Parsha Vayigash
Perhaps this is the most tear jerking story in the Torah. It wakes up one’s emotions. After reading this since the age of 9 going back 64 years it does not awaken the emotions on the same level as the first 63 times but it does have an affect on me.
44:18 Then Judah came near unto him, and said: 'Oh my lord, let thy servant, I pray thee, speak a word in my lord's ears, and let not thine anger burn against thy servant; for thou art even as Pharaoh.
Where did Yehuda gain the strength to confront the leader of the land of Egypt? It comes from a few things. 1) Benyamin was not part of the measure for measure of selling Yosef into slavery. 2) If anybody deserved to be a slave, it was Yehuda as it was his idea to sell Yosef. 3) Yehuda had promised his place in the next world if he did not bring Benyamin back.
You are like Pharaoh – here today gone tomorrow. The Medrash says that Yehuda had a hair on his chest that popped up when he was angry and was about ready to make war on all of Egypt for Benyamin. The fact is it is a nice story but the Pshat perhaps and the narrative is more powerful that making a way to free him.
19 My lord asked his servants, saying: Have ye a father, or a brother? 20 And we said unto my lord: We have a father, an old man, and a child of his old age, a little one; and his brother is dead, and he alone is left of his mother, and his father loves him.
Yehuda 22 years ago was in his mid-twenties now in his late 40’s after watching his father, he realizes his actions and knows that if anybody deserves slavery it is him. But he has to use logic to persuade the ruler of the land as he does not want to indicate that he is guilty of selling his brother that might entail the death penalty.
21 And thou said unto thy servants: Bring him down unto me, that I may set mine eyes upon him. 22 And we said unto my lord: The lad cannot leave his father; for if he should leave his father, his father would die. 23 And thou said unto thy servants: Except your youngest brother come down with you, ye shall see my face no more. 24 And it came to pass when we came up unto thy servant my father, we told him the words of my lord. 25 And our father said: Go again, buy us a little food. 26 And we said: We cannot go down; if our youngest brother be with us, then will we go down; for we may not see the man's face, except our youngest brother be with us. 27 And thy servant my father said unto us: Ye know that my wife bore me two sons; 28 and the one went out from me, and I said: Surely he is torn in pieces; and I have not seen him since; 29 and if ye take this one also from me, and harm befall him, ye will bring down my gray hairs with sorrow to the grave. 30 Now therefore when I come to thy servant my father, and the lad is not with us; seeing that his soul is bound up with the lad's soul; 31 it will come to pass, when he sees that the lad is not with us, that he will die; and thy servants will bring down the gray hairs of thy servant our father with sorrow to the grave. 32 For thy servant became surety for the lad unto my father, saying: If I bring him not unto thee, then shall I bear the blame to my father forever. 33 Now therefore, let thy servant, I pray thee, abide instead of the lad a bondman to my lord; and let the lad go up with his brethren. 34 For how shall I go up to my father, if the lad be not with me? lest I look upon the evil that shall come on my father.'
When Yehuda shows that he is willing to be a slave Mida Knegged Mida instead of Benyamin, his Teshuva is complete. It shows that the brothers are no longer jealous and have learned to be brotherly.
45:1 Then Joseph could not refrain himself before all them that stood by him; and he cried: Cause every man to go out from me.' And there stood no man with him, while Joseph made himself known unto his brethren.
He showed them is Bris Kodesh
2 And he wept aloud; and the Egyptians heard, and the house of Pharaoh heard. 3 And Joseph said unto his brethren: 'I am Joseph; doth my father yet live?' And his brethren could not answer him; for they were affrighted at his presence.
Now they really trembled as they had no power to go against him and was at his mercy.
4 And Joseph said unto his brethren: 'Come near to me, I pray you.' And they came near. And he said: 'I am Joseph your brother, whom ye sold into Egypt.
I am your brother! I may be the one whom you did not want and wanted to see what would become of his dreams so now you see! But, I am still your brother. You planned evil but HASHEM Yisborach planned good. Now the good has come.
5 And now be not grieved, nor angry with yourselves, that ye sold me hither; for God did send me before you to preserve life.
You were just a means of fulfilling G-D’s design.
6 For these two years hath the famine been in the land; and there are yet five years, in which there shall be neither plowing nor harvest. 7 And God sent me before you to give you a remnant on the earth, and to save you alive for a great deliverance.
The good L-RD has put me here to save you and our father.
8 So now it was not you that sent me hither, but God; and He hath made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house, and ruler over all the land of Egypt.
You thought that you sent me here. Not so, it was from G-D that I came here to feed the whole world for the sake of Am Yisrael.
