Bitachon

How do you balance being afraid of something versus knowing that you should have emunah that everything will be ok?
Gabrielle Hiller


Hi Gabrielle,

I'm so glad you asked this question because it gives me the opportunity to share with you an idea of the Chazon Ish that changed my life. In a book called Emunah v'Bitachon, published by his students after his death in 1953, R' Avraham Yeshayahu Karelitz wrote the following:

"There is an old misconception rooted in the hearts of many when it comes to the concept of trust in Hashem. This term, bitachon, used by the righteous to name a celebrated and central character trait, has undergone a change, and has mistakenly become a term to describe the obligation to believe in any situation a person finds himself in where he faces an undecided future with two ways apparent - one good and the other not - that surely the good outcome will be the one to occur; if one is doubtful and fears the possibility of the opposite of good occurring, he is lacking in trust in Hashem. This understanding of trust is not correct, for as long as the future has not been revealed through prophecy, the future is not decided, for who knows Hashem's judgements and rewards? No - trusting in Hashem is not that, but rather the belief that nothing happens by chance, and that everything that occurs under the sun is the result of a decree in the Almighty."

The Chazon Ish goes on to write that when you find yourself in a scary situation it is natural to fear the ways of the world. But if you can internalize the known truth that this is not a chance of misfortune but rather it is all from Hashem. If you allow your faith to alleviate your fear and give you the courage to believe in the possibility of salvation; that you get yourself to understand that nothing you are facing necessarily tends more toward a bad outcome, then you have achieved the trait of bitachon in Hashem.

I found these intense words of the Chazon Ish to be insightful and they gave me clarity about what bitachon in Hashem means. It is by no means an easy thing to internalize, it takes hard work and effort but it can really transform your life and relationship with Hashem.

The sefer has recently come out in English, titled "Faith and Trust" and I recommend it as a challenging but highly rewarding work. If you would like to discuss this further in person, let me know!

"Hashem Elokeichem Emet"

Why do we add on the word "emet" at the end of Kri'at Shema if it's really part of the next paragraph?
Does this in any way violate bal tosif?
~Tamar Novetsky~

According to Brachot 14a, we don't want a hefsek / break between the third paragraph (VaYomer) and the following paragraph (V'Yatziv v'nachon.) So we connect the first word of the last paragraph to the previous one, we connect "Emet" to "Hashem Elokeichem." The reason is because of the pasuk in Sefer Yirmiyahu, 10:10, where Yirmiyahu declares "Hashem Elokim Emet." Just as Yirmiyahu connected the two words, so must we and not have a pause between the two paragraphs.

It is not an issue of Bal Tosif. Based on the Sifrei (Re'eh 82), one violates Bal Tosif for words when completely new words are added to a pre-existing text. The example that the Sifrei gives is that it would be assur for one to add a bracha like the one Moshe gave Bn"y in the beginning of Sefer Devaim, "Hashem Elokei Elokeicheim yosef aleichem kachem elef pa'amim..." to Birchat Kohanim, a pre-existing text from BeMidbar 6:24-26 .

I hope this answers your question and helps you find even more meaning in your davening!

Ms. F

Body Piercing & Tattoos

A number of students have asked related questions, so I’m just going to respond in one post. First, Penina Cohen asked about whether it is permitted to pierce your ears. Leora Kook expanded the question to nose rings, and also asks about tattoos. Chana Ben-Zecharia asked if it’s true that someone who has a tattoo can not be buried is a Jewish cemetery.

The idea that getting a tattoo would preclude someone from being buried in a Jewish cemetery is a myth. The only people who might be excluded from having a Jewish burial are those who commit suicide. Still, there is a big halachik difference between tattoos and piercings. It is strictly and clearly prohibited to get a tattoo - it’s an explicit pasuk (Vayikra 19:28). While body piercing presents some halachik issues, it is not nearly as clear as that. (When I was researching a paper on this subject in law school, I noticed a responsa from a Conservative Rabbi which also prohibited tattoos and cautioned against some of the more exotic piercings for tznius reasons.)

