DESl60 & LAIJOUT • PLAYSTRUCTURES • SWINGS • STEEL • PLASTIC • SITE FURNISHINGS • SCHOOL & CAMP EQUIPMENT • BASKETBALL & VOLLEYBALL SYSTEMS • RUBBER RESILIENT FLOORING •ETC. • Equipment meets or exceeds all ASTM and CPSC safety guidelines • Site planning and design services with state-of-the-art Auto CAD • Stainless steel fabrication for ultimate rust resistance Current Projects TORAH DAY CARE· Williamsburg, NY. RIVER PLACE • New York City KALOIDIS SCHOOL· Brooklyn, NY. YELED V'YALDA • Kensington, NY. YAGDILTORAH • Baro Park, NY. - ..... •-1-.. ...:'·,,.' ' S30Z New Utrecht:4ve~ue -•fi~~~Y!ntt1;:i~~zl£ao1··· ' . f • Teves 5761 •January 2001 U,S,A, $3.50/Foreign $4.50 ·VOL XXXIV/NO. I THE JEWISH OBSERVER (ISSN) 0021-6615 is published monthly except July and August by the Agudath Israel of America, 84 William Street, New York, N.Y 10038. Periodicals postage paid in New York, N.Y. Subscription S24.00 per year; two years. $44.00; three years. $60.00. Outside of the United States (US funds drawn on a US bank only) $12.00 surcharge per year. Single copy $3.50: foreign $4.50. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to: The Jewish Obseiver, 84 William Street N.Y., NY, 10038. Tel: 212-797-9000. Fax: 4 The Kiddush Hashem Imperative, Yonason Rosenblum 212-269-2843. I 2 Rabbi Yaakov Moshe Kulefsky ?·Olr Printed in the U.S.A. I 3 Bidding My Rebbe Farewell, Rabbi Yissacher Frond RABBI N!SSON WOLPIN, EDITOR I 8 Remembering Rabbi Kulefsky, Rabbi Eliezer Gibber EDITORIAL BOARD 19 "Dear Mrs. Kulefsky,'' a letter from Rabbi David Kapenstein RABBI JOSEPH ELIAS Chairman THE WORLD OF THE BAAL TESHUVA RABBI ABBA BRUDNY JOSEPH FRIEDENSON RABBI YISROEL MEIR KIRZNEA 2 I Israeli Kiruv Trends: One Destination, Two Very RABBI NOSSON SCHERMAN Different Paths, Moshe Schapiro PROF. AARON TWERSKI DR. ERNST L BODENHEIMER Z"L Founding Chairman Focus ON HALACHA 2 S Short, But How Sweet? The Use and Abuse of the MANAGEMENT 80ARO AV! FISHOF "Hoicha Kedusha,'' Rabbi Matis Blum NAFTOLI HIRSCH lSAAC KIRZNER RABBI SHLOMO LESIN The "Potch," Pnuel Peri NACHUM STEIN 28 RABBI YOSEF C. GOLDING M~n<>ging Editor SECOND LOOKS Published by 3 0 The Silence Revolution - One Man's Initiative, Agudath Israel of America Rabbi Pinchas Jung U.S. TRADE D!STR!BlJTOR !SRAELI REPRESENTATIVE Feldlleim Publishers l11tnL Media Placemenl 200 Airport Exccu!!V~ Park POB 7195 / 5 Even !sr~el r·!JPl-et NY 11J954 Jerusalem. lSRAEL LETTERS FROM ISRAEL BRITISH REPRESHHAT!VE BELGIAN REPRESENTATIVE 3 I "Abba, Abba," Dan Mishell M.T_ Bihelman Mr. E. Apter Gr05·1enor Works Lange K1ev1tstr 29 3 2 "Dear Judy,'' Mrs. Leah Oriel Mount P!easant H1ii 2018 Ar.twerD Loiiclon ES 9NE, ENGLAND BELGIUM FRENCH REPRESENTATIVE SWISS REPRESENTATIVE BOOKS IN REVIEW Rabbi Bamberger Mr. S. Fe!dinger 21 Bot:le--1ard Paix!imis Le1mans!rasse 36 57000 Metz 4051 Basel 3 S Inner Peace: Achieving Self Esteem Through Prayer, FRANCE S\rVITZERLANO by Yisroel Roll I Rabbi Moshe Eisemann THE JEWISH OBSERVER does not 3 7 Rav Dess/er, by Yonason Rosenblum I Rabbi Joseph Elias assume responsibility for the Kashrus of any product, publication, or service advertised in its pages 3 9 Letters-to-the Editor © Copyright 2001 42 Index to Volume XXXlll: Subjects and Authors January 2001 VOLUME XXXIV/NO. 1 Yonason Rosenblum h Hashem ative• I. CHILLUL HASHEM -AN a Chillul Hashem, an even more serious ing the government would be tolerated, UNCONSCIONABLE HORROR transgression. That we have not yet suc­ and the result was a large-scale Chillul ceeded in doing so is quite apparent. A Hashem years later. he time has come to place the friend recently described watching a mitzva of Kiddush Hashem at the group of first and second graders pour II. FROM THE MOST ETHEREAL Ttop of our educational agenda. out of cheder and deliberately fill up the TO THE MOST MUNDANE The most obvious reason is the damage adjacent street and block it to traffic. to the image of Torah every time a Jew Young as they were, none of those chil­ he mitzva of Kiddush Hashem, outwardly committed to its observance dren would have deliberately put a however, is far broader than sim­ and study is involved in a Chillul non-kosher candy in their mouth. Tply avoiding its opposite: Chillul Hashem (desecration of the Divine Nor is a young child's lack of concern Hashem. The rnitzva provides an over­ Name). Yet a stress on the mitzva of Kid­ that his actions will cause others to think arching framework for every thing we dush Hashem is not only outward direct­ poorly of religious Jews a blemish that do. Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch gave ed; it is also a means of providing our passes automatically as he or she grows eloquent expression to the Kiddush children with a deeper and richer attach­ older. A woman, who is justly known as Hashem imperative. A Jew's every ment to Torah. an exceptional tzaddeikes, was shocked action, he stressed, n1ust reflect the refin­ Every time we are confronted with to learn that her teenage son \Vas using ing power of the Torah: another of the periodic scandals involv­ a friend's city bus pass. Her son \Vas no "And the Luchos were written on ing a shomer Shabbos Jew, the same ques­ less surprised that she saw anything both their sides, on the one side and tions come to mind: True, religious Je\vs an1iss in his actions, and considered her the other were they written" (Shemos are not immune to the temptations that insistence that she pay for his bus fare 32, 15). afflict the rest of mankind, but why was­ nothing less than baa! tashchis (waste­ The word from Sinai must not grip n't the fear of causing a Chillul Hashem ful). A few days later, he came back to us only superficially and one-sidedly. enough to forestall such violations of her and told her that he had discussed It must penetrate us through and both halacha and civil law? Didn't the the matter with his friends and they all through, it must set its stamp indeli­ person in question ever learn in Pirkei agreed that he was right. bly on every part of our being, and Avos that even unintentional Chillul Unless vve succeed in inculcating a whichever way we are turned, the writ­ Hashem is punished as if it vvere inten­ horror of any taint of Chillul Hashem in ing of G-d must be visible on us clear­ tional? our young, we will continue to suffer ly and legibly .... Be a Jew through and The fact that such scandals are no from it. Rabbi Yaakov Kamenetzky once through. Whichever way you are longer easily dismissed as isolated events expelled a bright teenager from Torah turned, be a Jew .... strongly suggests that we are not paying Vodaath for taking the New York State In relation to G-d there is no enough attention in our chinuch (edu­ Regents exam for another student. reverse side and no opposite side; cation) to issues of Kiddush Hashem and Decades later, that former student was everything is turned to G-d and must Chillul Hashem. Every Orthodox child implicated in a major financial scandal. be taken equally seriously, on every instinctively recoils at the thought of eat­ Reb Yaakov commented that the respon­ side the stamp of the Divine will is to ing non-kosher food. That sensitivity is sibility for the scandal rested on those be placed with the saine force and care instilled at a very young age. Our task who had been quick to admit him to and directness. Let yourself be pene­ today is to instill the san1e instinctive another yeshiva. If he had learned then, trated through and through from all revulsion at the thought of committing said Reb Yaakov, that cheating and sides with the Divine word! Yonason Rosenblum who lives in Jerusalen1 is a deception are absolutely forbidden, the This ideal has guided all the great contributing editor to The Jewish Observer. He lesson would have stuck with him. Torah leaders in every generation, and it is also director of the Israeli division of Am Echad, Instead he received a message - unin­ is one that they worked hard to impart the Agudath Israel-inspired educational outreach tended as it may have been -that cheat- to their talmidim. ln the early l 930's, long effort and media resource. 4 The Jewish Observer, January 2001 before he entered the public eye, Rabbi has to be applied to seeking out new the clerk dearly understands that it is a Eliyahu Eliezer Dessler gathered around opportunities for Kiddush Hashem. One frum Jew returning the money." himself a group of young students in Lon­ time, Rabbi Miller arrived for his lesson The Kiddush Hashem perspective don with whom he learned privately. at Rabbi Dessler's apartment and found informs both the most mundane activi­ Rabbi Aryeh Carmell, the editor of the a workman installing a window sash. ty and the largest undertakings of our posthumously published Michtav Rabbi Dessler asked the workman gedolim. Rabbi Yaakov Kamenetzky once Me'Eliyahu, was one of those students, whether he was using good material, and found himself in a doctor's office togeth­ and Rabbi Mordechai Miller, '>':>It, the the latter replied, "Only the best:' er with a five-year-old boy. Reb Yaakov recently deceased principal of Gateshead Rabbi Dessler told him, "I don't found a ball and began playing catch with Seminary, another. Rabbi Dessler require the best. Only what is serviceable:' the youngster. "I can't speak English with instructed the young Aryeh Carmell to Later Rabbi Dessler explained to his him;' Reb Yaakov explained," but I might walk to his lessons down a certain street talmid that the workman knew he was be the only Jew with a white beard he ever in which a larger number ofbeggars were renting and that the general practice was meets, and I want the memory to be a lined up and to drop a small coin in the for renters to order the most expensive positive one." tin can of each.