Dear Alumni Sheyichyu!
Sholom U’Brocho!
Mazel Tov to Mendy Hecht on the occasion of his chasuna. May the new home be set up alyesodei hatorah vehamitzvos, and be a keli for all brochos! Mazel Tov to Rabbi & Mrs. Avremy Schochet on the birth of their daughter. May they bring her up lTO veCHuMAA”T mitoch harchovo, and to be a true chayol! (If anyone is aware of any mazeltov’s that I omitted please let me know).
Thank you as always for the feedback, it is much appreciated.
The story (that I wrote you last week) seems to raise a very strong question: when asked whether or not the brother of the girl should sign a consent form (for the test that Dr. Davidoff wanted to perform), the Rebbe’s response (according to the story) was that he should, since the Torah requires obedience to the doctor’s instructions, emphasizing that this doctor was one of the top in the world. The Rebbe appeared to stress the Torah’s requirement to follow the directives of a competent doctor (a theme found repeatedly in the Rebbe’s Igros).
Yet, in the same conversation, toch kedaidibur, the Rebbe continued that this was applicable solely with regards to the test in question; with regards to anything else that the doctor would demand, the Rebbe emphatically called on them to disobey him! [In fact the question is stronger in light of what is mentioned in the hemshech of the same story (that I didn’t manage to complete last week): An additional complication arose, and the Rebbe instructed them to consult with 2 top specialists. “However”, the Rebbe concluded, “in the event that they both concur to operate, disobey both of them!”]
How are we to understand the seeming incongruity, the insistence about the necessity to obey a doctor, together with the simultaneous instruction to ignore any doctor who doesn’t prescribe according to the Rebbe’s wishes? Is the Torah position that one must listen to the doctor, or not?
Perhaps it can be elucidated based on the following story (heard from R’ Mendel Aronow):
The Tzemach Tzedek used to get countless halachik queries from all over the world. In the later years of the Tzemach Tzedek, he wouldn’t answer the letters himself, but would delegate that task to one or 2 of his sons. The finished teshuva would then be brought to the Tzemach Tzedek for his approval, before being sent out. [It should be noted that there was a similar practice during the lifetime of the Mitteler Rebbe, when the Mitteler Rebbe would give the incoming shailos to the Tzemach Tzedek to respond to them, and then would look over the answers].
On one occasion, there was a complex shailoh regarding an agunah: A man had disappeared, and there were numerous indications that he had, in fact, died. The question was whether the evidence was halachikally sufficient to establish that the man was (al pi Torah) dead, and to therefore permit his wife to get remarried.
The son of the Tzemach Tzedek (the Mahari”l?) wrote an involved teshuva, in which he cited various halachik sources that supported the fact that the evidence could be accepted as legitimate proof that the husband was indeed dead, and that according to Torah his wife was free to remarry.
Upon completion, he dutifully brought his handiwork to the Tzemach Tzedek for his approval. The Tzemach Tzedek began reading the teshuva, and his son recognized from his facial expressions that he found something objectionable with it.
“What is it father?” he asked, “Did you find fault with the source I brought from tosefos?”
“No, no”, replied the Tzemach Tzedek, “your source from tosefos is irrefutable”. The Tzemach Tzedek, continued to read, and again his expressions seemed far from pleased. “What is it father?” his son inquired again, “do you not agree with the reasoning that I borrowed from the shach?”
“No, no”, replied the Tzemach Tzedek again, “your reasoning is sound and your logic beyond reproach”. The Tzemach Tzedek continued to read, but his displeasure was clearly evident. “Father”, cried the Maharil, “if I erred in my judgment, please inform me and I will correct it. I can clearly see that something is troubling you about this teshuva, and I will not leave you until you tell me what it is”.
So the Tzemech Tzedek enlightened him: “There is nothing faulty with your reasoning or with any of your halachik sources. Your conclusions are sound. Ober vos zol ich ton az ich zeh doch azer lebt (But what can I do when I can see that he is alive)!”
The Torah does instruct us to turn to a doctor in medical matters, and to follow his conclusions, as Chazal teach us: “Verapo Yerapeh – mikan shenitno reshus le roifeh lerapo is”. However, the doctor has neither the power nor the license to contradict an established truism. The doctor’s medical experience cannot contradict what the Rebbe plainly sees.
Thus, in the case of allowing the doctor to administer tests that he felt were warranted, the Rebbe said: ‘By all means, that is his duty, and the Torah expects us to cooperate with him’. The Torah recognizes the doctors’ mission of using his tests, his means, to determine the patients’ true situation. Let him do a test, and through it realize his earlier error. However, if it would be a matter of treating, and treating a condition that the Rebbe sees and states clearly does not exist, that is where the line was drawn. For, the Torah’s mandate to obey the doctor, cannot be applicable when the doctor is in contradiction and denial of the reality that the Rebbe plainly sees!
