"I can almost predict a pattern: the stickier the situation, the less likely it is that the family has a rav"

Rabbi Kaplan’s Job Offer [A Living Torah / Issue 896]

I read with great interest the article on Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan.

I felt a special connection to this extraordinary person. As a young teenager of 13, I wrote to Rabbi Kaplan a few times suggesting amendments to his sefer, The Living Torah. Rabbi Kaplan wrote me back letters, commenting on all my corrections, and complimenting, “You must be the smartest girl in your class.”

He offered to hire me as his future proofreader when I grew up, and sent me regards from his daughter with whom I share the same name!

Thanking you for an amazing weekly read.

Devorah Moseson (née Herszberg)

Ashdod (formerly Melbourne)

Filling Out the Picture [A Living Torah / Issue 896]

While the article about Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan ztz”l included a lot of pertinent facts about him, it was missing perhaps the most important fact.

It is true that Rabbi Pinchas Stolper originally discovered Rabbi Kaplan and that he wrote a number of booklets and other works for NCSY. But as mentioned in the article, he struggled with making a living, while living in the center of Boro Park in a rented apartment, teaching in seminaries (not mentioned in the article), and writing.

It was not until Rabbi Wagshal of Moznaim Publishers discovered Rabbi Kaplan that he was able to write his most important works, including the Torah Anthology (Mei’am Lo’eiz), The Living Torah, and much more.

Rabbi Wagshal had himself discovered Mei’am Lo’eiz in its original Ladino, and personally had it translated to Hebrew. It became an instant bestseller in Israel, and I remember as a bochur in Israel, in 1973–74, watching my Israeli roommates lying in bed and reading Mei’am Lo’eiz until they fell asleep.

Rabbi Wagshal knew his Mei’am Lo’eiz needed to be translated to English, and he told me that he asked five different people “in the know” whom he could recruit for this endeavor. All five named one person: Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan.

And so it was that Rabbi Wagshal hired Rabbi Kaplan as a full-time employee of Moznaim (which he remained the rest of his shortened life), and he started making a living salary.

As your article mentions, Rabbi Kaplan was indeed a very fast typist. But he tired quickly of having his works edited by others and the ensuing delays to his publications. So he began typing directly into the typesetting machine so that his works were published as quickly as he could type them.

He also told me that the reason he taught himself Ladino was that Spanish, like English, has many words, and can therefore capture the exact nuance required. Hebrew, Rabbi Kaplan said, is a language of halachah and has fewer words (and those words can also have more than one meaning). He therefore felt it preferable to translate directly from the Ladino version.

Rabbi Kaplan’s writing talent was that of any internationally famous novelist. He wrote in American English. When a phrase in Hebrew literally states, “If I find favor in your eyes” he translated that as “if you like me.” If he encountered a measurement like a “hin” — which in the footnote he states is actually 3.9 quarts, based on his research — he translated it as a “gallon.” The Living Torah quickly became and remains the go-to English translation Chumash for all American elementary school rebbeim.

I am pleased that the article mentioned his art (those flaming beards are hard to forget) and also the time and effort he spent on his children. Rabbi Kaplan maintained a magnificent, huge aquarium in his dining room, which he dubbed his children’s “kosher TV.”

What the article didn’t mention were those who had great influence on Rabbi Kaplan. Let me mention just one: Rav Avrohom Kalmanovitch of the Mir Brooklyn. Rabbi Kaplan learned through two sedorim in Shas with Rav Kalmanovitch between 5 and 7 a.m. every morning.

Rabbi Kaplan was truly a great man, and had gifts beyond the scope of any American Jewish writer of his time, before or after. He is sorely missed. But during his lifetime, he labored as if he knew he didn’t have long in This World and left a gigantic legacy of his works.

Elchonon Nakdimen, Monsey, NY

We Don’t Hate Eretz Yisrael [Inbox / Issue 896]

I was deeply bothered by last week’s letter from the reader who stopped her subscription to Mishpacha.

An avid reader myself, I have had my fair share of issues with things printed in the magazine — from headlines to ads. But I question the premise of her argument in this case: namely, that Mishpacha has taken on an anti-Israel tone.

Why are people so disturbed to read that a young couple decided to go back to America because life was too uncomfortable for them? Does that say anything about Eretz Yisrael, or just about the couple?

Why is it so wrong to criticize policies of a secular government, which is not in any way representative of daas Torah or halachah? Does Israel’s Covid policy have any connection to the holiness and beauty of Eretz Yisrael?

People equate Israel with Eretz Yisrael, and conflate critique of the Israeli government with anti-Semitism. Make no mistake about it — frum Jews who disagree with Israeli policy do not hate Eretz Yisrael, and certainly do not hate Jews.

