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Sushi Moto, with its arrival on the restaurant scene in January 2012, is bringing kosher sushi to a whole new level!

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INSIde HA’OHr• A world without Torah• A marriage handbook• WorldPerfect• The Facebook Fiasco• Finding Torah at age 80• Citi Field in Flatbush

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Introducing ...

Ha’ Ohr • The LightYou are holding in your

hands the very first issue of Ha’Ohr, created specially for the residents and businesses of the Jewish communities of Brooklyn.

We start Volume 1, Number 1 with the first installment of Rabbi BenTzion Greiper’s useful and inspiring book, Polishing Pearls: The Art of Marriage. Also in this issue are insightful articles on Jewish life and thought.

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Volume 1 • Number 1 June 2012 • Sivan 5772

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August 1, 2012

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Starting with this, the first issue of Ha’Ohr, we offer a serialization of Rabbi BenTzion Greiper’s useful and inspiring book, Polishing Pearls: The Art of Marriage. We know you will agree that this is an important book for anyone who is or plans to be married. Let us know what you think!

How to use this bookLittle by little. Read a page and try to put it into

practice with one person and at your level. Write down your effort. Write down your accomplishments. Connect the idea to all parts of your life. Stay on the topic. Then go on. Do it with each concept; and while practicing the new concept, live the old ones. Have a Rebbe or mentor see how to utilize the idea better.

Little by little you will see progress. You will see the same themes in lectures, seforim and in other people. Create your own private workbook.

The progress and happiness will be great. You -- and your mate and others -- will be calmer and more directed.

INTRODUCTIONBy Zvi Kramer The old Rabbi sat in his study, a bickering couple

before him. “So,” he said to the irate husband, “what seems to be the problem?”

The man started to list the issues he had with his wife. After he concluded, the Rabbi looked at him and said, “You are right.”

The Rabbi looked to the woman. When she finished, the Rabbi stroked his beard and said to her, “You are right.” He instructed the couple to come back the next day.

The Rabbi’s wife, who had followed the entire proceedings from the doorway, approached the Rabbi after the couple had departed. “My dear husband,” she began, “you are a very wise Rabbi. But I have a problem. You heard the man’s issues and stated that he was right. You heard the woman’s issues and stated that she was right. How can they both be right?”

The Rabbi looked at his wife thoughtfully and said, “You know, you are right, too.”

This old joke actually illustrates a truth when it comes to interpersonal relationships, especially between husband and wife. There are three sides to every story. His side. Her side. And, the truth. A human being is invested in his or her own self-interest. This colors our perceptions of ourselves, of all that is around us and of the truth.

It is important, when involving oneself in “shalom bayis” issues, to hear both husband and wife. If you hear only one side,you put yourself into the position of being influenced exclusively by one of the arguing couple. You may find yourself presuming that the person whom you are advising is correct. This may limit your ability to help the couple. The Maharal says that once a judge hears only one side, he has a difficult time seeing another viewpoint because he assumes that the side he heard is correct, and to view things differently means that he, himself, is wrong.

Viewing oneself as wrong is very difficult. It is unfortunate that many advisers don’t get to

hear the “other side” of the story, and miss out on the opportunity to help the couple stay together. The first goal of “shalom bayis” should be to attempt to keep the couple together.

DIAMOND POLISHING: THE ART OF MARRIAGEA middle aged man whose wife passed away

remarried. He said that he was still quick to anger, opinionated and set in his ways.

This spoiled, spoiled world has made individuals extremely fragile to any form (even facialexpression) of “no.” People who get married when they are older especially have to be very tuned in to how to get along with a mate. All couples have to be trained in constantly giving attention, appreciation and proper affection; in listening and validating their mate’s words and actions; in giving in to their mates; in self development, progress and pursuits of inner happiness in their Torah life; and in making a Rav as leader and mediator in their lives.

So don’t feel alone in your new (or old) marriage. There are difficult challenges in today’s relationships. But with an amount of effort, consistency and guidance, marriage can become better and better. It becomes productive and creates a sense of security, stability and success.

With these words, this book is for you. Good Marriages 100% Guaranteed!How can anyone guarantee this?Simple: Except for extreme and rare problems,

all marriages are workable, possible and can result in a lot of joy and success. Rabbi Avigdor Miller zt”l, the expert of experts in Shalom Bayis, helped -- and saved -- hundreds of marriages with his

The Art of Marriage

Continued on page 10


By Sara Yoheved Rigler Aish.com

What would the world look like if the Torah had never been given? Join me, if you will, for a tour of New York City in a hypothetical world where the revelation at Sinai never took place.

We drive across the Brooklyn Bridge, speed down the FDR Drive, and park our car in a massive concrete-and-steel garage. We walk through the streets of downtown Manhattan and crane our necks to gaze at the glittering tops of the skyscrapers. Knowing that the pagan civilizations of antiquity excelled in technological accomplishments, we’re not surprised that technology forges ahead in a world devoid of Torah.

Next we meander through Lincoln Center. We hear the music of a concert in progress, pass a theater where a contemporary drama is being enacted, and see well-dressed people lined up to buy tickets for the ballet. Art does not need Torah to flourish.

From there we head to Wall Street. We peek into the Stock Exchange. Business and commerce are thriving. No difference here. Our tour then takes us to residential neighborhoods crammed with high-rise apartment buildings. Here for the first time we notice something missing. There are no schools. There is one lively academy for the wealthy and well-born, but education for the masses? How ludicrous!

What happened to PS 132 and Woodrow Wilson High School and City College? Uptown, we are told, there is one lively academy for the wealthy and well-born, but education for the masses? Our guide snickers. “How ludicrous!”

