Joseph

Q:
What do Chazal mean when they say או חברותא או מיתותא – Either a friend or death (Ta’anis 23a) ?

A:
There’s a statement או חברותא או מיתותא – either I have a chaver or I don’t want to live, I want death. What does that mean? The answer is that we learned עשה לך רב וקנה לך חבר (Avos 1:6). Make for yourself a Rebbi. A Rebbi is very important. But a good friend is a treasure. You should be willing to pay money for a good friend. It says הרבה למדתי מרבותי – I learned very much from my teachers, ומחברי יותר מרבותי – and I learned even more from my chaveirim than from my teachers (Ta’anis 7a).

Good chaveirim change you. It’s remarkable how a person is transformed if he associates with good people. Even one good chaver can change your life. But a chaver can ruin you as well. The מסילת ישרים says that before you choose a chaver, you should examine him more carefully than you examine the food that you’re about to eat. Let’s say you’re about to eat some food that you have some suspicion about. So you take a look, maybe there’s some dead fleas inside the food. Maybe there’s a hair inside the food. Whatever it is, before you choose a chaver be very, very careful. A bad chaver is worse than dead fleas and some hair in your food. Much worse.

But having a good chaver – you’ll be amazed at what it can do for you. The chaver becomes part of you. It’s so much easier to correct things in yourself and to gain good qualities if you have a good chaver.

And of course, there’s one more מדריגה, one more level. ומתלמידי יותר מכולם. When you teach others, when you teach people things, it makes an impression on you. As you tell people things, you start thinking, “Maybe I should listen, too.” It makes an impression on you.

So הרבה למדתי מרבותי, no question about that. You can gain tremendous things from a Rebbi. עשה לך רב. But you must know that a good chaver can be even better than a Rebbi. ומחבירי יותר מרבותי. And therefore, קנא לך חבר – You should be willing to pay money for a good friend. A good friend can change you forever. Someone who will help you become better. That’s what life is for, to become better. So או חברותא או מיתותא. You’re alive right now for the purpose of making something out of yourself. So make sure to find that good friend who will criticize you and help you, and make you a better person. If you have a wife who criticizes you, you’re a lucky man. It’s a treasure. No matter what, you must have a good friend who helps you become a better person. If not, what’s the point of being alive?!
TAPE # E-155

If the Ashkenazic Gedolim end the Cherem, probably with severe restrictions in permitting it again with specified instances when it is allowed (it obviously wouldn’t become the standard default or even majority of most mishpachas), it could potentially be a solution to the shidduch crisis where there’s a disparity in the number of boys (less) and girls (more) in shidduchim. This is in addition to other potential benefits, such as those that prompted the Vilna Gaon to want to end the Cherem, as someone noted above.

Q:
I hear people saying that the גדולי ישראל have רוח הקודש. Can you explain that to us?

A:
Well, it’s not the same רוח הקודש that’s said about מגילת אסתר for example. There’s absolutely no comparison! אסתר ברוח הקודש נאמרה – The Megillas Esther was said with רוח הקודש means that it was inspired, it was a form of נבואה, of prophecy. And that form of רוח הקודש no longer existed after the beginning of the second בית המקדש.

The term רוח הקודש as applied to our great men, means that הקדוש ברוך הוא gives them an inspiration. He gives them סייעתא דשמיא. He gives them help from Heaven so that they should be able to arrive at conclusions much more rapidly and much more correctly than ordinary people.

But it does not mean that they cannot make mistakes. Absolutely not! They can make mistakes with this form of רוח הקודש. The Rambam says that when הקדוש ברוך הוא gave His spirit to the שופטים, like שמשון, it says ותחל רוח ה׳ לפעמו “The spirit of Hashem began to beat in him.” That doesn’t mean the spirit of prophecy. It means a spirit of סייעתא דשמיא. It means that Hashem helped him. The Rambam says that דניאל had that as well. And yet, the Gemara says that דניאל made a mistake. And it’s written in the Gemara the mistake that דניאל made. So you can have סייעתא דשמיא and still make a mistake.

The truth is that Moshe Rabeinu also made a mistake. He made more than one mistake. And it’s openly mentioned in the Gemara, הודה ולא בוש – He was big enough to admit his mistake. He said, “I was wrong.” Now that’s something! Isn’t that a tremendous statement to make? The Gemara could have concealed that. The Gemara didn’t have to mention that. The Gemara could have said that Moshe Rabeinu was infallible. But instead the Gemara says that he erred. So what’s the story? The truth is this: When Hashem spoke to Moshe, that’s תורת ה׳. No mistakes in the תורת ה׳. But when Moshe spoke on his own – and Moshe no doubt had plenty of רוח הקודש of his own, more than Rashi had – then he could make mistakes.

Moshe was הודה ולא בוש. He admitted his error. Because our Torah is a Torah of אמת, of truth. It’s not a Torah of propaganda חס ושלום. And that’s why it says about our greatest leader הודה ולא בוש. Those are glorious words. These words are the honor of our nation. Moshe Rabeinu made a mistake. We want a Torah of אמת, truth. That’s the greatness of the Jewish people.
TAPE # 114

Rav Avigdor Miller on Sleeping Well and Avoiding the Psychiatrist

Q:
What would the Rav give as an עצה, some advice, to conquer his temptation to sleep?

