Caption: Karla bentching lulav and esrog at Sushi & Scotch in the Sukkah
Rabbi Chaim with his morning chavrusas, Chaim and Avi Abramson at the Chai Lifeline Gala
The Kever of the Megaleh Amukos in Krakow
Musings Of A Shliach From Montana
Helen Keller once said, “When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us.” It’s almost natural to see the closed door instead of the door that just opened. But if we work at it, we can change that perceptive within ourselves.
Case in point:
Living in a far-flung community has its challenges. Over the years, I’ve shared some of the hardships of living in rural America, including the chinuch of our children without a Jewish school, and the financial challenges of keeping the operation for Klal Yisrael afloat. Yet, there is a challenge I haven’t spoken about, but it is very real and was strongly felt during the past few weeks.
When we came to New York in mid-December for the Chai Lifeline Gala, it was hashgachah pratis, Divine Providence, that my dear friends Chesky and Naomi Newman of Cedarhurst were making a chasunahthat evening for their daughter. It was such a treat for me to attend a simcha of a friend and to enjoy the beauty of a frum wedding with all its trimmings. I know that New Yorkers get tired at times of having nightly simchas, but to give you some perspective, we wish we had more simchas to attend, some we can’t due to logistical issues due to living in such a remote location and the never-ending travel delays in the current era of domestic travel.
Two weeks ago, I missed the Florida bris of my first great-nephew, Mayer Dov Ber. Last week, I missed his pidyon haben, and this week I wanted to attend the chasunah of Atara Abramson to Elchanan Gros, but due to Chavie being out of town and not having a Bubbe or Aunt to babysit, I decided at the last minute that it didn’t make sense for me to leave the kids. Words don’t do justice to how I wished to be at that wedding. I learn Chassidus almost every morning with Chaim, Atara’s dad, and Avi, her younger brother, and I wanted to dance with both of them at this special moment. Yet, distance created a real challenge. I thought about the shluchimand shluchos who went out in the 50s and 60s when travel was so much harder and more expensive. We still have some of those challenges, but we fly more than they ever did. The shluchim in far-flung countries like South Africa, Australia, and Tunisia probably only flew in to New York every few years and would often miss simchas of their own siblings due to the distance and expense. While nightly chasunahs and vorts have their own set of challenges, it beats missing the simcha altogether.
So now that you see how the door closed on me, how did the other door open?
When I told Chaim, my beloved chavrusa, that it’s becoming a challenge, an anxiety-ridden situation, to be away while Chavie is gone too, he didn’t flinch, he didn’t beg, he didn’t make it about him, he didn’t guilt me into coming or try to make me feel bad. He said, “Family always comes first and as much as I want you to be there, don’t sweat it, it’s not worth the stress; your family is always first.” He didn’t say it just to make me feel good, he meant it and believed it.
Friends come in different shapes and sizes. Some make it all about themselves and their needs, as in: “I can’t believe you won’t be at the wedding” or “Oh my, is there no way to pull it off?” which makes it all about them and gives the other party lots of guilt. Others make it sound like it’s no big deal, which makes you question whether there’s a real friendship there altogether and whether we should have even tried attending in the first place. Then there’s Chaim, a real friend, a warm soulful chaver, who made it clear that he wanted me there, but also had the sensitivity to care about me and my family and not make it all about himself.
In this week’s parashah, Shemos, we read about the onset of the galus Mitzrayim, the Egyptian exile.
After Yaakov and Yosef had passed, Pharaoh stared enslaving and abusing the Jewish people and 200 years of hell broke loose. The Midrashim (Pesikta Zutarta and Yalkut Shimoni) explain that before coming to Egypt, Yaakov married off all his children and grandchildren. Even the toddlers like Chetzron, Chamul, and Peretz, who were only two years old at the time, were matched up with a female relative and would get married years later to that individual. Yaakov reasoned that since the Egyptians were so immoral, the only way to keep his family safe from their horrible lifestyle was to ensure they each had a marriage partner before entering Egypt, so they wouldn’t end up in an Egyptian relationship.
