Rabbi Weinreb's audio files, such as Mishneh Yomis and Nach Yomi, can be accessed every week by visiting  http://www.ou.org/torah/author/Rabbi_Dr_Tzvi_Hersh_Weinreb.

 

It has been a busy week filled mostly with study, writing, and preparation for future events. For example, I began recording my next series for the OU's online Mishna Yomis program. We begin Maseches Gittin soon, and I have begun recording on my trusty little mp3 recorder. Gittin has always been one of my favorite masechtos. I studied it in high school in the shiur of Rav Mendel Krawiec in RJJ, and heard shiurim from Rav Aharon Kotler, Rav Moshe Feinstein, and Rav Soloveitchik on this masechta. I also taught it when I was a high school rebbe. So it feels special as I record it and memories of past learning keep popping up.

I have also been writing an article for Jewish Action on the relationship between Rav Elyashiv and Rav Kook. I am working on a new translation of Masekhet Shekalim for Koren. Finally, several authors, including an OU Press author, have requested reviews or approbations of their books from me, and I do not write about a book unless I read it from cover to cover.

So all the above, plus OU committee work, and preparing for three consecutive OU scholar-in-residence weekends coming up soon, has kept me very busy.

I have postponed telling you about my weekend at Congregation Shaya Ahavat Torah in Parsippany, NJ. Some time ago, the shul's rabbi, Rabbi Shalom Lubin, called OU Synagogue Services and requested that I spend a Shabbos there. I was in for a delightful Shabbos! Except for a couple of large fancy hotels near the main highway, where many kosher events happen to be held, there is not much in Parsippany. What it does have is one of the warmest and most welcoming shuls I have ever attended. There is a mix of observant families, non-observant Jews who wish to come to a shul that does not question how they got there, and individuals in the process of becoming more observant. Rabbi Lubin, his wife, and his lovely children add a special chen to the shul, which is really just a remodeled residence. The Rabbi's in-laws, Dr. Steve and Leah Suffin, were my hosts, and I have never experienced such gracious hachnasas orchim. I spoke several times and delivered one of my favorite lectures on my personal list of heroes. After Shabbos, I met with a small group of active members of the shul. Their main concern was attracting new people to the community. Besides a lovely and quiet neighborhood, Parsippany is an easy train commute into New York City, has a variety of schools within a 15-20 minute drive, and is near enough to places like Livingston and West Orange to allow for kosher shopping. I am currently working with our web department to prominently highlight this wonderful little shul and community on a dedicated section of our website for things like this.

One of the surprises was the arrival of several chassidim in full chassidishe garb-streimel and bekeshe and all. The Rabbi explained to me that young chassidishe couples will often leave their children with their own parents for Shabbos and check into a hotel for a getaway, bringing their own food for Shabbos. They try to find a hotel in walking distance to a shul and, believe it or not, there is a website www.hotelsnearshuls.com to help them. I have not yet tried that website myself, but you might want to visit it. During the summer months, there can be upwards of 20 such chassidim for Shabbos. They certainly add to the shul's diversity, and participate in davening, kiddush and seudah shlishis enthusiastically. What a place! I thank Rabbi Lubin for extending his invitation, and I hope to return there in the future. By the way, the shul has been an OU member shul since 1975!

I have been teaching an online course for my good friend, Rabbi Shmuel Silber, who has created the online Institute for Jewish Continuity. I give my final lecture this Sunday. It was a 6-session course called "Introduction to Jewish Philosophy." The final session, a full 3 hours, is on "Mysticism, Religion and Evolution" and discusses theological issues raised by the Holocaust.

Lately, I have been reading a lot of psychological research on the subject of the trauma of national disasters such as Hurricane Sandy. A lot of the research focuses on changes in one's concept of God after one has experienced such trauma. I spoke to RCA Rabbis and chaplains on this topic, including Rabbi Bennett Rackman (Chaplain of JFK Airport) and Dr. Norman Blumenthal, an eminent psychologist, expert on trauma, and dear old friend from my days with NEFESH on a conference call with a large audience. The session was organized by Rabbi Zev Schostak, and a recording of this session may be available on the RCA website.

I just heard the news about the Palestinian declaration of statehood being passed by the UN. Not such good news, I'm afraid.

The yahrzeits of Chavi's grandfather and great-grandfather, the first and second Modzitzer Rebbes, occurred this week. May their zechussim benefit all of Klal Yisrael.

The Person in the Parsha for Parshas Vayishlach follows.  

 

Shabbat Shalom.

"The Nurturing Leader"

 

The class I was teaching on the subject of leadership, using the book of Genesis as a source text, was proving to be quite a learning experience for me. The diversity of the students in the class was proving to be especially important, because each student was stressing a different aspect of leadership. The class confirmed for me that, as Rabbi Nachman of Breslav put it, "Every shepherd has his own melody."

 

This week's class, focusing on the weekly Torah portion of Vayishlach (Genesis 32:4-36:43) was in one sense very much like the previous class sessions. However, as we will see, it had its own unique flavor.

 

The class began with a statement by Carol. The reader will remember that Carol had demonstrated early on that she preferred the role of "big sister" in the group. She characteristically defended the underdog in the often heated debates among her fellow students. She showed herself to be an optimist, seeing only the good in people, and she had a way of sensitively taking care of others.

