say that. I couldn’t say it myself. Rabbeinu Yonah is saying it, however. םָ„ָ‡ָה ַ̇ירƒˆ¿י י≈ר¿ּ ̃ƒע≈מ! This obligation of praising good things is the foundation of a man’s creation in this world.
So let's do it right now. That's our job in life! And whenever you get a chance, don’t wait for tomorrow. Every time you're speaking to anybody – that’s what Rabbeinu Yonah says – make it your business, that a terumah, part of your conversation, should be for Hashem.
Part III. Aromatic People
A Nation of Service
Now, included in this subject of beautifying whatever is connected to Hashem is the great program of raising up the stature of the Am Yisroel. After all, why is the Beis Hamikdash most important? Why was the Beis Hamikdash the place where the unique ketores was burned? Because it was the place that represented avodas Hashem. And what is Bnei Yisroel? They are the ovdei Hashem! Some more, some less, but the Jewish people are the ones who spend their lives in the service of Hashem.
And that means that praising the Am Yisroel has to be one of the most important subjects of our conversation. And don’t think it’s a small thing because the yetzer hara is a very powerful force in the world; and the same way the outside world makes all of avodas Hashem unimportant and foolish and odorous, the Orthodox Jew is also made to smell bad in the eyes of the world. The world has been convinced for a long time that the Orthodox are no good. And the more Orthodox he is, the worse it is. On reshaim there is always a limud zechus but on the Orthodox Jew, never.
Dirty Jews
I remember once there was a man who worked for AIPAC, The American Israel Political Action Committee. He was the president or their executive director and he once made a statement in public; he said that he never went to Brooklyn because he doesn’t like to be around Orthodox Jews. “They’re smelly,” he said. The New York Times loved that – they printed it twice.
Because who smells the worst among all the nations? Is it the black man? No, of course not. The Puerto Rican? No. The Italian? No. The world says that it’s the Jew who smells the worst. Who is most hated in the world, the most despised? The Jew.
How is it that the UN today always votes against Israel? They speak of Medinas Yisroel as if it was the worst. Now, I'm not a big patriot of the State of Israel – far from it – but the whole UN should say the Arabs are always right? It’s only because the Jew is always maligned, always slandered.
Jewish Antisemites
And by the way, very many Jews are so influenced by the opinions of the goyim that the Jews themselves become anti-Semites. Reform Jews, assimilated Jews, they're ashamed of being Jewish. And so even though once upon a time, that's all it was, the gentiles, but today they have a great number of allies among the Jews. The Reformers today are very busy belittling the frum Jews.
And the truth is it rubs off on us; no question it has an effect on us. That’s why we find observant Jews who sometimes ridicule other frum Jews. A woman from Virginia, an observant woman, visited Boro Park and she called me up. She is going back now and she said, “I’m happy to be going back. Boro Park is too crowded. And they’re all on programs too.”
I told her, “You know what you are saying? You are doing a terrible crime! That’s how you speak about our best people? You are talking about the best people in America.”
Except maybe for Williamsburg – Williamsburg is even better. But Boro Park is the second best! You walk there and it’s blocks and blocks of shomrei mitzvos; mezuzos on every door. And inside, the homes are filled with children! Every house is a beautiful Beis Hamikdash of kedusha.
Handsome Jews
And that’s the only beauty we recognize. To us there’s nothing in the world as handsome as a Jew who keeps the Torah; and the more he keeps, the more beautiful he is. In Yiddish when we described a good Jew, an upstanding Jew, we used to say “Ah sheineh Yid.” Now actually it means ‘a handsome Jew’ but we use that word because to us every decent frum Jew is good looking. And if he’s not a shomer mitzvos, he’s not beautiful. He’s a cripple, deformed; something is funny with him if he’s not a frum Jew. But a frum decent Jew? Nothing is more beautiful.
And so we have a big job ahead of us. We have to speak up for the Jewish people, always making them more and more beautiful; always speaking of them with admiration.
Now, this already you’ll think is not for you. “Who am I?” you’ll say. “Am I Rabbi Levi Yitzchok Berditchiver that I should speak on behalf of the Klal Yisroel?”
