Know! you must judge all people favorably. Even in the case of a complete sinner, you must search until you find some good in him!
Judge everybody favorably! (Avot 1:6). This promotes peace (Rashi).
One who judges others favorably, is himself judged favorably (Shabbat 127b).
God’s way is to focus on the good. Even if there are things which are not so good, He only looks for the good. How much more do we have to avoid focusing on the faults of our friends. We are obligated to seek only the good – always! (Likutey Moharan II, 17).
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Rebbe Nachman teaches: Know! you must judge all people favorably. Even in the case of a complete sinner, you must search until you find some good in him, some small aspect in which he is not a sinner. Buy doing this, you actually elevate him to the side of merit. You can then bring him to return to God. This can be understood from the verse, “In but a little bit the sinner is not; search carefully his place and he is not there” (Psalms 37:10). If you find but a little bit of good, then the sinner is not – he is no longer guilty; search his place and he is not there – but is now to be found on the side of merit (Likutey Moharan I, 282).
So begins Rebbe Nachman’s lesson AZAMRA! Conceivably the most important lesson in all of Likutey Moharan, it is the only one which carries the Rebbe’s exhortation: “Go with this lesson, constantly!” Keep it in mind and practice it, always! (The publication AZAMRA! contains the entire lesson and Reb Noson’s commentary in translation, explaining these concepts at length.) Why is the message of this lesson so special?
“…If you find but a little bit of good, then the sinner is not – he is no longer guilty; search his place and he is not there – but is now to be found on the side of merit!” (Likutey Moharan I, 282).
The faculty of judgement is one of man’s most powerful tools. If we really knew just how potent, we would certainly be more careful about how we used it. Elsewhere, the Rebbe teaches that judging others can destroy the world. If a person finds fault with another, this judgment can condemn him (Likutey Moharan I, 3). Think about it! your evaluation, your opinion and judgement of others has the power to either elevate or degrade.
The problem is that criticism comes easy. Too easy. We can always find fault in what others do or fail to do. It’s not difficult to ascribe ulterior motives even for the worthiest of deeds. This is especially true when we hear slander. Then everyone is quick to jump on the bandwagon condemning the offender for his wrongdoing. We have to realize that every word spoken about another person is, in some way, a form of judgment. If, in our judgment, we find the good points and focus on the positive, we can bring the world – the entire world – to the side of merit and worthiness. However, the reverse is also true. In judging others, if we find fault and focus on the negative, we can bring the world – the entire world – to the side of demerit and unworthiness. This is why we must always try to look for the good in others, even in the worst person we know. Such emphasis on his positive traits affects him, because, as Rebbe Nachman said, our favorable judgment “actually elevates him to the side of merit.”
The faculty of judgement is one of man’s most powerful tools!
After Reb Noson published his Likutey Tefilot (translated as: The 50th Gate; Reb Noson’s Prayers), his followers suggested that he should be known as the Master of Prayer (after the main character of the 12th story in Rabbi Nachman’s Stories, entitled “The Master of Prayer.”) Reb Noson replied, “The Master of Prayer is Rebbe Nachman. If I am to be considered as one of the King’s men, I am the Bard, the singer of praises. This is because I can even find merit in a person who transgressed the entire Torah 800 times!” (Siach Sarfei Kodesh I-591).
Chacham Yosef Harari-Raful, at Beth Medrash Govoha, being welcomed by Harav Malkiel Kotler, shlita, Rosh Yeshivah of Beth Medrash Govoha.
Chacham Yosef Harari-Raful, Rosh Yeshivah of Ateret Torah and Chaver Moetzes Gedolei Hatorah of Agudath Israel of America visited Beth Medrash Govoha this week.
In the Herzka building, the Rosh Yeshivah Harav Malkiel Kotler, shlita, showed him the Klein Otzar, and Rabbi Binyomin Speigel, who runs all of Beth Medrash Govoha’s sefarim operations showed him several points of interest.
Chacham Harari-Raful also visited the offices of Shivti, which are also located in the Herzka building. Shivti’s executive editor, Rabbi Yosef Shaul Housman, showed him their publications, which they send out to approximately 100 chaburos around the world every week, as well as many more individuals.
Harav Raful was most impressed with what he saw, marveling at how the Shivti team managed to pack the entirety of a sugya into a learning curriculum anyone can access, allowing them to achieve a level of learning higher than they were previously able to reach.
The Lelover Rebbe at simchas beis hashoieva.Hagaon Harav Gershon Edelstein, shlita, speaking at the large Vizhnitz beis medrash in Bnei Brak.Hagaon Harav Gershon Edelstein, shlita, speaking at the large Vizhnitz beis medrash in Bnei Brak.