9 Hasten ye, and go up to my father, and say unto him: Thus says thy son Joseph: God hath made me lord of all Egypt; come down unto me, tarry not.
Don’t waste time as the famine is going to continue for five more years.
10 And thou shalt dwell in the land of Goshen, and thou shalt be near unto me, thou, and thy children, and thy children's children, and thy flocks, and thy herds, and all that thou hast; 11 and there will I sustain thee; for there are yet five years of famine; lest thou come to poverty, thou, and thy household, and all that thou hast.
Goshen is close to the Nile and you will have plenty of grazing, water and a place for cucumbers, melons, etc. (We see these foods mentioned in Shemos when the people complain about the Mann.)
12 And, behold, your eyes see, and the eyes of my brother Benjamin, that it is my mouth that speaks unto you. 13 And ye shall tell my father of all my glory in Egypt, and of all that ye have seen; and ye shall hasten and bring down my father hither.'
They could not imagine Yosef as ruler of Mitzrayim so they did not think of comparing his features to that of Benyamin.
14 And he fell upon his brother Benjamin's neck, and wept; and Benjamin wept upon his neck.
Rashi says about the two Temples that were built on the shoulder height of the land of Benyamin.
15 And he kissed all his brethren, and wept upon them; and after that his brethren talked with him.
16 And the report thereof was heard in Pharaoh's house, saying: 'Joseph's brethren are come'; and it pleased Pharaoh well, and his servants.
Pharaoh kept a spy network to watch over the movement of his ministers just in case.
17 And Pharaoh said unto Joseph: 'Say unto thy brethren: This do ye: lade your beasts, and go, get you unto the land of Canaan; 18 and take your father and your households, and come unto me; and I will give you the good of the land of Egypt, and ye shall eat the fat of the land. 19 Now thou art commanded, this do ye: take you wagons out of the land of Egypt for your little ones, and for your wives, and bring your father, and come. 20 Also regard not your stuff; for the good things of all the land of Egypt are yours.'
If they are smart and hardworking like you, I could use them so please bring them down here.
21 And the sons of Israel did so; and Joseph gave them wagons, according to the commandment of Pharaoh, and gave them provision for the way. 22 To all of them he gave each man changes of raiment; but to Benjamin he gave three hundred shekels of silver, and five changes of raiment. 23 And to his father he sent in like manner ten asses laden with the good things of Egypt, and ten she-asses laden with corn and bread and victual for his father by the way. 24 So he sent his brethren away, and they departed; and he said unto them: 'See that ye fall not out by the way.' 25 And they went up out of Egypt, and came into the land of Canaan unto Jacob their father. 26 And they told him, saying: 'Joseph is yet alive, and he is ruler over all the land of Egypt.' And his heart fainted, for he believed them not. 27 And they told him all the words of Joseph, which he had said unto them; and when he saw the wagons which Joseph had sent to carry him, the spirit of Jacob their father revived.
Yosef send wagons Agalos and this hinted to Yacov that the last Torah law they learned was the Egla-Arufa where when a man is found dead near a city, the people of city send the elders out to break the neck of a calf and state that they did what they could to protect the man from dying on the way. If they found a body then they broke the neck of the calf and say “we did not shed this blood.”
28 And Israel said: 'It is enough; Joseph my son is yet alive; I will go and see him before I die.'
Instead of being brought in chains to Egypt, because of his merits, he is brought like a prince or king on royal wagons.
46:1 And Israel took his journey with all that he had, and came to Beer-Sheba, and offered sacrifices unto the God of his father Isaac. 2 And God spoke unto Israel in the visions of the night, and said: 'Jacob, Jacob.' And he said: 'Here am I.' 3 And He said: 'I am God, the God of thy father; fear not to go down into Egypt; for I will there make of thee a great nation. 4 I will go down with thee into Egypt; and I will also surely bring thee up again; and Joseph shall put his hand upon thine eyes.'
Yacov was in a depression for 22 years and only in joy or internal peace can one receive prophecy.
5 And Jacob rose up from Beer-Sheba; and the sons of Israel carried Jacob their father, and their little ones, and their wives, in the wagons which Pharaoh had sent to carry him. 6 And they took their cattle, and their goods, which they had gotten in the land of Canaan, and came into Egypt, Jacob, and all his seed with him; 7 his sons, and his sons' sons with him, his daughters, and his sons' daughters, and all his seed brought he with him into Egypt.
He left the land of Canaan completely and nothing but a few family graves were left behind.
