"When we point at other people’s lifestyles, are we not just expressing an insecurity in our own?"

Armed by the Czechs [For the Record / Issue 899]

This week’s For the Record spoke of the help that Tomas Masaryk and his son Jan Masaryk offered the Jewish People and later the fledgling Israeli Air Force. In fact, Czechoslovakia did more.

My father, an American World War II veteran, along with other British and South African veteran volunteers, formed the Anglo-Saxon unit of the Haganah. He told me that the captured British Sten gun jammed often. It was the Czechoslovakian rifles provided by that government that were the most reliable weapons to the poorly equipped, outmanned, and outgunned Jewish soldiers in the War of Independence.

Dovid Green

The Innovation Goes On [A Kingdom Rebuilt / Issue 898]

Much thanks is due to Reb Dovi Safier and Reb Yehuda Geberer for their latest masterpiece. They brilliantly portrayed the life of a saintly figure whose actions and demeanor were so otherworldly, I never believed they could be properly written up in a magazine article.

Each and every article from these two is a treasure, and I truly hope that we continue to see more content of this sort, both from these writers as well as from other Mishpacha writers. It is only the knowledge of our history that allows us to build upon the actions of the great leaders of the past.

If I may, I would like to add something that I feel is appropriate. The current Belzer Rebbe is a master builder and a great tzaddik. But perhaps his most overarching quality is his ability to look beyond the “current offerings” out there and innovate, cultivate, and nurture the next big idea.

Who would have imagined that a strict chassidic sect would excel at kiruv rechokim, developing programs like Hidabroot and the Traveling Chassidim, to just name a few! Who would have had the audacity to envision building a structure like the magnificent Belzer “Beis Hamikdash” that crowns central Jerusalem?

It is my belief that the credit goes to Rav Ahrele, whose bold steps during his decade in the Eretz Kodsheinu created a feeling amongst Belzers that anything was possible, even if it felt so far-fetched. These ideals were implanted within the current Rebbe as a young boy, and he has used them as a catapult to do the unimaginable.

M.K., Israel

Interim Host [A Kingdom Rebuilt / Issue 898]

Kudos to Dovi Safier and Yehuda Geberer for a very moving and well-researched article on the heilige Belzer Rebbe ztz”l. I would only like to add one piece of information to their excellent narrative.

Shortly after the Rebbe’s arrival in Eretz Yisrael, before he settled in Tel Aviv, a representative of the Rebbe approached a Chabad chassid, Rav Shneur Zalman Ashkenazi, and asked whether he could accommodate the Rebbe and his gabbai in his home in the Batei Varshaw section of Yerushalayim. The Rebbe stayed there for a period of six weeks before relocating to Tel Aviv.

Rav Ashkenazi was the father of the legendary Shanghaier Rav, Harav Meir Ashkenazi, who was my wife’s grandfather.

Rabbi Chaim Cohen

Lakewood NJ

We Can All Improve [If You Were a Rich Man / Issue 898]

The article “If I Were a Rich Man” by Mr. Besser left me feeling that the magazines are out of touch.

I don’t know what circles Mr. Besser runs in, but in my circles (Lakewood, New Jersey, a large range of financial brackets) I don’t know anyone who spends their time complaining about how other people spend their money. We are all busy raising families, working, paying tuition, making Yom Tov, saving, and hopefully investing.

The problem is not people complaining about how others spend their money. The real problem in today’s generation is a tremendous lack of spirituality and fulfillment. What inevitably follows is a drive for materialism, in attempt to fill the void.

This chase is seen among people of all financial brackets. People spend a lot of money, or a lot of time, or both, in an attempt to achieve perfection for themselves and their children in dress, home, social media, tablescapes, simchahs, you name it. (I am just as guilty, but at least I admit the problem and am trying to tackle it.)

I found the article to be patronizing and hurtful toward non-rich people. Are rich people so sensitive that we have to blame only the non-rich people? How about all of us, no matter our financial statements, look inward and discover our true goals in life?

