A King, Amalek, and a Sanctuary

Parashat Shofetim presents a mitzvah that has generated centuries of discussion: “You shall surely appoint a king over yourself” (Devarim 17:15). Is appointing a king an absolute obligation, or does the Torah permit it as a concession to human weakness? Whatever position one takes in that debate, the institution of Jewish kingship was central to the establishment of Am Yisrael in Eretz Yisrael. It began with Shaul, reached its enduring form through David HaMelech, and remains part of our vision of redemption through the restoration of Malchut Beit David. Our member Rabbi Paul Bloom tells us more about this and about the national mitzvot that map our personal journal through Chodesh Elul.

The mitzvah of appointing a king does not stand alone. Chazal place it within a sequence of three national mitzvot that together define the spiritual establishment of the Jewish people in their Land. Remarkably, the same sequence also provides a map for the inner work of Elul and the Yamim Nora’im.

Three Mitzvot, One National Mission

The Gemara teaches that, upon entering Eretz Yisrael, the Jewish people were commanded to fulfill three mitzvot: appoint a king, eradicate Amalek, and build the Beit HaMikdash (Sanhedrin 20b). The Rambam codifies this at the very beginning of Hilchot Melachim (1:1) and emphasizes that these mitzvot must be performed in that order.

First comes national leadership: “Som tasim alecha melech”—appoint a king. Next comes the struggle against Amalek, the force that attacks Israel and seeks to sever the bond between the Jewish people and Hashem. Only after that enemy has been overcome can the nation build the Beit HaBechirah, the sacred dwelling place of the Divine Presence.

This sequence is woven through the closing parshiyot of Sefer Devarim. Re’eh speaks of the place Hashem will choose for His dwelling. Shofetim commands the appointment of a king. Ki Teitzei concludes with the obligation to erase the memory of Amalek. Moshe Rabbeinu, preparing the nation to enter the Land, was not merely listing isolated commandments. He was laying out the architecture of Jewish nationhood.

The Rambam’s placement of these laws is itself striking. Hilchot Melachim concludes the Mishneh Torah, his monumental codification of Jewish law. Its final chapters move from the responsibilities of kings to the laws of Mashiach. Jewish kingship is therefore not a historical curiosity. It belongs to the past, present, and future of our people. It begins with establishing Hashem’s rule in national life and culminates in the redeemed world for which we pray.

From National History to Personal Avodah

These parshiyot are always read as Elul approaches or begins. Elul is a time of preparation, self-examination, and spiritual resolve. We take stock of who we are, identify where we have fallen short, and prepare to stand before Hashem on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.

The three national mitzvot can also be understood as three stages in that personal journey.

The first stage is appointing a king. Rosh Hashanah is, above all, the day of Hashem’s coronation. The shofar does more than awaken us; it proclaims the sovereignty of the King. Before asking what we want from the coming year, we must ask whom we serve. Teshuvah begins when we cease placing ourselves at the center and accept that our lives have a higher purpose. “Appointing a king” means renewing our allegiance to Hashem and allowing His will to direct our choices.

The second stage is eradicating Amalek. On the personal level, Amalek represents the coldness, doubt, cynicism, and spiritual inertia that weaken our relationship with Hashem. Each person knows the tendencies that pull him or her away from the life he or she wishes to lead: careless speech, neglected prayer or Torah study, impatience, resentment, unhealthy habits, or simple indifference.

We may not be able to transform ourselves overnight. Elul does not demand dramatic promises that disappear a few weeks later. It asks for honesty and movement. We identify one area of negativity and begin to weaken its hold. That is the work of the Aseret Yemei Teshuvah: confronting the inner adversary and choosing one concrete step toward becoming better.

The third stage is building the Mikdash. After accepting the King and beginning to remove what obstructs us, we can create a place for holiness. Yom Kippur represents entry into the Kodesh HaKodashim. On that day, stripped of ordinary physical concerns, every Jew is invited into an atmosphere of purity, forgiveness, and closeness to Hashem. The personal Beit HaMikdash is built when our heart, home, and daily life become places in which the Shechinah can dwell.

The Light of Psalm 27

This progression helps explain why Psalm 27, LeDavid Hashem Ori Veyishi, accompanies us through Elul and the festival season. The Midrash associates its opening words with these sacred days: “Hashem is my light” points to Rosh Hashanah; “my salvation” to Yom Kippur; and the later image of being sheltered in His sukkah points to Sukkot.

The psalm acknowledges danger without surrendering to fear. Enemies may surround us, but our attention remains fixed on Hashem: “One thing I ask of Hashem…that I may dwell in the house of Hashem all the days of my life.” Its movement mirrors the three mitzvot. We recognize the true King, resist the forces that threaten us, and yearn to dwell in His sanctuary.

Building the Sanctuary Within

We live in a time when the Jewish people know both profound darkness and remarkable light. We have witnessed cruelty, loss, war, and captivity. We have also witnessed courage, unity, prayer, sacrifice, and an unbreakable attachment to Am Yisrael and Eretz Yisrael.

Elul asks us not merely to admire that light in others, but to kindle it within ourselves. The path is clear: accept the King, confront the Amalek within, and build a sanctuary for Hashem in our lives.

Rosh Hashanah calls us to offer our allegiance. The Aseret Yemei Teshuvah call us to change. Yom Kippur calls us to holiness. Sukkot then gathers us beneath the shelter of Hashem’s presence.

These are not disconnected holidays, nor are the Torah’s three national mitzvot disconnected commands. Together they describe the journey of a nation and the journey of every Jewish soul: from sovereignty, through struggle, to sacred space.

May we recognize the light Hashem sends even in difficult times. May that light guide our teshuvah, illuminate the year ahead, and hasten the day when the national journey is completed with the restoration of Malchut Beit David and the rebuilding of the Beit HaMikdash.

On the Derech

Here's the text of a Minchah-Maariv mini-shiur given by Jeremy Phillips on Tuesday 11 August 2026, during Rabbi Kenigsberg's summer vacation. 