We have many comparable situations in our own lives. Occasionally we are caught in a seeming dilemma between what our ideals and principles appear to dictate to us, and where the dictates of the Torah seem to be leading us. Doesn’t the Torah instruct us to take care of our health and our family? Doesn’t the Torah expect me to make an adequate vessel for my livelihood?
The answer, obviously, is that of course it does. The Torah requires us to support our bodies and our physical well-being, to utilize the opportunities in the material world around us. But only because they are meant to serve as vehicles to bring us even closer to Hashem, they are to assist us in arriving at the inevitable conclusion that “Ein Od Milvado”.
But, to draw us towards an erroneous conclusion as if this world has independent value; - that was not the license that Torah provided. Nothing can contradict or detract from the ultimate truism that “Havaya Hu HoElokim”!
Of course, it is the Torah that instructs us to be healthy, to make a living, (to have a nice house, and take good care of our families by taking them to nice restaurants and on fun vacations etc.). But if we take that a step further, and blame our pursuit of worldliness and our viewing it as important, as something that is Torah-based, then that is a distortion. For the Torah teaches us how to use the world, to work with the world, in order to arrive through it at the conclusions that Torah teaches us are true, and not ch”v vice versa.
A bochur once wrote to the Rebbe, informing the Rebbe of his intention to get a driver’s license. The bochur explained to the Rebbe (in his letter), that his purpose in getting (needing) the license was in order to be able to be more effectively involved in mivtzoim.
The Rebbe’s response was quick to arrive: “Vos shlepst du mir arein in dain nefesh habehamis” [Why are you dragging me into your nefesh habehamis]!!
The Rebbe obviously sensed that this bochur was using the Torah (chassidishkeit, mivtzoim) as an excuse for pursuing his own nefesh habehamis and erroneous outlook, rather than using the world as a means of pursuing and enhancing his relationship with the Eibishter. The Rebbe, therefore, negated his suggestion completely.
Every chosid needs to be living with the feeling and opleig that “Vos zol ich ton az ich zeh doch azer lebt”! The reality, that “Hashem Elokim Emes Hu Elokim Chayim”, that the only thing real and alive in the world is G-dliness, and the only life that man can achieve (machen a leben) is to be “Dveikim baHashem Elokeichem chayim kulchem”, is the reality around which everything else in our world revolves. That is the one truism, which is unshakable and unquestionable.
For example: you’re making plans for the summer (or for Purim, or for vacation etc.). Of course you want to enjoy yourself, and perhaps relax after a hard year of learning (work etc.) So you start examining your options. If you go to camp, you’ll have friends, but maybe not such a sensational experience (been there, done that already). You could go on merkaz shlichus, but perhaps not such exciting company. To go on birthright, is vechulu vechulu vechulu.
But, hey, wait a minute. Didn’t something get reversed over here? Since when is our primary aim, our main consideration, to enjoy ourselves? Camp is fun, in order for the excitement and fun of camp to be able to be utilized to bring the kids closer to Yiddishkeit, to further our primary cause of making a dirah lo yisborach batachtonim.
Not that camp is part of Yiddishkeit in order that I can be a chassidishe bochur, and still use camp as an excuse to pursue enjoyment and fun. The reality is Eibishter, the mission is, as we learn in this week’s Parsha “Ve’osuli mikdash veshachanti besocham”. All else must work around that, but the perspective stays the same (as they say in Vancouver: “Elokus b’Pshitus v’Olomos b’hischadshus”)!
Likewise regarding someone who gets married (each of you at the right time..) The mitzvah of caring for your family is not a license to start justifying the pursuit of your own enjoyments with a hechsher of Torah. Rather, Chassidim used to Koch zich in the Rash in the possuk “Vesimaches ishto”, that one who translates the Possuk as meaning that you’re supposed to have a good time with your ishto is making a grave mistake. The sole focus is on your responsibility to making vehicles for veshachanti besocham.
And this is true about any type of involvement al pi Torah with worldly affairs (doctors, camps, mivtzoah’s etc.). They’re not here to turn our pursuit of enjoyment into something permissible, or even obligatory (although that’s not to say that, if you have the right priorities and goal, you can’t enjoy yourself and have fun while carrying them out, veaderabo, VAKML).
Nothing in Torah can be changing the ultimate reality that “Ein Od Milvado”. Any directives of the Torah to use the world are with the aim of making the world help us along in arriving at that conclusion.
Actually, it all boils down to learning more chassidus (that’s right, - more chassidus). Enough chassidus so that we should indeed see with our own eyes and mind “azer lebt doch”, that our reality and priorities should be unshakable.
And that is the first step to truly turning Adar into a Chodesh asher nehepach!
L’chaim! May we see clearly azer lebt, and translate into our lives, that should geared towards carrying out our mission of “veosuli mikdash veshachanti besocham”, and may the Eibishter do his part to help us truly see this, by fulfilling the Possuk “V’Nigleh kvod Hashem”, with the hisgalus of Moshiach Tzidkeinu TUMYM!!!
Rabbi Akiva Wagner