As Rabbi Ken Spiro points out in his superb book, WorldPerfect education for all was an implausible notion in the pagan world (as in polytheistic societies today), where the literacy rate was generally 1/10 of 1%. Even ancient Rome, which needed a literate ruling class to administer its far-flung empire, boasted a literary rate of only 10-15%. Not only did Greece and Rome not deem it beneficial to educate

the masses, but they viewed education as a potential danger to the stability of society.

The Torah innovated the idea of education for all. It specifically commanded parents to educate their children. [Deut. 6:7] In fact, a code of law as intricate as the Torah and as obligatory on all members of the society, inherently demanded study. If a Jew didn’t know what all the commandments entailed, how could he fulfill them? Thus mass education was a Torah-mandated value throughout Jewish history, causing the medieval monk Peter Abelhard to write: “A Jew, however poor, even if he had ten sons, would put them all to letters, not for gain as the Christians do, but for understanding of G-d’s law. And not only his sons, but his daughters.”

As we continue our tour of New York City, we notice that we have not heard a single ambulance siren. When we ask, “Where are the hospitals?” we are met with a blank stare. “You must know what we mean,” we persist, “the place where the sick are cared for and lives are saved.”

A glint of understanding: “Oh, yes. We have a place which provides medical care… for those who can afford it, of course.” “And for the others?” we ask, appalled. “You can’t just let them die.” “Why not?” is the puzzled retort.

No society before Torah or without Torah attributed intrinsic value to human life. It follows that for the government or society to spend its resources to heal or preserve life -- and to feel such urgency to save life that they would outfit ambulances -- would be considered a nonsensical enterprise. The right to life, which the American Declaration of Independence considered “self-evident,” was not evident to any society in the world before or after Sinai, except where the Torah’s influence penetrated.

On the contrary, infanticide of undesirable babies (such as girls and those with even minor disabilities) was universally practiced, and endorsed by such “enlightened” thinkers as Aristotle. Killing for entertainment was the most popular amusement

What would a world without Torah look like?

Continued on page 8


By Rabbi Benjamin Blech You don’t need to be religious to appreciate the

dangers of the Internet.Mark Zuckerberg had quite a time last month.The 28-year-old founder of Facebook officially

became a multi-billionaire and one of the wealthiest people in the world the day his company went public. Then, in a short few days, he watched his net worth diminish by several billion dollars when his company made history as one of the greatest IPO flops.

While large IPOs on average trade up by 20% on their first day, Facebook’s flat performance on day one, and nearly 11% decline on day two, set the stage for further declines in what remains an unfinished story about a stock whose future remains highly uncertain to Wall Street and the investment community. In the wake of the unfolding scandal, investors are suing and the entire IPO process is being called into question.

But Zuckerberg still had one more momentous event scheduled for his IPO week. On that Saturday he got married to his longtime sweetheart. From a traditional Jewish perspective, the fact that it was an intermarriage, effectively ensuring that the Zuckerberg Jewish lineage would now come to an end, was far more tragic than the fate of a failed stock offering.

While there are no fears about the couple’s future financial security, no matter how much Facebook stock continues to unde-rperform, it is fascinating to speculate on their marriage’s chances for long-term bliss based on hubby’s impact on contemporary society’s mores.

Facebook and the future of marriage is an issue that finally is getting some much-needed attention. As Quentin Fottrell of Smart Money perceptively pointed out, more than a third of divorce filings last year contained the word “Facebook,” according to a U.K. survey by Divorce Online, a legal services firm. And more than 80% of U.S. divorce attorneys say they’ve seen a rise in the number of cases using social networking, according to the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers.

“I see Facebook issues breaking up marriages all the time,” says Gary Traystman, a divorce attorney in New London, Conn. Of the 15 cases he handles per year where computer history, texts and emails are admitted as evidence, 60% exclusively involve Facebook.

K. Jason Krafsky, who together with his wife Kelli authored the book Facebook and Your Marriage, tells us: “Affairs happen with a lightning speed on Facebook.” In the real world, he says, office romances and out-of-town trysts can take months or even years to develop. “On Facebook,” he says, “they happen in just a few clicks.”

Face-to-FacePerhaps the most ironic aspect of Facebook

relationships is that they lack the all-important aspect of face-to-face contact. In Jewish tradition the unique and intense connection between Moses

and God is expressed with the Hebrew “panim el panim” – face to face. The word’s three-letter root, p’nim, means inner essence. Speaking “face to face” means to share who we really are, to transmit the very core of our being. That is how God spoke to Moses, demonstrating His great love and closeness for the leader of the Jewish people.

And that is precisely what’s missing in Facebook interactions. We do not see each other. We merely exchange words. We have no way of knowing whether they are true or

not. We lack any clues we might learn from facial expressions. If Shakespeare was right and “eyes are the windows into the soul,” Facebook closes the blinds and leaves us literally blind to each other.

Facebook romances are often based on fantasy. That’s why they seem so much more appealing than our real-life connections. We are far quicker to give a thumbs-up “like” to someone we don’t really know, but create in our own ideal image, than to a flesh and blood person before us who comes with the mixture of the qualities as well as the flaws of a normal human being.

Affairs become not only far more appealing but also possible. Furtive meetings are only a “text” away. And the Internet continues to alter the landscape of sexual relationships.

Internet dangersMajor attention to this

phenomenon was initiated Continued on page 15

THE FACEBOOK FIASCO


By David J. GlennStanley Katz, who will be 82 in October, likes

to tell anyone who’s interested – and many people are – “If someone had told me just three years ago that I’d be wearing a yarmulke all the time, putting on teffilin every day, eating only kosher food, and never turning on a light on Shabbos, I’d tell him, ‘You’re nuts!’”