The biggest issue with piercing (as many of you learned in Bava Kama) is chovel b’atzmo – injuring yourself. Judaism believes that we do not have full ownership over even our own bodies, and prohibits suicide, and to a lesser extent injuring oneself. Now this issur is not absolute. No one would argue that someone in need of surgery or even amputation of a limb may not have it because he is cutting his body. If the injury is for a purpose that is productive, it is permitted. On this basis, many poskim (including Rav Ovadiah Yosef) have allowed even cosmetic surgery, arguing that the benefit of the procedure outweighs the pain and damage done by the surgery. Some poskim disagree – I have been told that Rav Aharon Soloveitchik ruled that cosmetic surgery, allowing a nose job only if the surgery was otherwise needed for medical reasons, like a deviated septum. (He also did not allow his daughters to pierce their ears.) What emerges on the issue is a kind of halachik sliding scale, on which we need to balance the pleasure/benefit of the procedure against the pain/damage. Piercing one’s ears scores pretty low on both ends, and reasonable halachik authorities can come out in both directions.

Rav Aharon Lichtenstein told a story in his eulogy for Rav Shlomo Zalman Auerbach about when his daughter wanted to pierce her ears, but he thought that it was assur. They agreed to ask Rav Shlomo Zalman, who after engaging the young girl and ignoring her learned father ruled that it is permissible. A similar story happened with Rabbi Willig and Rabbi Schachter.

As you get away from the ears, to other parts of the body – nose, lip, belly button etc. - I think that the benefit of the jewelry diminishes, and I know that the pain and damage are significantly worse. Additionally, there might be some real chukkas hagoyim issues as well, that go beyond the scope of this post.

Yasher koach to all three of you for the questions.

Avoda Sheb'lev Contest - Deadline

A quick reminder that tomorrow, Rosh Chodesh Iyar is the final day to submit entries for this months Avoda Sheb'lev contest. For this month you are to choose your own passage from Hallel. Just to get you excited about it, here is last months runner-up, by Chaya Kanerfogel.

Is Hashem ‘So Far Away’?
Learning tanach every day in school, we are bound to come across perushim that discuss G-d’s presence in our lives, or hashkacha pratis. I can recall more than one class in which my fellow classmates and myself have tried to grasp different opinions of scholars. Some argue that G-d is a major force that directly can alter our fate and controls every seemingly insignificant detail of this world, while others think of Hashem as an over-encompassing power who simply supervises the laws of nature.
Moreover, it is personally difficult to think of Hashem as being unaffiliated with my life and me personally, since I know that there was once a time that Hashem’s presence in an individual’s life was blatantly conceivable, namely up until the destruction of the second Beit Hamikdash. I think it is also harder to have a personal connection with Hashem through tefilah if we believe that we are only davening as an exercise purely for self-reflection because of the notion that Hashem doesn’t listen to our tefilot as He is a transcendent presence.
The line of “Karov Hashem” from Ashrei gave me some convincing proof that Hashem can truly have a personal connection to us and at times be our own personal G-d.
When you call out to someone, it means that you believe that they are there to hear you. Although the person I call out to might choose not to answer my call, I still know that they will at least hear what I am saying. They are a presence that I know is close enough to hear my call.
What I think this line of Ashrei is saying is that once I acknowledge Hashem’s direct presence is in my life by calling out to Him, He will always be there to listen to me. The verse in Ashrei adds that the person who Hashem is close to must call out to Him truthfully. While I may call out to someone, my cries may be said in vain, meaning I know that truthfully, the thing or person I call out to does not really exist. I can call out to Hashem, but deep down I may not truly believe that His presence exists in my life. Perhaps, then, this verse contains one of the many intrinsic tenets of Judaism. As Jews, our faith in Hashem’s ability to hear our prayers and perform miracles for us is the underlying foundation that keeps us connected to Him. Even though Judaism is a logical and understandable religion, there are certain aspects of it and our faith in Hashem being somewhat involved in our lives that affirm our belief in Torah uMitzvot.
So in conclusion, this short verse sums up an important facet of Jewish faith. It also gives us the promise that once we believe that Hashem is there to listen to us, He will truly be there. It is our choice to believe whether or not Hashem is a transcendental or imminent G-d, but I think this verse affirms that our beliefs can become reality.

