From the Wedding
by Joseph Levine
Chapter 8
How we davened at Reb Nachman's home and his wife enjoyed when we made kiddush.
On Shabbos a couple of minyanim, ourselves included, would go to the wealthy Reb nachman, a tall, blond heavy-set man with charming eyes. He had a nice big house with a Sefer Torah in it. He davened (prayed) very nicely and also read nicely from the Torah. He often called me up to the Torah for Maftir (the last one called up, who usually then reads the Haftorah which is a portion from one of the books of the Prophets related to the portion of the week read in the Torah). After davening on Shabbos, everyone was invited for Kiddush.
His wife, Madam Yentele, always had the table very nicely set with all sorts of good food. She always welcomed everyone with a charming smile and "Good Shabbos" greetings. This is how we spent Shabbos in this religious home along with my father, of blessed memory. We also went to Reb Nachman's home for the holidays of Passover, Shavuos, Succos (with esrogim) and Simchas Torah.
The High Holy Days, Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, we spent in the big cold shul and davened along with the professional cantor. The floor of the shul was covered with hay. This made a soft bed for us to stand on all day Yom Kippur, as no shoes are worn. Hundreds of large wax candles burned. Everyone davened in his tallis (prayer shawl) all day until after N'elah services. The crying from the ladies section, where my mother sat, tore at one's heart.
Can anyone other than a Jew imagine or experience such holy moments and spiritual pleasure as the Jewish child experienced during the High Holy Days?
On the big holiday of Chanukah, there were candles, latkes and Chanukah gelt. The Chanukah gelt was distributed to anyone, just for the asking!
On Purim, we had noise makers (graggers), the reading of the Megila (the Book of Esther), the Shalach Manos (sending gifts of food) and the Seudah (festive meal) when we went to one another. Whoever has not seen a Purim with the Seudah, has never yet seen a true Jewish simcha (joy). It was a time of real joy and fun-making, from which we derived joy to last us through the year -- through sorrows and pain. It was a fresh happy start for the adults and a beginning of freedom and happiness for the youth.
Then came Pesach (Passover) with the seder, the four questions, all the new dishes and new clothes along with the pleasure of going to shul with my father! Lag B'omer was much fun. With our bows and arrows, we would go out to the fields and split up into two teams and play war.
This is how we lived and studied. Another year gone by since my Bar Mitzva and I was promoted to the next and highest grade, to study with the best teacher in town.
For your information, my father did not seek out the teacher. The teacher sought out my father and asked him to allow him to teach me because I had a reputation for being the brightest and best student of my age. This teacher who taught only older boys charged fifty rubles a term per student. He asked my father to enroll me in his class and only charged twenty rubles. He practically promised my father that when I finished the school year, I would be as good as an ordained rabbi.
Of course this pleased my father very much. I studied with this teacher a full year and when I finished I could not really be called even half a rabbi.
The reason the teacher was so good to me and charged my father a minimal tuition was because in fact he didn't really deserve more. He never missed a "yahrtzeit" in shul so as never to miss saying a "l'chayim". He enjoyed the bitter taste of the l'chayim. If there was no l'chayim to be had in shul, he would go to his friend's wine cellar and spend most of his day there. Then in the evening he would come to the cheder (school) and teach a page of Gemarah (Talmud) with Tosefos and all the commentaries. The rest of the boys and I would sit and review the following day until we knew it well. This is how that year was spent.
Then I had a talk with my father. I suggested that he stop paying tuition for me and that I stay in the shul and study on my own. At that time it was difficult for my father to pay the tuition as we had a couple more girls in the family and we were by then a family of eight.
My father was tempted by my suggestion and we decided that right after the High Holy Days, I would start learning on my own in the local shul along with the young married men.
I was an only son and my parents felt that I was very dear and considered themselves blessed with me. All the neighbors envied my parents such a talented young man.
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In the 21st chapter, Joseph Levine tells how he got engaged and married. In the introductory chapter of what he calls Book Two (which is in the same volume as Book One and should not be confused with the second volume which he calls “From After the Wedding”) he extols Judaism and inspires us to do Tshuvah. Did you know, Tshuvah is often misunderstood. Rather than an unfortunately necessary response to our weaknesses, tshuvah is the very life-blood of Torah. It is the power than enables this world to be our platform for growth, for development, and for change. At Yom Kippur, Jews are offered a fresh spiritual start: they can stop and choose not to act on false habits which seem second nature.