8 And these are the names of the children of Israel, who came into Egypt, Jacob and his sons: … 26 All the souls belonging to Jacob that came into Egypt, that came out of his loins, besides Jacob's sons' wives, all the souls were threescore and six. 27 And the sons of Joseph, who were born to him in Egypt, were two souls; all the souls of the house of Jacob, that came into Egypt, were threescore and ten.
From these 70 individuals would be the foundation of the nation.
28 And he sent Judah before him unto Joseph, to show the way before him unto Goshen; and they came into the land of Goshen.
To set up a Cheder and Beis Medrash for Torah learning.
29 And Joseph made ready his chariot, and went up to meet Israel his father, to Goshen; and he presented himself unto him, and fell on his neck, and wept on his neck a good while. 30 And Israel said unto Joseph: 'Now let me die, since I have seen thy face, that thou art yet alive.'
Once Yacov’s family was completely together and the sons of Rachel, he knew that he would have peace again in this world and in the next.
31 And Joseph said unto his brethren, and unto his father's house: 'I will go up, and tell Pharaoh, and will say unto him: My brethren, and my father's house, who were in the land of Canaan, are come unto me;
Yosef as a servant of Pharaoh came to him to report the news.
32 and the men are shepherds, for they have been keepers of cattle; and they have brought their flocks, and their herds, and all that they have. 33 And it shall come to pass, when Pharaoh shall call you, and shall say: What is your occupation? 34 that ye shall say: Thy servants have been keepers of cattle from our youth even until now, both we, and our fathers; that ye may dwell in the land of Goshen; for every shepherd is an abomination unto the Egyptians.'
We can only live in an outlying area far from the metropolis as you worship the sheep and shepherds are an abomination for you.
47:1 Then Joseph went in and told Pharaoh, and said: 'My father and my brethren, and their flocks, and their herds, and all that they have, are come out of the land of Canaan; and, behold, they are in the land of Goshen.' 2 And from among his brethren he took five men, and presented them unto Pharaoh.
He took specific brothers for their outstanding qualities. Yehuda as a leader and a capable military man, Levi as a religious and spiritual leader, etc.
3 And Pharaoh said unto his brethren: 'What is your occupation?' And they said unto Pharaoh: 'Thy servants are shepherds, both we, and our fathers.' 4 And they said unto Pharaoh: 'To sojourn in the land are we come; for there is no pasture for thy servants' flocks; for the famine is sore in the land of Canaan. Now therefore, we pray thee, let thy servants dwell in the land of Goshen.' 5 And Pharaoh spoke unto Joseph, saying: 'Thy father and thy brethren are come unto thee; 6 the land of Egypt is before thee; in the best of the land make thy father and thy brethren to dwell; in the land of Goshen let them dwell. And if thou know any able men among them, then make them rulers over my cattle.'
Pharaoh asked for some brothers that might take care of his herds.
7 And Joseph brought in Jacob his father, and set him before Pharaoh. And Jacob blessed Pharaoh.
Pharaoh might not have appreciated the blessing from HaGadol HaDor but knew that Yacov was a wise elder.
8 And Pharaoh said unto Jacob: 'How many are the days of the years of thy life?' 9 And Jacob said unto Pharaoh: 'The days of the years of my sojournings are a hundred and thirty years; few and evil have been the days of the years of my life, and they have not attained unto the days of the years of the life of my fathers in the days of their sojournings.' 10 And Jacob blessed Pharaoh, and went out from the presence of Pharaoh.
So Pharaoh received a blessing.
11 And Joseph placed his father and his brethren, and gave them a possession in the land of Egypt, in the best of the land, in the land of Rameses, as Pharaoh had commanded. 12 And Joseph sustained his father, and his brethren, and all his father's household, with bread, according to the want of their little ones.
All this he gave to his family from his own salary with of course permission from Pharaoh.
13 And there was no bread in all the land; for the famine was very sore, so that the land of Egypt and the land of Canaan languished by reason of the famine. 14 And Joseph gathered up all the money that was found in the land of Egypt, and in the land of Canaan, for the corn which they bought; and Joseph brought the money into Pharaoh's house. 15 And when the money was all spent in the land of Egypt, and in the land of Canaan, all the Egyptians came unto Joseph, and said: 'Give us bread; for why should we die in thy presence? for our money fails.'
The famine was so bad that even the speculators and hoarders so that there was no money left for anybody to speculate with grain.
16 And Joseph said: 'Give your cattle, and I will give you [bread] for your cattle, if money fail.' 17 And they brought their cattle unto Joseph. And Joseph gave them bread in exchange for the horses, and for the flocks, and for the herds, and for the asses; and he fed them with bread in exchange for all their cattle for that year. 18 And when that year was ended, they came unto him the second year, and said unto him: 'We will not hide from my lord, how that our money is all spent; and the herds of cattle are my lord's; there is nought left in the sight of my lord, but our bodies, and our lands. 19 Wherefore should we die before thine eyes, both we and our land? buy us and our land for bread, and we and our land will be bondmen unto Pharaoh; and give us seed, that we may live, and not die, and that the land be not desolate.'
