Sichos Chullin - Rav Adin on Shabbos

i {One of the great and holy Rebbes.}



Between (and sometimes during) the Aliyot
A selection of “sichot chullin” by Rav Adin Even Yisrael Shilit’a in shul on Shabbos.
Tsemach Tsedek Shul, Old City, 18 Av

We were talking about the shul’s criteria for getting called up to the Torah. Rav Adin said, ‘the Gabbai has a special sense of smell.” He added the following joke. “God said, “mine is the siver and Mine is the gold,” and the Jewish People answered, “Unto You, God is the Greatness, and the Strength, and the Beauty...” He said that this is one of the saddest jokes he knows and I should think about it. He is a cynical man. This attitude has caused a lot of anti-Semitism.

On Monday morning I told this to Rav Brandvine, the holy Strenter. He said that that is the sign of a good Gabbai. (The Gabbai is the man who arranges the services, but the title literally means, “the one who collects.”) I told Rav Brandvine that I liked his style as a Gabbai more. He If anyone knows one thing about the Stretner’s minyan in the old city, he knows that Rav Brandvine is careful to honor almost everyone. The ones who get the most enjoyment out of standing up to lead the services are invited to lead, and the new faces at the service are usually called up for to the Torah. Everyone who has something to say is invited to say something at the informal shmuzes. It’s quite impressive. Rav Brandvine said, “really, the mark of a truly skilled gabbai isn’t knowing how to give the honor of coming up to the Torah to the rich people, but knowing how to get the money out of them afterwards.”

If you allow me, I will kill the joke by unpacking it a little. After the seventy years of Babylonian Exile, the Jews were worried because they couldn’t find all the gold and silver necessary to make the newly refurbished Temple in Jerusalem as splendorous as it was before. God said to the prophet Chaggai, “Mine is the silver,” meaning, don’t worry, all the money and wealth in the world truly belongs to me, so I will bring it about that those with silver and gold will donate it to the Temple. The second verse, “Unto you God, is the greatness, and the strength, and the beauty,” were said by King David (Chronicles 1, 29:11) while he was planning the construction of the Temple with his son Shlomo.
But the point of the joke is the tragic misunderstanding. God was saying, don’t worry about money. Some have a lot, some have a little, but it all comes from God and it is all good. If you have trouble making a living, then besides all the “legwork” you need to do and all the tactics you have to use to do something to fix the problem, you have to pray your living daylights out, maybe even bang your head against the wall, because all wealth comes from God, it all comes from the source of all, and one man’s wealth and another mans poverty is only his own doing according to his own mind. It is really all coming from God.
The Jews may have understood that all comes from God, but, to put it simply, they erred in the conclusion that it is proper to honor a rich man more than a poor man. Who deserves honor? Someone who does something good is deserving of due recognition for his efforts. And yet, even if a person doesn’t do anything, there is something about just being a human that requires him to be treated with dignity, and about being a just being a Jew that allows him to get called up to the Torah. Being a simple guy who has just enough to live on, you already know that I have never been given an aliya at the Tsemach Tsedek shul in the ten years that I have frequented it. I don’t hold it against the Gabbai, hey, minhag yisrael Torah, right? That’s the way it goes in Cincinatti. I actually go to Rav Bloy’s minyan an the Kotel by Vasikin on Shabbos (to translate, a prayer service at the western wall in Jerusalem early in the “sunrise service” on the Sabbath), and they are quite fair and don’t make a big deal about cash.
If someone can tell me the deeper inner reason why Chabad is so into big cash deals, please let me know. I know it is probably a more general problem.

Let me sign off with some hot votrlich from the Heilige Ropshitzer, Reb Naftali. Someone told the Ropshitzer about a little gematriya that was going around. If a man wanted God to send him parnassa (rubles from heaven) he should have in mind on Rosh Hashannah and Yom Kippur when he gets to the words, “ten pachdecha – Put Your fear, Hashem, on your people,” that the word, “pachdecha - Your fear,” is the exact numerical equivalent of the word, “geldt.” If a man did so, he would be assured of “alfei zahav ve’cesef” in the coming year. The holy Rav Naftali replied, “I don’t see anything wrong with having in mind geldt when your say pachdecha. The problem is that when it’s “and give GELDT your fear GELDT Hashem GELDT on GELDT Your people GELDT.”

Dear friends, you can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes GEVALDT!!!