Rabbi Zev Leff shared an experience from his life when he watched a woman who won a 15 minute shopping spree, collect her prize.
“The woman had a a map of the store, where she would be able to find the most expensive things, hooked up in front of her eyes with a special rig. The woman had special sneakers, and two shopping carts. The rules were simple, what ever she could put into her carts in 15 minutes was hers to keep.”
When the 15 minutes started, Rabbi Zev Leff explained “the woman took off like a mashugana, five minutes into the spree, she started to perspire. If you would have seen this woman and said, hey take it easy. sit down for a few minutes, she would have said, what are you crazy, I only 15 minutes to take what I can get. After the 15 minutes, give me a chair and I’ll sit down for five hours straight.
Rabbi Zev Leff had his audience, at his Motzei Shabbos shiur at Adas Israel Passaic New Jersey, smiling form ear to ear. The shiur was sponsored by -Somaich Achim and was enitiled ”Joy and Happiness in your Torah Life”.
“Somaich Achim, “Neighbors Helping Neighbors,” was started at the behest of the Rosh HaYeshiva and local Rabbanim of Clifton and Passaic. It is a case management program designed to help individuals and families in crisis withstand extreme difficulty, tragedy or illness.”
Jewish Family Services/Somaich Achim
Rabbi Zev Leff, had several different speaking engagements throughout the Passaic Clifton community this Rosh Chodesh Vayera, Shabbos, Jan 15th/Jan 16 2010, 1 Shevat, 5770. I had the opportunity to hear Rabbi Zev Leff, in three different shuls this Shabbos on three different topics.
The announcement from our Shul gave the following information about Rabbi Zev Leff:
“JFS/Somaich Achim invites the community to an inspiring Shabbos with Rav Zev Leff. Rav Leff is one of Israel’s most popular Torah educators who has the rare ability to bring across a subtle point of Torah learning with humor and analytical brilliance.”
Rabbi Leff definitely lived up to his press release. I first had the opportunity to hear him speak on Friday Night, 8:30 PM @ Bais Torah U’Tefilah (BTU) on the topic of “The Jewish Home”. He introduced important topics, with a great deal of humor. As much as I definitely appreciate good humor, I would say I appreciate analytical brilliance, more.
The Shabbos Morning Drasha he gave at Ahavas Israel on “The Concept of Avos and Blessing our Children” is something worth trying to give over here on this site. However, it seems only fair to at least take some to finish talking about ”Joy Happiness in your Torah Life” and why life is like a 15 minute shopping spree.
As much as Rabbi Leff had painted this humorous picture of a woman who was very serious in her pursuit of the all the things that she would get during here allotted 15 minutes, it was clear that he was drawing on this analogy to explain a concept that people of our orthodox Jewish community of Passaic NJ, could definitely relate to and appreciate.
Rabbi Zev Leff shlita, is one of Israel’s most popular English-speaking Torah educators. For 25 years, Rav Leff has served as the Rav and Mara D’asra of Moshav Matityahu, in the center of Israel.
Rabbi Leff mentioned that our constitution guarantees the pursuit of happiness which he then compared to a specific activity which is unique to Florida. Rabbi Leff compared horse racing to dog racing although he was quick to point out that he never went to either one while he lived and worked in Miami Florida. In horse racing there is a live human riding on the horse who can come up with various motivations to urge his horse to finish first; he can hit the horse with a stick or whisper in the horses ear.
Moshav Matityahu American-style Orthodox/Yeshivish community
However in dog racing there is no such motivation. The only way to can urge the dogs to race is with a mechanical rabbit which looks, smells and runs like a rabbit. However, the dog can never catch the rabbit, because the rabbit is programmed to run faster than the fastest dog. The pursuit of happiness is like the dog race, it is something that is pursued but never obtained.
A lecture given in the yeshivish town of Passaic NJ to the frum crowd, even if it is on Motzei Shabbos, must have a least a couple of references to various Torah ideals. This indeed did take place.
Amongst the Torah observant crowd there is often a reference to the 613 Mitzvot. Rabbi Zev Leff did refer to these on several occassions.
Explanation:
The idea here is that within the details written in our Torah there are various rules, regulations, and standards of ethical conduct which are is mandated by the Torah. It turns out that there are 613 of these regulations.
/www.jewfaq.org aka Judaism 101
The link above is to an online source that contains “…a list of the 613 mitzvot (commandments). It is based primarily on the list compiled by Rambam in the Mishneh Torah.”
365 of these regulations are said to be negative commandments, in other words these are things you should not do, like steal, or kill.
There are 365 negative commandments, corresponding to the number of days in a solar year, and 248 positive commandments, ascribed to the number of bones and significant organs in thehuman body.