Let’s look at a teaching from Avot that, in very different ways, relates to the value of Torah and not why, or how, but where you should learn it. It’s a baraita at Avot 6:9 that goes like this (omitting the proof pasukim):

אָמַר רַבִּי יוֹסֵי בֶּן קִסְמָא: פַּֽעַם אֶחָת הָיִֽיתִי מְהַלֵּךְ בַּדֶּֽרֶךְ, וּפָגַע בִּי אָדָם אֶחָד, וְנָתַן לִי שָׁלוֹם, וְהֶחֱזַֽרְתִּי לוֹ שָׁלוֹם, אָמַר לִי: רַבִּי, מֵאֵיזֶה מָקוֹם אָֽתָּה, אָמַֽרְתִּי לוֹ: מֵעִיר גְּדוֹלָה שֶׁל חֲכָמִים וְשֶׁל סוֹפְרִים אָֽנִי. אָמַר לִי: רַבִּי, רְצוֹנְךָ שֶׁתָּדוּר עִמָּֽנוּ בִּמְקוֹמֵֽנוּ, וַאֲנִי אֶתֵּן לָךְ אֶֽלֶף אֲלָפִי דִּנְרֵי זָהָב וַאֲבָנִים טוֹבוֹת וּמַרְגָּלִיּוֹת. אָמַֽרְתִּי לוֹ: אִם אַתָּה נוֹתֵן לִי כָּל כֶּֽסֶף וְזָהָב וַאֲבָנִים טוֹבוֹת וּמַרְגָּלִיּוֹת שֶׁבָּעוֹלָם, אֵינִי דָר אֶלָּא בִּמְקוֹם תּוֹרָה

Rabbi Yossei ben Kisma said: Once I was traveling and I encountered a man. He greeted me and I returned his greetings. He said to me: "Rabbi, where are you from?" I said to him: "From a great city of sages and scholars, am I." He said to me: "Rabbi, would you like to live with us in our place? I will give you a million dinars of silver, gold, precious stones and pearls." I said to him: "If you were to give me all the silver, gold, precious stones and pearls in the world, I would not live anywhere but in a place of Torah.

Incidentally, it’s not clear whether this baraita should be here in Avot at all.  Some editions of Avot leave it out—and, while it’s also found in Kallah Rabbati, it’s not in Eliyahu Zuta.

Be that as it may, on the surface this looks like a straightforward message. A rich man meets talmid chacham, asks him to come to his town as the rabbi and offers a large inducement. The talmid chacham says no. The moral of the story? Torah is worth more than any money can buy. The first of the proof pasukim cited in support of this baraita validates this understanding. As we sing on Simchat Torah, טוֹב לִי תוֹרַת פִּֽיךָ, מֵאַלְפֵי זָהָב וָכָֽסֶף

But things are never as easy as they seem.

First, let’s look at the man himself. Who was Rabbi Yose ben Kisma?. We only know a little about him, but what we know is quite significant. He lived in Kisari, now Caesarea. Was this a “great city of sages and scholars?” That’s a tricky one. It may well have been originally a great city of sages and scholars—but it was not at the time Rabbi Yose was there. He lived there in the middle of the 2^nd century, when what was formerly a city with an active Jewish population had become a prosperous Roman market town. It was not to become an עִיר גְּדוֹלָה שֶׁל חֲכָמִים וְשֶׁל סוֹפְרִים until more than a century later, under the influence of Rabbi Abbahu and the third generation of Amoraim. Anyway, when Rabbi Yose died, some time after the Bar Kochba revolt, Kisari was a veritable citadel of Roman culture. Rabbi Yose was himself on good terms with the Romans. Indeed, a Gemara in Avoda Zara tells how the local Roman administrators attended his funeral as a sign of respect.

So where was Rabbi Yose going on his journey? If Kisari was a great city of scholars and sages, he wouldn’t need to be going anywhere. According to Rabbi Shmuel di Uceda, author of the Midrash Shmuel, this was indeed the case, as the opening words of the narrative suggest. Says the Midrash Shmuel, don’t think the words pa’am achat mean “once upon a time”; they mean this: “Look at me! I only left the Beit Midrash once and suddenly I was beset by all these temptations – gold, silver, kavod”. This leaves an interesting question, though. If Rabbi Yose hardly ever left the Beit Midrash and the Roman governors probably never had any reason to enter it, how did they become such good friends that the Romans turned up at his funeral?

But let’s leave Rabbi Yose aside and take a look at the man who encounters him on his journey and tries to buy him. Who is this man? Do we even need to know? No, we don’t, if all we are supposed to learn from this baraita is that we shouldn’t sell out and make our Torah subordinate to our material wealth. But the Maharal of Prague disagrees. In his Derech Chaim, the Maharal regards it is highly significant that we don’t know who this man is because, paradoxically, the fact that we don’t know who he is means that we do know who he is. Who turns up in many stories when no-one recognizes him? Why, of course, it’s Eliyahu haNavi! Several times in aggadic passages in the Gemara, Eliyahu turns up incognito. This man who encounters Rabbi Yose must therefore be Eliyahu. Since Eliyahu is an emissary of Hashem, it follows that Rabbi Yose is being tested by God himself, the implication being that even if the gold and silver that you are offered is a reward, as it were, for services rendered in this world, you should have the strength of character to refuse it.

In case the Maharal is wrong about this, and the mysterious man is not Eliyahu haNavi, there’s someone else he might be, someone else who alsoturns up incognito offering great things. And that’s the Satan. This hypothesis is also quite plausible since the level of the bribe to take the position of town rabbi is so great and no other terms of engagement are specified. This suggests that the magnitude of the wealth on offer should be sufficient to blind Rabbi Yose to all other considerations.

So, we’ve dealt with the basic story and we’ve said a bit about Rabbi Yose and the stranger he encounters. Now let’s look at the moment they meet.

