Rabbi Ovadia Yosef Zatza'l biography by Rabbi Lazer Brody

By: Rabbi Lazer Brody

No words can describe the massive wound to the Jewish People, with the loss of this generation's greatest rabbi, our mentor and spiritual father, affectionately known as "Maran" (title given to the great of the generation) Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, of saintly and blessed memory. Maran was the Sephardic Chief Rabbi (Rishon Letzion) of Israel from 1973-1983, a monumental Talmudic scholar with a prodigious memory, and the undisputed foremost halachic authority of our time. Even more, he loved every Jew and devoted his life to spreading Torah to every single person, personally traveling around the country to teach people and bring them closer to Torah. He was the author of dozens of books and the spiritual leader of the Shas Movement and the El-HaMaayan Youth Movement.   The oldest son of Yaacov and Georgia ob"m, Rav Ovadia zatza"l was born the day after Yom Kippur on September 23, 1920. At the age of 4, his family moved to Israel. His father barely eked as a greengrocer, while the lad Ovadia, already recognized as brilliant by the age of 9, learned in Talmud Torah "Bnei Tzion" in the Bucharian neighborhood of Jerusalem. Then, he recited four chapters of Gemara tractate Bava Metzia by heart to Rabbi Amram Blau. At age 12, he became the student and protege of Rabbi Ezra Attia, head of the Porath Yosef Yeshiva in Jerusalem.   At age 17, Rav Ovadia was already teaching. At age 20, he married Margalit, the daughter of Rabbi Avraham Fatal, a leading Torah scholar. Margalit, a woman of valor famous for her deeds of kindness and charity, left this world in 1994. She and Rav Ovadia hads 11 children, all of whom are Talmudic scholars or married to scholars. Rabbi Yaakov Yosef, ob"m, head of Hazon Yaakov Yeshiva, and a noted scholar who also taught in our Yeshiva, passed away earlier this year. Rav Yitzchak Yosef shlit'a was recently elected Sephardic Chief Rabbi of Israel.  Rav Ovadia's daughter Adina Bar Shalom, is the head of a prominent college for hareidi women.    The same year he was married, in 1940, Rav Ovadia earned the highest rabbinical ordination, yadin yadin, enabling him to serve as a rabbinical court judge at the tender age of 20. In 1947, Rabbi Yosef was asked by Sephardi Chief Rabbi Ben-Zion Meir Hai Uziel to serve as head of the Cairo Beit Din (rabbinical court). He suffered in Egypt, for the Jewish community was at a very low spiritual state. Three years later, after an arduous and dangerous journey that lasted for months, he returned to Israel. After returning to Israel, Rabbi Yosef studied at Bet Midrash "Bnei Zion", headed by renowned sage and Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem for decades, Rav Tzvi Pesach Frank. At the same time, Rav Ovadia was a Dayan (judge) serving on the rabbinical court in Petah Tikva. During this period, he became friendly with many of the Torah giants of Jerusalem such as Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Auerbach and Rabbi Yisrael Yaacov Fisher.   During the 1950's and 1960's, Rav Ovadia served as adayan in the Jerusalem district Beit Din. He was then appointed to the Supreme Rabbinical Court of Appeals in Jerusalem, eventually becoming the Chief Sephardic Rabbi of Tel Aviv in 1968, a position which he held until his election as Chief Sephardic Rabbi of Israel (Rishon Letzion) in 1973 along with the late Ashkenazic Chief Rabbi Shlomo Goren. Rav Ovadia was one of the greatest outreach rabbis who ever walked the face of the earth. His organization El HaMaayan spread Torah among tens of thousands of Sephardi youth. His remarkable outreach program,Lehachzir Atara Leyoshna (literally, restore the crown to its former glory) advanced Sephardic communities world over and brought hundreds of thousands to observant Jewry. The Shas party's school system in Israel, founded with his blessing and direction, provided transportation and hot meals, attracting young families in development towns and needy areas, who were greeted with affection and whose children learned to love Torah and tradition.   Rav Ovadia's love for the Jewish people had no limits. He showered those who came to him with blessings. He endorsed all of Rav Shalom Arush's writings and gave a warm endorsement to my Hebrew commentary on Torah, Pi HaBe'er.   Rav Ovadia was hospitalized recently and a major deterioration in his condition occurred over the last few days, although a short remission led to quickly dashed hopes for recovery. Hundreds of thousands worldwide prayed for him during the last few hours of his holy life.   Rav Shalom Arush shlit'a has instructed all his students to rend their garment as is customary when one's parent dies. Rav Ovadia was truly our father. May his sacred memory intervene in our behalf, amen!

