Torah Library

Teachings of Or Vishua

Essays, halakhic responsa and Torah thought from the rabbis of Yeshivat Or Vishua in Haifa. Translated from the original Hebrew for English-speaking audiences worldwide.

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Featured Essay

From Defeat to Salvation

On the Unfolding of Historical Events of the Past Two Years

Rav Dr. Eliyahu Rachamim Zini · 25 Tammuz 5785 / June 2025 · Erev Parashat Shelach Lekha

In His final admonition in Parashat Ha'azinu, when we stood only at the very beginning of our journey through history, Moshe Rabbeinu already demanded of us: "Understand the years of each generation" (Deuteronomy 32:7). This demand places before us the obligation to remain alert to the meaning of events, because they are all manifestations of Divine Providence in reality.

Only thus can we escape becoming a "generation of reversals" or "children in whom there is no faith", God forbid. And to this demand was appended: "Ask your father and he will tell you, your elders and they will say to you", the complete opposite of the heresy on the lips of the one who did us such great harm in the last generation.

Shimon Peres would declare morning and evening, "The past is dead", which is nothing but a new formulation of the "Old Testament" mindset. This approach gave birth to the tragedy of that Simchat Torah, which turned from a festival into mourning for the entire nation following a pogrom the likes of which had not been seen since the bitter exile, and in the very land that was supposed to serve as refuge for persecuted Jews.

This pogrom, which brought the IDF, the Shin Bet and the government to their knees, obligates everyone imbued with faith to heed the demand of the faithful shepherd of his people: to understand the essence of the historical processes of our generation and their causes. What happened, what is happening, and what is yet to come.

The Yom Kippur Precedent

Whoever was privileged to be among the residents of the Land in the year 5733 (1973) remembers that on Yom Kippur, in the middle of the Mussaf prayers, sirens drove us from the synagogues to confront the cruel Arab attack on the holiest day, as is their custom.

And behold, exactly fifty years later, the mayor of Tel Aviv, in a despicable antisemitic decision, banned those same Yom Kippur prayers in Kikar Malkhei Yisrael. In truth, regarding the name of the place, it is quite fitting for such a decision, for all the Kings of Israel (not Judah) were utter evildoers, so prayer does not fit their agenda.

This ugly decision became a terrible accusation in Heaven. It was clear to every person of understanding who "understands each generation" that the Holy One, Blessed Be He, would not let it pass without a harsh response.

It arrived in full force and severity on the day designated for joy over the foundation of our people's existence: Simchat Torah. The despicable rejection of the sacred in the Holy Land trampled the joy and humiliated the nation, which wallowed in the blood of its children, may God avenge their blood.

The Spirit of Valor

Facing the savage attack by Hamas, the General Staff and especially the Chief of Staff with his foolish "conceptions", along with the Prime Minister and the head of the Shin Bet, found themselves in shock and helpless. Convinced that our state was about to be wiped off the map, one single option stood before their eyes: to summon President Biden, who was very unfriendly and refused to supply all necessary weapons.

But it was not to reinforce a mentality of exile dependency that the Holy One, Blessed Be He, brought this terrible tragedy upon us. Rather, it was specifically in order to return all of us to the bosom of pure faith and to restore the Jewish essence to a state whose successful hi-tech industry had immersed it in melting gold and silver into a golden calf of ignorance.

If His people had already been given over to plunder in the Gaza envelope and had paid their vows to the Most High, He said "enough" to our troubles. In His great mercy He breathed into His people a spirit of valor: it is this spirit that would bring salvation. No longer would foreigners build the walls of our defense.

All the people of Israel rose to their feet. 300,000 reservists reported for duty without any calculation, leaving their families, their livelihoods and everything, in order to rush forth and save our people.

This sublime sight, entirely one of supreme self-sacrifice, ascended higher and higher heavenward. In place of the terrible accusation, they raised their hands to defend the children of the Holy One, Blessed Be He, with a spirit of sacrifice the likes of which we had not merited to see since King David.

Israel prevailed. Their successes against the cruel enemies of Hamas were not favoritism from the Holy One, Blessed Be He, but rather justice and righteousness.

The Unprecedented Strike on Iran

But the people of Israel remained threatened on seven fronts fed by the global Amalekite root of evil in Persia, and it was vital to crush the head of the serpent. For years the security establishment tried to prepare, and enormous preparations were invested. But the mission was nearly superhuman given the magnitude of the challenge, the distances and the heavy price.

To decide to take such an enormous risk required supreme courage from the heads of state and the military. And they did not have it. The Prime Minister admitted yesterday that they were about to cancel the attack. What gave them that courage was the valor of our soldiers on the front lines in Gaza, in Lebanon and in Judea and Samaria.

By the grace of Heaven, the terrible danger of a nuclear bomb compelled them to gird themselves with that same courage of our combat soldiers on the front lines, and they launched an operation without precedent in history.

A tiny state crushed a security superpower, economically and militarily, at distances exceeding 2,300 kilometers. In one moment the pilots of the holy people decapitated all senior commanders of the Persian army and dealt the most severe blow to all governmental and military systems of Iran.

Anyone who knows even a little of the military history of humanity knows that no army in the world has ever succeeded in striking such a severe blow against its cruel enemies, and at such an enormous distance!

The war has not yet ended, but it is already shaping up as an Israeli victory more spectacular and brilliant than the Six-Day War, which has stunned the entire world! This is an achievement that only the hand of God could have granted our people, in His mercy and His enormous lovingkindness, as consolation after the terrible suffering of October 7th.

A Call to Vigilance

The people have reconnected and are reconnecting anew with their true identity, with their Divine values. The believing public, more religious or less, has proven where the root of strength and confidence is planted. The economy is flourishing. The people have united completely, in a dramatic reversal from what characterized them in the past three years. Despite the heavy price on the front lines, this is a supreme heavenly blessing and a harbinger of a wonderful future.

But caution is demanded of us: we must ensure that this tremendous operation in Persia does not overshadow the holiness that has returned to us. We must ensure that we no longer hear "my power and the might of my hand" as happened mere months after the Six-Day War. A tremendous historical turning point is occurring now in every earthly dimension. We must not allow the spiritual, faith-based, national and moral turning point to be missed! A secular approach must not steal from us this Divine victory, for it was achieved entirely thanks to the triumph of our soldiers in the name of tremendous faith in this people, in God and in His Torah planted in the hearts of so many of our nation!

May it be His will that we merit to see these footsteps of redemption growing ever stronger, for the benefit of us all.

Postscript: Motza'ei Shabbat, Parashat Shelach Lekha

What I noted at the end of my Friday essay is beginning to materialize on the ground. The current Chief of Staff, who on more than one occasion has shown that he considers himself "Prime Minister", released a loud public declaration: "The world looks upon us in astonishment." All within a framework describing military achievements alone (even the enormous technological contribution of Rafael, Elbit and others was not mentioned at all), as though only he and the IDF are the exclusive owners of the military and national victory, clearly without any governmental, diplomatic, scientific or technological involvement, and certainly without any Divine intervention!

Jewish Thought

Holocaust Day — Why and For Whom?

יום השואה למה ולמי?

HaRav Dr. Eliyahu Rachamim Zini · 28 Nisan 5784 · Translated from Hebrew

Haifa, 28 Nisan 5784

To my dear Jewish brethren, may you live and be well, peace and abundant blessing to you all.

On the eve of the day that the State of Israel has designated as a Holocaust Remembrance Day — speaking as a son of an Auschwitz survivor — I wish to address you with a number of observations for your attention and several requests for the benefit of us all. To do so, certain facts must be placed in their proper light.1

The designation of this day as a Holocaust Remembrance Day is yet another injustice perpetrated — and still being perpetrated — by our State against the victims of this terrible tragedy, and against itself. When the dimensions of the catastrophe became known, all the institutions of the State (before, in the course of, or after its founding) felt the need to give expression to something of the immense grief. The Chief Rabbinate of Israel was the first to establish a Day of Remembrance, on the Tenth of Tevet, even before the establishment of the State, and called it "Yom HaKaddish HaKlali" — the General Kaddish Day. In the wake of this designation, two Knesset members — consumed by hatred for anything that carries the faintest scent of Jewishness — and now that they have departed from the world, one can find it in oneself to judge them somewhat favorably, since they were themselves Holocaust survivors who could not forgive God for the suffering (for, as with many other survivors, in the prevailing crooked Israeli logic it was not the Germans who were to blame but the Blessed Holy One) — did everything in their power to shift the day of remembrance to the date marking the beginning of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. The date of the uprising's beginning was, however, the 14th of Nisan 5703 — and since it was impossible to designate Erev Pesach for such a day, the 27th of Nisan was chosen instead, precisely because it is a date on which mourning is forbidden by halakha. And if there is an opportunity to express contempt for Torah and Judaism, one should not miss it! And of course, the leaders (sic) of Religious Zionism supported this initiative — for if they had an opportunity to express capitulation before every enemy of Torah in the name of "unity" and other shallow ideas, one must not let such an opportunity pass either.

But why was the date of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising chosen specifically? The painful truth must be stated and transmitted to future generations as an eternal testimony. At the founding of the State, Israel's leadership of that time regarded Holocaust victims as people who had agreed to go "like sheep to the slaughter" — people who had not demonstrated, as they imagined they had, the heroism to fight for their dignity and their lives. At times they even referred to them as "human dust" (avak adam) — as one of the most senior figures among them did not hesitate to call them. Therefore, to conceal the fact that they were ashamed of these victims, they refused to memorialize the suffering itself — only the memory of those who resembled them in their uprising in Warsaw. In this way they gave expression to the cruel and repugnant foreign spirit that enveloped these leaders — even in the very name they gave to this day of remembrance: "Yom HaShoah VeHaGevurah" — Holocaust and Heroism Day — as if the several hundred Warsaw Ghetto fighters, may God avenge their blood, could be equated with six or even seven million of our martyred brothers and sisters!

As a senior lecturer at the Technion and the Technion's rabbi since 1970, I testify here that even though the institution would declare a suspension of studies for approximately two hours on this day of remembrance, the large "Churchill Hall" — with its approximately 700 seats and where the memorial ceremony was held — would never succeed in filling even to half its capacity, until State President Mr. Ezer Weizman had the courage to make a public "confession": "We sinned in our treatment of the Holocaust victims."2

But this is not the only outrage in the choice of this date. As we have noted, the selection of the date stemmed from the desire to memorialize the beginning of the Uprising, which commenced on April 19, 1943. But why did the Nazis, may their name be obliterated, choose this particular date? It turns out that their choice was motivated by the wish to present Hitler, may his name be obliterated, with a birthday gift on April 20 — and this "gift" was chosen to be the Warsaw Ghetto. If that is so, then Israeli society, in its chronic historical and human ignorance, did not notice that it was memorializing the Holocaust on Hitler's birthday! This represents a victory handed to the Nazis — for the victims' descendants memorialize the birthday of their brutal executioner, in the very month that this monster sought to erase entirely. What a remarkable achievement!