Strangely, the first person to speak is the stranger, who greets the rabbi. Isn’t this wrong? It’s axiomatic that a learned rabbi who knows his Pirkei Avot should implement the teaching of Rabbi Masya ben Chorosh in perek 4 and be the first to greet others—and the Gemara teaches that Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai was first to greet everyone—even the non-Jews he met in the shuk—so why doesn’t Rabbi Yose do the same? Now here the Maharal’s explanation comes in handy. Whether the stranger is Eliyahu haNavi or the Satan, he would simply have appeared before the rabbi’s eyes without giving the latter a chance to see him coming! And even if this is wrong, we may conjecture that Rabbi Yose—even on his journey—was so engrossed in his Torah learning that he wasn’t looking around to admire the scenery (which might incur a spiritual death penalty if he stopped learning long enough to admire the scenery: per Rabbi Yaakov in Avot perek 3), and he wouldn’t have seen anyone coming at all.

Another mystery is why the stranger opens the dialogue by asking Rabbi Yose straight away where he comes from. It’s much more normal to say something like “who are you? What’s your name? even “Where are you heading?” I’ll come back to this later.

But perhaps the biggest mystery in this baraita, at least for the many rabbis who have commented on it, is the size of the booty offered to Rabbi Yose to go with the stranger and take the job. Put at its simplest level—and this is good news for Rabbi Kenigsberg—there is no halachic limit to the amount a rabbi can earn or own. The Gemara in Kiddushin cites the case of Rabbi Elazar ben Charsom, whose name was a byword for unimaginable affluence and he was praised for being able to learn Torah despite the responsibility he bore for his massive wealth. While Rabbi Tzadok in the fourth perek of Avot, citing Hillel, insists that one must not use one’s Torah as a spade to dig with, there’s no problem with anyone showering their favourite rabbi with gold, silver, share stock in AI start-ups or even tickets to fly El Al. But while the good news for Rabbi Kenigsberg is that the sky is the limit for what he can earn, there’s some bad news too. Nobody in the real world pays rabbis that much. And if you ask rabbis if they are same’ach b’chelkom, contented with their lot, they may ask you what you mean by “lot”. In short, their lot is not usually a happily affluent one.

This factor has coloured commentaries on our Baraita. Rabbi Yisrael Lipschitz, for example, the Tiferet Yisrael, says that the million gold dinars, gold, pearls and precious gems were never intended to be taken literally. No, he says, they are simply an invitation to Rabbi Yose to name his price, presumably on the normal rabbinical scale of his time. Rabbi Shmuel di Uceda takes a different line. When the stranger offers to give Rabbi Yose the million dinars and so on, what he really means to do is to comfort Rabbi Yose by saying “don’t worry. You won’t have to go collecting door-to-door to collect your pay. I’ll do that for you”. I suspect that this was not intended as a serious explanation of our baraita. Rather, it was a cry from the heart from Rabbi Shmuel di Uceda, who lived in Safed at the time when Sultan Murad III deported the city’s 1,500 richest Jewish citizens to Cyprus and left the poor man having to go knocking on doors to collect his own pay.

Now, if Rabbi Yose had accepted the offer and become rabbi in the stranger’s town, what would his job have looked like? The key word here is bimkomeinu; “in our place”. This word is double-edged. It can either mean “right here in our town” or it can mean “in place of us”. This double meaning was almost certainly unknown to Rabbi Yose in his day and age, where the concept of the “middle of the road”, nominally orthodox Jewish community had yet to develop. But we do know, particularly in some English-speaking parts of the diaspora, that there are places where people would really like to say: “We want a rabbi to be frum” in our place”, meaning “in place of us”. He can do all the religious stuff—we are happy to leave that to him, so long as he lets us get on with our lives and do our own thing”. In this sense a rabbi can earn a large salary and enjoy a comfortable lifestyle, though he may find that he is the only member of his community to keep Shabbat, observe the laws of kashrut outside as well as inside the home, or to do any Torah learning.

Incidentally, the tendency of all commentators is to side with Rabbi Yose and praise him for his principled approach in refusing any amount of money and treasure for the sake of Torah. Not one commentator that I know of has a kind word for the stranger who tries to buy Rabbi Yose’s knowledge and scholarship though. I think this is really sad. Here’s a man who, it is assumed, comes from a place that is not a makom Torah—and just look how much he is prepared to part with in order to get a Rav! How many of us would pay so much under similar conditions. The outrageously large sum offered to Rabbi Yose for his Torah presence is as much a praise for the value of the Torah as is his rejection of it.

Now to close with a few random points.

First, is the position of this baraita within the sixth perek significant? Some mefarshim make a great play of learning each mishnah or Baraita from what the one that came before it says. The Baraita that comes before ours, learned by Rabbi Shimon ben Yehudah in the name of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, sings the praises of both wealth and honour as being things that are no’eh latzadikim, things that befit the righteous and which, therefore, are things that holy rabbis are entitled to enjoy. Our teaching says yes, wealth and honour are indeed befitting for a tzaddik—but you shouldn’t compromise your Torah learning in order to get them.

Secondly, we have no idea whether the events recorded in this baraita ever happened. From the strange circumstances of the encounter and the many questions that arise from the dialogue, it may be that this whole thing is an invention of Rabbi Yose, a teaching device that conveys a powerful message: that our Torah is a treasure beyond worth.

In this context, we may be reading here a parable for the workings of the human mind.  Let’s read it like this: when Rabbi Yose says הָיִֽיתִי מְהַלֵּךְ בַּדֶּֽרֶךְ, he isn’t on a physical journey at all: he is telling us that he was on the derech, the derech yasharah, the straight and narrow. The adam who meets him is his own yetzer yara, who was poga, who encounters him unexpectedly (we daven on a daily basis for this sort of meeting not to happen when we ask to be spared a pega ra). Rabbi Yose and his yetzer hara don’t need to exchange names since they already know each other pretty well. The yetzer hara then challenges Rabbi Yose to look at where he is in life and to ask him: “don’t you think you could do better for yourself than to be a big rabbi in this relative Torah desert?” Rabbi Yose realizes that he could do much better in material terms, but he also recognizes that he has a good routine for learning Torah where he is, and that he doesn’t need to exchange the routine he knows for the uncertainties of a move to another place—particularly if it involves the disruptions involved in becoming the local celebrity Rav somewhere else. That would be like using the Torah as a spade to dig with.