Tshuvah (pronounced ti-shoo-vah) is a complex notion. It is common to translate it into English as "repentance", but repentance carries with it ideas about sin and evil that have their roots in a Christian world view and that are only marginal to modern Jewish theology. Tshuvah is less about transgression than it is about return. The Hebrew verb literally means "a turning". One returns to the right path, the path that has always been present in the commandments of the Torah and in the work of seeking justice.
The literal meaning of tshuvah is “return” to G-d, to His infinity, which means that there is never an end to where tshuvah takes us—we can never be “too close” to G-d. But, paradoxically, this realization creates an obstacle. When the end is not in sight because the goal is not within our grasp, we are sometimes afraid to begin. We anticipate giving up or being distracted by life itself. This obstacle is an illusion. Tshuvah is a mitzvah, and as such, it really is within our capacity to fulfill—G-d would not have commanded us to do this if it was mission impossible. The way to overcome this illusory obstacle is to change the way we think. There are seven thoughts that we can integrate to change our own thought patterns and as a consequence change our behavior. Let us focus on the first one:
“Over the years, I have adopted patterns of thought and behavior in order to get through life. Some are constructive, some are not. My personality feels ‘at home’ when I go with the flow and don’t try to change these patterns even when they are unhealthy and self-destructive. Therefore, I will no longer just go on automatic pilot. I will stop incessantly ‘forgiving’ myself my mistakes and try to correct them instead.”
Appearing in the 1960s, a growing number of young Jews who had previously been raised in non-religious homes in the United States started to develop a strong interest in becoming a part of observant Judaism; many of these people, in contrast to sociological expectations, became attracted to observant Judaism within Orthodoxy.
This trend was partly related to the prevailing anti-establishment atmosphere of the 1960s, and also to a great rise in Jewish pride in the wake of Israel's victory in 1967's Six-Day War. Although the effects of the Holocaust and the sway of the counterculture movement led many to abandon their religious upbringing, others were willing to experiment with alternate 'liberated' life-styles, and it was thought to be 'cool' to experiment with Sabbath observance, intensive prayer, and deeper Torah and Talmud study. A great many of these people adopted a fully Orthodox Jewish way of life, and although some eventually dropped out entirely or found their path within Conservative Judaism, others remained.
Roots for this movement can also be seen in some pre-1960's organizations whose goals were not oriented towards attacting the non-observant to observance, but were more concerned with simply stemming the trend away from observance. These included the establishment of Young Israel in 1912, the rise of Chabad-Lubavitch in the 1940s, and youth organizations like the National Conference of Synagogue Youth (NCSY) and Yeshiva University's Torah Leadership Seminar in the 1950s.
Chabad, with its dozens of Chabad houses throughout Israel, and yeshiva programs for Israelis, Russians, French, and Americans, reach out to thousands. Followers of Chabad can be seen attending to tefillin booths at the Western Wall and Ben Gurion International Airport as well as other public places, and distribute shabbat candles on Fridays. There are also Chabad houses in almost every location that Jews might be located, whether as permanent residents, on business, or tourists.
Rabbi Yosef Yitzchok Schneersohn, 6th leader of the Chabad-Lubavitch branch of Hasidic Judaism, and then his successor, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson was responsible for turning Chabad's strength and activities towards outreach. Each in turn sent out large numbers of rabbinic emissaries and their wives to settle in places across the world solely for the purpose of teaching those who did not receive a Jewish education or to inspire those who did. Unmarried rabbinical students spend weeks during the summer in locations that do not yet have a permanent Chabad presence, making housecalls, putting up mezuzot, teaching Judaism, simply reminding people that they are Jewish.
Rabbis and their families were sent to teach college students, to build day schools, and to create youth camps. Most of these were geared towards their secular or less religious brethren. In the late 1960s, the Chabad outreach model was, if not replicated, the inspiration in part for the founding of the non-hasidic, Haredi-affiliated institutions that eventually became the Aish HaTorah and Ohr Somayach yeshivas and outreach programs.
Rabbi M.M. Schneersohn encouraged the use of modern technology in outreach efforts such as Mitzva Tanks, mobile homes that travel a city or country. The Chabad website, chabad.org, a pioneer of Torah, Judaism and Jewish information on the web, was started by Rabbi Yosef Y. Kazen. Rabbi M.M. Schneersohn initiated the largest worldwide children's movement called Tzivos Hashem for under bar/bas mitzva age children, to inspire them to do mitzvos "in the army of Hashem".
Nearly 7000 people a year visit ASCENT of Safed which is a combination recreation center, Jewish youth hostel, and religious retreat that exposes Jews to Judaism, particularly the mystical aspect of it.
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