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March 25, 2022 (22 Adar II 5782) A Blessing Comes to Life I hope this correspondence find you doing well, in good health and good cheer. We hope that you will be able to join us this Shabbat for our hybrid services at 10:30AM, which will take place both in person as well as on our NEW Zoom prayer link. We continue to build our in-service attendance each Shabbat, and we are grateful for your participation, in whatever manner works for you! Last week, I spoke about a rare beracha (blessing) that appears in Messechet Berachot of the Talmud which reads as follows:
תָּנוּ רַבָּנַן: הָרוֹאֶה אוּכְלוּסֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל, אוֹמֵר: ״בָּרוּךְ … חֲכַם הָרָזִים
The Rabbis taught: The person who sees a population of Jews should say the following blessing: Praised are You, Lord our God, King of the Universe, who is the wise one of all secrets. The text goes on to promote the omniscience of God, as the one who knows what is in the heart of all individuals. Rashi, an eleventh century commentator, elaborates on the text by qualifying the word of “population” to mean 600,000 people. Now, I don’t know about you, but unless one is hanging around at Times Square on New Year’s Eve, which I don’t recommend, I am not sure I will ever see at gathering of that size. Perplexed by the opportunity to ever recite this blessing, another commentator suggests that the beracha should be recited instead when one encounters a חכם מופלג, that is, an exceptionally brilliant person. While we can argue about who would qualify as such an individual, this interpretation could at least give me a better chance of one day reciting the blessing! Ironically, the day after I spoke about this blessing, there was a gathering in central Israel of 750,000 people, who attended the funeral of a prominent ultra-Orthodox rabbi. Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky, 94, one of the most influential scholars in the country’s religious community, died last Friday. He was born in Pinsk, Belarus, and moved, to what was then British-ruled Palestine, as a child. He was one of the few remaining leaders of the ultra-Orthodox community in Israel, who was born before the Holocaust and was revered by many in the Jewish religious world. The rabbi was laid to rest in Bnei Brak, the predominantly ultra-Orthodox city near Tel Aviv, where he lived. As you may have read, the police closed several highways in Israel’s densely populated Tel Aviv area to traffic for several hours. Other main thoroughfares were gridlocked. Authorities urged the public not to drive into the area by car. The Communications Ministry said it was expecting cellular network outages in and around the funeral due to high volume and advised people to only make essential calls. The insular ultra-Orthodox community makes up about 12% of Israel’s 9.4 million people. They adhere to a stringent interpretation of Judaism, with a focus on Torah study and observance of tradition. Prominent rabbis like Kanievsky play a significant role in community life and act as arbiters in all matters, both religious and civil. Although he held no official position, Kanievsky was considered a major luminary in the non-Hassidic, ultra-Orthodox world. He came to public prominence at the start of the coronavirus pandemic, when he instructed his followers that closing religious seminaries was more harmful than the virus. He later walked back those claims as infections raged in densely populated Bnei Brak. Kanievsky’s death was published on the front pages of nearly every newspaper in the country on Sunday, from liberal Haaretz to ultra-Orthodox dailies like Yated Neeman. Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said at the start of the weekly Cabinet meeting that Kanievsky’s death was “a great loss to the Jewish people.” As I was thinking about the Talmudic blessing that I have never recited, it occurred to me that had my school’s Israel trip been only one week later, I would have been in the right place at the right time to allow the blessing to come to life. I would have had the chance to offer God the blessing for both having created a חכם מופלג and knowing what is in the hearts of a great gathering of Jews. Perhaps a lesson learned is that just as Shabbat offers us the opportunity to share weekly blessings, we always have to be prepared to stand in awe of God’s greatness and the power of His creations even when we least expect it. Shabbat Shalom, Rabbi Eric L. Wasser, EdD.
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