A:
The answer is – don’t conquer it. Make sure you go to sleep every night on time. Sleep eight hours every night. The trouble is that people don’t sleep enough. And then they start to break down, and they go to psychologists and they get medicines and סי טויג אויף כפרות – it’s not worth it. It’s counterproductive.

Sleep is very important. It’s more important than food. It’s more important than vitamins. It’s so important to sleep. I can tell you from experience. I know so many people, so many fine people, young people, who ruined their careers by not sleeping.

Now, some צדיקים, are very strong. And they can get along with less sleep. But don’t begin to suspect that you’re the one. Don’t think that you’re the one.
TAPE # E-224

huju: I’m all for tort reform on the state level in all 50 states. Some of the states have already enacted such.

Lakewood, NJ is more like Monsey. It is very different than Brooklynv and has nothing close to the density and traffic of Brooklyn.

Q:
What would be a practical מחשבה for one to contemplate when trying to overcome a difficult נסיון that involves a תאוה, a forbidden desire?

A:
When you have some sort of test, think of Gehenim. And Gehenim – don’t think it’s far away. Many people thought Gehenim was a long way off, and then it was the next day in their lives.

The people in the airplane that crashed this week, weren’t thinking about Gehenim. It didn’t even cross their minds. And plenty of them are in Gehenim right now. Plenty of them. Suddenly they came to Gehenim. And it was too late to do anything about it.

And therefore, think about Gehenim when some תאוה, some נסיון, is facing you. Gehenim is a wonderful gift from הקדוש ברוך הוא to us, if used properly. Because Gehenim means fear of Hashem. It’s much better to think about Gehenim when you’re in this world, than to have to experience it in the Next World.

And therefore, if a person wants to protect himself against making serious errors, the first thing is יראת העונש, he should be afraid of Gehenim. There’s a tremendous benefit to bringing Gehenim into your life with your thoughts. Nowadays people don’t want to think about Gehenim, but that’s a fatal error. It’s important to keep the picture of Gehenim in your mind. And many tzadikim became great because they feared Gehenim.
TAPE # E-155

Q:
How do you explain Chazal’s statement that כל הכועס כאילו עובד עבודה זרה – “One who gets angry, it’s as if he has worshipped idols” ?

A:
The plain meaning is the following: One who worships idols is being פורק עול מלכות שמים – He’s removing from himself the yoke of fear of Heaven. By ascribing power to a deity besides Hashem, by saying that there’s something else besides Hashem, then he is no longer afraid of Hashem.

Now when a man gets angry, at that moment the שכינה means nothing to him. His anger is more important to him than the Presence of Hashem that is looking at him and watching him. At that moment all that matters is his anger. He’s a פורק עול, because at that moment in time he has no G-d, no Master over him. And therefore during that fit of anger he is like a kofer (disbeliever) and like an עובד עבודה זרה, a worshipper of idols. Because, had he kept in mind that he’s standing in front of Hashem, then he surely would have checked himself.

I’ll give you a משל. Suppose there was a policeman standing right in front of you. Even if he’s not an important person. Let’s say he’s not even a sergeant. Now, if this policeman is standing right here, right in front of you, then in most instances, you wouldn’t become angry at somebody else in front of the policeman. Your respect for the authority of the policeman would check your anger. You wouldn’t fly into a fit of rage with the policeman standing in front of you. Now, if the policeman’s blue uniform, and his badge, is enough to help you overcome your anger, then why shouldn’t the thought that you’re standing before Hashem help you? And I’ll tell you the answer. Because Hashem is only a word in the siddur. The policeman is standing in front of you, but הקדוש ברוך הוא is only a word in the siddur.

Hashem should become a reality to you. And that’s a farfetched idea to most people. A person feels like he’s מתנדב, voluntarily, to serve Hashem. He thinks he’s being generous because he’s willing to obey the Torah. But to do it, to obey the Torah, because Hashem is standing in front of him?! No, that’s not what he’s thinking. Unfortunately, that’s not his motivation at all.

And therefore, a person must learn to keep in his mind, as much as possible, this great principle of דע לפני מי אתה עומד – “Know in front of Whom you are standing.” Not only during שמונה עשרה – all the time! Keep in mind in front of Whom you are standing! And it’s a good idea to practice this from time to time. Try it for a minute a day. Think that you’re standing in the Presence of Hashem. It’s a very good thing to practice. And if you practice enough, soon you’re going to start believing it. And then you’re on your way. And if you’re standing in front of Hashem, if you know that you’re standing in front of Hashem, it will be much more difficult to become angry.
[עיין נדרים כב· : כל הכועס אפילו השכינה אינה חשובה כנגדו]
TAPE # 901

An interesting question is whether a Teimani or Sephardic man could marry an Ashkenazic girl as his second wife. It would seem so since a) a wife follows the husband’s halachic/minhagim obligations, and it is permitted for him and b) the Cherem for Ashkenazim is against a man taking a second wife; it isn’t against a woman becoming a second wife.

Either of those two reasons, independently, should halachicly permit it.

How do Teimani husbands with multiple wives manage their family? Do all the wives live together in the same household as he or does he maintain separate homes for each wife and set of children?

Refuted or disagreed? Machlokes haposkim is common.

Does that lead to the conclusion that the penalties and punishments (whether enforced by Beis Din Shel Maata or by the Beis Din Shel Maala) that the Torah specifies for various sins done by Jews will be inapplicable in that era?