When my father zt”l would walk up from behind, gently grab my arm and say, “Let’s walk,” I always felt a special warmth and connection. Most of those walks did not have an agenda, and, in fact, were usually silent. We simply walked. They differed from our walks to Yeshiva or Shul. Those walks had a different quality than our walk home. The walk to was always a form of preparation. The walk home was a review. I still treasure my walk to synagogue, as I do the walk home. The walk itself is special. I never understand people who simply “go” to or from prayers to get from one place to another without appreciating the walk.

The walk from his home to the Bais Midrash for my father’s funeral was weighed down with deep, crushing, sadness. The walk from his grave to the car, while thousands of people were reciting the formula, “May the Omnipresent comfort you…,” was surreal. The walk to conclude Shiva was reentering life; a new life, one without my father to call every day with my questions.

The walk to my Chupah was different from the walk from the marriage ceremony, as it was different from walking my children to their Chupah.

My morning walks are a form of meditation. My walks with my wife are a form of connection.

I once walked three hours on Shabbat, in a blinding blizzard through deep snow to participate in the Brit Milah of a child born to one of my congregants. I was determined to enjoy the walk and not simply forge ahead to get where I needed to be. On my first Shabbat as rabbi of Lincoln Square I had to walk across Central Park to Mt. Sinai hospital where the mother of a congregant was about to be placed on life support and numerous Halachic issues demanded my presence. That walk was a prayer for wisdom, insight, clarity, sensitivity, and, most of all, God’s guidance.

My walk up 42 flights of stairs to participate in a Shalom Zachor was a dance of appreciation for the opportunity to so honor Shabbat.

I especially appreciate walking after having lived so many years unable to walk at all. A walk is never just a walk, which leads me to wonder, when God said to Abraham, “Walk for yourself,” how did Abraham walk? Was it an adventure? Was it more like my walks to Yeshiva with my father or the walk that ended Shivah? After all, Abraham was leaving his, “Land, birthplace and his father’s home.” It too, was a walk into a new life; one without his past, without the familiar, without his father. How did Abraham walk when, “He walked on his journeys?” (13:3)

Did Lot walk the same way as did his uncle when it says, “Also Lot who walked with Abraham?” (Verse 5)

How did Abraham walk when God instructed him to. “Arise, walk about the land through its length and breadth?” (Verse 17)

Why does it matter? “Walk before Me and be perfect.” (17:1) Abraham had to first learn how to walk before he could walk “before God.”

Jewish law is Halachah: “How To Walk.” Halacha guides our walking. It teaches us how to treasure each step of our lives so that we too, can “Walk before Me and be perfect.”

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In 1509, Johannes Pfefferkorn, a Dominican monk who was also a converted rabbi, published Mirror of the Jews, an anti-Semitic book proposing that all works in Hebrew, including the Talmud, be burned.

Johannes Reuchlin, a Bavarian humanist, dismayed by the possibility of such desecration, formally protested to the emperor. Jewish scholarship should not be suppressed, he argued. Rather, two chairs in Hebrew should be established at every German university. Pfefferkorn, he wrote, was an anti-intellectual “ass.”

Furious, the rabbi who had become a monk struck back with Hand Mirror, accusing Reuchlin of being on the payroll of the Jews.

The controversy raged for six years. Five universities in France and Germany burned Reuchlin’s books, but in the end he was triumphant. Pfefferkorn’s fire was canceled and the teaching of Hebrew spread.

Pfefferkorn was the boogieman of my childhood. He was the ultimate self-hating Jew. It wasn’t enough for him to have converted and become a monk, he wanted to burn every Hebrew book in Europe. He wanted to destroy anyone who would defend Jewish scholarship.

“Ham, the father of Canaan, saw his father’s nakedness and told his brothers outside. And Shem and Japheth took a garment, laid it upon both their shoulders, and they walked backwards, and covered their father’s nakedness.” (Genesis 9:22-23)

Ham ridiculed his father; He rejected the place from which he had come. Shem and Japheth honored their past, even when they were fully aware of its failings. They refused to look at their father’s nakedness. Ham felt that the only way to build the future was to reject the past with all its mistakes and failings. His father, Noah, represented the generation before the Deluge. When Ham saw his drunken, naked father, wallowing in his wine, he felt justified in cutting off the past, as the Sages teach, “Ham castrated Noah.” (Sanhedrin 70a)

Ham was the first Pfefferkorn. He was not satisfied in building a future; he wanted to wage war against his roots. He believed that the only way to move ahead was to destroy the past.

Shem and Japheth acknowledged the failings of the previous generations, but they understood that the future could only be built upon the past, even its ruins.