Rav Ovadia, Zatza includes biography from Rabbi Lazer Brody

Rav Ovadia, Zatza

I just came home from Rav Ovadia's funeral in Jerusalem. According to the Jerusalem police, 800,000 attended the funeral. Here's what the procession looked like:

Rav Shalom Arush shlit'a has instructed all his students to rend their garment as is customary when one's parent dies. Rav Ovadia was truly our father. May his sacred memory intervene in our behalf, amen!

See Rabbi Lazer's biography of Rabbi Ovadia Yosef zatza'l at the Breslev Israel website.

- See more at: http://lazerbrody.typepad.com/#sthash.Hqte4GcH.dpuf

I Didn't Love My Wife When We Got Married | Everyday Jewish Living | OU Life Elad Nehorai

I Didn't Love My Wife When We Got Married | Everyday Jewish Living | OU Life

I’m a ridiculous, emotional, over-sentimental sap.  I guess that’s why I told my wife I loved her on our second date.

I had tried really hard up to that point to hold it back, honestly.  I wanted to tell her on the first date, but I knew that would probably be weird.

I still remember her reaction.  She kind of gave me this half-shy, half-amused smile.  Then she nodded and looked off into the sky.

I wasn’t heartbroken by the response.  I think part of me recognized that she was much smarter and more modest than me.

But as time has gone on, I also realized that she knew something that I didn’t.

Like most Hasidic Jews (we both became religious later in life), our dating period lasted a very short time.  After two months of dating, we were engaged.  Three months after that, we were married.

And that whole time I was swooning.  This fire was burning in me, a fire that burned just like that second date: I was in love.

But then we got married, and everything changed.

Marriage, quicker than I was ready for, did this thing: it started sucking away that emotion.

I tried so hard to keep that fire going, to keep that emotion alight, but it got harder and harder.

I mean, how you can feel that burning love when you’re sitting at the table discussing how to use the last twenty dollars in your bank account?

How can you feel it when you get into an argument?

How can you feel it when you think it makes perfect sense to put your socks on the floor after you’re done with them, and she has this crazy idea that they need to go in the laundry basket?

There was no way I could keep that dating fire burning as practicality invaded our lives.

And at first, it drove me nuts.  That emotion meant love!  That excitement was how I knew I cared for her!  But suddenly, life was this grind.  Even when I was with her.  Especially when I was with her.

And even worse, it seemed that the harder I tried to be sentimental and lovey-dovey, the less it was reciprocated.

But it wasn’t that she wasn’t giving me love, it just seemed to come at different times.

Like, when I offered to do the dishes.  Or make dinner after she had a hard day.  Or, once we had a daughter, when I shared the responsibility of watching over her.

I don’t think I noticed this consciously for a while.  It just kept happening.

But I think it had an effect on me.  Because as our marriage progressed, I found myself offering to help out around the house more and more.

And after each time, there would be this look she would give me.  This look of absolute love.  One that was soft and so beautiful.

It took me longer than I care to admit to understand what was happening.

But eventually it became clear.  Through giving, through doing things for my wife, the emotion that I had been so desperately seeking naturally came about.  It wasn’t something I could force, just something that would come about as a result of my giving.

In other words, it was in the practicality that I found the love I was looking for.

And what was even more interesting was that once I realized this on a conscious level, and started trying to find more opportunities to give, the more we both, almost intuitively, became lovey-dovey.

And now, as I’m a bit older and a bit more experienced with this relationship, I’ve finally come to realize something. Something I haven’t wanted to admit for a long time, but is undeniable.

I didn’t love my wife on that second date.

I didn’t love her when we got engaged.

I didn’t even love her when we got married.

Because love isn’t an emotion.  That fire I felt, it was simply that: emotional fire.  From the excitement of dating a woman I felt like I could marry.  But it wasn’t love.

No, love isn’t an emotion or even a noun.  It’s a verb.  Better defined as giving.  As putting someone else’s needs above your own.

Why wasn’t I getting reciprocal lovey-doveyness when we were first married?  Because it wasn’t for her.  It was for me.  An emotion I had in my chest.

And even when I let it out of my chest, it wasn’t love.

Being sappy isn’t love.  Telling someone you love them doesn’t mean that you do.

And that’s why my wife just gave me that half-smile.  She knew, even if I didn’t, what love really is.