Still the people tried to plant what they could but that too failed.
20 So Joseph bought all the land of Egypt for Pharaoh; for the Egyptians sold every man his field, because the famine was sore upon them; and the land became Pharaoh's. 21 And as for the people, he removed them city by city, from one end of the border of Egypt even to the other end thereof. 22 Only the land of the priests bought he not, for the priests had a portion from Pharaoh, and did eat their portion which Pharaoh gave them; wherefore they sold not their land.
The Clergy promoted peace between Pharaoh and his gods. It was because of this that the tribe of Levi was not enslaved like the other tribes.
23 Then Joseph said unto the people: 'Behold, I have bought you this day and your land for Pharaoh. Lo, here is seed for you, and ye shall sow the land. 24 And it shall come to pass at the ingathering’s, that ye shall give a fifth unto Pharaoh, and four parts shall be your own, for seed of the field, and for your food, and for them of your households, and for food for your little ones.' 25 And they said: 'Thou hast saved our lives. Let us find favor in the sight of my lord, and we will be Pharaoh's bondmen.' 26 And Joseph made it a statute concerning the land of Egypt unto this day, that Pharaoh should have the fifth; only the land of the priests alone became not Pharaoh's.
So essentially Pharaoh owned all the land and all the people except for Estates of the Priests.
27 And Israel dwelt in the land of Egypt, in the land of Goshen; and they got them possessions therein, and were fruitful, and multiplied exceedingly.
The fact that the family multiplied became a problem of contention as mentioned in Parsha Shemos. Right now they were becoming a complete nation.
Ed-Op The opening of one’s eyes by Rachamim Pauli
I am thinking about two historical stories that I wrote about. The first about the Sa’adia Gaon and the other about Bilaam (L’havdil). The first was Rabbi Sa’adia found by his studies rolling on the floor asking THE MASTER OF THE WORLD for forgiveness. He said, ‘Yesterday, I did not pray hard enough because I did not understand YOU. Please forgive me for my ignorance and today’s ignorance of your HOLINESS tomorrow.’ And Bilaam who had his eyes opened when he saw the Angel.
This week terrorism hit home quite hard. I had neighbors hit by terrorism the daughter of my neighbor slightly injured in Yerushalayim and a number of neighbors hit hard on a Motzei Shabbos attack at a Bar Mitzvah in the Park Hotel. One man lost his baby daughter, my friend Shlomo Avraham lost an arm and a leg after going through most of the wars of Israel prior to the second Lebanese War. Others with a traumatic experience and then there was Moshe, the brother of Arieh Fuld HY”D.
This time the terrorist came and ambushed a second cousin of mine one generation removed. Suddenly, I saw a different perspective of the terror attack. She was a mother of six children, first cousin, second cousin, sister, aunt, niece, grandniece, sister-in-law and sister as I looked on the posts of my family on Facebook. Esther Horgen HY”D the woman who always had a smile on her face and radiated love to all was taken from us a ripple effect on the family, her neighbors and the loss of a Shabbos Shiur attendee for all of Am Yisrael.
P.S. I spoke with my cousin Benyamin and he was surprised at the National Response from members of the Knesset and Ministers and some International Response Esther’s Death.
Henny’s Secret from 2002 by Sara Yocheved Rigler (story 2 of 3)
https://www.aish.com/ci/w/Hennys-Secret.html
There is no limit how much love and compassion can emanate from one human heart.
Henny Machlis's kitchen is an apt metaphor for her heart. A glimpse into the kitchen, less than half the size of a normal American kitchen, leaves one wondering how 200 Shabbat meals a week can issue from such a room. Similarly, one wonders how so much love and compassion for literally thousands of individuals can issue from one human heart.
Not the amorphous love the rest of us feel for all humanity as long as we don't have to put up with them eating in our living room, sleeping on our couch, showering in our bathroom. No, Henny's love is concrete and specific. It encompasses the lonely widows who have nowhere else to go on Shabbat, the homeless who sleep on the Machlises' couch and shower in their bathroom for weeks at a stretch, the lost souls who spend hours sipping coffee and pouring out their hearts at Henny's dining room table (the kitchen has no room for a table), and the unkempt, incoherent, often reeking paupers who come to the Machlis house for both food and love. [ See "A Taste of Heaven."]
