Handing back the Polish Torah through the back door.

Can we correct past behaviors in gentle, heart opening ways? Do our hearts really have to be broken?

The Polish family who yesterday handed their Torah beck to the jews provides an interesting illustration of how hard it is to get out of a long established pattern, and how we can help each other do that.

Recently found polish torah:
Two University of Warsaw students, Joanna Kopacka and Bartek Krzyżewski are coordinators of the Matzeva Project. As part of the team’s tactics, they go door-to-door asking residents if they have or know where there are gravestones in small Polish towns such as this northern village called Filipów.
There, an elderly couple in its late 70s was approached. The husband, Kazimierz Wróblewski, a retired shepherd, denied knowledge. But his wife suggested he show the students the Jewish item they did have.
Wróblewski lifted cushions from a couch and revealed a brown-paper wrapped Torah scroll that had been hidden there since 1939 when the Jewish population of approximately 280 was deported and murdered.
The next door neighbors of the Wróblewski family were religious Jews who before deportation had asked his father to keep the Torah scroll safe, for them until they returned home – but that if they did not, to transfer it to another Jew. The couple did not come across many Jews in post-war Poland, and it was only now, in 2014, that they found the right party to transfer the scroll to - Mi'amakim Director Johnny Daniels, who brought the scroll to Israel this week
Wróblewski was ashamed of keeping the scroll and only allowed Daniels’ organization to enter and remove it under wraps, through the back door. His wife, upon learning it would be taken to Israel, said she strongly supports the country and asked the organization to send her earth from the Holy Land.
The scroll’s condition is dire: Half of the Torah was used by the family over the past 70 years as rags, including as insoles for shoes. The Wroblewski family denied knowing that it was a sacred book. (Adapted from the Times of Israel)

I have a hard time believing they really didn’t know it was a sacred book. Why were they ashamed of keeping the scroll, asked organization to take it out through the back door? Why didn’t they find somewhere to donate the scroll after the war, write a letter? If they had this scroll in their couch for 70 years, did it never occur to them to contact someone?

My guess is: They were probably ashamed that they had not done anything with it, and the longer they kept it, the stronger their shame, and the harder it was to overcome that shame and do anything about it.

We become sunk in our patterns, and the deeper we become sunk, the harder to extricate ourselves.

Rambam writes about Pharoah (Hilchot Teshuvah 6:3) that:
“it is possible for someone to commit so heinous a sin or so many sins of his own volition and free will that the True Judge would rule that the only fitting punishment would be to withhold teshuvah from him, and not to grant him permission to do teshuvah”

The way I understand this is that our patterns can get so ingrained, it becomes impossible to get out of them, like a gutterball in a bowling alley: when you roll a bowling ball, it can wobble from side to side, but once the bowling ball is in the gutter, it just can’t get out.

There’s another story from the Ba’al Shem Tov, also about doing escaping a deeply engrained habit.

“The storytelling yid” (shlomo’s stories 3-11)
When Baal Shem tov died, assigned jobs to students
Reb Yankele: go around world telling stories about BeSht.
How long do I need to leave home?
You will know when your job is done

Sienna Italy: heard of rich man who paid 50 lira for every story about BeSht!
Yankele: great! I know thousands! This is it, now I’ll be able to retire
Goes to the yid, yid pleased, invites him for shabbes
Every meal: yankele can’t remember any stories
Havdalah: yankele apologizes, yid gives him a few hundred liras & says goodbye

Sunday morning, on his way out, yankele remembers a story, writes it down
Goes to yid, tells him the story
Story: besht travelled to city with terribly despotic bishop who had a plan to incite everyone to kill the jews
Before bishop’s speech, besht summons bishop[ to an audience
Bishop spends a few hours with besht, buishop leaves in tears, doesn’t give the speech

Yid: do you recognize me?
I was the bishop,
I was a poor jew, converted to Christianity to improve my lot
had to prove myself as a Christian by being as murderous as possible
I asked teshuvah to davven for me in heaven
Besht told me: teshuvah accepted when someone comes & tells you today’s story
Shabbes: you forgot stories—I realized my teshuvah hadn’t been accepted!
All last night I cried, totally broken hearted
Now I know my teshuvah has been accepted


How do we do teshuvah for such profoundly ingrained sin?