Now that we have come this far, an even harder — and incomparably more urgent — question must be asked in these turbulent days: What did the Nazis seek to erase through the destruction of our people? The answer is: Jewish identity, Jewish faith in God and in His Torah, the observance of commandments, and much more. For those who are unaware: Hitler declared at the time of his decision to destroy our people, "I will eliminate this Middle Eastern tyrant" — and he was speaking of the Blessed Holy One! And who were the victims most brutalized, if not Torah scholars and the most devout Jews, clothed in traditional Jewish dress — as they had dressed in the ghetto for nearly two thousand years?

And now that we have merited to rebuild our people and our State by supreme divine grace, Jews who claim to be Jews — yet cry out at the top of their voices that they are atheists, or at least opposed to all "primitive and pagan religious ritual" — have apparently already succeeded in bringing to fruition the plan of our enemies. They demonstrate with thuggery and violence against brothers dedicated to authentic, genuine and profound Jewish identity, to Jewish faith, to God's Torah, to the Holy Land. They fill the streets of our State with endless blind hatred for those who cleave to the Torah and the Jewish tradition through the generations, and they are prepared to destroy the State or abandon it unless the Supreme Court (Beit HaMishpat HaElyon) is permitted to continue undermining all the foundations of Torah, Jewish identity and Jewish morality. Tell me, then — if you can at all: Are you unaware, or do you refuse to open your eyes and see that you are bringing to fruition the plan of our most cruel enemies?! I call upon you to take stock of yourselves! And please — do not dare claim that Holocaust Day speaks to your hearts — that would be a crude and base lie, for there is no connection whatsoever between you and the vast majority of the victims of this terrible tragedy!

As a son of an Auschwitz survivor — from an assimilated family, no less — I offer you something more concrete, more wholesome, truly befitting brothers, and that genuinely builds our people and its future. My mother decided to marry a Sephardic rabbi, of blessed memory — my father, HaRav Zini zt"l — who, after six years on the front lines, cared for her and the other survivors of the inferno at the war's end, and breathed renewed hope into her. After Mengele's experiments, may his name be obliterated, she did not wish to bring children into the world lest they perish again in the same hell. And he succeeded in teaching her a rooted Sephardic Judaism, prepared to fight for the flourishing of life in every circumstance. Blessed be God, through this she merited to build a magnificent family comprising roshei yeshiva (yeshiva deans), rabbis, senior IDF officers, scientists and hi-tech professionals — who demonstrably side with the right wing — and she even merited to pass the age of one hundred years, here in our Holy Land. And all of this by virtue of the Torah and the sacred tradition she absorbed from the lips of that somewhat "obscure" and slightly "primitive" father of mine. This she not only internalized as a source of life, but merited to transmit to many generations of students.

I therefore invite you to learn from my parents — for an unself-evident connection between two very distant Jewish worlds succeeded in bringing about a wondrous synthesis!

Notes

1 This article, which was published publicly some two years ago, comprises the content of my lectures on this subject for many decades. It was published at the time in various public venues — I believe even in Makor Rishon.

2 Only now is the public beginning — after more than 75 years of delay — to recognize this terrible mistake and injustice toward the victims. One need only observe how very large segments of the public are prepared to surrender territories of the Land of Israel to enemies who aspire to our annihilation — "merely" because of a few hundred or even thousands of casualties — despite possessing the best army in the world, the IDF. And yet this same leadership dared to treat with contempt and derision those brothers who were not privileged to have weapons, independence, an army, or any of the rest. An eternal, inexpiable shame!

Ask the Rav

Halakhic Questions and Answers

The yeshiva maintains a public responsa archive with over 1,100 questions across 26 categories. Below are selected Q&As translated from the Hebrew, covering practical Jewish law, faith, technology, holidays and more.

Halakha & Technology

The Halakhic Use of the Internet and Screens

Question:

To the honorable Rav Eliyahu Rachamim Zini, I follow the publications of the rabbis called "Haredi" (I dislike these labels) and I see that they consistently and systematically warn about the enormous dangers hidden in various electronic devices and urge distancing from them as much as possible. But in "Religious Zionism" the halakhic-spiritual guidance is not sufficiently clear. To my knowledge, the vast majority of Roshei Yeshivot, city rabbis and Religious Zionist judges hold smartphones and certainly possess laptops. What is the complete and correct halakhic and ideological guidance regarding the various screens?

Answer:

Dear esteemed questioner, peace be upon you.

If it is indeed true that many Haredi rabbis preach against the use of smartphones and computer screens, and that one does not hear from Religious Zionist rabbis the same kind of reservations, this does not mean that on the ground the picture is so distinct. Many even among those who prohibit, they or their spouses, hold smartphones and computers because no one has a choice today. This is not mere dishonesty on their part: first and foremost, the modern world today forces every citizen to use the internet for all government offices, for payments and many other things.

As for why the Religious Zionist rabbis do not speak about the problem at all: in most cases it is because their flock would "eliminate" them if any one of them dared to disqualify the use of any technology. He would quickly earn the dubious title of "primitive" or "backward", and the public would recruit a bit more "hassidut" to explain that there is good hidden in everything, even the most negative, while of course not bothering to fulfill all the other demands of hassidut!

But every person with responsibility for his children or students is well aware of the dangers lurking for every user, who sooner or later will become an unrestricted and addicted user of the device. One must monitor all usage and especially the content and extent of use. In my opinion, it is a moral obligation wherever there are parents or teachers who aspire to protect the youth, to invite lecturers who are experts in the damages of all these modern technologies, because most of the public is unaware of them.

If I were even to begin listing the enormous spiritual damages caused by the use of the internet alone, I would need to compose an encyclopedia. So I will suffice here with noting only one or two: How will a young person be able to distinguish truth from falsehood embedded in a scientific article or even a Torah article, once it is published under the name of an author adorned with some academic title or the title of "Rabbi"? This is indeed an important domain.

Holidays & Mourning

Eating Meat at a Siyum Masekhet During the Nine Days

Question:

Shalom honored Rav. I would be glad to know the Rav's opinion regarding eating meat at a siyum masekhet (celebration of completing a Talmudic tractate) during the Nine Days. I should note that I am not the one completing the tractate, but rather a close friend who is inviting 10 people to a siyum and se'udat mitzvah. The siyum is not being held during the Nine Days specifically in order to eat meat.

Answer:

Peace be upon you, dear esteemed questioner.

According to the Rema (Orach Chaim, Siman 551, Se'if 10), it is permitted to eat meat and drink wine at a siyum masekhet. Therefore, if a truly God-fearing person completes a tractate without any planning to circumvent the prohibition of eating meat and drinking wine during these days, he has whom to rely upon.

However, I do not understand why there would be a need to make such a celebration with a public gathering during those days. It does not seem appropriate to me. But to tell you there is a prohibition in the matter, I certainly cannot. Therefore, if the gathering is truly centered around genuine Torah study out of fear of Heaven and remembrance of these days, there is room to be lenient for whoever wishes.

Tefillin & Ritual Objects

Black Tefillin Straps: Both Sides or One?

Question:

Shalom to the Rav. I wish to replace my tefillin straps. When I checked with several sofrei STa"M (scribes), they offered me only straps that are black on both sides (I was told this is a "hiddur" of the Rambam). Since until now I have used straps that are black only on one side, I wish to clarify: is it permissible to use straps black on both sides for someone who follows North African custom?

Answer:

Good week, dear esteemed questioner.

Indeed, it is a halakha given to Moshe at Sinai that tefillin straps must be black. However, there is an explicit Talmudic passage in Menachot stating that the black color is required only on the outside, while the inside may be any color in the world except red.

As a scribe pointed out to me, the Rambam indeed wrote that it is a beautification (noi) for the strap to be entirely black, including the inside. However, his ruling has no support from any earlier sage who established such a requirement, even if it is not difficult to surmise why he reached this conclusion and why the other sages did not write as he did. Even Maran (the Beit Yosef), who in Orach Chaim Siman 33 mentioned his opinion, nevertheless wrote: "and we do not practice thus!"

In practice, there is no obligation whatsoever for the straps to be black on the inside, and in North Africa they never dyed the inside black. Moreover, until a few years ago, straps black on the inside were never sold. How did the black spread? Simply: as is well known, certain people exploit every opportunity for commercial gain, and as soon as the technology for blackening the inside became available, they began marketing it as a "hiddur." But from the perspective of halakha, there is no such requirement according to our tradition.

Passover

Why Is Hand-Washing Before Karpas a "Change" at the Seder?

Question:

Why on Seder night does the hand-washing before dipping the karpas constitute a "shinui" (change to arouse children's curiosity), when the Shulchan Arukh rules (Siman 158) that it is obligatory to wash hands before anything dipped in liquid?

Answer:

May you merit many years and a healthy summer. The change lies in the fact that ordinarily, a person approaching his meal washes his hands in order to eat bread, and only afterward does he dip whatever comes to mind. But here, without addressing or attempting to eat, he goes to dip, and what's more, something that is not really a food at all, but rather a kind of bitter herb, even one lacking any pleasant taste. This is what makes it unusual and prompts children to ask questions.

Current Affairs & Torah

The Abraham Accords: Then and Now

Question:

Shalom honored Rav, what is the Rav's opinion on the Abraham Accords, in the days of Avraham Avinu and today?

Answer:

Peace be upon you and all your family. This is a terrible disaster due to its long-term consequences. May we hear good tidings.

Faith (Emunah) 11 Av 5781 · July 2021

Brain Science and Faith: Are Our Souls Just Hormones?

Question:

The field of brain science has been greatly occupying and confusing me lately. Every day we hear about areas of the brain responsible for various emotions and drives, requiring different hormones — dopamine for the drive of curiosity and seeking, while "caring" is activated by estrogen, prolactin, progesterone and oxytocin.

One of the things that always most strengthened my faith was contemplating the infinite thirst of the nefesh (soul), the search for meaning and the desire for good. I always asked: where do all these deep feelings come from if not from the neshamah (divine soul)? Now these studies show that these are simply hormones present in the body — possibly even in animals. How do these things reconcile? Is there no independent will of the nefesh and neshamah, such that all these feelings exist?

— Shai

Answer:

First, please forgive the delay in my reply. The days heavy with spiritual and human weight of bein ha-metzarim (the Three Weeks of mourning before Tisha B'Av) combined with additional burdens are responsible for this delay.