Davening During Torah Reading?

If you walk into shul during laining, are you not supposed to daven while they're reading the Torah? If not, are you allowed to daven between aliyahs? and also, what if you know that the only way youll be able to catch up with the minyan is if you daven during the reading of the Torah, are you still not supposed to?
-Daniella Grodko

Very practical question!
Yes-one is not supposed to daven during kriat haTorah. One may daven during aliyot. If you know that you will likely be stuck in a situation where you will need to daven during kriat hatorah to catch up, better to do some advance planning and daven shmoneh esreh at home and then go into shul for kriat haTorah.

Leftovers

A student asked:

After pesach you find Chametz in your house, and you didn’t know it was there all of pesach are you allowed to eat it or to have to sell it or throw it out?

The student touches on an important rule here. Biblically, we are not allowed to eat or own chametz on Pesach, but מדרבנן, Chametz sheavar alav hapesach - chametz that was owned by a Jew over pesach is prohibited as well. Therefore, you would think that the answer to your question is that you have to throw out any chametz that you accidentally had over Pesach.

There are two reasons why this may not be so. First, every Jew, on the morning of erev Pesach, does "ביטול חמץ" - the nullification of the chametz. In it we state our desire to be rid of any chametz we may own, whether we know about it or not, which has the effect of making it not ours. (There is a famous machlokes between Rashi and Tosfos as to the mechanics of how this works, but that is beyond the scope of this post.)

Additionally, most people have the custom of selling their chametz to a non-Jew for the duration of the holiday. If the chametz you find is in a place you didn't expect it, and thus didn't sell this may not help.

This is all on top of the thorough cleaning job we all do in anticipation of Pesach, so you see that we take multiple precautions to ensure that we do not violate the Biblical prohibition of owning chametz on Pesach. Therefore, the item you find afterward may well not have been yours "illegally" on Pesach, and may not run afoul of the rules of חמץ שעבר עליו הפסח. For an actual ruling, please see your personal Halachik authority.

The baalei mussar explain that chametz on Pesach, and our effort to eradicate it is representative of whatever bad midos we have in ourselves. The extraordinary pains taken - halachik and personal (I myself should probably be doing something else now) - to ensure that no chametz remains under our care is an important message to us as we try to do the appropriate introspection before the chag.

Wishing everyone a chag kasher v'sameach.

ברכת החמה

As we get closer to the big day, I heard that some students did not get the chance to learn about it in class. Here is the presentation that I showed my class. Yasher koach to Rabbi Prince for his hard work on the source sheet that we also learned. As awful as the weather is today, it seems like we might have a shot to actually make the ברכה, let's hope so. Otherwise, we can try again in 2037.

