Peretz B. Eichler

The atzeres tefillah held in Lakewood last week was a stirring preparation for Rosh Hashanah and the ensuing days of teshuvah, culminating in Yom Kippur and then Sukkos and Shemini Atzeres. The steady, soft drenching rain didn’t deter an overflowing crowd from gathering to storm the Heavens

with piercings cries of tefillah and energizing inspiration. It was a palpable show of unity and empathy to decry the misguided and malevolent decrees foisted on the bnei yeshivah by a callous and benighted group of bureaucrats determined to undermine the very source of Eretz Yisrael’s victory from forces without and within. Cutting financial aid to yeshivos is tantamount to cutting frontline supply lines and depriving the armor-piercing ammunition that’s needed to protect every Jew in Eretz Yisrael and in every corner of the world. Our greatest weaponry, in the most pragmatic, nonmetaphorical manifestation, is the study of Torah and the Divine “Iron Dome” it provides, along with our prayers and tears.

I remember Rav Matisyahu Salomon telling us about a bus ride he took in Yerushalayim while in yeshivah there. A burly Israeli sat down next to him, looking to cross verbal swords. He laced into Rav Matisyahu, who became representative of the microcosm of the chareidi macrocosm at that moment. The man’s remarks were regurgitated reincarnations of hackneyed diatribes against those who sit in ivory towers of study while soldiers were risking their lives to defend Israel from its marauding enemies.

With the calm demeanor and eloquence that characterized the mashgiach, he asked the belligerent fellow if he would object if both of them were on the frontline but had different roles and missions and the fellow arrived in a tank, while Rav Mattisyahu arrived by bicycle. Calmed and placated, he said, “Of course not.” Wherein Rabbi Salomon described how he and his fellow bnei yeshivah were up before dawn to say Tehillim, learn, and daven for our soldiers waging battle to be safe and succeed, using their weapons of tefillah and limud haTorah with tenacity, intensity, and relentlessness. The fellow softened. He heard the passion and verity of the mashgiach’s well-chosen words.

When I returned home, I opened Rav Shimshon Dovid Pincus’s sefer on Elul and Rosh Hashanah. Hashem guided me to these words: We are soldiers in the army, and we need to stand guard. Rabbi Eliyahu Dessler would say, “If you want to know what Rosh Hashanah is, remember last year’s Rosh Hashanah.”

How many of our brothers and sisters, whether through the tragedies of Shemini Atzeres, traffic fatalities, sudden death, or prolonged illness are no long here? How many fresh almanos and yesomim were created? How much danger lurks at every turn and juncture?

Yom Kippur arrives to cleanse us. We weep over our aveiros and mourn over what we could have done and could have become. But there’s so much hope. We can and must change; small steps are giant leaps toward change, toward a teshuvah sheleimah.

That gathering in the misty rain was a profound testimony to our lofty ambitions to make a difference in our lives and the lives of those we love. I felt so good about living in this city of Torah, Eretz Yisrael vivified in every corner of every shul and beis medrash in Lakewood and its adjacent vibrant villages of Torah, from basements to halls of marble, from modest to mansion. Rav Aharon’s vision has not been dimmed or dampened, chasdei Hashem.

Rabbi Ephraim Shapiro of North Miami told over a recent true story that I heard from someone who’s among the most reliable sources I know for accuracy, bringing a message home.

During bein hazmanim, a group of American bachurim traveled to Toronto by car. On the return trip, one of them decided to take a plane back home. When he arrived at the airport, he discovered that he had forgotten his passport in the car with his friends. Setting the speed record for dialing, he called a friend, who located the passport and gave him the passport number, which he wrote on his boarding pass. To his dismay, the young man was denied boarding and told that he needed his passport.

Lamenting his predicament, the bachur found a listening ear in a wizened gentleman sitting next to him. With an air of confidence, the man declared that as a Canadian citizen, he was certain that the law allowed for an American citizen who needed to get home to simply show a bona fide American ID and board without a passport. So he tried again. The airline rep recanted and apologized, and the bachur boarded the plane, homeward bound.

Rabbi Shapiro said that the limud is lucid. On these Yamim Nora’im, when we rejoice with trembling, we don’t need a passport to gain entrance to the palace of the Melech. We just need to present ourselves, identify ourselves as Hashem’s children, warriors weary and torn by life’s battles but determined not to give up, determined to go home, and proclaim, “Tatty, I want to come home!”

More personally, I can see my own father crying on the day he came to pick me up from summer camp. He saw me standing with my bags packed, waiting like a war-torn refugee. “Ta, I want to come home.”

We both wept, he stretched out his arms, and I flew into his embrace and headed home. Hashem is watching, waiting, and listening. He loves us beyond measure. Tatty, we want to come home.

Wishing you a great journey and a gmar chasimah tovah.