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The Halachic Angle: Orphans and Joy - In the Shadow of the War in Ukraine | Israel today

2022-03-08T10:46:19.893Z


On days like these, we see how national resilience is measured by mutual guarantee and unity. • Concern for orphans, who come from a clean place of simple and independent love, manages to unite us all.


More than a thousand people, senior doctors, high-tech people, rabbinical educators and intellectuals from all walks of life, social, political and religious - national religious, ultra-Orthodox veterans and new immigrants, gathered this week in the nation's buildings to mark the 95th anniversary of the "Tree of Life" yeshiva in Mantra In Switzerland.

This is a yeshiva established before the Second World War in the town of Kate on the northern shore of Lake Geneva, immigrated to France and then re-established in Israel under the name of the Hesder Yeshiva "Heichal Eliyahu".

It is one of the only yeshivahs that continued its continuous activity throughout the war years on European soil, and therefore many saw it as a magnet for empowerment and spirituality during the war.

Despite the fact that its founder, Rabbi Yerachmiel Eliyahu Bochko, studied at the Novharduk Yeshiva, a famous "Lithuanian" yeshiva whose worldview is that a person's mind distances him from self-work, so he must subdue him in every way possible. Men of action and spirit, facing the Land of Israel.

In Israel, the yeshiva has developed into one that directs its graduates to be involved in practical life in the military, education and industry.

Rabbi Yerachmiel Eliyahu Bochko, Mantra-Switzerland, Photo: Courtesy of the Family and Asher Klein Archive

Despite its religious-national character, it can be seen as a mediator and unites all parts of the nation.

Among her students are the late Rabbi Yehuda Leib Steinman, the leader of the Lithuanian public, Rabbi Sternbuch, one of the leaders of the ultra-Orthodox community, and Rabbi Yechiel Weinberg, one of the leaders of the Berlin rabbis who even awarded the rabbinical certificate to Lubavitch before being appointed rebbe.

In recent days we have witnessed our special sense of unity and guarantee as a people, as we see the images of refugee orphans arriving these days from Eastern Europe.

We have all seen in the various media the children delivered by their parents or relatives, and adopted with warmth and intense love by Chabad emissaries in Ukraine, who constituted for them as parents and took care of all their needs regardless of political or organizational affiliation.

Students, refugees and orphans at the foot of the yeshiva in Mantra - Switzerland.

December 1944, Photo: CreditUnited States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Asher Klein

It seems that the purity of the hearts and the right of thought of the children and students manages to unite us.

We also saw this this week with the arrival of the orphaned plane in Israel in a unique and unifying event, in which religious and non-religious, ultra-Orthodox, Hassidim, members of the Jewish Agency and the Jewish National Fund, along with the Prime Minister, Saria and Knesset members were seen together.

When everyone radiates to children warmth and love there is no end.

The commandment to attribute the unique to orphans appears in the Torah in the Book of Exodus (Chapter 22) upon our exodus from Egypt: “Every widow and orphan will not be punished.

"If you answer me, you will answer him, for if he cries out to me, he will cry out to me - I will hear his cry."

An orphan, Maimonides writes (Mishneh Torah to Maimonides, Sefer HaMada, Halachot De'aot, Chapter 6, Halacha 10) is halakhically defined as being in a state until he is able to support himself and live an independent life: "Until when are orphans called for this purpose-until "That a great man will not have to rely on them and take care of them, but will do all his own needs for himself like all the other great ones."

Escape from the inferno.

Children from an orphanage in Zaporizhia at the Leviv train station, Photo: Reuters

The Jewish commandment for dedicated and unique care for orphans includes full concern for all their needs, peace of mind and joy of life, as Maimonides further explains:

He will not speak to them but softly, and will not treat them but a custom of respect, and will not hurt their bodies at work and their hearts in hard things, and will attribute to their wealth more than wealth itself.

"Everyone who teases or angers or hurts them or gets off on them or loses money - after all, it passes without doing anything, and all the more so hitting them or cursing them."

In the spirit of these things, Judaism commands at every holiday and time to take care of the widows and orphans of the city for proper food and the joy of the holiday.

The more joy we are required to have, the greater our duty to care for the individual and the struggling.

An example of this is the mitzvah of gifts for the needy that we were commanded to do on the holiday of Purim, "Kamcha Depsha" (wheat season) on Passover and more.

The late Rabbi Bochko, Photo: Courtesy of the family

The duty of care for the weak and those who have no one to protect them rests with us as a society, a people and a nation: the ability to bring the orphan and the needy to true joy is a sign and a sign of mental, physical and spiritual health.

In my youth, I would join every year a Hanukkah party organized by the late Rabbi Moshe Butzko, in one of the orphanages in Jerusalem.

The joy skyrocketed and warmed our hearts and we would return home every year full of tears and satisfaction.

During one of the years due to a medical difficulty, Rabbi Moshe was unable to attend, but of course he arranged for an event like every year at the orphanage.

One of the children stood in the corner and cried and cried.

When I asked him to explain his crying, he replied that he was looking forward to the independent love that was showered on him every year at these events, a simple love for a person wherever he is.

Rabbi Dahan and a friend of happy orphans in the mitzvah of Rabbi Bochko, Photo: Courtesy of the person photographed

In these tumultuous days when the world stands and marvels at the events of the past that flicker before our eyes, national resilience is measured by mutual guarantee and unity, in a constant search for the unifier and the author and not the divider and the divider.

The concern for orphans that comes from a clean place of simple and independent love manages to unite us all and illuminates our paths in discourse and concern for others out of striving for unity and security, spiritual and national resilience.

We look at our brothers from Ukraine in particular, and from all over the world in general, with deep concern and out of prayer and true hope for peace and security and out of warmth and true love.

Rabbi Shraga Natan Dahan is an officer in the Res.

And holds a master's degree in management and technology and is certified as a rabbi and judge.

Serves as a consultant and lecturer in public, security, educational and scientific bodies on Halacha, technology, medicine, science and space.

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Source: israelhayom

All news articles on 2022-03-08

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