Baal Shem tov: regret must be as deep as the pain we caused
“there is one key that opens all locks: a hammer. A broken heart opens all the gates of heaven.”
Rambam HT 1:5: publically declare your teshuvah: “Anybody who is too proud and doesn’t publicize his sin but covers up their sin has not completely repented”
This is why pharaoh couldn’t do teshuvah—never really regretted

But the polish torah situation offers a different model of teshuvah
Teshuvah by sweeping things under the rug, or ushering them out the back door
They were too embarrassed to come out & do the right thing with the torah
Not so bad to open the door to teshuvah, letting them come right by taking it out through the back door,

I think this isn’t such a bad model: do we have to have our past rubbed in our faces? Can’t that hurt rather than help? It seems to me that we don’t respond well to having our past rubbed in our faces; it can be more effective as a gentle process. It also seems to me that perhaps the need to have a broken heart becomes an impediment to teshuvah.

Can we make teshuvah easier on ourselves?
Can we correct patterns that are so ingrained, we don’t see a way out?
Can we correct patterns of hurting others, that if we admitted it would be so overwhelmingly embarrassing, we can’t admit it to ourselves.
Can we put aside our pride and admit where we have hurt others.

Can we make teshuvah easier on each other?
When somebody hurts us, do we demand a broken heart, or can we let them make it better, can we help them make it better?

Va'etchanan: Loving God in today's world

Everybody knows that the heilige Rav Levi Yitzhak of Berdichev and Rav Baruch of Medzhibozh were the very opposites of each other. Reb Baruch was very civilized. When he davened, he barely moved. When he sat with his family at the Shabbes table, he was so regal he was the king of the world.
But when Rav Levi Yitzhak prayed, he jumped from one end of the room to another. He would dance, turn around, fall to the ground. At his table, one had to be very careful. You never knew what to expect. In the middle of kiddush, he could go absolutely wild, take the wine bottle, pour it up, pour it down, throw the cup into the air.
Reb Levi Yitzhak wanted so much to spend a Shabbes with Rav Baruch, the Baal Shem Tov's grandson, that he finally invited himself.
Rav Baruch said: "You can come, but you have to behave my way. Especially at the table, with my family, you must be very proper."
Reb Levi Yitzhak of Berdichev thought about it. "The only way I can behave is if I don't open my mouth. I won't even pray, except to say 'Amen,' because the minute I daven, I'm no longer myself."
So he said to Reb Baruch: "When we're making kiddush, don't ask me to say a blessing. Let me be absolutely silent, because it's the only way I can control myself."
The two rebbes agreed. Reb Levi Yitzhak came for Shabbes. They davened and he only answered "Amen." The praying went beautifully. Everybody was sure that by kiddush, Reb Levi Yitzhak would start jumping on the table. But, no, Reb Baruch made kiddush and Rav Levi Yitzhak only said "Amen."
Everybody knows that it's a minhag, a custom on Friday night, to eat sweet fish and sour fish. The deepest question in the world, and a big controversy among the rebbes, was which fish to eat first. Some said sweet fish, because then you have the strength to bear the sour. Others said: "Let's get the sour fish out of the way, so that the end will be sweet."
But both ways are holy.
Rav Baruch was civilized. He had a little hasid, like a waiter, bring the fish on a platter and ask each person which he preferred to eat first - sour fish or sweet. So the waiter came, sadly enough, to Reb Levi Yitzhak and asked, "Do you like sweet fish? Hostu lieb zisseh fisch"
That's all the poor hasid had to ask. Rav Levi Yitzhak said: "Hob ich lieb fisch? Do I love sweet fish? Ich hob lieb nor hashem! I love only God!"
And he took the whole platter of fish and threw it up to the ceiling. And the fish began to drip onto Rav Baruch's tallit, because in those days the big rebbes always wore their prayer shawls for the feast on Friday night.
Everyone was aghast. Everyone, that is, except Rav Baruch who, for all his civilized behavior, would never wash his tallit after that feast because, he said, the stains were very holy. "These stains are caused by a Jew who really loves God. How can I wash them out?"
After Rav Baruch's death, the tallit was passed from one rebbe to another to wear on Shabbes, but never washed. During this century it became so precious that the rebbes only wore it for Yom Kippur. The holy Munkatcher Rebbe, the last to possess it, wore it only for Neilah, the final prayer of Yom Kippur. He must have foreseen the destruction that would be coming into the world with the Holocaust. For the holy Munkatcher's last will was to be buried in Rav Baruch's tallit, covered with the stains caused by one who loved only God. (as told by R Shlomo Carlebach)