 

"You have all been teasing me," she began, "and have been calling me 'the big sister.' Well, I am proud to play that role in the group, because I think that taking care of others in a sisterly, or even in a motherly, fashion is one important kind of leadership and one that is especially lacking nowadays. And I intend to prove it from an often overlooked verse in this week's Torah portion."

 

At this point, Carol launched into what was obviously a very well-prepared lecture. She began by briefly summarizing the events surrounding Jacob's return to the land of Canaan. She described Jacob's encounter with Esau, his dramatic sojourn in Shechem, and finally his arrival in Bethel, at which point we read this brief passage: "Deborah, Rebecca's nurse, died, and was buried under the oak below Bethel; so it was named Allon-Bachut, the Oak of the Weeping."

 

It was at this moment that Carol became quite emotional. "There is something about this brief verse that touched me very deeply. I didn't recall ever having learned of the existence of anyone named Deborah in our study of Genesis so far. Yet her death is not only noted in the Bible, but apparently it evoked great mourning. Obviously Jacob and his sons were very grieved by her passing. I felt almost possessed by a need to find out more about this Deborah."

 

She shared her little research project with the class and told them of her discovery that Deborah was indeed referred to earlier in the Torah portion of Chayei Sarah, which we read three weeks ago, although there, she went unnamed.

 

"It was way back when, long before Rebecca's son, Jacob, was even born," she explained, "that his mother Rebecca departed from her home and family to journey to Canaan and marry Isaac. But her brother and mother did not let her go alone. As we read in chapter 24 verse 59, 'They sent off their sister Rebecca and her nurse along with Abraham's servant...' That nurse was Deborah."

 

Carol continued to report upon her probing analysis of the situation. She pointed out that many years intervened between the first mention of the nurse Deborah and her ultimate passing as a member of Jacob's camp. She asked me and the rest of the class whether we had any idea how this old nurse ended up in Jacob's camp in the first place. Before any of us had a chance to answer her she excitedly told us what she had discovered in Rashi's commentary.

 

"Rashi suggests that Rebecca had sent Deborah back to her brother Laban's home in Haran to send for Jacob and tell him that it was time for him to come home to Canaan, as she had promised she would do in chapter 27 verse 45: 'When your brother's anger subsides...I will send for you and fetch you from there.' Deborah was Rebecca's emissary and, although by then an aged woman, traveled at her mistress's behest from Beersheba to Haran and ultimately back to Bethel, where she died, was buried, and was so profoundly mourned."

 

It was unusual for any one student in this class to be able to hold the floor without interruption from one of the other students. But Carol clearly had the rest of the class transfixed. I was about to intervene and ask the others if they wished to participate when Carol preempted me.

 

"I know that I am monopolizing this session, but the research that I just shared with you has led me to speculate on why Rebecca would choose to use this old woman to travel hundreds of miles eastward to fetch Jacob and return with him to Canaan. I arrived at my own answer to this question, and it relates to the theory of the type of leadership which fits my personal style.

 

"We all learned, way back when, just how corrupt the environment in Laban's home was. Rebecca knew that she herself was only able to remain immune to Laban's influence because of the nurture and care which she experienced from infancy at the hands of her dear Deborah. She knew that Jacob and his wives and many children living under Laban's domination were at great risk, physically and spiritually. She had to send someone who could play a role in Jacob's life and in the lives of his children, her grandchildren, akin to the role played by Deborah in her own early childhood. Hence, she beseeched the frail, old Deborah to courageously undertake the mission of nurturing her son's family, despite the difficult journey which was required.

 

"Here we have," she concluded, "the Torah's allusion to a different type of leadership altogether. Not one of charisma, authority, control, or power. Rather, the tender, nurturing leadership of 'the big sister;' in this case, the old nursemaid. Only she could offer the unique kind of leadership which could keep Jacob and his entire family spiritually pure and physically intact."

 

The class sat silently, impressed by the amount of research and contemplation that Carol had clearly invested in this tour de force. It remained for Zalman, the class's "talmid chacham," to provide the icing for Carol's delicious cake.

 

"Your beautiful insights, Carol," he said in a soft voice suffused with genuine respect, "give extra depth to an exceptional Midrash quoted in the commentary known as Daat Zekainim MiBaalei HaTosafot. This Midrash connects Deborah, Rebecca's nurse, with another Deborah who lived hundreds of years later, Deborah the Prophetess. In the book of Judges, Chapter 4, we read: 'Deborah...led Israel at that time. She used to sit under the Palm of Deborah, between Ramah and Bethel in the hill country of Ephraim, and the Israelites would come to her for decisions.'

 

"The Midrash identifies the tree under which the later Deborah sat as a compassionate judge with the tree under which the earlier Deborah was buried. It is almost as if the earlier Deborah was the role model for the type of 'big sister' nurturing leadership which the later Deborah emulated with such historic success."

 

As I said at the outset of this column, this was a very different session, and one which introduced a very different, but fundamentally important, concept of leadership.

 

Indeed as Rabbi Nachman, himself a leader who nurtures the Jewish people even today, two hundred years after his death, insisted: "Every shepherd has his own melody." Every leader has his, or her, own leadership style.