"Dayeinu"--Really? A Guest Post by Mrs. Sally Mayer

We've all thought about how strange the song "dayeinu" is, when you think about it. Would it really have been okay with us if Hashem had brought us to the yam suf, but not split it? Our enemies would have gotten us right there! Or had He split the sea but not drowned the Egytians? Had they passed through, we would have still been chased and captured or killed! Ever since our son Moshe was born three and a half months prematurely at 1.4 lbs, and went through his five challenging months in the hospital, I have had a new perspective on dayeinu. As he was going through all of his many difficulties, we learned to thank Hashem for each step, even if the next step was unclear. If yesterday he needed 100% oxygen, and today he needed only 80% piped into his incubator, that was enough to say thank you for, even though we still didn't know if he would ever breathe room air. If he was able to digest 2 teaspoons of milk today, that was enough to praise Hashem, even though we didn't know if his digestive system would ever be able to take more than that. And every day of his life there with no infections, no further bleeding in his brain, no further complications, was a reason to be thankful, even though we didn't know if he would even survive. So yes -- "dayeinu" -- not because we would have survived if Hashem hadn't split the sea or drowned the Eyptians or provided us with mann, but because that would have been enough for us -- we would have been thankful for that and could not have presumed to ask for more. Al achat kamah vechamah are we thankful that Hashem didn't stop at each step -- that our son Moshe, now 3 years old, is a beautiful, healthy little boy, thanks to Hashem's great chessed; that Hashem not only took us out of Mitzrayim, but also split the sea, also gave us the mann, and everything else that came afterward. Each step is a gift of incredible kindeness from Hashem, a gift we did not deserve and could not have asked for more after receiving it.
It's a tremendous lesson for our lives all the time -- to appreciate and be thankful for steps in a process, even before the process is complete, and even, ironically, if the process may never be complete.

Note: Mrs. Mayer is Ma’ayanot’s Israel Liaison and was the Chair of our Talmud department and a beloved Talmud teacher at Ma’ayanot before making aliyah with her family five years ago.

The Rav on Interfaith Dialogue

A student who requests to remain anonymous asks: Why did the Rav rule against interfaith dialogue? Isn't it necessary to maintain a healthy relationship with the surrounding world?

This question touches on an exceptional reality of American Judaism. The very notion of having interfaith dialogue, rather than presuming interfaith hostility or defending the Jewish religion against the claims of others, is born of the freedoms of expression that we are so blessed to have in this country. And yet, as you write, the Rav indeed rejected the idea that we should take advantage of such opportunities in order to have open dialogue about our respective religions with members of other faiths.

While I’m certainly no expert on the Rav, I will try to explain what I have read in his own words about this issue. Specifically, we can get a sense of the Rav’s perspective within the book Community, Covenant and Commitment, which is a collection of the Rav’s letters on the topics indicated in the title, edited by Rabbi Nathaniel Helfgot.

In a number of letters, the Rav clearly distinguishes between communicating across religions about matters of broad social, humanitarian, and cultural concern on the one hand, and participating in dialogues for the purpose of clarifying and/or debating our religious differences and similarities vis-à-vis other faiths on the other. He explicitly supports the former: “We are ready to enter into dialogue [with other faith communities] on such topics as War and Peace, Poverty, Freedom, Man’s Moral Values, the Threat of Secularism, Technology and Human Values, Civil Rights, etc., which revolve about religious spiritual aspects of our civilization.” If you think about it, those topics comprise an incredibly broad range of questions and challenges that the Rav was perfectly willing to discuss with non-Jews! We could spend a lifetime debating these matters, thereby (as you say in your question) fostering a healthy relationship with the surrounding world; or, as the Rav puts it, “Communication among the various communities will greatly contribute towards mutual understanding and will enhance and deepen our knowledge of those universal aspects of man which are relevant to all of us.”

As I understand it, the Rav’s strong objection to interfaith dialogue about religious dogma and practice was grounded in his insistence that there are essential differences between the relationship Jews have developed with Hashem and the nature of non-Jews’ (and particularly Christians’) relationship with God, as played out in each religion’s history and rituals. The Christian view, says the Rav, places Christians at a distance from God, renders them passive before God’s presence, and places God (within both doctrine and ritual) in an other-worldly position. In contrast, the Rav describes the Jewish faith and practice as bespeaking Jews’ intimacy with Hashem, engagement in constant, active dialogue with Hashem, and participation in a natural (rather than super-natural) relationship with Hashem. The Rav, as I understand his writing, insists that we should not put ourselves in the position of opening up these essential components of our approach to rationalizations or apologetics, which would surely be part of any interfaith dialogue – at best – between members of faith communities whose conceptions of God differ so vastly. At worst, as the Rav himself witnessed in the 1960s, Jewish engagement in ecumenical conversations about the rudiments of faith could lead Christians to assume that we are prepared, God forbid, to consider the possibility that “the historical mission of the Jews exhausted itself… in paving the way for Christianity” – a component of Christian theology. The Rav had no problem with Jews’ clarifying aspects of our religion to non-Jews who express an interest in understanding it, but this of course is different than involving ourselves in formal, open discourse.