From his perspective at the time, he thought there would be a better chance of joining the next Space Shuttle mission than deciding he couldn’t watch the ball game on Saturday afternoon.

No surprise there. As Mr. Katz grew up in various neighborhoods in Brooklyn – including “the projects” in Fort Greene – his only experience in Judaism was his bris, an after-school Hebrew class once a week until high school, possibly fasting on Yom Kippur, and a bar mitzvah in English (or maybe transliteration – he’s not sure which).

He never had a seder, built a succah, nor, except

for the bar mitzvah, ever set foot in a shul.He was confident – as many secular Jews are

– that eating kosher, keeping Shabbos, and all the other mitzvos (of course, he didn’t know they were called that) were things that only “they” – the Orthodox – did, certainly not he nor his family nor his friends.

It’s not that he looked down on chareidim or thought they were “primitive” or “unenlightened,” again as many secular Jews do. “I just thought they were different, in a different world,” Mr. Katz said. “I didn’t look like them, I didn’t act like them.”

He did, though, have a strong sense that something was missing. “I always believed in

G-d, but I didn’t feel like a Jew. I felt cut off from my people,” he said.

His stint as a medic in the Army during the Korean War (he was spared by the front lines by being assigned to a military hospital in Germany) certainly didn’t do anything to bring him to yiddishkeit. He didn’t feel that he had any choice but to eat the non-

A ‘Jew without Torah’ finds it – at age 80



What would a world without Torah look like? Continued from page 4

in ancient Rome, where 50,000 people would crowd into the Coliseum to watch convicted criminals (for capital crimes such as professing Christianity), slaves, and POWs fed to the lions and gladiators fight to the death. In between these spectacular killings, lest the crowd get bored, routine executions by burning, beheading, and skinning people alive were offered for amusement during intermission.

Into a world where killing for convenience or sport was the universal norm, the Torah introduced the concept of the sacredness of life. “Do not murder,” the sixth of the Ten Commandments revealed at Sinai, was not simply ethical pragmatism as it was in other ancient law codes, whose goal was to protect not the individual, but rather the stability of society. The Torah asserted that all human beings -- including infants, slaves, and convicted criminals -- were holy because they were created in the image of G-d. As the Talmud proclaimed: “He who saves one life is as if he had saved the whole world.” The value of the individual -- and therefore his or her life -- is a Torah innovation.

In India in 1981, I knew a couple whose 22-year-old son had been injured in a traffic accident while riding his motor scooter through the streets of Calcutta. The young man lay on the crowded thoroughfare for seven hours, until he bled to death. This is a society where Torah has not penetrated.

Our tour of Manhattan-sans-Torah takes us to a small but stately building. We’re informed that this is the courthouse for the entire city. “How can such a small courthouse serve millions of people?” we ask, perplexed.

“Millions of people?” is the astonished reply. “Only a few thousand people -- the elite -- have the right to bring lawsuits.”

When the Torah laid down the principle of equal justice before the law, the rest of the world must have laughed. “You shall not commit a perversion of justice; you shall not favor the poor and you shall not honor the mighty” [Lev. 19:15] would have been regarded as outlandish had not G-d commanded it. According to the Torah, even a king is not above the law and even a slave is not below it. Jewish courts do -- and always have -- heard cases initiated by wronged workers, women, and foreigners. By contrast, ancient Athens, the so-called “cradle of democracy,” extended full legal rights to only a few thousand men who owned land, leaving its other hundreds of thousands of residents (including women, artisans, peasants, and slaves) with no recourse to the law.

In the corridor of the courthouse, we notice

something curious on the wall. It is a conglomeration of twelve lines of numbers. “This is a calendar,” our guide explains. “It marks off the days, months, and years.”

“What about the weeks?” we ask. “What are weeks?” our guide inquires quizzically.

The division of time into seven-day units punctuated by the Sabbath, a day of rest, is an invention of the Torah. It corresponds to no natural cycle. Completely counter-productive of material goals, the Sabbath addresses the unique spiritual need for reconnection and re-creation. Even those denizens of the Western world for whom “the weekend” means not spiritual refreshment but shopping at the mall must appreciate the Torah’s gift of one day off in seven.

Having lived in India, a society where every day resembles every other (except for the Sunday closing of schools and government offices, imposed by the British colonizers), I have seen how human beings are eroded by the tedium of a 365-day year of unremitting work. Now, in the small courthouse, I look around and notice the same exhausted expressions.

We head over to First Avenue and 46th Street only to discover that the familiar landmark of the United Nations headquarters is absent. Bewildered, we ask: “Isn’t there some international body whose purpose, at least in principle, is to settle disputes between nations in a peaceful manner, without resort to war?”

Our guide is confused. “What would be the point of that? War is the noblest endeavor of man. War spawns heroes -- mighty warriors whose prowess vanquishes the enemy. And how else will a nation expand its borders and increase its power without the glorious enterprise of war?”

We despair of a meeting of minds, and begin to search for a curved wall where the antithetical vision of the Hebrew prophet Isaiah is emblazoned: “And they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks, nations shall not lift up sword against nations. Neither shall they learn war anymore.” There isn’t even the ideal of peace in this world in which the Torah was never given.

We search in vain. There is no inscription, no wall, not even the ideal of peace in this world in which the Torah was never given.