Finally, here’s the question that troubles many laymen. Why didn’t Rabbi Yose just take the money and use it to set up a well-funded Beit Midrash from where he could be marbitz Torah and create a new generation of talmidei chachamim? I leave the answer to you.

Unbroken, by Gila Ross: Book of the Month, Elul 5786

Our final Book of the Month selection for 5786 is Unbroken, by life strategist Gila Ross. Published earlier this year by Mosaica, it's not a long book -- a speedy reader can devour it in a single sitting -- but it's one that has some positive and constructive advice for anyone facing a personal struggle right now and who is wondering how best to get to grips with it.

Gila Ross, who is married to Rabbi Samuel Ross and the mother of eight children, may be known to some of our members as the author of a rather longer book based on Pirkei Avot, Living Beautifully, has produced a very different work this time round. At its core lies a collection of interviews with people who have had to cope with challenges. Some are counselors whose task has been to assist and support those who are confronted by difficulties and hardships; others are the people who have been challenged. 

One of the personalities featured in this book is Beatie Deutsch, the remarkable Israeli Olympian marathon runner. In her interview Beatie speaks of how she combines her faith with her career and how she has to handle injury. She comments that "faith, or emunah, is a muscle that needs to be worked on and developed, just like any other muscle", adding: "Every situation we go through is tailored for us to work on building that faith". There's a very special connection between Beatie and Beit Knesset Hanassi, by the way: her parents, Doug and Vivian Rabin, are members of our shul.

Learning to See Through the Eyes of Torah

 In this piece by our member Rabbi Paul Bloom, we are invited to consider the quality of sight, its relationship to hearing and our ability to choose, and its role in our spiritual development as Jews.

"See, I place before you today a blessing and a curse." (Devarim 11:26). Every day we recite the words of the Shema:

"Hear, O Israel..."

Listening is one of the Torah's central themes. Faith begins by hearing Hashem's word. Yet Parashat Re'eh opens differently. Not with Shema—hear. But with Re'eh—see. Why the sudden change? After all, at Har Sinai the Jewish people heard the voice of Hashem but saw no image. Judaism rejected the pagan notion that God could be represented by something visible. If Hashem cannot be seen, what exactly is Moshe asking us to look at? The Torah's answer is profound. Hashem Himself cannot be seen—but His presence can be recognized through the lives we choose to live.

Seeing a Life of Blessing

Moshe tells the nation:

"See, I place before you today a blessing and a curse."

Notice that he does not merely describe blessing and curse. He says they can be seen. A life dedicated to Torah leaves visible footprints. You can see it in a family that honors parents. You can see it in communities built upon kindness and charity. You can see it in justice that protects the weak. You can see it in marriages strengthened by commitment, in children raised with purpose, and in lives filled with meaning. The Torah is inviting us to observe the results.

Leadership Begins with Example

The Ba'al HaTurim offers a beautiful insight. Moshe is saying, in effect: "Look at me." The greatest leaders do not merely teach—they model. Gideon used exactly this approach before battling Midian. Vastly outnumbered, he instructed his soldiers:

"Watch me, and do what I do." (Shofetim 7:17)

Those four words define authentic Jewish leadership. Parents influence children more through their actions than their lectures. Teachers educate by personal example. Communities rise because individuals quietly live the values they hope others will embrace. The Torah reminds us that every Jew is someone's role model.

Moshe Knew Both Worlds

The Kli Yakar deepens this lesson. Many people assume that spiritual leaders dismiss wealth because they never experienced it. Moshe Rabbeinu could never be accused of that. He grew up in Pharaoh's palace, surrounded by unimaginable luxury and power. Later he ascended Mount Sinai and experienced unparalleled closeness to Hashem. He had lived both lives. His testimony carries enormous weight. He knew firsthand that material success alone cannot satisfy the human soul. Real blessing comes from purpose. From holiness. From serving something greater than ourselves.

As Kohelet concludes after exploring every worldly pleasure:

"The end of the matter, when all has been heard: Fear God and keep His commandments, for this is the whole purpose of man." (Kohelet 12:13)

The Freedom to Choose

The Rambam, in Hilchot Teshuvah (Chapter 5), identifies this opening verse as one of the Torah's clearest declarations of human free will. Hashem gives us the dignity of choice. This idea distinguished Judaism from many philosophies of the ancient world, and it remains revolutionary today. Modern society often explains human behavior through genetics, psychology, economics, or environment. Judaism recognizes the influence of these forces but insists they never eliminate personal responsibility. Every person possesses the ability to choose. Blessing is not imposed. Neither is curse. Hashem places both before us and lovingly says:

"Choose."

As Moshe later declares:

"I have placed before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life." (Devarim 30:19)

Seeing Eretz Yisrael

There is another remarkable dimension to Moshe's opening command. The Ramban teaches that dwelling in Eretz Yisrael is itself a mitzvah, one that enables the Jewish people to live the Torah in its fullest expression. This idea is reflected throughout Parashat Re'eh. No other parashah emphasizes so repeatedly "the place that Hashem will choose." Again and again the Torah directs our attention toward the future spiritual center of Jewish life—Yerushalayim. The parashah concludes with the mitzvah of Aliyah l'Regel, ascending to Jerusalem on the three pilgrimage festivals. There, the Jewish people would literally see holiness. They would see the Beit HaMikdash. The Kohanim performing the Avodah.The Menorah shining. They would hear the songs of the Levi'im. They would experience the Shechinah in a way unlike anywhere else on earth. The opening "Re'eh" reaches its fulfillment in Jerusalem.

Rav Hirsch: Seeing Beyond the Surface

Rav Samson Raphael Hirsch explains that Torah demands more than physical sight. It asks us to develop moral vision. Anyone can observe events. The Torah teaches us to recognize their meaning. Two people can witness the same history. One sees politics. The other sees Hashgachah. One sees coincidence. The other sees Divine Providence. The challenge of Re'eh is to cultivate eyes that perceive Hashem's hand within history.