And now that I’ve tried to change the way I look at love, the more I become shocked at the messages of love I had gotten when I was younger.

From Disney movies to my favorite shows like “The Office” to practically every pop song released, love is constantly sold as an emotion we have before we’re married.  An emotion that, once had, somehow magically stays within a marriage forever.

I can’t imagine a bigger lie.  And I’m saddened to think about how much those messages bounced around in my head for so long.  And how much I’m sure those messages are bouncing around in other people’s heads as well.

I think that might be a big part of the reason the divorce rate is so high in this country.  Imagine a whole nation of people constantly chasing the emotions they had when they were dating.  A country of people trying to live a Disney movie.

That’s a recipe for disastrous marriages; for a country with a 50% divorce rate;  for adultery (the classic attempt to turn the fire back on); for people who do stay together to simply live functional, loveless marriages.

It’s sad to see just how common all the above is.  How many people are in pain simply because they’ve been lied to.

Those people deserve better.  We all deserve better.

It’s time that we changed the conversation about love.

It’s time that we redefine it. Because until we do, adultery will continue to be common.  Loveless marriages.  Divorce.

Living Disney movies in our minds, and tragedies in our lives.

Elad Nehorai is a writer living in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. Five years ago, he became a religious Jew in the Chabad Hassidic community and has since written about his experience extensively, most recently in his blog Pop Chassid. You can find him on Twitter as @PopChassid and Facebook.

Rav Arush's N American trip dates and times!

Video: Honey, Your Success is Shrinking Me

Video: Honey, Your Success is Shrinking Me

Lewd Thoughts Reb Gutman Locks

Lewd Thoughts

by Reb Gutman Locks @ Mystical Paths

A young man wrote us:

      “I've been having a major issue with lewd thoughts. I don't think I would ever actually act on these thoughts, but it's gotten so bad that my brain actually hurts from them. Whenever I learn [Torah], I feel like I'm doomed to fail because of these thoughts. Do you have any advice as to how to get rid of them? Whenever I space out, they rush in. If it matters at all what they are, these thoughts are about girls I was friendly with before I became religious.”

Gutman’s response:

      Hashem is sending you those thoughts because He wants you to want a girl. He wants you to want a girl because He wants you to get married and make a family. This was the first thing that G-d told Adam to do in the Garden of Eden.[i]

     Every young man shares this problem to some degree. When you space out (as all people do) you leave your mind open for your deepest concerns to surface, and understandably, this is your deepest concern. If you would be only concerned with your spiritual life, you would have more spiritual daydreams.  Yet we live in this physical world and Judaism does not teach separating ourselves from it.

     There are some practical things that you can do to help. For instance, stay away from things that arouse the animal inclination, and stay close to things that arouse the spiritual inclination. This means that you should avoid immodest places. You will not calm the animal by feeding it spicy foods! Try to spend most of your time in proper spiritual company. We become like the things that we spend our time with.

      Whenever one of these thoughts comes, try to imagine a chupah (marriage canopy) placed over it. The acts that you are daydreaming about are probably natural acts, and if they were to happen within the framework of a kosher marriage they would probably be perfectly alright. So it is not the acts themselves that are so repulsive, but the circumstances that you are imagining them in.

     (Reb Akiva adds… There are three chassidic recommendations as well.  The first is daily use of a men’s mikvah, which combines a physical cleansing with a spiritual cleansing and strengthening.  The second comes from Rebbe Nachman of Breslev and is the prayer set known as Tikun Klali.  While the title of this is “the General Repair”, Breslev chassidus specifically teaches this is targeted at inappropriate male desires.  The third comes from the Alter Rebbe of Chabad [the first Chabad Rebbe] in Tanya, which says when such thoughts enter one’s mind one should repeat Shema Yisroel and consider oneself standing before the Heavenly Beis Din [court] after the end of one’s life.  Further the Tanya teaches that one should not become depressed or feel bad that such thoughts happened, for if it came on it’s own – meaning it came by direction from above - the challenge of defeating it or using it to direct one towards proper life circumstances is exactly what Hashem wants.)

     When you find a Jewish girl who you want to marry, make sure that your parents are supportive of your choice. A lusting young man could very well choose a girl only because of her physical appearance, instead of ensuring that she has the characteristics of a proper wife.

     If you will pray for your friends to find proper wives, your wife will come quicker. Also, most importantly, try to become the best possible person you can become, so you will merit the best possible wife.