We walk north, past the fashionable uptown, into a low-income neighborhood, and here the most conspicuous difference grips us. The streets are lined with unfortunates -- blind people, crippled people, starving children. They reach out their hands and plead with us for help. It reminds me of the cities Continued on page 16


We, today, are blessed with a plethora of opportunities for Torah studies. Shiurim are vailable on almost every topic in Torah -- halacha, haskafa, history, Gemora, Chumash, Medrash, and more -- in every form of media (telephone, Internet, tapesa, CDs, newsletters, magazines, msforim) in any language you need. Of course, you can still attend a live shiur in a variety of formats and topics. Whichever way you choose to learn, will will certainly bring a beracha -- blessing -- to you.

We are offering you an opportunity to learn in a format specifically geared to help you gain independence in learning. The goal is to get you to learn on your own, without being dependent on the Rabbi, speaker, or author to interpret Torah for you.

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positive, concrete and clear directives dealing with relationships. The Rav was my model and mentor. In addition the Rav’s son-in-law, Rabbi Shmuel Elchonon Brog Shlita on a daily basis gave me the time, patience, listening ear and expert advice in the particulars of marriage. This probably is one of the major, if not the major factor in marriage – having a Shalom Bayis Rav and/or Rebbe who is wise and clear on what has to be done and in addition is available to you on a daily basis.

Marriage needs training before and during the marriage. The parties have to begin with ahava (love) which is giving. Each party must give 100%. Each mate giving only 50% means to the individual – I’m doing my part, what about my spouse? The listening, validating and tuning into the other person’s feeling, thoughts and needs is part of this giving process. “How can I make my mate happy” has to be the thought before all encounters.

The Ten Commandments of MarriageRabbi Avigdore Miller taught us the Ten

Commandments of Marriage• Be Realistic – Expect the unexpected. This

advice becomes clear as the marriage develops.• Keep Routine – no matter what difficulties arise

make that supper or get those flowers. Stay on track.• Make Peace As Soon As Possible. Don’t go to sleep

angry with one another. The next day will be a new day. • Never mention the word G-e-t (divorce). It

plants an eternal seed. • Be Loyal. Your husband is the best chasan.

Your wife is the best cook. • Let Mean Words Pass By. It’s hard, but the

benefits will be endless. • Never Say Mean Words. There’s no benefit. • Love Your Mate As You Love Yourself. Don’t

do to your mate what you don’t want done to you. • Don’t Dress Slovenly – Look nice and

handsome for your mate. • Don’t Be A Tyrant. Don’t tell your wife “Get

the salt!” or your husband, “If you don’t do this…” More on this in later chapters...But first,

let’s start with a story: Scenario 1Yossi wakes up in the morning. He goes to

the bathroom. It’s occupied. He goes to get his lunch ready – no bread. Yossi takes out his suit – wrinkled. Then he runs for the bus – misses it and

the bus splashes dirty water on his suit. Finally, when he gets to work, his boss informs him that this is his last day. He trudges home after this very rough and terrible day, and his little brother unmercifully squirts him with a water gun. What is his reaction? He wants to throttle his brother!

Scenario 2Yossie wakes up in the morning. The bathroom

is available. His lunch is made. His suit is nicely pressed. The bus is there in front of his house waiting for him. Today at work he is given a raise. When he goes home, his brother squirts him with a water gun. Yossi reacts by smiling, laughing and

playing with his younger brother. The same squirting of the water gun,

and two totally different reactions. Is it because of what his brother did? No! It was Yossi’s interactions that day which caused his own reaction. He let the world create him. Most people do this!

We can see that the most important person in the marriage who can make it

work, is you. A person works on creating a positive, active life by thinking positive thoughts, being grateful, doing acts of kindness, working hard, and diligently learning and living a wholesome Torah life. This builds an inner strength and knowledge that will enable him or her to get along very well with his or her mate.

As we continue in the next and succeeding issues of Ha’Ohr, we will talk about real-life, extremely serious marriage cases. These situations are rare, but we prersent them to show that if these couples can work it out successfully, then any couple can.

We will also offer essays that deal with individual and family issues -- being single, being a teenager, being a parent, creating a productive life, building a successful family.

This book is for Rabbaim, counselors, couples and individuals. It will be helpful in one’s individual development, harmony in marriage and in one’s community.

Be sure not to miss the next issue of Ha’Ohr, as we continue with Rabbi Greiper’s insightful book.

The Art of Marriage Continued from page 3

We’d like to hear from you, to get your comments and perspectives on marriage and

family life, and whether this book is useful to you. Email us at [email protected]

or write to us @ Ha’Ohr, 1215 Avenue M, Suite 3-G Brooklyn, NY 11230


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By DAVID J. GLENNAt first glance, it might seem that Rabbi Shmuel

Waldman’s book, “Beyond a Reasonable Doubt – Convincing Evidence of the Truths of Judaism,” is a work in kiruv, designed to bring young Jews to, or back to, the Torah.

The rabbi’s key intent, though, is not as much to reach “at-risk” Jewish teens and 20- somethings, as it is to fill in the “hollowness in the soul” that he says many FFB – frum-from-birth – Jews suffer from.

He’s providing the kind of book he could have used himself when he was a teen.

“I was an FFB teenager,” Rabbi Waldman said in an interview at a learning camp in the Catskills. “Outwardly, I was doing everything – davening every day, strictly keeping Shabbos and kashruth. But internally, I felt empty. I had many unconscious questions never asked or answered.”

The problem was, “none of my teachers really taught the pillars of faith. We were taught how to follow all the laws and mitzvos, but we had no idea why. We were given a house built on no foundation.”

This started to change when he was 17. A friend gave him some cassette tapes (this was before CDs) of the iconic Rabbi Avigdor Miller “At first, I wasn’t really interested,” Rabbi Waldman recalled. “‘I’m doing fine,’ I said to myself.”