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Simchas beish hashoeiva in Karlin Stolin
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Chaver Moetzes Gedolei Hatorah Harav Shraga Steinman in a Torah discussion with Harav Cheskyahu Avrohom Breude, Rav of Achisomach.
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Harav Shimon Baadani, Harav Moshe Maya, Harav Dovid Yosef, At the sukkah of Chacham Shalom Cohen, shlita, along with Shas Chairman Rabbi Aryeh Deri and other Members of Knesset.
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Simchas beis hashoeiva in the sukkah of Vienna Av Beis Din Harav Avraham Yona Schwartz.
From 1958 until his passing in 1991, Rav Ezriel Yehuda Leibowitz led the American Vienner kehillah
He was known as the Hodhazer Rav, for the town in the Hungarian Oberland where he served as dayan and rosh yeshivah. After Rav Ezriel Yehudah Leibowitz arrived in the US, he was called to lead the Vienner kehillah in Williamsburg where he founded the kehillah’s flagship yeshivah, Nachlas Yaakov, serving as guide and mentor to that first generation of American-born children, transmitting the majesty and truth of the Chasam Sofer’s path.
The ability to see and appreciate potential in each talmid was evident even as a young man, when Rav Leibowitz led the yeshivah in Hodhaz before the war. Following the mesorah of the Chasam Sofer, he discouraged chassidic customs and pursuits that took talmidim away from the beis medrash, but there was one talmid for whom he made an exception. Seeing that the bochur was in a different realm of purity, the Hodhazer Rav gave this talmid his own key to the mikveh, so that he could immerse on his own schedule. The talmid, who would eventually become the Tosher Rebbe ztz”l, would remember the wisdom of his Rosh Yeshivah.
For 33 years, from 1958 until his passing in 1991, Rav Ezriel Yehuda Leibowitz led the American Vienner kehillah, forming a bond of love with hundreds of families. He and his rebbetzin would never be blessed with children of their own — but this year coming upon the first day of Rosh Hashanah, his 30th yahrtzeit, children and grandchildren of that special kehillah remember a man they looked to as a father.
(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 876) All credit goes to the authors and the Mishpacha
His approach was the furthest thing from preaching. Instead, you felt his desire to live life as a better human being. In Tribute to Rav Yehuda Jacobs
So Human, So Great
I
was 13 years old and living in Scranton, Pennsylvania when my mother remarried a special widower: the venerated mashgiach and unmatched baal eitzah of BMG, Rav Yehuda Jacobs. People say that when you get close to greatness you start to see the flaws. But I experienced the opposite.
I won’t pretend to understand or try to define the giant who became a father to me; I can only attempt to describe what I saw from my unique vantage point of a very great man.
Rabbi Jacobs – or as we called him, Tatty -- was totally congruent. He saw himself as the most ordinary of people; the only difference being that he didn’t demand the ordinary amount of respect.
A lifelong talmid of Rav Aharon Kotler, his hallmark was commitment. He had an incredible sense of achrayus to Hashem, to Klal Yisrael, to his wife and children. He was always deeply thinking, always pondering the truths of life, aiming to achieve a deeper appreciation of everything important. For example, I once asked him what he was thinking about. “Yehei shmei rabbah,” he told me. “When we say ‘rabbah,’ what picture comes to mind? Does it in any way reflect the greatness of Hashem’s name? How great is that name?”
Tatty achieved opposite extremes with seeming ease. On one hand he was self-effacing, always putting his needs last. He would move methodically from effort to effort doing what he called “the next right thing…” On the other hand, he was one of the firm and powerful leaders of the world’s largest yeshivah.
On one hand, he carried the weight of the world on his shoulders. He felt the pain of the people he counseled all day, every day. His own life was replete with yissurim, both emotional and physical. On the other hand, he was always in a great mood. When I picture him, I think of him humming to himself, exuding serenity and contentment.
On one hand, he was the ultimate baal avoda and baal mussar, a talmid of Reb Yisroel Salanter’s mehalech and Reb Nosson Wachtfogel. On the other hand, he never seemed to be acting from a place of pressure or guilt, and his approach was the furthest thing from preaching. Instead, you felt his desire to live life as a better human being.
As a teenager in yeshivah, I remember asking him for his take on wearing a black hat. His simple answer stays with me still. To him, it wasn’t just a badge of Torah affiliation, but about his self-esteem as a human being. “When I was a kid,” he told me, “every man wore a hat. A man’s hat is a simple sign of self-respect. President Kennedy changed the style at his inauguration by appearing without a hat. But I don’t feel like letting Kennedy affect my choice of style or self-respect.”
Another seeming paradox: Rabbi Jacobs seemed most comfortable meeting and conferring with gedolei Torah v’avoda and the talmidei chachomim that he held in the highest esteem. But he seemed equally comfortable caring for Lakewood’s estranged “kids of the lake,” who would visit him on Shabbos afternoon, or spending time with his grandchildren.
