking seminar in Oxnard, CA. This seminar, the first of its kind, brought over 30 intermarried couple to a conference center for a two-day seminar to educate and inspire them on the value of pursuing a Universally Accepted Conversion . A majority of the attendees were inspired to take the next step on the road to conversion. Not only were the couples inspired but we are inspired to go forward with plans for a similar event to take place in Phoenix, AZ May 13-15.
An annual tradition in Kol Yaakov, going back many years, is the summer bein hazmanim excursion to a far flung community in need of chizuk. Transplanting the yeshiva for a week along with providing learning opportunities for the community is the order of the day for the SEED program. This summer the Kol Yaakov talmidim were fortunate to be invited to Charlotte, NC by Rabbi Mordechai Roizman and his rebbetzin. Rabbi Tropper, Rabbi Yehuda Friedland and family and 13 bochurim were treated to classic southern hospitality with a yiddishe tam while transforming the Charlotte Torah Center into the Kol Yaakov beis hamedrash for 10 days. While taking their meals and davening at the Torah Center, the bochurim were housed with families in the community and made a tremendous kiddush hashem. According to members of the community just seeing yarmulke clad men walking the streets of Charlotte left a lasting impression.
When I was first becoming interested in Judaism as something possibly other than an interesting array of customs, a friend with whom I had gone to the Conservative sunday school invited me to spend Purim at the local shul. He himself had just started going there, and had started learning with the assistant rov of the shul, Rabbi Yaakov Barros, a Kol Yaakov alumnus. Eventually, he went to visit Kol Yaakov, and after hearing a bit about the place, I decided to give it a try myself.
The plan was to go for a week, in the middle of the winter break of my last year in high school. Fortunately, I had attended an intensive Hebrew ulpan in San Francisco for two consecutive summers, so I had some minimal background in the language. The Talmud, though, was another story. I wasn’t exactly sure what it was, or how it worked, but I imagined that it was something like reading a long list of old Babylonian receipts. As for Monsey, it sounded from my friend’s descriptions a bit like something out of Fiddler on the Roof.
When I arrived, the yeshiva was in the middle of the third perek of Bava Kamma, HaManiach Es HaKad. The gemara turned out to be unlike anything I had ever previously experienced. It was a towering logical structure, built on subtle axioms and sharp reasoning. Moreover, all of the discussion took place on the level of implication, often far-removed from the simple meaning of the statements adduced in the text. When I finally felt that I had understood something, it only required one question from Rav Naftoli Kasten to show that I had not taken my chain of deductions far enough to reach the contradiction which stared him so obviously in the face. At the same time, I had to compete with the rest of the bochurim in the beis-medrash, who were not satisfied with quiet whispers and gentle questions. (This turned out to be the most pleasant memory that I saved for home—the nightly din of the beis-medrash.)
Things which I had read or imagined actually materialized in front of me—the sanctity of Shabbos, the centrality of Torah in one’s life, the greatness of the figures that guided the kehillah, and especially of Rabbi Tropper—all of which lead me to realize that I had stumbled upon something I had never heard of: a living, breathing city of Torah. (Even the Orthodox, I had thought, don’t actually live by the Torah. If anything, they observe its ritual strictures.) I knew, of course, that I would have to come back.
That summer, after having finished high school, I came for a month-long visit. Then, after a year as a neurobiology major at U.C. Berkeley, a place diametrically opposed to Judaism, I came to Kol Yaakov to stay. Boruch Hashem, I have already spent a year engrossed in Toras Chaim—the true essence of life.
Forgiveness must be requested from one who you intended to hurt even if it results in a benefit for the one you intended to hurt. (P'sak of R' Meir Shapiro of Lublin)
Mr. & Mrs. Tuvia and Ahuva Hammer upon the birth of their daughter, Mirel Leah
Rabbi & Mrs. Avrohom Moshe Gorelick upon the birth of their son
Yosef & Talia Hendler upon the birth of their baby
Zvi Yosef and Ilana Nulman upon the birth of their daughter, Chana Tova
Rabbi & Mrs. Yechezkel Shain upon the birth of their daughter, Faiga
Nosson & Victoria Shvartz upon the birth of their son
Zalman Rubchinski upon his engagement to Leah Rosenblatt
Ariel Bias upon his marriage to Shira Devorah
Mordechai Goldberg upon his marriage to Debbie Isaacman
Rabbi and Mrs. Ahron Kasirer upon the marriage of their son, Naftoli Yehuda
Rabbi and Mrs. Naftoli Kaston upon the marriage of their son, Chaim
Rabbi and Mrs. Shlomo Swartz upon the engagement of their daughter, Devorah Chana to Yosef Nadiv
Michoel Stern upon making a siyum on Mishnayos Seder Nashim
YOUR MAZEL TOVS ARE OUR MAZEL TOVS. PLEASE LET US KNOW ABOUT YOUR SIMCHOS BY CALLING THE OFFICE OR EMAILING US.
CONDOLENCES :
Mrs. Kruger, mother of Mrs. Perri Friedland, upon the passing of her father, Mr. Chaim Berkowitz
Rabbi Shlomo Swartz upon the passing of his father
Mrs. Susan Blond upon the passing of her husband, Michael Feiner
The Stolbach Family upon the passing of their husband/father, Mr. Richard Stolbach
Kaplan/Aguiar families on the passing of Yishai Akiva Aguiar
