October 14, 2015 // Parashas Noach VOL. XVIII NO. 880א' חשון, תשע”ו // פרשת נח

18 27THEY SAVED A LIFE, THEY SAVED A WORLDRebbetzin Nechama Margolin’s Story

MOTZA: AT THE EDGE OF YERUSHALAYIMKeeping the Dream Alive

72 YEARS LATER, All Types of Jews Still Bask in the Light of the AISH KODESHOF PIASECZNA, HY"D

ILLUMINATED BY THE AISH KODESH OF PIASECZNA

BY BINYOMIN WOLF

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CONTENTS

Yonoson MollerDuvid FrankelAvi Wagschal

Freidy SchondorfTemmy Ziemba

Business ManagerAdvertising ManagerExecutive SalesOffice SalesLakewood Sales

ADVERTISING

Israel BittonHeshy Ehrenreich

Creative Director

DESIGN

Yosef Caldwell | Alan Freishtat Gur Aryeh Herzig | Shmuel Landesman

Dr. David J. Lieberman | Dr. David H. Rosmarin | Mordechai Schmutter

Rabbi Nachman Seltzer Yitzchok Shteierman

Blimie Basch | Suri CohenCharlotte Friedland | Judy Fulda

Rebbetzin T. Heller | Pearl HerzogRebbetzin Chanah Heschel | Esther

Horowitz | Rebbetzin Faigie HorowitzRochel Isaacson | Devora Klein

Rhona Lewis | Rochel Licht | Yael Mermelstein | Batya Ruddell

Esther Shdeour | Tzipora ShubEvelyne Singer | Dina Spira

CONTRIBUTORS

Esther Henny Ehrlich | Simi LemmerCOORDINATORS

TORAH CONTRIBUTORS

Dayan Chaim Kohn Rabbi Ozer Alport

Rabbi Shlomo Aschkenasy Rabbi Avrohom C. Carmell Rabbi Shimon Finkelman

Rabbi Yosef Gesser Rabbi S. Binyomin GinzbergRabbi Zecharya GreenwaldRabbi Avraham Y. Heschel

Rabbi Dovid KaplanRabbi Shmuel Y. KleinRabbi Paysach Krohn

Rabbi Fishel SchachterRabbi Benzion ShafierRabbi Ephraim Shapiro

Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski, MD Rabbi Reuven Wolf

Rachel RothSarah BirnhackRachel Hubner

Managing EditorExecutive Editor

Fiction Editor

Ruth Lichtenstein PUBLISHER

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

14

He lived through the darkest time in Jewish history... and he grappled with that darkness. His Torah teachings... are the

outcry of someone who ... loves Him and is torn apart by that concealment but never, ever lets go.

“I think that speaks to our generation... people live with such anxiety, despair, depression and hester panim. The Rebbe’s sefarim are a Shulchan Aruch... for how a believing Jew is to survive ...”

5 Letters

6 Torah

8 Halachah From the BHI Hotline

10 Chinuch

12 Profile

17 Inner Dimensions

18 To Save a Life, To Save a World

23 Shemittah Champions

26 A World That Was

27 Motza: At the Edge of Yerushalayim

32 Musings

34 Snapshot

36 On the Job

38 Psychology: Judy Fulda, M.S.

40 Gallery

43 Think Twice

44 Health

46 Graphology

48 Cookery: Wholesome and Healthful!

52 Chat With the Pros

53 Serialized Novel: What About Me? Chapter 26

56 Serialized Novel: Forever Forward, Chapter 55

58 Short Story

64 Humor

66 Postscript

4 October 14, 2015

ILLUMINATED BY THE AISH KODESH OF PIASECZNA

WHY do thousands of Jews around the world today gravitate toward the teachings of Harav

Kalonymus Kalman Shapira of Piaseczna, Poland, Hy”d, who was killed al kiddush Hashem a few months after the liquidation of the Warsaw Ghetto, 72 years ago this week?

Why do 1,000 Jews of all types from around the tristate area gather in Woodmere, New York, every year to hold a hilula on Motzei Shabbos Parashas Noach to celebrate this tzaddik’s life and teachings? What is it about his message that strikes such a chord with our generation?

The Piaseczner Rebbe became known as the Aish Kodesh after his manuscript that was written in the Warsaw ghetto was thus named at publication. He is remembered as one of the most prominent chassidic Rebbes in Poland before World War II because of his other-worldly righteousness and well-known brilliance in Torah and Halachah. He was also the son of the Rebbe Reb Elimelech of Grodzhisk, zy”a, and a descendant of some of the most revered tzaddikim of Polish Chassidus: Reb Elimelech of Lizhensk, the Chozeh of Lublin, the Kozhnitzer

Maggid and Reb Kalonymus Kalman HaLevi Epstein of Cracow, the Maor Vashemesh, zecher tzaddikim livrachah. But the Rebbe’s righteousness, brilliance, Torah and unmatched yichus are not the primary reasons for his relevance to this generation.