Noah deprived Ham of his future: “Cursed is Canaan; a slave of slaves shall he be to his brothers.” (Verse 25)

Shem, the ancestor of Israel, was rewarded with the Mitzvah of Tzitzit. Japheth was rewarded with a promise that his soldiers’ bodies would be honored with burial after Armageddon. Both were rewarded in the future that would be theirs as a reward for the honor they paid to the past.

Tzitzit reflect God’s promise that all we do has the potential of an eternal future. Japheth, who followed Shem but did not act on his own, merited honor for the bodies of his descendants; honor for the lives they lived, honor of their past, but without the promise of an eternal future.

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My friend and I were sitting and having a deep conversation. During the long silences, I could hear the ticking of the clock behind me. The volume of the ticking rose and fell every few seconds. I did not need to look behind me to understand that the volume increased as the second hand past the 3 and pointed down, and decreased as it passed the 6 and began to rise. The sound increased with gravity.

We began to discuss the interaction between gravity and sound when I glanced at the calendar above my companion’s seat: Van Gogh’s The Mulberry Tree. The branches and leaves are pointing up. The sound may have increased with the fall of the second hand, but the visual image was more powerful for its reach.

A Succah is an interesting combination of ups and downs: We look up at the S’chach and the stars that shine through its open spaces. The Mitzvah is to sit in the Succah. We are down low but our eyes are lifted up.

It’s similar to prayer, where we are instructed to lower our eyes but to lift our hearts. We bow in prayer according to specific instructions, but we then lift our bodies based on precise rules. (See Bowing)

We often speak of God as the One, Who “humbles the haughty to the ground, and lifts the lowly on high.”

Service of God demands both the high and the low, the up and the down. We look up and aspire even while we look down in humility. We look up to the heavens, but we focus on living in the here and now. We point our Lulavim up and celebrate and we point them down and do the same. We actually move beyond directions and space and connect with the Creator, Boundless and Infinite.

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Let me get this over with: Will each and every one of you please forgive me for anything I may have done to hurt

you over the past year? I’ll take that as a yes. Thanks. I feel much better. That wasn’t even too hard!

We must make amends. We are charged to do so before Yom Kippur. The day may bring atonement for sins against God, but it cannot atone for sins against other people. Many have the custom of asking everyone they know, friend, family and foe to forgive them. I do not believe that such a custom works. In fact, there is probably a simple way to determine how effective it is: will the person I am asking for forgiveness fell comfortable saying no? We only have a few moments, if that much, for all the people to whom we must make amends. How much regret and compassion can be expressed as we rush from one person to another asking, “Do you forgive me?” Is there a husband in the world who can summarize a year’s worth of moments of insensitivity, 365 days of words that hurt, twelve months of the things taken for granted, and put them in a simple “Do you forgive me?” The four words may actually make things worse!

We are about to spend a full day asking God for His forgiveness. We probably cannot afford 24 hours for each person, but they deserve more than four words. In fact, if we can appropriately address just one person to make amends we will learn how to better speak to God on Yom Kippur. If we are willing to hear a “No!” from someone too hurt to forgive in a snap, we will remember that forgiveness can not be taken for granted.

Asking and granting forgiveness demands effort, care and attention. It’s worth it!

Tools:

*Make an effort to make the other person feel better. Do it for them, not for you.

*Be willing to take “No!” for an answer. Find out why.

*Listen carefully to others asking for your forgiveness. Don’t answer without thought.

*Be prepared to spend time making amends.

*The closer the person; the more effort.

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The Shofar stirs people to return to God, as the verse (Amos 3) says: “If a Shofar is blasted in a city, will the people not tremble?”

The Sages taught that the Shofar blast of Rosh Hashana confuses Satan who believes that it may be the Shofar of the Messiah. It seems strange that Satan does not know that we blow the Shofar on Rosh Hashana and can be so easily confused.

The message of the Shofar is so powerful that Satan expects us to repent and merit the Shofar of the Messiah! (Kli Yakar, Genesis 22:13)

If only we would believe as much as Satan in the Shofar’s power!

