Rabbi
Doniel Staum, LMSW
Rabbi,
Kehillat New Hempstead
Rebbe/Guidance
Counselor – ASHAR
Principal
– Ohr Naftoli- New Windsor
STAM
TORAH
SHABBOS
NACHAMU
PARSHAS
VAESCHANAN 5776
“THE POWER OF ONE”
On
January 6, 2011, the Gluck family - a wonderful family in our community and personal
friends - celebrated the wedding of their daughter Reina to Yaakov Chaifetz of Brooklyn NY , in Ateres
Charna in Spring Valley , NY
During
Shabbos Sheva Berachos I met Mrs. Liz Gluck, the mother of the kallah, walking
with her family. After I wished her mazal tov, she excitedly related to me the
following extraordinary story:
“During
the 1970s a young boy named Shlomo was a student in Yeshiva Chaim Berlin
“Throughout
those years she would often remark to Shlomo that she was so touched by how the
administrator treated her. He never spoke to her disparagingly or made her feel
badly about her predicament. In fact, he always smiled when he saw her and
warmly thanked her for all of her efforts, according her tremendous dignity and
respect.
“The
young Shlomo from the aforementioned story is my husband, Shlomo Gluck. This
week our daughter married Yaakov Chaifetz, the son of Rabbi Aryeh Laib
Chaifetz, the administrator of Yeshiva Chaim Berlin Berlin
Rabbi
Chaifetz could never have known that the widow to whom he accorded such respect
was the grandmother of his future daughter-in-law!”
The
oft-quoted gemara[2]
relates, “During the second Temple Temple
It’s
been noted many times that, if we are still in exile and the Temple has not yet
been rebuilt, it is indicative of the fact that sinas chinam is still
rampant among us.
The
vernacular of the sages is always very precise. Why did they choose to term
disunity ‘sinas chinam’? Anyone engaged in a personal feud or who
possesses feelings of enmity or resentment for another sect of Jews will
counter that they have a perfectly valid reason for their bad feelings. They
may even agree that baseless hatred has a pernicious effect on the Jewish
people as a whole. But they will justify themselves by claiming that their
hatred is warranted, and therefore surely does not fall into the category of
‘baseless hatred’. The sages could have easily referred to it as ‘disharmony’
or ‘disunity’. Why did they choose to refer to it as ‘baseless hatred’ or
‘hatred for/of nothing’?
We offer
three different approaches to this question[4]:
1. The
Chofetz Chaim writes that people only speak loshon hora about others because
they fail to realize the greatness of the person they are slandering. If one
who was about to speak disparagingly about his neighbor suddenly is informed
that one of the leading Torah sages has regular correspondence with that
neighbor, he would hesitate before relating his negative remarks. ‘If such a
righteous person feels that my neighbor is such a worthy person, perhaps I was
wrong about what I surmised about him.’
The
Torah[5] states,
“For you are a holy people to Hashem, your G-d; Hashem, your G-d has chosen you
to be for him a treasured people above all the peoples on the face of the
earth. Not because you are more numerous than all the peoples did G-d desire
you and choose you, for you are the fewest of all the peoples. Rather, because
of G-d’s love for you and because He observes the oath that He swore to your
forefathers…”
The
Chofetz Chaim explains that just as G-d loves each and every Jew
unconditionally, we must foster such love for each other, because we are all special
and holy. If we appreciate how valuable and precious every Jew is we will view
others in a different light, even in the face of their personally vexing
shortcomings and idiosyncratic annoyances.
A person
does not hate someone he admires and reveres. If we have feelings of hatred for
others it is because we view them as ‘a nothing’. We fail to recognize their
true value and greatness. That is one meaning of ‘sinas chinam’ – hatred
that emanates from nothing, i.e. from viewing others as valueless ‘nothings’,
by failing to appreciate them.
2.
President Abe Lincoln was once asked why he doesn’t destroy his enemies if he
has the ability to do so. He replied that he seeks to build a relationship with
his enemies and develop feelings of friendship and camaraderie with his
enemies. “If I make my enemies into friends, am I not essentially destroying my
enemies?”
We do
not hate those we love. We may, at times, become very annoyed, and even angry,
with our closet friends. We may even hate what they do and be extremely
frustrated with their way of life. But we do not hate them personally.