A few steps I have taken toward my goal of being true to my neshamah are (bli neder) spending less time on social media, saying some Tehillim especially for other people in need, specifying things for which I am grateful, volunteering a small amount of time for chesed, choosing not to wear any clothing with designer logos visible on the outside, and working on my emotional well-being by using tips from podcasts (shout-out to Living Lchaim and Meaningful People), shiurim, and self-help books.

I also try to make sure my children hear me praise other people for their good deeds and Torah values, and not for their financial success.

Sure, as humans we non-rich folks may feel a twinge of envy when we see others posting about exotic vacations, or on days when it feels like everyone else has extra money for designer bags, new sheitels, and expensive cars and yes, Moncler coats, while we are saving up for summer camp and braces for the kids. And we work on ourselves when those feelings come our way. But blaming the non-rich for their feelings is really out of bounds. I hope we will see some more realistic articles from Mishpacha in the future.

S. R., Lakewood NJ

Richer and Poorer [If You Were a Rich Man / Issue 898]

I just finished reading an almost-copy of a debate in a middos shiur I attended last week in Yisroel Bessers’s editorial “If You Were a Rich Man.” His sentiment is one I expressed to a group of women who started down the well-traveled road of “it’s not fair of the rich to....”

The gap between the haves and have-nots is most definitely a painful topic for those of us who are struggling. But the irony of this diversion is that, with the exception of the extremely poor (and maybe in some ways, them too), we all know people who are both richer and poorer than us. Even the very affluent members of our community know people who are wealthier than they are, and cause feelings of insecurity. Those who are average or even below average in income or means know people who have less than them. And... drumroll... that’s how Hashem sets it up!

Since I am not on a vaad harabbanim elected to guide our communities regarding these matters (which is fortunate, because there really are no easy answers!), I find the conversation complex but overdone. We must ask ourselves whether pointing fingers at people who have more actually helps ease our middle-class financial crunch, or does it make us more bitter, stuck, resentful. And where does it leave our emunah?

Having the discussion about kids’ feelings and disappointment is also a diversion. They will likely inherit most of our own attitudes and sentiments on the matter. And we also have a choice to live in communities where we are comfortable with the community’s overall relationship with gashmiyus, or not to live there if we feel that the gap is too wide for ourselves or our children to realistically manage.

Living in Jerusalem, where the financial disparity is so huge, I know tens of anecdotes of the financially poor being “richer” than their literal neighbors with means. At the end of the day, as Rabbi Besser says, we all have ways, financial and not, that we are rich. Really. And when we point at other people’s lifestyles, are we not just expressing an insecurity in our own, which should be the real point of all this angst?

A.F., Ramat Eshkol, Jerusalem

Your Personal Privilege — Or Burden [If You Were a Rich Man / Issue 898]

I enjoyed reading about the rav who advised a concerned father how to view the aggressive parents who made him feel inferior. The rav’s excellent insight about aggressive parents and the letters to the editor that followed reminded me of a personally painful but deeply impactful experience of my own.

I will not share specifics, but the basics are as follows: After many years of investment in a community institution, I found myself under fire from a powerful individual. The criticism and demands escalated over time, robbing me of my menuchas hanefesh on every level. It came to the point that I had to come to terms with the greatest loss of my life: I picked up my family and left our community, our shul, our rav, our home, and what I saw then as my life’s work.

As the reality of that indescribably painful decision set in, my bitachon faltered, and I found myself in a (I hope uncharacteristically) bitter place. At one point, I cried out to my wife, “How does this make any sense that they can treat people like this, and suffer zero consequences? I know that we believe that the ultimate response to man’s actions is in the World to Come, but I still cannot understand how Hashem can allow someone to cause so much damage and so much anguish, and continue to live such a comfortable and charmed life!”

My wife’s response will live with me always. With her inimitable gentle, piercing wisdom, she said, “Of course they have consequences. The consequence is: that is who they are. And they must live with that, and the repercussions of that, always.”

So for those who have been on the receiving end of power used poorly, or for those of you who feel frustrated that they will never have the bank account and force of personality to move the mountains that others can, please know that the reality should not embitter you or engender envy.

Because all of our choices have a much greater impact inside than outside of us; and the sum of those choices becomes who we are, and that becomes our burden, or our privilege, to bear.

Name Withheld

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 900)