I think it is important to note that there are many ways in which Jews can be (in the Rav’s words) “members of the universal community”, working together with non-Jews to better the world and promote common values. Indeed, to name just a few examples, Jews and Jewish organizations across the denominations participated in the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s, and in the past few years we have been involved in all sorts of disaster relief programs following natural catastrophes (hurricanes, tsunamis, etc.). All this can be done while heeding the Rav’s warnings I described above. At the same time, there certainly have been rabbis and other Jewish leaders who have engaged in the kinds of conversations the Rav would shy away from, with results the Rav himself might have found acceptable. Has the world changed enough since the 1950s and 1960s that the Rav would modify his position if he were alive today? I am most definitely not in a position to answer that question. But regardless of whether each of us follows the Rav’s specific guidelines on this matter or adopts a more permissive approach, I believe we would do well to keep in mind the Rav’s beautiful explication of the intimate nature of our relationship with Hashem, as well as heed his cautions against engaging in debates that might, by their very nature, besmirch Judaism.

Chag Kasher ve-Sameach

The Shawshank Redemption and Pesach

One of my favorite movies is "The Shawshank Redemption". Besides for being a very thought provoking film, in my opinion, its message also ties directly into many of the themes of Pesach and Yetziat Mitzrayim. In the movie, Andy Dufrene is an innocent man, sentenced to life in prison for a murder he didn't commit. He is sent to Shawshank prison, a pretty horrible place, with a sadistic warden and where the prisoners are abused by the guards. The prison is full of many other convicted murderers, serving out life sentences. Throughout the movie the attitudes of Andy and the other prisoners are contrasted, as Andy refuses to give up hope that he will be released and will often pull stunts in the prison to remind everyone what life was like on the outside, and give them a sense of "freedom" even when they are behind bars. The other prisoners have become "institutionalized" after spending 30, 40, 50 years in prison and don't want to be freed, preferring to remain in Shawshank, because they feel that they won't be able to survive on the "outside".

In the first clip, Andy is in the warden's office, and the guard leaves him alone for a few minutes to go to the bathroom. Left alone, he finds a classical music record, locks the guard in the bathroom and plays it for the whole prison on the P.A. system. The entire prison freezes in place as everyone is transfixed by the music, and in the words of one of the prisoners: "at that moment, every man in Shawshank felt free". Though Andy did this to give everyone hope, another prisoner gets upset, saying that "hope is a dangerous thing", since none of these prisoners will every be able to function outside of prison.



The second clip tells the story of Brooks, an elderly prisoner who spent over 50 years in prison. He has been released on parole and doesn't want to leave, even contemplating committing another murder just to get sent back "home" to prison. He writes a letter to the other prisoners telling them this, and eventually commits suicide (don't worry, it's not graphic at all, but if you get scared easily, just close your eyes at 3:56 of the video).



I think that this movie picks up on the theme of "slave mentality" seen with Yetziat Mitzrayim. G-d takes the Jews out of Egypt, but its up to us to take "the Egypt out of the Jew". Lehavdil, just as Brooks and other prisoners see the prison as home, the Jews in the Midbar want to return to Egypt (and slavery!) whenever things get difficult. The Ibn Ezra points this out in a very famous comment on why the Jews didn't fight back at Keriat Yam Suf, since the number of freed slaves outnumbered the Egyptian horsemen. He explains that after all those years in slavery, they still suffered from a slave mentality and would never have been able to attack their oppressors.