A Message for Our Generation

Perhaps no generation since the destruction of the Second Temple has witnessed what ours has. After nearly two thousand years of exile, millions of Jews have returned home. The Hebrew language has been reborn. Jerusalem is once again the heart of Jewish life. The Land has flourished exactly as the prophets foretold. These are not merely historical events. They are invitations to see. To recognize Hashem's faithfulness unfolding before our eyes.

The Sifrei teaches that every generation must view the Torah as if it were given today. Moshe therefore says not only "See," but "See...today." Every day presents the same choice. Will we see the world through the lens of convenience—or through the lens of covenant? Will we pursue comfort alone—or purpose?

Will we recognize that the greatest blessing is not simply living well, but living a life connected to Hashem, His Torah, His people, and His Land? That is the enduring challenge of Parashat Re'eh.

May Hashem open our eyes to recognize His blessings, strengthen our commitment to His Torah, and enable us to witness the complete redemption, when all of Israel will once again ascend to Yerushalayim in joy and behold the beauty of His Presence restored in Zion.

A Message for Me: Parashat Re'eh 5786

 This piece by Rabbi Kenigsberg was originally published in the Hanassi Highlights, Thursday 6 August 2026. You can also read it in Hebrew, thanks to ChatGPT, here.

The opening verse of Parshat Re'eh contains a curious grammatical shift:

"Re'eh anochi noten lifneichem hayom berachah u'kelalah" – "See, I place before you today a blessing and a curse."

The word re'eh is singular, yet lifneichem is in the plural. Why the inconsistency?

The Kli Yakar explains this based on a statement of the Gemara in Masechet Kiddushin (40b). A person should always view the world as perfectly balanced between merit and guilt. One mitzvah can tip the scales in favour of the entire world; one aveirah can tip them the other way. That is why the Torah begins this verse in the singular. Every one of us must hear these words as though they are addressed to us personally. It is tempting to think that one individual can hardly make a difference. After all, what effect can one person's actions really have among millions of Jews and billions of people?

Yet the Torah's answer is: more than you imagine. The verse does not remain in the singular. It immediately becomes plural: lifneichem. The choices I make are never only about me. Every act of kindness, every moment of integrity, every mitzvah and every aveirah has consequences far beyond what I can see. We rarely know how our actions influence those around us, and we certainly cannot measure their spiritual impact. Yet the Torah asks us to live with the awareness that they do.

This perspective runs counter to the way we usually think. We naturally measure our actions by what we can see: Did anyone notice? Did it make a tangible difference? Did it change anything? The Kli Yakar reminds us that this is not how the Torah measures a person's life. We are not in a position to calculate the ultimate impact of our deeds. That is Hashem's domain. Our responsibility is simply to recognise that no action is ever insignificant.

There is a powerful tension here. Judaism does not encourage us to think that we are the centre of the universe. At the same time, it asks us to live with the awareness that our choices genuinely matter. We are neither insignificant nor all-important. We are individuals whose actions form part of a much larger story.

Hashem speaks to each of us personally. No one can serve Him on our behalf, and no one else can make our choices for us. At the same time, those choices are never ours alone. Every individual decision contributes, in some small but immeasurable way, to the spiritual direction of the Jewish people and of the world.

That is both a great responsibility and an extraordinary privilege.

Shabbat Shalom!

A Legacy of Sight, A Lifetime of Vision

In addition to our report on the First Yahrzeit event for Rabbi Wein zt'l, we bring you a most moving tribute to our late Mara d'Atra from someone who knew him closely -- Rebbetzin Ariella Goldwicht. This is what she writes:

A tribute to Rabbi Dov Berel Wein

 Rabbi Wein, among the many things I learned from you was that expressing a personal truth often outweighs the comfort of remaining conventional.

 Here goes my truth.

Thank you, Rebbe, for being a role model for me and my family, but so much more. I cared for you so deeply as a dear loving grandfather, not biological but chosen. Rabbi Wein, you were my Rav and esteemed mentor, but in my heart you were family to me. I merited the company, warmth and depth of you the person, not just the persona. Once you became family, there was no going back, and there isn't a week that goes by that we don't speak of you with that pang of longing and heartache. Your loss has left an empty place at our table, and an empty space in our hearts. I cared for you perhaps less conventionally than one might expect, but for me it felt right and I feel your stamp on my soul for eternity.

 

You were a man of deep truth and profound Godliness, of clear understanding and careful articulation. We reflected on your unequivocal understandings, we laughed at your jokes, and we took to heart the gentle way you challenged us to become better.

Not many people can express two seemingly opposing ideas with utmost clarity and live them both as certain truths. The following are two significant ideas that I have gleaned from you, Rebbe, as I navigate my roles as a mother, rebbetzin and teacher.   

‘To be an observant Jew, you must be observant.’

 And yet 

 ‘As a rabbi (and I understood that as anyone in a leadership role), one must know not to see and hear everything.’

At first glance, these ideas appear contradictory. Yet watching you live them, I came to understand that they are, in fact, inseparable. You taught us to notice deeply, to pay attention to people, to history, to the subtle workings of Hashem in the world. But you also taught us restraint, to overlook what would only diminish. Discernment is not seeing everything. It is knowing what deserves to be seen. Thank you for living that balance so beautifully. 

Thank you for being the anchor in our lives at a time when we experienced personal, national, and worldly shifts and transitions. We climbed onto the roller-coaster of history, joining the ride of momentous times with the master himself. We experienced corona, the pangs of 7 October and the subsequent wars, political unrest and heightened antisemitism, all through a masterful lens and broad perspective that only you, Rabbi Wein, could provide.

 

History was not in the past

 

Perhaps that is why your understanding of history brought such comfort. You taught us to look beyond the urgency of the moment and recognize that we were living one chapter in a much greater story. Thank you for reminding us that the best way to settle in Eretz Yisrael is by choice and not by fear. Thank you for clarifying that "Never Again" is not a principle we can rely on, but that true security requires both faith in Hashem and the wisdom to act responsibly.