I have not yet had the chance to read the article you cited, but I have no need to. This ongoing research — continuing for decades especially in the United States and known professionally as sociobiology — is well known to me. One must not disconnect it from the mentality characteristic of many circles there: extreme materialists who are incapable of recognizing anything that is not gross physicality. For them, everything begins and ends there.

These researchers do not understand that the connection between the Holy One, Blessed Be He, and mankind is made possible precisely through physiological structures — structures that enable and regulate the intellectual and spiritual activity of the human being. Reflect for a moment: our thoughts are conducted in our brains, and yet they deal with things that transcend physiology. There are in our brain, in our DNA, and in all our neurological structure, mechanisms through which our entire material world connects with everything beyond it — and all this was established by God in His world. All the substances they cite as influencing human thought are nothing more than triggers of mechanisms that God implanted in us since time immemorial.

But a reflective, thinking, feeling person activates these mechanisms through thought alone — without any external substance. "Animals" such as these researchers, however, imagine that only substances and electrical currents can activate them. I used the word "animals" — and in truth, that is already an honor to them. For anyone who claims there is no spirituality and that everything is materialism must himself be treated as a material object — by his own reckoning. So relating to him as an animal is already great honor, as he deserves at most to be treated as an inanimate object or a plant.

To illustrate how wrong they are: A journalist once summarized the research of one of the major sociobiology institutions in the United States. An experiment was conducted on tens of thousands of people in which each participant was told in advance that through certain substances and/or electrical currents, various mental and emotional phenomena would be induced in them. And indeed this happened. But the journalist noted that there was one case the institution was very careful never to report: a single individual announced in advance to the researchers that this would not happen to him — and indeed, he prevented all the phenomena that were supposed to occur through his free, spiritual will alone.

In summary: The words of our prophets and sages — thousands of years old — are being fulfilled before our very eyes, and the Jewish people succeeds against all odds in achieving wondrous things. Apparently our prophets must have consumed wonderful substances to prophesy with such impressive accuracy. Perhaps it would be more fitting to recommend that all these sociobiologists begin searching for those very metaphysical currents — they would greatly benefit all of humanity.

Therefore, remove this doubt from your heart and bring it before the Holy One, Blessed Be He.

With much blessing.

Faith (Emunah) 29 Elul 5775 · September 2015

The Third Temple: Is It Built of Stones or of Tears?

Question:

Dear Rav, peace and blessing. There is a Hasidic song whose words are: "Master of the Universe, I know that the Third Temple is not built of stones / it is built of tears / and if all You need is just one more tear, please take mine."

Does the Rav know the source of this song? And if it is not drawn from traditional sources, how should one relate to it?

Answer:

I do not know this song, but there is much truth in it. As you know, there is no doubt that the Third Temple will be built by us — as commanded by God in His Torah — and for so great a commandment we are not prepared to make any compromise, in any way.

At the same time, it is true that the rivers of tears shed by our ancestors throughout all the bitter and terrible exile — due to the endless suffering that visited every generation — these very tears aroused Heavenly mercy and returned us to our Holy Land. They paved the very road upon which we will ascend, higher and higher, to build the House of God at the center of the Holy of Holies in Jerusalem.

There are no longer dry stones in Jerusalem. They are wet from all these tears, and they await only a little mortar in order to be joined together once more — by the merit of our ancestors, their Torah, their righteousness and their tear-filled yearnings.

And with God's help, may we see this joy very soon. Happy New Year — may you be inscribed and sealed for good, and may you merit sons and descendants of endurance speedily.

With much blessing — Eliyahu Zini.

Faith (Emunah) 10 Sivan 5765 · June 2005

How Can I Believe? Clarifying the Very Foundations of Faith

Question:

Dear Rav, I wish to ask a question that may sound amusing — but nonetheless: How can I believe in God? I mean this in a completely literal sense. I want to believe. I want to feel and know that there is a God, that He gave us the Torah, commanded us the mitzvot. Unfortunately I do not feel this way. I simply do not believe there is some supreme being responsible for all this.

A few relevant disclosures: (a) I was born into a religious family, studied in a religious high school, and removed the kippah around age 19. (b) The desire to "return in teshuvah" is not from something internal — my life would simply be easier. I have a girlfriend I love and want to marry, but as long as I am a non-believer and she is religious, that will not happen. I know this is perhaps not a reason to return to observance. But if I truly come to believe in the end, does it matter what the initial reason was?

What I am actually asking is: What should I do? Where to begin?

Answer:

Your question is not amusing at all, as you thought. It is so serious that it is the question of all questions — the one that has occupied all of humanity since the beginning of its existence, though usually addressed in the least successful ways. A complete book, if not an encyclopedia, would be needed to answer it fully. But to send you away empty-handed is impossible. I will divide my words into two parts: first, several points for thought; second, a more practical proposal.

First error: You confuse belief in God with intellectual recognition of His existence. You define yourself as a "non-believer" because you do not "feel" God's presence — yet you have not noticed that there is almost no necessary connection between the two. Since you do not experience a rousing faith-experience that ignites you when you think of the Holy One, you conclude you don't believe. As though faith were identical with the feeling of faith! Can a person who does not feel the presence of his father conclude that his father does not exist?

Regarding the Holy One, there are mainly two paths of approach. The first: emotional, internal recognition — the deep inner connection we have with God, immediate and ongoing. The second: intellectual, rational recognition. You must ask yourself: just because you do not feel the inner emotional experience of God, why does that mean there is no place for intellectual recognition of Him? This intellectual recognition can be reached at any time, provided that a skilled teacher illuminates your path — and then you will see a correct window opening before you toward true recognition of the Divine truth.

Why does our generation find this more difficult than earlier generations? Precisely because certain figures in the scientific world allow themselves to intrude into domains not their own — domains where they have no objective means of judgment and no advantage over any ordinary person — and they establish "facts" without authority. On the contrary: nothing is more natural to a human being than faith. When one reflects inwardly, one understands that the sense of faith is most natural — only events, flawed education and external "authorities" have temporarily stunted its development.

On love and faith: Faith and love are always deeply connected, as Rav Avraham Yitzhak HaKohen Kook, of blessed memory, elaborated. The very Hebrew words — emunah (faith) and imun (trust) — share the same root. Can there be genuine love toward a being in whom we place no trust at all? And in this you will understand why our world distances itself from faith: because it distances itself from true love.

I dispute your claim that you have "no faith." Examine carefully everything you wrote and you will find your words full of faith — only you have not noticed it. Your very desire to believe is nothing other than the expression of a hidden faith that has not yet broken through to your conscious experience. And what you call wanting a "simpler" life is itself an expression of the inner understanding that true rest for a person is found in faith — as Rav Kook and all our sages throughout the generations taught.

Practical proposal: You are invited to schedule a meeting to discuss these most important questions at greater length and depth. I am confident that with proper guidance, the window you are seeking will open.

With much blessing and Shabbat Shalom.

Land of Israel 7 Nisan 5784 · April 2024

Hallel for the Miracle of April 14, 2024: The Iranian Missile Attack

Question:

Shalom to the honored Rav. I want to know — following the words of Rav Uri Sherki, who recited Hallel without a blessing (in order not to get entangled, as he put it) — in light of the enormous international coordination that enabled the interception, and my understanding of a miracle as something supernatural, I do not see what miracle happened here.

One might argue there was something slightly supernatural in that a large number of missiles fell on Iranian territory or before reaching their targets, and perhaps they would have caused destruction we cannot fully understand in retrospect. Of course, there was a national salvation here, and that is a blessed and beautiful thing, but the question still stands for me.

If we compare this coordination to surgery: when the surgeon happened not to be ill on the day of the operation, or when I came through surgery safely — which also required coordination (though not a national salvation) — does that count as a miracle? I feel there is conceptual confusion worth clarifying. I would be glad to hear the Rav's opinion on both the nature of the miracle and the question of Hallel. Thank you.

Answer:

To the dear A., may he live long. On the Eve of Shabbat HaGadol I cannot elaborate at length, but I cannot leave you with nothing. So I will answer briefly for now.

A. Partial Hallel or complete Hallel without a blessing is not considered Hallel at all, but rather Tilim (no spelling error!) as our teacher the Me'iri called it, and I elaborated on this in my essay on Hallel. Reciting Tehillim (Psalms) is, as is known, always a beautiful and important thing expressing depth of faith — but it remains far from being considered Hallel.

B. According to halakha, Hallel is recited only for a victory over our enemies, not for salvation from harm inflicted upon us. Since what occurred was a salvation — and moreover, one we merited only thanks to the military participation of quite a few foreign armies — there is no place for Hallel here. Rather, the appropriate response is gratitude (hodayah) and recitation of Birkat HaGomel.

C. The miracle: Never in the history of warfare has it occurred that hundreds of missiles were fired at a small state like ours and not one managed to reach its intended target, while the entire world marveled at the achievement — and the few missiles that did penetrate the defense wall caused no significant damage. The ones qualified to determine whether there was a miracle here are precisely experienced military men who are sufficiently free of hostility toward faith and religion, so that their judgment will prove unbiased. And so it is — I testify to this from the depth of my knowledge on the matter.

With blessing for a joyous holiday in the recitation of complete Hallel with a blessing — for the defeat of Egypt, and for so much more!!

Land of Israel 21 Tammuz 5779 · July 2019

Living in the Land of Israel vs. Honoring One's Parents

Question:

In the Name of God. To the honored Rosh Yeshiva, peace and blessing. I have seen someone cite the Rashbatz (Rav Shimon ben Tzemach Duran) as holding that the mitzvah of honoring one's father and mother overrides the mitzvah of settling the Land of Israel. His proof is from the responsum in Shu"t HaTashbatz, Part III, Siman 288: "And it is not permitted to leave the Land of Israel for the Diaspora except to study Torah if one cannot find a teacher in the Land of Israel, or for the sake of honoring one's father and mother."

Is this indeed the correct understanding of the matter? Faithfully.

Answer:

To the dear D., may he live long. If you have encountered someone citing this halakhically in our times, please send him back to the study bench — if he was ever there to begin with.

That said, this is indeed what is written in the Rashbatz. However, any person of sound mind and genuine fear of Heaven understands that one of two interpretations must apply:

Either the Rashbatz intended only temporary departure, as is understood from the story of Rav Asi in Kiddushin (31b) — and indeed the Acharonim (later authorities) interpreted him this way, among them Rav Ovadia Yosef, of blessed memory, in two responsa in Yehavveh Da'at (and the editors of the Tashbatz already noted this) —

Or the Rashbatz followed what certain sages understood from Rashi's commentary in Kiddushin. But in that case, the halakha in no way follows the Rashbatz, since not only the Rambam disagrees — as do all the statements of our Sages in the Talmud and the Rishonim (early authorities) — but so too does the Shulchan Arukh in several places.