But then he started listening to the tapes. “I was amazed,” he said. “Rabbi Miller wasn’t afraid to answer questions on the theory of evolution or on human suffering – he invited any question after his lectures.”

He asked his friend for more tapes. Soon, he started regularly going to Rabbi Miller’s shiurs.

He also explored the teachings of other esteemed rabbis, including Yisroel Belsky, Shmuel Kamenetzky, Ruevin Feinstein (Moshe Feinstein’s son) and Matisyahu Solomon (who all have given haskamos in the book). All his “doubts, the lingering nagging questions” finally were being addressed and resolved.

It’s Rabbi Waldman’s hope that his book will help other Jews – particularly those who harbor the doubts he once had – reach the same resolution. Of course, if a Jew has true emmes, he needs nothing more than, “If the Torah says so, it’s so,” but that simple statement is not enough to satisfy one who has questions and doubts, Rabbi Waldman stresses.

Emulating Rabbi Miller’s approach, Rabbi Waldman uses logic as well as key elements of the scientific method itself to demonstrate the truths of the Torah.

He shows, for example, how the intricacies of DNA – discovered nearly a century after the publication of Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species – as well as recent paleontological findings (or lack of them, such as the absence of even one fossil showing any transition to a new species), shoot large holes into the theory of evolution.

The rabbi cites statements from several eminent scientists confirming this. Two examples:

From Prof. Harold C. Urey, winner of the Nobel prize in chemistry: “All of us who study the origin of life find that the more we look into it, the more we feel it is too complex to have evolved anywhere.”

Sir Francis Doyle, an eminent British astronomer, “documents ‘howling’ problems with the theory of evolution and concludes that the theory survives only because ‘[It is] considered socially desirable and even essential to the peace of mind of the body politic,’” Rabbi Waldman writes in the chapter, “The Downfall of the Theory of Evolution.”

He doesn’t limit his proofs to debunking what has amounted to a religion of evolution. He stresses that not only was Judaism the first to offer monotheism to the world – and provided the root for all other non-pagan religions as well as no less than the legal and moral basis of human civilization – it is the only religion based on a revelation granted to literally hundreds of thousands of witnesses (at Mount Sinai), rather than to one purported prophet, as is Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, and all the rest. And if the recounted events and 613 negative and positive commandments were all fabricated, why would the Torah be so scrupulously handed down through all the generations? “Who is going to keep this demanding Torah if the whole thing is based on easily exposed lies?” Rabbi Waldman writes.

A glance at the table of contents shows the scope of Rabbi Waldman’s proofs:

Compelling Evidence of a CreatorThe Divine Origin of the TorahThe World-to-Come – Eternal existenceDivine Guidance throughout Jewish History and more “The truths of the Torah are readily

available,” Rabbi Waldman says. “You just have to want to look.”

“Outwardly, I was doing everything – davening

every day, strictly keeping Shabbos and kashruth. But

internally, I felt empty. I had many unconscious

questions never asked or answered.”

Filling the ‘hollowness in the soul’


University, the idea he felt most important to share with them was to challenge them to “take the radical step of tearing their eyes away from their smart phones and computer screens.”

While stressing that electronic tools can be very positive forces, he urged the students to “take one hour a day and turn that thing off.” To rousing applause from an audience

The Facebook Fiasco Continued from page 5

at a mass rally held at Citi Field, attended by more than 45,000 observant Jews (with another 15,000 overflowing into the Arthur Ashe Tennis Stadium). Billed as a protest against the dangers of the Internet, it is regrettable that the black-hatted sponsors were made to appear by the media -- including some secular-Jewish media -- as the equivalent of a brand of Jewish Amish opposed to technological innovation.

What very few seemed willing to do was to acknowledge valid areas of concern for even the most open-minded of Internet users concerned with its impact on contemporary society.

To be outraged by the easy

accessibility of pornography to our children doesn’t require extreme religious sensitivity. A simple acceptance of civilized norms should have prompted righteous anger from society’s secular leaders in almost the same measure as it motivated the rabbis who arranged for the mass rally of warning against the moral dangers of the Internet.

But it isn’t just porn that needs to be focused on as the sole area of concern.

No one could accuse Eric Schmidt, executive chairman of Google, of religious fanaticism or exaggerated fear of harmful effects of Internet addiction. Yet, invited to receive an honorary degree and to deliver the keynote address to the graduating class of Boston


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“I am aware that I am here only because of a nes -- a true miracle -- and I credit the tefillos (prayers) of Klal Yisroel for

helping bring this about.”

-- Rav Chaim Yisreal Belsky on returning to Torah Vodaath after a

lengthy hospitalization




of India. “Why are these people on the street?” we demand. “Where are the orphanages? The social service agencies? The institutions for the blind and the deaf? The soup kitchens? The rehabilitation centers for the handicapped?”

“What are you suggesting?” comes the outraged response. “There’s nothing like that here, and why should there be? We didn’t hurt these people. It’s not our fault if they’re hungry or handicapped. We bear no responsibility to help them.”

As Ken Spiro points out in WorldPerfect, into a world where numerous law codes prohibited murder, theft, and various anti-social behaviors, the Torah burst into the scene with a completely novel concept: the obligation to proactively do good. “Love your neighbor as yourself,” [Lev. 19:18] and “Do not stand by your neighbor’s blood,” [Lev. 19:16] charged humankind with social responsibility, an idea that sans-Torah societies never dreamed of.

The Torah, which Thomas Huxley called, “the Magna Carta of the poor and of the oppressed,” drove this point home with a multitude of specific commandments aimed at providing aid to the impoverished, the widow, the orphan, and the alien. The Torah obligated human beings to take responsibility for the welfare of people outside their own clans and beyond the precincts of their own homes, not because it was salubrious for the body politic, but because a just and loving G-d demanded compassion from all His children for all His children. This planet has never known a more original idea.

