Rabbi's weekly Blog

A story I really love tells of a man who would sit every evening in a bar, drink beer but never to the end. The last bit of the beer, he would spray on the people around him. Naturally, this irritated the public, and the bartender wasn’t thrilled either.

One evening, the bartender turned to him and said: “Why don’t you go for some kind of emotional or psychological therapy to deal with this? It’s not acceptable that you come here every night and spray beer on the customers.” The bartender even offered to pay for five sessions with a professional.

A month and a half passed, and the man showed up again at the bar.

“I’m a new man,” he said. “The therapy was wonderful.”

“In that case, the first beer is on me,” said the bartender, proud of their shared success.

Fifteen minutes later, to the bartender’s shock, the man sprayed the remainder of his beer on the customers.

Angry, upset, and disappointed, the bartender asked: “Didn’t you say you had therapy and became a new man?”

“Indeed I did, and absolutely so,” replied the beer-sprayer.

“So what did the psychologist tell you there?” asked the bartender.

“Well,” said the man, “she told me something wonderful that no one had ever said to me before. She told me: ‘Be who you are, and be proud of it!’ And as you can see, I am who I am - I spray beer on people — and I’m proud of it.”

The sharp-eyed among my followers have noticed that this week my family and I spent time in the Swiss mountains, as is customary here. We walked a lot in nature, took a cable car up to about 2,100 meters above sea level, and walked back down on foot to our lodging, which lies some 700 meters below that, at around 1,400 meters above sea level. The descent is long and winding, but slow and pleasant. The family walks together, talks, sings, meditates, laughs, gets annoyed when necessary, and of course pauses to eat sliced fruit. For a long time now, I no longer call this a “family trip” but rather “family therapy.”

Yesterday we walked along a mountainside completely covered in trees, a real forest. For part of the time, I walked ahead alone, marveling at the wondrous creation of Hashem, thinking of the Baal Shem Tov, who began his path in a forest. I looked at the trees and suddenly noticed something interesting: the trees growing on the slope of the mountain, even on a steep incline, all have their tops pointing upward toward the heavens. They don’t grow straight relative to the ground in which they’re rooted, but instead bend and curve upward.

As the trunk emerges from the earth, it immediately curves and straightens itself so that the tree will grow upright.

There is, of course, no person there to direct the trees to grow correctly. No gardener to educate or force them upward. So how is this?

I read briefly that there are several reasons, for example, that the tree seeks its source of light, the sun, and so it directs itself upward. In short: the tree by its very nature, if undisturbed, will grow correctly and orient itself upward.

When the tree remembers to “be who you are,” it grows well and right. But what about me?

I thought about myself. I don’t always grow when oriented upward. If there weren’t a gardener to straighten me, who knows what would happen? And without parents and teachers, isn’t there a risk that my direction wouldn’t be heavenward at all? But why? Why is it that if a person decides simply to “be who you are,” there’s a danger he might grow the opposite way? Isn’t it said that “man is like the tree of the field”?

Perhaps I’m mistaken, but the central difference, in my opinion, is this: a tree has no evil inclination. A tree has no inner force that challenges it. A tree has no temptations full of emotion and reason pulling it one way or another. I do.

Before a person decides to “be who you are,” he must first clarify well: who is this “you”? Is it his divine soul, or his animal soul? Does “I am who I am” mean that I run from thrill to thrill, or that I build endurance in the face of thrills and succeed in pausing before acting? Am I “who I am” when I keep sleeping even though I have obligations, or am I “who I am” precisely when I overcome and rise to meet those obligations?

I agree with the psychologist who told that man, “Be who you are and be proud of it” but only after one has gone through the clarification and refinement. When you know how to connect to your higher self, to the *mensch* within you, then go ahead and be who you are.

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Zalman Wishedski

Shortly after our arrival in Basel, nearly a quarter of a century ago, I received a phone call from a woman named Judy, from Sydney, Australia. She was calling because her sister, Rachel, had once been in some children’s home in Basel — and had since passed away. From what I understood, her sister had not been well. Judy didn’t really know her; Rachel was only 14 when she left this world, and she had been much younger when their parents decided — for her own good — to send her from Sydney to live in a special children’s home in Switzerland.

Rachel passed away in the early 1980s. Judy, who called me in the early years of the current millennium, simply asked me to go and look for Rachel’s grave, to say some Mishnayot there, and perhaps even light a candle.

I have the date of Rachel’s yahrzeit written down in my calendar — and, truthfully, in my heart as well — and I make an effort to visit her grave each year on that date. I also sometimes stop by when I am at the cemetery for a funeral, reciting a chapter of Psalms and placing a stone there. “Regards from your sister Judy,” I whisper to her.

It moves me deeply, I admit. I don’t exactly know why — perhaps because it’s such a small act. Perhaps because I have the privilege of being the link between the two sisters. Last week, I passed by and stopped to place a stone and recite a short Shir HaMa’alot. A friend asked me, “Who is this Rachel?” I said, “Never mind, it’s a long story.” And in my heart I thought about the spiritual bond I was creating in that moment between Judy in Sydney and Rachel in Basel — without the conscious mind knowing consciously, without my being able to say exactly what was connected to what and how — but it moved me, and that was enough.

I am writing these words as I sit on the train from Frankfurt to Basel, having landed two hours ago from Almaty, Kazakhstan, where I spent about 19 hours visiting the grave of Rabbi Levi Yitzchak Schneerson, of blessed memory — the Rebbe’s father. Together with me were hundreds of other Chabad chassidim. I do not know what motivated each of them, though I can guess.