אבן עזרא, שמות יד:יג
(יג) ...יש לתמוה, איך יירא מחנה גדול של שש מאות אלף איש מהרודפים אחריהם, ולמה לא ילחמו על נפשם ועל בניהם? התשובה, כי המצרים היו אדונים לישראל, וזה הדור היוצא ממצרים למד מנעוריו לסבול עול מצרים ונפשו שפלה, ואיך יוכל עתה להלחם עם אדוניו, והיו ישראל נרפים ואינם מלומדים למלחמה... והשם לבדו שהוא עושה גדולות ...כי אין בהם כח להלחם בכנענים, עד שקם דור אחר דור המדבר, שלא ראו גלות והיתה להם נפש גבוהה...

The message of the Seder (especially during Pesach Mitzrayim) was to use the different Mitzvot and "props" (Matzah, Maror, Korban Pesach, blood on the door...) to help the Jews break with the Egyptian slave mentality and feel free. Lehavdil, as the first clip shows, one can be in jail and feel free, or one can be living "on the outside" but still suffer from a slave mentality. Have a meaningful Seder and a Chag Kasher v'Sameach!

More Pesach Pearls from MYHS Students

Ilana Kruger
9th grade

As a little kid, I loved to sing Chad Gadya. But, it always came at the very end of the Seder, and I was not always awake for it. When that happened, I would get to sing it with my mom in the morning. Now that I am older, I wonder what exactly this cute little song about a goat really means.

The Vilna Gaon explains each verse and what they come to teach us. “One little goat, one little goat, that my father bought for two zuzim.” The goat, or kid, represents the first-born rights that were taken from Esav, and which went to Yaakov, and then which returned eventually to Yosef. The cat that ate the goat is Yosef’s brothers because they acted as “jealously as a cat” and sold Yosef because of the first-born rights. The dog that bit the cat are the Egyptians who enslaved the Jews, and that was caused by the brothers’ sin of selling Yosef. The stick that beat the dog is the staff of Moshe, and the staff lasted until the destruction of the Beit Hamikdash. Then came the fire that burnt the stick, which is the flame that destroyed the Beit Hamikdash. The water that put out the fire is the Men of the Great Assembly, who came back and rebuilt the Beit Hamikdash. Then the ox that drank the water is Edom, who destroyed the second Beit Hamikdash. The slaughterer that killed the ox is Moshiach ben Yosef (the first Moshiach), and the Angel of Death that killed the slaughterer is Samel, who will kill Moshiach ben Yosef. And, finally, comes Hashem, who will kill the Angel of Death, and then Hashem will bring Moshiach ben Dovid.

So, what does this all mean? Chad Gadya teaches the importance of faith in Hashem’s ultimate justice, meaning he rewards those who do good and punishes those who commit evil. Situations may arise that we don’t understand this, but Chad Gadya teaches us that Hashem’s rules guide everything that happened in past, as well as, in the present and future.

Pesach Pearls from MYHS Students

In preparing for Pesach I asked my students to share some of their favorite divrei Torah on Pesach with the class. I would like to share some of those divrei Torah, which we compiled into a Haggada, with you:

Ilana Ambrose
11th grade

The Arizal explains that the four sons parallel the four cups of wine we drink on the seder night. The wicked son, the second one we learn about, therefore, parallels the 2nd cup, the one over which the main body of the Haggadah is recited. Most of the seder night is spent explaining the Haggadah over the 2nd cup of wine. From this we learn, that our greatest efforts must be directed to reach out to the wicked/foul son and involve him in our heritage to an even greater extent than the other sons, even the Chacham, wise son.

Jordana Blum
9th grade

The first question of the Ma Nishtana is why we eat only Matza and not Chometz the night of Pesach?

There is a very interesting thought about the difference between Chometz and Mazta. If you look at the Hebrew spelling of those two words Chometz and Mazta, chometz has a “mem” and “tzadi” and Matza also has these 2 letters, but the difference is the Chometz has the letter" Chet " and Matza has the letter "Heir".