THE TORAH REVOLUTIONOur tour of New York City would not suffice

to reveal the truly cataclysmic revolution caused by the revelation at Sinai. Without Torah not only our world but also our lives would be profoundly different. If we lived in a world in which the Torah had never been given, we would be unrecognizable to ourselves. As author Thomas Cahill, a Catholic, wrote in his book, The Gifts of the Jews: Without the Jews, we would see the world through different eyes, hear with different ears, even feel with different feelings. And not only would our sensorium, the screen through which we receive the world, be different: we would think with a different mind, interpret all our experience differently, draw different conclusions from the things that befall us. And we would set a different course for our lives.

It is important to keep in mind that all the innovations with which Cahill credits the Jews (whom he labels, “the inventors of Western culture”) have their source not in the Jews themselves, but in

the Divine revelation to the Jews. While the Patriarch Abraham was indeed an original thinker and the one who discovered monotheism, no person or force in the world could have so radically changed the world. The lever which lifted the planet had to be positioned outside it. Such drastic transformation could have been initiated only through Divine revelation.

What was the paradigm shift that revolutionized human thinking and striving? Cahill points out that all ancient cultures viewed time as cyclical. No event or person was unique. He writes: The Jews were the first people to break out of this circle, to find a new way of thinking and experiencing, a new way of understanding and feeling the world, so much so that it may be said with some justice that theirs is the only new idea that human beings have ever had. But their worldview has become so much a part of us that at this point it might as well have been written into our cells as a genetic code.

Time is the warp upon which human beings weave their sense of reality. Where time is regarded as cyclical, reality is characterized by fate, the inexorable predictability of nature, the devaluation of the present moment, and the futility of human striving.

Circles have no purpose; they revolve round and round. The G-ds of the ancient pantheons, like the G-ds of India today, claim no purpose. Their actions are divine sport, lila in Hindu terminology, meaning “play.” In such a worldview, the only worthy human goal is liberation -- to somehow escape the wheel of birth and death.

The Torah introduced a purposeful G-d, with a plan for human history. If humankind will obey the commandments -- the Divinely ordained blueprint -- then a utopian world will ensue. The future will be different -- and better -- than the past. Thus the Torah introduced linear time. In so doing, it catapulted humanity into a world of meaningful moral choices, where human beings could create their own destinies, forge their own futures.

The narratives of the Torah take place in linear -- not cyclical -- time. They recount the stories of people who were important not as archetypes (as in all other ancient epics), but as individuals, people who were important not because they wielded great power, but because they made significant choices.

Those inner choices impacted their descendents and created history. History not as a record of wars waged and won, but as a testimony of moral battles that gave life meaning and purpose. Abraham obeying G-d even at the cost of his precious son’s life, Jacob wrestling with the angel of evil,


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Joseph resisting the temptations of Potipher’s wife, Moses reluctantly accepting the mantle of leadership at the burning bush -- these are the momentous events which the Torah chooses to recount. In so doing, it imbues all of our lives, all down the ages, with meaning and possibility.

THE REVELATION AT SINAIThe upcoming holiday of Shavuot

commemorates the world-shaking event of the Divine revelation at Sinai. It is a day to reaffirm our commitment to studying and implementing the Torah.

On that day 3316 years ago, the infinite G-d burst through the barrier of human finitude and in the presence of an entire nation revealed His Commandments. Thomas Cahill’s description of the setting is lyrical: It is no accident, therefore, that the great revelations of G-d’s own Name and of his Commandments occur

in a mountainous desert, as far from civilization and its contents as possible, in a place as unlike the lush predictabilities and comforts of the Nile and the Euphrates as this earth of ours can offer. If G-d -- the Real G-d, the One G-d -- was to speak to human beings and if there was any possibility of their hearing him, it could happen only in a place stripped of all cultural reference points, where even nature… seemed absent. Only amid inhuman rock and dust could this fallible collection of human beings imagine becoming human in a new way.

The revelation at Sinai was the singular most momentous event in human history. When I consider what our lives would have been without it, I can only shudder. In Honor of my mother Muriel (Miriam bat Sarah) and in loving memory of my Herbert (chaim ben Josef) Schnider.


kosher Army food or to be on duty on Shabbos.Nor did much change when he started working

as a claims examiner for Blue Cross-Blue Shield in Manhattan after his service. There he met his future wife, Evelyn, who had started at Blue Cross as a teenager and had been there for 16 years already. Evelyn also had a secular Jewish upbringing, similarly viewing the Orthodox as in a different universe.

So how exactly did Mr. Katz, so late in life, go from virtually zero observance to black-hat diligence – undertaking, as he put it, “a cataclysmic change”?

It was, initially, because of a book, and a chicken.“My grandson [Matisyahu,

nee Mathew, who had just become ba’al teshuvah] gave me the book, To be a Jew [by Rabbi Chaim Halevy Donin],” Mr. Katz recounted. “I started to realize that the Torah and the commandments were not just for ‘them,’ but for all Jews.”

Rabbi Donin also pointed out in the book that any Jew could return to the derech at any age.

But it wasn’t easy. Mr. Katz had always loved singing and performing on the amateur stage whenever he could. Even in everyday conversation, he would launch into a song at the slightest cue.

He particularly enjoyed performing with a neighborhood choral group that regularly entertained at conservative Jewish centers and nursing homes. “All my life I had wanted to be an entertainer, a singer,” he said. He even bought a piano, started weekly lessons, and learned how to play an impressive repertoire of popular songs.