The 44-year-old Henny looks a decade younger. Although she wears no make-up, her lineless complexion appears like the face of a woman of leisure, rather than the busy mother of 13 children.
How can she cook for, serve, and clean up from 200 guests every Shabbat, 51 weeks a year, without burning out?
I have come to Henny's modest apartment in Jerusalem's Maalot Dafna neighborhood to solve the mysteries that intrigue me about this open, ingenuous woman: How can the mother of so many children always appear relaxed and cheerful? How can she shop for, cook for, serve, and clean up from 60-100 guests every Shabbat night and every Shabbat afternoon, 51 weeks a year, without burning out? How, contrary to all the childrearing literature, can she devote so much time and attention to helping strangers and still raise children who turn out to be sweet, modest, kind, and – why not just say it? – angelic? What supernatural ingredient does she put into her food so that scores of people, upon eating one of her Shabbat meals, are forever changed? And – this is the question I really want to answer – how can a woman who never goes out to dinner maintain such a high level of joy?
A friend added another question to my list: With so many strangers passing through the Machlis apartment constantly, don't they have a problem with theft? As soon as I enter their living room, I perceive the answer. There is nothing to steal. The family owns no computer, no television, no objects-d'art, just lots and lots of holy books, which line every available wall. Hardly a temptation to thieves.
Rushing to make my appointment with Henny, I have forgotten my tape recorder. Henny offers me the use of theirs, and asks her four-year-old son Eliyahu to go downstairs to one of the basement bedrooms and bring it up. Henny and I sit on one of the two slip-covered red couches – the only furniture in the living room except for two dining tables.
Minutes later Eliyahu stumbles into the living room and throws the tape recorder onto the rug. I emit a gasp, and manage – after all, he's not my child – to suppress a storm of expletives: "What are you doing! You'll break it!" Henny, unruffled as if she had a supply of new tape recorders in the back room or the money to buy them (she has neither), says softly to her son: "You have to treat machines more gently. Otherwise, they can break."
Sara Rigler: I would have blasted my kid for doing that!
Henny Machlis: Of course, we all lose it sometimes, and we all have our struggles. In our home, we try not to yell or hit. Rabbi Hirsh wrote that if you have a choice between being rigid and educating your children in all the values and behaviors that you cherish, or being loving and educating them without anger and not getting everything you want, it's preferable to educate without anger. I always had a dream that I would have a peaceful home. Then it was just a matter of attaining it, with God's help and Tefillah [prayer].
SR: And a lot of effort and self-control, I imagine. How do you have time to raise your children well when you're devoting so much attention to other people?
HM: The success that we have in bringing up our children is up to God. It has to do with Divine providence and lots of prayer. We definitely have to put in our maximum --psychologically, physically, emotionally – but our success depends on Divine blessing.
Although we devote most of our Shabbat to guests, there is plenty of opportunity for private, quality time between Saturday night and Friday afternoon. Every day during the week we try to have either lunch or dinner with the children. Also, we schedule the Friday night meal late, to give people time to walk in from different parts of Jerusalem. So immediately after evening prayers, we have a dinner alone with the children, before the guests arrive. Then the children have a chance to give their Divrei Torah [words of Torah] and sing their songs.
I have been a full-time mother since the birth of my sixth child. When a mother is around and available to her children on a constant basis, then she's there for crucial educational lessons to be given over and many, many heart-to-heart talks about things that are troubling her children. The Satmar Rebbe commented on the verse: "All day he gives and lends, and his children will be blessed." [Psalm 37:26] He said that you would think that someone who is busy helping other people won't have enough time for his children, but there's a special Divine blessing that protects them.
When a child learns to care, think, love, and give to the other, he matures quicker and builds his character to be a more responsible and effective human being.
One can also postulate that much of a child's inability to deal with himself and the world comes from egocentricity. When a child learns to care, think, love, and give to the other, he or she actually matures quicker and builds his or her character to be a more efficient, responsible, and effective human being in society.
This is also an argument for having more children, because the more siblings there are, the more types of personalities children learn to deal with, and the more social skills they develop in terms of tolerance, patience, sensitivity, and love.
SR: By letting homeless, mentally ill, and drunken people stay in your house, aren't you endangering your children's safety?
HM: Unquestionably, our children's welfare is our primary concern. Every dedicated parent must use discretion. In the more than two decades we have been doing this, we have not, thank God, had a single bad incident. Of course, if there is someone who is emotionally or psychologically disturbed to the point that it could threaten the children, we relegate them to sleeping in our van, or deal with them in some other way.
SR: Can you tell us about your background?