The letters “Chet” and “Hei” in Hebrew are very similar, there is just a very slight difference between them, the letter Chet has complete 3 sides but not so the Hei which has a half side only. And that one little spot of a letter means the entire difference Chometz and one Matza!

This provides us with a very important lesson, that many times the difference between good and evil. Kosher and not Kosher depends on a very minor detail, and that tiny detail could spell the entire difference between the good and bad. For example, a forged one-hundred dollar bill and real one, it could be very hard to know which is real and which is fake, only by looking hard and notice perhaps a slight wrong detail, could lead you to figure out that one is worth money and the other is not.

Can You Feel It?

A little something to get us into the Yetzias Mitzrayim mood:

Children and the Seder

OK, so the instructions were to share our favorite short D'var Torah, and link to longer ones, so here does. This truly is a favorite of mine, as many of you have heard it from me over the years. If you have, chazara is always a good idea.

Many of our practices at the seder, most notably כרפס, are done "so that the children will ask". In fact, we are told not to waste time before the seder, so that the children don't fall asleep. This is striking. (שבכל הלילות...)All other nights of the year, children are halachik non-entities. Parents are obligated to train them in the way of Torah and mitzvos, but (at least regarding ritual mitzvos) they are halachikly irrelevant. Why all of a sudden, for one (or two) nights a year are they suddenly the focal point of the night most loaded with mitzvos, that the children themselves need not perform?

Of course the simple answer is that the Torah tells us that סיפור יציאת מצרים is to be done by way of teaching your children (...כי ישאלך בנך...; והגדת לבנך), but why did the Torah say that?

The answer is that on seder night, with all the mitzvos we have, there is one that is so overarching as to include all the others. We read in the Hagada: "בכל דור ודור חייב אדם לראות את עצמו כאילו הוא יצא ממצרים". In every generation everyone is obligated to envision himself as though he himself heft Egypt. To me, this might be the hardest mitzvah in the Torah - I don't think I've ever been יוצא. To really feel that we are leaving מצרים? How can we? We are real people with real lives and real problems, we don't go around playing make-believe, and probably couldn't if we tried.

There is one group of people though who do this all the time. Children constantly live in their imaginations; in worlds that exist only in their minds. And the only time any of us ever come close to that is when we are playing with and engaged with children.

So we are commanded to keep the children active and interested in our seder not because they need the mitzvah, but because they are our best chance for us to fulfill our obligation. For the evening, they become our lulav almost; the object we need to do our mitzvah.

For a different but related point about how Jewish education is ruining the seder, see Rabbi Eytan Mayer's excellent essay on the subject.

Hilchot Tefilla

Atara Staiman asks:

If I am still davening my personal Amidah and the chazzan starts his chazarat hashatz, am i supposed to stop for kedusha when he gets up to it? should i join in and sing with everyone? can i continue davening to myself?

If you are in the middle of Shmoneh Esrei, don't say anything. Stop davening and listen intently to kedusha until it is complete, and then resume your tefilla. If you are at the end - you have already said the "Y'hyu l'ratzon imrei fi" before "Elokai neshama" (which is really the end of Shmoneh Esrei - that's why we can stick in the vidui on Yom Kippur), you should answer kedusha with the tzibbur, and then conclude Shmoneh Esrei.

Good, practical question. Yasher koach.

Tzniut - between man and God?

A student asks:
Are the mitzvot of tzniut considered bein adam l'makom or bein adam l'chavero? Is the focus of these mitzvot more about keeping a holy and moral environment or about individuals valuing the body that Hashem gave them? On a practical note, if someone were to violate the halachot of tzniut (they exposed erva in some way), would they have to ask mechila from everyone who saw them them, or only from Hashem?