I am a Jew who loves Eretz Yisrael, and still I feel no need to support governmental policy decisions that make no sense. Perhaps the criticism can lead to improvement. And as a perfect case in point: Shortly after Mishpacha printed the article about the “hotel hostages,” Israel changed the laws to allow easier entry to non-citizens. (Obviously, in the secular world, anti-Zionism is generally a political form of anti-Semitism and is a whole different story.)

Mishpacha, as far as I can tell, does not speak negatively of Eretz Yisrael. Rabbi Y. Y. Rubinstein walked away from his job on a strong premise of moral values. He had good reason to show his disdain for the actions of the BBC. So by all means, cancel your subscription, but do it for a better reason.

A citizen of the State of Israel and resident of Eretz Yisrael

Know Your Limits [Soapbox / Issue 896]

Regarding Avi Greenstein’s piece “We Need to Tell Boro Park’s Story,” I agree that it is not good for frum Jews to be portrayed in the media as a poor community that is dependent on government handouts to provide for our large families. But calling attention to facts like “Nineteen banks line the length of 13th Avenue, not out of a sense of pity for us, but because of the sheer number of successful businessmen who call Boro Park home” is also not to our advantage. It plays into the other negative stereotype of Jews: that they are rich and control banking, media, government, etc.

I appreciate askanim’s efforts to try to counter false negative depictions of religious Jews in the media because we cannot just rely on miracles. But we cannot delude ourselves into thinking that if only we will make our voices heard in the media, fight for our rights enough and elect the right politicians, we can get rid of anti-Semitism.

Ultimately, we need to try to keep a low profile in galus by avoiding too much conspicuous consumption and daven that the Shomer Yisrael will watch over us.

Name Withheld, Boro Park

Age Is a Factor [The Younger the Better? / Issue 895]

I read with fascination the article “The Younger the Better.” Yes, younger people bring a skill set to the workplace that older people may not have, but the work ethic of older people often more than makes up for it. Their determination to give the company their best and their ability to show up under a variety of circumstances make them far more desirable a hire in many, many instances.

Would a 50-plus hire be the best bet to follow social media trends for your brand? Probably not. But someone with 30 years of experience in areas like accounting, bookkeeping, sales... sometimes those people start so much further ahead.

I cannot sign my name for fear of legal repercussions, but I absolutely consider age a factor when hiring. In our office we have 15 people working for us. Not one is younger than 30. The oldest is 60-plus. I constantly have people jealous of the dedication and diligence of my team and I credit it to their wonderful natures... and also their ages.

A Happy Boss, Brooklyn, NY

Untapped Resource [The Younger the Better? / Issue 895]

I read with interest the extensive report on hiring seniors in your January 19 issue. You candidly brought out the fears involved in hiring seniors while correctly pointing out the many benefits of hiring mature, reliable, and experienced personnel.

In Lakewood over the last few years, we have seen a boom in seniors moving to our town, many not ready to retire. Rather, they are looking for either full or part-time positions, where they can bring their expertise and vast experience to benefit the many businesses in our town.

Under the auspices of Chesed of Lakewood, I am fortunate to head an organization that works as a “shadchan” for our seniors, matching them with well-paying, responsible, and rewarding positions. ASAP (Active Seniors Accomplished Personnel) works with employers who realize the value of hiring this untapped workforce and prospective employees seeking productive and worthwhile positions. ASAP works diligently to educate companies of the tangible benefits of hiring our “senior” population, while constantly receiving requests and interviewing candidates desiring work.

Baruch Hashem, though we’ve started just six months ago, we have filled many positions, to the satisfaction of both employer and employee alike. We have received requests from Brooklyn, Los Angeles, Chicago, Baltimore, Monsey, and other cities inquiring how to establish branches of ASAP in their communities (which we are too young to do at the present time).

I can be contacted via Mishpacha to assist you in your quest for either find your business a mature, dependable, and experienced employee or if you are a member of this exceptional untapped resource, seeking employment.

Nosson Reiss, ASAP

Lakewood, NJ

Predictable Pattern [Take a Stand / Issue 895]

Thank you for your column focusing on the need for a personal rav. Anyone who has read our Links publications for teens knows that roughly once a year I make a big push for “Aseh lecha rav.” We have run articles about how to find a rav, how to ask a sh’eilah, and most importantly, about the necessity.

To add to what the panelists mentioned, I can tell you that when organizations within the community who deal with crisis recently had some conversations to figure out how to better manage situations with serious dysfunction, one theme kept coming up: If the family has a rav, most of these issues have easy solutions.

I cannot tell you how many financial messes, parent-child conflicts, school related issues would never have become the monstrosities they are if a family had a rav they actively took counsel from and followed guidance.