What does love of god look like for us?
Are we really commanded “veahafta et adonai,” to love god, to have a particular emotion?
What is we don’t feel it?
Do we even want to feel it?

“loving god” as an ideal is very challenging
In a world where fanatics claim to be focused on divine
But use this as an excuse for killing and hatred

So Many of us don’t think of God as a person we would be in love with
And if god is a person, we think of god as a parent or ruler

One way many people tone it down: “love” as service
If I love you, do nice things for you
Veahafta leads into “vehaya im shamoa”—leads to action
Useless to love god is we don’t serve god

If I love someone, always thinking about making them happy
Most important value in my life

This is very dry
Is this really loving god?

But what can loving god be for us in today’s world?

One aspect: yearning to experience divine, spiritual core of everything
we can yearn to see the divine,
to taste god,
to bring god’s presence into our life in a palpable way


Story: blessing over apple
Once a man brought his ten year old son to visit R' Aharon HaGadol of Karlin. As they were sitting and talking, Reb Aharon asked for a bowl of apples to be brought in. Reb Aharon and his guests each took an apple, with great intention recited the blessing, ". . .Borei Pri HaEtz. . ", and began to eat.
The boy thought to himself, "What is the difference between me and the Rebbe. He eats apples and also I eat apples. He makes a blessing and so do I. Even I could be the Rebbe someday."
Reb Aharon, attuned as he was to the thoughts of others, felt what the youngster was thinking. "Oh, there is a real difference between us my friend", divulged Reb Aharon. "When you wake up in the morning and look out the window, you see that there is a beautiful apple tree in your yard. You see the juicy, red apples growing on it and right away you can think of nothing else but those apples. You run to wash your hands, get dressed as quickly as possible, bolt out the door and scamper up the tree. You quickly decide which apple is to be your breakfast and open your mouth for the first delicious bite. You almost take that bite until you remember, just in time, that you must make a blessing before eating an apple. So you make the blessing in order to eat."
"When I wake up in the morning", continued Reb Aharon, "it is a different story." "When I wake up and look out the window I see a beautiful apple tree. I think about the wonder of Hashem's creation. I contemplate how this apple tree began as a small seed in the ground, and how it slowly grew year by year until one year it flowered and then apples appeared. I remember to wash my hands before I run outside to take a closer look at this amazing creation. In awe of Hashem and His Creation I want to make a blessing on the apple tree and its fruits. I begin to say the blessing, but then I remember, in order to make a blessing, I need an apple. . .!" (retold at Nishmas.org)


Loving god, yearning for god, is to yearn to experience divine energy
What the kabbalists call sheaf, divine abundance which flows through every molecule of the universe

Also: yearn for a world where that divine energy is palpable
Mishnah: ever since shekhinah exiled, sky changed color, fruit lost its flavor
We can no longer simply taste the divine
We have to look for it, yearn for it

Love of God also comes from appreciating the way god loves us love in our lives
The blessings of food, water, shelter
The love from our family, their presence in our life
The love from our critics, the way they help us grow
All of these are expressions of divine love

And of course loving god is an action as well, of pouring our energy into taking care of each other & of the world
Mother Theresa: In loving one another through our works we bring an increase of grace and a growth in divine love

May we discover divine love in our lives
May we become fountains of divine love