     Again, when those thoughts come, just place a chupah over them. You have the choice to let your natural, animal instinct run loose, or to direct it toward the holy purposes for which it was created.

---

[i] Genesis 1:28

Daughter of the King by Yael Karni

Jewish modesty - it has all sorts of connotations, assumptions and misconceptions for the Jewish woman. So before we look at some of the issues relating to the Torah’s concept of modest attire, let’s look into the Torah to see where the root of modesty and clothing first appears.
 
Before sin of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, Adam and Chava [the original Man and Woman] never wore clothes. Why? The mystical sources describe their essence as being a spiritual light with the only the outline of a body. They only had awareness of themselves as spiritual, not physical, beings. Hashem created their very bodies as garments for their souls; therefore, they didn’t need clothes. The Torah says, “They were both naked, the man and his wife, and they were not ashamed.”
 
After the sin, Adam and Chava crashed the world into a much more physical existence and, as a consequence of this catastrophic event, they too became more physical. The skin became coarser and now hid the soul rather than reveal it; the body had now become more dominant than the soul.  Adam and Chava made aprons of fig leaves to cover their nakedness, thereby making the body something distinctive, something separate to the soul. Hashem calls out to Man, “Where are you?” And Man replies,” I heard the sound of You [Hashem] in the Garden, and I was afraid because I am naked, so I hid.” [Genesis] The trait of shame had come into existence and, because of Adam and Chava’s attempts to cover themselves, Hashem responds in kind and makes garments of skin for both of them. The world of fashion had been born!
 
The rectification of this spiritual fall is the Torah’s laws on modesty, the purpose of which is to de-emphasise the externality [chitzoniut] of the body and enhance the internality [pnimiut] of the soul as it was before Man’s sin.
 
Interestingly, one area of the body we specifically do not cover is the face. The face reveals our uniqueness; it reveals our very vitality, our personality, our wisdom, specifically through the eyes, hence the expression the eyes are the windows to the soul. It also reveals a residue of the spiritual glow that Original Man had.  Think about it, you can only really identify a person by their face, not their body.  The Hebrew word for face is panim – it’s always referred to in its plural form, because there are two aspects to our face, inner and outer.  The same root word for face, panim, is also pnim, internal.  So what does this teach us?  That the internal should reflect the external and vice versa; we should strive for harmony between our inner and outer selves.
 
Before I led a Torah life, I used to see religious Jews and feel a bit put off by the “uniform”; it seemed to me that it created an imaginary wall between them and us. I mean, why did theyhave to dress like that?  Except what I couldn’t internalize at that stage in my life was that I was relating to them as the other, separate to me, instead of seeing them as part of me, as all Jews are considered one soul. As I got to know the others, I saw each Jew’s unique individuality and, after a short period of time, didn’t even notice what they were wearing.
 
It’s funny, but the secular world thinks religious Jews are conforming if they wear more modest clothing and that secular people are the ones expressing their individuality by dressing in the latest styles. But who is the real conformist?  Surely someone who wears clothes just because a fashion designer says so is the real conformist, because it’s conforming without any inner wisdom or any higher purpose. We can either be slaves to other people’s ideologies or a servant of Hashem, but not both.
 
I’ve met many modestly, elegantly dressed religious women and it seems to bring out their inner dimensions, talents, personalities in a much more vibrant way. [Modest dress does not mean a woman has to dress uncreatively – I definitely have a style of dress, a colour scheme, which is a reflexion of my personality]
 
Sometimes I hear women say that they feel inauthentic if they dress in a more modest way, that “it’s not them”.  Actually, I believe it’s the other way round.  I remember after I started dressing modestly, something happened in my life that caused me to yearn for a less modest way of dressing.   I knew it was just an emotional reaction, but I developed an insatiable desire to own a pair of trousers again.  So I went on a mega search for the perfect, modest, trousers.  After trying every shop I could think of and having tried on many pairs of quiteimmodest trousers, I settled on a suitable pair of trousers.  I knew deep down I wouldn’t keep them but my Evil Inclination was on the loose and there was no stopping it.  I wore them exactly 3 times before they went to the charity shop.
 
The interesting thing about this experience was that I discovered the real, authentic me; and the real, authentic me, didn’t feel comfortable in trousers anymore. I also didn’t want to look like everyone else because by dressing like everyone else, I couldn’t aspire to be a light unto the nations, let alone serve Hashem.
 
So I discovered my higher, truer self, the self that wouldn’t betray Hashem, the self that was a bat Melech, a daughter of the King.