So often, askanim bemoan the fact that people say, “Get me an appointment with Rabbi XYZ — I’ve heard him speak, he needs to help me,” not realizing that Rabbi XYZ doesn’t know them or their school board and has no reason to go to bat for them.

So often, when I deal with sticky sh’eilos in the remarriage field or the like, I can almost predict a pattern: the stickier the situation, the less likely it is that the family has a rav.

Oh, and I don’t mean a rav they shake hands with once a year or daven in the back of his shul. I mean a rav who knows them. A rav they have taken the time to develop a relationship with and to whose daas Torah they have been machnia themselves.

Without all of the above, every single struggle in life is magnified and complicated further. When we help our Links teens form relationships with rabbanim, they see the power of getting a psak... and they often tell our team, “How does anyone live without one?!”

I echo their question.

Mrs. Sarah Rivkah Kohn

Founder & Director, Links & Shlomie’s Club

Missing Piece [Guestlines / Issue 895]

As I read Rabbi Yaakov Barr’s piece on “Can’t Be Bothered Syndrome (CBB),” I started off nodding my head in agreement. I’m a mother and a teacher, and the truth of it, especially in the current generation, resonated with me.

Then I realized that there was something missing, something that I feel is crucial to remember.

As rabbanim and mechanchim have been discussing, many of our children and teenagers have deep questions that aren’t being answered or even shared. What you call CBB may well be a cover-up for those questions, the feelings of confusion, the unsettled feelings these kids have and can’t express — or they’re afraid to. It’s easier for children or teens to just look like they don’t care.

I know this from personal experience, having watched a child who seemed to have “CBB,” be pushed, encouraged, cajoled, supported, and treated with both positive and negative consequences. No one dreamed this child had deep unanswered questions; there were no indications, nothing damaging had taken place, and the child was a bright student with no social or behavioral issues. The child is no longer frum.

Please make sure there isn’t something deeper that is being covered up. Too many of our kids are struggling with emunah and belief, and assuming they’re being lazy or taking the easy way out can be very dangerous.

R., Brooklyn, NY

They Deserve More [Guestlines / Issue 895]

Rabbi Barr’s piece on Can’t Be Bothered Syndrome might have been one of the most insightful pieces you’ve ever published. He managed to pinpoint a huge issue facing our community with clarity and wisdom, trace its roots and consequences, and provide a glimmer of a solution too.

One of the most startling lessons of Covid was how hopeless people feel when there is no compelling reason to get out of bed. And the flip side — how the key to happiness is a sense of purpose and meaning, a reason to get up and get going, endure discomfort and disappointment, and keep aiming for the goal.

Our teens are smart. They can sense when there’s no real “point” other than a nice life on easy street. They see how hollow their parents’ lives are. They want more and deserve more.

How can we give them that sense of purpose and meaning that is the key to their happiness?

Rivka G., Brooklyn, NY

Get Out of the Way [Guestlines / Issue 895]

I read Rabbi Barr’s recent article with much interest, as I was thrilled with his depathologizing of normal childhood behavior.

I find that people are often quick to decide a behavior is really a clinical problem (e.g., depression, anxiety, trauma, a personality disorder), and by doing so, they sort of lock themselves (or the person being labeled) into this “diagnosis,” which becomes an identity. Unfortunately, this inevitably forces those who are diagnosed into a very stuck position — they “have this issue,” and, while they will likely be put on medication and even get therapy, the mindset is that they have this issue, so what do you want from them? So the article was refreshing in this sense and I do hope it will cause more people to reflect on the diagnosis issue.

I would like to add, however, that I really don’t like the Can’t Be Bothered suggestion either. I am a firm believer that there is no such thing as “lazy” and that when we call someone lazy, we are being lazy in missing the actual point, whatever the actual point is, because there always is one.

Lazy is a general term that doesn’t capture anything of the reality with which we are dealing. I believe that CBB truly is a problem of the environment getting in the way of natural consequences.

Natural consequences are the best teachers. I wake up late, I miss my school bus, I miss my test, and I lose points on the test and need to do a makeup. That makes me not want to wake up late again. I fight with my sister and then have no one to play with and so I make up with her so we can have fun again. I don’t clean my room and then I can’t find things when I want them.

When we adults don’t get in the way, natural consequences will teach children most of what they need to learn about prosocial behavior, responsibility, organization, etc. If parents and schools and other important figures in children’s lives would stop protecting children from natural consequences, I believe we would see a significant reduction in CBB syndrome.

When adults get out of the way of natural consequences, children get the opportunity to learn from reality, which is the best teacher. When authority figures do less, children get to learn from the real deal instead of getting into a battle with the authorities in their life. The result is a win for everyone.