I have two more points to bring out on this matter and then i will try to connect them to the discussion of the Rabbi Leff’s presentation. Not all of the to do, and not to do Mitzvot are even possible to do, or not to do today because of the destruction of the Holy Temple. Additionally some of the mitzvot are only done one time per year and some mitzvot can only be done in the land (Eretz) of Israel. This significantly decreases the number of do’s and don’ts.
The second idea about the mitzvot is that there are many more regulations which have been enacted by our Rabbi’s over the generations. Which brings us back to the presentation.
Rabbi Zev Leff pointed out the importance of “Joy and Happiness in your Torah Life” when he discussed the generation of Torah observant Jews who came to the United States, and were faced with the problem of keeping their faith, or keeping their jobs. The narrative is all to familiar regarding how a father would come home for shabbos and know full well that he would lose the job he just got because the rule was clear: If one did not show up for work on Saturday, he have to look for a new job on Sunday or Monday.
So therefore there were many fathers who entered into any given shabbos not with the joy and glee which is what we do today, but with sadness and depression. Somehow these parents and role models for the future generation could not manage to overcome their own depression and place a good spin on their problems for the sake of their family.
Therefore Rabbi Zev Leff concluded, it is no wonder that their children to maintain the mitzvot of keeping shabbos when it was their turn to go out on on their own. With this Rabbi Leff managed to drive home some important issues which we face as orthodox Jews. Mainly that even though the performance of the mitzvot and being Torah observant Jews is not easy, we are still expected to live the frum lifestyle in a state of simcha or happiness.
So should we look at the whole idea of being Torah observant as being fun?
Rabbi Zev Leff drove home the point by asking if this generation should have simply let this whole matter of losing job after job because of being Torah observant roll off their backs and say, oh no don’t worry its fun, to have to find a new job every week. Clearly, Rabbi Leff was not telling us that this was the answer. He did however continue to pose some thought provoking questions that sought to tie together some of the different examples, stories and analogies that were given throughout his shiur.
Rabbi Leff made the point that being a Torah observant Jew is not particularly fun. When he explained this idea, he framed it as how to explain things so that the children, of the generation where their parent’s would lose their jobs every week, could understand the relative importance of keeping the frum lifestyle. However he was also trying to explain the value and importance of Joy and Happiness in your Torah Life.
There are many various concepts, ideas, thoughts, or words that could be used to describe Torah observance, however the word fun, does not seem to be particularly well suited for the task. The analogy of the woman in the grocery store who only had 15 minutes to keep what ever she could get, was probably more to the point. Certainly no one would imagine that this woman in this particular setting had the idea of doing something fun, for those 15 minutes. However was this moment, these 15 minutes, in the plain meaning from the point of view of the woman who could only be gaining something of tangible value, a rewarding moment for this woman? One would have to answer in the affirmative, yes, this activity was a valuable and rewarding experience.
Of course the analogy does fall apart on some level, as would any analogy because it would be difficult to explain, either qualitatively or quantitatively, the value of taking on the Torah observant lifestyle. I imagine it would be equally difficult to explain the value of keeping the Torah observant lifestyle to someone who has never known any other way to live.
By also sharing with us the analogy of the dogs, at the dog races, Rabbi Leff also provided another important insight into the topic at hand. From a gross materialistic point of view the pursuit of happiness could be explained as something which is never truly accomplished. It is the nature of life itself, that gives us a narrow perspective at times, like when we are children, as to what is the thing that will make us happy. Children will tend to focus on what can be done right now. Or they might prefer to eat something like candy at all times because it tastes so great. As adults we understand the concept of delayed gratification, or working hard for something who’s fruits we will not enjoy until later.
Even now as I write this I recall the other important analogy which Rabbi Zev Leff shared with us all at his shiur.
A company is spending millions of dollar to develop the Jaffa orange, grown in Israel to have no pits, and a thin skin. The importance of this is that people want to be able to get at their orange with little effort, and that they do not want to put up with, having to spit out or otherwise remove the seeds. In reality people, want to do things which require little effort, and not have to do tasks which are considered mundane.
This is by way of explanation to give the company producing this “new” thin skin Jaffa oranges a competitive position in the marketplace. However once again we can understand the analogy, however we also need to understand that it is a concept to apply to the mass market. We as Torah observant Jews will not be breaking any speed records when it comes to how long it takes us to complete our prayer services during Shabbos for example. Or when if we choose to compare the intricacy of completing our daily morning prayer service, to perhaps something which does not even exist in other religions.
I would attempt to conclude this account of Rabbi Zev Leff’s shiur on: Joy and Happiness in your Torah Life, by stating that I feel that everyone who was in attendance that Saturday night was uplifted as a result of their hearing the words of Rabbi Leff, and most likely believed that their time was well spent.
Aharon Moshe (Stephen) Sanders, completed- Wednesday, January 20, 2010.
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