I know what motivated me, and it is very similar to my visit to Rachel’s grave on behalf of her sister.

My Rebbe, the Lubavitcher Rebbe, never had the privilege of visiting his father’s grave. The son left Russia before the war, while the father still served with dignity and pride as the chief rabbi of Yekaterinoslav — a city that later reverted to the name Dnepropetrovsk, and more recently was shortened to Dnipro (thank you to Ukraine’s Naming Committee for the abbreviation). The son was already by the side of his father-in-law, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn, while his own father was waging the battle for Judaism in Soviet Russia — a battle that ended in arrest, imprisonment, exile to Kazakhstan, and passing away on the 20th of Menachem Av, 1944, in Almaty.

The exile did not end with his life; even his passing and burial were in exile. At that time there was no Jewish cemetery there — or at least not one in use — and he was buried where it was possible. It is not an easy sight to take in.

My Rebbe, the Lubavitcher Rebbe, was never there and never merited the basic human longing to stand at his father’s grave — to recite a chapter of Psalms, Mishnayot for his soul, Kaddish, and light a candle. And when I stood there alone yesterday at dawn, at Rabbi Levi Yitzchak’s gravesite, I quietly hummed his melody and asked in my heart to merit being there also on behalf of the son — to take part in honoring the Rebbe’s father.

I do not know if I am worthy of that. I do not understand these matters. I simply came as I am — a chassid who loves his Rebbe and wants to honor him. Without the conscious mind knowing consciously, without my being able to say exactly what was connected to what and how — but it moved me, and that was enough.

Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Zalman Wishedski

About eighteen years ago, Mendel Ostro, of blessed memory, spent Simchat Torah with me.

Mendel Ostro was a chassid of the Rebbe of Ostrowiec. He grew up in the town of Szydlowiec in Poland and, at a young age, survived the Holocaust alone. We had met many times before, but that holiday he actually stayed in our home. He was our guest for two full and wonderful days.

Mendel spoke only briefly about his personal suffering in the Holocaust. Mostly, he spoke with heartfelt yearning about his Rebbe, Rabbi Yechezkel of Ostrowiec, הי״ד. His longing for his Rebbe was alive and palpable, and he would often recount how the Rebbe had asked him to put on tefillin and keep Shabbat even when it was difficult. Mendel would quietly add, “I do it because I promised the Rebbe.”

He told many stories about his town of Szydlowiec and also about its terrible destruction when the Germans came. That Simchat Torah, we walked slowly together to pray at the Agudas Achim synagogue, as he described the Simchat Torah celebrations in Szydlowiec before the war.

In the middle of the hakafot dancing, Mendel suddenly grabbed my hand and said, “Nem mir a heim – Take me home. I can’t stay here. I can’t bear to see Jews so joyful. In Szydlowiec, Simchat Torah was celebrated the right way. Now it’s no longer permitted to rejoice like that.”

I said nothing. I didn’t try to argue. I just looked into his eyes and stayed silent. I saw that he wasn’t seeing me or the dancing crowd. He was seeing Szydlowiec. He was looking at his Rebbe. Mendel placed his arm in mine, and we quietly walked back home.

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There is a story in the Haggadah about Rabbi Eliezer, Rabbi Yehoshua, Rabbi Elazar ben Azaryah, Rabbi Akiva, and Rabbi Tarfon, who were reclining together in Bnei Brak. But why Bnei Brak?

Four of the five sages did not live in Bnei Brak. Why then did they all come there to celebrate the Seder night?

My favorite interpretation explains that those were days of recent and searing destruction. Some of them even personally remembered the Beit HaMikdash. Rabbi Yehoshua had the privilege of playing the Levi’s musical instruments in the Temple. Rabbi Tarfon testified that he had heard the Kohen Gadol pronounce the Ineffable Name on Yom Kippur. Rabbi Eliezer was among those who smuggled Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai out to Yavne before the destruction.

For them, it was all still fresh — like Szydlowiec for Mendel Ostro. The destruction was real and tangible. To sit at a Seder table, an evening so deeply connected to the memory of the Temple, was a deeply painful experience — perhaps like Simchat Torah was for my friend Mendel.

So they came to Rabbi Akiva because they were searching for hope, for optimism, for a positive outlook. They came to the incurable optimist — not only someone who could rise from the rubble, but who could see the building within the ruins.

When 24,000 of his students died in a short time and "the world was desolate," it was Rabbi Akiva who gathered five remaining students — and from them, Torah flourished.

They remembered how, when they walked with him and heard the sounds of Roman dominance and wept, he laughed — because he saw in his mind’s eye the sounds of Jerusalem that would surely come.

When they saw the Temple Mount destroyed and foxes walking through it and they cried, “Rabbi Akiva was laughing,” because he saw in the depth of the destruction the depth of the rebuilding, in the depth of exile the depth of redemption.

And they themselves acknowledged him and said, “Akiva, you have comforted us. Akiva, you have comforted us.”

So they came to Rabbi Akiva in Bnei Brak because there, with him, they could find the strength to truly celebrate the Seder night. With him, as they placed the ׳zeroa׳ on the Seder plate — a symbol of the Temple that had just been destroyed — they would surely cry, but then look at Rabbi Akiva, who saw the future, and they too would be able to laugh.

This Shabbat is Shabbat Nachamu.

"Nachamu, nachamu ami" – Comfort, comfort My people, the prophet will tell us tomorrow. It’s not always easy. Perhaps it never is. But it is certainly possible — to look into exile and destruction and see redemption and rebuilding.

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Zalman Wishedski