This is a quick answer off the cuff, without consulting any sources. I was talking with my 10th graders about R. Saadya Gaon's idea that the 10 commandments are really categories, and every one of the mitzvot can be fit under one of those 10 headings. We then discussed specific mitzvot, and tried to figure out under which category each belongs. For example, we said korbanot fit under "Anochi Hashem"; damages for injuries under "lo tirzach." When someone brought up tzniut, one girl put it in jest in the category of "kibbud av va-em," which I found pretty funny. The serious suggestion, however, was "lo tinaf," that a lack of tzniut was somehow related to adultery or sexual immorality, which would correspond with your view that it's a bein adam le-chaveiro issue. My own opinion, which I said at the time, is that it fits under "Anochi Hashem," that a person is created in the image of God, and that we represent Him in this world, and are thus enjoined to present ourselves - and view ourselves - as dignified human beings. The image of God is our neshamah, perhaps our intellect as well, things that make us different from animals who are primarily physical, and that's why our clothing should reflect not our physical aspect, but our spiritual. A couple of nafka minas: how about men and tzniut? Well, if it's about dignity, then it applies just as much, and I know men who have standards of dress (for example - they won't wear shorts in public, or go without a shirt) which they view as tzniut for themselves. Another nafka mina: how do we act when we're alone? If tzniut is bein adam le-Makom, then we act with dignity then as well.

About asking G-d to help us get through, at the same time we know that everything comes from Him

Question:
Why is it that we believe that G-d has the ability to cure our problems but we seem to ignore the fact that He did not prevent those problems initially? (For example, we ask Hashem to heal the cholim, but wasn't He the One Who allowed them to get sick?) If the answer to that question is that G-d allows things to happen in this world without controlling everything (b/c people have free choice, etc.), then why do we believe that He has the ability to control other things, and help solve our issues? I know that the holocaust is a specific event that tortures us about why G-d does things the way that He does. But how can it be that we credit Him with our salvation when He allowed it to happen? This question applies to even the most simplest of things, be it getting more money after a business loss, or healing after a cold. I know it's a difficult question to answer, but I would appreciate if you could address this issue and maybe help me (and others) understand a little bit more, if any way possible.
Thank you,
Talia Stern

Mrs. Billet writes: You are right that the question how do bad things happen in a world run by a just God is a question that has been and will probably always be there. I like to think that one of the ways of approaching this question is to see our illnesses, or our unemployment, etc, as a nisayon, a test or a challenge of sorts. God tests us, and the medrash actually says that that can be compared to a potter who sometimes strikes his clay pots to see if they are strong enough to withstand the stress of the blows. Usually, the potter is wise enough and careful enough to test the strength of the pot without breaking it. Then he is confident that the clay pots he created can withstand the stresses of heavy use. Sometimes when you know someone who has undergone a terrible challenge like a life-threatening illness or a loss in the family, that person might say: If you had told me before this happened that it would happen to me, I would have told you that I would have been crushed by those terrible events; I would have gone insane, or gotten totally depressed, or any other type of inability to cope. But then the person goes on to say: I cannot believe that I actually reached into my soul and found the inner resources to cope with this devastation. In fact, I am stronger and more capable than I ever would have thought I could be. So yes, it is true that God allows life to run its course and sometimes that means that we will be sick, or lose our investment, or be hurt in an accident, see a loved one die, and more. But we can still be confident that we can pray to God to help us find the inner resources deep inside our souls that help us grow into stronger, wiser, more capable and more experienced people. We can emerge from the depths of our pain and resolve to do something good in memory of the loved one. We can give back to the community or help others who are experiencing the same tzara that we underwent and then overcame. We can pray to God to help us feel that we are not alone, that we have friends and family who will support us and love us, even as we cope with the terrible challenges life sometimes brings our way. Judaism will have us believe that we do have the choice to either be crushed by the things that overwhelm us, or to find a way to steer ourselves out of the storm. So God is able to both allow life to run its course which includes difficult, painful moments, as well as help us find the inner strength and ability to cope. He is the source of life that brings its ups and its downs, but He is also the source of the wisdom of our minds, the strength of our character and the love and support of our friends and family.