Whoever relies on this Rashbatz to permit permanent settlement in the impurity of the Diaspora in our times is truly deserving of reproach — and he must repent speedily.

With blessing.

Shabbat 3 Adar II 5782 · March 2022

Reading a Recipe Book on Shabbat

Question:

Shalom. May I read a recipe book on Shabbat? Thank you very much.

Answer:

Shalom to you, Y., may she live long.

Our rabbis have already taught us that Shabbatot and Yom Tov were given only for engaging in Torah study — or in the language of our day, for engaging in whatever elevates the soul. For this reason, the Shulchan Arukh (Siman 307) rules that it is forbidden to study on these days anything other than words of Torah.

However, all of this applies to one who is obligated in Torah study. Therefore, since you are a woman, it appears there is room to be lenient if you find genuine joy in this. But even if you make use of this leniency, I strongly ask that you make an effort to dedicate some time as well to more elevated reading — especially for the sake of educating your children, and so that the Shabbat of the homemaker does not appear somewhat like an ordinary weekday.

Even this small effort will bring upon you deep holiness and blessing.

Warm regards to your husband from me.

Bible & Torah 14 Shevat 5778 · February 2018

Why Did Moshe Ask Pharaoh to Leave for Only Three Days?

Question:

Why did Moshe Rabbeinu ask Pharaoh to let the people go and serve God for three days in the wilderness, and not to leave Egypt altogether? On the face of it this is puzzling, since the mission he received from God at the burning bush was to bring them out of Egypt entirely.

Answer:

To our dear friend T., may he live long.

Like the presidents of the United States and the leaders of every Western nation in our day, the Pharaohs were prepared to recognize a worship of God different from their own, and the right of citizens within their state to serve a different deity. What they were not prepared to recognize, under any circumstances, was an independent nationhood for the Jews: especially not inside their own state. This is an early edition of what plays out today at the United Nations.

In addition, Pharaoh was not prepared under any circumstance to lose three million slaves who served him with all their heart and all their soul.

Therefore Moshe Rabbeinu, peace be upon him, wanted to prove to Pharaoh that even this most basic right, granted to every ordinary citizen, he was unwilling to extend to the children of Israel.

With many blessings.

Faith (Emunah) 18 Elul 5775 · September 2015

How Do We Hear God's Voice in History? On the “Still Small Voice”

Question:

Shalom to the honored Rav. For a long time the question of the Holy One's intervention in our world has weighed on me. How does one know what HaKadosh Barukh Hu wishes to hint to me, to speak to me? How does one reach the elevated spiritual level of a Hannah Senesh? How does one attain that quality of attentiveness and hearing of the kol demama daka, the “still small voice” (1 Kings 19:12)? What exactly should I learn in order to arrive at this?

Answer:

To J., may he live long, peace and blessing. I must admit that your words leave me uncomfortable.

The voice of God is being heard throughout the whole world, at every single moment. But one whose soul has not yet been sufficiently purified does not hear those voices. The entire people of Israel heard the voice of God at Sinai: that was a national, historical revelation, not a private mystical event reserved for a select few.

As for elevating Hannah Senesh as a model of this listening, forgive me, that is an insult to minimal intelligence. Her famous poem is a beautiful piece of secular Zionist literature, but it has nothing to do with the prophetic listening of Eliyahu HaNavi at Horev.

Whoever is not blind to the “historical colors” sees throughout the whole course of history the revelation of the Holy One, Blessed Be He, in the world. That is where one begins to hear Him.

Spelling out a proper answer to your question requires several years of serious yeshiva study. I cannot compress it into a single email. Come and learn.

With great blessing.

Land of Israel 17 Kislev 5778 · December 2017

Security Fences in the Settlements & Chinese Acupuncture

Question:

1. Regarding a perimeter fence around the yishuvim (settlements in Judea and Samaria): the Rav previously taught that the popular reading of “ha-be-machanim im be-mivtzarim” — “do they dwell in open camps or in fortresses?” (Numbers 13:19) — according to which the absence of a fence projects strength and deters the enemy, is mistaken. How then are we to understand Moshe Rabbeinu's words on this matter, especially in light of the claim today that a visible fence actively deters Arab attackers?

2. Regarding receiving treatment by Chinese acupuncture (dikur sini): given its origins in the world of idolatry, what must one be careful about?

Answer:

To the dear S., may he live long, much peace.

a. What you heard from me regarding fencing the yishuvim is correct. And indeed I said that it is foolishness to compare our situation to “ha-be-machanim im be-mivtzarim” of Parashat Shelach Lekha. There, our rabbis explained that a wall is in fact a sign of weakness: because a people sitting in its own land that does not need to surround itself with a fence is showing that it is confident in itself and that it knows how to defend itself at any moment of threat.

But this principle does not apply in our state. Here the right of citizens to defend themselves has been stripped from them and placed exclusively in the hands of the IDF: as if the citizen in danger were a chess piece in the hand of a regime that decides whatever crosses its mind at any given moment.

In light of this, the fence is not a sign of weakness, but a sign of basic prudence in the face of the folly being celebrated among us. It is a small measure of caution made necessary by the denial of our right to self-defense.

b. There is no prohibition in receiving Chinese acupuncture, so long as the patient is not asked to direct any “spiritual” intentions of any kind during the treatment. If the practitioner asks you to focus on energies, deities, or any mystical force, walk out. If it is administered as a purely physical medical technique, it is permitted.

With many blessings.

Holidays & Festivals 1 Iyar 5765 · May 2005

Should We Say Hallel on Yom Ha'atzmaut This Year?

Question:

More and more voices from important rabbis within our own religious community are saying not to recite Hallel this year on Yom Ha'atzmaut (Israeli Independence Day). Is the process of redemption irreversible?

— Meir

Answer:

To the honorable Meir, may he live long, peace and blessing.

The voices you are hearing are voices of grief and sorrow, but they are not voices of wisdom and understanding. I fear they express a fundamental misunderstanding of Yom Ha'atzmaut and its meaning from a Torah perspective. Let me briefly note a few points and the rest you can work out yourself.

1. Reciting Hallel on Yom Ha'atzmaut is not because we were saved in the War of Independence (as one great rabbi in the religious-Zionist Torah world thought), nor because the State of Israel constitutes the complete redemption we yearn for every day. It is for one reason almost exclusively: “chazra malchut le-Yisrael” — “the sovereignty has returned to Israel.” Through miracles unprecedented since the world began, an oppressed, tortured, broken and shattered people, crushed by countless enemies, rose to life. Thanks to God's mercies, our nation was privileged to return to its land and to its homeland and to be released from the yoke of the gentiles. This is what the Rambam (Hilkhot Melakhim) calls “chazra malchut le-Yisrael.”

2. Our joy at the establishment of the State is in no way dependent on the personality politically leading it. I hope it is no news to you that the majority of leaders of our nation during the First and Second Temple periods were unfit by every measure: in Torah, in faith, in morality, in basic humanity. Most were complete resha'im (wicked men) who brought disasters and exiles upon us. And yet we never heard a prophet, nor even a sage, who nullified the value of our life in our land because of those corrupt leaders. Could it possibly enter the mind of even a fool that we thank Hashem for the founding of the State because of this particular leader or another?! Heaven forbid. On the contrary: we thank Him for it despite almost every leader we have seen in the past two generations.

3. It is preferable to live under Jewish sovereignty, even under the worst leader, than to live under the yoke of the gentiles. So our greatest rabbis ruled explicitly, headed by the Rambam, who established that the greatness of the miracle in the time of the Hasmoneans was that “chazra malchut le-Yisrael.” And what sovereignty was that? The Hasmonean kingdom: most of whom were wicked, and some of whom were cruel gentiles (Herod). Twice within two hundred years they butchered the sages of Israel. And despite all that, we continue to this day to say Hallel on Chanukah.

We thank Hashem for the return of Jewish sovereignty despite the conduct of its leaders, not because of it. The miracle is national, not political.

4. The current national situation is a result of spiritual weakness, political cowardice and grovelling before the gentiles (as was true throughout our long exile of separation, a sign that we have not yet been properly purified). And this is the case not only in the camp of those distant from Torah, but even in the camp of those who claim to be loyal to the faith of Israel. If today's political decisions are painful to you, as they are painful to anyone with a Jewish heart, please say of them too: “kol akva l'tava” — “every setback is for the good.” Religious Zionism, ever since the founding of the State, has seen political and military figures as almost “Messiahs.” Now it is forced to sober up and to learn, against its will and on its own flesh, that the greatest warrior, if he has no Torah in him, will project weakness before any threat from the gentiles and reserve his “valor” only for his own brothers, will display cowardice in his decisions and grovel before every paritz. On this it is already written: “Hashem will give strength to His people” (Psalms 29:11) — and there is no true strength but Torah.

5. About this final redemption it is said: “For not in haste shall you go out, and not in flight shall you walk, for Hashem goes before you, and the God of Israel is your rear guard” (Isaiah 52:12). Little by little this redemption proceeds. There is no going back from it: not because we are worthy of it, but because Hashem swore to our forefathers, “when I gather the house of Israel from the peoples among whom they have been scattered” (Ezekiel 28:25), and the words of Chazal are filled with this promise.

The entire process of redemption is like a Messiah who appears and disappears — at times strengthening, at times seemingly hidden. But what is a single generation for our nation? Nothing. We are an ancient people, and no man, no leader, no world, no ideology will break us. Our nation is strong. If one path of redemption does not succeed, another path will come in its place, and the people of Israel will continue on its way, “for Hashem goes before us.” And on this we say “thank you,” despite all the foolish, malicious and cruel decisions, one or another. “Netzach Yisrael lo yeshaker” — “the Eternal of Israel does not lie” (1 Samuel 15:29). And the Eternal of Israel is the Holy One Blessed Be He, and not the empty delusions to which Ben-Gurion attached this sacred title.

A happy Independence Day to you and to all Israel, and may our independence be engraved eternally on the tablets that were given at Mount Sinai.

Conduct & Ethics 12 Nisan 5765 · April 2005

“When Your Enemy Falls, Do Not Rejoice” — Does It Apply to Our National Enemies?

Question:

My question is: about whom is it said “bi-nfol oyivkha al tismach” — “when your enemy falls do not rejoice” (Proverbs 24:17)? Is it about Jews, or is it speaking about gentiles? And also: a teacher once told me that on Pesach there is no mitzvah of “ve-samachta be-chagekha” (“and you shall rejoice on your festival”) because of “do not rejoice when your enemy falls.” Is this argument correct? Thank you very much and chag tov.