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If a homicide victim should be found lying in a field in the land the Lord your God is giving you, and no one knows who killed him, your elders and judges must go out and measure how far it is to the cities in the vicinity of the corpse. Then the elders of the city nearest to the corpse must take from the herd a heifer that has not been worked – that has never pulled with the yoke –and bring the heifer down to a wadi with flowing water,6 to a valley that is neither plowed nor sown. There at the wadi they are to break the heifer’s neck. Then the Levitical priests will approach (for the Lord your God has chosen them to serve him and to pronounce blessings in his name, and to decide every judicial verdict, and all the elders of that city nearest the corpse must wash their hands over the heifer whose neck was broken in the valley. Then they must proclaim, “Our hands have not spilled this blood, nor have we witnessed the crime. Do not blame your people Israel whom you redeemed, O Lord, and do not hold them accountable for the bloodshed of an innocent person.” Then atonement will be made for the bloodshed. In this manner you will purge out the guilt of innocent blood from among you, for you must do what is right before the Lord. (Deuteronomy 21:1-9)

On 19 December 1916, in the last December of the Romanov Empire, a corpse bobbed to the surface of the Malaya Nevka River in Petrograd. Ice-encrusted with a mutilated face. But the most startling thing was its hands. It bound hands were raised. For there, under the icy water, that extraordinary individual, although beaten and shot, had still been alive, and had still been trying to break free of his fetters. And, as the police would later write in their report, great numbers of people hurried down to the river with flasks, jugs, and buckets to ladle up the water in which the awful body had just been floating. They wanted to scoop up with the water the deceased’s diabolical; improbable strength, of which all Russia had heard. (The Rasputin File by Edvard Radzinsky, Page 1)

My grandfather, Rabbi Yaacov Yitzchak Ruderman zt”l explained why the elders of the city declared “Our hands have not spilled this blood”: The Talmud says that no one had escorted the person from the city. My grandfather asked: How did they know? How would an escort from the city have saved his life?

He answered that someone who leaves a city alone, feels alone and therefore weak. Someone who leaves with an escort feels honored and therefore stronger. He would have fought back.

We can literally give someone the strength to fight, or fight harder for his life by simply treating him with greater respect. The Egla Arufa teaches us that we bear some responsibility for people we know who give up without a fight.

Consider the Russian peasants who were so inspired by the evil and hated Rasputin’s fight for life that they wanted some of the water in which he fought his final battle. We are moved and inspired by fighters. The Egla Arufa reminds us that we can nurture the will to fight in the people we know and meet.

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The right horn of the ram offered by Abraham will be used as the Shofar of Redemption. (Pirkei D’Rabbi Eliezer, Chapter 31.) We blow the Shofar on Rosh Hashana to recall the merit of Abraham’s great deed, which happened on Rosh Hashana, and to mention the promised Redemption.

Nachmanides (Exodus 19:13) asks: “how the horn could still exist to be used at Sinai and the Redemption, if Abraham offered the ram as an Olah – Burnt Offering?” He answers that perhaps God gathered the ashes of the horn and restored it to its original state.

Nachmanides sees a hint of the Resurrection of the Dead in the Shofar. The original Shofar, although consumed by fire, was restored.

The Shofar speaks of many great things, but perhaps we can add the idea of God rebuilding and recreating even those things, or people, who have been consumed by life, and have lost their spiritual form.

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A Chesed Walk is a similar exercise to The Patience Walk, but far more demanding: The concept is not self-flagellation, but to maintain a sense of calm even when I go shopping with my wife and her sister.

The idea is to walk with a smile from one end of about ten thousand stores to the next, while carrying piles of clothes “We’re thinking about.” Comments and suggestions are not permitted, especially as the Spanish – I think it was Spanish, but they were speaking so quickly, without any consonants, so I’m not positive, – was flying fast and furious. The husband/brother-in-law must have a constant smile on his face, with a full expression of patience and pure pleasure to share such an exciting adventure.

This is what I call serious Midot Development, or refining my character. It is a deliberate program, not a spatchcock of different suggestions and ideas. I set out to remain patient, happy, and calm, no matter how challenging the time.

I added an element to my objective: I wanted my time and effort to be an act of Chesed, or giving, to my wife and her sister. I decided to enjoy the fact that I could give so much by simply shlepping around for a few hours as a glorified and silent shopping cart.

I take Chesed walks when I walk our dog, Pip, no matter the weather or how tired I may feel. Walking Pip is also an exercise in humility: I may be “Abba” to some, “Rebbi” to others, and “Rabbi Weinberg” to more, but to Pip I am the guy who has to clean up after him. Debbie assures me that Pip considers me the Alpha of the family, but I watch that silent smirk on his face as I pick up his poop! Some alpha!

There is always the Walk of Expectation as I look forward to praying in the synagogue. Then there is the Walk of Continuation as I return home trying to keep all the wonderful feelings I experienced in my prayers alive and strong as I head home.

I am trying to learn how to be a better walker, to enjoy and maximize the walking to and from one place to the next. I figure that there is no better way to practice Halacha, or Walking in the Ways of God, than to practice the walking itself.

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My fingers are humbled and my foundations are crumbled -

O woe!