The Crisis of the GenerationOne major factor is the Rebbe’s response to the conditions

of his times. Jewish communities all over Europe experienced cataclysmic upheaval during and after World War I. Too many households consisted of religious grandfathers with beards and yarmulkes, grandmothers with tichlech, and children or grandchildren who were completely nonobservant. The traditional means of transmitting the mesorah to the next generation no longer spoke to the younger generation. Young people were leaving the world of Torah in droves. Although today’s “off-the-derech” phenomenon does not compare to the social and religious dislocation experienced at that time, our generation also struggles mightily with large numbers of young people leaving observance and many more (including adults) whose Yiddishkeit seems empty of any substance or meaning.

The Aish Kodesh of Piaseczna Harav Kalonymus Kalman Shapira, Hy”d

BY BINYOMIN WOLF

Why thousands around the world are learning the teachings of Harav Kalonymus Kalman Shapira, Hy”d

14 October 14, 2015

What was the Aish Kodesh’s response? Because of his great love for Hashem and the Jewish people, he could not watch the older generation do things as they had always been done while the next generation slipped into oblivion. Not long after World War I, in 1923, he founded a chassidic yeshivah in Warsaw, which he named Daas Moshe after his illustrious grandfather, the Rebbe Reb Yerachmiel Moshe of Kozhnitz, zy”a. Directing all aspects of the yeshivah, the Rebbe instituted the approach to chinuch, and the emphasis on chinuch for which he became known. He later outlined his teachings on chinuch in the sefer Chovas Hatalmidim, published in 1932, which caused a revolution in chinuch soon after its release because of the gaping vacuum it filled.

The Rebbe demonstrated that chinuch does not and cannot mean merely transmitting Torah knowledge and halachic practice to one’s children or students. It means initiating them into a lifelong dedication and profound loving connection with the Master of the World.

Involving the Emotions in Mitzvos and Tefillah

One major proponent of the Aish Kodesh’s teachings today is Rabbi Doniel Katz, director of The Elevation Project. He holds shiurim and seminars in large frum communities around the world, each attended by hundreds of people, to inspire Jews to deepen their emotional connection to Hakadosh Baruch Hu. One way he does this is by teaching a practical method to prepare for tefillah using the Piaseczner’s practice of hashkatah, quieting the mind, explained in the sefer Derech Hamelech.

One participant from a frum community shared with Rabbi Katz that learning hashkatah “was unlike anything I’ve ever experienced…. I was blown away by my own ability to calm my mind and watch my thoughts.... It’s such a chiddush to me that yiras Hashem is the conscious choice to keep your daas in charge…. All you have to know is how to tune out the static.”

Even in other areas of Yiddishkeit, many people go through the motions without any emotion or connection. Rabbi Katz often focuses on one of the Aish Kodesh’s fundamental teachings from Tzav V’ziruz, the Piaseczner’s spiritual journal (printed in the

back of Hachsharas Ha’avreichim), to understand a basic law of spiritual and emotional psychology:

Man’s soul craves stimulation. Not only joy alone — it simply loves stimulation. It even desires to feel sadness and tears…. This is a law [built into “nature”] and need of the soul like its other requirements and needs. Therefore only one who satisfies this quota [of stimulation] with [Divine] service and emotional Torah and prayer will [successfully] guard his soul.

But the soul of one whose holy service is without emotion will either fulfill its need with other, cheap stimulation or will succumb to some sort of emotional illness because it lacks one of its basic needs.

We cannot ignore our human needs. Just as one cannot live in a healthy way without food or water, the soul will not remain healthy without stimulation and excitement. We must therefore actively work to satisfy our soul’s desire for stimulation through Torah, tefillah and mitzvos. If we think we can forgo our, or our children’s, Yiddishe excitement, the negative consequences are inevitable. Even in frum communities, our general failure to transmit the excitement of Yiddishkeit manifests itself in the proliferation of seemingly infinite forms of “cheap stimulation” that need

not be named, as everyone is painfully aware of them. Using teachings from Chazal and Chassidus, including many from the Aish Kodesh, Rabbi Katz shows the participants at his seminars how to incorporate excitement, stimulation and emotion into

their Torah, tefillah and mitzvos.