Answer:

I have already answered a similar question, and many years ago I published a long article on the subject (Olamot Be-Ichudam, volume 4). In short:

“Bi-nfol oyivkha al tismach” was said only with regard to a Jewish enemy — that is, a person who caused us personal pain. But regarding the enemies of our nation, whom the Holy One Blessed Be He topples before us through miracles, there is certainly room for joy.

The entire Shirat Ha-Yam (Song of the Sea, Exodus 15) is nothing but great joy over the downfall of those who afflicted our forefathers: men, women and children. We are obligated to rejoice at the punishment of those who fell, the enemies of the people of Hashem, who are themselves the enemies of Hashem.

And as for what that particular teacher told you: with all due respect to teachers, they are not always Torah authorities. In this case, you should judge her favorably: the interpretive error is so ancient and so widely repeated that it has become, through sheer repetition, almost “true.”

With a blessing for a happy and kosher chag.

(Question originally from the Kipa site.)

Faith (Emunah) 13 Tishrei 5766 · October 2005

Why Do Sufferings Keep Coming? On Self-Examination and “Sufferings of Love”

Question:

Honorable Rabbi, shalom! A few months ago I lost a wallet containing a significant amount of money (for me…) along with many documents and valuable items. I tried to do teshuvah and to examine my deeds: maybe I had not been honest enough, and so on, and I tried to fix things even beyond ordinary fairness.

A few months later, my wallet was pickpocketed again. There weren't many items in it but I sustained a small financial loss. Again I sat and examined whether I had given all my tithes, etc., and I began to fix more things beyond the strict letter of the law. A week later, I lost a new transit card (for me a real loss…).

I want to ask: what should I do? Why is this happening all the time? I know every mishap that occurs is meant to wake us up to do teshuvah, but I have really tried to think and to fix things, and it keeps happening again and again! I would love to know what the Rabbi says. Thank you very much.

— B.

Answer:

To B.,

If you have already checked all that you could, and if you have verified that you caused no known harm to anyone, etc., regarding precisely such a case our Sages have guided us:

“If a person sees that sufferings are coming upon him, let him examine his deeds (yefashpesh be-ma'asav); and some say, let him scrutinize his deeds (yemashmesh be-ma'asav).” (Berakhot 5a)

But if, despite his honest search, he has found nothing according to all that he knows, let him attribute these sufferings to yissurin shel ahavah (“sufferings of love”): that is, sufferings whose purpose is to oblige a person to strengthen his faith and to accept even that which he does not understand, in submission before the will of Hashem.

And from all of these sufferings he will emerge strengthened and refined, and everything will turn out to be a blessing.

With a blessing for a joyous holiday.

(Question originally from the Kipa site.)

Faith 11 Av 5781 · July 2021

Neuroscience and Faith: Do Brain Chemicals Explain Away the Soul?

Question:

The field of neuroscience has been occupying and confusing me greatly of late. Every morning we hear about regions of the brain responsible for various emotions and drives, for whose activation different hormones are required. For example, dopamine is linked to the drive for seeking and curiosity, while the "caring" drive is activated by estrogen, prolactin, progesterone and oxytocin, as described in this article: https://www.haaretz.co.il/magazine/MAGAZINE-1.8191615 One of the things that always strengthened my emunah (faith) the most was contemplating the infinite thirst of the nefesh (soul), the search for meaning, and the desire for good. I always asked myself: where do all these deep feelings that give me no rest come from, if not from the neshamah (the divine soul)? And now along come studies like the one mentioned above and show me that these are simply hormones present in the body — and perhaps even in animals in one form or another. How are these things reconciled? Does the nefesh and the neshamah have no will of their own, and is that why all the above feelings exist? Thank you, Shai

— Shai

Answer:

To the dear Sh., may he live and be well,

Shalom. First of all, please forgive the delay in my response. The spiritually and humanly weighty days of Bein HaMetzarim (the Three Weeks of mourning between the 17th of Tammuz and Tisha B'Av), combined with additional burdens, are responsible for this delay. And now to the substance of the answer.

I have not yet managed to read the article you cited here, but I have no need to. This research trend, which has been ongoing for decades — in the United States in particular — and which is professionally known as sociobiology, is well known and familiar to me. One must not disconnect it from the mentality typical of many circles there: extreme materialists who are incapable of recognizing anything that is not crude physical matter. For them everything begins with matter and ends with matter.

A long essay would be required to clarify what I wish to clarify here, so I will confine myself to several guiding points of thought. These fools, like all materialists resembling them, do not understand that the connection between the Holy One, Blessed be He, and the human being is made possible precisely through the physiological structures that enable and regulate man's intellectual and spiritual activity. If we reflect even briefly, we will have no choice but to acknowledge that our thoughts operate within our brains — yet they engage with matters that transcend physiology entirely. (Let them try to read our thoughts directly from our neurology — though that day will eventually come.) It follows that within our brains, our DNA and our entire neurological structure, there exist mechanisms through which our entire physical world connects with everything beyond it — and all of this was established by the Holy One, Blessed be He, in His world. All the substances they cite as acting upon human thought are nothing more than triggers of mechanisms that the Holy One, Blessed be He, embedded within us from time immemorial.

However, the thinking, reflective, sensitive human being activates these mechanisms through thought alone, with no need for any physical substance. The 'behemot' (beasts) — such as these researchers — believe that only substances, electrical currents and the like can activate them. I used the harsh term 'behemot,' and I say it is an honorific for them: for anyone who claims there is no spirituality and that everything is pure materialism leaves us no choice but to treat him as mere matter as well — by his own definition. Therefore, if I relate to him as an animal, that is already a great honor, for by rights one ought to treat him as inanimate matter, or perhaps as vegetation, but certainly no more than that.

To illustrate for you how deeply mistaken they are, I will convey to you a testimony I heard from a journalist who, many years ago, summarized the research of one of the largest such institutions in the United States. An experiment was conducted there on tens of thousands of people — an experiment in which every participant was informed in advance that through the use of substances and/or electrical currents, various intellectual, emotional or other phenomena would be induced in them. And indeed, that is what happened. But this journalist added that there is one case the institution was very careful not to report publicly, and it is the following: one individual informed the researchers of that institution in advance that it would not happen to him. And indeed, he prevented all the phenomena that were supposed to occur — through his free and volitional will alone.

In summary: in the meantime, the words of our nevi'im (prophets) and chachamim (sages) — words that are thousands of years old — are being fulfilled before our very eyes, and Am Yisrael (the people of Israel) continues to achieve wondrous things against all odds. So it would appear that our prophets ate extraordinary foods in order to prophesy with such impressive precision about what is unfolding before our eyes. Perhaps it would be more accurate to recommend that all these sociobiologists begin searching for those substances and those remarkably successful metaphysical currents — they would benefit all of humanity greatly.

Therefore, remove worry from your heart, and look upon these researchers as children lacking spiritual vision, even if in their materialism they do occasionally reveal a small portion of the ways in which the Holy One, Blessed be He, guides His world.

The thinking, reflective, sensitive human being activates these mechanisms through thought alone, with no need for any physical substance.

With abundant blessing,

Faith 16 Elul 5775 · September 2015

Adopting a Faith-Based Idea from Non-Jews

Question:

With God's help. To the honored Rosh Yeshiva (dean of the yeshiva), Rav Zini, may he live and be well — shalom and blessing. I saw a Torah teaching on Parashat (the weekly Torah portion of) "Ki Teitzei" that was published on Channel 7 (Arutz Sheva), citing in the name of the Or HaChaim HaKadosh (the holy commentary "Or HaChaim," by Rabbi Chaim ibn Attar, 1696–1743) that there exists "a great soul or an Israeli faith-based idea that was 'taken captive' among the non-Jews," and that when the Jewish people identify such an idea, they are obligated to cleanse it, clarify it and refine it from its impurity, and then bring it into the Jewish people. Is it truly the case that the Holy One, Blessed be He, gave faith-based ideas that He did not bestow upon His own children and instead left them in the hands of non-Jews, and that He placed upon us the task of adopting ideas from them? How can one know at all which idea is correct, and how can one know how to perform the "cleansing" of the idea from the impurity within it (as the author of those words on Channel 7 claims)? It was further claimed there that this is work to be done throughout the entire year, and especially during the month of Elul (the month of repentance preceding the High Holidays). And it is supposedly part of the process of teshuvah (repentance) — to find, with humility, points of purity in reality and to connect them to holiness. Is the month of Elul indeed a month in which we must intensify our search for pure points among non-Jews and bring them to us? Faithfully, Y.

— Y.

Answer:

To the dear Y., may he live and be well —

Shalom,

Whoever writes things of this kind demonstrates plainly that he does not understand much about Torah, and certainly does not understand the damage he causes to a very great many people.

First of all, to claim that the Or HaChaim HaKadosh would speak also of absorbing ideas from non-Jews — this is not only a distortion of his words, for there is no trace of such a thing in the commentary cited in what you write — but moreover, such a thing would never enter the mind of a sage of his stature. We need look no further than the words of HaRav Avraham Yitzchak HaKohen Kook, of blessed memory (the first Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of pre-state Israel, 1865–1935), in his work Orot ("Lights," a foundational work of Religious Zionist philosophy), where he makes it abundantly clear that while there is indeed a place for Israel to receive from non-Jews, this applies only to external matters (meaning things that belong to the material, this-worldly domain), but in no way whatsoever to internal matters — as is clear to every wise kabbalist (master of Jewish mystical tradition) who understands the holiness of Israel. And it is self-evident that this is the case regarding the Or HaChaim HaKadosh as well. Therefore, God forbid that any sage of Israel would agree that we receive any faith-based or inward idea whatsoever from the nations!

Regarding the actual words of the Or HaChaim — they are not his own, but rather the words of the Ari HaKadosh (Rabbi Yitzchak Luria, 1534–1572, the foundational master of Lurianic Kabbalah). And anyone who does not presume to rely upon kabbalistic (mystical) teachings without understanding them and knowing their sources knows that the Ari indeed wrote that from problematic unions of the kind that the Holy One, Blessed be He, abhors — as the Or HaChaim himself emphasizes — there sometimes emerges a soul that is "taken captive in the Sitra Achra" (the Other Side, i.e., the realm of impurity and evil). But this is only be-di'avad (after the fact, in a case that has already occurred) — and God forbid that this be taken as le-khatchila (an initially desirable or recommended course of action). The author you cite does not hesitate to speak of it as le-khatchila, and that is precisely the error of Shabbetai Tzvi (the false messiah, 1626–1676) himself!

The entire argument of the Ari HaKadosh is that this law applies only in a milchemet reshut (an optional, non-obligatory war — as opposed to a mandatory war of self-defense), and in an optional war only the fully righteous go out. And yet even so, the evil inclination overcomes such a person to such a degree?! Moreover, the Ari concludes that in any case, even when one has extracted such a soul from the kelipot (husks, i.e., the forces of spiritual impurity), the result will in every case be a "ben sorer u-moreh" (a wayward and rebellious son — a halakhic category discussed in Deuteronomy 21:18–21), because no other outcome is possible given the impurities (sigim) that cling to it.

