These divrei Torah were adapted from the hashkafa portion of Rabbi Yissocher Frand’s Commuter Chavrusah Tapes on the weekly portion: #1379 – Can a Kohain Accompany His Wife to the Hospital to Have Her Baby? Good Shabbos!

The Protection of the Ananei Hakavod Lives On

Both divrei Torah this week are from a sefer by Rav Nissan Alpert, z”l, a talmid muvhak of Rav Moshe Feinstein.

Parshas Emor contains the mo’ados (festivals). The last moed the Torah discusses is Succos. We are all familiar with the mitzva d’oraisa (biblical) to sit in a succah on Succos. The stated purpose of this mitzva is “in order that your generations will know that I caused the children of Israel to dwell in succos.” (Vayikra 23:43). The Gemara (in Succah 11b) cites a dispute among Tanaim as to the nature of the “succos” referred to in this pasuk.

Rabbi Eliezer’s opinion is that this refers to the “ananei hakavod” (clouds of glory). In the midbar, they were not sitting in plywood huts like we do. The Jews leaving Mitzrayim were surrounded by these ananei hakavod that provided the Almighty’s protection from the heat and the cold and all the elements of the desert. However, Rabbi Akiva’s position there is that the mitzva of succah commemorates the fact that the Jews leaving Mitzrayim literally dwelt in succos!

According to Rabbi Akiva’s opinion that the Jews leaving Mitzrayim lived in little huts, we can understand that we should commemorate this event by living during Succos in little huts. We remember – zecher l’yetzias Mitzrayim – this is how they lived when they went out of Mitzrayim. But if the succos that we commemorate are the ananei hakavod, as Rabbi Eliezer suggests, which are impossible for man to duplicate, how does my fiberglass or canvas (or whatever it may be) succah today help me remember the ananei hakavod? This is not a facsimile of anything similar to what it was like in the midbar!

Rav Nissan Alpert suggests something very interesting. True, we cannot duplicate the ananei hakavod. Everyone knows that. But the Torah wants us to remember that when they left Mitzrayim, the Ribono shel Olam surrounded them and protected them with the ananei hakavod. And guess what? He is still doing this until this very day! He does this every single day, both on a macro-scale and on a micro-scale.

If someone does not think that Eretz Yisrael is surrounded and protected by ananei hakavod today, then he has not been reading the news for the last eighty years. The fact that Eretz Yisrael even exists, despite the fact that they live in what is euphemistically called a “tough neighborhood” – surrounded by mortal enemies who have been ready and anxious to “push them into the sea” – is miraculous. What is responsible for this phenomenon other than “ananei hakavod?”

The truth of the matter is that every time we get into a car or every time we walk somewhere – whatever we do on a personal level – there are “ananei hakavod” that protects us. Why aren’t we aware of them? It is because we build these structures and defenses that fool us into thinking that the reason we are protected is because “the Israeli Air Force is one of the best air forces in the world” and “Israeli intelligence is better than anyone else” and “Israeli soldiers are braver than anyone else”. That is a mirage. We may think that but it is not true.

Our problem is that we ourselves think that we are protected. We build houses and we put gates around them. We put in security cameras. We install all types of devices for protection. We think “we are safe!” A person can believe this is this is what is protecting him. But the truth of the matter is that it is not. We are still primarily protected by the ananei hakavod.

How do we remind ourselves of that? We remind ourselves by going out of our fortified homes on Succos and sitting in these flimsy little huts without the security cameras and without all the protection. We ask, “Hey! Who is protecting us now?” The answer is that it is the ananei hakavod.

So even by sitting in our literal succos, we are still very much aware of “for I caused Bnei Yisrael to dwell in succos” even according to the opinion that those succos were the ananei hakavod. This is what Succos is all about. It is to remind us that it is not “for my strength and the power of my hand made me all this valor” (Devorim 8:17). We are not protected by our physical protection. We are not protected by our defenses. We are not protected by our army. It is not any of that. It is the ananei hakavod that protected them then and it is the ananei hakavod that protects us now.

The way to realize that is to go out from our “permanent dwellings” and go into the “temporary dwellings” and then we recognize that the ananei hakavod always protect them, until this very day.

The Life That Leads to Kiddush Hashem

Parshas Emor contains the mitzva d’oraisa of “You shall not desecrate My holy Name, rather I should be sanctified among the children of Israel.” (Vayikra 22:32). This is both a positive and a negative mitzva. The mitzva “You shall not desecrate” is the prohibition against making a chilul Hashem. The statement “rather I should be sanctified…” is the mitzvah of kiddush Hashem. From this mitzva of “v’nikdashti b’soch Bnei Yisrael,” we learn that a person is obligated to give up his life under certain circumstances for certain mitzvos – namely, the three most serious offenses, the cardinal mitzvos of murder, incest, and idolatry.