Dr. Chaya Lieba Kobernick

The CBT/DBT Center

The Man in the Background [Zeidy’s Legacy / Issue 895]

Just before Rosh Hashanah 1974, shortly after finishing Shabbos Sheva Brachos for my brother, I rushed my father to Maimonides Hospital. It was the first time my father was in a hospital, and he never came out.

When he had been there for several weeks, I walked in and saw a gentleman sitting on my father’s bed, schmoozing. When he saw me, he leaned over to my father and they whispered back and forth. Then he stood up and left.

I asked my father who was the man and what was the big secret. My father told me he didn’t know the man’s name, but he’d visited several times and had asked whether there was food in the house to feed the family. My father assured him that there was food in the house; he had a small butcher store, and we had credit at the grocery store, and we were fine.

My father took that opportunity to remind me that even though he was in the hospital and he would be out shortly and everything would go back to the way it was, the families to whom he had been sending packages of chicken and meat gratis must still continue to get the packages, as they relied on them.

Sometime after my father passed away, my friend Lenny Perles introduced me to Tomchei Shabbos, which had just started. I felt that this would be a proper memorial to my father, and so the next Thursday night — a nasty evening with slush and sleet — I went to the garage on 55th Street. I asked who was in charge, because I wanted to offer my services to make deliveries, and was sent over to Mr. Hershkowitz. I immediately recognized him as the gentleman who had visited my father so many times.

For the next 30-odd years, I delivered food packages every Thursday night. In the early ’80s I had the zechus to buy a lot that would eventually house the Tomchei Shabbos headquarters on New Utrecht and 44th Street. If you pass the building, you will see the name of my illustrious father and mother, Avram Abba and Chaychu Goldenberg. (And if you look at the matzah bakery on New Utrecht, I believe the sign of the original headquarters is still there.)

Shortly after our groundbreaking, the MTA sent us a letter that they were going to take our lot by eminent domain. After a year or so of difficult negotiations, with the help of the Agudath Israel of America (my first encounter with the Agudah outside of playing Nuts — some old people will know what I am talking about) along with Noach Dear a”h, Dov Hikind, Steve DiBrienza, and some other good people, we swapped the lot for a building on New Utrecht and 63rd Street.

Sometimes visiting politicians wanted to come down and see Tomchei Shabbos and I would call Mr. Hershkowitz and ask him to meet them at headquarters. “You be there,” he would say, “I don’t want them to see me. You speak English — you talk to them.”

“But,” I answered him, “I’m not Mr. Tomchei Shabbos.”

To which he answered, “I make you.”

During those visits, he’d hide in his office and the most I could get from him was a brachah for the politician.

I am fortunate enough to be part of this great organization for the past 47 years. Today I work with his competent son, who, like his father, is always in the background.

Leon Goldenberg,

Goldmont Realty Corp.

At Zeidy’s Side [Zeidy’s Legacy / Issue 895]

The feedback from the article “Zeidy’s Legacy — Tomchei Shabbos” is heartwarming! I’d like to point out the the Tomchei Shabbos warehouse is located at New Utrecht and 63rd street, not 52nd as stated in the article. Many schools and chadarim take their students there to help pack up the Shabbos boxes, giving these children a chance to see the operations up close.

I’d also like for the Mishpacha readership to hear about two esteemed men who were instrumental in the founding and growth of Tomchei Shabbos.

One of them is the legendary Rabbi Yidel Tabak, who originally did bikur cholim in the hospital together with my grandfather, and they eventually founded Tomchei Shabbos.

I can’t write about Tomchei Shabbos without mentioning a leading friend and supporter of Tomchei Shabbos, the well-known askan Mr. Leon Goldenberg. He was involved with acquiring the lot for the distribution warehouse in memory of his parents, and faithfully dropped off Thursday night packages for over 30 years.

Rivka Bar Horin

Confident in Our Values [Perspective / Issue 894]

I’d like to offer my opinion in response to Alexandra Fleksher’s article about breaking stereotypes regarding frum women.

It seems to me that the response we use to counteract these negative claims is wrong. We try to prove that we do have careers, and that we do have higher education, and many of us are professionals. We are feeding into the idea that to prove our worth as frum women, we must also show that we are just as educated, and “out in the world” like everyone else.

Why do we use this argument to prove our value? Many frum women do not have careers. Their main occupation is being a mother. Are these women not worthy?

We have different values than the modern world has. We have different priorities, and value different things than the rest of the world. Why can’t we be proud of what we value, instead of trying to prove our worth in domains that they value?

Today many career-minded, professional women have no family to speak of. No spouse, no children. To us, a woman like that is missing a lot in her life and future. And yet, we feel the need to prove to them that we are worthwhile.

They don’t feel the need to prove to us that their life has any value. They are confident and are not looking to prove anything to us. We can be just as confident in our values without trying to conform.

L. Rosenberg

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 897)