HM: I was born and raised in Brooklyn. My parents were also American-born. My father, Murray Lustig, of blessed memory, was ordained as a rabbi at Yeshiva University. I studied pre-med at Brooklyn College. My dream was to get married and have 20 children and teach the whole world about Judaism, and to learn about genetics on the side! When I realized that I couldn't do everything, I switched my major to dietetics. I got a B.S. in education plus a Hebrew teaching degree from Yeshiva University.
SR: When you were growing up, who was the greatest influence on your life?
HM: My parents were very hospitable, very warm, good, and loving. I always viewed my mother's Chessed [deeds of kindness] and compassion – the way she treated the cleaning lady, the fix-it man, the carpenter, with such kindness and respect. I was one of five children. My mother (Edith Lustig) never sat at the table; she was always up serving us. As you get older, you realize how much of what you are is from your parents.
My father was so generous and kind. One time, the daughter of my parents' friends got hurt. She was 16 years old, and was riding her bike, and somehow hit a tree. She went into a coma. As soon as my father heard about it, he rushed to the hospital. He went over to his friend, handed him a blank, signed check, and said, "Don't spare any medical expense to help your daughter." We heard about this story only years later, after my father passed away, when his friend told us.
Two of my rabbis in school, Rabbi Teichtel and Rabbi Reuven Fink, also had a major impact on my worldview.
SR: How long does it take you to shop for and cook these massive Shabbat meals you serve?
HM: I spend one morning a week ordering food by telephone. Then I start cooking either on Thursday night or early Friday morning. With three of my daughters helping me, it takes us about eight hours to cook. This past week, six or seven of our children were helping. Everyone was peeling vegetables and was actively involved in the excitement of Shabbat preparations.
SR: That doesn't seem like very much time to prepare gefilte fish, chicken soup, chicken, four kinds of kugel, several different salads, and four kinds of cake enough for 200 people.
HM: I've become much more organized over the years. Now we have a system. But it's very intense. We work very high speed. Kind-hearted young women sometimes join us in the cooking.
SR: How many hours does it take you to clean up?
HM: It used to take till Tuesday, but three years ago my husband hired a worker who washes up all the pots, pans, serving utensils, and trays, and puts away the chairs and tables. Now it's all done by late Saturday night.
SR: How often a year do you take a break?
HM: We used to take off a few weeks a year, and we would inform the people in advance. A couple of years ago, my married daughter had a baby boy on a Shabbat, so the bris was the following Shabbat, in a different city. Whoever called during the week, we told them not to come, but there was no way to announce it to our "regulars." Just in case, we arranged for a rabbi to be here to conduct the meal and I cooked a little, and we left challah, salads, drinks, and provisions. I thought maybe 20 people would come. Well, 80 people showed up that Shabbat night, and 65 people the next day for lunch.
So now, if we want to go away for Shabbat, we inform people that Rabbi Machlis won't be here to give Divrei Torah, but that there will be someone else to run the meal. And I cook the food anyway. Fifty-one weeks a year.
Only on Pesach we don't have guests, and we go away, because of the special Biblical mitzvah to teach your children on Seder night. So we concentrate exclusively on the children and attempt to celebrate the holiday in a private family setting.
SR: Do you ever feel a need for a break more often than that?
This is our raison d'etre. This is holiness. This is happiness.
HM: Not really. This is our raison d'etre. This is holiness. This is happiness. In my former years, maybe I would have wanted more time off, but as time goes on, and I get into a system, and I get more dedicated to the idea, I think God has withdrawn some of the pitfalls, and it runs more smoothly.
They say that in Jerusalem of old, when people would eat, they would hang a tablecloth outside their door. If anyone would see the tablecloth, they would know they could come in and eat. So I'm hoping for the day when everyone will hang out a tablecloth so that people can just come in. If all people would just open their doors, it would really be a brilliantly shining Jerusalem.
SR: Do you ever feel like having some time alone without your husband and children?
HM: In recent years, I have felt that way. I go to the Kotel [the Western Wall], or I'm alone with God in my room and read, or say Tehillim [psalms].
I think one of the most important things in life is to pray for success.
I think one of the most important things in life is to pray for success. We have no independent success. It's all God's blessing. I enjoy brisk walks, and try to use the time for creative introspection and meditation.
SR: What makes you so happy?
HM: To be living in the holy city of Jerusalem, the holiest place in the world. It makes me happy to be married to a wonderful person, who is wise and learned. It makes me happy to have my beautiful children, and to see them growing up to be holy, healthy, happy, giving, loving, sensitive human beings. It makes me happy to be very connected to God and to be able to share that connection with all humanity. Shabbat makes me very happy. I love Shabbat. And I love to share the joy and the thrill of the holiness of Shabbat.