Ironically, the Torah does not state this mitzva in the way that it states almost all other positive mitzvos. By the others, the Torah commands. For example, “and you shall bind them as a sign on your arms” (Devorim 6:8) is the positive mitzva to put on Tefillin. Similarly, “And you shall write them on your doorposts” (Devorim 6:9) is the positive mitzva of mezuza. “And you shall take for yourselves on the first day the fruit of a beautiful tree…” (Vayikra 23:40) “And you shall eat the meat on this night…” (Shmos 12:8) The mitzvos are commands. “Do.” “Eat.” “Put on Tefillin.” “Shake the lulav.”

However, by the mitzvah of kiddush Hashem, there is not a command. It does not say, “You shall sanctify My Name.” If the Ribono shel Olam is giving us a mitzva d’oraisa – I want you to sanctify My Name, up to and including martyrdom – then why not say: “Sanctify My Name.” Why does the Torah mention this in a passive form – “I will become sanctified in the midst of the children of Israel”?

Rav Alpert makes a beautiful observation: If a person wants to withstand the ultimate test of kiddush Hashem, it doesn’t happen overnight and it doesn’t happen at the spur of the moment. It happens because a person lived an entire life of kedusha and kiddush Hashem. He is a person who deals with everyone honestly, he greets all people with a sever panim yafos (smiling countenance), and the way he talks and interacts with people manifest ways of pleasantness. What do people say about such a person? “Happy is his father who taught him Torah.” The way a person achieves the ultimate test cannot be by living a life devoid of kedusha, of kiddush Hashem and of midos tovos. Rather, such accomplishment comes from living of a life of “v’nikdashti b’soch Bnei Yisrael.”

That is why the Torah writes “and I will become sanctified among Bnei Yisrael.” This mitzva emanates from those who live a life of kedusha, who live this life of kiddush Hashem, who act in a Torah fashion, and who act in a fashion of sanctity.

In general, I am hesitant to quote stories from the concentration camps. First of all, I question the authenticity of many of the stories. Second of all, I don’t like to play on people’s emotions. But there is a fellow named Ari Wasserman, who I met in the past in Eretz Yisrael. He sends out a weekly e-mail called “Our Table” and this afternoon, I saw a story in which he quotes verbatim from Rav Yosef Walles, the director of Arachim (an Israeli outreach organization), who gave over this account to Project Witness. It is a story about his father, Judah Walles, who survived the Dachau concentration camp. I quote this account verbatim because it seems authentic.

One day, a fellow inmate being taken to his death suddenly flung a small bag at my father. My father caught it thinking it might contain a piece of bread. Inside, however, were a pair of Tefillin. My father was terrified. If caught with Tefillin, he would be put to death instantly. He hid them under his shirt. The next morning, in his bunk house, my father put on the Tefillin. Unexpectedly, a German officer appeared. He ordered him to remove the Tefillin, noted the number on my father’s arm, and ordered him to go straight to roll call.

He gathered the entire camp and in front of thousands of silent Jews, the officer called out my father’s number, leaving him no choice but to step forward. The officer waved the Tefillin in the air. “Dog,” he sneered, “I sentence you to death by public hanging for wearing these.” “Dog, what is your last wish?” Mr. Walles said, “It is to wear my Tefillin one last time.” Dumbfounded, the officer handed him his Tefillin. As my father put them on, he recited the pesukim that we say as we wind the Tefillin around our fingers. “I will betroth you to me forever; I will betroth you to me with righteousness and justice and with kindness and mercy; and I will betroth you to me with faithfulness and you will know Hashem.” (Hoshea 2:21-22) He said that as he put the Tefillin around his middle finger.

It is hard for us to picture this atrocity – a Jew, with a noose around his neck wearing Tefillin on his head and on his arm. That was the scene that the entire camp was compelled to watch. Even women from the adjoining camp were lined up at the barbed wire fence that separated them from the men’s camp, forced to witness this terrible sight.

As Judah turned to the silent crowd, he saw tears in many people’s eyes. “How did they have tears left?” he asked himself. Then he said “Yidden! Don’t cry. With these Tefillin, I am the winner.” The officer understood the Yiddish and was infuriated. “Hanging is too good for you.” he sputtered to my father. “You are going to suffer an even worse death.” He made him take two rocks and put them under his arms and he was going to give him twenty-five lashes on the head that wore those Tefillin.

