JewishWisdom.Blogspot.com

Yosef Marcus is a Chabad rabbi in Shmateo Ca.
He is a pleasure to read.
And an honor to know.
His blog ended prematurely due to lack of publicity.
So sad.
This here one was one of my favorites.

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Younger people tend to be extremists. They see things in black and white. Grey areas do not exist. Over thirty? Can’t trust ‘em—they all sell out.
But when people get older, they begin to mellow. Most people, anyway—but not the Chassidic Rebbe, Mendel of Kotzk. Here’s what he said about the middle of the road:
“The middle of the road is for horses.”
And it’s more insulting in Yiddish, because the Yiddish word for horse, fehrd, can also mean an idiot. The Kotzker Rebbe was an extremist. Diplomacy did not appear in his dictionary. He said it like it was—and people loved it. They came in droves to hear him shout and berate. Not because it was entertaining but because it was a breath of fresh truth. Raw. Gloves off. “Who are you to study the holy Torah? Do you even appreciate that this is Divine wisdom? You filthy, self-absorbed, cowardly fools….”
Truth. He was obsessed with truthfulness, with sincerity, earnestness. He couldn’t stand religious phoniness. Are you here to serve G-d or your own ego? And most people didn’t pass his test; they didn’t achieve his standard of commitment. He is famous for saying: “I don’t need the thousands of students! Let them all go back where they came from. All I want is ten earnest men who will stand on the rooftops and scream, “THERE IS NOTHING BESIDES THE HOLY ONE!”
If it’s the truth, how can you not scream it from the rooftops?
~~~
So that’s how Chassidic teenagers rebel. Because everybody has to rebel, to forge a unique path in the world, distinct from the parents. If your parents are liberal you become a conservative; if they’re secular you become religious, and so on. But what can the Chassidic rebel do? Abandon the religion? Not even a question. He believes in it more than his parents. So he rebels by becoming even more religious. A fanatic. There’s no room for compromise. The world will be offended? What world? Doesn’t it say that there is no world?
There’s no compromising with the world, says the holy rebel. If it’s the truth, how can you not scream it from the rooftops?
So the father tries to explain. But the teenager is not even listening because the father has already sold out. The father may have a long beard and a long coat and may study Torah all day and night—but he’s willing to compromise and so he has made peace with the devil.
The teenager argues: What can the father know of spirituality, truth, holiness, martyrdom? Nothing. He has either forgotten or never known. Because if he knew, if he knew now, he would agree.
~~~
But let’s leave this overly dramatized tension between parent and child for a trip to Baghdad. Not the Baghdad of today with its suicide attacks and kidnappings but the Baghdad of the late 1800’s with its flourishing Jewish community. Three imaginary rabbis are invited to a pre-circumcision celebration for the newborn son of a wealthy and prestigious member of the community. The party will take place the night before the circumcision and there will be much dancing and singing.
The first rabbi says he’s sick. He cannot attend.
The truth is he is not sick at all. He simply does not want to attend. Who would not want to attend a party? The food and drink will be plenty, the entertainment top notch, the venue high class. Many people live for the party. The party is what it all comes down to. You work hard so that you can afford to have a good life, celebrate, enjoy, drink, dance, laugh with friends (and people you wish will one day be your friends).
But the three rabbis in this apocryphal tale authored by the Ben Ish Chai of Baghdad did not see it that way. The atmosphere at the party will not be a religious one and all the revelry will be for them a waste of time, time that could be better spent studying Torah. Furthermore, the event will continue past midnight and they would be unable to recite the midnight prayers, Tikkun Chatzot, to mourn the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem and yearn for its rebuilding.
So the first rabbi says he’s sick. He doesn’t want to offend the man. After all, the man is an important figure and it would not be to the benefit of the community if he were offended by one of the rabbis. So he lies for the sake of peace. He’s within his halachic rights in doing so, in fact in good company—Jacob was creative with the truth when he fooled his father into thinking he was Esau.
The second rabbi, who knows about the first rabbi’s response, no longer has the option of claiming illness. What, there is some kind of a plague among the rabbis? No. The man will become suspicious and think that the rabbis do not trust the kosherness of the food in his home!
So, against his will, perforce, he accepts the invitation.
And the third rabbi must do the same.
So now it’s the night of the party and our three rabbis have each taken a unique path. The first rabbi is at home sitting peacefully with a volume of the Talmud in his study. Steam is rising from the herbal tea his wife brought him and which will turn cold since he’s too engrossed to notice. It took only a small lie but now he is in heaven. And maybe it wasn’t such a lie because he is sick, lovesick for the Divine, like King David.
The second rabbi is in hell. He’s sitting at the party uncomfortably, like a demon has coerced him to be there, he’s trying not to listen to the frivolous music, looking this way and that way, his face is red and he’s huffing and puffing. At midnight he can’t take it anymore and he runs out of the hall.
And then there’s the third rabbi. He is also sitting at the party but he’s tranquil. He’s smiling pleasantly to himself. He has brought with him, in his mind, three conundrums he had come across that day in his studies. He spends the time at the party deep in thought, solving these Talmudic mysteries, completely oblivious to his surroundings. At midnight, he puts his shawl over his head and recites the Tikkun Chatzot with great devotion.
~~~
Of course, the third rabbi wins the prize.
And that’s Ben Ish Chai’s point: Torah is best when it can be combined with etiquette, says Rabban Gamliel in Ethics of the Fathers. The first rabbi got Torah but he was unable to attend a friend’s celebration. He isolated himself—not good. “Don’t separate yourself from the congregation,” said Hillel in the Ethics.
The second rabbi got to attend but it came at the expense of his Torah study. Also not good, since Torah must be combined with etiquette not sacrificed for it.
The third rabbi got the best of both worlds: he attended the party and managed to study at the same time.
Yet with all due respect to the Ben Ish Chai and the imaginary host of the party, I would like to invite two more rabbis to the party. The first of my guests is a rabbi who is so “with-it” he doesn’t think twice before accepting the invite. He already knows which tie he’s going to where. “You have to live in the world,” he says. A rabbi is not a priest. You can’t be so closed up, so rigid. Get with the program, he says.
And so he comes to the party all smiles, fresh from the shower with pink cheeks that match his tie, and he’s pressing flesh, handing out his card, slapping backs and laughing heartily at his conversationalists well-intentioned if unsuccessful attempts at humor as well his own tried and true yarns. He enjoys a glass of the eighty-dinar-a-bottle wine. “What’s the difference between a ten dinar wine and an eighty dinar wine? Seventy dinar!” (More hearty laughter.)
A beautiful evening.
And now the fifth rabbi, who not only wins the prize he is the prize. This rabbi doesn’t want to go to the party. Like for the original three rabbis, Torah is for him the dearest thing. But he goes. Because it’s the right thing to do. And not always must you give in to your desires, even your spiritual desires.
But although he’d rather not go, he goes with joy. Because everything is for the best. And King David said, Serve G-d with joy. And every situation you’re put in is produced and directed by the Holy One Himself. Every situation is an opportunity to bring more light into the world. So he comes to the party, shmoozes with this one and that one and at the end of the conversation he says you know we should study together some time and he pulls out his notepad and they’ll be studying on Thursday at noon, two weeks hence. And with the other guy he asks him how his daughter is doing and offers a few words of comfort and he strikes up a conversation with another guy who looks out of place, and he greets him first, like the rabbis said in Ethics of the Fathers, Be first to greet every person and offers him a Torah insight and a story about oil and vinegar from the Talmud. And he goes home.
And tomorrow’s another day.