Connecting to Hashem Amidst External and Internal Darkness

Harav Moshe Weinberger, Rav of Congregation Aish Kodesh in Woodmere, New York, and mashpia at Yeshiva University, is a child of Holocaust survivors. In 5752/1992, he chose to name his newly established shul Aish Kodesh after the Rebbe, to designate it as a place dedicated to carrying out the Piaseczner’s

teachings. He began delivering weekly shiurim on the Rebbe’s sefarim, and in 5760/2000 instituted an annual hilula to celebrate the Aish Kodesh’s teachings on his yahrtzeit, 4 Cheshvan. These gatherings began drawing hundreds of people, and then

The Rebbe demonstrated that chinuch does not

and cannot mean merely transmitting Torah

knowledge and halachic practice to one’s

children or students.

Harav Moshe Weinberger, Rav of Congregation Aish Kodesh in Woodmere.

151 Cheshvan 5776

approximately 1,000 participants from around the tristate area. Rav Weinberger then instituted an annual siyum on Shas for

the men in the shul and on Tanach for the women, and recently requested the publication of a book consisting of the talks he gave at previous years’ commemorations, all l’iluy nishmas the Aish Kodesh.

What drives Rav Weinberger to continue finding new ways to connect himself and his followers to the Piaseczner? He explains why this tzaddik’s teachings resonate so much with this generation:

One of the most popular songs in recent times is ‘V’afilu b’hastarah sheb’soch hahastarah — even in the concealment within the concealment,’ which of course is an adaption of one of Rebbe Nachman’s Torahs [Likutei Moharan I 56]…. The [Piaseczner] Rebbe lived through the darkest time in Jewish history … and he grappled with that darkness. His Torah teachings, especially in Aish Kodesh, are the expression of the heart of a tzaddik, the outcry of someone who believes deeply in Hashem, who loves Him and is torn apart by that concealment, but never, ever lets go.

“I think that speaks to our generation. We’re not living in any kind of holocaust, thank G-d. Things are much better than they used to be. But in the post-Holocaust generation, particularly now, people live with such anxiety, despair, depression and hester panim. The Rebbe’s sefarim are a Shulchan Aruch, especially Aish Kodesh, for how a believing Jew is to survive ‘V’afilu b’hastarah sheb’soch hahastarah….’ The Rebbe shows how Hashem is reaching out to us from the darkness.

Connecting to Our GenerationOne gathering of Jews implementing some of the Aish

Kodesh’s teachings meets every week in Ramat Beit Shemesh, Israel. Led by Rabbi Judah Mischel, director of Camp HASC and founder of Tzama Nafshi, an inspirational program for bachurim

during their year in Eretz Yisrael, the chaburah studies Tzav V’ziruz. After learning a passage, participants discuss how to apply the Piaseczna Rebbe’s ideas and advice in their daily lives, whether at home, in the beis medrah, at work, in the community or in one’s relationship with Hashem.

Why do the Piaseczner’s teachings connect with this generation so deeply? Rabbi Mischel explains that “in Tzav V’ziruz, there is penetrating honesty and a raw, straight-talk style that is so different from almost anything else one would hear or encounter…. The heartfelt sincerity of the entries ... push us to think about our growth, our relationship with Hashem and sensitive topics in avodah in ways that other sefarim and tzaddikim address more generally as ‘drashos’ or in more vague or indirect terms.”

There are virtually no other tzaddikim in history who have allowed us into the inner chambers of their hearts the way the Piaseczner does in Tzav V’ziruz.

Rabbi Mischel shares that the chaburah is even more meaningful because it takes place in Kehillas Aish Kodesh in Ramat Beit Shemesh, led by Rav Kalman Menachem Shapira, shlita, grandson of the Piaseczner’s brother, Rav Yeshayahu Shapira, zt”l. That deepens the experience, Rabbi Mischel says, because “there is a sense of fulfilling the Rebbe’s mission that is both overwhelming and empowering.” Rav Shapira “is an ohev Yisrael, beloved for his humility, and the shul is heimish, warm and welcoming.”

In addition to these organized venues that transmit the Piaceszner’s teachings, individuals worldwide also consistently draw from his well of wisdom. The Aish Kodesh’s yahrtzeit is this Shabbos, 4 Cheshvan, making it an opportune time to discover the Piaseczner’s teachings.

Binyomin Wolf is the adapter of a recently released book (distributed by Feldheim Publishers) entitled ‘Warmed by the Fire of the Aish Kodesh – Torah from the Hilulas of Reb Kalonymus Kalman Shapira of Piaseczna,’ by Rav Moshe Weinberger of Woodmere, N.Y.

ILLUMINATED BY THE AISH KODESH OF PIASECZNAAt a recent Elevation Seminar by Rabbi Doniel Katz.

16 October 14, 2015