And the answer is, everybody is expected to speak up for the Am Yisroel. ‡ָˆֹמו לָכ¿ּב ַיחƒּ‚¿ׁ ַ̆י¿ו ̃≈ּ„¿ ַ̃„יƒו יוָ‡≈ירƒו יוָ„¿בֹעו ַח≈ּבַׁ ̆¿ל ... יוָ ָ̇פ¿ׂ ̆ - You have to be careful that there should always come out of your mouth words of praise for those who serve Hashem. And it says there, ̇≈ﬠ לָכ¿ּב – at all times! It means as much as possible we have to adorn the Am Yisroel.
Speak About Others
Of course, I don’t expect a Satmarer to go all out, let’s say, for Lakewood. Naturally, a Satmarer sees the advantages of his own people more easily; and in Lakewood they like the Lakewooders. But you shouldn’t limit yourself. You know, I’m not a Satmarer but I can say many wonderful things about Satmar. I’m not a Lubavitcher but I have many good things to say about them too.
And so everyone should ask themselves, “Am I fulfilling this function of a Jew, of making the Am Yisroel beautiful?” Where is the good word for plain frum Jews? The Williamsburg Jew? He and his wife are raising a big family. They are sacrificing to bring up Jewish boys and girls with purity, with tznius, with piety, with derech eretz, with yiras Shomayim. Do we have enough words to praise these frum families in Flatbush or the chassidishe Jews in Williamsburg or the Lubavitcher in Crown Heights?
The Kollel Couple
Do we have enough words to praise the kollel man or the kollel wife who is sacrificing that her husband should learn Torah? The sweetest smelling people are the yeshiva men. They’re young. They have no money, no power, but they are devoted to learning the Toras Hashem.
The wives too! Here you have a young idealistic girl who marries a kollel man. And he tells her beforehand, “I have nothing so we’ll have to live in a basement in Boro Park – at the edge of Boro Park in a Spanish neighborhood. And it won’t be so clean either; it’s infested in those buildings. But the rent there is the cheapest I could get and I want to sit and learn.”
And she says, “I’m all in – that’s what I want!”
And so they move into this little den; that’s all it is, a den! It’s not easy for them. Everything is covered; otherwise they would find droppings in the food. Every night they put out the mouse traps and every day she sprays the baseboards with DDT. But they’re living happily; they’re succeeding at their goal in life – they’re building a mishkan for the Shechinah!
Now today some people would disparage that. If the father-in-law can buy you a nice car and pay for a nice apartment, OK. It’s easy to be a kollel man on your father-in-law’s shoulders. But to live with such simplicity, with the bare minimum? Many people aren’t impressed by that. But that’s a big mistake. It should be our pride that our young couples forgo the pleasures of this world to live idealistic Torah lives!
Sweet Smelling Boys
Do we have enough words to speak of the glory of the Jewish boy who walks the straight path? He walks through the street among goyim as they attack him. They attack him! But he doesn't swerve from the path of virtue and he continues on to the yeshiva and he puts his soul into the words of the Torah. Do we have enough words to praise them? We fall short of praises!
The Gemara (Brachos 43b) says: י≈רּחוַּב יןƒ„יƒ ֲ̇ﬠןֹנוָבּ¿לַּכ בֹטו ַיח≈רּנוּ¿ ּ̇ƒיׁ∆ ̆ ל≈‡ָרׂ¿ ̆ƒי – There will come a time when Jewish boys will give off the fragrance of perfume in the air like the sweet smell of the pine forest! Now, if the Gemara says that, it means that’s the truth! And that’s how we’re expected to think right now – these are the people that smell good.
Foul Smells
So if you ever walk into Brooklyn College, you say “I walked into a foul smelling place; wicked people dressed in ragged denim. Phew!” That's the way to speak of Brooklyn College. Not only Brooklyn College; all the colleges! They’re horror houses! That’s what they are. Horror houses! Filthy places of degeneracy where they encourage narcotics; they encourage the most immoral things. The teachers preach it. So when you walk out of that place your garments have to be aired! They smell bad! That's the way to speak. They deserve a bad name. You know, when you want to say somebody gave you a bad name, so in lashon kodesh you say lehavisheini – you gave me a bad odor. And so we heap on them bad odors.