Together we experienced what was, what is, and what will be as one guided and truthful journey. There is so much comfort in plowing forward into the future on the shoulders of the past; experiencing the present with faith and certainty, precision and a sense of rightful destiny. The security, safety, and reassurance that you, our great rebbe, provided became the food for the soul, the ultimate shabbos treat, the nourishment that fueled us week after week. The cravings intensified the more we were fed, the more we were nourished in a way that only you could provide.

To experience the warmth and love of a grandfather, the counseling and guidance of a Rav, the deep wisdom and depth of understanding of a historian, the personal advice and direction of a kind and thoughtful mentor, the bridge to previous generations; a window into the greatness of yesteryear—all from one individual—is truly the most remarkable and understated gift.

Rebbe, the gift you have given us and our children is the gift that keeps giving. Your wisdom—your voice of reason in a liberal and often confused world—has brought us to new clarity.

 While your vision was indeed waning, you left us all with the gift of sight

I read the words of your longtime editor who painted the picture of your last meetings together in your most recent, and I believe most beloved, work about your mentors. In her description, she enumerated that you met together in person to review the chapters as she worked on them. She noted that the Rav would listen intently as she read the chapters aloud, often nodding and smiling, sometimes even laughing heartily. As she writes, “It was clear that he was reliving these episodes of his life and envisioning the people he so loved and admired.”

Reading those final encounters only reinforced what I had witnessed for years. Memories, anecdotes, and meaningful interactions do not simply become history. They become the essence of who we are, and if we allow them, the tools with which we shape the future.

To me, you truly exemplified a life of the great Rambam's understanding of the ‘shvil hazahav’. You embodied Torah values at their utmost, and had a delicate way of making everything relatable, bite-sized, and, most importantly, human. You loved and cherished each mitzvah and took a real ‘chai bahem’ approach. You lived with them and they lived through you.

 Perhaps this is less conventional than expected, but it is the truth of my heart.

I would be honored to serve you just one last meal—and to be served so many delicacies in return.

 

Rebbe, as history does repeat itself, we will meet again.

Rabbi Berel Wein zt'l -- the first Yahrzeit

Despite it being the holiday season, Beit Knesset Hanassi was crowded last night as shul members, talmidim, friends and admirers of our late mara d'Atra, Rabbi Berel Wein zt'l, gathered to pay their fond respects on the occasion of his first Yahrzeit. 

The event was chaired by Rabbi Joel Kenigsberg, who worked alongside Rabbi Wein in his first three years at Hanassi and who, by his own admission, considered himself fortunate to have had the opportunity to have been mentored by him.

The proceedings got underway with a dignified recitation by one of our most respected senior members, Simcha Fass, of Tehillim 91 ("Yoshev Beseter"), followed by kaddish. Then came Rabbi Kenigsberg's introduction. The Rav opened with a sentiment with which we could all identify: that this was not the first occasion on which we had gathered to share our memories of Rabbi Wein; nor would it be the last. When the words of Torah of a talmid chacham are spoken by others after his death, it is as though he lives on through them. Happily, Rabbi Wein's words are available to us and we continue to hear them in his video and sound recordings, as well as in his many writings.

Much has happened in the past year, the Rav noted, wondering what Rabbi Wein would have made of recent events. What we can say is that his response would have been predicated by his attitude, reflecting how he dedicated himself to his belief in the Jewish people -- a cause to which we too must dedicate ourselves.

At this point we cut to the first of a series of extracts from the speech Rabbi Wein delivered on the party to celebrate his ninetieth birthday. In this first extract, Rabbi Wein spoke of time, alluding to the power of both Moshe and Yehoshua to make time stand still and describing it as "our greatest opportunity -- or our greatest enemy". He then spoke of four periods of time in his own life that had passed but, as he put it, were frozen in his memory. The first of these periods was his time in Chicago in his formative years with his father and grandfather: here, he was living the Torah-oriented life of Lithuania, and it was here that he studied law and went into legal practice.

Rabbi Kenigsberg then mentioned Rabbi Wein's role as a marbitz Torah, citing his immensely popular Pirkei Avot shiurim and his influence on his talmidim. This proved to be an introduction for our next speaker, Rabbi Mordechai Kronenberg -- one of the last people to receive semichah from him. Focusing on the parashah for the coming Shabbat, Re'eh, Rabbi Kronenberg spoke of the repetition of the names of birds that were not tahar, in particular the ra'ah, the ayah and the da'ah -- which were all different names for the same bird. This bird, according to the Gemara, had phenomenal eyesight and, perched in Bavel, it could spot a carcass as far away as Eretz Yisrael. There is a moral to be learned from this, he explained: the bird is not kosher because, despite its powerful sight, when it looked at Eretz Yisrael it saw only a nevelah, a carcass, that it planned to eat. Thinking only of itself, it saw past all the good and holy things. The moral was clear: when viewing Israel from afar, one should be careful to make sure one sees the good, not just the bad.

The next Rabbi Wein clip showed him talking about the second phase of his life, when he left Chicago and the legal profession and entered the rabbinate, taking on a small kehilla in Miami Beach; this venture was followed by his move to Monsey and his responsibility for promoting kashrut through the OU. He spoke of the encouragement he received from his wife Jackie a.h. and of the obstacles he faced from some other quarters. His summary? "If you are ever going to do something positive, the Satan will send you nay-sayers". He also spoke of the support he received from others, singling out the Satmar Rav, with whom he discussed many topics -- but not Israel! Rabbi Wein added a general principle that we should bear in mind: "The whole business of the Jewish people is people; it's not organizations, it's people".