But the choral group was mixed, men and women. When Mr. Katz learned that men singing with women – or men listening to women sing – was halachically forbidden, he had to leave the group.

“Most of the other singers were Jewish, but they didn’t understand,” Mr. Katz said. “They thought I was being a fanatic – there was some resentment toward me for leaving. I lost the singing group, I lost my social life.”

Going kosher wasn’t too easy, either. Mr. Katz was living in Rego Park, Queens -- not exactly a bastion of frumkeit. Kosher food was hard to come by, and besides, Mr. Katz was used to the non-kosher cheese

and cold cuts at his neighborhood supermarket.But Matisyahu and his mother, Suzanne – Mr.

Katz’s daughter who by this time had become ba’al teshuvah as well – seized upon Mr. Katz’s nascent consciousness of halacha to encourage him to try a kosher chicken.

He balked. “I said it wouldn’t taste good, it would have too much salt,” Mr. Katz recalled.

But he tried it. “As it happened, I liked it much better than the chicken I had been eating,” Mr. Katz said. “And I felt better about eating it.”

Now that Suzanne and Matisyahu had gastronomically gotten their feet into the door, they were ready to thrust it open. “They told me, ‘Since you

have kosher chicken, you now have to have kosher utensils, and separate them from dairy utensils. And your other food has to be kosher, too – there’s no such thing as a half-kosher home.’”

This, of course, meant a lot of changes in Mr. Katz’s lifestyle. “What was I getting myself into? I thought.”

Matisyahu soon found a company on the Internet that could deliver a nice variety of kosher food – including, of course, chicken – right to Mr. Katz’s door. And Mr. Katz, figuring “if I were going to do it, I was going to do it right,” started looking for reliable hecsherim on packaged foods, and calling Matisyahu or Suzanne if he wasn’t sure about a

particular hechsher. “I started to feel very good about doing this,” he said.

Mr. Katz misses the choral group, but whatever enjoyment he had gotten from it pales beside the new-found fulfillment he’s derived from regularly reading a portion of the Artscroll Chumash that Matisyahu had given to him. “I learn something new every day,” he said. “There is no [secular] literature that can come close to the excitement, the real-life human characters, the lessons of the Torah.”

Not long before he became ba’al teshuvah, Mr. Katz – who now considers himself “Shlomo” – had a recurring dream. “I was in a subway station, and I couldn’t find an exit. I was lost.

“Maybe my soul was communicating to me that I was lost, that I was a Jew without Torah.”

He’s never had that dream again.This story by Ha’Ohr Publisher David Glenn first

appeared in the weekly magazine of the HaModia newspaper in July 2011

A ‘Jew without Torah’ finds it – at age 80 Continued from page 7

Matisyahu brought his grandfather to a life of the Torah.


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By David J. GlennSeven years ago, Stanley Katz’ grandson,

Matisyahu, cast a pebble in the pond.The ripples from his becoming ba’al teshuvah

first reached his mother, then his father, and then his grandfather.

The concentric effect has not abated – one of his mother’s friends, a secular Jew all her life, has begun eating kosher food and starting questions about certain Shabbos and Yom Tov practices. His mother’s grandmother – 97 years old – similarly has become more conscious of some aspects of yiddishkeit.

Just a few years ago, none of this would have seemed very likely. Matisyahu was a product of the Brooklyn public schools starting with pre-kindergarten. As many American Jews do, he went to Hebrew school two days a week, starting in the fifth grade, mainly just to be ready for his bar mitzvah – which was held in an Orthodox shul, but with a reception in a secular venue.

It was shortly after his bar mitzvah, in his last year in junior high school, when Matisyahu first picked up the pebble.

Although the school had a good reputation, he didn’t find it that way at all. The other kids were, for the most part, much more interested in video games and insulting one another than any kind of academic pursuit, and he was often the victim of bullying.

His mother then had an idea. She had noticed

that although Matisyahu was a somewhat rebellious teenager, he seemed to be comfortable at the Hebrew school and its summer day camp. He didn’t balk when he was told he couldn’t bring any non-kosher snacks to the school – under penalty of being expelled – and he had no problem with having to recite a brocha for each food item.

Maybe he should go to yeshiva, his mother thought. But since he didn’t know very much about yiddishkeit or even how to read Hebrew, no yeshivos would accept him.

Except one – a small kiruv school in Brooklyn run by Rabbi Shlomo Milstein and Sharon Hagler. They predicted that Matisyahu would catch fire at Ohr Eliezer.

He did. Within a year, he went from struggling with the aleph-beis to starting on pages of the Gemorah. He would often have discussions with Rabbi Milstein on intricate aspects of the written and oral Torah and halacha.

Turning the idea of father-teaching-the-son on its head, Matisyahu influenced both his father and mother to become ba’aeil teshuvah, too – to keep kosher, observe Shabbos and all the Yomim Tovim, and -- this took a little longer – to finally get rid of the TV and most secular books.

Today Matisyahu, now 21, is learning at Yeshiva Torah Vodaas in Brooklyn, with plans to become a rabbi. “He will not just be a rabbi,” said Rabbi Milstein, “he will be a great rabbi.”

Then, the ripples will be countless.

The pebble


As a follow-up to the overflow attendance at the Internet Asifa (gathering) at Citi Field last month, Aguda Yisroel Bais Binyomin hosted the Flatbush Internet Asifa on Sunday, June 10 with overflow crowds of its own, as men and women found standing room only at their respective entrances to the shul on Avenue L and Nostrand Avenue.