Therefore, beyond all the above difficulties and perplexities, who goes out to a "milchemet reshut" in matters of belief against non-Jews?! And who are the righteous ones worthy of going out to war against the beliefs of non-Jews — if not talmidei chachamim (Torah scholars) who are completely righteous, who know how not to become attached to the Sitra Achra of the spiritual impurity of the beliefs of those nations? And such people have no need for spiritual guidance from one who is not on the level to provide it — and certainly not via the internet! Therefore, the very act of directing such things to the broad public, and moreover burdening them upon one who did not say them and never said anything like them, is an expression of a lack of proper conduct befitting talmidei chachamim (Torah scholars), with all that this implies (see Berakhot 47b, Talmud Bavli).

And no man should position himself at the level of an interpreter of the word of God — especially according to Kabbalah (Jewish mysticism) — without being capable of entering in peace and emerging in peace as well.

The very act of directing such things to the broad public, and moreover burdening them upon one who did not say them and never said anything like them, is an expression of a lack of proper conduct befitting talmidei chachamim, with all that this implies.

With abundant blessing,

Land of Israel 11 Av 5781 · July 2021

Burial in the Land of Israel: Transferring a Grave from Russia

Question:

Shalom, My grandmother passed away and was buried 22 years ago in Russia, in a mixed cemetery, not according to Jewish tradition — that is, in a burial coffin, and not in the ground — but rather in a kind of pit lined with concrete, built especially for her burial and that of her brother. Today, the entire family lives in Israel, and there is no one who can tend to the grave. It is in poor condition; the rains have damaged the site and something needs to be done with the grave. The question is: Is it possible to transfer the grave to Israel and bury her here, according to halakha (Jewish law), in the ground? And what does halakha say regarding cases such as these?

— P.

Answer:

To the honored P., may he/she be well,

Shalom rav (abundant peace),

This is the sorrowful situation throughout the entire Diaspora, in all countries — except in places where large, active communities still exist, and even that will not last much longer.

The pain over your grandmother is a great pain, and it is deeply felt. However, bringing the grave here is not the correct thing to do according to halakha, unless we are speaking of a very great and distinguished Torah personality. I did not have the merit of knowing your family member, and I am not here to make a determination about her. But the enormous expenses involved in transferring a grave — particularly after 22 years — are, in my view, not justified at all.

I suggest to you a more important, more correct and more honorable alternative for your grandmother: Please approach a place of Torah such as a yeshiva (Torah academy) and the like, and donate the money toward the publication of a Torah book or books, in which it will be written that they are dedicated le-iluy nishmatah (for the elevation of her soul). I have no doubt that this will bring greater nachat ruach (spiritual satisfaction) to your grandmother in Heaven than transferring her grave.

As for the grave itself — if you happen to know of some non-Jewish resident there, he could, in exchange for payment, tend to the site a bit. But this is not an obligation.

I suggest to you a more important, more correct and more honorable alternative for your grandmother: donate the money toward the publication of a Torah book or books dedicated le-iluy nishmatah, for the elevation of her soul.

With abundant blessing and good tidings,

Shabbat 12 Sivan 5786 · June 2026

Reading a Book About Finances on Shabbat

Question:

Is it permitted to read on Shabbat a book about financial education and advice for managing household finances?

Answer:

Peace be upon you.

There is no permission whatsoever to engage on Shabbat with topics that carry no minimal spiritual elevation.

The financial management of a family is an extremely important concern before God — but it is the very opposite of Shabbat, because it is entirely mundane (chullin).

God’s blessing will reach you even without engaging in this on Shabbat, God willing.

With blessing.

Blessings (Berakhot) 16 Tishrei 5785 · October 2024

Birkat Kohanim: Why Not Say “Barukh Hu uVarukh Shemo”?

Question:

Shalom Honored Rav. I would love to understand a little more deeply — why do we not say “Barukh Hu uVarukh Shemo” (Blessed is He and Blessed is His Name) during Birkat Kohanim (the Priestly Blessing)?

Thank you very much.

Answer:

To the dear A., peace be upon you.

“Barukh Hu uVarukh Shemo” is intended for blessings that we recite in order to express our faith and our agreement with the content of the blessing (and all this is independent of the question of whether it is halakhically obligatory or not).

During Birkat Kohanim, it is not we who are blessing in order to fulfill a commandment, nor are we responding to someone who is fulfilling a commandment. Rather, this is a moment in which the Holy One, Blessed Be He, Himself personally blesses us.

Therefore, to respond with “Barukh Hu uVarukh Shemo” at that moment would be unparalleled insolence — as if we are equal to Him in His blessings!

Mo’adim l’simcha (Joyous holidays to you).

Conduct & Ethics

Is Going Beyond the Letter of the Law an Obligation?

Question:

Shalom and blessing, Honored Rav. I wanted to ask: Is there an obligation to act lifnim mishurat hadin (beyond the letter of the law)?

If there is an obligation, how can it still be called “beyond the law” — is that not a self-contradiction? How can it be said that failing to practice this caused the destruction of Jerusalem? And what is the relationship between this and what the Talmud says in tractate Yoma about baseless hatred? Is each reason alone sufficient for the destruction?

As for the verse “v’asita hayashar v’hatov” — “you shall do what is right and good” (Deuteronomy 6:18) — if there is an obligation here, why is it not counted as a positive commandment? And assuming there is an obligation, is there a defined minimum standard?

Answer:

To the dear G., may he live long.

By its very definition, middat chassidut (saintly conduct) cannot be an obligation. The meaning of middat chassidut is behavior that, even though we are not required by law to practice it, we nonetheless accept upon ourselves voluntarily — for the benefit of another person or for the sake of serving God.

As for what Rabbi Yochanan says — that Jerusalem was destroyed because they did not practice lifnim mishurat hadin — those words were directed at the courts of law, which were expected to be lenient in their sentences in order to show compassion on Israel wherever halakha permitted. This was not directed at a middat chassidut expected of private individuals.

As for what is told “in the name of the Talmud” in tractate Yoma — that Jerusalem was destroyed only on account of baseless hatred (sin’at chinam) — this is a presentation very far from the truth, as is proven from the Talmud itself in numerous places.

I will permit myself to point you, as a partial answer to this question, to my words on the story of Kamtza and Bar Kamtza elsewhere on this yeshiva’s website.

And “v’asita hayashar v’hatov” is an ideal aspiration, not a binding obligation — unless it applies to a Torah scholar, as is proven from tractate Bava Metzia.

With much blessing.

Faith (Emunah) 13 Sivan 5786 · June 2026

The Sources of Kabbalah and Hasidism: Are They Authentic?

Question:

Dear Rabbi, shalom and blessings. I am a Lithuanian yeshiva student, and I am addressing you on a matter that has disturbed my peace for many long months. The matter concerns the standing of the wisdom of Kabbalah — the Zohar, and the movements that branched from it (Hasidism and the Kabbalists of our time). I was raised to believe in a Torah transmitted through a pure tradition, generation after generation, from teacher to student. In the revealed Torah — the Mishnah, the Talmud, the Geonim and the Rishonim (early authorities) — we have a proven historical continuity, reliable manuscripts, and open discussions that do not depend on any single individual. By contrast, in the Torah of “the hidden” (ha-nistar), we encounter a puzzling phenomenon: suddenly, at the end of the 13th century in Spain, there appeared a comprehensive work that none of the earlier Rishonim or Geonim before it had known, attributed to the Tanna (Mishnaic sage) Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai (Rashbi), who lived a thousand years earlier — with no clear trace of it in the writings of the East or among Rashbi’s own students. The origin of the book centers entirely around the figure of Rabbi Moshe de Leon. In the Sefer HaYuchasin of Rabbi Avraham Zacuto, the famous testimony of Rabbi Yitzchak of Akko is brought: he met the widow of Rabbi Moshe de Leon, and she testified openly that her husband wrote the book from his own fertile imagination for the sake of livelihood, attributing it to a great name. Beyond the historical testimony, the book itself is filled with internal evidence of its late origin: anachronisms, artificial Aramaic interwoven with Spanish syntax, and corrupted or non-existent scriptural citations. The concepts presented in the Zohar appear, from a rational perspective, to contradict the absolute unity of God as taught by Maimonides. The division of divinity into ten Sefirot (emanations), the conceptual split between “the Holy One, blessed be He” and “His Shekhinah” as two forces operating seemingly separately, and the concepts of “unions” (zivugim) in the upper worlds — all of these arouse a deep sense of the introduction of foreign ideas. My great question is: how did this become accepted among the Jewish people, and why did the Lithuanian public of our time ultimately embrace the Kabbalistic conceptual world and stop fighting for the original rationalism?

Answer:

Shalom to you, my dear D., may you live and be well. Your questions carry great weight, yet they are classical and well-known. In practice, they all stem primarily from the research of Gershom Scholem, and after him from those who followed in his footsteps. To answer them on the eve of Shabbat when I am required to prepare lessons is difficult for me — especially since you understand that I must respond to arguments that fill entire volumes, and it is not possible to do so in the few moments available to me now. But, God willing, I will respond more fully after Shabbat. In the meantime, so as not to send you away empty-handed, let me tell you — as someone who has engaged in academic research for more than 50 years — something that will surprise you and many others: all of G. Scholem’s research is filled with errors so deep that I am astonished at the lack of logic, and all the more so at the wretched analysis that characterizes them!!

In particular, his central and terrible error — the principle that what was not written down did not exist!! What an absurdity for a researcher, and all the more so for a person of faith!! Behold, we believe that the Torah was written by Moshe Rabbeinu (Moses our teacher), yet the secular scholars claim that the first written text of the Torah dates to the Second Temple period. The conclusion, according to Scholem’s approach: the Torah did not exist before then!! And even more so: certainly regarding the entire Oral Torah (Torah she-be’al peh), for which until the end of the Second Temple period there was an absolute prohibition against committing it to writing — as we learn in tractate Gittin (60a) — which means we ought to be Karaites, God forbid, since it was not written, and it was an invention of the Sages, God forbid!!

All of this is because G. Scholem is a product of German culture — a culture that is the very source and root of heresy — not only regarding faith in God, but a global heresy: denial of every form of faith — based on the same considerations that led Scholem to claim what he claimed, rooted in the philosophy of Nietzsche and his colleagues in Germany!!