Rabbi Kenigsberg's next task was to introduce one of our shul members, Simon Swidler, who for some years was tasked with accompanying Rabbi Wein to shul and back on Shabbat, when the latter's deteriorating health and mobility made it hard for him to undertake the journey alone. Simon spoke movingly of his attachment to this task and of the opportunity he had to exchange words of Torah -- including some ideas of his own -- with a rabbi who had all the sources at his fingertips and could point him to further reading suggestions. Describing Rabbi Wein as a giant in our times by comparing him to the Arzei Levanon (the heroic rabbis who gave their lives al kiddush Hashem), Simon concluded that Rabbi Wein was indeed a hero: "We define our heroes by how they teach, not by how they fight in battle".

The final video clip of Rabbi Wein had him confessing that his great ambition in life was to be a rabbi in Jerusalem -- an ambition which, fortunately for us, was fulfilled in Beit Knesset Hanassi. His final advice to us was that we should understand that, however good things may be, we always live in "bad times" and there are always struggles ahead. We are a great nation, but "the path to greatness is bad times".

Following this clip, Rabbi Wein's son Rabbi Chaim Wein offered us many personal insights into the private side of his father's life, particularly his deep commitment to shalom, his aversion to any form of machloket and his tireless commitment to tzedakah and chesed. 

The evening was brought to an end by Rabbi Kenigsberg. Asking why it should be necessary for the Chilsdren of Israel to leave Egypt by night, he quoted from Rabbi Wein's book BaMesillah Na'aleh the aphorism that our strength lies in the certainty that Hashem will take us from darkness to light. 

Eli Friedwald then recited Kel Moleh Rachamim and we trooped off home. Our minds were buzzing with the ideas we had heard, but the heaviness of our hearts at losing Rabbi Wein was at least a little lightened by our knowledge that his teaching, his wisdom and the warmth of his concern for his beloved shul remain with us still. 

This very special event was recorded in full by Chaim Snow. We will share the link once it has become available.

Beit Knesset Hanassi wishes to acknowledge with gratitude the generosity of those people who have kindly supported this event.

Good news, bad news

Sometimes the news we receive on a daily basis can be quite depressing. How should we respond? Should we absorb it all and prepare for the worst? Should we shrug it off and ignore it, focusing on the better side of life? Or is the true answer to say "it all depends on the circumstances"?  Our member George Moschytz offers us a real-life case study and invites us to draw our own conclusions. 

Good News, Bad News

I was talking to a friend recently and he proudly told me that he does not listen to the news or read the newspaper because “there’s nothing but bad news—and who needs that?”  He told me that a journalist friend of his once tried an experiment. For several weeks he would try to print only good news—and the sale of his paper plummeted. Why is it that people only want to read bad news, he asked? The question intrigued me. I answered that it could be as a safety mechanism to be aware of ‘trouble' when it arises and, by being prepared, to be able to react to it as sensibly as possible. I illustrated my point by telling him the following true story of a Jewish family during World War II.

Right: Berlin in the 1920s

The father, a successful medical practitioner, lived with his wife and four children in a peaceful university town in South Germany. He had grown up in Berlin, “a city in which he did not experience any antisemitism”; she in Leipzig where she had experienced a lot. They married in the late 1920s, just a few years before Adolph Hitler came to power. Besides being a strictly orthodox Jew, the father was thoroughly familiar with, and appreciative of, the German culture of Goethe and Schiller. He was convinced that this Germany, for whose army he had unquestioningly volunteered in the first world war and had been badly wounded several times—as well as receiving the Iron Cross for bravery—would throw out this lunatic Nazi regime within half a year.

The mother, who had never trusted the country of her birth, was fascinated by the up-and-coming Zionist movement, and automatically belonged to the religious Zionist ‘Blau Weiss’ youth movement (Mizrachi). She followed the ominously gathering clouds of antisemitism in Germany closely and took them very seriously. The father, being thoroughly absorbed in his work as a highly regarded medical practitioner and with the health of his patients, remained optimistic about Germany’s democratic future, and somehow remained unaware of the slowly progressing catastrophe of the growing Nazi regime. Furthermore, he relied on his patriotic army service during WWI and on his being honored with the Iron Cross. Besides, as a war hero and an invalid, he was convinced that the regime would not touch him, nor his family. Thus he ignored the increasingly bad news, assuming that it would surely turn into good news within a matter of months. The mother, being the wife of Herr Doktor, and joining other Frau Doktors at a weekly Kaffeeklatsch (tea party), was all too aware of the goings-on outside the bubble that the father had built for himself and his family. This awareness was all the sharper  after she was abruptly left out of the invitation to the weekly Kaffeeklatch. To the father she was only “listening to the bad news”; to the mother, he was either not listening or if indeed he was, he was picking out the increasingly rare remnants of “good news”.

In early October 1938, the mother’s gnawing intuition, fed by her consistent pursuit of the increasingly bad news, left no doubt in her mind. Somehow, she was convinced that‘something terrible was about to happen, and that when it did, it would hit the men first. So she urged her husband to go to Switzerland, to the place where he had been treated for his war-time wounds, and pretend that he was going there for a medical checkup. Despite his reservations, he reluctantly went, leaving his 37 year old wife and their four children ages 9, 7, 4, and 2, behind.

Left: The Eberswalde Synagogue, Berlin, on Kristallnacht

Sure enough, on the night of Thursday, 9 November, 1938 (28 Cheshvan, 5700) two Gestapo officers (Geheime STAatsPOlizei, or Secret State Police) banged furiously on the front door of their    apartment, screaming “Aufmachen!” (“Open!”). The feared and ruthless Gestapo were looking for her husband! She calmly told them that her husband was in Switzerland for a medical check-up for the wounds he had sustained during the war. The Gestapo rampaged through the apartment, frantically looking for her husband in every room, corner, and cupboard, ignoring her claim that he was in Switzerland. She, a frail and somewhat timid lady, bravely stood in front of the door of one room and fearlessly said: “you are not going into this room, my children are sleeping in there!”.  Miraculously, they did not go in, thus avoiding what would have been a traumatic experience for the children. Thanks to the mother’s premonition and courage, the family had just survived the first nationwide pogrom in Germany, later known as the Kristallnacht, or Night of Broken Glass. The latter refers to the radical and deliberate shattering of home-windows, storefront-windows and any other breakable objects reachable by the Nazi maniacal mobs (Kristallnacht can be considered the beginning of the German-inspired Holocaust. In a way, it saved the life of this family and of thousands of other Jewish families who had refused to read the bad news earlier on. Kristallnacht finally drove home the severity of the situation for Jews in Germany and in the surrounding similarly ‘inspired’ countries).