SR: I have to say that I think something metaphysical is going on here. Many Jews who are committed secularists or who are even practicing a different religion have been turned on to traditional Judaism after just one Shabbat meal in your house. What's your secret?
HM: I read a long time ago that the wife of Rebbe Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev, before she cooked, would pray that the people who eat her food would imbibe yirat shemayim [awe of God] and do teshuva [repentance]. Rebbe Nachman of Breslov says that when you cook, the energy that you cook with goes into the food. So if you cook with a lot of anger, you can give people food poisoning. But if you cook with joy, you can give them good health.
So, we pray before and while we cook: "May the food have the taste of Gan Eden [paradise]." We say Tehillim while we're cooking. And we pray that the people who eat this food should love Shabbat and love God, love Torah and be in touch with themselves and that the food should be for the honor of God and for the honor of the holy Shabbat.
SR: What would you say to women who hate to cook and do domestic work?
HM: All giving is a little bit of imitating God. Giving builds one's character, and makes one more God-like. I think one should view domestic responsibilities as a means to grow as an individual, to become more giving and loving and sharing, to get out of oneself and into the other, and to become more God-like. Of course, there's nothing wrong with hiring help for domestic duties, as long as one knows that it's important to overcome a certain level of this discomfort in order to be as giving as can be.
SR: What would you say to women who are conflicted between career and staying home with their children?
HM: I used to go out to teach Jewish subjects to adults. Even now I sometimes go out to lecture. For a few years, I ran a series of lectures in the neighborhood, where I taught Jewish philosophy to women. I really think that everyone should be an emissary of God and teach whatever they know. Every woman is blessed with her particular qualities and interests. Everyone should be encouraged to maximize her singular form of expression. But it's very important that every woman should know that there is no one else in the whole world who can be a mother to her children except for her, nor a wife to her husband except for her. Women's priority should always be first and foremost to give to their families. This is their most unique and important contribution to the world, that no one else can do. No one else can give over my particular psychological, emotional, spiritual self to my children, except for me. I encourage women to use all their potentials and talents and education to give to society as much as they possibly can, but always remember that their first priority is their home, to build a Jewish home. Let's not forget that all spirituality in the world comes from the Jewish woman. It is her strength and her values that will build her children and the world around her, and will pave the way for the ultimate redemption.
Visit the Machlis website at http://www.machlis.org
The beloved Henny Machlis passed away on Friday, Oct. 16, 2015/Cheshvan 3, 5776. May her soul be bound with the bonds of life.
Henny Machlis a truly great Jewish Woman by Sara Yocheved Rigler (Story 3 of 3)
https://www.aish.com/sp/so/Henny-Machlis-A-Truly-Great-Jewish-Woman.html
How an ordinary Jew from Brooklyn becomes one of the greatest lights in our times.
In honor of Henny Machlis's second yahrzeit this week, Aish.com is refeaturing this article.
What qualified Henny Machlis, who passed away this past Friday at the age of 57, as one of the world’s greatest Jewish women?
Jerusalemites would say it was her cooking for and serving up to 300 guests every Shabbos in her cramped Jerusalem apartment. The guests – almost 150 for the Shabbat night meal and over 100 for the Shabbat day meal – ranged from curious tourists and university students to lonely widows and singles to drunks and mentally ill people who considered the Machlis family’s love and warmth more delectable than even their ample food. Henny cooked 51 weeks a year (except only for the week of Pesach) from her tiny kitchen. Starting as newly-weds 35 years ago, the Machlises’ open Shabbos table expanded gradually over the years until the overflow of guests had to be seated in the courtyard and outside the front door. Henny’s great dream was to enclose the courtyard so guests could sit there even in the winter. Alas, she never lived to see her dream’s fulfillment.
The Machlises’ Chessed was not restricted to Shabbat. Homeless people slept on their couches, some for weeks at a time, and those whose mental instability might have endangered the Machlises’ fourteen children were accommodated in the family van. When Rabbi Mordechai Machlis would leave for work as a teacher in the mornings, he would know how many van guests he had by the number of shoes in the windshield.
For those who gauge greatness by the level of selflessness a person attains, Henny also scored off the charts. At her funeral her oldest son Moshe recalled how, after he got married and moved away to start Kollel (full-time Torah learning), his mother encouraged him: “If you ever aren’t making it financially, tell me and I’ll sell my jewelry.”
“Ima,” Moshe called out in a tearful voice, “you forgot that you didn’t have any jewelry. They had all been stolen by the guests over the years. And your diamond ring – you loaned it to someone twenty years ago, and never got it back.”