But a yeshiva boy? With him you associate a pleasant fragrance, a fragrance that enhances his personality. Anybody who goes to yeshiva, anybody who spends the day learning Gemara is to us good looking and handsome and romantic. They’re not learning Torah in order to make a living. They’re not learning computers right now, not learning how to do any kind of profession. They’re learning only for lishmah, nothing that’ll bring them in money. And it’s our job to elevate them because of that, to speak about them in ways that your listeners acquire a very great respect for the bnei yeshiva!
Holy Girls
Or when you see frum girls on the street, praise them to whomever you’re with. Don’t be bashful about it. When the Beis Yaakov girls pass by, or the Beis Rochel girls or Beis Rivka girls, make it your business to be maktir ketores: “Ah! Baruch Hashem! Frum, tzniusdige girls!” We’re proud of those girls; they are our glory and we shouldn’t disdain the opportunity to praise them up to the sky. All decent, all well behaved; a mechayeh to see them. They’re full of kosher idealism. They learn mussar in the girl’s institutions. They learn hashkafa and they’re so inspired. Baruch Hashem!
There's nothing in the whole world like the frum Jewish boys and frum Jewish girls. Lehavdil, the boys and girls from a Catholic school, they’re better than in the public school, but still what kind of comparison is this? Pheh! They have different kinds of derech eretz! Ach! Not even the slightest comparison!
The Jewish Street
We have to talk about that and always propagandize to the world, make them understand how lucky we are we have such a youth. In the whole world there’s nothing like the frum Jewish boys and frum Jewish girls. If you walk down the street in a frum neighborhood, all frum Jews living on both sides of the street, that’s the safest street in America. No street in America is as safe as a street where frum Jews live. Without exception! There’s no place in America that is just as safe as it is in a frum neighborhood.
And therefore we shouldn’t keep quiet about it – we have to talk about that always. As much as possible you should find ways and means of propagandizing to the world about the greatness of our frum children.
Middah Kineged Middah
And that’s what the mitzvah of ketores is teaching us to do. We smell a sweet fragrance in Torah things and we have to get busy saying the truth and creating a good fragrance around anything connected to Hashem and His Torah. Whatever belongs to Hashem and His Torah is beautiful to us. Anything connected with our nation – of course I mean the Torah nation, the Torah practices; otherwise, even if it’s the land of Israel, it could be Hebrew letters too, but if it’s not Hashem’s, if it’s not Torah, it’s not beautiful. But whatever belongs to Hashem – His mitzvos, His Torah, His ways and His people – our career in life is to make them more and more beautiful.
And because this program of making the most important things smell good is so valuable in the eyes of Hakadosh Baruch Hu, therefore the reward we’ll get for fulfilling it is also valuable. Listen to what Rabbeinu Yonah says about this: ַיﬠƒּ‚ַי ‡ֹל¿ּב ה∆ּכ¿זƒי¿ו םƒיַמָּׁ ַ̆ל „ַﬠ הָלֹו„¿ּ‚ ּ̇כו¿ז םƒיַּפַּכ ל≈ﬠֹפוּו – Without any difficult work or labor of your hands you will merit a reward that is so great that it goes up to the heavens. It means that if you raise the avodas Hashem and the ovdei Hashem up to the high heavens, your reward for your efforts will also be up םƒיַמָּׁ ַ̆ ל „ַﬠ הָלֹו„¿ּ‚, up to the sky; because that’s how important of a career this is!
Have A Wonderful Shabbos
Let’s Get Practical
Spreading Good Propaganda
This week I will bli neder make a concerted effort to speak up once every day in praise of great ideals. Whether a mitzvah, a middah tovah, a tzaddik, or a praise of the Am Yisroel, I will plan out once a day to create an opportunity for myself; to open my mouth and bring honor to Hashem by means of making the things that are important to Hashem into the sweet smelling things in this world!
This week’s booklet is based on tapes: 247 - Beautifying the Beautiful | 845 - Praise the Righteous E-153 - My Son, Give Me Your Heart | E-181 - Speak Up For the Truth | E-187 - Tikkun Olam: Improving the World