We only
hate people with whom we feel no connection, or a negative connection. Such
feelings are termed, sinas chinam – hatred of nothing, because there is
nothing, i.e. no relationship between them[6]. If one is
able to build a relationship with the person he dislikes it often helps him
uproot negative feelings from his heart.
3. Rabbi
Matisyahu Salomon shlita offered the following analogy to explain the detriment
of sinas chinam: A teacher was delivering a lesson to his class when he noticed
one student playing with his pencil, making a big mess and causing a
significant disturbance. The teacher warned the student to put away the pencil
but he ignored the teacher. The teacher then walked over to the student,
grabbed his hand and slammed it into his desk until the bone literally broke.
The next
day the irate parents burst into the classroom screaming at the teacher, “What
in the world is the matter with you? You broke our son’s hand for no reason?”
The teacher looked up incredulously, “How can you say it was for nothing? I
made sure he stopped playing with his pencil didn’t I?!”
Rabbi
Salomon explained that everyone understands that although the teacher may
technically have had ‘a reason’ for breaking the student’s hand, the punishment
was so outlandishly harsh relative to the crime it was for nothing. So too, if
we understood how detrimental disunity and enmity is to us as a people, and how
much punishment and pain it causes us nationally and globally, all of our
reasons would fall by the wayside. Our Sages termed disunity sinas chinam
to remind us that there is nothing that justifies enmity among Jews.
This all
does not mean that we have to love everything all Jews do. It also does not
mean that we don’t have a responsibility to protest – at times loudly – against
our brethren when we feel that they are desecrating the Torah. There are also
extreme situations when it may not be possible to build a relationship with
another person for various reasons. Still-in-all, we must strive to love others
as people, simply because they are Jews. If someone’s child was, G-d forbid,
acting inappropriately and even humiliatingly, the parent would abhor what the
child was doing and denounce his acts. However, the parent would continue to
love the child. Every Jew is a child of G-d, our brother and sister.
Rabbi
Yitzchok Zilberstein shlita relates a powerful incredible story which
demonstrates the power of peace and unity in protecting us from danger:
There
were two women who were involved in personal feud for a number of years. One
day one of the women attended a lecture she heard about the importance of
peace. She was deeply inspired by what she heard and she decided that the time
had come for her to end the feud and make peace. She approached her former
rival and told her how much she regretted their long standing quarrel. She
explained that it was so important to her that they build a relationship that
she was inviting her to her daughter’s wedding which was to take place in a few
weeks. The second woman was excited by the invitation, but when she heard the
date she replied sadly that she would be unable to attend because she was to
have surgery that day.
The
first woman was so steadfast that her new ‘friend’ attend that she approached a
distinguished Rabbi and asked him if it was appropriate for her to push off the
wedding so her friend could attend! The Rabbi replied that, not only was it
permissible, but it was laudable for her to do so.
The first
woman was indeed able to arrange that the wedding be detained so her friend
could attend.
Incredibly,
the original date and location of the wedding was the Versailles Wedding Hall
in Jerusalem
After
recounting on Tisha B’av many of the traumatic suffering we have endured
throughout the exile, we read the prophet’s clarion call, “’Console! Console My
people!’ says your G-d.” It is a national consolation. We have been made to
suffer as a people and therefore we can only be comforted as a people. But that
depends on whether we are ready to stand united.
It was
baseless hatred that was the catalyst of the destruction of the Temple
“Because
there was baseless hatred”
“For you
are a holy people to Hashem”
[1] ‘match’ for marriage
[2] Yoma 9b
[3] Literally “Hatred of/for
nothing”
[4] From the sefer ‘Otzaros Hatorah
–Tisha B’av’
[5] Devorim 7:6-8
[6] It’s a fairly common experience
that one who doesn’t like someone else for whatever reason may voice his
feelings to another. Then if he becomes friendlier with the person he vilified
prior he will feel badly for everything he said before they became familiar
with each other.
[7] This story in no way minimizes
or detracts from the horrific tragedy during the wedding of Keren and Asaf
Dror. However, for the woman in our story, her decision to pursue peace saved
her and her family.
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