A Jewish wedding is such a special simcha, such a milestone in Jewish life. Watching a young couple start a life together, building a Jewish home on the foundation of Torah and Chassidus, creating a bond of love, commitment, and joy, is so magnificent. In a world of chaos and immorality, in a world with a high percentage of marriages ending in divorce chas v’shalom, it’s so important to celebrate marriage and give the couple all the support in the world, and I would love to be at more simchas, but it’s just not always possible. I am grateful to Chaim for opening a door of kindness and understanding, just when the door of wedding dancing was closed.
Interestingly, this past Shabbos, we were sitting at the Shabbos Kiddush lunch and having a great discussion about Shevet Levi (being both warriors and musicians in the Beis HaMikdash) and about the Arei Miklat, the cities of refuge and why we will need three additional refuge cities after Mashiach comes and there is no more murder, and the Mishkan that was in Shiloh for over 350 years. It was a great farbrengen with men and women addressing wonderful Torah topics. Towards the end, Dimitri said something that blew me away. Dimitri and his wife Karla, from Los Angeles, moved to Bozeman permanently about six months ago, but they’ve been visiting for a while now. They are devoted, caring, joyous, and refined Jews who have brought so much to our community, and are just what Shlomo Carlebach would call “the sweetest of the sweet.”
So, towards the end of lunch, Dimitri said, “Rabbi, did you ever hear of Rav Nosson Nota Spira, he was a rabbi in Krakow and my great-grandfather’s great-grandfather.” I knew that name sounded familiar, but I could not remember who the rabbi was. I invited Dimitri to join me in the Lifson Family Library and opened the Encyclopedia Judaica and looked up “Spira” and I couldn’t believe my eyes. Rav Spira (1585-1633) is best known by his Sefer Megaleh Amukos, and indeed is a name quoted by the Rebbe, zt’l, all the time in his talks and writings and I’ve shared his teachings many times throughout the years at my classes. I couldn’t believe that my buddy Dimitri, Avidan Rafael, is a descendant of the Megaleh Amukos.
Our community is already blessed to have descendants of the Noam Elimelech (Elimelech of Lizhensk), the Vilna Gaon (Gr”a), and other great sages, but the Megaleh Amukos, a man who revolutionized so many Kabbalistic teachings of Torah, a man who received divine intervention in dreams and guided his community accordingly, and a man whose tombstone reads “Here is buried a holy, G-dly, man who revealed deep, hidden treasures, and about him it is said that Elijah the prophet spoke to him face to face.” That his grandson lives in our community is such a zechus, a tremendous berachah, and a super blessing.
The Megaleh Amukos writes that the name Moshe, whom we read about first in our parashah, is the acronym for “Moshe, Shamai, Hillel.” In 1990 and 1991 the Rebbe explained the meaning of the Megaleh Amukos’s words: Hillel and Shamai were both holy sages who saw the world differently based on their unique understanding of Torah, which is connected to the attributes of their souls: Hillel to Chesed (kindness) and Shamai to Gevurah (severity). They didn’t hate or despise each other, they just had different Torah views and treated each other with total respect.
It’s the Moshe spark, embedded in both Hillel and Shamai, that allowed them to disagree with each other without fighting. Moshe instilled in Jewry the ability to argue and debate with respect. That’s why Moshe was taken from the water and pulled onto the shore, to dry land. He was the balance between the hiddenness beneath the water and the revealed world visible on land. He had the unique ability to balance all factions of Jewish life and Jewish thought.
Emotional balance, Torah balance, human-interaction balance is tough. It’s hard to live up to the Moshe mentality, to the Hillel and Shamai respect, to the sensitivity of my buddy Chaim, but it’s doable and something we should all seek to attain. The next time you have the opportunity to attend a simcha, don’t kvetch, just thank Hashem it’s a simcha and not the opposite, and go experience genuine joy and gratitude.
Rabbi Chaim Bruk is co-CEO of Chabad Lubavitch of Montana and spiritual leader of The Shul of Bozeman. For comments or to partner in our holy work, e-mail rabbi@jewishmontana.com or visit JewishMontana.com/Donate.