However, this was not the end for this family. The mother immediately sent the nine-year-old son and his seven-year-old sister with their non-Jewish maid to the German-Swiss border, where they were received by the father. For money one could still obtain reluctant ‘favors’ from some non-Jewish Germans, especially because whatever was left behind was eagerly grabbed by the neighbors, maids, and whoever else could lay their hands on whatever was left behind. The mother stayed behind with their four-year-old boy and two-year-old baby girl. She hurriedly scrambled to gather whatever she could in terms of papers, belongings, and valuables, without rousing the attention of the officials, it being forbidden for Jews to try to leave Germany after Kristallnacht at the risk of immediate imprisonment or worse. An obvious reason for this was to prevent Jews from describing to the outside world the murderous regime and its restrictions for, and persecution of, any and every Jew in Germany.

Several weeks later the mother locked the front door of her fully and comfortably furnished apartment, as well as of the completely and functionally installed doctor’s office, never to see a shred of any of it again in her lifetime. By a stroke of luck her still valid German passport did not show her Jewish identity by the large red letter ‘J’ stamped on the front passport page of every Jew. Nor did she have the name ‘Sarah’ that was handwritten over the name of every Jewish female—as was the name ‘Israel’ handwritten over the name of every Jewish male—on the front page of their respective passports. If omitted and caught, this too was severely punishable by imprisonment, or worse.

With the start of the war the passports of all German Jews were automatically declared invalid, making them stateless at the stroke of a pen! The insane order with regard to the Sarah and Israel names for all Jews was decreed by the murderous government of a nation whose hatred of the Jewish people knew no bounds, and had lost complete control of all reason.

The mother left her locked-up and permanently abandoned German home with the two young children, all dressed as if going to Switzerland for a winter vacation. Based on her non-besmirched German passport, she had obtained a legitimate family visa for herself and the two young children. She took with her a suitcase filled with winter vacation clothes on top, and stuffed with Shabbat candles, some other silverware, and a few other personal belongings underneath. Thus she arrived in Switzerland to join up with her husband and the two older children, united “for a family vacation in Switzerland”. All too soon the Swiss visa expired, and the Swiss officials informed the mother that she must immediately return to from wherever she had come—to Germany. The father could stay, they said, because he was an invalid and had procured a doctor’s letter saying that he still needed more medical care.

The family had obtained an affidavit from an uncle in America in which he guaranteed their financial upkeep and, with it, their unlimited permission to move to the USA. However, there was a problem. The father’s mother was still in Germany— in Berlin. The father said that he could not leave for America till his mother was safely out of Germany. But his mother had no intention of leaving Germany! She read only ‘good news’—or none—adding “‘I am an old woman in her seventies, and the Germans will not harm me’” In the meantime, the Swiss authorities were relentlessly pressing the mother to leave with the children according to her visa instructions.

The parents decided that the father would stay in Switzerland till his mother could finally be convinced to join him there. He would then feel free to leave Switzerland with her, join up with the rest of the family, and then travel together to America. But where would the mother with the four children go in the meantime? Obviously not back to Germany, as was by now evident to all. Germany was out of the question, and the mother was not about to leave for America without her husband...

They were faced with a terrible dilemma! But a solution suddenly presented itself. Most of the mother’s family had followed the bad news in Germany (they had also lived in more antisemitic regions in Germany than had the father’s family) and had some years earlier already left Germany. Most of them had fled to England where the mother’s brother-in-law, a successful Jewish British businessman, had vouched for them all. He would do the same for the mother and the children until the father and his mother would join them in England. 

So, with the voucher from the brother-in-law in hand, the mother with the four children arrived in England and waited for the husband to arrive there with his mother. Reunited, they would all take a ship to America and settle down there as so many other family members had done before them.

The father’s mother was finally induced to visit her son in Switzerland (“Your son is severely ill and you must come to visit him immediately!”) She arrived in Switzerland two weeks before the outbreak of the war! By then, the British permitted no ‘enemy aliens’, such as German refugees, into the country, be they Jewish or not. The mother and her four children were stranded in England. They were virtually penniless and, due to the diabolic German regulations, stateless, being without a passport of any kind. As he had guaranteed, but hardly expected, the mother’s brother-in-law took full responsibility for the upkeep of the whole family.

Ten years later, after two brief two-week visits to England by the father, the mother and her English- speaking children (the mother had not dared to speak the enemy language with them), she and her four children—now ranging in age from twelve to nineteen—were reunited in Switzerland with their father and his mother. The children were estranged from their German speaking father. There had been no communication, written or otherwise, beyond the borders of neutral Switzerland and its surrounding Nazi-held neighbors. A slow, and not unpainful, re-bonding process of several years began for the family. The price of not listening to “bad news” ten years earlier was a terrible one!

So, is my friend wrong for not following the present-day news because it is all bad? Not really! Stories like the one above have been repeated in the diaspora for Jewish families in a thousand different ways throughout the last two thousand years. There is hardly a country in Europe that has not, at one time or another, and in one way or another, thrown out its defenseless Jewish citizens—and with outcomes all too often far worse than the one described above. For the first time in two thousand years we live in a country— our country—that will defend our security and freedom, and will never revoke our citizenship. We can trust its government that it will never throw us out, whether we voted for this one or another. We can be sure that, whether we like the government or not, and whether the news is good or bad, we have our own country in which we will always be welcome. If we have our own country -- and only then -- a story like this cannot happen. So yes, we can now afford not to listen to the news, good or bad!

Oh, and by the way, the family in the story above is my family— I was the four-year-old boy at its beginning…

George also wrote this fascinating piece on the engineering profession and Shabbat observance.