Being treated for cancer in New York’s Sloan-Kettering, Henny was sometimes visited by the unfortunates who – even those decades older than she – considered Henny their mother. When one homeless woman came to visit, Henny gave her bed. A relative discovered Henny, wrapped in a hospital blanket, wandering in the hospital corridor looking for a place to lie down.
Henny’s son Moshe was pushed aside at the crowded funeral by one of the Machlises’s mentally ill “regular guests,” who proclaimed, “I have to get closer. She’s my mother.”
For those who equate spiritual greatness with God-consciousness, with the ability to see God’s hand always and everywhere, Henny had indeed achieved those spiritual heights. At the funeral, a tearful Rabbi Machlis related just one story: He invited a destitute man whom he always saw at the Kotel (Western Wall) to come home with him to eat. That day Henny served her homemade whole-wheat pizza. The man loved it. He came back to their house every day asking for a slice of whole-wheat pizza. Finally, Henny suggested that she could teach him how to make whole-wheat pizza himself. Painstakingly and with infinite patience, Henny taught him how. One night several days later, at 3 AM, there was a knock on the door. “Not on the front door,” Rabbi Machlis related. “Our front door is always unlocked. Someone was knocking on our bedroom door.”
The loud knocking woke them up. Alarmed at what must be an emergency, Rabbi Machlis went to the door and asked, “Who’s there?” When the man identified himself, Rabbi Machlis asked, “What’s wrong?”
The man replied, “I forgot how to make whole-wheat pizza. I need your wife to explain it to me again.”
Rabbi Machlis was exasperated. “At 3 o’clock in the morning, you need to remember how to make whole-wheat pizza?”
But Henny calmed him down. “It’s a test,” she assured him. “It’s from Hashem.”
Then Henny reiterated to the man, step by step, how to make whole-wheat pizza.
Henny emanated radiant joy all the time.
For me personally, the sign of Henny Machlis’s greatness was the radiant joy she emanated all the time. Whenever I ran into her, her wide smile and the joyful light she radiated conveyed that seeing me was the best thing that had happened to her all day. And although I knew that she greeted everyone the same way, I nonetheless was charged by this encounter with a holiness and saintliness that lit up the world – or that tiny piece of the world where Henny Machlis stood.
The last time I saw Henny was several months ago, when she was briefly back in Jerusalem between surgeries and treatments at Sloan-Kettering. She had already been battling metastasized cancer for a couple agonizing years. I decided to drop in at her house, and braced myself to see the battle-weary and fear-worn look that characterized other cancer patients I had known. On the path to the Machlis house, there was Henny with one of her daughters, on her way to go to pray at the grave of the tzaddik Rav Usher. When she saw me, she gave me that same radiant smile and jubilant greeting that had always been her trademark – unmitigated by the cancer, the surgeries, the chemo, the long separations from her family, and the unexpected – and unwanted – turn her life had taken. Her joyful smile conveyed not just her stoic acceptance, but her happy acquiescence with the way God was running His world.
A mutual friend told me after Henny’s death, “When I was with her, I felt embraced by God.”
The question – indeed the challenge – of Henny’s life is: How did an ordinary Jew born to a regular middleclass family in Brooklyn in 1957 become so great?
Henny kept on going and giving and loving and inspiring.
Like the rest of us, she went to college. (She graduated Stern College with a B.S. in education.) Like most of us in our twenties, she had an ideal. Hers was to share the beauty and joy of Shabbos with the whole world. Like most of us, “reality” intruded in the actualization of the ideal. For the Machlises, the tremendous scale of their success cost them over $2500 every Shabbat, a financial load that defied Rabbi Machlis’s modest salary as a teacher supplemented by donations from well-wishers. But unlike most of us, their adamantine faith in God and love for the Jewish people kept them from compromising on their ideal. They mortgaged their apartment to the hilt, took out personal and bank loans – and kept on going.
As Henny once told me: “We are living in the midst of a spiritual holocaust. Most Jews today have no idea of the beauty and depth of Judaism. How can we not do everything in our power, including going into debt, to reach out to our fellow Jews?”
The only difference between Henny Machlis and the rest of us is the voice that asserts, “I’ve done enough. I don’t have to do more.” Henny never harkened to that voice. She kept on going and giving and loving and inspiring – until last Friday, when she was called to her Heavenly reward.
Now it’s up to the rest of us.
Click here to buy Sara Rigler’s best-selling biography of Henny Machlis, Emunah with Love and Chicken Soup, the Brooklyn-born girl who became a Jerusalem legend.
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Have a productive Yud Teves fast and a wonderful peaceful and healthy Shabbos,
Rachamim Pauli