He told him “Once you drop one rock, I will kill you on the spot.” “Drop the rocks now,” his executioner advised him. “You will never survive the lashes. Nobody ever does.” “No, said my father, “I won’t give you the satisfaction.” At the twenty-fifth lash, Judah Walles lost consciousness and was left for dead. He was about to be dragged to a pile of corpses and burned in a ditch, but another Jew saw him, shoved him to the side and covered his head with a bag so that the Nazis would not realize that he was alive. Eventually, when he came to, he crawled to the nearest bunk house and hid under it. Two months later he was liberated.

After liberation, a seventeen-year-old girl made her way to the men’s camp and found my father. “I lost everyone,” she told him. “I don’t want to be alone. I saw what you did that day when the officer wanted to hang you. Will you marry me?” The rest is history. The couple asked the Klausenberger Rebbe to perform the wedding ceremony. The Rebbe, whose kiddush Hashem is legendary, wrote out a kesuvah from memory. The precious document remains in Rabbi Yosef Walles’ possession until this day.

That is the story of Judah Walles. I never met Judah Walles. I never met Rabbi Yosef Walles. I don’t know either of them, but I need to think that a person can only be capable of such an act of kiddush Hashem, such an act of mesiras nefesh, because of “v’nikdashti b’soch Bnei Yisrael,” because he lived a life of kedusha and ruchniyus. That was his entire life. Therefore, he was able to have the strength to potentially die al kiddush Hashem, not to let the Nazi have the satisfaction of humiliating him and making a chilul Hashem.

That is why the mitzva of kiddush Hashem is articulated with the expression of “v’vikdashti b’soch Bnei Yisrael.”

Transcribed by David Twersky; Jerusalem [email protected]

Edited by Dovid Hoffman; Baltimore, MD [email protected]

This week’s write-up is adapted from the hashkafa portion of Rabbi Yissochar Frand’s Commuter Chavrusah Series on the weekly Torah portion. A listing of the halachic portions for Parshas Emor is provided below:

• # 010 – Can Kohanim visit Graves of Tzadikim
• # 053 – Are Our Kohanim Really Kohanim?
• # 096 – “Kovod Habrios”: The Concept of Human Dignity
• # 144 – Kohanim in Hospitals: A Real Problem
• # 191 – The Bracha for Kiddush Hashem.
• # 281 – Kiddush Hashem: Is “Giluy Arayus” Ever Permitted?
• # 327 – The Cohain and the Divorcee
• # 371 – The Mitzvah of Ve’Kidashto: Honoring Kohanim
• # 415 – The Ba’alas Teshuva and the Kohain
• # 459 – Eliyahu Hanavi and the “Dead” Child
• # 503 – Standing Up While Doing Mitzvos
• # 547 – The Wayward Daughter
• # 591 – The Kohain and the Gerusha
• # 635 – Bracha of Mekadaish Es Shimcha B’rabim
• # 679 – Mrs. Cohen is Having A Baby
• # 723 – Is the Kohain Always First?
• # 767 – Kohain, Kaddish, and Kadima
• # 811 – Is Adultery Ever Permitted?
• # 855 – The Brother-in-Law Who Threw Out The Ring
• # 899 – Motrin For Your Children?
• # 944 – Honoring Kohanim – Even Children?
• # 986 – The Child of a Jewish Mother and Non-Jewish Father: Jewish?
• #1030 – The Bonfires of Meiron–When Did it Start? Why? Mutar?
• #1075 – Can I Steal Your Medicine To Save My Life?
• #1117 – Must We Honor Leviim As Well As Kohanim?
• #1159 – The “Morranos” of Spain: Their Halachic Status
• #1203 – Mesiras Nefesh Challenges From Biblical Times Through the twentieth century
• #1248 – The Challenge for the Occupational and Speech Therapist: Feeding Non-Kosher Food to a Jewish Child
• #1291 – The Fascinating Case of the Kohain Who Showed Up In Shul After They Sold The Aliyah to A Yisroel
• #1335 – May We Accept Tzedaka From Non-Jews
• #1379 – Can a Kohain Accompany His Wife to the Hospital to Have Her Baby?
• #1423 – Kavod HaBrios – How Far Does It Go?
• #1467 – Birchas HaGomel During the Whole Year and During the Corona Pandemic
• #1510 – I Said ‘It is Lag B’Omer Tonight’ – Can I Still Count Sefira With A Bracha?
• #1553 – Is One Allowed to Institutionalize a Severely Mentally Handicapped Child Where He Will Eat Non-Kosher Food?
• #1595 – When You Are The Chazan ow Do You Say Kedusha?
• #1635 – Kavod HaBriyos Human Dignity – How Far Does it Extend?

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