Precisely as a yeshiva student (or avreich, a married Torah scholar), you must discern that this pseudo-research is built upon that same Western, heretical principle: that what is not seen does not exist!! (And I imagine you know the joke from Russia in this context — that a Jewish student answered his teacher who preached heresy on the grounds that one must not believe in what cannot be seen: “That is proof that the teacher has no intellect, since no one can see it!!”)

Until I am able to answer in greater detail, I strongly recommend that you read a book that will enlighten your eyes on this matter: the book of Rabbi Eliyahu ben Amozegh, of blessed memory, who already in the 19th century answered all of these arguments — and especially those of Rabbi Aryeh di Modena (Leone Modena), who was the one who first began to deny Kabbalah based on claims that are the very foundation of Scholem’s arguments. The book, which I published, is called “Eimat Mafgi’a” (The Awe of the Encounter). God willing, there will soon appear an even more detailed book that will answer all your questions completely.

Postscript: I forgot to emphasize two very important things from among the tens of thousands of additional points I would have needed to add:

A. As you correctly noted, you were raised “to believe in a Torah transmitted through a pure tradition, generation after generation, from teacher to student.” Please continue to hold fast to this approach against every movement or idea that attempts to undermine it. But do not forget: if you were raised this way, how much more so were all the great sages of Israel throughout all generations. So how can you even entertain the thought that the great sages from the time of the Zohar’s appearance suddenly abandoned this foundational principle of faith in order to make room, God forbid, for baseless nonsense without any source?!

B. Please take note of one of the greatest of our early teachers, the Rivash (Rabbi Yitzchak bar Sheshet, Responsa, Siman 157), who did not merit at first to be raised on the teachings of Kabbalah — to the point that he referred to the Kabbalists in terms suggesting belief in multiplicity. But when he encountered “the wise elder Don Yosef ibn Shoshan of blessed memory,” who explained these matters to him, he acknowledged the truth and retracted!! This teaches us that it is nothing new for there to be things unknown to all the sages — even the very great ones — when they were known only to select individuals among them.

If you were raised to believe in a Torah transmitted through a pure tradition, generation after generation — how much more so were all the great sages of Israel throughout all generations. So how can you entertain the thought that they suddenly abandoned this foundational principle of faith to make room for baseless nonsense?

In the meantime, with blessings for a Shabbat Shalom.

Prayer (Tefila) 16 Tishrei 5785 · October 2024

Why We Address God in Masculine Language: Father and King

Question:

Shalom, Rabbi. Why do we address HaKadosh Barukh Hu (the Holy One, Blessed be He) in masculine language — using terms like “Av” (Father) and “Melekh” (King) — if God is One and encompasses everything? Thank you very much!

Answer:

And if we were to address Him in feminine language, would you not be asking the same question?! Or perhaps you would prefer that we address Him in hermaphroditic (dual-gender) language?! One could continue with sharp retorts regarding this question, which is the fruit of the sick progressivism of our times.

HaKadosh Barukh Hu created the human being as male, and only afterward, and from within him, did He bring forth the woman — and we accept this with joy and without any contempt toward the other gender.

With blessings for a joyous Mo’ed (festival season).

Bible & Torah 7 Elul 5784 · September 2024

Clarifying Jeremiah’s Prophecy: “No Longer Shall Each Man Teach His Neighbor”

Question:

To the honor of our Rosh Yeshiva, peace and blessing. I recently heard a shiur (Torah lecture) given by a young avreich (married yeshiva student) who studies at a high yeshiva. In conversation with him, he explained the words of the prophet Jeremiah (chapter 31, verses 32–33): “For this is the covenant that I will make with the House of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will place My Torah within them and inscribe it upon their hearts; I will be their God and they will be My people. And no longer shall each man teach his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, declares the Lord, for I will forgive their iniquity and their sin I will no longer remember.” According to him, the meaning of this passage is that in the future, the Holy One, Blessed be He, will place the Torah within every single Jew, so that they will no longer need to learn Torah from rabbis or from one another. Is this indeed the correct way to understand the words of the prophet in light of the Midrashim? With faithfulness.

Answer:

I must say at the outset that I was astonished to hear the things you have conveyed here, and for many reasons. A complete response cannot be given here, because this matter requires a full and detailed essay — but let us highlight only a few main points:

A. The preoccupation with what will be in the World to Come on matters like these reminds me of the debates in the Renaissance period about the nature of angels — are they male or female? Such discussions do not elevate or lower anything of substance; they are an occupation with future dreams. Behind this discussion lies a desire to break free from all spiritual authority and to stand entirely on one’s own!

B. If the ideal is to learn directly from the Holy One, Blessed be He, and to have no need of a rabbi, then one should strive toward this already now. It is therefore incomprehensible why this man is an avreich at all. He should exert himself to learn directly from the Holy One, Blessed be He, and not aspire to serve as a rabbi!

C. Anyone endowed with even minimal intelligence notices that the passage in Jeremiah refers specifically to a “new covenant” (berit chadasha) — a phrase that, to a sensitive ear, immediately rings in an alarming way, because this is the foundation of Christian theology!

D. All of the great Rishonim — the Radak (Rabbi David Kimchi), Rabbi Yitzchak Abarbanel, the Ramchal (Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto), the Malbim (Rabbi Meir Leibush) and all the great Kabbalists — completely reject the interpretation of this young avreich, who has not grasped the plain meaning of the words in the verse. For what is the meaning of the phrase “to know the Lord” (lada’at et Hashem)? It does not mean to know the laws of the Shulchan Arukh, but to learn to cleave to God (devekut), to understand the ways of His providence, to fear the Lord, and everything similar to this! And if so, how does the prophet speak in this verse of “from the least of them to the greatest of them” — a phrase that shows that profound differences will remain among the Jewish people — exactly as all the scholars cited above have pointed out!

E. As for the Midrashim he cited, and especially the Tanchuma, he does not understand them in their proper context. For this is how that Midrash begins: “The Holy One, Blessed be He, said: In this world, because of the evil inclination (yetzer hara), they would learn and forget. But in the World to Come, I will uproot the evil inclination from you and you will not forget.” Anyone who truly understands the words of our Sages understands that when our rabbis speak in their Midrashim about something the Holy One, Blessed be He, does, the intent is not that we sit on a bench waiting for Him to act in our place. Rather, the intent is that the Holy One, Blessed be He, assists us in doing what is good in His eyes. Therefore, the intent of Midrash Tanchuma is that the Holy One, Blessed be He, by removing the evil inclination, will cause our hearts to become a “new heart” capable of absorbing the divine truth — and each person will accomplish this according to his own capacity and level. And the “learning that will no longer be needed” does not mean throwing all the rabbis into the “dustbin of history.” Rather, there will be a general spiritual inspiration ensuring that in order to desire closeness to God, one will not need to be taught. But the content of learning will continue to come through the great sages of Israel in the tradition.

When our rabbis speak in their Midrashim about something the Holy One, Blessed be He, does, the intent is not that we sit on a bench waiting for Him to act in our place — rather, the intent is that He assists us in doing what is good in His eyes.

In short: homilies of this type constitute a rather pathetic attempt to say unconventional things that find favor in the ears of listeners, and thus to win admirers. But in practice their harm is clear, for they render the rabbis — and even more so, established spiritual authority — devoid of any real value.

Shabbat

Reading a Secular Book on Shabbat

Question:

Is it permitted to read a book on financial education and family budget management on Shabbat?

Answer:

The matter is clear: there is no permission to engage on Shabbat with subjects that carry no minimal spiritual elevation.

We acknowledge fully that family financial security is exceedingly important in the eyes of Heaven. Chazal (the Sages of blessed memory) teach that poverty is among the most grievous of afflictions and that a person is obligated to see to the material welfare of his household. These are not small concerns.

Nevertheless, Shabbat Kodesh (the Holy Sabbath) is set apart precisely because it lifts the Jew above the weekday preoccupations of provision, planning and practical management. The Shulchan Arukh (Orach Chaim Siman 307) rules that one may not conduct calculations and business discussions on Shabbat even verbally, and the underlying principle extends to reading material whose entire content is the pursuit of financial strategies. Such reading constitutes iyun be-cheshbonot (engaging in financial calculations), which is prohibited as a weekday activity (davar she-b'chol).

Divine blessing descends upon a home that sanctifies Shabbat properly. One who withdraws from material concerns for the sake of Shabbat will not suffer for it. The blessing of Shabbat itself is a source of parnasah (livelihood) for the entire week, as our Sages teach in the Zohar and as codified in the practice of reciting Mizmor Shir le-Yom ha-Shabbat (Psalms 92).

Use the weekday hours for such reading. Shabbat is the time for Torah, for rest and for family holiness, and those pursuits bring their own blessing in full measure.

Source: orvishua.net

Faith (Emunah)

The Sources of Kabbalah and Chassidic Thought: Are They Authentic?

Question:

I am a yeshiva student with a Lithuanian (Litvish) background and I am troubled by what seem to be serious historical problems with Kabbalah in general and the Zohar in particular. The Zohar appears suddenly in 13th-century Spain and is attributed to Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, a Tanna of the 1st-2nd century, yet there is no prior historical record of it. The only clear chain of attribution points to Moshe de Leon, whose own widow testified he composed it himself for financial reasons. Beyond the historical problem, the text contains anachronisms: Amoraim who lived centuries after Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai appear in the text. The Aramaic is unusual, mixed with Spanish linguistic patterns. Biblical verses are occasionally misquoted.

Theologically, the concept of the Ten Sefirot (divine emanations) and the apparent distinction between the Holy One blessed be He and the Shekhinah (divine presence) as separate forces seems to resemble, troublingly, non-Jewish theological frameworks and to contradict Maimonides’ pure monotheism as set out in the Mishneh Torah. How should a Torah-committed person relate to Kabbalah and Chassidut? Can one maintain intellectual integrity and still accept these traditions?

Answer:

These are classical and well-known questions, and I acknowledge them as such. They derive largely from the scholarship of Gershom Scholem, who applied the methodology of German academic Wissenschaft (critical-historical science) to the study of Jewish mysticism.

The fundamental problem with Scholem’s approach is its working axiom: that which was not written down did not exist. By this logic, one could equally deny the authenticity of the Oral Torah (Torah she-be’al peh) itself, since our earliest manuscripts of the Talmud postdate the events they record by centuries. The silence of the historical record is not evidence of absence, especially in a tradition that was transmitted orally and deliberately kept within limited circles.

Regarding the attribution of the Zohar, the Ribash (Rabbi Yitzchak bar Sheshet Perfet, Responsa, Siman 157) already addressed a related matter in the 14th century, noting that the transmission of Kabbalistic knowledge passed through select individuals, such as Don Yosef ben Shushan, who explained these matters to great sages who had not encountered them before. Authentic knowledge transmitted through narrow chains of individuals will always appear, to the outside observer, as if it has emerged suddenly.