The theme that remains with me most about my step-father was his deep appreciation of the human being. He loved humanity and managed to discern the inherent greatness within every person he met. I believe that his greatest aspiration was to be a true human being.
Now that he is in the Olam Ha’Emes, I wonder how a human can be so great. And I wonder, too, I wonder how greatness can be so human.
— Rabbi Ephraim Stauber
(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 809)
THE BEST ADVICE
A
long with the pain and darkness of these days, there is also the confusion and lack of clarity: What does it all mean? How are we to respond? Where can we find the tools to cope, to keep the atmosphere in our homes and hearts calm?
And then the man who so many turned to for the answers -- the voice of reason and truth and seichel hayashar, Rav Yehuda Jacobs, mashgiach of Beth Medrash Govoha of Lakewood -- was himself taken.
On Monday morning, the 3rd of Iyar, the dreaded virus claimed him as well. It wasn’t only his family and talmidim that were plunged into mourning, it was a great anonymous network, a mass of people who’d come over the years seeking advice and direction, homes he’d helped build and families he’d kept together, known to no one but him, them, and the Ribbono Shel Olam.
The Lakewood roshei yeshivah were maspid Rav Yehuda by quoting the Mishnah in Avos, that one who learns Torah lishmah merits that “venehenin mimemu eitzah veshoshia,” people benefit from his advice and assistance.
The fact that Rav Yehuda was the baaleitzah of Lakewood -- the yeshivah, the community, and the olam haTorah it spawned -- was itself a product of his Torah learning. He arrived in Rav Aharon Kotler’s Lakewood in the late 1950s, a bochur determined to attach himself to the Rosh Yeshivah. And attach himself he did, becoming one of the close talmidim, respected as a lamdan and masmid in a chaburah filled with lions.
In time, he would publically review Rav Aharon’s shiurim with the other talmidim, and by the time Rav Aharon was niftar, Rav Yehuda was a fixture in the beis medrash. The new rosh yeshivah, Rav Schneur, wanted him to remain as part of the administration and appointed him mashgiach.
In Lakewood, Rav Yehuda Jacobs was the mesorah, the link back to that small chaburah that had founded the yeshivah, available not just to clarify the substance of the Rosh Yeshivah’s Torah, but the spirit.
One of today’s most prominent roshei yeshivah recalls arriving in Beth Medrash Govoha as a young kollel member and having the zechus to be set up as a chavrusa with Rav Yehuda. It was a special privilege to learn with this senior talmid, and the new study partners sat down to learn on the first day of the zeman. It quickly became clear to the avreich that his path in learning was different than that of the mashgiach, and that he wouldn’t do well in the chavrushaft. He tried it the next day, and at the end of seder, he felt that he had no choice -- uncomfortable as it was, he broke up with the respected mashgiach, explaining that he felt he needed a different type of chavrusa. Rav Yehuda gently accepted it and wished him well, and the next day, they both found other learning partners.
The yungerman was still feeling uncomfortable about it, but in the middle of first seder, Rav Yehuda Jacobs approached where he was sitting with his new chavrusa. “I’m sorry to disturb, but you said a pshat in the Ritva yesterday. Can you just share it with me again? It was so geshmak,” Reb Yehuda said.
The yungerman shared the approach again, and Rav Yehuda thanked him and walked away, leaving his former chavrusa-of-a-day with an overwhelming sense of awe: awe at the way the mashgiach had managed to put him at ease -- reassuring him that everything was okay between them and there were no hard feelings -- through the Torah itself, the Toras chesed that guided him.
“I’ll Help You”
Rav Yehuda Jacobs was blessed with natural perceptiveness and wisdom, a keen insight into people. As a three-year-old boy, arriving with his parents from Germany, he noticed the worry on his mother’s face as they embarked from the ship onto US soil, into a new world. “Don’t worry, Mammah,” little Yehuda said, “I will help you.”
It was a statement that would mark his destiny – always taking notice of the needs of others and having the ability to encourage them.
In the yeshivah that would become the station of bochurim looking for their life-mates, his listening ear and wise advice was the final step in making shidduchim happen. After the engagement, when there was confusion or anxiety, it was back to the mashgiach’s house for another session. How many chassanim and kallahs came to him with cases of cold feet? He knew not just to validate, listen and guide, but also to give them pure Torah hashkafah, his advice layered with the very kedushah of Torah itself, the ultimate truth.
The final ingredient was the achrayus, the sense of responsibility. He well understood insecurities and fears, and was willing to stand behind the advice he gave. It was this last factor that built homes, that kept children in school, that empowered people to accept positions.
In this world, the effects of that generosity of spirit could never be measured. It’s only in the world of truth that the full effect of the mashgiach, Rav Yehuda Jacobs, and what he accomplished will be rewarded.