The Holy Temple and its courtyards are dragged

on the day of wrath –

Woe, what has befallen us!

The faces of princes and princesses are blackened

like the bottoms of pots –

O woe!

This Kinah describes numerous details of the Temple and its vessels, details to which we did not pay attention, details that did not matter to us. We forgot that each detail in the Temple was laden with meaning and deep secrets. No, the details did not matter to us, and eventually, we not only forgot the details, we forgot the Temple.

It is not that we are unconcerned with details; The Talmud teaches: R. Yochanan said: Jerusalem was destroyed only because they gave judgments therein in accordance with Biblical law.

Were they then to have judged in accordance with untrained arbitrators?

But say thus: because they based their judgments [strictly] upon Biblical law, and

did not go beyond the requirements of the law. (Bava Metzia 30b) They were so focused on the exact details of the law that they forgot to consider the ideas and concepts within each detail of every law.

We took something holy, Halacha, and made it a Hell. No wonder Milton wrote, “The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.” (Paradise Lost)

I recall listening in to a conversation my father zt”l was having with a non-observant Jew, who was insistent on describing Judaism as a “Kitchen Religion,” “You guys spend so much time on insignificant details that you have no time for life!”

“Surely,” said my father, “you, a surgeon, are concerned with minute details.”

“Of course,” he responded, “but those details are more important than how hot some milk was when it fell into a meat pot, and how much milk was there in proportion to the meat in the pot!”

“How do you know?” asked my father.

“Because my details are about life and death!”

“So are mine,” my father gently responded, “I have found that I care about the details whenever something matters to me.”

“So do I,” argued the surgeon.

“So your problem is not the details; it is that you do not care about these laws.”

One of the most horrendous images of Hell is Jean Paul Sartre’s “Huis Clos,” where the characters face each other and their pasts eternally. The continuos repetition and their continual closeness is the greatest torture that could possibly be inflicted on them. Details that were insignificant the first ten thousand times they reviewed their pasts, eventually became huge mountains, especially when pointed out by the people they faced for all eternity. Details that did not matter to them, mattered to others, and the small things became part of their torture.

Details do matter to us in a beautiful way, as beautiful, if not more so, than the details of the Temple described in this Kinah. I offer an example from Yerushat Pelatah:

In the face of a government decree requiring Jewish-owned shops to be opened on Shabbat, Rabbi Pinchas Tzimetboim of Grossvarden was asked if it was permissible for shops to remain open, since the penalty for not doing so was the total shuttering of the stores by the government.

Note: The questioners were prepared to lose everything if the Rabbi ruled that they could not keep their shops open! Such are the magnificent details as beautiful as the decorations of the Temple!

After exploring the possibilities of keeping the shops open by having a non-Jew handle all transactions, Rabbi Tzimetboim writes,

“And even if one can find permission to open the shops on Shabbat during this time of persecution by having a non-Jew handle all buying and selling, it is necessary to make an important Takanah that each person so doing give his solemn word – Tekiat Kaf – staking his share in the World To Come, in the presence of a Rav or Bet Din, that he will not personally sell on the Shabbat and that he will renounce any profit from these Shabbat transactions.

The people of Grossvarden transformed their hell into heaven by caring about such details.

We too possess such power and beauty. We can, when we care to look, discover the beauty of the Temple in the details of our lives.

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On October 28, 1941, Ruchele Jager was herded with more than a thousand other Jews into the Dom Katolicki (The Catholic Center) in Bolechow, Ukraine. The 16 year old girl was forced to watch as the Rabbi she had known since she was a small child had his eyes cut out, a cross cut into his chest, and then forced to dance naked with another terrified young woman. (The Lost: A Search For Six of Six Million, by Daniel Mendelsohn, Page 206)

Why the rabbi?

A few months earlier, July 1941, Rabbi Yitzchak Weiss of Werbau was asked, “Since Tisha B’Av falls this year on Saturday night, and since there is a decree that Jews are not allowed on the streets after 8:00 pm, how will we recite the Ma’ariv service and the Book of Lamentations? Was it permissible to advance the time of ma’ariv until just after pelag ha-mincha (about one and one-quarter hours before sunset), at which time the Jews would still be allowed to be outside? Is it permissible because we are in a time of emergency? Should we be concerned with the Talmudic dictum (Megillah 5a), “We do not hasten the approach of trouble?” (Mekadeshei Hashem, Volume I, pp. 150-151)

As long as the Rabbis survived, people requested Halachic rulings on how to deal with the realities of life under the Germans. There was no irony for them when they asked about “not hastening tragedy!” As long as we ask such questions, we will survive and outlast our enemies. The Germans knew it. The Romans knew it.

Do we?

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