The theological objections regarding the Sefirot and the Shekhinah reflect a genuine tension that serious Kabbalists have always acknowledged and addressed. Rabbi Eliyahu Ben Amozegh of Livorno (Italy, 1823-1900), in his work Emet mi-Piguah (Truth from Puggia), dismantles the same objections that were raised by Rabbi Aryeh di Modena in his anti-Kabbalistic polemic, and those are precisely the objections that Scholem inherited and elaborated. Ben Amozegh demonstrates that the Sefirot are not separate divine entities but modes of divine manifestation, fully consistent with absolute monotheism, and he shows that what appears to be theological compromise is in fact a more sophisticated account of divine unity than the purely rationalist framework allows.

The Mesorah (chain of tradition) that you already accept for Talmud and Halakha operates by the same logic and the same trust in transmission. Consistency requires extending that same epistemological posture to the Kabbalistic tradition as well. The questions are real and deserve real answers, not dismissal. But they also have answers, and the intellectual integrity you rightly prize demands that you engage those answers before drawing conclusions.

Study the work of Ben Amozegh carefully. I am preparing a more thorough treatment of these questions and will have it available in due course.

Source: orvishua.net

Conduct & Ethics

Does Natural Rebellion Exist in the Jewish View of Parent-Child Relationships?

Question:

Is it not natural for a child to rebel against his father? I have heard it said that this is why most children of Torah scholars do not themselves become Torah scholars: the son cannot simply replicate his father, and the tension between them becomes an obstacle. If so, does this suggest that a ba’al teshuvah (one who returns to observance from a secular background) is actually on a higher spiritual level than the son of a Torah-observant family, because he has overcome this natural drive toward rebellion?

Answer:

The premise of the question must be rejected entirely. The idea that rebellion against the father is a “natural” developmental stage is borrowed wholesale from Freudian psychoanalysis and has no root in Jewish thought or tradition whatsoever.

The Torah’s foundational statement on the relationship between generations is expressed through the word toldot (generations, genealogy, offspring). The entire structure of the Torah is built on how generations connect and transmit to one another, not on how they conflict. The friction and alienation you describe is yerushah shel goyim, the inheritance of a non-Jewish worldview, and is not ours.

The paradigmatic example from the Torah itself is the Akeidah (the Binding of Isaac, Bereshit 22). When Avraham Avinu told his son Yitzchak that he was the intended offering, Yitzchak submitted completely. The Midrashim and Rishonim are unequivocal: Yitzchak was not a passive child. He was a grown man, physically stronger than his elderly father, and he knew what was happening. His submission was the free and wholehearted response of a great soul to his father’s command. There is no rebellious shadow here, no underlying Oedipal tension, only a profound and rare adhesion between two lofty souls.

The ben sorer u-moreh (the stubborn and rebellious son, Devarim 21:18-21) is treated in the Torah as a deviant and extreme case warranting the most severe consequences, which itself demonstrates how utterly abnormal such behavior is within the Jewish framework. A text does not prescribe capital punishment for ordinary adolescent behavior. The severity of the punishment marks the severity of the aberration.

As for why children of Torah scholars often do not themselves attain equivalent stature: the reason is found in Masekhet Nedarim in the Talmud Bavli. The scholars’ children lack one thing: the special divine blessing that descends upon Torah study. Their fathers, absorbed in teaching the children of others out of extraordinary dedication, often had less time and energy for their own. The children of scholars require a particular siyata d’shmaya (heavenly assistance) to follow in the path of their fathers, and that assistance is a gift, not a guarantee.

None of this has anything to do with rebellion. The children of Torah scholars who do not follow their fathers’ path are not rebelling. They simply lack what the ba’al teshuvah sometimes has in abundance: the urgency, the fresh motivation and the burning desire born of having once been without Torah and then found it. That urgency is the ba’al teshuvah’s advantage, and it is a real one. But it is not the product of having overcome rebellion. It is the product of longing.

Source: orvishua.net

Full Q&A Archive: 1,100+ Questions

The Hebrew-language archive covers 26 categories. We are actively translating more content. Categories include:

217

Holidays & Festivals

163

General Topics

80

Prayer (Tefila)

77

Faith (Emunah)

68

Kashrut

59

Current Affairs

54

Shabbat

54

Land of Israel

49

Conduct & Ethics

41

Blessings (Berakhot)

38

Marriage & Family

28

Torah Study

Articles by the Rosh Yeshiva

Over 100 essays spanning 40 years (1983-2025) by Rav Dr. Eliyahu R. Zini and the yeshiva's rabbis. Titles translated below, organized by theme. Full translations of selected articles are in progress.

Recently Translated

Does Natural Rebellion Exist in the Jewish View of Parent-Child Relationships?

HaRav Dr. Eliyahu Rachamim Zini · Conduct & Ethics Archive · Translated from Hebrew

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The Sources of Kabbalah and Chassidic Thought: Are They Authentic?

HaRav Dr. Eliyahu Rachamim Zini · Faith (Emunah) Archive · Translated from Hebrew

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Reading a Secular Book on Shabbat

HaRav Dr. Eliyahu Rachamim Zini · Shabbat Archive · Translated from Hebrew

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Clarifying Jeremiah’s Prophecy: “No Longer Shall Each Man Teach His Neighbor”

HaRav Dr. Eliyahu Rachamim Zini · 7 Elul 5784 · September 2024 · Translated from Hebrew

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Why We Address God in Masculine Language: Father and King

HaRav Dr. Eliyahu Rachamim Zini · 16 Tishrei 5785 · October 2024 · Translated from Hebrew

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The Sources of Kabbalah and Hasidism: Are They Authentic?

HaRav Dr. Eliyahu Rachamim Zini · 13 Sivan 5786 · June 2026 · Translated from Hebrew

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Reading a Book About Finances on Shabbat

HaRav Dr. Eliyahu Rachamim Zini · 12 Sivan 5786 · June 2026 · Translated from Hebrew

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Birkat Kohanim: Why Not Say “Barukh Hu uVarukh Shemo”?

HaRav Dr. Eliyahu Rachamim Zini · 16 Tishrei 5785 · October 2024 · Translated from Hebrew

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Is Going Beyond the Letter of the Law an Obligation?

HaRav Dr. Eliyahu Rachamim Zini · Conduct & Ethics Archive · Translated from Hebrew

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Neuroscience and Faith: Do Brain Chemicals Explain Away the Soul?

HaRav Dr. Eliyahu Rachamim Zini · 11 Av 5781 · July 2021 · Translated from Hebrew

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Adopting a Faith-Based Idea from Non-Jews

HaRav Dr. Eliyahu Rachamim Zini · 16 Elul 5775 · September 2015 · Translated from Hebrew

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Burial in the Land of Israel: Transferring a Grave from Russia

HaRav Dr. Eliyahu Rachamim Zini · 11 Av 5781 · July 2021 · Translated from Hebrew

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Holocaust Day — Why and For Whom?

HaRav Dr. Eliyahu Rachamim Zini · 28 Nisan 5784 · Translated from Hebrew

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Jewish Thought (100 articles)

From Defeat to Salvation

Rav Zini · Tammuz 5785

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The Day Worthy of Being Considered Holocaust Remembrance Day

Rav Zini · Iyyar 5784 · Argues the designation of 27 Nisan is halakhically problematic and carries a deeper disgrace for Israeli society.

An Incomplete Victory

Rav Zini · Cheshvan 5783 · Spiritual and political dimensions of Israel's security situation.

A Historical Correction to the Baseless Hatred That Led to the Destruction of the Temple

Rav Zini · Av 5782 · Connects the Talmudic narrative of Kamtza and Bar Kamtza to contemporary Israeli unity.

Yom Kippur Sermon 5781 at Yeshivat Or Vishua, Haifa

Rav Zini · Tishrei 5781 · The Rosh Yeshiva's annual address to the yeshiva and community.

The Childishness in Tensions Between Religion and Science

Rav Zini · Iyyar 5771 · Why the perceived conflict between Torah and science reflects intellectual immaturity.

The Creation Narrative and the Problem of Science

Rav Zini · Tishrei 5767 · How the Torah's account of Ma'aseh Bereishit addresses scientific inquiry.

What is Chanukah? Our Sages' Perspective on the Days of Chanukah

Rav Zini · Cheshvan 5768 · The custom of Kapparot and its source in the Talmud and the Geonim.

Is Torah Study a Means or an End in Itself?

Rav Hananel Zini · Nisan 5779 · A fundamental question of the purpose of learning.

The Spies and Us

Rav Zini · Sivan 5771 · The sin of the spies as a mirror for modern Israeli discourse.

Nature and Culture

Rav Zini · Iyyar 5767 · The Torah perspective on the relationship between the natural world and human civilization.

Halakha (56 articles)

Laws of Passover

Rav Hananel Zini (based on the Rosh Yeshiva) · Comprehensive annual guides (5770, 5773, 5780, 5783)

Laws of Tefillin (Parts 1-7)

Rav Hananel Zini · 5770-5771 · Comprehensive multi-part series on the laws of tefillin.

Laws of Tzitzit (Parts 1-6)

Rav Hananel Zini · 5770 · Six-part series covering all aspects of the mitzvah of tzitzit.

Laws of the Nine Days and Tisha B'Av

Rav Hananel Zini · Comprehensive coverage of mourning practices for the destruction of the Temple.

The Obligation to Write Tefillin and Mezuzot in Order

Rav Hananel Zini · Kislev 5776

Judaism and Democracy

Rav Hananel Zini · Tevet 5776 · A Torah perspective on democratic governance.

Current Affairs & Torah (23 articles)

Hamas: The Amalek of Our Generation

Rav Zini · Tammuz 5774 · A Torah perspective on confronting modern-day evil.

The Obligation to Participate in Elections

Rav Zini · Shvat 5766 · The halakhic duty to vote and participate in democratic governance.

Between "Brother" and "Other"

Rav Zini · Kislev 5766 · On Jewish identity and the boundaries of responsibility.

The Clash of Civilizations

Rav Zini · Cheshvan 5766 · A Torah reading of Samuel Huntington's thesis.

True Leadership in a Time of Crisis

Rav Zini · Shvat 5767 · What Torah demands of leaders when the nation faces existential threat.

Chumash HaRe'iyah: Torah Portion Commentaries

A series of weekly Torah portion commentaries through the lens of Rav Kook's thought, written by the yeshiva's rabbis including Rav Yirmiyah Acheroff, Rav Hananel Zini, Rav Adiel Cohen, Rav Yedidya Zini, Rav Chaim Asban and Rav Avner Hazout. Covering Parashat Ba through Nitzavim-Vayelekh (5780).

Full translations of additional articles are in progress. The complete Hebrew archive is maintained at orvishua.net.