בס"ד
Israel thoughts
Due to the lack of time I'll speak in English and summarize briefly in
Hebrew. Thank you all for coming out
even though it's not an easy hour to say the least.
בגלל השעה אדבר באנגלית ואתמצת בעברית. דבר ראשון
תודה רבה לכולכם שטרחתם להגיע למרות שזו שעה לא פשוטה.
1) There's a pasuk in Zecharya that can be loosely translated to
say the following "I will give you the ability to walk among those that
are standing". While the simple meaning of the pasuk places the angels at
a higher level, on a deeper level, there is a reference to an advantage we have
over the angels, we have the ability to walk, move, and improve ourselves,
while angels are static and stuck in one place.
One of the things that most impressed me about my father was his constant
motion and yearning to improve. He was
not fortunate enough to have a quality and expensive yeshiva education, like
the one he provided for his children, but he was constantly striving to learn
more and progress in learning. Although
he started learning at a relatively late stage, recently he was able to replace
the magid shiur in daf yomi when needed.
My father was fond of changing siddurim every so often, so that he could
improve his tfila by learning a new perspective. In terms of working on his
midot, my father was world class, my parents have a library of self help and
mussar books that rivals the Library of Congress, and in many different
parameters, such as dealing with his personal mourning and anger management my
father was able to greatly progress over the years. He had such a tremendous ability to forgive
others, at this point I'm not even able to comprehend how he did it, much less
emulate him.
הפסוק בזכריה אומר
"ונתתי לך מהלכים בין העומדים האלה". פסוק זה רומז ליתרון שיש לנו לעומת
המלאכים, הם עומדים במקום ואילו אנחנו מסוגלים להתקדם ולשפר את עצמנו. למדתי מאבא
שלי מה זה יכולת להתקדם בלימוד תורה, גם אם אין לך רקע תורני, ולמדתי מה זה תיקון
מידות והיכולת לשפר את עצמך, גם בגיל מבוגר.
2) The sweetness of Torah-
In the morning prayers we ask that Hashem make the Torah sweet for us, which
seems to be quite an unusual request. We have the Torah, we learn it and that's
it, why does it have to be sweet? It
seems that Chazal realized that in order for the Torah to be the cornerstone of
our lives it has to be sweet for us.
In the introduction to his book, the Iglei Tal emphasizes this point and
says that the main mitzvah of learning Torah is when you learn Torah due to your
love for it, and that's the way to truly connect to Hashem. That is one of the things I really got from
my father as did my sisters B"H. I
have vivid memories of my father walking around the house in his bathrobe early
Shabbos mornings. Since at that point he
was davening at Chabad he had many hours of "free time" on those
mornings. He would use it for learning,
although there were other leisure activities available. When my great-grandfather was living in LA,
my father used to go learn with him on Sunday mornings, and I still remember
going with him occasionally, even though I was very young. He showed me by example what a Torah Jew does
with his free time. My father got
tremendous enjoyment out of learning with us and made that a priority in his
lives and our lives as well. He was fond
of the statement in Chazal that once Torah is firmly seated in 3 generations
that insures the prominence of Torah in that family for future generations as
well, and got no greater joy than hearing about Torah related accomplishments
of his various grandchildren.
אנחנו למדנו מאבא שלי מה זה אהבת התורה
והשקעה בתורה. אחד הדברים החשובים ביותר בעיניו, אם לא החשוב ביותר, היה העברת מסר
זה לנו, והוא רווה הרבה נחת מהעובדה שכולנו דתיים ומסורים לתורה ומצוות.
3) Spiritual Medicine- One of the famous traits of Yosef hatzaddik
was that Hashem's name was always on his lips.
Nechama Leibowitz z"l presents an analysis of the psukim showing
that Yosef did such a good job of putting Hashem center stage, that he even got
Pharoah, a renowned idol worshipper, to talk about Hashem as the one who runs
the world. My 7 year old daughter Noa was lamenting that Saba Daniel passed
away, commenting that he was such a good doctor who helped her so much. As a kid I must admit I didn't feel the same
way. My father's solution to everything
was "Tehillim and Tylenol" in that order. Even though I found it frustrating then, I'm sure that my father's constant focus on
Hashem being the boss, it's all "etzba Hashem", learning to accept
Hashem's will etc. etc., has helped mold me as a spiritual and committed Jew. Even though these have been tremendously
difficult times, I hope and pray that we will internalize his tremendous emuna
in Hashem and use these nisyonot as a growing experience.
אבא שלי היה רופא,
אך תמיד שם את ה' במרכז כרופא כל בשר וממנו למדנו איך לראות את אצבע ה' בכל
מקום. אני מקוה שהפנמנו את החומר היטב וזה
יאפשר לנו לצלוח תקופה קשה זו ואף לצמוח ממנה.
4) Commitment to Family: Off
the top of my head I can think of many examples how my father put family
first. As a kid I never really
understood why my father would return home so early while my friends' fathers
would be coming home much later. Only
when I matured did I realize that by coming home early, my father made a clear
statement that significant time with his family was much more important to him
than his career or making more money. My father was not a sports fan, and it
really bothered him that athletes, many of them not such tzadikim, earned so
much money for just playing a game. Nevertheless, he was always gathering
sports related information from patients, so that he could relate to me, as a
rabid young sports fan, and as a kid we had a weekly minhag to go out and get a
copy of Sports Illustrated, even though I assume he would have recommended
other reading material. Even though there was a language barrier between him
and my younger kids, he worked hard to find a way to connect to each of them. The
example he set has left a strong imprint on me and had great influence on the
career choices I made and how I conduct myself in my profession as a psychologist. I often find myself meeting with parents of
challenging kids, urging them to get the fathers more involved, I'm sure part
of that has to do with my feeling that I'm a better person because of my
father's significant presence in my life.
Yesterday one of my kids needed some Abba time so we went out for
falafel; I was a little uncomfortable doing so on the night before my father's
funeral, but Racheli told me that Abba would definitely approve of that
decision; I think that story pretty much sums up the great importance my father
placed on family, and the great effect it's had on each of us.
מאבא שלי למדתי מה זה
מסירות למען המשפחה וזה השפיע עלי גם בבחירת מסלול מקצועי וגם בהחלטות מקצועיות
כפסיכולוג. כשאני יושב עם הורים ומנגס' להם שהאבא יהיה יותר משמעותי בחיי הילדים,
אני בטוח שחלק מזה זה בגלל הרושם האדיר שהנוכחות של אבא שלי בחיי הטביעה בי
I hope that we can all continue to learn from my Abba as a very special
man. Not so much by preaching, but by
personal example he taught us what it means to live a life dedicated to Hashem
and family.
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