To accommodate non-Yiddish speakers who hadn’t been able to understand most of the presentations at Citi Field, all the addresses at the Flatbush version were in English. And attendees were given a 20-page booklet outlining specific ways to “kasher” their computers and smartphones, including the pros and cons of a variety of filtering programs. Organizers of the event, in conjunction with Ichud Hakehillos, presented in the booklet a list of “minimal guidelines” --

• To change our behavior pattern, so that internet use is limited to uses of practical necessity

• To totally avoid internet use for entertainment purposes or social interaction

• To cease from participation in Facebook, Twitter, and all social networking sites

• To filter all internet access and to protect the filters

• To filter all smartphones and to

be sure that the person using the smartphone does not have the password

• In general, to change our attitude regarding internet use in conformity with the advice of Gedolei Yisroel

For more information, call 718.717.8241

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By Rabbi Kalman PackouzOnce, while visiting people in the hospital, I met

a man who was especially happy to see me. He told me, “You are the first rabbi I have spoken with since my Bar Mitzvah 50 years ago! I want you to know that you’ll never find a Jew with more pride in being Jewish than me! If anyone says anything against another Jew or the Jewish people, I’ll beat him up!” I was duly impressed with the commitment and bravado of this 63 year-old man. I then asked him, “Please, I would love to know what it is that you take so much pride in the Jewish people?” He responded, “Rabbi, weren’t you listening? I told you that if anyone says anything against another Jew or the Jewish people, I’ll beat him up!”

I tried twice more to find out the source of his pride in being Jewish, but there was nothing he could articulate; he only reiterated his pugilistic prowess. There are many reasons to be proud of being Jewish; if one is proud of being Jewish, he should know the source of his pride. One source of pride is how the Jewish people have impacted the world.

What if you could buy one book that would fill you (or your children or your brother-in-law) with pride in being Jewish and give you all the ammunition you needed to respond to a curious rabbi visiting you in the hospital?

Rabbi Ken Spiro, my colleague and friend, has written such a book -- WorldPerfect -- The Jewish Impact on Civilization. For years, Rabbi Spiro, a historian, would begin his class on Jewish history by canvassing his students as to what are the values that they and the world hold dear which are necessary for a utopian society. Here are the results compiled from approximately 1,500 students:

1. Value of Life -- People have the right to life, and to live with a certain basic dignity and rights.

2. World Peace -- On all levels, communally and globally, people and nations should co-exist in peace and harmony with mutual respect.

3. Justice and Equality -- All people, regardless of race, sex, or social status, have the right to be treated equally and fairly in the eyes of the law.

4. Education -- Everyone has the right to be functionally literate as a basic tool for personal advancement and the ability to attain knowledge.

5. Family -- A strong, stable family structure is necessary for the moral foundation of society.

6. Social Responsibility -- Individually and

nationally, we are responsible for each other. This includes responsibility for disease, poverty, famine, crime and drugs, as well as environmental problems and animal rights.

Where do these values come from? Most people would say Greece or Rome. Would you be surprised to find out that they are wrong? In a highly readable, well-documented and fascinating book, Rabbi Spiro illuminates the origins of values and virtues in Western Civilization. Would you be surprised to learn that these values came from the Jewish people?

If you are thinking “the good rabbi is exaggerating a ‘bit’ about the Jewish influence on civilizing humanity,” I bring John Adams, Second President of the United States! Writes Mr. Adams, “... I will insist that the Hebrews have done more to civilize men than any other nation. If I were an atheist and believed in blind eternal fate, I should still believe that fate had ordained the Jews to be the most essential instrument for civilizing the nations. ... They are the most glorious Nation that ever inhabited this Earth. The Romans and their Empire were but a bauble in comparison of the Jews. They have given religion to three-quarters of the Globe and have influenced the affairs of Mankind more, and more happily than any other Nation, ancient or modern.” (from a letter to F.A. Van der Kemp, 1808. Pennsylvania Historical Society.)

Paul Johnson, a Christian historian, writes in his book, The History of the Jews, (New York: Harper & Row, 1987) : “One way of summing up 4,000 years of Jewish history is to ask ourselves what would have happened to the human race if the Jewish people would not have come into being. Certainly the world without the Jews would have been a radically different place. Humanity might have eventually stumbled upon all the Jewish insights. But we cannot be sure.

“To [the Jews] we owe the idea of equality before the law; of the sanctity of life, of collective conscience and of social responsibility; of peace and love, and many other items which constitute the basic moral furniture of the human mind.... It is almost beyond our capacity to imagine how the world would have fared if they had never emerged.”

If you are fascinated to learn more about the impact of the Jewish people on humanity, you can purchase a copy at any bookstore (though it is nice to support your local Jewish bookstore!) or by calling toll-free 877-758-3242. There is also an online interactive multi-media seminar at www.aish.com/worldpefect.

WorldPerfect


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The Facebook Fiasco Continued from page 15

who grew up relying on Google’s search engine, email, and other services, Schmidt begged his listeners: “Take your eyes off that screen and look into the eyes of the person you love. Have a conversation, a real conversation.”

His words resonate with very special meaning for observant Jews. We have long come to recognize that for our lives to have meaning we must be the masters of our technology -- and the only way to prove our mastery is by demonstrating our ability to control its power over us. When we can no longer call a halt to our creations, we must admit we have

formed Frankensteins that can destroy us.

We go Schmidt one better. We don’t just “take an hour a day and turn that thing off,” but for a full day out of seven we substitute the human contact of the Shabbos table for texting, and family face-to-face conversations for Facebook.

And that doesn’t make us religious fanatics. It simply means we are realistic enough to realize that as wonderful as the Internet can be, it must come with a label, “Handle with care.”

Reprinted with permission from Aish.com, a leading website on Jewish thought and perspectives.

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